Death Comes for the Fat Man (12 page)

The voice of authority again. Northern. Presumably a linguist could get closer.

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

“That’s nice. Anyone else in the fl at?”

“No. Just the two of us.”

“Mind if we check that? Arch.”

Doors opening and shutting.

“Clear.”

A third voice. Lighter, tighter. Holding on to control?

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

The urbanity came close to mockery. Poor bastard, thought Pascoe.

He thinks he’s just got the law to deal with.

“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.”

And now the singing was turned up to a volume even higher than before.

Lukasz Komorowski let it run for a moment then made a cut-off gesture and the tape stopped.

“During the next couple of minutes we believe the killings took place. First the shooting, then the beheading. The killers leave. At eight thirty nine the CD stops. Five minutes later the recording stops too and is not reactivated until our team enter this morning. Right.

Questions. Observations.”

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Glenister began to say something but Pascoe cut across her. Make his presence felt. Show the bastards he wasn’t here just to make up the numbers.

“Mazraani said
Gentlemen
plural, when he answered the intercom.

Like he knew there was more than one of them.”

“Your point being . . . ?”

“My point is, it suggests he’d spotted them earlier.”

“Very likely. Mazraani must have got used to being followed. Even if he didn’t see anyone, he’d assume they were there.”

“Meaning he’d think these two were yours?”

“Possibly,” said Komorowski dismissively. “Thank you, Mr. Pascoe.

Sandy . . . ”

But Pascoe wasn’t done.

“Then why the hell weren’t they?” he demanded.

“Sorry?”

“Why weren’t there any of your men around? OK, I gather you’d managed to lose track of Mazraani earlier that day. I’d have thought the obvious thing to do was put someone on watch outside his fl at. At least that’s the way we’d have done it back in good old-fashioned Mid-Yorkshire CID, despite our staffi ng problems.”

Komorowski put his hand to his mouth as though to inhibit an over-hasty reply and looked down at Pascoe with a speculative gaze. Presumably he was high enough up the pecking order on the Intelligence half of CAT

to feel he didn’t need to take crap from DCIs. Pascoe noticed with distaste that his fingernails were cracked and none too clean.

Commander Bloomfield twisted his long frame in his chair and smiled at Pascoe.

“If I didn’t know you were one of Andy Dalziel’s boys, I think I’d have guessed,” he said. “Thing is, Peter, despite all this crisis talk, we’re desperately short of man power here in CAT. Probably in real terms even shorter than you doubtless are in your good old-fashioned CID.

Result, we’re continually reassessing priorities. The chaps on Mazraani lost him. Procedure is report it in, return to base for reassignment. As for watching the flat, why waste men when we’ve got a bug inside?

Soon as the tape was checked and we became aware there was activity, we’d have had someone round there.”

d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 87

“So when was the tape checked?” asked Pascoe.

Bloomfield glanced at Komorowski.

“Midnight that night,” said the man.

“So you sent a surveillance team round then?”

“Well, no,” admitted Komorowski. “There’d been no further activa-tion of the tape after the CD finished playing, so it was assumed the flat was now empty.”

“While actually it was full of dead people,” said Pascoe. “And didn’t whoever checked the tape out wonder who these two guys, what did they call themselves . . . ?”

“Andre de Montbard and Archambaud de St. Agnan,” said Glenister who was looking at Pascoe with the gentle smile of a mother proud of her prodigious son.

“ . . . which to anyone but the brain dead sound suspiciously like assumed names, didn’t he wonder who this pair were?”

Komorowski now looked like a schoolteacher cornered by a smart-ass pupil.

“Or,” Pascoe went on relentlessly, “did he make the same error as Mazraani and assume they were official, maybe because he’d got used to working in an environment where the right hand doesn’t always know what the left is doing?”

A silence followed this question, and in Pascoe’s eyes answered it too.

Then Freeman spoke from behind him.

“Lukasz,” he said, “if Pete here’s quite finished . . . ”

Pascoe glowered round at him. Teacher’s pet, he thought. Get your boss off the hook, earn brownie points.

