Smart ass, thought Pascoe. He reminds me of me.
He said, “What the devil were you doing in that gallery anyway?”
The form of the question might have puzzled Bowler a little if the content hadn’t disconcerted him a lot.
“I was having a coffee, sir.” It occurred to Hat that he’d no idea at what point Pascoe had first observed him and he went on, “In fact, I’d been having a coffee with Miss Pomona. There was something I wanted to ask her and she suggested we met outside the library.”
“Oh?” said Pascoe, smiling. “Discretion in this case being the better part of amour, eh?”
Hat’s French was up to this and he shook his head vigorously.
“No, sir. Strictly business.”
“In that case, presumably it’s my business too. So do tell.”
For a second Hat thought of coming clean about George Headingley, but off-loading his problem felt pretty naff and certainly wasn’t going to win him any Brownie points, so instead he told the DI about his unease in re Charley Penn.
“You seem to have it in for Charley,” said Pascoe. “First Jax Ripley, now Cyril Steel. Nothing personal, I hope?”
“No, sir. Just that he keeps popping up.” Then, batting the ball firmly back he added, “Like Roote.”
Pascoe glanced at him sharply but detected nothing but proper subordinate deference.
Oh you do remind me of me, you cocky sod, he thought.
The rest of the journey passed in silence.
The plate-glass windows of the Ivory Tower which housed the English Department were flashing what might have been an SOS as the scudding clouds intermittently masked the autumn sun. They found Roote in the foyer talking to a maintenance man who was protesting that he couldn’t open up a member of staff’s room just because a student asked him.
“Now I’m asking,” said Pascoe, showing his warrant card.
Ascent was via a paternoster lift, so called in Pascoe’s opinion because even a practising atheist (and especially a practising atheist with claustrophobic tendencies) was ill-advised to use such a contraption without resort to prayer.
The maintenance man stepped in and was translated. The next platform rose and Pascoe motioned Bowler in while he summoned up all his aplomb. Two more platforms passed and there was still no sign that his aplomb had heard the summons. He took a deep breath, felt a gentle pressure on his elbow, then he and Franny Roote stepped forward in perfect unison. The pressure vanished instantly. He glanced sharply at the young man in search of signs of amusement or, worse, sympathy. But Roote’s eyes were blank, his expression introspective, and Pascoe began to wonder if he’d imagined the helping hand. Bowler’s legs suddenly came into view.
“Here we are,” said Roote, and Pascoe, determined not to be assisted again, exited with an unnecessarily athletic leap.
It took only a few seconds to establish that Johnson’s room was empty and, from the evidence of a series of notes pushed under the door in which students recorded their vain attempts to keep appointments, had been empty since the weekend.
“You say you’ve been round to his flat?” said Pascoe.
“Yes,” said Roote. “I rang the bell. No reply. And no reply on the phone, either. His answering machine’s not on. He always left his answering machine on when he went out.”
“Always?” said Hat. “That’s a bit precise.”
“In my experience,” emended Roote, frowning.
“So let’s go and see,” said Pascoe.
Back at the paternoster, he hurled himself on to the first platform. That way at least he was able to make his flustered exit unobserved.
Outside a problem arose because there was no way they could get three into Bowler’s MG without breaking the law.
Roote said, “I’ll go in my own car. Care to join me, Mr. Pascoe? Could be more comfortable.”
Pascoe hesitated then said, “Why not?”
The car turned out to be a Cortina of some antiquity. But it was certainly easier to get into than the MG and the engine sounded sweet enough.
“Thought you said it was an old banger?” said Pascoe.
Roote glanced at him and smiled his secret smile.
“I had the engine tuned,” he said.
He drove with the exaggerated care of a man undergoing a driving test. Pascoe could almost feel Bowler’s exasperation as he trailed behind them. But he also felt that there was more than just mockery in Roote’s mode of driving. He was going slow because he was reluctant to arrive.
The flat was on the top floor of a converted townhouse in a Victorian terrace which had gone down and was now on its way up again. They gained entry by ringing all the bells till a man responded. Pascoe identified himself and they went in. There was no lift and the stairs were steep enough to make him almost nostalgic for the paternoster. At Johnson’s door, he rang the bell and could hear it echoing inside. Then he tried knocking, registering that the door was pretty solid and didn’t feel like it would yield easily to even a young man’s shoulder.
He called down to the elderly man who had let them in and was lurking curiously a little way down the stairway, and asked who the flat agents were. It was a well-known firm with their office only a mile or so away. He dialled the number on his mobile, got a girl who seemed disinclined to be helpful, advised her then to call a carpenter and a locksmith to make good the damage that usually resulted from opening a door with a sledgehammer and rapidly found himself talking to the firm’s general manager who assured him he’d be there within ten minutes.
He made it in five.
Pascoe took the key from him and turned it in the lock.
He opened the door a fraction, sniffed the air, and closed it again.
“I’m going to go in now,” he said. “Bowler, you make sure nobody else comes in.”
“Yes, sir,” said Bowler.
He opened the door just enough to let his slim frame slip through, then closed it behind him.
There was death here, he’d known that as soon as he first opened the door. The blast of warm air that hit him carried its odour, not yet unbearably pungent but still unmistakable to anyone who’d had cause to be around corpses as often as Peter Pascoe.
If it hadn’t been for this, he might have thought Sam Johnson was simply asleep. He sat in an old wing chair, his feet stretched out on to the fender of a fireplace tiled in the high Victorian style, like a scholar made drowsy by draughts from the whisky bottle standing by his arm and the lulling rhythms of the volume which lay open on his lap.
Pascoe paused to take in the room. First impressions were important. The old grate had been replaced by a modern gas fire which was the source of the heat. On the mantelshelf an ormolu clock had stopped at twelve. Beside the clock lay what for an unpleasant moment Pascoe thought was a turd but on closer examination proved to be some blocks of melted chocolate. Alongside the whisky bottle and empty glass on the low table next to the chair stood a cafetiere and a coffee mug. On the other side of the fireplace was a small sofa with a broken leg “repaired” by a hefty tome and another low table with an empty tumbler on it.
He turned his attention to the body and confirmed by touch what he knew already.
There was nothing to show how Johnson had died. Perhaps after all it would turn out to be a simple heart attack.
He looked at the open book without touching it.
It was open at a poem called “Dream-Pedlary.” He read the first verse. If there were dreams to sell
What would you buy?
Some cost a passing bell;
Some a light sigh,
That shakes from Life’s fresh crown
Only a rose-leaf down.
If there were dreams to sell,
