Reginald Hill - Death

That's right. Accidental death, clear cut. Only complication was, when his gear was sent to his family, his sister started asking questions about some expensive watch she said was missing, implication being that one of our lot had nicked it. Well, it all got sorted, no evidence, no case, his mum didn't want a fuss, in fact she didn't even recollect the watch in question. End of story, right?'

'Should be,' said Pascoe neutrally, letting his gaze drift towards Wield, who was peering into a screen as if he saw his future there. 'But I'm not going to bet on it.'

'Wise man,' said Rose. 'Sophie, that's the sister, – started here as a student in September, and lo and behold, end of last term she got pulled in with a bunch of other kids all high as kites on speed. Must run in the family, eh? We found a great stash of the stuff in her room, which incidentally is in the same house her brother died in – how's that for morbid? Anyway, the little cow, instead of putting her hand up, starts claiming it was planted there so we could get our own back for her daring to accuse us of nicking her brother's watch! Case came up yesterday. The bloody magistrate lets her ramble on through the whole sad story, wipes a tear away from his eye, glowers at me on the witness bench, and gives her a conditional discharge! I told her afterwards she was lucky and she'd better be careful or she'll, end up like her brother. Having my watch nicked, you mean? she says, and gives me the finger, then takes off with her mates, laughing. It's a great job we've got, isn't it?'

'Yes,' said Pascoe thoughtfully. 'Yes, I believe it is. I'll be in touch, Stan.'

He put down the phone and stared at Wield until the sergeant's head turned, as if compelled by the force of Pascoe's gaze.

The DCI jerked his head in summons and went through into his office.

The sergeant followed, closing the door behind him.

Succinctly, Pascoe filled him in on the day's debacle.

'So thanks a lot for that, Wieldy,' he concluded. 'Nothing I like better than a scenic tour of the county in mid-winter instead of wasting my time doing useful things.'

'Pete, I'm sorry. I'll talk to my informant and see…'

'Yeah yeah,' said Pascoe impatiently. The failed job had dropped a long way down his priority list of things to be pissed off with Wield about. 'Forget it. But there's something else. Remember when Sam Johnson died, I asked you to check out that student death in Sheffield, boy called Frobisher, the one people seemed to think had upset Johnson so much he made the move here to MYU?'

'I remember’ said Wield.

'And you told me it was all done and dusted, accidental overdose, no loose ends.'

‘That's right.'

'What about this missing watch? I don't recollect you mentioning that in your report. That not a loose end?'

'Didn't look like one to me,' said Wield. 'In fact it looked like it was probably nowt at all, not worth mentioning, just a young lass being silly.'

'Even young lasses get over being silly’ said Pascoe. 'Not this one though, eh?'

He hadn't wanted to sound confrontational, but the sheer unreadability of the sergeant's face was a provocation to provocation. For the first time he understood how it must feel to be sitting opposite Wield in the interrogation room.

The reply came in the quiet reasonable voice of a patient father explaining life to a recalcitrant son.

'If you remember, the reason you gave for being interested in Frobisher was it might be relevant to Johnson's state of mind if it turned out he'd topped himself. By the time I got the details of Frobisher's accidental overdose, we knew that Johnson had been murdered by the Wordman, so there was no way for the lad's death to be relevant, not even if it had had more loose ends than you'd find at a monk's wedding.'

The tone remained constant throughout, but the concluding Dalzielesque image sent a message of strong feeling which Pascoe gleefully registered as a minor victory, of which he was almost simultaneously ashamed.

Wield had been then, and was now, trying to save him from what he and probably everyone else regarded as a dangerous obsession.

But they were wrong, Pascoe assured himself. Not that he was absolutely, bet-the-deeds-of-the-ranch certain he was right. But obsessions were irrational and as he wasn't going to do anything that couldn't be tested by reason, this was no obsession. As for danger, how could this particular pursuit of truth be more dangerous than any other?

The only real danger he would admit was that of falling out with those he loved most.

He said gently, 'Sorry, Wieldy. I'm being a plonker, but everyone's entitled this time of year. Rose tell you what he was after? No? Ah, well, it's me he feels owes him.'

He quickly ran through Rose's request for help.

'Not much,' said Wield.

'Not much is overstating it. Still, he's a good cop, so let's pull out the stops. Any sniff of anything big going down on our patch, I want to know. Pass the word.'

'Even to Andy? He'll not be chuffed at you paying off old debts on company time.'

'He's going to be even less chuffed if something big did happen and South were sitting there smugly saying, "Well, we did warn you!"'

Wield gave a small nod which might have meant anything from he was totally convinced to he was totally unpersuaded, but Pascoe watched him go, certain that his instructions would be carried out to the full.

He took off his overcoat, hung it up, then sat at his desk and on a piece of paper wrote Sophie Frobisher. Then he added a question mark.

What the question was he wasn't certain, nor indeed whether he'd ever ask it.

One thing was certain, thank God, and that was that he needn't make any decision about it till next month when the new university term began.

Perhaps by then Roote would have faded to distant irritation. Perhaps the last letter in which he said goodbye to England would prove to be a farewell letter in every sense.

And perhaps Christmas would be cancelled this year!

Pascoe laughed.

Dalziel said, 'Glad to see you're in such a good mood.'

Shit! Is there a secret passage he uses to get into my room? wondered Pascoe.

'I was just coming to see you, sir. Dud tip, I'm afraid, complete waste of time

'Half right’ said the Fat Man. 'About the waste of time, but not the tip.'

'Sorry?'

'I've just had an angry call from Berry at Praesidium. Says he thought we were taking care of his wages van today.'

'Yes, sir, and we did until it made its last drop… Shit, you're not saying…?'

He was.

The Praesidium security men, after a day spent in the expectation of imminent attack, had felt they deserved a soothing cup of tea on the way back, to which end they had pulled into the lorry park of a roadside cafe on the bypass just north of town. As they got out of the van, they were jumped on by a bunch of masked men armed with baseball bats and at least one sawn-off shotgun. Surprised in every sense, they put up no resistance and were left unharmed, locked in a white transit van, tucked away in a remote corner of the lorry park where they might have remained a lot longer if Morris Berry, the Praesidium boss, hadn't noticed his van suddenly vanish from the screen. He'd sent someone to investigate at the last known location and they'd heard noises from the transit. By the time Pascoe arrived on the scene, he found the security men enjoying their now even more necessary soothing cup of tea and sufficiently recovered to be much amused at the image of the thieves' gobsmacked expressions when they found they'd got a vanload of nothing.

Pascoe didn't share their amusement. This might be a cock-up for the crooks, but he knew that it was going to register as a cock-up for the cops also. When the story was told in the canteen and the papers, the joke was going to be on him. And in the annual list of crime statistics, this day's work would show as a security van hijacked despite a tip-off and an expensive escort operation.