Not that England is currently at war with anyone likely to use zeppelins.
On the other hand what lies directly beneath him does look a bit like a bomb site.
It occurs to him that this might be exactly what it is. Hard to identify even the familiar from above, but isnt that the old wool milland over there the railway line with a no-mans land of desolation between?
And dont the spirits of the dead come back to haunt the place where they passed away?
But hed shaken off Death, hadnt he?
A starling circles him twice, then settles on his shoulder.
Watch what youre doing up there, says Dalziel, squinting at it. Im not a fucking statue.
The birds beady eyes fix on his. With its smooth gleaming head hunched down between its folded wings, it reminds him ofHector!
Sod off! commands Dalziel. Im not dead!
The birds gaze communicates an indifference worse than mockery.
The Fat Man feels his gut twist and tauten.
The pressure becomes intolerable.
He breaks wind.
The relief is huge and more than physical.
Dead men dont fart! he cries triumphantly.
The starling rises from off his shoulder and flutters before his face as though contemplating sinking its arrowhead beak into his eyes.
Dalziel breaks wind again, this time with such force he gets lift-off and accelerates into the bright blue yonder like a Cape Canaveral rocket. Soon the startled starling is nothing more than a distant mote, high above which an overweight, middleaged detective superintendent at last realizes the Peter Pan fantasy of his early childhood and laughs with sheer delight as he tumbles and soars between the scudding clouds of a Mid-Yorkshire sky.
5 age of wonders
The following day, Pascoe was back at work.
Ellie, as omnivident as Wield had feared, did not take long to find out about the expedition to Mill Street.
Shed been too deeply immersed in her writing to pay much heed when Pascoe and Tig returned from their walk. A swim in the river had removed all the ashy evidence from the dogs coat and Ellies creative absorption had given Pascoe plenty of time to brush the tell-tale dust from his shoes and turn-ups. But when she came down from Parnassus to find him in the garage, carefully sawing a bolus of melted plastic in half, her suspicions were instantly roused and a very little application of that wifely knife, deep questioning, soon probed the truth out of him almost at the same time as he probed a small lump of impacted metal out of the plastic.
Wait till I see Edgar! she threatened, her anger evidenced by her use of the sergeants first name instead of the usual Wieldy.
Not his fault, said Pascoe loyally. Im his superior officer. I ordered him.
Hah! said Ellie, conveying her low estimate of the authority of orders from such a tainted source. Then, sensing that her husband was less concerned about her wrath at the discovery of his perfidy than he ought to be, she said, So what have you got there?
I would say its probably a bullet, said Pascoe, holding the distorted sphere of metal to the light. From a gun.
I know where bullets come from.
Im sure you do. But this is a rather special gun. Its invisible to a CATs eye, you see. Of course, it might just be a metal spool in a cassette, melted by the heat.
She detected that this rider owed more to superstition than to doubt.
So what does it mean? she said.
Ive no idea. But it could prove something which in the past only the most fanciful of speculators have even dared hint the possibility of. Hector might have got something right. Whats for tea?
Next morning he was up at his normal time. Ellie like a master tactician knew when protest was pointless and fed him his breakfast without comment, except to say as he kissed her goodbye, Pete, youre not going to do anything silly, are you?
Good Lord, no, he said. This could be evidence. Ill hand it over to Glenister.
But not, he added silently to himself, before Ive made sure it really is evidence!
Which was why his first call was not at the Station but at the Police Laboratory, where he made it monosyllabically clear to Tony Pollock, the head technician, that he didnt want it done soon, he wanted it done now.
As a life-long Leeds United supporter, Pollock was well equipped to deal with whatever crap life could hurl, but even he remarked to his assistant, With that fat bastard in a coma I thought we might get a bit of peace and quiet from CID.
Aye, said the assistant. Adding, not unimpressed, Never would have thought the DCI knew words like that.
The result was what Pascoe had hoped for, what hed expected.
He found Sandy Glenister once more sitting behind Dalziels desk.
Peter! she said with the warm smile. I wondered if wed see you today. Dave mentioned seeing you in Mill Street and he thought you looked really well.
