‘Oh you’re right, sir,’ said Pascoe angrily. ‘I’m so sorry. I’d heard a lot about you and I now see I was wrong not to believe every incredible word. From the moment I heard you this morning allegedly giving evidence on behalf of that poor woman, I knew the last thing I wanted was to be tarred with your brush. Sir!’
‘No need to get personal,’ said Dalziel looking hurt. ‘What were wrong with my evidence anyway?’
‘Wrong? You were the main prosecution witness …’
‘No, lad. That were the woman,’ corrected Dalziel gently.
‘Yes, and just because she was a prostitute and you felt there was little chance of a conviction, you’d clearly decided the whole thing was a waste of time!’
‘Aye, well, you’re half right, I’ll give you that,’ Dalziel replied disconcertingly. ‘That’s exactly the line yon donkey-pizzle, Martineau, was taking. So I just made sure the jury got a wink and a nod that this weren’t no jolly punter willing to pay for a quick bang, but a career sex offender who won’t be stopped till it’s lopped off!’
‘Oh, yes? Easy to say that now,’ sneered Pascoe.
‘Nay, lad. Easier not to say it at all and I don’t know why I bothered,’ sighed Dalziel. ‘What’s a sprog daft enough to correct a magistrate’s jokes know about giving evidence?’
Pascoe digested this then exploded, ‘So you’ve been spying on me as well!’
‘I went into a public court to see one of my junior officers giving evidence, yes. Bet you thought you were doing all right, too, eh?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. Damn sight better than you anyway,’ said Pascoe who was almost beginning to enjoy the crackling heat of his burning bridges.
‘Oh aye? Tell you what. Ten bob says my scrote got sent down, your pair walked free.’
Pascoe did a mental double-take. Against volition, his jaw, as craggily set as Spencer Tracy’s in the expectation of moral showdown, dropped. He must have missed something. Otherwise how come he’d moved from career-ending confrontation to settling matters with a friendly bet like two chaps in a pub?
He looked at the Fat Man with growing suspicion. Could it possibly be that this cop, so obviously the archetypical bruiser who got results by kicking down doors and beating out questions in Morse code on a suspect’s head, was in fact jerking him around with words? No! Reason wouldn’t admit it … or was it pride that wouldn’t admit it? He tried to bring to mind the scene in the court … the jury laughing … Martineau furious … was that the key …? Should he have listened more carefully …?
Dalziel straightened up and broke wind.
‘Better out than in,’ he said. ‘So, is it a bet?’
‘I’d need odds,’ said Pascoe. ‘There’s two of mine.’
‘You cheeky sod. All right. Ten bob to a quid. How’s that?’
‘Done,’ said Pascoe.
‘Grand. And I reckon this is done too.’
He pushed himself to his feet rather creakingly and massaged his knees. Then he looked at his watch and said, ‘I’ll never make it back to Taffland in time for the kick-off now. Not to worry. I daresay I’ll see a bit too much of yon little bugger over the next ten years or so. Here, Tankie’s taking his time about the next inspection, isn’t he?’
‘I’m not complaining,’ said Pascoe.
‘Well, you bloody well should be. Officer present, prisoner ready for inspection, and the RSM absent from parade? It’s not bloody on! Excuse me, SIR!’
And Pascoe, who was getting used to finding himself tumbling in zero gravity every time he began to feel something like firm ground beneath his feet, was hardly surprised to be pushed aside as the Fat Man began to beat a thunderous rhythm on the door accompanied by a raucous bellow of, ‘Come on, Tankie, let’s be having you. Plenty of time to sit around playing with yourself when this lot’s over. Charley, Charley, get out of bed! Charley, Charley …’
Pascoe got well clear of the door but this time instead of being flung violently against the wall, it swung slowly open. Trotter stood there, the sawn-off shotgun at the high port. His face was so impassive, it just needed a cheroot to get him auditioned for a spaghetti western.
He didn’t look like he’d come to play at inspections.
‘This do you then?’ said Dalziel cheerfully, picking up the bucket. ‘The floor’s so clean you could eat your dinner off it. Shan’t be needing this any more.’
And in an act too suicidal for Pascoe to find an appropriate reaction, the Fat Man hurled the water in Trotter’s face.
It wasn’t the preliminary to an escape attempt. Dalziel just stood there roaring with laughter. Nor did Trotter react with any explosive show of anger. Instead, the water dripping down his face, he slowly and deliberately brought the gun barrel to bear on Dalziel’s chest.
‘Nay, Tankie, fair do’s,’ protested the Fat Man. ‘When you chucked your bucket in yon colour sergeant’s face, he didn’t shoot you, did he? And there were a lot worse than water in it! Mind you, I’m not saying he didn’t feel like it, but he kept control.’
‘I’m not a bloody colour sergeant,’ grated Trotter.
‘That’s right. And I’m not a squaddy and this ain’t the glasshouse. So where does that get us? You want to prove that if I had to put up with what you had to put up with, I’d crack like a Boxing Day wishbone. Well, wish away, lad, but it’s not going to come true. Tha’s not got the time and tha’s not got the talent. So where do we go from here?’
Only one place! Pascoe’s fears told him. But fear left just sufficient space for another voice which asked, why is Dalziel doing this? Why the change of tactics? And if there is a game, why the hell couldn’t the big, fat, arrogant bastard let me in on it? Because he thinks I’m useless? Because he thinks he’s God?
Because, came a tiny voice from somewhere deeper than reason, because he knew from the start that everything we said was overheard by Trotter.
Could it really be that this Quasimodo, this Incredible Hulk, this Creature From The Black Lagoon had been carefully orchestrating everything he said? Oh, that would be a trick worth knowing, even if it took a lifetime to learn. Did he have a lifetime? He was beginning to hope again. But perhaps it was all just a clutching at straws. His mind was racing through the Fat Man’s inconsequential ramblings … his bad jokes … desperately seeking the small man in the booth who was working the Great Oz’s lips …
‘Tell you what, Tankie,’ said Dalziel. ‘Why don’t you chuck it in? Leave us locked up and take off. I’ll not chase you, believe me. Less I see of you in future the better. You can settle down somewhere, forget the past. Jude too. Past’s dead and buried. Like your dad. Finished and forgotten, all debts paid. No names, no pack drill. You can both have a future. You wherever you go. And Jude back home with her man and her kiddie …’
And at last Pascoe saw it, clear as the hair in Dalziel’s nose. All those casual references to Judith’s settled life … Tankie had known nothing of this! The poor bastard really had believed that during all his time behind bars, his twin had been shut away too in some empathic fastness of the heart and mind, living only for his release, their reunion.
Dalziel had worked this out, guessed that Jude’s co-operation wasn’t just based on geminate love, or even fear that the Fat Man could tie her in to her father’s death, but the much greater fear that if Tankie knew the truth, he might divert some or all of these pent-up energies from destruction of Dalziel to