Death's Jest-Book Read online

  He smiled insinuatingly.

  Wield now saw things very clearly. He said, ‘That car … he wasn’t trying to pull you in, he was pushing you out.’

  Lee said, ‘That’s right. Don’t do the park any more, upmarket, that’s me. But I were at a loose end, went for a stroll and this guy … well, he seemed all right, said the money was fine but he only gave me half upfront and, when we’d done the business, he tossed the rest out the window. Didn’t surprise me, lot of ’em are like that, gagging for it till they’ve had it then they can’t get away quick enough. But when I picked it up I saw it were twenty light. I got the door open as he tried to drive away and … well, you saw the rest.’

  ‘Yes, I saw the rest. Why are you telling me this, Lee?’

  ‘Just wanted to save you the bother of putting out a call on that Montego. Unless you fancy getting my money back? But you wouldn’t want your mates to know how wrong you got things, would you? Can’t imagine what you were thinking of,’ he said, grinning.

  ‘Me neither,’ said Wield. ‘Thought you were in trouble. Well, you are in trouble, Lee. But I reckon you know that. OK, no use talking to you now, but one day maybe you’ll need someone to talk to …’

  He handed the youth a card bearing his name and official phone number.

  ‘Yeah, thanks,’ said Lee. He looked surprised, as if this wasn’t the reaction he was expecting. ‘Bit of a do-gooder after all, are you, Mac?’

  ‘Sergeant.’

  ‘Sorry. Sergeant Mac. Look, don’t rush off, my treat now. Have a bit of cheesecake, it’s not bad. Could be an antidote to that immigrant ham.’

  ‘No thanks, Lee. Got a home to go to.’

  ‘Lucky old you.’

  He said it so wistfully that for a second Wield was tempted to sit down again. Then he caught the gleam of watchful eyes beneath those long, lowered lashes.

  ‘See you, Lee,’ he said. ‘Take care.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Outside, Wield mounted the Thunderbird with a sense of relief, of danger avoided.

  Through the grubby window of Turk’s he could see the boy still sitting at the table. No audience to impress now, but somehow he looked more waif and forlorn than ever.

  Making as little noise as possible, Wield rode away into the night.

  3

  The Knight

  Letter 2. Received Mon Dec 17th. PP.

  St Godric’s College

  Cambridge

  Sat Dec 15th

  The Quaestor’s Lodging

  My dear Mr Pascoe,

  Honestly, I really didn’t mean to bother you again, but things have been happening that I need to share and, I don’t know why, you seemed the obvious person.

  Let me tell you about it.

  I got down to the Welcome Reception in the Senior Common Room, which I found to be already packed with conference delegates, sipping sherry. Supplies of free booze are, I gather, finite at these events and the old hands make sure they’re first at the fountain.

  The delegates fall roughly into two groups. One consists of more senior figures, scholars like Dwight who have already established their reputations and are in attendance mainly to protect their turf while attempting to knock others off their hobby-horses.

  The second group comprises youngsters on the make, each desperate to clock up the credits you get for attendance at such do’s, some with papers to present, others hoping to make their mark by engaging in post-paper polemic.

  I suppose that to the casual eye I fitted into this latter group, with one large difference – they all had their feet on the academic ladder, even if the rung was a low one.

  Of course I didn’t take all this in at a glance as you might have done. No, but I related what I saw and heard to what Sam Johnson had told me in the past and also to the more recent and even more satirical picture painted by dear old Charley Penn when he learned I was about to attend what he called my first ‘junket’.

  ‘Remember this,’ he said. ‘However domesticated your academic may look, he is by instinct and training anthropophagous. Whatever else is on the menu, you certainly are!’

  Anthropophagous. Charley loves such words. We still play Paronomania, you know, despite the painful memories it must bring him.

  But where was I?

  Oh yes, with such forewarning – and with the experience behind me of having been thrown with even less preparation into Chapel Syke – I felt quite able to survive in these new waters. But in fact I didn’t even have to work at it. Unlike at the Syke where I had to seek King Rat out and make myself useful to him, here at God’s he came looking for me.