He said, “I’m done. For now.”

“Thanks,” said Freeman. “Lukasz, these weird names the killer gave, or rather the man we assume is the killer gave. Do we have anything on them?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact we do,” said Komorowski. “But first I should draw your attention to an e-message every newspaper, TV news center and news agency received two days ago. It read:
It would appear that a
new order of knighthood has been founded on earth
.”

He paused as if inviting identifi cation.

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When none came he said, “Don’t worry. Of the great intellects who run our press, only one recognized it, and that curiously was the sports editor of the
Voice.
He was intrigued enough to mention it to the paper’s Security correspondent who passed it to us. We put it on file with a question mark. Now I think the question mark can be removed.”

He paused again and Bloomfield said, “In your own time, Lukasz.”

“Thank you, Bernie,” said Komorowski, as if taking the remark at its face value. “In fact this is a translation of the opening words of St.

Bernard of Clairvaux’s
Liber Ad Milites Templi,
written at the request of his friend Hugh de Payens, to define, justify, and encourage a new order of knights Hugh and a few others had just founded. These were the Knights Templar whose initial function was to protect the many pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem. Although the First Crusade had seen the establishment of new Christian states in the region, it was still a dangerous place for the unwary pilgrim, who provided an easy target both for religious zealots and for common thieves. Rapidly, however, the new Order outgrew its founding purpose and evolved into an independent fighting force dedicated to driving the infidels out of the Holy Land. Eventually it became so powerful that it had to be crushed by the very powers of western Christendom whose values it was formed to defend. But it is its beginnings not its ending that concern us here.”

He paused again and looked around as though anxious for approval.

Bloomfield said, “Good, good. And your point, Lukasz?”

“Besides Hugh de Payens there were eight other founder members of the order, all French noblemen,” said Komorowski. “One is unknown, possibly Hugh Count of Champagne who was de Payens’s liege lord. Two are known only by their Christian names, Rossal and Gondamer. The names of the others are Payen de Montdidier—

incidentally, the fact that Payen here and its plural form in the name of the Order’s founder look like medieval forms of the modern
paien,
pagan, seems to be a coincidence.”

Another pause, another glance around as if looking for comment or contradiction. There was none unless an audible sigh from Bloomfi eld could be interpreted as either.

d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 89

“Now where was I?” said Komorowski. “Oh yes. Montdidier. Then there are two Geoffreys, de St. Omer and Bisol. And finally, and for our present purpose, most significantly, there is a knight called Archambaud de St. Agnan, and a future Grand Master of the Order whose name is Andre de Montbard.”

2

A PA L E H O R S E

Hugh de Payens was galloping his gray stallion across a wide green meadow under an ancient castle’s beetling walls. On either side ranks of armed men held their eager mounts under strict control, their restless hooves rising and falling on the same spot, their heaving breasts creating a dark ripple of muscle that ran as far as the eye could see. Cuirasses glinted in the bright summer sun; pennants bearing lions, bears, griffins, and dragons, rampant, courant, couchant, fluttered above them; and high over all floated the broad banners which on a lily white ground bore the symbol of their purpose and their faith, the red cross.

Then a little bell rang and in a trice the castle became an insubstantial ruin, and the mounted men and their flags vanished, leaving the rider hacking gently along the edge of a field on a placid gray mare with nothing for company but a few incurious cows.

He reined in, took out a mobile, accessed Messages and found a single capital X.

He erased it and urged his mount forward into a spinney of beech trees slimming into willow as he approached a narrow but deep and fast moving stream. On its bank he came to a halt and slackened the rein so that the horse could crop the long grass.

He speed-dialed a number.

“Bernard.”

“Hugh.”

“De Clairvaux.”

“De Payens.”

Silence. He counted mentally.

one thousand two thousand three thousand
d e a t h c o m e s f o r t h e fa t m a n 91

Dead on three seconds the other voice spoke.

Anything less, anything more, and he would have switched off, removed the SIM card, cut it in half with the pair of electrical wire strippers attached to his belt, and hurled the pieces and the phone into the stream.

