Reginald Hill - Death

But God's a merry fellow who once He has set a jest in train doesn't care to see its object drift off the pre-ordained path.

After the accuracy of Wield's information in the Linford case, it had been decided to take the Praesidium tip seriously. This didn't mean they could offer blanket coverage, but everyone agreed with the sergeant's assessment that the small firms wages delivery was the most likely target, so that's what they focused on. When told of Wield's desire to keep in the background to protect his snout, Dalziel had taken a deep breath, raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, giving the effect of a monkfish that had just swallowed an electric eel, but he hadn't argued, and it was Pascoe who found himself put in charge.

Thanks, Pete,' Wield. said. 'Not that it should cause you much bother. My estimate is they'll hit it early while it's still carrying most of the cash and you'll have the rest of the day to do the paperwork and still be home in time for a late tea.'

Of course it hadn't worked out like that.

The DCI and his team had crawled along the narrow country roads after the van all morning, their hearts sinking with each delivery, for they knew that as the money went down, so did their chances of getting a result. A less conscientious officer might have called things off with a couple of calls still remaining. The villains would not only have to be unambitious, they'd need to be downright stupid to risk hitting the van with a prospective share-out of only a few hundred pounds. But Pascoe had stuck it out to the bitter end. Only when: he last drop had been made on the northernmost boundary of his patch did Pascoe say to his dispirited men, 'Right, that does it. Let's go home.'

Half a day wasted with no result. These things happened, policemen got used to them, but such philosophy did not dilute his intention of being seriously sarcastic with Wield.

He saw him on the phone as he entered the CID room. The sergeant made a summoning gesture, then said into the phone, 'He's just come in.'

'Who?' mouthed Pascoe as he approached.

'Rose’ mouthed Wield in return, giving Pascoe a moment of fright as he wondered what crisis had got his young daughter ringing him at work. Then Wield, who missed little, saw the reaction and expanded, 'DI Rose.'

This, though a relief, meant nothing, till he took the phone and said, 'Pascoe.'

'Hi there. Stanley Rose.'

'Stanley…? Stan! Hello. And DI! When did this happen? Many congratulations.'

The last time he'd talked to Rose, the man had been a DS in South Yorkshire and the occasion had been the case which brought Franny Roote back into his life.

Looking at people who might think threatening Ellie was a good way to pay old scores, he'd liaised with Rose when he discovered Roote was living in Sheffield. It had all been done by the book, but when Pascoe had turned up to interview Roote, he'd found him lying in his bath with his wrists cut. In fact, the cuts were not very deep and he was more likely to have died from hypothermia than blood loss, but naturally rumours of undue pressure had circulated and for a while both Rose and Pascoe looked susceptible to charges of harassment. But Roote was (in Pascoe's eyes) far too subtle a serpent to risk all on a single strike. So he had made no complaint, but his silence was, (to Pascoe's ears) the silence of the snake lurking in the long grass.

So, no official action or come-back. But in the ledgers of CID, to go on to someone else's patch and cause them embarrassment left you with a debt to pay, and Pascoe guessed it was being called in now.

'Beginning of the month,' said Rose. They must have been wondering what to give me for Christmas and I'd been dropping hints all year.'

'I'm delighted. Long overdue,' said Pascoe. 'Remind me to buy you a drink next time we meet. So what can I do for you, Stan?'

On the surface it was a simple request for liaison and co-operation. Rose had got a whisper from a snout of a job that was being planned in the New Year. The information was vague. The forward planning suggested it was big, as did the fact that it involved the recruitment of a top driving and muscle team – which was how the snout had got the whisper. And though the organizational nerve centre was in South, word was that the job itself could be over the Mid-Yorkshire border.

'Sorry it's all so waffly,' concluded Rose. 'But it occurred to me that you might spot a few straws in the wind your side, and they might not seem worth much by themselves, but together… well, maybe we could make a brick.'

So, there it was, a more or less token request, a formality which if not quite empty would in the vast majority of cases prove lamentably unproductive.

But Pascoe, because he owed Rose and because he could recall those early days after he had taken that large step from sergeant to DI, read the sub-text.

Rose wanted to make a good early impression. He'd been delighted when his snout was the first with this sniff. Probably he'd made rather more of it than it merited at that stage and when, after a couple of weeks, nothing more had been forthcoming, he'd begun to feel rather foolish. Certainly his colleagues in the rough and ready ethos of the CID wouldn't be backward in asking him how the great crime of the new century was coming on! Perhaps he'd been provoked into once more overselling what remained an insubstantial maybe. So he looked around for help. Who owed him? DCI Peter Pascoe, one of the famous Andy Dalziel's brightest and best, who happened to work on the patch mentioned as a putative location for the putative job, that was who!

So it was worth a punt calling in that debt which, furthermore, would be understood to include the major share of credit should anything ever come of this business.

Pascoe asked questions, made notes and encouraging noises.

'OK,' he said finally. ‘I’ll pull out all the stops, Stan, believe me.'

I'm grateful,' said Rose. This is really good of you.'

'Self-interest,'laughed Pascoe. 'If we don't help each other, we'll be a long time waiting for any other bugger. You see a Samaritan coming towards you these days, it's probably because he fancies putting the boot in.'

These were Dalziel's views rather than his own; indeed it was possibly the Fat Man's very phraseology. But he felt few qualms about voicing them. Just as Wield had kept his gayness under wraps in order to survive in his chosen profession, so Pascoe had recognized early on that educational achievement and liberal humanism were not exactly episematic qualities in the still very traditional police force. A common soldier may have a field marshal's baton hidden in his knapsack, but he was never going to get the chance to wield it if he didn't learn the language of the barrack room.

'You're right there,' said Rose. Things don't go away either. I was just telling your Sergeant Wield, that student he was asking about a while back in connection with a possible suicide

'Sorry?' said Pascoe. 'I don't recall…'

But of course he did. Roote's tutor at Sheffield University, Sam Johnson, had (according to rumour) made his move to Mid-Yorkshire as a result of his reaction to the sudden death of Jake Frobisher, a student he'd put under pressure to bring his work up to date or be sent down. When Johnson himself died in suspicious circumstances, Pascoe had used the possibility that he'd committed suicide to instruct Wield to check up on Frobisher's death, allegedly with a view to providing the coroner with a full picture of the lecturer's state of mind. But he knew, and Wield had guessed, that his real hope had been to find some link, however remote, between Franny Roote and both tragedies.

'Jake Frobisher. Some link with that lecturer who was one of your Wordman victims.'

'Of course. Yes, I remember. Turned out he was popping pills to keep himself awake to meet some work deadline, wasn't that it?'