The Death of Dalziel: A Dalziel and Pascoe Novel

3 intimations

Ellie Pascoe was asleep in the garden hammock so reluctantly vacated by her husband when the explosion occurred.

The Pascoe house in the northern suburbs was too far from Mill Street for anything but the faintest rumour of the bang to reach there. What woke Ellie was a prolonged volley of barking from her daughter’s mongrel terrier.

‘What’s up with Tig?’ Ellie asked yawning.

‘Don’t know,’ said Rosie. ‘We were playing ball and he just started.’

A sudden suspicion made Ellie examine the tall apple tree in next-door’s garden. Puberty was working its rough changes on her neighbour’s son and a couple of times recently when the summer heat had lured her outside in her bikini, she’d spotted him staring down at her out of the foliage. But there was no sign, and in any case Tig’s nose pointed south towards the centre of town. As she followed his fixed gaze she saw a long way away a faint smudge of smoke soiling the perfect blue of the summer sky.

Who would light a fire on a day like this?

Tig was still barking.

‘Can’t you make him shut up?’ snapped Ellie.

Her daughter looked at her in surprise, then took a biscuit off a plate and threw it across the lawn. Tig gave a farewell yap, then went in search of his reward with the complacent mien of one who has done his duty.

Ellie felt guilty at snapping. Her irritation wasn’t with the dog, there was some other cause less definable.

She rolled out of the hammock and said, ‘I’m too hot. Think I’ll cool down in the shower. You OK by yourself?’

Rosie gave her a look which said without words that she hadn’t been much company anyway, so what was going to be different?

Ellie went inside, turned on the shower and stepped under it.

The cool water washed away her sweat but did nothing for her sense of unease.

Still nothing definable. Or nothing that she wanted to define. Pointless thinking about it. Pointless because, if she did think about it, she might come up with the silly conclusion that the real reason she was taking this shower was that she didn’t want to be wearing her bikini if bad news came…

Andy Dalziel’s partner, Amanda Marvell, known to her friends as Cap, was even further away when Mill Street blew up.

With her man on duty, she had followed the crowds on the traditional migration to the coast, not, however, to join the mass bake-in on a crowded beach but to visit the sick.

The sick in this instance took the form of her old headmistress, Dame Kitty Bagnold who for nearly forty years had ruled the famous St Dorothy’s Academy for Catholic Girls near Bakewell in Derbyshire. Cap Marvell had ultimately made life choices which ran counter to everything St Dot’s stood for. In particular, she had abandoned her religion, divorced her husband, and got herself involved in various animal rights groups whose activities teetered on the edge of legality.

Yet throughout all this, she and Dame Kitty had remained in touch and eventually, rather to their surprise, realized they were friends. Not that the friendship made Cap feel able to address her old head by her St Dot’s sobriquet of Kitbag, and Dame Kitty would rather have blasphemed than call her ex-pupil anything but Amanda.

A long and very active retirement had ground Dame Kitty down till ill health had finally obliged her to admit the inevitable, and two years earlier she had moved into a private nursing home that was part of the Avalon Clinic complex at Sandy-town on the Yorkshire coast.

At her best, Dame Kitty was as bright and sharp as ever, but she tired easily and usually Cap was alert for the first signs of fatigue so that she could start ending her visit without making her friend’s condition the cause.

This time it was the older woman who said, ‘Is everything all right, Amanda?’

‘What?’

‘You seemed to drift off. Perhaps you should sit in this absurd wheelchair while I go inside and order some more tea.’

‘No, no, I’m fine. Sorry. What were we saying…?’

‘We were discussing the merits of the govern-ment’s somewhat inchoate education policy, an argument I hoped your sudden silence indicated I had won. But I fear my victory owes more to your distraction than my reasoning. Are you sure all is well with you? No problems with this police officer of yours, whom I hope one day to meet?’

‘No, things are fine there, really…’

Suddenly Cap Marvell took her mobile out.

‘Sorry, do you mind?’

She was speed-dialling before Kitty could answer.

The phone rang twice then there was an invitation to leave a message.

She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, disconnected, and stood up.

‘I’m sorry, Kitty, I’ve got to go. Before the mobs start moving off the beaches…’

This effort to offer a rational explanation produced the same sad sigh and slight upward roll of the eyes brought by feeble excuses for bad behaviour in their St Dot days.

‘OK, that’s not it. Sorry, I don’t know why,’ said Cap. ‘But I’ve really got to go.’

‘Then go, my dear. And God go with you.’

