Bones & Silence (46 page)

'Chung,' he said. 'There's no need for this.'

'Need for what? I'm just enjoying the best view in town. Will you listen to those cheers? They're just loving it, aren't they? And why not? It's just another show, a change from the telly. Let's go out and have a laugh at the God on wheels! Perhaps he'll give a wave as he passes! Do you think he'll give us a wave, Peter? Probably not. God doesn't need to look up, does he? What's the point when everything's below?'

Beneath the lightness, he sensed desperation. He said urgently, 'He did his best!'

'You're very loyal, Pete. I knew you wouldn't be right for Lucifer. Treachery's not your style. But no, he didn't do his best. You know it, I know it. But I'm not saying he deceived me. I managed that all by myself. I said I picked him because he wouldn't give a damn, so I can hardly complain about being right!'

Pascoe examined this and thought he saw a glimmer of hope.

'Chung, if you know it's a game, I mean, not a game, I realize it's deadly serious, but a gamble, a life and death gamble, if you know that...’

'Why does a bright girl like me carry on with it?' She laughed and then turned serious. 'Pete, the
me
that thinks it's in control never meant to lay this thing on Andy. That
me
was telling the truth in those letters. But there's another
me .. .
look, it's like when you're acting sometimes, something takes over, you become the part you're playing even though you know you're out there on a stage. What I mean is, if you're in my game, there's no problem to being two or three contradictory things at the same time!'

He tried another small step forward. She didn't seem to notice, but there was still twenty feet between them. He could hear the sound of shawms and timbrels in the wind, and he thought he could trace Dalziel's approach in the swell of applause.

He said, 'OK, it's not simply a game, but that doesn't entitle you to cheat.'

'What do you mean?'

'You said Andy never asked you to dance at the ball. Hell, your tango nearly stopped the show!'

'Not guilty!' she replied. 'It was
me
who asked
him,
the first time anyway. After that he just grabbed me. So it was subtle misdirection, not cheating. No point in making things too easy for the great detective, was there? Not that I need have bothered, for all the interest he took.'

It was time for a change of direction. By talking about the game, he was merely playing the game. She was peering over the parapet and he moved slowly forward, saying, 'OK, so he had a lot of other things on his mind. But he did pass the case on to me, you know that. It's my responsibility now. Please don't make it my guilt.'

She turned to look at him, catching him in mid-step. He froze for a moment, like a child playing statues, then under her quizzical gaze smiled sheepishly and lowered his foot to the ground.

She said, 'I like you, Pete. Always have done. If Ellie hadn't been such a good friend, who knows? But fucking's easy, and friends are hard to find. You should bear that in mind. Sometimes being nice and reasonable can make a person just as self-absorbed as being a real selfish bastard. Take a day off, Pete, and let it all hang out! Let Ellie know if she gets right up your nose or if some little scrubber in the pub with her skirt round her bum gets you horny. She'll probably break your jaw but at least you'll know why you're hurting. There's no profit in partial openness. If it's not wide open, it might as well be locked. Was that in a play or did I say it? It gets hard to tell sometimes.'

'I don't know,' said Pascoe, trying for a matching lightness. 'But it didn't sound like Shakespeare.'

'No? Think you know your Shakespeare, huh?'

'Better than I know my Mysteries.'

'Well, this week's your chance to learn! Though I'm not sure if it's worth it.'

She was no longer looking at him, but even as he tensed his muscles for an explosive sprint, she leaned far out over the parapet in her effort to follow the progress of the pageant wagon which sounded to be passing right in front of the cathedral. In that position, he didn't even dare essay another small step.

'Surely any learning experience is worth it?' he said.

She pulled herself back to the vertical and his pulse returned to a mere fifty per cent above normal.

'Depends what you learn in the end,’ she said. 'It's a funny thing about plays, Pete. They're all about pain, did you know that? Even the comedies;
especially
the comedies.
They
end in union, tragedy in separation, because that's the only answer we've found. I know about separation. Mummy died when I was eighteen, Daddy when I was twenty-six. This surprises you, don't it, Pete? Big girl like me missing her mummy and daddy? But I was nothing and nowhere without them. And I never found anyone else, because I seemed to get too busy with other people finding me. The world's full of shit, Peter. Read the papers, watch the box, it's coming thick and fast from all sides and it's getting worse. You stick to Ellie, hon. Two people clinging together get to ward off some of the crap for a while at least. That's all that comedy is, a tragedy postponed!'

He could see her cracking up before him with pain and despair showing through. It was more than he could bear, yet within his own pain he felt an admixture of resentment. Chung shouldn't be like this, not Chung who had come among them like a goddess, asking nothing but worship for her healing touch.

He took another step and said urgently, 'Isn't it possible to make sense of it? Isn't that what all these plays and books and works of art are about?'

'You reckon?' she said. 'So what's to do when you realize that all that Shakespeare can offer us in the end is resignation? And all that the Mysteries can offer is . . . mystery.'

'Chung, for God's sake, I mean, for my sake, for our sakes. Whatever you feel, we love you, we need you.'

'Love,' she said. 'Need.' As if they were foreign words.

Far below, the noise of the crowd reached a climax as Dalziel arrived. Then suddenly Chung smiled and in an instant was herself again, beautiful, and strong.

'Jesus, Pete, you look terrible! Look, it's OK, baby. No need to come rushing over here to make a grab at me! You don't really think I'd let someone I like as much as you watch me jump, do you? Come on! God's passing by, the show's nearly over. Time to start planning the next one, huh? I'm really glad you're here, though. Would you mind leading the way down those nasty stairs? They really give me the creeps. You'll never believe this, but I'm terrified of falling!'

She moved away from the parapet, laughing joyously, and Pascoe, his limbs trembling with relief, laughed too as he turned towards the doorway.

But even as he laughed and turned and lost sight of her, he knew he was in error.

He spun round and his mind kept spinning as his eyes sought desperately for some sign, some trace.

But he had known before he turned that he was at last completely alone on the tower.

And now to the half admiring, half mocking cheers of the crowd as the God, Dalziel, passed in all his glory, was added a new wailing, shrieking noise, haled out of horror and dismay. It rose up the sides of the great cathedral, spiralling towards the sun like the thin piping of a bird, and was absorbed as though it had never been into the vast empty sky.

Raging, Pascoe looked upwards and cried, 'Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!'

And did not know if he was addressing Chung, or God, or Dalziel, or merely himself.