according to Mrs Eel, audible in Bradwell if not Beyond. The story now skipped a couple of years to the day when Anthea returned home for the first time since the wedding, pregnant and alone. Her parents took her in and after a while gave out the story that her husband was engaged in some special operation and that Anthea was very keen her child should be born a Hopeite. Mrs Eel was not deceived. Her diagnosis, borne out by subsequent events, was a deep malaise in the marriage.
The child was born prematurely before Anthea could be loaded into the ambulance summoned to take her to hospital (so Franny was being strictly accurate when he said he was born in Hope, thought Ellie). Shortly afterwards, Sergeant Roote appeared on the scene and bore off child and wife to his den in the South, thus apparently confirming the official version of events. But Mrs Eel still was not deceived.
'I knew it 'ud end in tears,' she declared. 'The lass kept coming back more and more frequent, always with the lad, but never with the policeman. I think she wanted a divorce early on, but her mam and dad were dead against it.'
This puzzled Ellie until Mrs Eel revealed the Athertons belonged to some fairly fundamental nonconformist sect to whom a foolish marriage might be an offence against your family, but a fractious divorce was an offence against God. So now it was the parents who attempted to keep things going. All the reward they got was that when some professional disaster hit Sergeant Roote's career, their daughter had to share in it. Exactly what form it took Mrs Eel had to admit she didn't know, but she knew it was bad enough to get him chucked out of the Force without a pension, after which it was all downhill, and when in a short time he died (drink or suicide, Mrs Eel theorized) Anthea was left destitute.
At this point Mrs Eel's direct knowledge of what happened became fragmentary, but she was clearly a great snapper-up of indiscreet trifles and she was able to provide Ellie with enough bits and pieces to add to her own knowledge of the subsequent course of Franny Roote's life for the construction of a convincing mosaic.
She laid this out before Pascoe that night, jumping straight in once the anticipated explosion of The bastard's been at it again!' after he read the letter had faded away.
He had listened with close attention but without any of the ooh's and ah's of wonderment and admiration she felt her researches deserved.
But in for a penny, in for a pound.
‘I’ll leave you to find out what this career-ending disaster might have been,' she said. 'What I think happened after his death was that Anthea, faced with the prospect of vegetating gently in Hope, decided to put the expensive education her parents had given her to practical use. She re-established contact with old school-friends. I would guess that to them the sight of a beautiful, wilful, and probably rather condescending old school chum being forced to admit she'd got it all wrong and her life was an unmitigated disaster was irresistible. Soon she was moving once more in their elevated circles. Mrs Eel certainly recalls young Fran (whom she describes as a strange, solemn child, a bit fey) being looked after for increasingly long periods by his grandparents. Ultimately of course Anthea showed her friends the error of their charitable ways by plucking from under their noses the prize plum of the rich and attractive American bachelor who became her second husband. But it seems that Franny did not form part of the deal. He looked like becoming a permanent fixture at his grandparents' house in Hope, then Mrs Atherton died of cancer leaving Mr Atherton too frail and distraught to look after the boy alone. And so, I surmise, began that long involvement with the British boarding school system which has produced such a fine crop of crooks, psychotics and prime ministers.'
'Roote did well then. Two out of three's not bad’ said Pascoe. 'Your conclusions? I can tell by your flaring nostrils that you have conclusions.'
'Surely here we have the perfect explanation of Franny's love’hatred relationship with his father? He's a hero to the boy – that story of the attack in the park is almost certainly based on truth, if perhaps a little coloured by memory. But his failure to provide for his family led to Fran's neglect and stressful upbringing. He tried to write him out of his life by claiming almost complete ignorance of the man, but Ms Haseen got through his guard. And his obsessive relationship with you derives largely from the fact that you are another cop who has had a tremendous influence on his life, bad in that you got him locked up in the Syke, but good in that everything now seems to be falling right for him. Also he's desperately in need of a living father-figure. And of course your obsession with him must have made him believe that you too felt a special relationship here.'
The bastard's got that right then’ said Pascoe feelingly.
'Come on, Pete. Give him a break. I'm not denying there's an element of mockery and teasing in these letters, but can't you see there's much more?'
'Like threats, you mean? And hints at crimes committed which I can't touch him for?'
'No. Like… need.'
'Ellie, if you're going to say they're a cry for help, I may puke’
'Shut up and open the prezzies I bought you in the sales’ she commanded.
He tore open the tissue paper and looked in horror at the mohair sweaters in the bright colours and bold designs she believed suited him.
'I may puke anyway’ he said.
Shirley Novello was a good Catholic, if Catholic goodness means believing all the rules and keeping as many as you can without bursting. The one she had most problems with was the one that says sex outside marriage is sinful, which was perhaps why, as she once tried to explain to Father Joseph Kerrigan, she got involved with a married man from time to time, as in a way that was sex sort of half in marriage, wasn't it?
Father Joe had shaken his head and said, 'If the SJ's took women, I'd enter you straight off. Next time you feel the urge coming on, pray for strength to resist. Miracles do happen. And while you're at it, make the sign of the cross, but make it with your legs.'
In fact a miracle had happened at Christmas, that most miraculous of times. It had started well. Her Transport sergeant had managed to spend the morning with her using the pretext of a duty-sharing roster, which, considering that there were no trains on Christmas Day, meant his wife must be pretty thick. He'd given Novello a digital camera which must have cost an arm and a leg, so in return she'd given him both her arms and legs and every other part of her anatomy she could bring into contact with every part of his she could reach. How he explained the exhausted state in which he returned home she did not know, but when she next saw him, the day after Boxing Day, she found that memory of their festive fuck plus a vast excess of family festivity had combined to make him start talking seriously of escaping to the wildwoods with her and building a willow cabin or some such nonsense.
Now the miracle occurred.
In the twinkling of an eye he was transformed from a strong handsome interestingly hairy lover in the prime of life to a middle-aged beer belly with the beginnings of a bald patch and four noisy, ill-mannered kids. She gave him his marching orders and even thought of returning the camera, but in the end thought what the hell! she'd earned it.
So Novello had begun the New Year as New Years should be begun, with a clean slate and a whole cageful of lively resolutions. They beat their wings at the bars in vain till a Twelfth Night party from which she woke with the certain knowledge that they'd all flown the coop, though in what order she could not say. But the experience, she seemed to recollect, had been splendidly epiphanic. In other words her head felt fuzzy but her body felt great.
She rolled out of bed – her own – checked that no one was crapping in her bog or cooking in her kitchen – they weren't – complimented herself on having a great time without paying the high price of conversation over breakfast, and knocked back her usual hangover cure of a fried-egg sarnie and a litre of coffee black as a Unionist's heart.
Then she noticed the digital camera next to her party clothes on the floor.
She checked the pictures, didn't, thank God, find anything too naughty, but did come across a snap of a good-looking guy with a nice crinkly grin sitting on her sofa. She couldn't put a name to him, but his face sent a distinct mnemonic tremor through her erogenous zone.
She wanted a close-up, but when she tried to feed it into her computer she found the bloody thing was knackered. Never mind. The station was full of bloody things.
Then she set out for work. She was proud of her fitness and she jogged to the station every other day. This was an other day. A lesser woman might have chickened, but not Novello. She'd woken up at her usual time and she was resolved to follow her usual routine. Sticking a change of clothes plus her camera into a small rucksack,