Yes, Im feeling much better, said Pascoe. Look, something a bit odd. My dog was rooting around in the debris
He contrived to suggest that Tig had carried the melted plastic all the way home and chewed the bullet out of it.
Interesting, said Glenister. Probably nothing, but if you leave it with me, Ill have our people check it out at the lab.
Been there, done that, got the report, said Pascoe. Definitely a bullet. In fact almost certainly 9 x 19 mm NATO parabellum, possibly fired from a Beretta semi-automatic pistol, 92 series.
He opened his briefcase, took out the evidence bag containing the bullet and the envelope containing the lab analysis and set them neatly on the desk before her.
She looked down at them but didnt touch them.
I see, she said slowly. Well, you have hit the ground running, havent you? So what do you make of it?
She hadnt invited him to sit but he did so now while it was still a matter of choice rather than necessity caused by his dicky knee.
Its obvious. A gun was fired, Hector heard the shot, the round finished up in one of the video cassettes. The big question is, what happened to the gun?
Glenister sat back and steepled her fingers against her nose. Then she opened her hands and put them behind her head, the movement raising her pompion breasts in a manner which Pascoe had to make an effort not to find distracting.
She smiled at him and said, Perhaps the big question should be left till weve looked at the wee ones. Firstly Ill need to get our CAT experts to confirm the findings of your local technicians. No reflection on their ability, you understand, but weve all got our specialismsHaving established it is a bullet, I will want them to look at this piece of plastic you say it came out of. You still have it, I take it?
Yes, its at home
So you didnt take it to your lab? Perhaps as well. Our people prefer to start from scratch without having to contend with any damage earlier, less subtle attempts at examination might have made.
Pascoe thought of the rusty clamp in his garage and the rather blunt hacksaw hed used to get the bullet out.
And if they confirm its a bullet in a melted video cassette? he asked.
Then we must ask how and when it got there. There may be no way of confirming it was fired from a gun on those premises on the same day as the explosion
It fits with what Hector heard!
Oh aye. Hector! she said mockingly.
Pascoe again found himself reacting to this knee-jerk dismissal of the constable.
He said, Look, just because Hectors pre-digital doesnt mean he doesnt function. Hes managed to identify one of the men he saw, hasnt he? OK, description-wise hes no great shakes, but find the right picture and he could still pick out the other.
His fervour seemed to impress Glenister.
You know your own men best, Peter, she said. All right. Lets say he did hear a gunshot and that this is indeed the bullet that was fired. This brings us to what you call the big question: Wheres the gun? Well, youve supplied one answer, you and your dog.
You mean it might have been missed?
This was, said Glenister lowering her hands to touch the evidence bag. We sifted the debris thoroughly, of course, but what we were looking for were indications of the nature of the explosion, the kinds of explosive used, their possible source. Plus, of course, body parts, remnants of clothing et cetera that could help identify the men killed. If there were a gun at or near the centre of the explosion, it could simply have disintegrated and its fragments been distorted unrecognizably by the subsequent heat.
Unrecognizably? Not very likely, is it? exclaimed Pascoe. Not unless your people arent as finicky as we like to be in Yorkshire.
Peter, she said gently, youve done well, but before you slag off the efforts of others, dont forget it was a stroke of sheer luck that put you on this track. Ill find where the council are dumping the debris and make my people go over it again. OK?
Before he could respond, the door was pushed open and Freeman said, Sorry, didnt know you had company. Sandy, we need to speak.
Glenister gave a little frown. Maybe she objected to Freemans rather peremptory tone in the presence of a native. Who was it held the whip hand in this weird twilight zone the CAT people inhabited? Pascoe wondered.
She said, Can it wait a moment, Dave?
No.
Well, that was certainly the sound of a whip-crack, thought Pascoe.
Glenister said, Peter, lets continue this later, all right?
Why not? Ill see if I can fit you in, he said. Dave, good to see you again.
He left, closing the door firmly behind him and resisting a strong temptation to press his ear to the woodwork.
Instead he went to see Wield and put him in the picture about the bullet.
