Dialogues of the Dead

19

Charley Penn said, “Aye,” into his mobile phone for the second time, switched it off and replaced it in his pocket.

“Interesting,” said Sam Johnson.

“What?”

“You answer your mobile without that expression, or at least grimace, of apology with which most civilized men of a certain age usually preface its use, then you have a conversation, or should I say transaction, to which your sole contribution is the word Aye, used once as an exordial interrogative and once as a valedictory affirmative.”

“And that’s interesting? You lecturers must lead very quiet lives. Cheers, lad.”

Franny Roote, just returned from the bar, placed a pint of bitter in front of Penn and a large Scotch in front of Johnson, then pulled a bottle of Pils out of his duffel-coat pocket, twisted off the top, and drank directly from the bottle.

“Why do you buggers do that?” asked Penn.

“Hygiene,” said Roote. “You never know where a glass has been.”

“Well, I know where it’s not been,” said Penn through the froth on his pint. “It’s not got the shape.”

Roote and Johnson exchanged smiles. They’d discussed Penn’s self-projection as a hard-nosed northerner and come to the conclusion it was a protective front behind which he could write his historical romances and pursue his poetical researches with minimum interference from the patronizing worlds of either the literary or the academic establishments.

“On the other hand,” Johnson had said, “it may be he’s gone on too long. That’s the danger with concealment. In the end we may become what we pretend to be.”

Which was the kind of clever-sounding thing university teachers were good at saying, thought Roote. He himself had got the patois off pat and didn’t doubt that when the time came to move from the economically challenged freedom of student life to the comfortable confines of an academic job, he would be accepted as a native son.

Meanwhile there were worse things to be doing on a Sunday morning than sitting having a drink with this pair of, in their different ways, extremely entertaining and potentially useful men, and worse places to be doing them than in the saloon bar of The Dog and Duck.

“So Charley, did you settle on a satisfactory honorarium with the dreaded Agnew?” asked Johnson.

“Nothing’s settled with a journalist till it’s down on paper and witnessed by a notary public,” said Penn. “But it will be. Not that I was helped in my negotiations by the evident willingness of you and Ellie Pascoe to offer freebies.”

“Strictly speaking, it can be viewed as part of my work,” said Johnson. “And of course Ellie is still in that happy state of feeling so flattered to be treated as a real writer, she’d probably pay for the privilege. I believe we’re being landed with fifty possibles. You’re content with the preliminary sorting, I hope? I’m not well enough acquainted with Mr. Dee and his amiable assistant to comment on their judgment, but I get the impression the task was thrust upon them, not because they were qualified but because they were there.”

“I’ve known Dick Dee since he were a lad, and he’s probably forgotten more about the use of language than most of you buggers in English Departments ever learnt,” retorted Penn.

“Which I take it means you’re definitely not inclined to read any of the submissions he’s rejected,” laughed Johnson.

“Can’t say I’m looking forward to reading them he hasn’t,” said Penn. “You pick the best of crap, it’s still crap, isn’t it?”

“Careful,” murmured Johnson. “Never speak ill of a man whose drink you are drinking.”

“Eh?” Penn’s gaze turned on Roote. “You’ve not entered a story, have you?”

Franny Roote sucked on his bottle again, smiled his secretive smile, and said, “I refuse to comment on the grounds I may be disqualifying myself.”

“Sorry?”

“Well, suppose I had entered and suppose I won, then it came out I had been seen buying prominent members of the judging panel a drink, how would that look?”

“I don’t think they’d hold the front page on the Sun. Or even the London Review of Books.”

“Nonetheless.” Roote turned his gaze on Johnson. “And what makes you think I may have entered anyway?”

“Just that I recall seeing the page from the Gazette announcing the competition lying around your flat when I had coffee there a couple of weeks back,” said Johnson. “It’s an occupational hazard of literary research, as Charley and I well know, and you yourself must be finding out, that your eyes are irresistibly drawn to anything with print on it.”

“Aye, like the sign on that pump over there which says Best Bitter,” said Penn, setting down his empty glass with a significant crash.

Johnson tossed back the rest of his Scotch, picked up the pint-pot, and headed to the bar.

“So you’ve got literary ambitions, have you, Franny?” said Penn.

“Perhaps. And if I had, what advice would you offer?”

