Dialogues of the Dead

by Reginald Hill

  277 He held his own hands out before him as he spoke, as if to show there was nothing in them, and smiled ruefully. Pascoe said, 'Do you really imagine that I give a toss about this sodding short story competition, Mr Roote?' 'It does seem rather strange. But I thought maybe because Mrs Pascoe was involved in the judging, you felt a little protective of her reputation. I suppose, in a manner of speaking, this is her first professional engagement, and naturally you'd be very solicitous to see she got it right.' Leave it alone, Pete, urged Wield telepathically. He's jerking you around like a hooked fish. He must have got through because the DCI, after a couple of the deepest breaths the sergeant had ever seen him take, termin ated the interview and advised Roote that he was free to go. 'You did the right thing,' said Wield after they'd seen him off the premises. 'Did I? I wish to hell I thought so,' replied Pascoe savagely. 'OK, he might have been slipping his story in late, but that doesn't mean he didn't put the Dialogue in too.' 'True, but unless you can produce something to support that idea, all you've got here is the kind of daft story the press would go to town on, "Cop bangs up wife's protege. 'A likely story,' says top tec." Plus everything from the past being raked up. That what you want?' 'You should have been a sub-editor, Wieldy,' said Pascoe. 'But I tell you, every time I see him walk away, I think, someone's going to pay because I found him too slippery to keep a hold of.' 'You can't know that, Pete,' said Wield. 'But if you're right, he'll be back.' He was back, but a lot quicker than either of them anticipated. Pascoe had just got home and was in the middle of a lively discussion about the evening with Ellie when the phone rang. He picked it up, listened, said, 'Oh Christ. I'll be there.' 'What's happened?' said Ellie. 'I put a uniformed watch on Roote's flat and, in all the excite ment, I forgot to cancel it. They've just brought him back in. They tried to release him again when they realized what had happened, but he's refusing to go till he gets my personal assur ance that he can go to bed without fear of further disturbance. He says either I come .or the press comes. This time I really am going to kill the bastard!'

  At just about the same time, Dalziel was doing a Gay Gordons with enormous energy and a lightness of step which won universal applause. 'Don't know what he does to your ma, Piers,' said Lord Partridge, 'but he frightens the shit out of me.' Lieutenant-Colonel Piers Evenlode smiled a touch wanly, but at least he smiled. When he'd learned that his mother was bringing her frightful plod to the ball, his heart had sunk. On the whole she did her best to make sure that the, in his view, neo-Bohemian lifestyle she favoured did not impinge too much upon his military career. By reverting to her maiden name of Marvell, she drew no attention to him on the occasions when her various protest activities got her into the papers, and, to be fair, since she and this tun of lard had become an item, though unchanged in her attitudes and activities, she no longer seemed to seek the limelight in the old way. No, what he feared, more for her sake than his own, he reassured himself, was that Andy Dalziel's presence at the ball would render her an object of pity and ridicule. And, he also admitted because he was a basically honest man, that some of the muffled laughter would be directed at himself. His worst fears had seemed to be realized when he saw the kilt. But in the event, the man had proved able to carry it, and he'd fielded all the attempted jokes at his expense with good humour and enough sharp wit to make the would-be mockers wary, and above all, far from looking ludicrous on the dance floor, he had moved with such grace and lightness that he was rapidly the partner of choice amongst the women who preferred real dancing to the close-quarters foreplay favoured by the increasingly tipsy soldiery. That was another thing. Eschewing champagne, the man had consumed what must have been a whole bottle of malt without showing the slightest diminution of speech or motor control. So perhaps, unless it turned out he'd got the stately home ringed by bobbies with their breathalysers at the ready, it was going to be all right after all.

