She said, ‘Listen in, laddies. This is DCI Pascoe. What he asks for, you give him. No need to come running to me like I’m your mam and you need your nose wiped. OK?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ the other two responded with a crispness born, Pascoe guessed, of past refusals by their boss to hear anything that wasn’t loud and clear, but the blond’s only response was to bring up the file. He then rose and offered Pascoe his chair.

Glenister said, ‘Peter, meet Dave Freeman. He has been known to speak.’

A smile touched Freeman’s lips without getting a grip and he said, ‘Hi.’

‘And hi to you too,’ said Pascoe, sitting down.

Though not in the same super-league as Edgar Wield, who it was rumoured could hack into Downing Street to check out what anti-wrinkle cream the PM used, Pascoe regarded himself as premier division, IT-speaking. As he gingerly accessed the file and realized just how extensive and comprehensive it was, the sense of an audience made him a touch nervous and he found himself bogged down in photos, both still and moving, of the rubble. He lingered here a while as if this were where he wanted to be before moving on to his real goal, a lengthy list of every recognizable item recovered from the ruins.

After scrolling through it twice, he asked, ‘Where’s the gun?’

‘Sorry?’ said Freeman at his shoulder.

Pascoe got in a bit of payback, blanking him for a second before swivelling round in search of Glenister who he discovered had moved across to the wall-board.

‘Where’s the gun?’ he said. ‘Hector reported that one of the men he saw had a gun. There’s no gun mentioned here.’

‘Peter,’ said the woman, ‘despite your admirable loyalty to Constable Hector, you’ve admitted yourself that, when it comes to detail, he’s not the most reliable of witnesses. In fact, wasn’t it Hector’s involvement that made Mr Dalziel so sure there was no man with a gun on the premises that he took the reckless action he did?’

Reckless. Shit on Dalziel, shit on Hector, in fact, shit on Mid-Yorkshire policework generally. He thought he was getting the message.

He stood up and said, ‘Thanks, Dave,’ to Freeman.

‘Any time, Pete.’

Pete. Was this kid his own rank? Or just a cheeky sergeant?

Neither, the answer came to him. The C in CAT stood for combined. Freeman was a spook. Did Trimble know that Glenister had imported non-police personnel into the Station? Of course he did! Pascoe answered himself angrily. He was getting as paranoid as Andy Dalziel about the security services.

Glenister was observing him as if his reactions were scrolling across his forehead.

He went up to her and said brusquely, ‘So what’s the state of play now?’

‘Complex. We’re working backwards and forwards at the same time, trying to trace where all this explosive we didn’t know about came from, and what it was they planned to do with it. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Peter. I’ll get your PC linked to our network here so you’ll have everything at your fingertips and not need to wear a hole in the corridor running along here every time you need an update. But do drop in any time you need to. For obvious reasons we need to have a bit of a firewall between us and the rest of the Station. But as far as you’re concerned, you’re fireproof. And I’m hoping it will be two-way traffic. Anything you think may help, don’t hesitate. You’re the man on the spot. Your input could be invaluable.’

It was an exit-cue if ever he’d heard one.

But for all her vibrantly sincere assurances, as Pascoe returned to his own office he felt less like a protagonist with big speeches still to come than an attendant lord, fit to swell a progress or start a scene or two.

In fact it occurred to him as his ribs twinged and his knee began to ache that at the moment he didn’t actually feel fit enough even for those walk-on roles.

And when Edgar Wield looked in twenty minutes later and found him half slumped across his desk, he made no protest as the sergeant escorted him down the stairs to the car park and drove him home.

2 show business

Archambaud de St Agnan said, ‘Aren’t we too close?’

‘For what?’ said Andre de Montbard. ‘He’s used to being followed. That’s what makes it so easy.’

Ahead of them, the silver Saab turned right into a long street of tall Edwardian houses and came to a halt after about fifty yards. Andre pulled the black Jaguar into the kerb some three car lengths behind.

The driver of the Saab got out. He was a tall, athletically built man with shoulder-length hair and a lean intelligent face with a neat black moustache beneath an aquiline nose. Pausing beneath a street lamp to look back at the Jaguar, he put his hands together and made a small perfunctory bow before running lightly up the steps, inserting a key and vanishing through the door.