Normally this traditional valediction would have won from Cap her equivalent of the old headmistress’s long-suffering expression, but today she just nodded, stooped to kiss her friend’s cheek, then hurried away across the lawn towards the car park.

Dame Kitty watched her out of sight. There was trouble there. Despite the bright sun and the cloudless sky, she felt it in the air.

She stood up out of the wheelchair which the staff insisted she should use on her excursions into the gardens, gave it a whack with her stick, and began to make her slow way back to the house.

4 dust and ashes

Later Peter Pascoe worked out that Dalziel had probably saved his life twice.

The Fat Man’s car which they’d been sheltering behind was flipped into the air then deposited upside down on the pavement.

If he hadn’t obeyed the Fat Man’s command to follow, he would have been underneath it.

And if he hadn’t been walking in the lee of that corpulent frame when the explosion occurred…

As it was, when some slight degree of awareness began to seep back into his brain, he felt as if every part of his body had been subjected to a good kicking. He tried to stand up but found the best he could manage was all fours.

The air was full of dust and smoke. Like a retriever peering through the mist in search of its master’s bird, he strained to penetrate the swirling veil of motes and vapour. An amorphous area of orangey red with some consistency of base gave him the beginnings of perspective. Against it, marked by its stillness in the moving air, he made out a vague heap of something, like a pile of earth thrown up alongside a grave.

He began to crawl forward and after a couple of yards managed to rise off his hands into a semiupright crouch. The shifting coiling colour he realized now was fire. He could feel its heat, completely unlike the gentle warmth of the sun which only an hour ago he’d been enjoying in the green seclusion of his garden. That small part of his mind still in touch with normality suggested that he ought to ring Ellie and tell her he was all right before some garbled version of events got on to local radio.

Not that he was sure how all right he was. But a lot all righter than this still heap of something which he was now close enough to formally identify as Andy Dalziel.

He had fallen on to his left side and his arms and legs were spread and bent like the kapok stuffed limbs of some huge teddy bear discarded by a spoilt child. His face had been shredded by shards of glass and brick, and the fine grey dust sticking to the seeping wounds made him look as if he were wearing a kabuki mask.

There was no sign of life. But not for a second did Pascoe admit the possibility of death. Dalziel was indestructible. Dalziel is, and was, and for ever shall be, world without end, amen. Everybody knew that. Therein lay half his power. Chief constables might come and chief constables might go, but Fat Andy went on for ever.

He rolled him over on to his back. It wasn’t easy but he did it. He brushed the dust away from his mouth and nose. He definitely wasn’t breathing. He checked the carotid pulse, thought he detected a flutter, but a combination of his dull fingers and Dalziel’s monolithic neck left him in doubt. He opened the mouth and saw there was a lot of debris in there. Carefully he cleared it away, discovering in the process what he hadn’t known before, that Dalziel had a dental plate. This he tucked carefully into his pocket. He checked that the tongue hadn’t been swallowed. Then he cleared the nostrils, undid the shirt collar, and put his ear to the mighty chest.

There was no movement, no sound.

He placed his hands on top of each other on the chest and pressed down hard, five times, counting a second interval between.

Then he tilted the head back with his right hand under the chin so that the mouth opened wide. With the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, he pinched Dalziel’s nose. Then he took a deep breath, thought, I’m never going to hear the end of this, pressed his mouth down on to those great lips and blew.

Five times he did this. Then he repeated the heart massage and went through the whole process again. And again.

Once more he tried the pulse. This time he was sure there was something. And the next time he blew into the mouth, the chest began to rise and fall of its own volition.

Now he began to arrange Dalziel in the recovery position. This was a task to daunt a fit navvy with a block and tackle, but finally he managed it and sank back exhausted.

All this seemed to take hours but must have consumed only a few minutes. He was vaguely aware of figures moving through the miasma. Presumably there were sounds too, but at first they were simply absorbed by the white noise which the blast had filled his ears with. Another hour passed. Or a few seconds. He felt something touch his shoulder. It hurt. He looked up. PC Maycock was standing over him, mouthing nothings, like a fish in a glass tank. He tried to lip read and got, ‘Are you all right?’ which hardly seemed worth the effort. He pointed at Dalziel and said, ‘Get help,’ without any assurance that the words were coming out. Maycock tried to assist him to his feet but he shook his head and pointed again at the Fat Man. He stuck his little fingers in his ears and started to prise out the debris which seemed to have lodged there. This, or perhaps the simple passage of time, improved things a little, and he began to pick out a higher line of sound which he tentatively identified as approaching sirens.