“Only advice I ever offer young hopefuls,” said Penn. “Unless you can pass for under sixteen and an infant prodigy, forget it. Go off and be a politician, fail miserably or at least turn into a grotesque, then write your book. That way, publishers will fall over themselves to buy you and newspapers to review you and chat shows to interview you. The alternative, unless you’re bloody lucky, is a long haul up a steep hill with nowt much to see when you get up there.”

“What’s this? Philosophy?” said Johnson, returning with the drinks.

“Just advising young Fran here that the shortest way to literary fame is to become notorious for something else first,” said Penn. “I need a slash.”

He rose and headed to the Gents.

“Sorry about that,” said Johnson.

“Sorry that I’ve achieved a happy anonymity?” said Roote with a smile. “That was always my hope. Mind you, I was tempted to draw myself up and say not to know me argues yourself unknown, but he might have taken that the wrong way.”

“Not unknown. Half-known, which is probably worse. Neither owt nor nowt, as Charley would say, suffering equally from the gross familiarity of complete strangers when your name is recognized and their blank look of incomprehension when it isn’t. So you prepare yourself to meet either by pretending that neither matters.”

Roote sucked at his new bottle and said, “We are still talking about Charley Penn, aren’t we? Not some minor poet whose name I forget?”

“What a sharp little mouse it is,” said Johnson with a grin. “Like the man said, misery still delights to trace its semblance in another’s face.”

“You saying that the placid waters of academia are a rougher sea than real life?” said Roote.

“My God, yes. The indignities Charley may have to suffer are on the whole accidental whereas the ivory towers are crowded at every level with bastards plotting to pour boiling oil on those below. Often it’s just a little splash. Like wondering at High Table if I’ve ever thought of doing any creative writing myself. But sometimes it’s a whole barrelful. That shit Albacore at Cambridge, the one who paid me back for helping him with his Romantics book by ripping off my idea for Beddoes’ bicentennial biography, well, I heard on Friday that he’s brought forward his target publication date by six months to pre-empt me.”

“It’s a hard life,” said Roote. “You ought to take up gardening.”

“What? Oh yeah, sorry. Me with my worries and you’ve got all that winter pruning. Seriously, it’s working out OK, is it?”

“Fine. Healthy outdoor life. Lots of time to think. Talking of thinking, I’ve got a few ideas I’d like to try out on you. Can we fix a time?”

“Sure. None like the present. Why don’t we head back to my place when we’re done drinking? We can pick up a couple of sandwiches en route. What’s up, Charley? Been propositioned in the loo?”

Penn had resumed his seat, shaking his head sadly.

“No such luck. Did you know there’s a machine in there that will sell you crispy-bacon-flavoured condoms?”

“The modern pub has to cater for all tastes,” said Johnson.

“Aye, and this one must specialize in pork. How’re your consciences? I think one of us may be about to be arrested.”

Dalziel and Bowler had just entered the bar and were standing looking towards their table. The Fat Man spoke to the young DC, then began making his way across the crowded room. It looked as if a man of his bulk would have to plough his way through the tables and chairs and drinkers, but somehow people melted aside at his approach and he slipped between the furniture as easily as a champion skier negotiating a beginner’s slalom course.

“Well, here we are,” he said genially. “Mr. Penn, and Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Roote. No wonder the churches are empty when the leading lights of literature and learning prefer a pub chair to a pew.”

“Morning, Andy,” said Penn. “I’d offer you a drink but I see your minder’s well trained.”

Bowler was coming from the bar, bearing a pint of bitter and a bottle of lager.

“Aye, he’s an off-comer, but you can do a lot with ’em if you catch ’em young.”

“So, Superintendent,” said Johnson. “Are you here professionally?”

“Any reason I should be?”

“I thought perhaps something to do with that sad business yesterday …”

“Poor Cyril, you mean? Aye, like you say, a sad business. These muggers, they don’t care how far they go these days, specially when they’re on drugs.”

“That’s what you think it was?” said Johnson. “A mugging that went wrong?”

“What else?” said Dalziel, his gaze running over them like a shaft of sunlight from a stormy sky. “Thanks, lad.”

He took his pint from Bowler and reduced it by a third.

“Can’t ask you to sit down, Andy. Bit full in here today,” said Penn.