  As I stood uncertainly just within the doorway, the only person I could see in that crowded room that I knew was Dwight Duerden. He was talking to a long skinny Plantagenet-featured man with a mane of blond hair so bouncy he could have made a fortune doing shampoo ads. Duerden spotted me, said something to the man, who immediately broke off his conversation, turned, smiled like a time-share salesman spotting an almost hooked client, and swept towards me with the American in close pursuit.

  ‘Mr Roote!’ he said. ‘Be welcome, be welcome. So delighted you could join us. We are honoured, honoured.’

  Now the temptation is to class anyone who talks like this, especially if his accent makes the Queen sound Cockney and his manner is by Irving out of Kemble and he’s wearing a waistcoat by Rennie Mackintosh with matching bow tie, as a prancing plonker. But Charley’s warning still sounded in my mind so I didn’t fall about laughing, which was just as well as Duerden said, ‘Franny, meet our conference host, Sir Justinian Albacore.’

  I said, ‘Glad to meet you. Sir Justinian.’

  The plonker flapped a languid hand and said, ‘No titles, please. I’m J. C. Albacore to my readers, Justinian to my acquaintance, plain Justin to my friends. I hope you will feel able to call me Justin. May I call you Franny?’

  ‘Wish I had a title I could ignore,’ said Duerden sardonically.

  ‘Really, Dwight? That must be the one thing Cambridge and America have in common, a love of the antique. When I worked in the sticks, they’d have thrown stones at me if I’d tried to use my title. But here at God’s, antiquity both in fact and in tradition is prized above rubies. Our dearest possession is one of the earliest copies of the Vita de Sancti Godrici, you really must see it while you’re here, Franny. Gentlemen –’ this to a group of distinguished looking old farts – ‘let me introduce Mr Roote, a new star in our firmament and one which we have hopes will burn very brightly.’

  Like Joan of Arc, I thought. Or Guy Fawkes.

  During all this prattle, I was trying to work out Albacore’s game. Did he really think I was such an innocent abroad that simply by giving me a nice room and bulling me up in front of the nobs he could sweet talk Sam’s unique research notes out of me in time to incorporate them in his own book?

  Perhaps looking down on the world from the mountain deanery of a Cambridge college gives a man a hearty contempt for the little figures scuttling around below. If so, I assured myself grandiloquently, he would soon find that he’d underestimated me.

  Instead, I quickly came to realize that I’d underestimated him.

  After the reception we all adjourned to a lecture room where the official business of the conference began with a formal opening followed by a keynote address from Professor Duerden on the theme ‘Imagining What We Know: Romanticism and Science’.

  It was interesting enough, he had a dry Yankee wit (he comes from Connecticut; fate and a tendency to bronchitis took him to California) and was a master in the art of being provocative without going out on a limb. I listened with interest from my reserved seat on the front row, but part of my mind remained concentrated on the puzzle of Albacore, whose duties as chair of the meeting kept him from his other task of stroking my ego.

  But when the lecture and subsequent discussions were over and we were all dispersing to our rooms, my new friend Justin was at my side again, his hand on my elbow as he guided me out into the
quad and away from the general drift of delegates.

  ‘And what did you think of our transatlantic friend?’ he said.

  ‘It was a real honour to hear him,’ I gushed. ‘I thought he put things so well, though I’ve got to admit, a lot of it was well over my head.’

  I’d decided to have a bit of fun with this idiot by playing the eager and enthusiastic but not too bright student and seeing where that led. I didn’t expect my performance to provoke cynical laughter.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so, young Franny,’ he said, still chuckling. ‘I think an idea would have to be very deep indeed to be over your head.’

  This didn’t sound like simple flannel any more.

  ‘Sorry?’ I said. ‘Don’t quite follow.’

  ‘No? I’m simply letting you know what a great respect I’ve got for your mental capacities, dear boy.’

  I said, ‘That’s very flattering, but you hardly know me.’

  ‘On the contrary. You and I are long acquainted and I know all your ways.’