Time was still doing a quickstep. Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow. In the slow periods he felt as if sitting here in the post-blast smog watching over Fat Andy was all he’d ever done and all he was ever likely to do. Then he closed his eyes for a fraction of a second and when he opened them the smog had thinned and paramedics were stooping over Dalziel’s body and firemen were going about the business before the ruined terrace. Where Number 3 had been there was nothing but a flame-filled cavity, like hell-mouth in a morality play. The Victorian entrepreneurs’ shoddy building materials had offered little resistance to the blast. This was perhaps one of those instances of a Bad Thing eventually turning out to be a Good Thing, which divines through the ages had educed as evidence of God’s Mysterious Purpose. If the walls of Number 3 had shared any of the massive solidity of the viaduct wall against which the terrace rested, the blast would have been directed straight out. As it was, Numbers 2 and 4 were in a state of complete collapse, and the rest of the terrace looked seriously shell shocked.

They were attaching all kinds of bits and pieces to the Fat Man. But not, so far as Pascoe could see, a crane. They’d need a crane. And a sling. This was a beached whale they were dealing with and it would take more than the puny efforts of half a dozen men to bear him back to the life-supporting sea. He tried to say this but couldn’t get the words out. Didn’t matter. Somehow these supermen were proving him wrong and managing to get Dalziel on to a stretcher. Pascoe closed his eyes in relief. When he opened them again he found he was looking up at the sky and moving. For a second he thought he was back on his hammock in his garden. Then he realized he too was on a stretcher.

He raised his head to protest that this was unnecessary. The effort made him realize it probably was. Ahead he could see an ambulance. Beside it stood an all too familiar figure.

Hector, the author of all their woes, his face a cartoonist’s dream of uncomprehending consternation.

As the medics slid the stretcher into the vehicle, he held out both his hands towards Pascoe. In them were two paper bags, partially open to reveal a pair of mutton pasties and an almond slice.

‘Sir, I’m sorry, but they were out of custards…’ he stuttered.

‘Not my lucky day then,’ whispered Peter Pascoe. ‘Not my lucky day.’

5 the two Geoffreys

Andre de Montbard, Knight of the Temple and right-hand man to Hugh de Payens, the Order’s Grand Master, was fishing in the dull canal at the far end of Charter Parker. He sat on a canvas stool, his back against a plane tree, his rod resting on a fork made from a wire coat-hanger. The sun had vanished behind the warehouses on the opposite bank but the air was still warm and the sky still blue, though darkening towards indigo from the azure of the afternoon. His float bobbed in the wake of a passing long boat and the helmsman gave a half apologetic wave.

A man walking his dog paused and said, ‘Anything biting?’

‘I think I felt a midge.’

‘Oh aye? Just wait half an hour and you’ll need a mask. Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’

As the man moved away, he passed the two Geoffreys strolling slowly along the tow path. Geoffrey O stooped to pat the dog but Geoffrey B didn’t look in the mood for chit-chat. As well as the shared name, they both wore black pants, trainers and T-shirts. But there any claims to being a matching pair ended, thought Andre. Odd relationship. Shrinks would have a field day with it. Useless twats. What do you call a shrink treading on a land mine? A step in the right direction. Himself, he’d always been an effects man, bugger causes. And the effect here had been to make them ripe for knighthood.

Performance was another thing. Soon as he’d heard things had gone a bit pear-shaped, he’d started anticipating how they’d react.

His guess was, Geoff B headless chicken, Geoff O heartless wolf.

He knew he’d got it right even before Geoff B opened his mouth.

When they reached him, they paused as if to ask how the fish were biting. At least that was the impression Geoff O gave, smiling down at him pleasantly. But Geoff B couldn’t manage a smile. He unslung the small rucksack he was carrying over his shoulder and dropped it by the empty catch basket. As he did so, he brought his face close to Andre’s and hissed with barely controlled anger, ‘What the hell was all that about? A communications post, you said, a bit of gear maybe, but not a fucking powder magazine.’

Andre looked at him steadily till he straightened up.

Then he said, ‘Bad intelligence. It happens. Hugh says sorry. But look on the bright side. It certainly made a bang!’

‘Jesus Christ!’ exclaimed Geoff B. ‘It put two cops in hospital. One of them critical, the news says.’

Andre shrugged and said, ‘My info is the stupid sods were grandstanding. If they’d followed instructions and stood off…’

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better? I’m giving notice, if one of them dies, that’s me finished, understand?’