“So I see. Pity, ’cos I’d have liked a crack with you, Charley.”

Quick on his cue, Johnson said, “Have our chairs, Superintendent. We’re leaving.”

“Nay, don’t rush off on my account.”

“No, we’ve got a tutorial arranged, and the atmosphere in here is hardly conducive to rational dialogue.”

“Tutorial? Oh aye. You’re Mr. Roote’s dominie, I hear.”

For the first time he turned his gaze full on Franny Roote who returned it equably.

“An old-fashioned word,” laughed Johnson.

“Best kind for old-fashioned things,” said Dalziel.

“Like study, education, literature, you mean?” said Johnson.

“Aye, them too. But I was thinking more of murder, assault, betrayal of friends, that sort of thing.”

Roote stood up so suddenly, the table rocked and Penn had to grab his glass.

“Careful, Fran,” he said. “You nearly had it over.”

“Oh, Mr. Roote’s always been very free and easy with other people’s booze,” said Dalziel. “He may have paid his debt to society, but he still owes me a bottle of Scotch.”

“A debt I look forward to repaying, Superintendent,” said Roote, back in control. “Ready, Sam?” He set off towards the door.

Johnson looked at Dalziel for a moment then said quietly, “Another old-fashioned thing is called harassment, Superintendent. I suggest you refresh your memory about the law in that area. See you, Charley.”

He followed Roote out of the pub.

Dalziel finished his pint, handed the glass to Bowler and sat down.

“Same again, sir?” said Hat.

“Or you could fetch me a Babycham wi’ a cherry in it,” said Dalziel.

Bowler headed back to the bar and Charley Penn said, “Well, that were like a Japanese porno movie, entertaining even though I didn’t understand a word of it.”

“No? Thought you bloody scribblers took notes on everything. Don’t you recall a few years back when there was all that bother at the old teachers’ training college?”

“Vaguely. Principal got knocked off, didn’t she?”

“Aye, and some others. Well, yon lad Roote were the one mainly responsible.”

“Was he, by God?”

Penn began to laugh.

“What?”

“I was just advising him that the best way to sell books isn’t to write well but to get yourself headlined for something else first.”

“Is that right? Ever the diplomat, eh, Charley? He got literary ambitions, has he?”

“Don’t know. We were just talking about this short story competition which me and Sam Johnson and your Ellie Pascoe have been dragooned in to judge and it seems young Roote may have entered.”

Bowler, who’d returned with a second pint (having discovered as many before that being Andy Dalziel’s bheesty might be expensive but it didn’t half get you good service), caught the end of this and opened his mouth excitedly, but on receiving a glance like a blow from the Fat Man changed his mind about letting words out and instead thrust the neck of his bottle of lager in.

“So what was all that about a bottle of whisky?” continued Penn.

“Bugger cracked one belonging to me over my head,” said Dalziel.

“And he’s still living? What’s up, Andy? You got religion?”

“You know me, Charley. Strictly non-violent, except by way of self-defence. Which brings me to Jax Ripley. You were defending yourself when you assaulted her across in Leeds, were you?”

Penn yawned and said, “Oh, that.”

“You don’t sound surprised, Charley.”

“Supposed to leap up, wild-eyed, and make a run for the street where your sharp-shooters will gun me down, am I? No, I’m not surprised. Disappointed, maybe. When my front door wasn’t knocked down by your wild bunch the day after the poor lass was murdered, I thought either it had got forgotten or maybe the case was being run by someone with half an ounce of sense.”

“That’s a bit subtle for me, Charley.”

“It means, what the hell can me crowning her with a cream cake five years back have to do with some maniac sticking a knife into her last week? I bet if you went just a few more years back, you’d find some lad at school got detention for pulling her hair. Are you going to have him in for questioning?”

“Meaning your behaviour were infantile? Aye, that’s how it looks to me too. But infantile behaviour in the middle-aged can have another name too, Charley.”

“Which is?”

“Nay, you’re the word man, you tell me.”

Penn finished his drink and said, “OK, it was a stupid thing to do, I should have just ignored what she’d written, but I was across in Leeds having lunch with a publisher’s rep, and I’d had a couple of drinks and when the sweet trolley came round and I saw this gateau, well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“And afterwards? I don’t imagine you became best friends.”