‘Cheeky sod,’ said Andre. ‘Thinks he’s bullet proof. He’s due a reality check.’

He got out, opened the back door and took out a sports bag.

‘You OK?’ he said to Archambaud who hadn’t moved.

‘Yeah. Fine.’

Andre said, ‘Listen, it’s OK to be scared. Really. Ones I always looked for were the ones who didn’t look scared first time out. Remember what they did to your uncle, OK? All you’ve got to do is give him a tap, I’ll be taking care of the serious stuff. Crap yourself if you must, so long as you don’t freeze, OK?’

Managing a smile, Archambaud said, ‘I’ll try to avoid both.’

‘So let’s do it.’

They walked quickly along the pavement and climbed the steps of the house. Andre glanced down the list of names by the bell-pushes, selected the one marked Mazraani and pressed.

After a short delay a voice came over the intercom.

‘Gentlemen, how can I help you?’

‘Just like a quick word, sir,’ said Andre.

‘By all means. Won’t you come up?’

They heard the wards of the door lock click open.

‘See? Easy.’

They went inside. There was a lift but Andre ignored it and set off up the stairs.

The flat they wanted was on the second floor. They rang the bell. When the door opened, they went in. There were two men in the room, which was conventionally furnished with a sofa and easy chair, a hi-fi system from which, turned well down, came the voice of a woman singing in Arabic, and heavy oak dining table with four matching chairs. The tall man from the Saab was standing in front of the table, facing them. The other man, in his twenties with a wispy beard, sat in the easy chair. He was smoking a richly scented cigarette and avoided eye contact with the newcomers.

‘Evening, Mr Mazraani,’ said Andre to the tall man. ‘And this is…?’

‘My cousin, Fikri. He’s staying with me for a few days.’

‘That’s nice. Anyone else in the flat?’

‘No. Just the two of us,’ he replied.

‘Mind if we check that? Arch.’

Archambaud went out of a door to the left. After a few moments he came back into the living room and said, ‘Clear.’

‘So now we can perhaps get down to what brings you here. Won’t you introduce yourselves? For the tape?’

Mazraani’s voice was bland and urbane. He seemed almost to be enjoying the situation, by contrast with the other man who looked resentful and apprehensive.

Andre said, ‘Certainly, sir. I’m called Andre de Montbard, Andy to my friends. And my colleague is Mr Archambaud de St Agnan. He’s got no friends. And this lady singing is, I’d say, the famous Elissa? Compatriot of yours, I believe? Gorgeous girl. Lovely voice, and those big amber eyes! I’m a great fan.’

He moved to the hi-fi and turned up the volume, using his index knuckle.

Then he set his sports bag on the table, unzipped it, reached inside and took out an automatic pistol with a silencer attached.

A look of disbelief touched Mazraani’s features but the seated man did not even have time to register fear before Andre shot him between the eyes from short range.

‘Sorry about that, sir, but we wanted to talk to you privately,’ said Andre. ‘So why don’t you just relax and we’ll have that drink.’

Horror at what he’d just seen had paralysed Mazraani. He stood there looking down at the body, blinking now and then as if trying to clear the image from his vision, his mouth open but no words coming out.

Andre nodded at his companion, who looked almost as shocked as Mazraani.

‘Wake up, Arch!’ snapped Andre.

The man called de St Agnan gave a twitch, then reached into his pocket, took out a leaden cosh and swung it against Mazraani’s neck with tremendous force. He gave a choking groan and sank to his knees.

‘There, that wasn’t difficult, was it?’ said Andre. ‘And unless my nose has got stuffed up, you’ve not even crapped yourself yet. Now it’s show time.’

He went back to the sports bag and took out a video camera which he passed to Archambaud. Next came a black hood with eye-holes which he pulled over his head, then a pair of long latex gloves which he put on.

Now he took out a length of polished wood, about two and half feet long, like the extension butt of a snooker cue. And finally he drew forth a bin-liner from which he took a gleaming steel cleaver blade, six inches deep and eighteen inches long, with a threaded tail of another eight inches which he screwed into the end of the wooden butt.

Mazraani was trying to rise. Archambaud raised the cosh again but Andre said, ‘No need for that, Arch. Here, sir, let’s give you a hand.’