His reaction was familiar.
So Hector couldve been right. Had to happen! Whats Sandy going to do?
Fuck knows, said Pascoe. Get her own examination done, then probably kick the whole thing into touch if it doesnt fit her agenda.
Pete, youve got to wait and see, protested Wield. Like I told you yesterday, she really seems to be treading eggshells to make sure we dont feel sidelined.
You reckon? Well, I think pretty soon youre going to hear a great deal of crunching underfoot. Somethings happened, and us being on the need-to-know list is even less likely than Hector getting things right. And if youd care to bet on that, Ill just run home and get the deeds of the house!
A man who had left a garden hammock to get blown up on an English Bank Holiday should have learned to distrust certainties.
Fortunately Wield didnt take the bet. Fifteen minutes later Pascoe got a summons to the CAT Ops Room. When he arrived he was met by men coming out carrying computer equipment. Inside he found Glenister talking animatedly into the scrambler phone. As he approached she finished speaking and handed the receiver to one of her men who unplugged the phone and put it into a box.
Youre moving out? said Pascoe.
Yes, were on our way. Wouldnt have been long anyway, we were just about done here, but somethings happened. What do you know about Said Mazraani?
Just what Ive seen and read. Lebanese academic, teaches at Manchester, good looking, talks well, dresses smart, claims high-level contacts throughout the Middle East. In other words, all the right qualifications for getting on the talking-head shows whenever they want an apparently rational Muslim extremist viewpoint. What the papers called the acceptable face of terrorism until he blotted his copybook with Paxman.
This had been the previous month, after the kidnapping and videoed execution of an English businessman called Stanley Coker. Mazraani had been trotted out to give an insight into the motives and mindset of the kidnappers, a group calling themselves the Sword of the Prophet. He prefaced his remarks with a fulsome expression of sympathy for the dead mans family, which he repeated when asked if he unreservedly condemned the killing. Very nice of you, said Paxman. But do you condemn the killing? Again the verbiage, again the question. And again, and again. And never a direct answer came.
Next day the papers went to town, led as always by the Peoples Voice.
The Peoples Voice, the youngest and fastest-growing of the tabloids, was in fact not so much the voice of the people as the rant of the slightly pissed know-it-all in the saloon bar who isnt fooled by government statements, legal verdicts, historical analyses, or forensic evidence, but knows what he knows, and knows hes right!
The Voice headline screamed
BEHEADING HOSTAGES IS OK! (so long as its done in the best possible taste)
Thats the one, said Glenister. Well, barring miracles, hes done his last talking-head show. For the past two days theres been a rumour that Al Jazeera had received a tape showing an execution, a beheading. But not a Western hostage this time. A Muslim.
So? In Iraq theyve shown little compunction about killing their own. Then it came to him what she was saying. You dont mean?
This morning the BBC, ITV and Sky all received copies of what is presumably the same tape. Yes, its definitely Mazraani. He hadnt been seen in any of his usual haunts for several days. We sent a team to visit his flat in Manchester. They were told to be discreet but there was already enough of a smell to bother the neighbours. He was in there, him and his head, quite close but not touching. Plus another man not known to us.
Jesus! exclaimed Pascoe. Was he beheaded too?
No. Shot. They want me back over there now. Mazraani was on my worksheet.
This sounds like big trouble, said Pascoe.
More than you can imagine, she said grimly.
Well, thanks for bringing me up to date he began.
Thats not why I sent for you, she interrupted. It will be in the papers anyway. Al Jazeera have said theyre going to broadcast today. No, what I wanted to say, Peter, was Ive asked Dan Trimble if I can take you with us. He says fine, if you feel up to it.
Pascoe was gobsmacked and made no attempt to hide it.
But why? he managed.
Peter, I cant be certain, but Ive got a feeling there might be some link with what happened here. Being as involved as you are usually means that judgments get blurred, corners cut. But from what Ive seen, I get the impression its just tightened your focus, heightened your responses. If there are any connections, could be youre the one most likely to sniff them out. So what do you say? Couple of days cant hurt, and youll only be an hour or sos drive away.