A sly smile tweaked at Penn’s mouth.

“Funny you should say that. I realized what a prat I’d made of myself so after the case I sent her a big bottle of champagne with a note saying, Sorry, hope we can kiss and make up. Next day she turned up at my place with the bottle. At first I thought she’d come to tell me to stuff it, but she smiled sweetly and said, ‘Hello, Mr. Penn. I’ve come to kiss and make up.’”

“And?”

“We kissed, and then we opened the bottle and drank it, and after that, well, we made up.”

Dalziel looked at him in disbelief.

“You mean you and her were at it?”

“Only the once,” said Penn regretfully. “But it cements a relationship, and we were OK after that. Which was, I came to realize later, probably the sole aim of the exercise. She was always heading onwards and upwards, our Jax. I saw a bit of her after she moved on from yon glossy magazine to the Gazette and she once said to me, ‘Making friends is more important to an ambitious girl than making enemies. You mustn’t be afraid of making enemies, but you shouldn’t make them unnecessarily, else you never know when you’re going to end up with crumbs and cream in your hair.’”

“Or a knife in your heart,” said Dalziel.

“Aye, that too. No, we mended all our fences and she even started being nice about my books. If you saw her last show, you must have seen that interview she did with me.”

“Aye, all sweetness and light. All that stuff about being in two times at the same place were a bit above my head, but.”

“Still playing the thick yokel, Andy? I’ll send you a copy of my book on Heine when it’s done. There’s a whole chapter on his doppelgänger poems. I thought it would add a bit of mystery to use the theme in my novels.”

“I know more about doppel-whiskies myself,” said Dalziel, “but I thought if you met one of them things, you died.”

“We all die,” said Penn. “Me, I think we meet our doppelgänger all the time. It’s recognizing them that’s the trick. To get back to Jax, I really liked her, Andy, and I was choked when I heard what happened. I hope you’ve got better leads than the one that led you to me, ’cos if you haven’t, you’re knackered, and I want to see you get the bastard who killed her. Here, lad. Do me a favour, trot up to the bar and get another round in.”

He pushed a fifty-pound note toward Bowler who looked questioningly at Dalziel.

“Mr. Bowler here is my detective constable, not your pot-boy,” said the Fat Man sternly.

Then he plucked the note from Penn’s hand and added, “But we’re here to serve the public, so off you go, lad. Same again, and mebbe I’ll let Mr. Penn’s publishers treat me to a chaser. HP.”

“Sauce?” said Bowler, puzzled.

“Highland Park,” said Dalziel long-sufferingly.

“New, is he?” said Penn as the DC once more made his way to the bar.

“Newish. Still on probation. So, Charley, flashing the monkeys around and a new telly series starting next week. You’re doing well.”

“Aye. Bloody marvellous,” grunted Penn.

“If you’ll excuse me saying, monkeys or no monkeys, you don’t sound like a man who’s all that happy in his work.”

“Don’t I? Tell me, Andy, you set out to be a cop?”

Dalziel considered then nodded.

“Aye,” he said. “Didn’t want to be a baker like me dad and end up with flour in my hair. So I opted for the Law. Mind you, I had to toss a coin to work out which side!”

Penn said, “Lucky us. Well, I didn’t set out to be part of the production line for a big tits and funny hats telly series.”

“Hold on, you hit Ripley with a cake for more or less saying that’s what you were.”

“It’s one thing for me to say it, another for a nineteen-year-old dolly bird,” said Penn.

“Fair enough. But it makes no odds, does it? I mean, you know one day you’re going to amaze the world by producing this great tome about yon Kraut fellow you mentioned. Heinz, was it? Any relation to the fifty-seven varieties?”

“Keep it up, Andy. You’ve got the face for it. Heine.”

“Aye, him. Ripley mentioned him in that article that pissed you off. I’ve got it here, as it happens.”

He pulled the fax out of his pocket.

“Writes well …sorry, wrote well, the lass,” he said with the air of one who’d spent several hours in stylistic analysis rather than thirty seconds in a cursory glance in the car as Bowler had driven him to the pub. “Yes, here it is. You’re right. Heine not Heinz. She seemed to reckon you had as much chance of finishing your Great Work as England did of winning the next World Cup. Was it that maybe that got her the cream shampoo, not the cracks about your novels? Made you wonder if she might be right. And she was writing how long ago? Five years? Close to writing The End, are you, Charley?”