He placed one of the dining chairs on its side in front of the stricken man, then pushed him forward so that his head rested over the chair back.

‘Just get your breath, sir,’ said Andre. ‘Arch, you ready?’

‘Do we really need this…?’ said Archambaud uneasily.

‘Main point of the exercise. Just point the fucking thing and try to keep it steady.’

He pushed the tall man’s long hair forward over his head to leave the neck clear, grasped the polished wood of the butt and raised the glistening blade high above his head.

‘You rolling?’

‘Yes,’ said Archambaud in a low voice.

‘Then here we go!’

The blade came crashing down.

It took three blows before the severed head fell on to the carpet.

‘All that practise with logs, thought I’d have done it in one,’ said Andre. ‘You OK?’

Archambaud managed a nod. He was pale and shaking but he still held the camera pointed at the body.

‘Good man,’ said Andre.

He wiped the blade on the bearded man’s robe before unscrewing it from the handle and dropping it into the bin-liner, which he replaced in the sports bag.

‘Now all we need are the credits then we’re out of here.’

From the bag he took a cardboard tube about eighteen inches long out of which he pushed a paper scroll. This he unrolled to reveal it was covered with Arab symbols. After checking it was the right way up, he held it before the camera for thirty seconds.

‘OK,’ he said, replacing the scroll in the tube. ‘You can turn that thing off now. Time to go. You touch anything out there?’

‘Just the door handles and I wiped them.’

‘Great,’ he said, removing the hood and dropping it into the bag. ‘We make a good team. Morecambe and fucking Wise, that’s us. In fact, let’s see…’

He looked at his watch.

‘Four minutes thirty since we came through the door. I gave us five, and I was only expecting one of them. Now that’s what I call show business!’

3 walking the dog

After his first attempt to get back to work, Pascoe spent the next two days in bed. On the third he was feeling recovered enough to insist that he was only going to spend another day on his back if Ellie joined him, which she did, purely on medical grounds, she said, which in fact turned out to be true as she cunningly contrived to leave him so exhausted that when he woke again, it was the morning of the fourth day.

He appeared so much better that Ellie had few qualms about letting him take their daughter’s dog Tig out for a stroll after lunch.

‘You won’t be taking the car?’ she said.

‘Of course not. I’m going for a walk, remember?’ he retorted.

Satisfied that this amounted to an assurance he wasn’t going anywhere near Police HQ, she waved him goodbye before heading into her ‘study’ to get on with some very necessary work on her second novel.

(If asked—which few people dared—how things were going, Ellie would reply that it was one of the great myths of publishing that the most difficult thing of all was to follow up the success of a universally acclaimed first novel. No, the really difficult thing was to produce a second novel after your first had attracted as much attention as a fart in a thunderstorm.)

Now she re-immersed herself in her book, confident that all she needed to do here to produce a bestseller was apply the same subtle understanding of human nature that she had just demonstrated in her management of her husband.

Meanwhile, two streets away, Pascoe was climbing into a car driven by Edgar Wield, who wasn’t happy.

‘Ellie’s going to kill me when she finds out,’ he said.

‘Relax. She’ll not find out,’ said Pascoe confidently.

Wield didn’t reply. In his experience there were two people who always found out, and one of them was Ellie Pascoe.

The other was still lying in a coma.

‘So what’s Sinister Sandy up to?’ said Pascoe.

‘Oh, this and that,’ said Wield vaguely.

Pascoe looked at him suspiciously.

‘Start with this, then move on to that,’ he ordered.

‘Well, she plays her anti-terrorist stuff pretty close, that’s understandable,’ said Wield. ‘But with us being a bit short-handed at the top, it’s been a real help her being an old mucker of Desperate Dan’s. She keeps well back from the hands-on stuff, of course—says it’s our patch, so it should be our call—but when it comes to structuring organization and paperwork, she’s really got on top of things. Now it’s not just Andy who knows what’s going off, it’s the lot of us.’

Pascoe’s suspicions were thickening by the second. Praise from Wield on matters of organization was praise indeed. Well, he was entitled to call it like he saw it. But that crack about Dalziel came close to high treason.

He said, ‘You sound like you’re a convert, Wieldy. Hey, you didn’t tell her I rang this morning, did you?’