  He looked down at me from his height, eyes twinkling like distant stars.

  And suddenly I was there.

  J.C. to his readers. Justinian to his acquaintance. Justin to his friends.

  And to his wife, Jay.

  I said, ‘You’re Amaryllis Haseen’s husband.’

  It seems so obvious now. Probably you with your fine detective mind got there long before me. But you can see how the revelation bowled me over, especially as I’d spent so much time earlier today raking up that bit of my past for your benefit. Nothing is for nothing in this life, so Frère Jacques preaches. The past isn’t another country. It’s just a different part of the maze we travel through, and we shouldn’t be surprised to find ourselves re-entering the same stretch from a different angle.

  Albacore was spelling things out.

  ‘My wife developed a very high opinion of your potential, Franny. She says that in terms of simple academic cleverness you are bright enough to hold your own in most company. But she also detected in you another kind of cleverness. How did she put it? A mind fit for stratagems, an eye for the main chance, nimble of thought, sharp in judgment, ruthless in execution. Oh yes, you made a big impression on her.’

  I said, ‘And on you too, from the sound of it.’

  ‘Hardly,’ he said, smiling. ‘I was amused when she told me how you neatly got her in a neck lock. But at the time I was on my way from the ghastly wasteland of South Yorkshire back to God’s own college, and apart from a little chortle at the idea of dear Sam Johnson being landed with a cunning convict as a PhD student, I never gave you another thought. Not of course till I heard about poor Sam’s sad demise. Couldn’t make the obsequies myself, but a friend described the dramatic part you played in them, and I thought, hello, could that be that chappie whatsisname? Then I heard that Loopy Linda had appointed you as Sam’s literary heir or executor or some such thing, which was when I asked Amaryllis to dig out all her old case notes.’

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t just read her book,’ I said.

  He shuddered and said, ‘Can’t stand the way she writes, dear boy. Subject matter is generally tedious and her style is what I call psycho-barbarous. In any case, it’s the marginalia of her case notes that make the most interesting reading. Unless she is wrong, which she rarely is, you are someone I can do business with.’

  ‘The business being the redistribution of Sam Johnson’s Beddoes research,’ I said.

  ‘There. I knew I was right. No need to soft soap a supple mind.’

  ‘No? Then why do I feel so well oiled?’ I wondered. ‘The Q’s Lodging, all these flattering introductions.’

  ‘Samples,’ he said. ‘Simply samples. When you’re getting down to a trade-off, you have to give the man you’re trading with a taste of your wares. You see, I’m very aware that while I know what you have to offer, you may have doubts about what’s in my poke. It’s little enough unless it’s what you want, and then it’s the world. It is this –’

  He made a ring master’s gesture which comprehended the quad, and all the buildings around it, and much much more.

  ‘If it is something you’re not interested in, then we must look for other incentives,’ he went on. ‘But if, as from my brief observation of you in person I begin to hope, this cloistered life of ours, in which the intellect and the senses are so deliciously catered for, and the inhibiting morals kept firmly in their place, has some strong attraction, then we can get down to business straight off. I have influence, I have contacts, I know where many bodies are buried, I can put you on a fast-track academic career, get you on the cultural chat shows, if that is your desire, I can put you in the way of editors and publishers. In short, I can be thy protector and thy guide, in thy most need to go by thy side. So, do I judge right? Can we do business?’

  This was straight talking with a vengeance. This was complete no-holds-barred honesty, which is always a cause for grave suspicion.

  Time to test him out with some of the same.

  ‘If I want these things you offer,’ I said, ‘what is to stop me getting them for myself? I am, as you acknowledge, bright. I may be, as your wife alleges, ruthlessly manipulative. Your book, I presume, is mainly a reworking of the few known facts of Beddoes’ Continental life, embellished, no doubt, by whatever you were able to lift from Sam before he became aware of your perfidy.’

  That hit home, just a flicker of reaction, but I got used to reading flickers in the Syke when not to read them could mean losing a game of chess. Or an eye.

  I pressed on.

