Reginald Hill - Death

'Quite right. Like in politics, always cover your back so that you don't find some pushy little squirt second-guessing you. Right, here's what we do. Some chums have got a place in Switzerland. They're heading for warmer climes for a month or two so they've given me use of their bunkhouse while they're away and I'll be spending Christmas there with a few people. It's called Fichtenburg-am-Blutensee in Canton Aargau. The chalet there's the perfect place for you to work, lovely and quiet – my party won't be turning up till the twenty-fourth – and there's easy access to both Zurich and Basel. How's that sound?'.

'It sounds very nice,' I said. 'But maybe…'

'Good,' she said. 'You'll join us for the festivities, but otherwise you'll be your own master. I've spoken to the housekeeper, Frau Buff, and she'll expect you this evening…'

This evening!' I exclaimed. It dawned on me that Linda wasn't discussing possibilities but dictating arrangements! It had been the same when she'd contacted me last month to say that she was in Brussels for a meeting and had decided to spend the weekend in the Stranger House at Frere Jacques' monastery and wouldn't it be a good idea for me to actually meet the founder of Third Thought face to face? While I was still wondering how to refuse politely, she was telling me about my travel arrangements!

The same thing was happening now. I was booked on a tea-time flight from Manchester and my ticket would be waiting for me at the airport. A taxi driver would meet me at the arrivals gate at Zurich.

She rattled on in that peremptory manner of hers for a little while, but after the initial shock, I found that all I could think of was, will Emerald be there at Christmas?

I said, 'That sounds marvellous, Linda. Both for the work, and for Christmas. It was beginning to look like being a bit lonely. But I don't want to intrude on your family…'

'You won't,' she said brusquely. 'It will be a couple of political chums. And Frere Jacques will be with us, God willing. So, all fixed, right?'

Reginald Hill

D amp;P20 – Death's Jest-Book

And now disappointment made me dig my heels in a bit.

'Getting to Manchester might be a problem.

‘My car's knackered… and there's my work…'

'Take a cab, bill it to me. As for work, that's why you're going’ she snapped.

'I meant, my job in the university gardens

I heard that snort of disbelief so familiar to millions of British viewers and listeners from her appearance on various chat shows. It had also been a distinctive punctuation of Labour speeches in parliamentary broadcasts before she fell out with her own leadership and flounced off to give the Europeans the benefit of her incredulity.

'You're a full-time scholar now, Fran, so it's no longer necessary to cultivate your garden. The book's the thing.'

Strange, I thought, that after so, many years of estrangement from her stepbrother while he was alive she should be such an enthusiast of his work now that he was dead.

In the end, I did what most people do when Linda comes at them with their lives mapped out. I gave in.

And indeed the more I thought about her plan, the more attractive it seemed.

I really did want to do some serious work and what better place to do it in than a luxurious house (the wooden shack image of chalet I'd immediately discounted as the kind of pseudo-modest understatement by which the rich emphasize their wealth) in beautiful countryside with a nice motherly housekeeper to take care of my comfort?

I didn't really need the uni library for anything other than a chair, as Linda had told me to extract from Sam's personal library all those books I felt relevant to his researches. And I would be completely free from the oppressive presence of poor old Charley.

I went back in to collect my things and tell him of my change of plan.

He said indifferently, 'Switzerland? Don't stand in front of any cuckoo clocks.'

Finally I scribbled a note to Jack Dunstan, the Head Gardener, offering him my thanks and my notice.

So where am I now? On another train, that's where! This time heading for Manchester. Some innate parsimony made me unable to take up Linda's kind suggestion of travelling there by taxi. It would cost a fortune, and this train gets me there with plenty of time to spare.

So there we are. I hope you and dear Mrs Pascoe and your lovely little girl have a merry Christmas, and now that I know why I'm writing to you, I hope you won't think it an imposition if I drop you another line in what looks like it might be a very Happy New Year indeed!

Fondly yours,

Franny

‘I don't believe it!' said Pascoe. 'Here's another one.'

'Another what?'

'Letter from Roote.'

'Oh good. Anything's better than these round robins so many people send with their cards. It's the modern disease. The media's full of it. The obsession with trivia.'

'So how come you find Roote's trivia so interesting?'

'How come you find it so significant? Come on, let's have a look.'

'Hang on. There's reams of it again.'

As he read, Ellie picked up the discarded pages and read in tandem.

Finishing just behind him she regarded his long pensive face across the breakfast table and said, 'Well, friend, guru, father-figure, what's bugging you this time?'

'I feel… stalked.'

'Stalked? That's a bit strong, isn't it? A couple of letters

‘Four. I think four letters constitutes a nuisance if not a stalking, especially when each of them separately is long enough to make several normal letters!'

'In this e-mad age, perhaps. But there's something rather touching about someone taking the time to write a good old-fashioned long narrative letter. And I don't see how your detective neuroses can find anything even vaguely threatening in this one. In fact he goes out of his way to warn you to watch out for Charley Penn who, I must admit, has been rather odd since Dee's death. Not that he ever says anything to me about it, being as I'm compromised by shagging one of the chief conspirators, but I can tell there's something simmering down there somewhere.'

Ellie knew Penn much better than Pascoe. She'd been a member of a literary group he ran, and with the publication of her first novel scheduled for the spring, he had admitted her to the adytum of real writerhood and their acquaintance had taken a step towards friendship till Dee's death had brought the barriers down.

'You don't think Charley's going to come after me with a poisoned ballpoint, do you?' said Pascoe.

'There you go, paranoid every time. If he does have a go, he's more likely to start sniping at you in print. That would be his way of attack. He's a word man, after all.'

She realized what she'd said even as she said it. The last Wordman who'd touched their lives had used more than words to dispose of his many victims.

'Well, there's a comfort,' said Pascoe. 'So you think I should write to Roote and thank him fulsomely for his kind concern? Maybe invite him over for supper so that we can have a heart to heart about his love life?'

'Could be interesting,' said Ellie as if she took him seriously. 'I think I could help him. There was a piece in one of the supplements not so long back about famous mothers and disaffected daughters, you know, the kind of thing hacks dredge up when they don't have an original idea in their heads, which is ninety per cent of the time.'

'And you treated it with the contempt it deserved, of course.'

'No, I devoured every word avidly on the grounds that a few years hence, when I'm a rich and famous author, it could be my revolting child they're writing about. Loopy Linda and her Emerald got a couple of paras. That girl sounds like she's made it her life's mission to disoblige her parents. So it could be Fran's right and she's just using the fornicating frere for her own ends.'