‘What do you think I am?’ said Wield, hurt. ‘Anyway, she had to drive down to Nottingham. The Carradice trial’s started and she’s involved.’

‘Involved in the great cock-up, is she?’ said Pascoe not without satisfaction. ‘God, and she’s the one calling the shots in our investigation!’

They drove the rest of the way to their destination in silence except for the excited panting of Tig, who always insisted on having a car window open sufficiently for him to stick his snout out. Basically a terrier, he condescended to treat most humans as equals on condition they fed him, played games to his rules, and took him on adventurous walks, all that is except Rosie Pascoe, whom he had elected Queen of the Universe.

Now as the car came to a halt the little dog tried to squeeze the rest of his body through the narrow gap in his eagerness to explore what to him was new terrain.

‘So here we are,’ said Wield. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘Just take a look,’ said Pascoe. ‘No harm in that, is there?’

They were parked at the end of Mill Street. The rubble of the wrecked terrace had not yet been cleared away and barriers had been set up at either end of the street. A PC Pascoe recognized as a probationer called Andersen regarded them suspiciously till Wield wound down the window and waved.

‘Taking their time, tidying up,’ observed Pascoe. ‘That down to Glenister?’

‘I suppose. But the Council Works Department are still assessing damage to the viaduct wall. Word is it looks OK and they’re starting running trains over it again with a ten miles per hour speed restriction. The diversions were causing absolute chaos.’

‘So bad folk noticed, you mean?’ said Pascoe. ‘What about our royal visitant?’

‘Coming by chopper. What he prefers anyway.’

‘I see the papers are taking it as read that his train was the target,’ said Pascoe.

‘Keeps them happy,’ said Wield. ‘Glenister says she’s keeping an open mind.’

‘So you have been chatting about the case?’ said Pascoe.

‘Like I said, she’s approachable. And the PC in your office is on the CAT network, like she promised.’

‘Very cosy. Have you managed to check how many no-go areas are built in?’

‘Jesus, Pete,’ protested the sergeant. ‘She’s falling over herself to keep us happy. You think I’m going to help matters trying to trip her up? Even if she does hold back a bit, I bet not even Trimble’s got the clearance you need to know all that CAT stuff.’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Pascoe shortly. ‘So let’s go and take a look before young Andersen there follows orders and shoots us.’

They got out and went towards the barrier.

Andersen greeted them with a smart salute, then took out his notebook.

‘No need for that,’ said Pascoe smiling. ‘This is sort of unofficial official. Must be a bit boring for you, just hanging around here.’

‘Doesn’t seem much point to it,’ agreed the youngster disconsolately.

‘Not to worry,’ said Pascoe. ‘As long as you’re appreciated where it matters, eh? I’ll have a word with Mr Ireland, see if he can’t find you something a little more testing.’

‘Thanks very much, sir,’ said Andersen, delighted.

‘You really going to start telling Paddy Ireland how he should deploy his men?’ said Wield as they walked towards the ruined terrace.

‘I may suggest diplomatically that there are better ways of nurturing youthful enthusiasm than giving it all the most boring jobs,’ replied Pascoe.

Wield gave a grunt which was in itself a masterpiece of diplomacy, conveying the message You must be out of your tiny mind without getting close to a definably insubordinate phoneme.

Pascoe wasn’t paying attention anyway. He was recalling that day, so close still yet feeling as if it belonged in the historical past, when he’d risen from behind the car and taken those last few steps in the wake of Dalziel.

The wake of Dalziel. Not the best omened of phrases.

He shook it out of his mind and concentrated on the collapsed terrace into which Tig was already plunging with great delight, sending up clouds of white dust.

‘Any traces of asbestos?’ he asked, suddenly alarmed.

‘No, you’re OK,’ said Wield, glancing in a plastic folder. ‘Don’t think expensive fire-retardant materials had much appeal for the guys who built houses like these.’

‘That Jim Lipton’s report you’ve got there?’ said Pascoe.

Lipton was the Chief Fire Officer.

‘That’s right.’

‘What about the CAT stuff? If I know them, they wouldn’t be happy till they got their own experts in to second-guess the local yokel.’

‘Tried to access it, but they’ve got a firewall even Jim ‘ud find it hard to chop down,’ said Wield.