  ‘Sam, however, as your interest confirms you know, had tracked down a substantial body of new material in various forms. Wherever your book stood in relation to his, coming before or after, it was always going to stand in the shade.’

  I paused again.

  He said, ‘And your point is … ?’

  I said, ‘And my point is, why should I bargain for what is already within my grasp?’

  He smiled and said, ‘You mean, complete Sam’s book yourself, bathe in what would be mainly a reflected glory, then make your own way onward and upward? Perhaps you could do it. But it’s a hard road, and other men’s flowers quickly wilt. I naturally cannot be expected to agree with what you say about my book being in the shade, though what I am certain of is that it will be in the way. But if you can find someone willing to take a punt on a total unknown, then perhaps you should go ahead, dear Franny.’

  He knew, the bastard knew, that Sam’s pusillanimous publishers had developed feet so cold they were walking on chilblains.

  He saw my reaction and pressed his advantage.

  ‘How’s your thesis going, by the way? Have you found a new supervisor? Now there’s a thought. Perhaps I could offer my own services? It would mean moving to Cambridge, but if you’re heading high, no harm starting on the upper slopes, is there?’

  Perhaps I should have said, get thee behind me, Satan! But any belief I might have had in my own divine indestructibility vanished back at Holm Coultram College when, despite my very best efforts, you managed to finger my collar.

  So, please don’t despise me, I said I’d think about it.

  I thought about it all evening, paying little attention to the conference sessions I attended and barely picking at the buffet supper that was laid on for us. (There’s a big formal dinner in the college hall tomorrow night, but meanwhile, sherry apart, it’s the appetites of the intellect that are being catered for.)

  And I’m still thinking about it now even as I write. Please forgive me if I seem to be going on at unconscionable length, but in all the world there is no one I can talk to so fully and frankly as I can to you.

  Time for bed. Will I sleep? I thought I had learned in prison how to sleep anywhere in any conditions, but tonight I think I may find it hard to close my eyes. Thoughts wriggle round my head like little snakes nesting in a skull. What do I owe to dear Sam? What do I owe to myself? And whose patronage was the more precious, Linda Lupin’s or
Justin Albacore’s? Which would a wise man put his trust in?

  Goodnight, dear Mr Pascoe. At least I hope it will be for you. For me I see long white hours lying awake pondering these matters, and above all the problem of how I’m going to reply to Albacore’s offer.

  I was wrong!

  I slept like a log and woke to a glorious morning, bright winter sunshine, no wind, a nip in the air but only such as turned each breath I took into a glass of champagne. I was up early, had a hearty breakfast, and then went out for a walk to clear my head and still my nerves before I read Sam’s paper at the nine o’clock session. I left the college by its rear gate and strolled along beside the Cam, admiring what they call the Backs. The Backs! Only utter certainty of beauty allows one to be so throwaway about it. Oh, it’s a glorious spot this Cambridge, Mr Pascoe. I’m sure you know it well, though I can’t recall whether you’re light or dark blue. This is a place for youth to expand its soul in, and despite everything, I still feel young.

  I didn’t see Albacore until I arrived in the lecture theatre a few minutes before nine and saw his cunicular nose twitch with relief. He must have been worrying that his ‘straight talk’ last evening had been too much for my weak stomach and I’d done a runner!

  He’d arranged for me to have a plenary session and every chair was taken. He didn’t hang about – perhaps recognizing more than I did at that moment just how nervous I was – but introduced me briefly with, mercifully, only a short formal reference to Sam’s tragic death, while I sat there staring down at the opening page of my lost friend’s paper.

  Its title was, ‘Looking for the Laughs in Death’s Jest-Book’.

  I read the first sentence – In his letters Beddoes refers to his play Death’s Jest-Book as a satire: but on what? – and tried to turn the printed words into sounds coming from my mouth, and couldn’t.

  There was a loud cough. It came from Albacore, who had taken his place in the front row. And next to him, looking up at me with those big violet eyes I recalled from our sessions in the Syke, was his wife, Amaryllis Haseen.