Death's Jest-Book (35 page)

'No. I think I'd have noticed.'

Novello said gently, 'With these
people, the art is making sure you don't notice.'

'Oh dear. Now you're frightening
me. But in any case, I've got nothing to hide so what can they hope
to get out of me?'

Novello said, 'Can we go into
your office for a moment?'

She glanced towards Penn as they
went through the door behind the desk, but the writer seemed deeply
immersed in his work.

Closing the door she said,
'They'll have the public records. Mr Dalziel thought it might help if
you took a look at the inquest transcript.'

She produced a file from the
Tesco bag.

Rye said uneasily, 'Is it OK to
do this?'

'Of course it is. It's like a
copper looking at his notebook in court. No one can remember
everything exactly. And if someone did ask you questions, you
wouldn't want to give them anything to worry at just because
something slipped your mind, would you? They're experts at making owt
from nowt.'

Dalziel had said, 'Make sure she
understands that what she said to the coroner is all she needs to
say.'

And Novello, who had not been
made privy to anything but the official picture of what Pascoe and
Dalziel had found when they arrived on the scene, nor anything the
girl had said outside her formal statement, didn't ask the question
forming in her mind, 'And could she say anything more, sir?' because
she was beginning to suspect that this ignorance was part of the
reason she'd been given this job. Reading everything she could find
on the Wordman case had taken up most of her free time since Dalziel
gave her the assignment - just because he gave you a job that took up
twenty-three hours of the day didn't mean he didn't expect you to fit
the rest of your work into the remaining hour.

There was a ring from the enquiry
desk bell.

'Look, I've got to go’ said
Rye.

'Fine. Keep this. Read it at your
leisure. Nothing to worry about, we just don't want you being
harassed. I'll keep in touch, if that's OK? Maybe a coffee some
time?'

Rye thought then nodded and said,
'Yes, I think I'd like that.'

She ushered the WDC out of the
office. Standing at the desk was a tall, blond young man looking like
Arnie Schwarzenegger's handsome young brother. Novello gave him a
look which was at the same time assessing and admiring. In reply she
got a smile which kept up the Hollywood connection by being borrowed
straight from Julia Roberts.

Half blinded by such dental
effulgence, she glanced at Rye and twisted her mouth into a
get-a-load-of-that! expression.

'Take care’ she said.

'You too’ said Rye with a
grin.

And as Novello walked away she
thought, if that hunk does turn out to be an investigative
journalist, then he can investigate me to his heart's content!

At
the same time as Novello left the library, about a hundred feet over
her head a scene was unfolding which in prospect most investigative
journalists would have given their editors' eyeteeth for.

Sergeant Edgar Wield was
approaching the top floor of the Centre car park where he had a
secret assignation with the teenage rent boy who was madly in love
with him.

At least this was how it might be
written up by some. of these investigative journalists, thought
Wield. Which was why, one way or another, he was going to get things
sorted between Lee Lubanski and himself today.

After a dodgy start, Edgar Wield
had had a very good Christmas.

His partner, antiquarian book
dealer, Edwin Digweed, had turned out to be a traditionalist in
matters yulic. At first Wield had looked for an element of
piss-taking as the familiar outlines of their cottage vanished
beneath a folly of furbelows and he found himself sharing their small
sitting room with an outsize fir-tree whose apogean fairy bowed
gracefully from the waist because her head pressed against the
ceiling. On a shopping expedition to a hypermarket, which during the
rest of the year Digweed referred to as Hell's Cathedral, he had
watched in bewilderment as their trolley piled up with crackers and
baubles and puddings and pies and jars of pickled walnuts and yards
of cocktail sausage and samples of every kind of exotic confectionary
and savoury on display. Finally he had enquired politely if the Red
Cross had perhaps warned Edwin to expect a flash flood of starving
but picky refugees in remote Eendale. Digweed had laughed, a sort of
jolly ho-ho-ho which Wield never heard him use at any other season,
and continued down the aisle, humming along to the piped carols.