You’re finished anyway, son, thought Andre. One strike and out. Returned to unit.

Geoff O spoke before he could respond.

‘Was the cop who came into the shop one of those injured?’

Andre flickered an approving smile. No bother there. First rule of combat: be prepared for collateral damage. Can’t get your head round that, might as well stay home.

He said, ‘That would have been tidy, but no, he wasn’t. Seems he hasn’t come up with much of a description, though, so I don’t think we need worry too much about him.’

‘For God’s sake!’ exclaimed Geoff B, determined not to let go of his anger. ‘Is that all you’re concerned about? Whether there was a witness?’

Andre looked at him coldly.

‘Mebbe you’d be more concerned if you’d been the one he clocked,’ he said.

That shut the bugger up. He pressed on, ‘Anyway, the cop showing up didn’t stop you from opting to go ahead, did it?’

In the planning the bugger had needed to act like he was in charge, so now let’s see if he could carry the can.

Geoff O rescued him, saying, ‘I made sure he didn’t get a good look at me.’

‘Course you did. Clever thinking. But sometimes being clever’s not enough. You’ve got to be lucky too. Word is that Constable Hector who wandered into the shop is half a loaf short of a picnic and would have trouble giving a good description of himself. So no problem there. In fact, things could be a lot worse. Mission accomplished, so let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope the cops don’t die.’

Geoff O said, ‘I presume you’re holding back the press release.’

Andre nodded approval of the move from personal feelings to practicalities.

‘Yes. Hugh agrees that a cop on the critical list isn’t what we want associated with our opening statement. Shame. Really starting with a bang that would have been. Still, what me and Archambaud have got planned should to make ‘em sit up and take notice.’

‘Need any help?’ asked Geoff O.

Definitely getting a taste for it, thought Andre. Enthusiasm was good. Impatience might be a problem. Needs watching?

He said, ‘No, it’s sorted. Don’t worry. We’re just starting. Lots of work for an energetic youngster. Just be patient. Good intelligence, careful planning, that’s what makes for successful ops.’

Geoff B snorted incredulously, but that was to be expected. It was Geoff O’s disappointed frown that Andre focused on.

He said, ‘War’s like fishing. Hours of empty fucking tedium punctuated by moments so crowded they burst at the seams. Learn to enjoy the emptiness. Now, I’m going to pack up before these fucking midges chew my face off. I’ll be in touch.’

He rose and began to reel in his line.

Geoff B said, ‘Tell Hugh, if that cop dies, I’m out. I’m serious.’

‘Let’s hope the poor sod makes it then,’ said Andre indifferently. ‘See you.’

The couple started to walk away. Geoffrey O glanced back. Andre gave a conspiratorial wink but got nothing in return.

Didn’t bother him.

What did bother him was the weight of the discarded backpack.

He checked no one was close then opened it.

Like he’d thought, one weapon missing.

He looked after the two Geoffreys. No prize for guessing which one had hung on.

He recalled a training sergeant once saying to him, ‘You’ve earned yourself a big kiss for keenness, a big bollocking for stupidity. Which do you want first, son?’

He smiled, dropped the backpack into his basket, slung it over his shoulder, gathered up the rest of his gear and set off along the tow path.

6 blue smartie

Peter Pascoe was still having trouble with time.

He opened his eyes and Ellie was there.

‘Hi,’ he said.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Pete, how are you?’

‘Fine, fine,’ he said.

He blinked once and her hair turned gingery as she aged ten years and put on a Scottish accent.

‘Mr Pascoe. Sandy Glenister. Feel up to a wee chat?’

‘Not with you,’ said Pascoe. ‘Sod off.’

He blinked again and the face rearranged itself into something like a Toby jug whose glaze had gone wrong.

‘Wieldy,’ said Pascoe. ‘Where’s Ellie?’

‘At home making Rosie’s tea, I expect. She’ll be back later. How are you doing?’

‘I’m fine. What am I doing here? Oh shit.’

Wield saw Pascoe’s face spasm with remembered pain as he answered his own question.

‘Andy, how’s Andy?’ he demanded, trying to push himself upright.

Wield pressed the button which raised the back of the bed by thirty degrees.

‘Intensive Care,’ he said. ‘He’s not come round yet.’

‘Well, what do they expect?’ demanded Pascoe. ‘It’s only been .. a couple of hours?’

His assertion turned to interrogation as he realized he’d no idea of the time.

‘Twenty-four,’ said Wield. ‘A bit more. It’s four o’clock, Tuesday afternoon.’