  27^ The dance finished and Dalziel led Cap off the floor to where her son was standing. 'Refill, luv?' he said. 'No thanks, I'm fine,' she said. 'Summat to eat, then?' 'No, really.' 'Think I'll have another nibble,' he said. 'Need to keep my strength up if I'm going to be searched later.' With a wink at Piers, he moved away. 'Searched?' said Piers, alarmed, recalling his fantasy about a ring of cops watching the house. 'What's he mean?' His mother looked at him fondly. 'Darling, you don't want to know,' she said. In the buffet room, Dalziel looked around till he saw what he was looking for, a white-haired woman with a strong-jawed, rather severe face who was keeping a close eye on a flock of young helpers. 'How do, luv,' said Dalziel, approaching. 'Any more of that lovely SahnetorteY She looked at him with interest and said, 'She sprechen Deutsch, mem HerrY 'Just enough to ask for what I like,' he said. 'And I like that cream cake. Best I've had since last time I were in Berlin. Where do you get it round here? It 'ud be worth a long trip.' 'We do not get it,' she said scornfully in heavily accented but perfectly clear English. 'I make it.' 'Nay! Well, blow me. You make it yourself! Now, hang on, I bet you're Frau Penck, the treasure old Budgie was telling me about.' 'His Lordship is very kind.' 'Didn't he say you were Charley Penn's mam?' Dalziel went on. 'By God, making cake like that and being Charley's mam, . you've a lot to be proud of. Always talking about the lovely cakes | his old mutti makes, is our Charley.' 'j 'You know my son?' she asked, i 'Aye, do I. Often have a drink with him on a Sunday lunchdme, j but he usually has to cut it short, to go and see his old mam, he j always says. Well, I can see why he rushes off now. It must do i| you good to know that someone as important as Charley puts you '| top of his list when it comes to choosing what to do. He's a big | man, tha knows. He can pick and choose his company. It's incredible the way he's succeeded. More British than the Brits! You'd never know he weren't a bred-in-the-bone Yorkshireman. You must be right proud to think you can get a man like this to come running just by snapping your fingers.' She did not reply to this but gave him what Dalziel thought of as the universal female significant look which implied that her lips were sealed but if they weren't, then she might have something to say which would bowl him over. He pressed on. 'Last Sunday, I recall, it were my birthday and I was pushing the boat out a bit, and I tried to persuade Charley to hang on a bit longer to have a spot of lunch in the pub. They do a lovely sticky toffee pudding there, but when I tried to tempt Charley, he said it couldn't compare with the sweets his old mam would have ready for him. He's always talking about the grub he gets every Sunday when he visits you. Well, now I know why. Go on, make me mouth water, what did you give him?' 'Last Sunday? Nothing,' the old woman said. 'Nothing? Not even Sahnetorte'?' said Dalziel. amazed. 'Nothing at all. He did not come. It was no matter. I do not expect him. He comes when he will.' 'You're sure he weren't here last Sunday?' said Dalziel, looking at her doubtfully. 'Of course I am sure. You think I am senile?' 'Nay, missus, I can see you're not that. My mistake, he must have said he was going somewhere else. Now, about the cake .. .' 'I think you'll find it's over here, Andy,' said Cap Marvell. He turned. She was standing regarding him with the kind of expression he'd expect to be printed on his own face if he heard a known villain, caught with his hand in a church poor-box, claiming he was making a contribution. 'Oh aye. So it is. Nice talking, missus. I'll give your love to Charley.' 'So,' said Cap as they moved away, 'this is how you leave your work behind, is it?' 'Nay, lass, I were just passing the time of day.. .' 'Lying about your birthday? That's bollocks, and I've got a great eye for bollocks.' 'Well, you've had the practice ... Jesus, that hurt!'

  281 'Next time it won't be your ankle I kick. Let's have the truth.' 'It's nowt really ... just a notion I got about Charley Penn. He said he were out here visiting his mam last Sunday afternoon when Johnson got topped. Young Bowler checked her out and she seemed to say that Charley were never away. Just thought when I bumped into her that I'd have a little chat, double check. No harm in that, is there?' She considered then said, 'Bollocks again. I don't think you bumped into her because you came to the ball, you came to the ball so that you could bump into her. And that was beca
use you reckoned that with her background when Frau Penck found herself being questioned by the police about her son, she probably clammed up tighter than a virgin's valve. On the other hand, talking to an old chum of Budgie^s who's escorted the colonel's mama to the regimental ball, she could let all her resentment at being neglected by her Anglophile son hang out.' 'Virgin's valve? Don't know where you pick these expressions up from,' said Dalziel reprovingly. 'Sod the expression. What I've said is the truth. Admit it or I'll push that Sahnetorte into your face.' Dalziel looked down at the huge portion of the cream cake he'd just helped himself to and said, 'Funny, but that's just what I were going to do. Nay, hold on there, I'm admitting, I'm admitting. OK, it mebbe helped dp the balance, but I'm bloody glad it did. I'd not have missed this for the world. I'm having the best rime of my life.' 'That's as maybe, but you've used me, Andy.' 'Well,' he said judiciously through a mawful of whipped cream, 'you've never complained before. Any road, it's nearly the sabbath. Good day for forgiving is the sabbath.' 'Oh, I forgive, but I won't forget. You owe me one, Andy Dalziel.' 'Don't worry, luv,' he said. 'Afore the night's out, I intend giving thee one. Hey, listen, they're playing a tango. Let's go and show these tin soldiers how to do it!'

