“I bet you will,” said Steel, laughing splutteringly. “You work in the library, don’t you, luv?”
“That’s right.”
“So tell me, this waitressing job you’re doing, you getting paid library rates plus overtime, or skivvy rates plus tips?”
“Watch it, Steel,” grated Penn. “That’s offensive even by your low standards.”
Rye looked at him coldly and said, “I think I can speak for myself, Mr. Penn. In fact I’m doing it on a purely voluntary basis, so there’s no charge to the public purse. But of course, if you care to leave a tip…”
“Nay, lass,” laughed Steel. “Only tip I’ll give you is, I like my spuds roasted almost black. But I don’t suppose I’ll be getting any here, so I’ll just have another handful of these to put me on till me lunch.”
He reached towards a plateful of cocktail sausages but Rye pushed the whole tray towards him so that he had to grasp hold of it to keep it off his chest.
“Tell you what, Councillor,” she said. “Why don’t you take the lot, then you can pick through them at your leisure. And I can take a look at the art.”
She let go of the tray, nodded at Steel, ignored Penn’s congratulatory smile and turned to meet Hat Bowler.
“So you made it, then?” she said. “Come on, there’s something I want you to see.”
There are some revelations which are certain without being clear.
For a fraction of a second-though I knew without doubt that this was the one-I didn’t understand why, and I could not foresee how.
But even before I could commit the blasphemy of asking why and how, my averted head let my eyes see the single answer, and all that remained was when.
Though whether when? is appropriate for an event which takes place outside of time is a question to scotch a Scotist.
Perhaps, the fancy came to me, time suspended would permit me to perform my duty, and when time resumed, all these people, policemen and journalists included, would find to their uncomprehending horror that one of their number lay dead among them, and no one had noticed a thing!
But it was not to be. My aura still burned bright but the flow of time was not yet slowing. I was still here and now.
But soon…
Oh yes, I knew it must be soon…
14
AS PASCOE WATCHED Bowler move away, making a bee-line for the girl from the library, he found he was smiling.
Who was it said that middle age began when you started looking fondly on the young, and old age when you started really resenting the bastards?
Probably Dalziel.
Time to check out the art.
He’d been checking for several minutes without much enthusiasm when someone touched his shoulder and said, “Peter, how’re the muscles? Recovered enough for another go?”
He turned to see Sam Johnson grinning at him.
“You’ve got to be joking,” he said. “Nice to see you, though. I wanted a word. I spotted Franny Roote earlier. He with you?”
It was hardly a subtle approach but Johnson was too sharp for obliquities, as Pascoe had discovered when he’d checked out Roote’s story with him. Now the lecturer emptied his wine glass, seized another off a passing tray, and said, “Yes, I got Franny an invite. Is that a problem?”
“No problem. Just an occupational reflex,” said Pascoe lightly. “You see him as a bright student, I see him as an old customer.”
“I also see him as a friend,” said Johnson. “Not a close friend maybe, but getting that way. I like him very much.”
“Well, that’s all right then,” said Pascoe. “Can’t be much wrong with a bright student whose supervisor likes him very much.”
It came out a bit sharper than he intended. Something about Johnson acted on him as a mild irritant, the same thing probably which had provoked him into that farcical non-game of squash from which his shoulder was still aching. Not that there was anything obviously irritating about the young academic. Boyish without being childish, good-looking this side of matinee idol, bright but not in-your-face smart ass, entertaining in a self-mocking rather than self-congratulating style, totally non-menacing, he had somehow contrived to ripple the Pascoe pond. The DCI had thought about it long and hard. Jealousy? A man might be forgiven for feeling a little jealous of someone who could make his wife laugh so much. But Ellie Pascoe had been through experiences in recent months which might have crushed a lesser woman and to Pascoe the sound of her laughter was a blessed affirmation that all was well. He heard it now and over Johnson’s shoulder glimpsed her with a trio consisting of Charley Penn, Percy Follows and Mary Agnew. Which of them had made Ellie laugh wasn’t clear, but Pascoe felt nothing but gratitude. Not that either of these men looked possible candidates for jealousy. Penn with his cavernous eyes and sunken cheeks was hardly a romantic threat, while Follows was of the type Ellie unkindly categorized as prancers, with his mane of honey gold hair, his flamboyant gestures, his flowery language, his bow ties and garish waistcoats. “I don’t mind if he’s really gay,” Ellie had said, “but I can’t be doing with it as a fashion statement.”
So, no jealousy there, and not even in the case of the much more desirable young lecturer. Then what was it in Johnson that stirred him up?
Eventually and reluctantly he’d come to the conclusion that he felt Johnson as a challenge to, or more accurately perhaps, a comment on his way of life.
There’d been a point years back at the end of university when he’d stood uncertainly at a fork in the track; then, with a deep breath and many a half-regretful backward glance, he’d set his foot on the road that had brought him to his present state.
The other path, he guessed, might well have led him to some condition not unlike that of Johnson. They were, roughly speaking, of the same generation, but Sam looked younger, dressed younger, talked younger. On campus, the casual observer would probably find it hard to distinguish him from the students he taught. Yet he could take his place among his seniors at conferences or in the senate as a respected equal, even a potential superior, with a bright beginning behind him and the promise of glittering prizes ahead. At the very least he had the prospect of spending the years of his maturity in comfortable old rooms looking out on a smooth razed lawn running down to a river gay with punts in term time and serene with swans through the long vacations…
OK, that was probably a pie-in-the-sky picture of academic life which didn’t exist or, if it did, had no appeal to Johnson. But in his own career, not even his most way-out fantasies could devise any comparable pastoral idyll.
Toil and trouble, trial and tribulation, till he was put out to grass, which was the only version of pastoral his future seemed to offer.
On the other hand, he didn’t have a drink problem, and his heart, so he’d been told on his annual medical check-up, was in perfect condition.
Johnson was looking at him as if expecting a response.
“Sorry,” said Pascoe. “Hard to hear with all this noise.”
Enunciating very clearly as if in a large lecture hall with a bad acoustic, Johnson said, “I was saying, we all make mistakes, Peter. Happily, most of us come to terms with them and get on with our lives.”
For a moment Pascoe felt like he’d been thought-read, then the lecturer went on, “And it can’t be pleasant for Franny, feeling he’s under constant observation.”
How about not being pleasant for me either? wondered Pascoe. But it was a blind alley of a conversation so he said lightly, “Depends on who’s doing the observing. I think one of us is being summoned.”
Ellie was beckoning. He gave a little wave and she replied by pointing her finger towards Johnson.
