Dialogues of the Dead

15

All good things come to an end. Provincial previews take a little longer but even they have their natural term. The guests had their various reasons for coming-some to see, some to be seen; some out of obligation, some out of love; some out of interest, some out of boredom-but they needed only one of two reasons for going-they had either got what they came for, or it wasn’t there for the getting.

Getting the weapon was so easy I hardly noticed that I’d taken it and certainly no one else did. Then I bided my time, in every sense of the phrase. Eventually people began to drift away, and when I saw my particular piece of flotsam join the drift, I followed close behind, but not so close as to draw attention. My aura was strong now, so strong I felt myself borne along on its brightness like a piece of debris on the wind which follows a nuclear blast. Breathe on me breath of God, I sang inside, for this surely must be what His breath feels like. I was aglow with its gloriole, but still time flowed strongly around me. Then I saw him turn away from the main drift and at the same moment I felt time begin to ebb.

“Well, it’s time we were off,” said Andy Dalziel. “Ars longa”-he gave the ess its full sibilance-“and if I stay here much longer, me belly’ll think me throat’s cut.”

Cap Marvell let her gaze linger on the quercine throat in question and said, “You must have a very imaginative belly.”

But the Lord Mayor who felt he had stayed far beyond the requirements of duty was on Dalziel’s side.

“You’re right, Andy,” he said. “If we show the way, then all these other good folk can be off to their lunches, eh?”

His touching belief that, as with royalty, nobody ate till he ate or left before he left, was contradicted by the steady flow of exiting guests as one o’clock approached. But his eagerness to join them was not shared by his wife, who had recovered from her brush with the Hon.’s jacket and was now displaying the oenological expertise recently acquired on a Sunday Times Wine Society weekend. Having expressed the opinion that over-oaked chardonnay had had its day, she had been brought a newly opened bottle of red by Percy Follows.

“Don’t tell me what it is,” she cried, sniffing deeply at the glass cradled in her hands. “Ah, this is good, this is interesting. I’m getting exotic fruit, I’m getting mangrove swamps, I’m getting coriander, I’m getting cumin, I’m getting jaggery.”

“Shouldn’t let it bother you, luv,” said Dalziel. “After fifteen pints of best, I sometimes get a bit jaggery meself. Now are we going, or what?”

“It’s a Shiraz Merlot blend, I’d say. Western Australia? About ’97?” said Margot.

All eyes turned on Follows who, keeping his hand clamped firmly over the bottle’s label, said, “Spot on, my dear. What a nose you have there.”

It was indeed a nose to be proud of. If you were a macaw, thought Cap.

She saw a similar thought form on Dalziel’s lips, got him in a restraint-lock disguised as an affectionate linking of arms, and said, “You’re right, dear. Time to be on our way.”

They moved off, closely followed by the mayor and his triumphing wife.

Ambrose Bird approached Follows, prised the bottle from his fingers, examined the label which read St-Émilion, and said magnificently, “Creep!”

And now the gallery really did begin to empty fast. Soon, of the hundred or so guests who’d attended, only a couple of dozen remained. Among them was Edgar Wield, the glass of chilled white wine he’d received on arrival now warm in his hand. He had little interest in art but his partner, Edwin Digweed, had wanted to come. Sensing Wield’s reluctance he had said acidly, “Very well. I shall remember this next time you want me to attend an autopsy.” Any more realistic argument might have made Wield dig his heels in, but this made him smile and give in with a good grace, neither of which would have been detectable to a stranger but both of which Digweed spotted and appreciated.

Now he waited with ironic patience for Digweed, who couldn’t sharpen a pencil without cutting his finger, to finish a deep discussion he was having with a hunky young wood-turner about the relative merits of elm and yew, and looked forward to the rest of the day which, with luck, would give him the pleasure of his partner’s company away from any disruptive crowd.

He saw Pascoe and Ellie by the exit talking to Ambrose Bird, or rather Ellie and the Last of the Actor-Managers were talking. Wield knew that if Ellie had a weakness, it was a tendency to be star-struck by fully paid-up luvvies. Pascoe, who wore the sweet smile with which he masked impatience, caught Wield’s eye, made a wry face, then moved towards him.

