Dialogues of the Dead

Because there’d been a security cover-up, but Pascoe wasn’t about to go into that. Irritated though he was by Roote, and deeply suspicious of his motives, he still felt guilty at the memory of what had happened. With Ellie being threatened from an unknown source, he’d cast around for likely suspects. Discovering that Roote, whom he’d put away as an accessory to murder some years ago, was now out and writing a thesis on revenge in Sheffield where he was working as a hospital porter, he’d got South Yorkshire to shake him up a bit then gone down himself to have a friendly word. On arrival, he’d found Roote in the bath with his wrists slashed, and when later he’d had to admit that Roote had no involvement whatsoever in the case he was investigating, the probation service had not been slow to cry harassment.

Well, he’d been able to show he’d gone by the book. Just. But he’d felt then the same mixture of guilt and anger he was feeling now.

Roote was talking again.

“Anyway, my supervisor at Sheffield got a new post at the university here, just started this term. He’s the one who helped me get fixed up with the gardening job, in fact, so you see how it all slotted in. I could have got a new supervisor, I suppose, but I’ve just got to the most interesting part of my thesis. I mean, the Elizabethans and Jacobeans have been fascinating, of course, but they’ve been so much pawed over by the scholars, it’s difficult to come up with much that’s really new. But now I’m on to the Romantics: Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, even Wordsworth, they all tried their hands at drama you know. But it’s Beddoes that really fascinates me. Do you know his play Death’s Jest-Book?”

“No,” said Pascoe. “Should I?”

In fact, it came to him as he spoke that he had heard the name Beddoes recently.

“Depends what you mean by should. Deserves to be better known. It’s fantastic. And as my supervisor’s writing a book on Beddoes and probably knows more about him than any man living, I just had to stick with him. But it’s a long way to travel from Sheffield even with a decent car, and the only thing I’ve been able to afford has more breakdowns than an inner-city teaching staff! It really made sense for me to move too. So everything’s turned out for the best in the best of all possible worlds!”

“This supervisor,” said Pascoe, “what’s his name?”

He didn’t need to ask. He’d recalled where he’d heard Beddoes’ name mentioned, and he knew the answer already.

“He’s got the perfect name for an Eng. Lit. teacher,” said Roote, laughing. “Johnson. Dr. Sam Johnson. Do you know him?”

“That’s when I made an excuse and left,” said Pascoe.

“Oh aye? Why was that?” said Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel. “Fucking useless thing!”

It was, Pascoe hoped, the VCR squeaking under the assault of his pistonlike finger that Dalziel was addressing, not himself.

“Because it was Sam Johnson I’d just been playing squash with,” he said, rubbing his shoulder. “It seemed like Roote was taking the piss and I felt like taking a swing, so I went straight back inside and caught Sam.”

“And?”

And Johnson had confirmed every word.

It turned out the lecturer knew his student’s background without knowing the details. Pascoe’s involvement in the case had come as a surprise to him but, once filled in, he’d cut right to the chase and said, “If you think that Fran’s got any ulterior motive in coming back here, forget it. Unless he’s got so much influence he arranged for me to get a job here, it’s all happenstance. I moved, he didn’t fancy travelling for supervision and the job he had in Sheffield came to an end, so it made sense for him to make a change too. I’m glad he did. He’s a really bright student.”

Johnson had been out of the country during the long vacation and so missed the saga of Roote’s apparent suicide attempt, and the young man clearly hadn’t bellyached to him about police harassment in general and Pascoe harassment in particular, which ought to have been a point in his favour.

The lecturer concluded by saying, “So I got him the gardening job, which is why he’s out there in the garden, and he lives in town, which is why you see him around town. It’s coincidence that makes the world go round, Peter. Ask Shakespeare.”

“This Johnson,” said Dalziel, “how come you’re so chummy you take showers together? He fag for you at Eton or summat?”

Dalziel affected to believe that the academic world which had given Pascoe his degree occupied a single site somewhere in the south where Oxford and Cambridge and all the major public schools huddled together under one roof.