Ever a pragmatist, Wield had
decided to relax and enjoy it, and discovered rather to his surprise
that he did. Even his initially reluctant attendance at the midnight
service had been a pleasure. The whole village had been there, and as
Corpse Cottage, the Wield’Digweed residence, now festooned with
winking fairy lights, snuggled handily under the churchyard wall, it
seemed natural that most of the villagers should drop in for a festal
warmer on the way home, and very quickly huge inroads were made into
what had seemed their excessive provision.

'I was very pleased to see you at
the service’ said Justin Halavant, art collector and critic in
whose medieval hand a poppy or a lily would not have looked out of
place. 'It's so important to demonstrate the solidarity of our faith,
don't you think?'

'Oh aye?' said Wield, a touch
surprised as he'd have put Halavant down as an aesthetic rather than
a devout Christian. 'Look, don't be offended, I enjoyed it, but I'm
not what you'd call a true believer

'My dear chap, what's that got to
do with anything?' laughed Halavant. 'All I meant was, anyone who
doesn't show up in the church at Christmas is likely to end up in the
Wickerman at Beltane. Lovely candied kumquats, by the way. I may have
some more.'

Later he'd shared the exchange
with Digweed, who'd laughed, not his ho-ho-ho but his usual dry
chuckle, and said, 'Justin likes his jest. But he's right. Enscombe
takes care of its own, one way or another.'

Christmas
morning had been going well till among the presents beneath the tree
Wield had found a padded envelope marked
Not to be opened till
Xmas day
in a childish scrawl.

'Came with the post yesterday,'
said Digweed with an overstudied lack of interest.

Wield opened it to find a card
with all the most sucrose elements of Christmas greetings combined in
one glutinous design and something wrapped in tissue paper.

The card was
inscribed
To Edgar the best from your friend Lee.

He unwrapped the tissue to reveal
a pair of silver cuff links engraved with his initials.

Edwin asked no questions, but
questions hung in the air so Wield gave answers in his most brisk and
precise style.

Digweed listened then said, 'You
did not think to mention this boy to me earlier.'

'It was police business.'

'So,' said Digweed, glancing at
the links and the card, 'it would appear. Isn't there a name for
gifts that policemen receive from criminals?'

Oh dear, thought Wield. To a cop,
family squabbles leading to domestic violence were a commonplace of
Christmas Day. He hadn't anticipated getting personally involved.

'He's not a criminal,' he said.
'But I'll be giving it back to him anyway.'

'And break the little darling's
heart? Don't be silly. If you don't want the links, I'll have them.
I'll tell people the initials stand for Eternally Worried, that's
me.'

He turned away, his shoulders
shaking as if at some barely restrained emotion.

'Edwin, there's no need for you
to worry . . .' Digweed turned to face him, still shaking but now the
emotion was clear and audible.

'My dear Edgar, what do you take
me for?' he said, laughing. 'I may shoot you but I will never play
the sulky jealous type. And besides, you say this young man is
nineteen but could pass for ten or eleven? I can see you looking
appreciatively at a good-looking yunker, but I have never detected
the smallest morsel of paedophilia in your make-up. Also, in my
experience, cuff links are not the kind of gift a lad gives to his
lover. They are more what a son gives to his dad. So, no jealousy,
believe me. But some concern. You may not be attracted to young
Lubanski, but you are sorry for him and, to a man in your position,
that can be more dangerous than sex. You will take care, won't you?'

'He's at risk.'

'No. You are.
Don't confuse the apparent child with the real adult. But that's for
the morrow.
Carpe diem,
dear Edgar. And here's a little
something to help preserve it too.'

He tossed over a package which
Wield ripped open to reveal a mini camcorder.

'Jesus,' he said with real
feeling. 'Thanks a million. This must have cost a fortune.'

'Self-interest,' said Digweed. 'I
understand that you with your computer expertise will be able to make
films of me, then doctor them so that I look and move twenty years
younger. I can hardly wait for the experiment to begin.'

And after that Christmas had been
everything Lee's card claimed it should be.

