'I know. Asif. He runs Turk's caff. I was there when they nicked him.'
'You mean, with Lubanski?'
'Yeah.'
Pascoe digested this, saw the worry in Wield's eyes, guessed its source.
'Ah. But this Asif doesn't know you're a cop, I presume?'
'Didn't till Hector opened that great gob of his. Yon bugger's not fit to be let out!'
It was rare that Wield expressed his opinion of a fellow policeman so forcibly.
'But is there anything to make you think Asif might know of the link between Lubanski and Belchamber? Not likely, is it?'
The phone rang. Pascoe ignored it. Sorting Wield was his priority at the moment.
Not that Wield looked ready to be sorted.
'You know as well as I do, Pete, that a lot of stuff we have to pay good money for can be common knowledge if you move in the right circles. Lee knew Turk was into smuggling illegals, for instance. No, he didn't give me a tip, it was just a joke he made that I took no notice of. He assumed everyone knew! Pete, just now you said you met Belchamber and escorted him in. But I saw him a few minutes ago in the car park…'
Pascoe picked up his phone and spoke briefly to the desk sergeant.
Putting the receiver down he said, 'Yes. They're waiting for some hotshot to arrive from Immigration. Belchamber had a couple of minutes alone with Asif then came out. Seems he'd left something in the car. Went out for it, came back. That's when you must have seen him.'
Wield digested this, didn't care for the flavour.
The bastard was on his car phone. Shit, I don't like this.'
Pascoe, concerned to see his usually phlegmatic friend so agitated, said, 'Come on, Wieldy. Don't make something out of nothing. What do -you think happened down there in the cells? Asif said to Belchamber, 'Oh, by the way, putting aside my natural concern that I am in deep shit here banged up on suspicion of a serious offence which is why I called you, thought you might like to know I've seen that kid who sucks your dick cosying up to a cop in my caff a few times.' Then the Belch takes off to his car and rings some hardmen he knows and says, 'I'd like to fix up a hit on Lee Lubanski, action immediate.' Is that what you're thinking, Wieldy?'
If he'd thought to mock the sergeant out of his concern, he'd miscalculated.
'You're a mind-reader, Pete,' said Wield savagely. Tell me why I'm wrong.'
'Because this is Mid-Yorkshire, not the Mid-west. Because a guy like Belchamber might not be too chary about the way he makes his money, but the civilized, respectable face he shows is more than just a face. He may do a lot of things, but I doubt he's capable of having another human being killed!'
'Pete, you're missing the point. Men who use boys the way Belchamber uses Lee don't think of them as human beings. They're toys. That's how he feels able to carry on talking about his business on the phone with Lee there. He's negligible. He has a function and outside that function he doesn't exist. And if it turns out he does, then all that that means is this particular toy is broken, so you throw it away and get a new one!'
Wield's voice had climbed close to shouting level by the time he finished and Pascoe was staring at him in alarm when Dalziel's voice boomed from the doorway.
'What's all this then? Lovers' tiff? Have some consideration, eh? There's folk trying to sleep in this building.'
Quickly Pascoe explained.
The Fat Man listened intently then said, 'So what are you hanging around here for, Wieldy? Go and find the lad. Offer him protection, and if he don't want protected, put him in protective custody and bring him in. Off you go, chop-chop.'
Wield didn't hesitate. It wasn't permission he needed, just affirmation that he wasn't letting his emotions run away with his reason.
Dalziel closed the door behind him and turned to Pascoe.
'I hope this lad's worth all the bother. Come up with owt interesting this morning, did he?' he asked.
Pascoe filled him in and showed him the two articles. The Fat Man read them with little sign of interest then said, 'So what garden path's this stuff leading us up then?'
Pascoe, knowing from experience that Dalziel's dumb-ox reaction was usually a provocation to precise exposition, marshalled his thoughts and said, 'We have two things. DI Rose's tip that something big is being planned which straddles South's patch and ours, and Lee Lubanski's report of stuff he's overheard while servicing Belchamber. Conversations involving possibly Mate Polchard and certainly Linford also point to something being planned which may well be the job in question. Puzzle: why is Belchamber involved at the criminal end instead of merely standing by in readiness in case he's needed at the legal end? Possible answer: because he himself initiated the job.'
'The job being heisting this Hoard thing 'cos, like a good little patriot, he wants to save it for England?' said Dalziel, sounding like the Pope being told God was a woman.
'I'd say from these articles that that was certainly his initial reaction. Something had to be done, anything was worth doing, to keep the Hoard in the country. But at some point, perhaps as he began to realize the appeal to the country for money and to the Elsecars for patriotic sacrifice was going to fail, he began to ask himself, does the country deserve to have the Hoard saved for it?'
'And his answer was…?'
'No, it doesn't because it doesn't value its heritage sufficiently. I, on the other hand, do. So why not save it for myself? But how to do it? And now his years of crawling in the mud with the pondlife come in useful. He needs experts, he knows where to find them, and he knows how the system works.'
'Which system's that?'
'The finance system,' said Pascoe impatiently. Sometimes the Fat Man took his dumb elenctic act too far. 'He needs the best. Also he wants to keep control. He's not offering a share of profits. This is not a profit-making job. So this means paying top dollar. I don't know what level of remuneration gets Polchard out of bed these days, but I expect it's a little over the National Minimum Wage. And, profits or not, Mate will be well aware of the notional value of the stuff he's being asked to heist.'
'So why not go for it himself?'
'Because he's a cash man. Because he knows how hard it would be to move stuff like this. And also because he knows that Belchamber's often been the only thing between him and a lot more years in the Syke.'
Gratitude, you mean?' said Dalziel sceptically.
‘No. Chess. Sacrifice everything except your queen.'
'So why bring in Linford? Belchamber must be pretty well heeled.'
'Certainly. But with most of it well tied up. Also, he doesn't want to draw attention to himself by the sudden realization of assets. So he turns to Linford, who is expert in the supply of large quantities of used banknotes.'
'He'll want payback with interest.'
'He'll get it from the profits.'
'Thought you said there weren't going to be any profits? Thought the idea was Belch would keep the Hoard in his cellar and go down there and have a wank from time to time.'
'No. If you read his articles, the first one, a large part of the Hoard consists of golden coin, hugely valuable but by its nature hardly unique. I don't think he'd have any problem moving most of this. Also I suspect that, in terms of personal ownership, what he really lusts after is the snake coronet. A lot of the other stuff he might be very willing to share with similar bent collectors for a price.'
'And you and Wieldy got all this from someone making some crack about the Belch wearing a crown?' said Dalziel sceptically.
'There's also the fact that the Hoard Exhibition is currently in Sheffield on DI Rose's patch and it's transferring up here to the Centre on January twenty-sixth.'
'It's still a hell of a leap’ said Dalziel. 'You got a better shell-hole in mind, why don't you just jump into it?' snapped Pascoe. The Fat Man grinned with satisfaction. 'Nay, lad, you believe in it enough to get stroppy, that's good enough for me.'
There was a tap at the door and Novello's head appeared.
'Ah. You're both here,' she said.