Wield watched him approach, noting with approval the grace of movement, the pleasant manner with which he greeted acquaintance, the general sense of ease and rightness which emanated from that slim figure. The boy was good, would have still been good if this had been a top-level diplomatic reception rather than a provincial arty-farty piss-up. Others must have noticed too. He’d done well, but not too well, or rather not too quickly. Others had flown to DCI and beyond a lot quicker than Pascoe, but those who hit the top too soon always posed the question, Did you hang around anywhere long enough to get your hands dirty? You’ve made the climb but have you done the time? Looking ahead when he was a sprog, setting out on the steep ascent laid out before a graduate entrant, if Pascoe had been able to foresee his long sojourn in Mid-Yorkshire CID, he’d probably have felt his career must have stalled. But not now. He didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, not even with his closest friends, but he had said enough for Wield to know he was aware of his true worth. And aware even more that there were things in his life more important far than ambition. If he had pushed, gone hunting for the glittering prizes, he could probably have been up and away long since. But now he had other agendas. Hostages to fortune, that’s what some clever bugger had called wife and family, probably meaning it cynically. Well, Pascoe had come close to losing both his child and his missus in the past few years, and now he knew beyond any doubt what ransom he was willing to pay to keep them safe, which was everything he had or could expect to have. So nothing was going to happen without the imprimatur of their happiness.

Young Rosie’s move to secondary school a few years ahead was going to be the testing time, Wield guessed. The old days of bully-boy tactics from above-Take the job or you’re off to Traffic! — were, if not passed, at least passing. Others would be aware of this window too and poised to haul the lad up through it as soon as it was fully open.

Of course they’d need to get King Dalziel’s approval.

“Wieldy, you’ve been standing here so long, I’m amazed someone hasn’t bought you.”

“You know me, Pete. Always find people more interesting than pictures.”

Behind them, they heard an upraising of voices which seemed to emanate from the alcove in which the engraver had been displaying her craft. Then it was drowned by the more distant but to their sensitized ears more disturbing sound of sirens.

“The meat wagon?” said Pascoe.

“Yes. And our boys too,” said Wield.

“You switched on?”

“No. I’m off-call,” said the sergeant firmly.

“Me too.”

“Sounds close, but.”

“Probably some poor old girl in the precinct’s shopped till she dropped,” said Pascoe, knowing that Ellie, alert to the dangers signalled by police alarums, was watching him keenly for sign of any inclination to get involved.

“Excuse me,” said a broad Yorkshire voice behind him. “Somebody said you were a copper, is that right?”

He turned to see a lanky woman in a red smock and black tights, with a razored haircut that gave her a look of Sigourney Weaver in Alien 3. He recognized her as Jude Illingworth, the engraver.

“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly. “Is there something wrong?”

“Aye, is there. You expect it out of doors at a craft fair, mebbe, somewhere open to everybody. If it’s not nailed down, it’ll go. But at a posh do like this …”

I am in no hurry, for where there is no time, haste has no meaning. I follow with my eyes only and wait. The door opens, a man comes out. I watch him out of sight and then go in.

And there he is as I know he must be, alone, stooped over a washbasin, laving his face.

As I approach from behind he looks up and sees me in the mirror.

Oh, this is fine. This is my reward for faithfulness. I have no choice in these matters, but if I had a choice, this I might have chosen, for this allows me to be both player and audience.

I can see his face in the mirror and mine too, my lips curved in a smile, his eyes rounded in surprise but not in fear. I am not night’s dark agent but a bringer of light, and fear is no part of my message. This man with his lust to glut his own body as he starves the souls of others of their natural nourishment is driven not by evil but by a warped good which is worse. It is his own pain as much as that he causes others that I am sent to release him from.

So I speak to him reassuringly, uttering a few soft words sweetly. Then I drive the weapon into the base of his skull and up through I know not what layers of matter, certain that another hand than mine is guiding the point to its appointed destination.

He spasms, but I hold him there with ease. If a million angels can dance on the head of a pin, then a single man twisting and turning on my much broader point is a piece of cake.

