Reginald Hill - Death

'Miss him? Why the fuck should I miss him? He never earned any more than kept us out of the gutter. Useless bastard, getting himself killed like that. We were better off without him even though he didn't even leave us a pension. Fortunately Mother found herself this drooling dickhead who was so loaded we could afford to buy ourselves all the stuff we wanted.'

Subject's attempts to reduce his bereavement to economic terms are a typical grief-controlling stratagem in which the discomforts of poverty are substituted for the pain of loss. Accusations of selfishness aimed at the dead for dying appear in this light to have a real and computable base, and the return of prosperity can then be projected on to the subject's ego-view as a healing of any wounds the bereavement may have caused.

At the same time the source of the new prosperity is likely to be viewed with suspicion, or indeed as in this case contempt verging on hatred. I could discern little trace here of any Oedipal jealousy – subject always refers to his mother simply as 'mother', never using 'mum' or any other diminutivization, or employing the possessive pronoun, and never offering any anecdotes in which she features other than as a functional presence – so the unfailing choice of pejorative descriptions for his stepfather must be ascribed to subject's appreciation of his stepfather's wealth as a criticism of his real father's failure to provide for his family and his determination that the newcomer is never going to get close to taking the dead man's place.

There was a lot more like this and soon Pascoe was yawning. What was it the blurb had said? Be prepared to be shocked, to be scandalized, to be terrified. It hadn't mentioned the danger of being bored out of your skull.

The author blurb seemed to indicate that Haseen had a good track record as a serious academic psychologist, but even this seemed non-proven to Pascoe in the light of the way she swallowed hook, line and sinker everything that Roote dangled in front of her about his memories of his father.

'I'm glad to see that at least one of my gift choices has not been in vain’ said Ellie, who'd returned undetected.

'It would be a comic masterpiece if it wasn't dull’ said Pascoe. 'How's your mum?'

‘Fine. At least she says she is. Celebrating Christmas surrounded by people most of whom can't even remember who they are let alone what day it is can't be a bundle of fun.'

'It's happening all over the country’ said Pascoe. 'Sorry. You're right. It can't be. Still, she'll be with us tomorrow. We'll see she has a great time. Your dad, is he…?'

'No miracle cures, Pete’ she said. 'Or, if there are, they're going to be too late for him, I fear. It's really pissy, isn't it? Losing someone without being able to grieve properly because they're not officially dead.'

'I know, I know’ said Pascoe. He stood up, poured a drink and took it to Ellie. But before he gave it to her, he put his arms round her and pulled her close. After a while she moved away, took the glass and said, 'Thanks. That helped. This too.'

'Part of the service’ he said lightly. 'But do me a favour, any time you think of getting real help, don't apply to Ms Amaryllis Haseen!'

'No? And apart from her sex, what objective evidence do you have for that slur on a well-respected professional woman's competence?'

Pascoe tried to detect how much self-mocking irony there was in Ellie's reaction, found no clue in her expression and decided to play it straight.

'Maybe I'm being a bit hard’ he said. 'Lots of bright people have been given the run around by our Franny. Listen to this.

Subject evinced a comprehensive mental blink-ering with regard to interpretation of his father's evidently increasingly eccentric behaviour. He said, 'Mother never gave my dad credit for anything he did, in fact she 'd deliberately take things the wrong way. When he was away from home on dangerous missions he couldn 't tell us about, she got very angry and talked about him going off and enjoying himself boozing with his fancy woman. She even refused to go down to London with him when he was being awarded a medal. He wanted to take me but she wouldn't let him, I don't know why.'

And Ms Haseen takes all this as gospel! I know how good Roote is at pulling people's strings, but surely a pro should be able to see through him.'

'But what makes you so sure he's pulling her strings?' asked Ellie.

'What? Ah, you think that Roote Senior might indeed have been an MI5 undercover agent who died bravely in the line of duty? Well, let me disenchant you.'

He picked up his file and riffled through the papers.

'Here we are, Roote's father was a civil servant who died when his son was two years old. Confirmation of what Roote himself says in his letters several times, that he lost his father so early he has no memories of him whatsoever.'

'What is that, Peter?' said Ellie, staring at the file.

‘This?' said Pascoe, suddenly remembering that Dalziel's were not the only sharp eyes it was sometimes wiser to keep things hidden from. 'Oh, just some notes about Roote I had lying around. Seemed a sensible place to keep these letters in.'

'Looks a bit bulky for just some notes’ said Ellie. 'And that note you were extracting that stuff about Roote Senior from…?'

'Well, actually it's a copy of Roote's college file, just background details

'Holm Coultram College, you mean?' said Ellie. 'Those files were confidential!'

'Come on! He was a suspect in a serious investigation.'

'Oh yes. You don't happen to have a copy of my file there too, do you?'

'No, really subversive material I keep in a safe down the nick,' said Pascoe.

She smiled, with just the slightest sign of effort as if it had occurred to her that it was after all Christmas Day.

'Enough shop talk,' she said. 'I thought we'd get the troughing over early so that we can walk it off together while there's still some light in the sky, OK?'

'Fine,' said Pascoe. 'I'll pop out and work up an appetite with our two monsters.'

Take Rosie a woolly, will you? She's beginning to look quite blue out there, but don't tell her that or she'll just insist on stripping off to show she doesn't feel the cold.'

'Can't think who she gets it from,' said Pascoe.

He rose with Dark Cells in one hand and in the other the file which he shook at her as he headed for the door, saying, 'See? Next to nothing in it. I know I may be just a bit obsessive about the guy, but doesn't it make sense to keep some sort of track on him now he's elected me his number one correspondent?'

To his surprise, Ellie said, 'You may be right, love. Listen, last word on the subject today, OK? Either drop the whole thing or do the job properly. Dig deep as you can into Roote's roots; and while you're at it, before you go around badmouthing Ms Haseen, why not check her out professionally with someone like Pottle? Rosie, luv, what's up?'

Their daughter had burst into the room wearing her best exasperated look.

'It's this whistle,' she said. 'I think it's broken.'. 'Why's that?'

'I can't hear it.'

'But you're not meant to be able to hear it.'

'But I don't think Tig can hear it either. I blow and I blow and he pays no heed at all.'

Ellie shot a warning glance at her husband, who was grinning broadly, and said, 'I know exactly what you mean, darling. But it doesn't mean Tig can't hear it. It's just that male dogs can be very stubborn, and sometimes you've got to work really hard to get them to do the simplest things. Why don't you get your dad to help you? I think you'll find he's a bit of a specialist.'

Hat Bowler, not being a particularly literary sort of chap, though he was making efforts in that direction to keep pace with Rye Pomona, might have found it hard to offer a detailed gloss of the phrase hoist with his own petard, but he knew exactly what it meant. Christmas had posed a problem. His parents were expecting him home. The only unmarried one of four children, he'd been looking forward to at last quieting their unease at his continued lack of attachment by showing off Rye, who, admitting to no family of her own, might have been expected to jump at the chance of Yuletide with the Bowlers.