He tore open the first letter. Not that he knew it was the first as it had exactly the same postmark on it as the second. But a quick glance down the opening page confirmed this one started where the previous letter had left off.
When he came to the bit about Roote's vision of himself at the back of the lecture theatre, he stopped reading for a minute while he debated whether it should make him feel more or less worried about himself. Less, he decided. Or maybe more. He read on. He had no ocular delusion of the man's presence as he read but he could feel Roote's influence reaching out of the words and trying to tie him into his life. To what end? It wasn't clear. But to no good end, of that he was absolutely certain.
Perhaps the second letter would make things clearer.
He felt curiously reluctant to open it, but sat for some while with it in his hand, growing (his suddenly Gothic imagination told him) heavier by the minute.
A noise brought him out of his reverie. It was the front door opening. Ellie's voice called, ‘Peter? You still here?'
Now he could get what he'd been wishing for not very long ago, Ellie's sane and sensible reaction.
Instead he found himself stuffing both letters, the read and the unread, into his pocket.
'Here you are,' she said, coming into the kitchen. 'I thought you'd have been gone by now. It's the Linford case today, isn't it? I hope they lock the bastard up and throw away the key.'
Ellie's usually tender heart stopped bleeding and became engorged with indignation at mention of Liam Linford.
'Don't fret,' he said to Ellie now. 'We've got the little shitbag tied up. Rosie OK?'
'You bet. It's all Nativity Play rehearsals. She's taken young Zipper's card, allegedly to prove to Miss Martingale that angels really did play the clarinet. But I reckon she wants to boast about her sexual conquests to her mates.'
'Oh God. The Nativity Play. When is it? Friday? I suppose we have to go?'
'You bet your sweet life,' she said. 'What's happened to the great traditionalist who nearly blew a gasket when there was that petition to ban it on the grounds it was ethnically divisive? What was it you said? 'Give in on this and it's roast turkey and poppadoms next.' Now you don't want to go! You're a very confused person, DCI Pascoe.'
'Of course I want to go. I've even asked Uncle Andy to guarantee I've got God's own imprimatur. I'm just worried a non-speaking angel's part isn't going to satisfy Rosie.'
'At least Miss Martingale has persuaded her that having Tig in the manger would not be such a good idea, and I don't doubt she'll talk her out of the clarinet solo too.'
'Maybe. But she told me last night that it seems odd to her that when the innkeeper told Mary there was no room, the angels didn't come down and give him a good kicking.'
'It's a fair point,' said Ellie. 'Having all that power and not using it never made much sense to me either.'
He kissed her and went out. She was right, as usual, he thought. He was a very confused person, not at all like the cool, rational, thoughtful mature being Franny Roote pretended to believe in.
The unread letter bulked large in his pocket. Maybe it should stay unread. Whatever game Roote was playing clearly required two players.
On the other hand, why should he fear a contest? What was it Ellie had just said? 'Having all that power and not using it never made much sense to me.'
He turned out of the morning traffic stream into a quiet side street and parked.
It was a long, long letter. Two-thirds of the way through it he reached for his morning paper which he hadn't had time to read yet, and found what he was looking for on an inside page.
'Oh, you bastard,' he said out loud, finished the letter, started the car, did a U-turn and reinserted himself aggressively into the traffic flow.
Letter 3. Received Mon Dec 17 ^ th P. P
St Godric’s College
Cambridge
My dear Mr Pascoe,
Again so soon! But measured by swings of emotion, how very much time has passed!
Still buoyed up by my sense of having made a wise decision, and been approved in it by you, I went down to dinner tonight, posting my last letter en route, and found Albacore waiting to offer me a choice of dry or very dry sherry. I displayed my independence by refusing both and demanding gin. Then, because I wanted to relax and enjoy myself, I relented and told him that, subject to detail and safeguards, he had a deal.
'Excellent,' he said. 'My dear Franny, I couldn't be more pleased. Amaryllis, my love, come and renew old acquaintance.'
She hadn't hung around after my paper, but here she was in a sheer silk gown cut low enough to make a man forget the spur of fame. She greeted me like an old friend, kissing me on the lips and chatting away about other inmates of the Syke as though we were talking of old acquaintance from the tennis club.
It really was an excellent night. Everything about it – the setting, the food, the wine, the atmosphere, the conversation – confirmed the wisdom of my decision. I was seated between Amaryllis and Dwight Duerden, there being too few female delegates to allow the usual gender hopping (academia is equal opportunity land, but not that equal!) and the pressure, too frequent to be coincidental, from Amaryllis's thigh, made me wonder if this happy night might not be brought in every sense to a fitting climax.
Perhaps fortunately, the opportunity didn't arise. After the dinner Albacore invited some few of us (the most distinguished plus myself) back to the Dean's Lodging, all men save for Amaryllis, and she soon retired as the cigars came out and the atmosphere thickened with aromatic fumes. It was deliriously old fashioned, and I loved it.
Albacore was by now treating me like a younger brother, and when Dwight requested a tour of the Lodging, he put his arm round my shoulder and the two of us led the way.
The D's Lodging was a sort of early eighteenth-century annexe to the original college building and must have stuck out like a new nose on an old star's face for a time. But Cambridge of all places has the magic gift of taking unto itself all things new and wearing their newness off them with loving care till in the end they too are part of the timeless whole. It was a fine old building with that feel I so much love of a lived-in church, infinitely more splendid than the Q's suite of rooms (what must the Master's Habitation, a small mansion situated on a grassy knoll in the college grounds overlooking the river, be like?) and full of what should have been a stylistic hodge- podge of furniture, statuary and paintings had they not also succumbed to the unifying aura of that magical world.
I lusted for it all, and I think Justin sensed my yearning, and felt how much closer it bound me to his desires, and grappled me to him ever more lightly as the tour proceeded.
The study was for me the sanctus sanctorum, lit with a dim religious light, its book-lined walls emanating that glorious odour of old leather and paper which I think of as the incense of scholarship. At its centre stood a fine old desk, ornately carved and with a tooled leather top large enough for a pair of pygmies to play tennis on.
Dwight, miffed perhaps to find himself behind me in the Dean's pecking order, said, 'How the hell do you work in this gloom? And where do you hide your computer?'
'My what?' cried Alabacore indignantly. 'Compute me no computers! When my publisher suggested that in the interest of speed it would be useful if he could have my Beddoes book on disk, I replied, 'Certainly, if you can provide me with a large enough disc of Carrara marble and a monumental mason capable of transcribing my words!' Press keys and produce letters on a screen and what have you got? Nothing! An electronic tremor which an interruption of the electrical supply can destroy. Show me one great work which has been produced by word- processing. When I write with my pen, I am writing on my heart and what is inscribed there will take the rubber of God to erase.'
I sensed that Dwight, who probably had a computerized khazi, was drunk enough to tell his host he was talking crap, so, not wanting this atmosphere I was so much enjoying to be soured by dissent, I essayed a light- hearted diversion.
'God uses rubbers, does he?' I said. 'Must have burst when he was into Mary.'
