This oppo couldn't finish too early for him. Though the extreme effects of whatever malaise had hit him over an hour ago hadn't been repeated, he still felt somehow physically cold and mentally spaced out. Another reaction had been a desire verging on a need to hear Rye's voice, so when Berry was called out of the control centre for a few minutes he'd taken the chance to ring the library, only to be told that Rye wasn't due in today.
This had surprised him. When he'd told her he was going to be tied up on Saturday, he'd got the impression she was working too. He then rang her flat. Nothing but the answer machine.
So she was out. What did he expect her to do when he wasn't around? Sit at home and mope?
But he felt uneasy though he knew no reason why.
The door of the control room opened.
'Hello, Superintendent. Come to check up on things?' said Berry. 'Must say you lot are taking this very seriously, but it's all going like a dream so far.'
Hat didn't turn from the screen. All his earlier symptoms were back mob-handed. He knew it wasn't Dalziel who'd come into the room, it was Death.
Death that master of role-play who was yet always himself. For he could come garbed as a nurse, or a close friend, or in the cap and bells of a jester, or as a great fat policeman, but the cavernous eyes and grinning jawbone were still unmistakable.
So he sat and stared at the light pulsing like a heart across the screen.
'Hat’ said Dalziel, 'could you step outside for a moment. I need a word.'
'Watching the van, sir’ said Hat stiffly. 'Won't be long now till it gets to the museum.'
'Mr Berry will watch for us,' said Dalziel gently. 'Come on, lad. We need to talk. Your office all right, Mr Berry?'
By now the manager too knew that a darkness more than the semi-dusk of a grey January day had entered the room.
'Sure’ he said.
Hat rose and, still without looking at the Fat Man, went out of the room.
'Will he be back?' said Berry.
'No’ said Dalziel. 'I don't think he will. You can manage here, I expect?'
'What's to manage?' said Berry, glancing at the screen. 'I reckon it's all over now.'
'I think you're right’ said Dalziel. 'It's all over.'
Pascoe was beginning to wish he'd stayed in bed. He sat on a chair and looked uneasily round Franny Roote's flat.
Normally he was the most meticulous of searchers, missing no possible hiding place in his pursuit of whatever it was he was pursuing, and just as assiduous in leaving no messy traces of his searching. In fact it was a standing joke among his less particular colleagues that if you wanted to give a room a good tidying, you got Pascoe to search it.
But something had gone wrong today.
Roote's flat looked like it had been done over by a disturbed juvenile on his first job.
With no effect whatsoever, except to waste so much energy he'd broken out in a muck sweat. He took off his jacket and wiped his brow.
What to do? he asked himself desperately.
Flee, and hope it got put down to said disturbed juvenile?
Stay and brazen it out if and when Roote turned up? Or try to tidy things up and cover all traces of his passage?
That was going to be hard, he thought as he looked around. He'd made a real mess and he knew he couldn't put it all down to his illness. He'd often looked at the after-effects of a destructive burglary and wondered why it was that as well as stealing the thief had needed to wreck what he left behind. Now he began to understand. For some people it wasn't enough simply to rob; they had to hate and even blame those they robbed.
He'd found nothing to use against Roote, but by God! he'd let the bastard know what he thought of him!
It was a shameful thing to have done, quite inexcusable.
Though, thank God, there were limits.
There was a bookcase against one wall, serviceable rather than ornamental and stained a funereal black. The only things he hadn't laid violent hands upon were the books.
And, though there'd been nothing conscious in the omission, he thought he knew why.
He went to the case and took a book down. He'd been right. The name on the fly cover was Sam Johnson. These were part of Roote's inheritance from his old friend and tutor. If there was anything at all about Roote that Pascoe trusted, it had to be the genuineness of his grief for Johnson's death.
And, of course, it helped that his theory that Roote was involved in Jake Frobisher's death depended on the existence of a love for Johnson that led to a murderous jealousy.
But it made him feel a little better to think he hadn't reached the point where true pathological hatred would have started, the destruction of what the object loved the most.
There was a two-volume edition of Beddoes' poems he thought he recognized, quite old with marbled paper boards. He took down one of the books and opened it. Yes, it was the Fanfrolico Press edition. This was Volume Two, the very book that had been found open on the dead academic's lap.
He started to replace it carefully, and only then saw there was something behind it, a narrow package wrapped in a black silk handkerchief, rendering it almost invisible against the dark wood.
He took it out and carefully unwound the silk.
It contained an Omega watch with a gold bracelet, very expensive looking.
He turned it over and looked at the back of the watch.
There it was, a circlet of writing, which had been easier to make out on Sophie Frobisher's rubbing than on this shiny surface, but he knew it off by heart anyway.
TILL TIME INTO ETERNITY FALLS OVER RUINED WORLDS YOUR S
Well, time into eternity had fallen for both of them now, leaving, like all deaths, ruined worlds behind.
And now at last, he thought with less glee than he'd imagined he'd feel at this moment of justification, he had it in his power to ruin forever the world of Francis Xavier Roote.
Behind him the door opened.
He turned so quickly that his Kung Flu dizziness hit him again.
When his vision cleared, he was looking at Franny Roote.
'Hello, Mr Pascoe,' said the young man, smiling. 'I'm so glad you could come. Sorry the place is such a mess. Hey, you look a little pale. Are you sure you're all right?'
When the pantechnicon pulled in front of Rose's car, Wield's instinct had been to pull out straightway and overtake, but he too found himself blocked by the white transit.
He finally managed to squeeze by through the narrow space between the vehicle and the central reservation barrier just as the pantechnicon began to turn into the slip road. A long way ahead he glimpsed the rear of the security van.
A very long way ahead.
Perhaps it had speeded up. But why should it? The natural thing to do if you momentarily lost sight of your escort in your rear-view mirror was slow down.
He accelerated till he got close behind it. The transit had speeded up too and went by him. Some drivers are like that, hate to be overtaken, especially by a superannuated rocker in black leathers with eat my dust in silver studs on his back. The guy in the passenger seat wound down his window as he went by and Wield half expected to get the finger. But the gesture when it came wasn't the finger, it was a thumbs-up.
And it wasn't aimed at him, it was directed at the Praesidium van as the transit went rushing past it.
What the hell did that signify? Could be nothing more sinister than the camaraderie of the road, one working lad greeting another, as you might nod and say How do? to a stranger encountered on your way to work in the morning.
But as the van rejoined the inside lane ahead of the security vehicle and slowed to match pace with it, his heart misgave him.