  And as Dalziel escorted his lady on to the dance floor, Peter Pascoe escorted Franny Roote out of the police station. 'Let me say again how sorry I am about this misunderstanding, Mr Roote,' he said. 'A simple breakdown in communication, I'm afraid.' 'That's what lies at the root of most human problems, isn't it, Mr Pascoe?' said the man earnestly. 'A simple breakdown in communication. If only words always did what we want them to. Goodnight.' He climbed into the police car provided to take him back to his flat, smiled up at Pascoe through the window and gave a little wave as the vehicle moved off into the darkness. Pascoe watched it go. 'I think words always do exactly what you want them to do, Franny, my boy,' he murmured. 'The root of most human problems. Oh yes, that fits you to a tee. But I shall pull you up out of the earth before I'm finished and consign you to the bonfire like any other noxious weed. I shall. I shall. Believe me, I shall!' He went to his own car, climbed in, and drove home.

  283 Chapter Thirty-one

  'My God,' said Rye Pomona as she opened the door. 'The birdman cometh!' 'What?' said Hat Bowler, his face darkening. 'What what'? It's called a joke. Or is there some rule which says twitchers' gear mustn't be a source of merriment?' Hat, though he felt rather dashing in a Great Outdoors windswept sort of way, was more baffled than offended by this reference to his camouflage forage cap, RSPB tanktop and moleskin breeks. Then his error dawned on him. 'Sorry. You said birdman. I thought you said Wordman, which I didn't think was very funny. ..' 'Which indeed it would not have been, had I indeed said it,' replied Rye coolly. 'Is there anything else I haven't said which you would care to be offended by?' This wasn't the start he'd hoped for, thought Hat. Time to regroup. 'You look great,' he said, running his eyes down her yellow top and burgundy shorts. 'The birds will be watching you.' She made a face like she'd just sucked a lemon, which was not the optimum reaction to what had in the past been a pretty successful chat-up line but nonetheless preferable to chilly reproach. 'You'd better come in before someone sees you and sends for help,' she said. 'As I suspect you've guessed, I'm not ready. You're early, aren't you?' He followed her into her flat. There were old movies, he recollected, where a guy drove up to a girl's front door, blew his horn, and watched her come running down the steps, big smile on her face, hoping she hadn't kept him waiting. But this was a recollection he thought better to keep to himself, as was the observation that no, he wasn't early, but so dead on time you could have set a nuclear clock by him. He sat down and said, 'Hey, I saw you on telly last night.' 'You did? You must have sharp eyes.' 'Twitchers' eyes,' he said. 'Spot a redwing at three hundred paces. By the way, don't know if it's the same for girls, but my mother used to tell me to be careful pulling funny faces or I might stop like that.' That worked. The renewed sour-lemon look vanished to be replaced by a broad grin. 'You think it's easy scowling when what I planned was . ..' 'What?' 'Something like this.' She stooped over him and kissed him on the lips, lightly but with a definite hint of tongue. This was even better than smiling girl running down the steps to the car. She said, 'I'll be with you in a couple of minutes.' He watched her go into what he presumed was the bedroom and fantasized about following her. Decided no. That kiss was encouraging but not an invitation. Besides, these moleskin breeks were hell to get out of in a hurry, and in the distant future he wanted their first time to be replayable for passion not for laughs. The distant future. Why was he so certain they were going to have a distant future together in which to remember a first time? Because he couldn't imagine any kind of future apart. 'So what was that all about last night?' she called to him through the partially open door. 'All what where who?' 'Don't be coy. All that with your two colleagues, Dorian Grey and the attic.' He worked this out. 'DCI Pascoe and Sergeant Wield,' he said. 'You mean at the presentation?' He'd seen it on TV. And he'd got a detailed background when he called in at the station that morning, thinking, with the kind of logic he'd have probably laughed at in a woman, that after a