“Close enough,” said Penn. “Five years ago, yeah, maybe I had doubts. But not now, Andy. Not now.”

He caught and held the Fat Man’s questioning gaze and it was Dalziel who broke off contact first.

Bowler had returned unnoticed at some point and the two men now looked down at their fresh drinks as if they were a manifestation of divine grace and raised the pint-pots with balletic synchrony.

“Let’s forget Ripley,” said Dalziel. “How’d you feel about Councillor Steel, Charley?”

“Stuffer? Anyone who stopped his breath was doing the environment a favour,” said Penn.

“That’s a bit strong. Jesus, what’s this?”

Dalziel had turned his attention to his Scotch.

“They didn’t have any Highland Park, sir,” explained Bowler. “It’s Glen something …”

“Glenfiddich. I know it’s Glenfiddich, that’s how I know it’s not Highland Park.”

“Yes, sir. The barman said you’d probably not notice the difference,” said Bowler, eager to divert the Fat Man’s anger.

“Did he now?” said Dalziel, scowling barwards. “Standards, eh, Charley? Man like that ’ud not get employed over the border. So you didn’t care for the councillor?”

“He was a man for causes, was Cyril, mainly saving public money.”

“Don’t tell me,” said Dalziel. “He thought owt spent on the police was a waste of cash. Cars, for instance. ‘Get the buggers back on the beat. Shoe leather comes cheaper than petrol and at least the public have got someone who can tell them the time.’”

“That sounds like Cyril. The Arts too. Library spending. The theatre subsidy. And the few bob they give my literature group, you’d have thought that was enough to cancel the Third World debt.”

“So you had a motive, then?”

“Well spotted, Sherlock. Aye, you and me both, Andy. A motive to kick him up the arse, but not to kill the silly old bugger.”

“Well, let’s not speak ill of the dead, eh?” said Dalziel, a little late in Hat’s eye. “One thing you had to say about him, he practised what he preached. He never wasted any of his own cash on daft things like buying a round of drinks or paying for his own grub. But his heart was in the right place.”

“It is now,” said Penn. “I liked the subtle way you moved from Ripley to Stuffer. You reckon there’s a connection between their deaths?”

Dalziel downed the offending whisky with no sign of distaste and said, “Only connection I’m looking at at the moment seems to be you, Charley.”

Penn grinned and said, “The old techniques are still best, eh? When you’ve not got the faintest idea which way to go, prod every bugger with your stick, then follow the one who runs off quickest.”

“We could have made a cop of you, Charley, if we’d got a hold of you afore you started ripping bodices. Seriously, but, and just for the record, we’ve got a nice statement from you about the preview yesterday, but I don’t think anyone ever asked you where you were and what you were doing the night Ripley got killed.”

“No reason why anyone should have asked, was there?”

“Not then.”

“And now?”

Dalziel waved the fax of Ripley’s article.

“Scraping the barrel, Charley. But you know what Mr. Trimble’s like. Comes from the southwest, and they live off barrel scrapings down there. So …?”

“Tell you what, Andy,” said Penn. “I’ll go off now and have a long think, and if I can remember anything about that night, I’ll scribble it down on a bit of paper and let you have it.”

“Nay, don’t rush off for me,” said Dalziel. “Stay still, young Bowler here ’ull buy you another. In fact, I’m thinking of having a spot of lunch here. They do a lovely sticky toffee pudding. My treat.”

“Yuck. Don’t know what the opposite of a sweet tooth is, but that’s what I’ve got. Too much force-feeding with sugary goo when I were a kid. Which reminds me, Andy. I’d love to stay, but Sunday’s family visiting day, at least for us who’ve got families to visit, it is.”

That sounded like a dig, thought Hat.

“Oh aye. Your mam well, is she?” said Dalziel. “Still taking care of the three K’s out in the sticks?”

And that, though incomprehensible, sounded like a riposte.

Penn for a moment looked like he’d have enjoyed tipping the rest of his ale over the Fat Man’s huge head, but he reduced his reaction to a snarling smile and said, “Yes, Andy, my old mam’s still alive and kicking, and it’s me she’ll be kicking if I don’t turn up to see her on a Sunday. So I’ll have to postpone that drink you’ve so kindly if vicariously offered me, Constable. Cheers. See you both tomorrow, I expect.”