Wield could not remember a time
in his life when he'd been happier. And because he was happy, he
wanted everyone else to be happy too, but this he knew was not even a
possibility in that other uncontrollable world that lay in ambush for
him whenever he ventured east of Eendale. So now as he approached his
rendezvous, his mind rilled with foreboding as he spotted the
pale-faced boy who stood in wait for him like Cathy waiting for
Heathcliff, outlined against the scudding clouds of a wild and wintry
Yorkshire sky.

He had changed their meeting spot
partly because regular encounters even somewhere as anonymous as
Turk's could draw attention, but mainly because he didn't want any
audience if Lubanski got upset with what he was about to hear.

For this was definitely their
last meeting.

Dalziel, impressed by the
accuracy of the tips so far, had urged Wield to get his new informant
signed up properly. Wield knew this wasn't going to happen, but he
didn't mind making the proposal because he reckoned this would draw a
line under their relationship. The idea of simply continuing to take
advantage of the boy's vulnerability and emotional instability filled
him with revulsion. Before they parted, he would do his best to
persuade Lee out of the dangerous and degrading life he was leading,
though, being a realist, he had little hope of success. But no way
was he going to let the boy's evident misconceptions about their
current relationship continue.

Now Lee turned and saw him, and
his change of expression from abandoned puppy dolour to
here-comes-master delight struck Wield to the heart and turned the
stern words he'd prepared bitter in his mouth, and he heard himself
saying, 'Hi, Lee. Good Christmas?'

'Yeah. Made a bundle.'

'I didn't mean trade, Lee’
said Wield, thinking what a stupid question it had been. 'Listen,
I've got something to say to you.'

'Me first,' said the youth.
'There's something real big going down in the New Year.'

'Lee’ said Wield, steeling
his resolve. 'It's time we put a stop.’

'No, listen, this is really good.
I made some notes after. I've got them here.'

Proudly he handed over a sheet of
cheap writing paper covered with a childish scrawl.

Tear it up, Wield told himself.
Tell him you don't want to know, it's all over, you're washing your
hands of him. He's got his own life to live and if you can't make it
any better, the least you can do is not make it any worse.

But even as the voice of the man
inside spoke these words in his head, the eyes of the cop outside
were reading the words on the paper.

B said that things were OK and
man in Sheffield shuddunt worry and man in she fsaid that was for him
to deside and there's been plenty to worry about already how did B
explain that. And B said coincidence and it hadn 't made a difference
had it and everything was on as planned for January and the upfront
many would be deposited as arranged. And man in Shefsaid it had
better be and he rang off.

Now Wield was all cop.

He said, 'This B . . . he's your
source for these tips, is he? You do business with him?'

'Yeah, that's right. Regular. He
really goes for me. And he's got one of them speaker phones and he
seems to like talking to people while we're, like, doing it ...not
about it, though he does that too on the net, but real business talk,
and the others've got no idea that I'm there doing it. . .'

Oh God. The Oval Office syndrome.
Some guy full of a sense of his own importance and getting a kick out
of...

His imagination shut out the
picture of the act just as Lee's misplaced delicacy had refused to
put it into words.

He said, 'So this man in
Sheffield, there was no name mentioned?'

'No. Well, not really.'

Something there? Maybe. But
concentrate on facts before you start chasing fancies.

'How do you know he was in
Sheffield?'

Lee screwed up his eyes in
thought then said, 'Because Belchy asked if he was still in Sheffield
and he said yes.'

‘Belchy?

‘B for Belchy.

Oh shit. If what he was thinking
was true, there was no way Andy Dalziel was ever going to let this
boy go.

Grasping the nettle at once he
said, 'Belchy would be Marcus Belchamber, right?'

Lee didn't answer but he didn't
need to. Alarm was twisting his boyish features.

'Right?' insisted Wield.

'I didn't tell you that!'

Wield felt a mingling of pity and
exasperation. The stupid boy thought it was safe to pass on
information as long as he didn't name names. As if it would make the
slightest difference to Belchamber that his name had been guessed
rather than betrayed. But it clearly made a difference to Lee, and
that was something a good cop could play on.