“Hugh, the loose end, there’s been a suggestion it might not be so harmless as we thought. I wonder if it might not be as well to tie it up.

Discreetly of course.”

A moment’s silence then Hugh said, “I’m not sure I like the sound of that. It’s not what we’re about.”

“Of course it isn’t. But in the field sometimes the choice is between collateral damage and protecting our own. Or, let’s not be mealy-mouthed, protecting ourselves.”

“Our structure protects us.”

“There are always links. You know me. Andre knows you. The Geoffreys know Andre.”

“I hope you trust my discretion. I trust Andre. And he says the Geoffreys are reliable.”

“Are they? From what you reported of Bisol’s reaction to Mill Street, I would have doubts.”

“He’s concerned about the injured policeman. Removing another as damage limitation isn’t going to make him feel any better.”

“Properly done, no reason why he should ever know, is there? Look, I don’t like this any more than you do, but I know how easily things can unravel. I’ve already had to put one nosy policeman on a tight rein. The loose end in question seems to be accident prone, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to remove him without arousing either suspicion or further agitating Bisol’s tender conscience. From what you say of him, I imagine Andre would take it in his stride. I leave it with you.”

The phone went dead.

Hugh switched off. His patient horse, alert to signals, raised its head, then resumed cropping the grass as its rider made no movement but sat in thought for a while.

Finally he activated his phone once more, texted an X, and disconnected.

A few moments later the phone rang.

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“Hugh.”

“Andre.”

“De Payens.”

“De Montbard.”

one thousand two thousand three thousand

“Andre, how are you? I’ve just been talking to Bernard. There’s a little job which sounds very much your cup of tea . . . ”

3

K A F F E E - K L AT S C H

Two days after Pascoe had gone west, Ellie Pascoe and Edgar Wield met outside the Arts Center. Wield knew it wasn’t by chance when Ellie, uncomfortable with deception, over-egged her look of surprised pleasure.

She wants to talk about Peter, he guessed, but is worried about looking disloyal.

“How do, luv?” he said before she could speak. “Fancy a coffee at Hal’s?”

He saw he’d stolen her line, and she’d been married to a detective long enough to work out why by the time they climbed up to the mez-zanine café-bar in the Arts Center.

With relief, because she hated masquerade, she took this as an invitation to cut straight to the chase as soon as they’d got their coffee.

“Have you heard from Peter?” she asked.

“Aye.”

“And what’s he say?”

“This and that,” he answered vaguely. “Have you not heard yourself ?”

“Of course I have,” she said indignantly. “He rings me every night.”

Every night
seemed a large term for the two nights Pascoe had been away.

“Rings me during the day,” said Wield. “Don’t expect he misses me at night.”

They smiled at each other like the old friends they were.

“So what’s he talk to you about?” said Ellie.

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“That and this,” repeated Wield. “Work stuff. You know Pete.

Thinks the place is going to fall apart if he’s not there to keep an eye on things.”

Ellie saw that he might have opened things up for her, but he had his loyalties too. This was her call.

She said, “I’m a bit worried about him, Wieldy. More than a bit. A hell of a lot. I think he’s got really obsessive about this bomb investigation.”

“Came close to killing him,” said Wield. “Enough to make you both obsessive.”

“Meaning, how clear’s my own judgment here?” interpreted Ellie.

“Wieldy, if you can put your hand on your heart and tell me he’s fi ne, that’ll do the trick for me.”

He drank his coffee. His face was as unreadable as ever, but Ellie knew because she’d known it from the start that she wasn’t going to hear much for her comfort.

He said, “Wish I could. But it’s not so odd that I can’t. Being close to something like Mill Street doesn’t just go away. I reckon it shook Pete up more than he’ll admit. Since it happened, he’s defi nitely not been himself. Trouble is, from what I’ve seen of him, what he’s trying to be is Andy Dalziel. The way he deals with people, the way he talks, even, God help us, the way he walks, it’s like he feels he’s got to fi ll in for Fat Andy. But likely you’ll have noticed?”