  285 couple of days on sick leave it might be well to establish that he was recovered sufficiently to take his day off. 'You see, you do know all what where who,' Rye said from the bedroom. 'When that creepy guy Roote came up to get his prize, I saw beauty and the beast watching him like they'd have preferred to be massaging his extremities with a cattle prod. At least, that's how the good-looking one looked. The other always looks like that, I guess.' 'Well, there's a bit of a history there,' said Hat. She came out of the bedroom. The top and shorts had been replaced by jeans and a chunky brown sweater and her crown of hair tucked into a drab green beret. 'Will the birds still be watching me?' she said challengingly. 'Only if they've any sense,' he said. She nodded and said, 'Good answer. So what's this history, and what had been going on last night to hot things up? Was it something to do with the security cameras?' 'How the hell do you know that?' he demanded. 'That ugly sergeant started asking me questions again about the morning I found the Ripley Dialogue. But what he seemed particularly interested in was me finding Charley Penn's transla tion of "dm hist wie eine Blume". It felt like he'd been watching me and the only way I could figure that was, the camera must have been on. If that's right and you lot have only just realized, it looks like someone's been sleeping on the job, eh?' 'What did Wield say about Penn?' asked Hat, trying to keep his voice neutral. 'Not a lot. He's not exactly effusive, is he? I suggested leaving poetry lying around was an oblique form of sexual harassment which he might care to investigate, and I think he smiled but it might just have been wind.' 'But he didn't actually mention the tapes?' 'No. I worked that out all by my little self.' 'Clever,' he said. 'Really. I'm not taking the piss.' 'Yeah. Well, I did sweet-talk Dave, the security man, just to be sure,' she admitted. 'So come on. Fill me in on Franny Roote and your DCI.' It did not seem a good time to plead police confidentiality, and besides he was in so deep sharing Wordman stuff with Rye that it was easier to go on than pull back, so he told her about Pascoe's fraught relationship with Franny Roote. 'When I saw him going up to the stage last night, I was gobsmacked,' he said. 'Especially after what they'd said about the winning story. Didn't sound like him at all.. .' 'Like your Mr Pascoe's version of him, you mean?' she said. 'I have met him myself a couple of times,' said Hat defensively. 'And you called him creepy.' 'Yeah, but I meant it sort of literally. He gets in the library sometimes, and he moves so lightly, you never know he's there till suddenly he's next to you. So Pascoe fancies him for the Wordman? Hey, I've just thought. His wife was helping Penn to judge, wasn't she? Co-operating with one suspect to give the prize to another! I bet Pascoe was delighted about that. I bet they lay awake all night chuckling about it.' 'She wasn't to know, was she?' said Hat, who was an Ellie Pascoe fan. 'You must have read the story. How did it sound to you?' 'Good,' she admitted. 'Dick thought it was the tops. I wasn't quite so enthusiastic, but I did
think it was good. Moving, you know. Lot of uplift. Not really my thing.' The seed of a quip about a girl with a figure like hers not needing a lot of uplift spurted across his mind but died before it got close to ejaculation. 'Well, it seems what actually happened last night was this . ..' said Hat, who when he gave his trust didn't care to stint. It was Wield who'd filled him in. He'd have probably preferred to keep the whole business low key but the way things panned, this hadn't been an option. The story of Roote's return visit was being told all over the station with advantages, and it seemed sensible to give Bowler a fall account, to help set the record straight. 'It's not CID at its best, but it's a lot better than some of the versions that are fluttering about,' concluded the sergeant. 'You hear them, you stamp on them, OK?' 'OK,' said Hat. 'What's the super's reaction to all this?' 'Mr Dalziel must have danced himself off the ground,' said Wield. 'He's not been seen yet. But no doubt he'll appear shortly. And if you want to enjoy your day off, lad, I'd advise you to make