‘As long as that? What’s the damage?’

‘With Andy? Broken leg, broken arm, several cracked ribs, some second-degree burns, multiple contusions and lacerations from the blast, loss of blood, ruptured spleen, other internal damage whose extent isn’t yet apparent—’

‘So, nothing really serious then,’ interrupted Pascoe.

Wield smiled faintly and said, ‘No, not for Andy. But till he wakes up…’

He left the sentence unfinished.

‘Twenty-four hours is nothing,’ said Pascoe. ‘Look at me.’

‘You’ve been back with us a lot longer than that,’ said Wield. ‘Bit woozu maybe with all the shit they pumped into you, but making sense mostly. You don’t think Ellie would have taken off if you’d still been comatose?’

‘I’ve spoken with Ellie then?’

‘Aye. Don’t you remember?’

‘I think I recall saying hi.’

‘Is that all? You’d best hope you didn’t make a deathbed confession,’ said Wield.

‘And there was someone else—ginger hair, Scots accent, maybe the matron. Or did I dream that?’

‘No. That would be Chief Superintendent Glenister from CAT. I was there when she turned up.’

‘You were? Did I say much to her?’

‘Apart from “sod off”, you mean? No. That was it.’

‘Oh hell,’ said Pascoe.

‘Not to worry. She didn’t take offence. In fact, she’s sitting outside in the waiting room. You’ve not asked what’s wrong with you.’

‘With me?’ said Pascoe. ‘Good point. Why am I in here? I feel fine.’

‘Just wait till the shit wears off,’ said Wield. ‘But they reckon you were lucky. Contusions, abrasions, few muscle tears, twisted knee, couple of cracked ribs, concussion. Could have been a lot worse.’

‘Would have been if I hadn’t had Andy in front of me,’ said Pascoe grimly. ‘What about Jennison and Maycock?’

‘Joker reckons he’s gone deaf but his mates say he were always a bit hard of hearing when it came to his round. Their cars are a write-off though. Andy’s too.’

‘What about Number 3? Was there anyone in there?’

‘I’m afraid so. Three bodies, they reckon. At least. They’re still trying to put them together. No more detail. The CAT lads are going over the wreckage with a fine-tooth comb, and they’re not saying much to anyone—and that includes us. Of course, they’ve got a key witness.’

‘Have they? Oh God. You mean Hector?’

‘Right. Glenister spent an hour or so with him. Came out looking punch-drunk.’

‘Hector did?’

‘No. He always looks punch drunk. I mean Glenister. I’d best let her know you’re sitting up and taking notice.’

‘Fine. Wieldy, do a check on Andy, will you? You know what they’re like in these places, getting good info’s harder than getting your dinner wine properly chambré.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Wield. ‘Take care.’

He left and Pascoe eased himself properly upright in the bed, trying to assess what he really felt like. There didn’t seem to be many parts of his body which didn’t give a retaliatory twinge when provoked, but, ribs apart, nothing that threatened much beyond discomfort. He wondered if he could get out of bed without assistance. He had got himself sitting upright and was pushing the bed sheet off his legs preparatory to swinging them round when the door opened and the ginger woman came in.

‘Glad to see you’re feeling better, Peter,’ she said, ‘but I think you should stay put a wee while longer. Or was it a bed pan you wanted?’

‘No, I’m fine,’ said Pascoe, pulling the sheet back up.

‘That’s OK then. Glenister. Chief Super. Combined Anti-Terrorism unit. We met briefly earlier, you probably don’t remember.’

‘Vaguely, ma’am,’ said Pascoe. ‘In fact I seem to recall being a bit rude…’

Glenister said, ‘Think nothing of it. Rudeness is good, it needs a working mind to be rude. I’d just been interviewing Constable Hector for the second time. I couldn’t believe the first, but it didn’t get any better. Is it just shock, or is that poor laddie always as unforthcoming?’

‘Expressing himself isn’t his strongest point,’ said Pascoe.

‘So you’re saying that what I’ve got out of him is probably as much as I’m likely to get?’ said Glenister. ‘His descriptions of the men he saw are, to say the least, sketchy.’

‘He does his best,’ said Pascoe defensively. ‘Anyway, surely it’ll be DNA, fingerprints, dental records, that are going to identify the poor devils in there?’

‘Aye, we should be able to find enough of them for that,’ said Glenister.