‘So you have been checking!’ said Pascoe, thinking that IT protection that kept Wield out had to be serious gear.

‘Only because I didn’t want to draw attention, this visit being so accidental.’

‘Quite right,’ said Pascoe. ‘So what’s Jim say?’

‘The way this place was built, the blast reduced it to matchwood, which was very handy for the fire. Site of the big bang was definitely Number 3. Relatively small amount of damage to the viaduct wall suggests that if it was their intention to plant the explosive there, they hadn’t yet started their excavation.’

‘Anything on the explosive?’

‘Not from Jim. Not his bag. But it was definitely Semtex.’

‘Your friend Glenister tell you that?’

‘No, I got chatting to one of her officers. Nice lad.’

Pascoe raised his eyebrows and said, ‘Wieldy, I hope you remembered you’re a happily married man.’

The sergeant and his partner, Edwin Digweed, had taken advantage of the new legislation formalizing same-sex relationships soon after it came into force. The Pascoes and Dalziel had attended the ceremony, which was a quiet affair. The party which followed in their local pub, the Morris, was far from quiet, but, rather surprisingly in view of Wield’s profession, neither ceremony nor celebration caused the least ripple of interest in the local media. Surprisingly, that was, to everyone except Pascoe. He’d expressed the hope to Dalziel that, despite the two Eds’ declared determination to live their lives as they wanted, there’d be no intrusive media presence. The Fat Man had replied, ‘Shame. I were looking forward to seeing our Wieldy as Bride of the Month in Mid-Yorkshire Life. But mebbe you’re right. I’ll have a word.’

It was generally believed that if Dalziel had had a word, news of the death of Little Nell would not yet have reached Mid-Yorkshire.

‘Get anything else from this nice lad?’ enquired Pascoe.

‘Nay. Sandy Glenister came along just then and he were off like a linty.’

‘So much for her open sharing policy.’

‘I think you’ve got her wrong,’ said Wield. ‘She answers all my questions, or if she doesn’t, she tells me why. She reckons they were probably setting up a detonator device and something went wrong.’

‘It certainly went wrong for Andy,’ said Pascoe grimly.

‘It started going wrong before that,’ said Wield. ‘It started going wrong when he decided not to follow instructions.’

‘Got that in one of your cosy chats, did you?’ snapped Pascoe.

Wield did not acknowledge the question but after a short silence said gently, ‘Pete, what exactly are we doing here?’

What indeed? thought Pascoe. It was a desolate scene. The hot sunny spell was long gone, the temperature was distinctly unsummerish, clouds scudded overhead on a gusty wind which picked up handfuls of ash and created little dust-devils in the gloomy cleft formed by the looming mill and the railway viaduct. To explain he was here because of some crazy notion that only by finding out exactly what had happened in this place could he hope to keep Andy Dalziel alive would make him sound positively doolally.

He said, ‘A crime was committed here. That’s my job, investigating crime.’

It came out more pompous and dismissive than he intended.

Wield said, ‘So you’re going to do your great detective act and sift through the ashes and find a clue the CAT team missed?’

The open sarcasm was no more than he deserved, thought Pascoe.

Trying to lighten things, he said, ‘No, I’ll leave that to Tig. What have you got there, boy?’

Tig, a great snapper up of unconsidered and often insanitary trifles, came to them like his own ghost, covered in white dust and carrying something in his mouth.

Pascoe stopped to accept the gift, wincing as his ribs reminded him that they might be ignorable when he was dallying with his wife, but at all other times, they could still crack a sharp whip.

It was a piece of plastic, fused into a bolus by the intense heat of the fire.

‘One of the videos, I expect,’ said Wield. ‘The report says there was hardly anything left identifiable.’

Pascoe threw it away, which was a mistake. Tig went after it with a delighted yelp, raising an even denser cloud of dust and ash. He was going to need a thorough brushing before he came in sight of Ellie.

‘We’ve got company,’ said Wield.

‘Shit,’ said Pascoe.

A car had drawn up by the barrier. Out of it stepped a blond-haired elegantly suited figure he recognized as Dave Freeman, Glenister’s attendant spook.

He came towards them, a faint smile on his too regular face.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Nice to see you up and about again, Pete.’

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