Death

Suddenly he was recalling Lee Lubanski's tip about Praesidium which had ended in the fiasco of the only thing going missing being the van itself. They'd all laughed at this new evidence that most crooks were a full stop short of a sentence, but suppose that in fact things had gone perfectly to plan and all they wanted was the van? Which could mean…

He slowed till Rose's car was overtaking him, then speeded up again to keep pace, mouthing urgently at the DI in the passenger seat. Rose wound down the window. 'What?' he yelled.

'I think they've done a switch’ shouted Wield. 'I don't think that's our van.'

It was like knocking at some poor bastard's door and telling him his wife has been in a crash. Rose's face went white as he struggled to resist the words.

This was the young DI's big test. Now he could get angry, refuse to believe it, carry on as though nothing had happened. Or…

'Don't be daft,' he yelled scornfully, desperate not to see Operation Serpent swallowing its own tail.

'Ours is back at Estotiland’ cried Wield urgently. 'The decoy'll lead you into town, stop at lights, the driver and his mate'll get out, go round a corner and get into that transit.'

He wasn't sure, he couldn't be sure, but he knew he had to sound sure if Rose was to summon up the cavalry.

They were out of the underpass now. Estotiland was falling behind. They were back at ground level, the road curving between shallow embankments running up to fields.

Time for decision, not debate.

'I'm going back,' he yelled.

He hit the accelerator and sent the bike across the hard shoulder and bucketing up the rough grassy slope.

'By God, he can handle that machine,' said Rose's driver with untroubled admiration. He could afford to be calm. All he had to do was what he was told, no come-back.

In the same spirit, the three men crushed together in the back looked at their leader with blank expressions which said, This is where you earn your pay, guv.

'Shut up the lot of you,' said Rose savagely. Then grabbing the radio, he said, 'Serpent One to all units

'It's over, Franny,' said Pascoe wearily.

Roote smiled with pleasure.

'I think that's the first time you've called me Franny,' he said. 'What's over?'

'The games,' said Pascoe. 'This is the closing ceremony.'

'Surely the awards come first,' said the young man. 'Would you care for a drink? Have to be a tea-bag. I seem to be out of coffee.'

He was looking ruefully at the heap of grounds Pascoe had emptied out of the jar into the sink.

‘I’ll leave awards to the judge,' said Pascoe.

'Please, don't tell me you've found something else you imagine I've done,' cried Roote. 'I thought we'd put all that behind us. No, I see you're serious. All right, let's get it out of the way, then we can really talk. So what is it this time?'

He didn't look or sound in the least worried, but then when did he?

Pascoe gathered his thoughts. The clever thing would be to get him down to the station and sit him in an interview room properly cautioned with the tapes running.

But you didn't get anywhere with Roote by being clever. So be open, tell him what you've got, get a preview of how he's going to play it so that you're at least partially prepared to counter his tactics when things get official.

He let his mind run over everything he suspected. None of that stuff from the letters was any good here. Roote himself had planted it in his mind and was no doubt fully covered. Hit him with the unexpected. 'You burgled Rye Pomona's flat,' he said.

'That's right’ agreed Roote without hesitation. 'Though I think burglary implies felonious intent.'

'Which you didn't have? I don't think you can deny criminal damage though.'

'Well,' said Roote, looking around his wrecked room with a smile, 'I bow to your expertise there, Mr Pascoe.'

Pascoe flushed and said, 'So what was your intention, if not to steal?'

'I'm sure you've guessed. It's dear old Charley Penn, really. He went on so much about his chum Dee being innocent that in the end he got me wondering. I don't give a toss about Dee, but if it were true that he wasn't the Wordman, this meant the guy who did kill Sam Johnson was still roaming free. Of course Charley's obsessed and a man with an obsession tastes with a distempered appetite, as I'm sure you are aware, Mr Pascoe. I must say I have always sensed something… different about Ms Pomona, an odd sort of aura. Anyway, without having the slightest idea what I might be looking for, I thought I owed it to Sam to have a poke around.'

'And you chose a solitary woman's flat to have a poke around in?'

'Where else to start, Mr Pascoe? Charley was full of police conspiracy theory. I knew of course that, as far as you were concerned, that was out of the question, and I certainly didn't fancy breaking into Mr Dalziel's house. But young Mr Bowler, one look tells you he'd sell his soul for the sake of Ms Pomona. So she had to be the starting point. I knew she was going to be away that night, I had an excellent alibi in the conference. My session was a bit early, but it was easy to get it changed. It was a bit of a shock to run into you, I must admit. You looked like you'd seen a ghost, so I thought maybe I could persuade you that in a sense you had. Hence my second letter. Would I have written it if we hadn't encountered? I don't know. My first letter was genuinely intended to clear the air between us. But after the second, I found I was really enjoying having someone I could unburden myself to. In a sense, I regard our encounter as a nudge from God. But I'm sorry if the letters have caused you any distress.'

If he sounded any sincerer, I'd buy his old car, thought Pascoe savagely.

He said, 'So you found there was nothing to find, but left a bug anyway?'

'You found that? Clever. My intention, of course, was to leave no trace of my passage. But I accidentally knocked a vase over, which turned out to be a funerary urn. This confirmed my sense of Ms Pomona's otherness. People who keep dead people in their bedrooms are, you must admit, different. No way to clear it up, so I set about making it look like your normal burglary, rather as you have done here, Mr Pascoe.

Then as I was leaving I took the precaution of peering through the peephole, and who should I see lurking on the landing but Charley Penn! That gave me the idea of leaving something on her computer which might make Charley suspect number one.'

'Lorelei’ said Pascoe.

'You picked it up. Good. Then I went into the churchyard to plant my receiving cassette under the eave of a rather vulgar tomb, and that's when I saw you. Waste of rime, by the way. A few sound effects and a little pre- and post-coital converse, then the useless thing packed up. So you've got me bang to rights for that. On the other hand, will Mr Dalziel be all that keen to force me to explain my behaviour in detail under the public gaze in open court? Perhaps we should move on. I presume from the way you are clutching that watch that there is more?'

Why do I always feel like I'm speaking lines he's written for me? thought Pascoe desperately. Why can't I be a good old-fashioned dull unimaginative cop who at some point would give him a good old dull unimaginative kicking and send him on his way? What am I doing here? There's all kinds of places I'd rather be. Home in bed. Chasing around the county on Operation Serpent. Even, God help me, watching twenty little girls creating mayhem in the Jumbo Burger Bar at Estotiland! Why in the name of sanity am I here?

For a while as the kids tucked into their Jumbo burgers, there was relative peace. Even Rosie found it difficult to talk with her teeth sunk deep into a succulent wad of prime beef and chopped onion, crimson with ketchup. Ellie nibbled at hers, admitted its excellence, then took another long draught of the black coffee which fell some way short of the standard set by the burgers but would have to do as a restorative till she could get within annihilating distance of a big gin and tonic. Some of the other mums were still trying to be sparkling and sprightly, but Ellie could read the tell-tale signs.

Rosie finished her burger, washed it down with a quarter pint of something which was fluorescent mauve in colour and looked as if it could strip wallpaper, then approached her mother and said, 'Can I go with Mary to play on the Dragon?'

The Dragon was a feature of the play area which in Ellie's view could have been marketed as a pervert's sex-aid. Made of soft but tough plastic in vomit green and arterial blood red, the creature crouched menacingly