She was mid to late forties, Pascoe guessed, full figured to the point where she fitted her tweed suit comfortably but if she didn’t cut down on the deep-fried Mars Bars, she’d soon have to upsize. She had a pleasant friendly smile which lit up her round slightly weather-beaten face and put a sparkle into her soft brown eyes. If she’d been a doctor he would have felt immensely reassured.

Pascoe said, ‘You’ll want to debrief me, ma’am.’

Glenister smiled.

‘Debrief? I see you’re very with it here in Mid-Yorkshire. Me, I’m too old a parrot to learn new jargon. A full written report would be nice when you’re up to it. All I want now is a wee preliminary chat.’

She pulled a chair up to the bedside, sat down, produced a mini-cassette recorder from the shoulder bag she was carrying, and switched it on.

‘In your own words, Peter. All right to call you Peter? My friends call me Sandy.’

Trying to work out if this were an invitation or a warning, Pascoe launched into an account of his part in the incident, with some judicious editing, in the interest of clarity and brevity he told himself.

‘That’s good,’ said Glenister, nodding approval. ‘Succinct, to the point. Just what I need for the record.’

She pressed the off button on the recorder, sat back in her chair and took a tube of Smarties out of her shoulder bag.

‘Help yourself,’ she said. ‘So long as it’s not blue.’

‘No thanks,’ said Pascoe.

‘Wise man,’ she said. ‘I started on the sweeties when I stopped the ciggies. When I realized five bars of fruit-and-nut a day were going to kill me as surely as forty fags, I tried to go cold turkey and that nearly had me back on the nicotine. Now I treat myself to a Smartie whenever the urge comes on. Just the one. Except if it’s a blue one. Then I can have another. God knows what I’ll do now they’re stopping the blue ones.’

She gave him that attractive smile, mocking herself. She really should have been a doctor, thought Peter. With a bedside manner like this, she could have sold urine samples at a guinea a bottle.

‘Now let’s stray off the record, Peter,’ she said, popping one of the tiny sweets into her mouth (a yellow one, he noticed) and settling herself more comfortably into her chair. ‘Just you and me. Thoughts and impressions this time. And maybe just a wee bit more detail. For a start, why were you really there?’

‘I told you. Inspector Ireland rang me and I went to assist.’

‘And why did Paddy Ireland ring you?’

‘Because of my negotiating experience, I suppose,’ said Pascoe. But even as he spoke he was registering the Paddy as a gentle reminder that Glenister had already interviewed the inspector.

‘And because I think he felt that, as the video shop had been flagged by you people, Mr Dalziel might be grateful for some assistance,’ he added.

‘And was he?’

‘I think so.’

‘But he hadn’t contacted you himself?’

‘He wouldn’t care to disturb me on my day off,’ said Pascoe.

‘A most considerate man then. I gather he even offered to obtain refreshment for the people inside Number 3.’

So she knew about the bit of knockabout with the bullhorn. Hector. Or Jennison. Or Maycock. Why wouldn’t they describe exactly what had happened? Even if they’d tried to play it down, they’d have been easy meat for this bedside manner.

He said, ‘Yes, Mr Dalziel did try to make contact with anyone who might be inside the shop.’

‘Who “might” be? You had doubts?’

‘Our information seemed a bit vague.’

‘Vague? Not quite with you there. Foot patrol sees an armed man in Number 3. Reports it to the car-patrol officers who pass it on to the duty inspector who alerts the station commander. Don’t see where the vagueness lies. All by the book so far.’

‘Yes, and that’s the way it continued,’ said Pascoe firmly. ‘Knowing that the property was flagged, Mr Dalziel made sure your people were alerted then proceeded to Mill Street as instructed.’

‘As instructed?’ Glenister chuckled.

Chuckling was a dying art, thought Pascoe; genuine chuckling that was, not just that pretence of suppressed mirth which politicians still use to make or, more often, avoid a point. But Glenister’s chuckle was the real McCoy.

‘My understanding of his instructions,’ continued the superintendent, ‘is that he was told to withdraw any police vehicles from Mill Street, establish blocks at its ends, maintain observation from a distance, and make no attempt to approach Number 3. Which bit of his instructions would you say Mr Dalziel followed, Peter?’

‘I don’t know because I’ve only your say-so that that’s what they were,’ retorted Pascoe, consigning to the recycle bin what the Fat Man had told him as they squatted behind the car. ‘But, if we’re portioning out responsibility, what I’m certain your instructions didn’t contain was any reference to the fact that there was enough explosive in the place to blow up the whole bloody terrace! But I guess you didn’t know that, else why would it only have a bottom-level flagging?’