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explosive more thoroughly and something went wrong. Or perhaps when they saw you and Mr. Dalziel moving forward, they weighed a long night in an interview room with you against an eternity in Paradise with a martyr’s promised houris.
    Either way, boom!”
    She gently disengaged his hand, which Pascoe now realized he’d been clinging onto like an ancient mariner eager for a chat.
    “You take care of yourself now, Peter,” said Glenister. “The Force can’t spare its Blue Smarties in these troubled times. I hope you’re back at work really soon.”

    34 r e g i n a l d h i l l
    She went out of the room. Pascoe stared at the closed door for a while, then shoved back the sheet and swung his legs onto the fl oor.
    He was surprised to find how weak this simple movement left him and he was still sitting on the bed, nerving himself to test his knee, when Wield came in.
    “Where do you think you’re going?” demanded the sergeant.
    “I’m going to see Andy.”
    “Not now you’re not,” said Wield.
    Something in his tone alerted Pascoe that the sergeant wasn’t just coming the nurse substitute.
    “Why? What’s happened?” he demanded.
    “I asked the ward sister to check how Andy was doing in Intensive Care,” said Wield. “She was talking to someone there when all hell broke loose at the other end of the phone. Pete, his heart stopped.
    They’ve got the crash team working on him now, but from what the sister said, it’s not looking good. Pete, we need to face it. This could be the end for Fat Andy.”

    7
    D A N C I N G W I T H D E AT H
    Andy Dalziel is in the Mecca Ballroom, locked in a tango with Tottie Truman from Donny.
    He feels as light as a feather. His feet hardly seem to be in contact with the floor, his muscles responding to every modulation of the music, as if the notes were vibrating along his arteries rather than through his ears. And he can feel the blood pulsing through Tottie’s veins in a perfect counterpoint to his own rhythms as they move inexorably toward that blissfully explosive moment of complete fusion…
    But not on the dance floor! It’s all a question of timing. In search of delay, he makes his mind step back and take in his surroundings.
    The Mirely Mecca has changed a lot since his last visit, which was
    . . . he can’t recall when. Never mind. The ceiling’s higher now and the soaring windows, spring bright with colored glass, wouldn’t disgrace a cathedral. The walls are lined with long tables, covered in white linen cloths on which rests a royal banquet of everything he loves—on one table crowns of lamb, barons of beef, loins of pork ridged with crackling, honey glazed hams; on another roasted geese, Christmas turkeys, duck with cherries, pheasant adorned with their own feathers; on a third whole salmon, pickled herring, mountain ranges of oysters and mussels. Yet another is crowded with desserts, bread-and-butter pudding, rhubarb crumble, spotted dick, and his childhood favorite, Eve’s Pudding.
    And there, by a table laden with bottles of every kind of malt whisky he’d ever tasted, stands Peter Pascoe, an open bottle of Highland Park in one hand and in the other a king-size crystal tumbler full to the brim which he is holding out in smiling invitation . . .

    36 r e g i n a l d h i l l
    Later, lad, he mouths. Later. First things first. Dance till the music reaches its climax, then straight out of the door into that dark alcove at the end of the corridor to reach his and hers . . .
    After which, being a gentleman, he’ll wait a decent interval of mebbe a minute and a half, before heading back inside for another helping of Eve’s Pudding . . .
    But just as he begins to wonder if he can hold out any longer, the music changes, accelerating from the sensuous pulse of the tango into the mad whirl of a Viennese waltz. His muscles obey the new commands effortlessly though his mind wonders what the fuck the band leader’s playing at. Round and round and round he spins, till