And now he goes slack. I withdraw my weapon and let him slide to the floor, face down, his bald head gleaming like metal under the striplight.

Before Pascoe could ask Jude Illingworth what the hell she was talking about, there was another interruption. Hat Bowler, who’d left some time earlier, came back into the gallery, pushing between Ellie and Bird with scant ceremony, and making straight for Pascoe.

“Sir,” he said breathlessly, “can I have a word?”

His face was pale.

Pascoe said, “What’s happened?”

Jude Illingworth said, “Hang about, I was first.”

Pascoe said, “Sorry. Wieldy, could you deal?”

“Sure. Now, Miss …”

“You a cop, too?” she said regarding his cragged and potholed face doubtfully.

“Aye. Sergeant. So …?”

“So some sod’s pinched one of my burins.”

“Oh aye? Happens a lot when you’re wearing tights, does it?” said Wield.

Pascoe heard the exchange as he moved aside with Bowler and stifled a smile. Live with Andy Dalziel long enough, something was bound to rub off.

“So tell me,” he invited the DC.

“I found him, sir,” said Hat. “I went into the Gents and he was on the floor. He wasn’t quite dead, he was trying to say something and I leaned down close to try and hear what it was but it didn’t make sense and then it just turned into a death rattle. I checked his pulse and there was none, and I went through all the resuss procedures, just in case, but nothing, so I called HQ for assistance and told them to send an ambulance too, though he looked beyond help to me, then I got a Centre security man to stand by the door and keep everyone else out, and I thought I’d better get up here and let you know, sir …”

He ran out of breath.

Pascoe said, “That’s good, Hat. You’ve called up assistance and you’ve secured the scene. Now perhaps we could just slow down and get a bit of necessary detail. Like, how about telling me who it is you’ve found?”

“Councillor Steel, sir. You know, the one they call Stuffer.”

“Good God,” said Pascoe. “And he’s definitely dead, you say? What was it, you reckon? Stroke?”

“No, sir. I’m sorry. It’s daft but it shook me up a bit. He’s been murdered. I should have said, he’s got a hole in the base of his skull. And I found what could be the weapon on the floor. I marked the spot and bagged it. Didn’t want anyone else to see it, it’s a bit unusual and I thought that it was best to keep it to ourselves for a bit. I’ve got it here.”

He pulled a transparent plastic bag out of the inside pocket of his jerkin and held it up. It contained what looked like some sort of small chisel.

“Did I do right, sir?” said the young DC anxiously.

But before Pascoe could reply, Jude Illingworth edged him aside.

“Now that’s what I call service,” she said. “I don’t care what your customers say about you, I think our police are bloody wonderful. Where did you find it?”

“Sorry?” said Pascoe.

“My burin,” said the woman, her eyes fixed on Bowler’s evidence bag. “Where did you find my burin?”

I stoop and make my necessary mark.

So there he lies, brought by a burin to his buriness, that breath that sank a thousand friendships stilled forever, that appetite which seemed ambitious to devour the earth soon to be engorged by it. I look down upon him and I share his peace.

But then like the Illyrian merchant who sees the Adriatic’s silken skin wrinkle at the first touch of the bora, I suddenly feel uneasy. In here all is peace, but outside in the corridor I sense movement, as if the bora were indeed beginning to blow …

Surely the Power that guides my fate cannot permit anything to go wrong?

Yes, I know I could have asked, but just then there seemed only one way to find out.

I move swiftly to the door and pull it open.

And I laugh out loud as I realize all I have felt is the return of time, exploding along the corridor as the dam breaks.

I compose my face and step out into its rushing current, happy to let it bear me where it will, certain that it will set me ashore safe on whatever spit or island is appointed for our next thrilling Dialogue.

Talk again soon!

“He was trying to speak, you said,” said Pascoe as he hurried down the stairs with Bowler. “Could you make out anything at all? Think hard while it’s still fresh in your mind.”

“Yes, sir. I’ve been trying. And …well, it’s a bit daft …but what he was trying to say sounded like …”

“Yes?” prompted Pascoe.

“Rosebud. It sounded like rosebud.”