“Tomorrow?” said Dalziel.

“You’ve not forgotten? What is it? Alzheimer’s or just so many bodies in your business, you lose track? Let me remind you. Now the inquest’s over, and the ghouls have done chopping her up, they’re going to let poor Jax be buried. Don’t the books tell us murderers always like to attend their victims funerals? See you.”

He downed his drink, swept up his change which Bowler had put on the table, stood up and strode towards the door.

“Sir?” said Hat, looking after him. “Do we just let him go?”

“What do you want to do?” said Dalziel. “Rugby tackle him then slap the cuffs on?”

“I suppose not. Sir, what was that about the three K’s?”

“Kinder, Küche, Kirche. Children, kitchen and church. What German women are supposed to occupy themselves with, don’t they learn you owt these days?”

Hat digested this.

“But Mr. Penn’s local, isn’t he? He sounds real Yorkshire.”

“Sounds it, aye. Bred, but not born. Mam and dad got out of East Berlin a couple of steps ahead of the Stasi when the Wall went up. You remember the Wall, do you, lad?”

“I remember it coming down. There was a lot of fuss.”

“Aye, there always is,” said the Fat Man. “Number of times in my life I’ve joined in singing ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’ …but they never are, mebbe because they never were …”

He looked into his glass with what might have been melancholia or was perhaps just a hint that it was almost empty.

“So his parents came to Yorkshire to settle, did they?”

“Got brought to Yorkshire. Lord Partridge, big Tory politician way back, he sponsored them. Bit of a gesture to show he was doing his bit to fight the red peril, I expect. Fair do’s but, he took care of ’em. She worked around the house, he helped with the horses. And Charley got a good education. Unthank College. Better’n me. Mebbe I should have been a refugee.”

“Unthank College? But isn’t that a public, I mean a private school? Boarders and all that?”

“So what? You’re not one of them trendy Trots, are you?”

“No. What I meant was, he doesn’t sound like he went to one of those places. He sounds more like …”

He tailed off, fearful of giving offence, but Dalziel said complacently, “More like me, you mean? Aye, you’re right, whatever else they did to Charley there, they didn’t get him speaking like he’d got a silver spoon up his arse. Interesting, that.”

Encouraged, Hat said, “Are both his parents still alive?”

“Don’t know much about ’em apart from what I’ve told you. In fact, come to think of it, I’d not heard Charley mention either of them till he started on about rushing off to see his mam just now.”

“She must be a good age. Penn’s no spring chicken,” said Hat.

“Nay, Charley’s not as old as he looks,” said Dalziel. “Continental skin tone, you see. Doesn’t age half as well as us home-grown stock. Likes to think he passes for a native, but you can always tell. But that’s no reason to be racially prejudiced, lad. He might look like an old-time axe-murderer, but I can’t see anything here that looks like a motive, not even in the dusk with the light behind it. You heard what he said about Ripley. They’d kissed and made out.”

“Yes, sir. But, well, even if, or especially if he’d killed her, he would say that, wouldn’t he?”

Dalziel laughed and said, “Now you’re thinking like a cop, lad. No, even if he were lying about that, he’d still need a better reason than her badmouthing his books five years back. Not that I think that were his real reason for assaulting her. Like I told him, I think what really pissed him off were her suggesting he’d never finish this thing he’s writing about Heinz.”

“Heine,” said Bowler.

“Both on ’em,” said Dalziel. “Any road, he tells me now it’s coming on nicely, so bang goes that motive if it ever was one.”

“Don’t quite follow …”

“Someone takes the piss saying you’re not up to finishing something you’ve started, you sock it to ’em by finishing it, not by killing ’em. It’s only if you think they may be right that you turn violent, which was why Charley reached for the pudding trolley in the first place. But now he reckons he’s cracked it, and in any case a peace treaty’s been sealed with a loving bang, where’s the point?”

“But surely the thing about the Wordman is he doesn’t need a motive, not in the strict sense. He’s got some other agenda,” argued Hat, reluctant to give up on Penn.

“Oh aye? I should never have let you listen to yon pair of academic mutton-tuggers,” said Dalziel. “You’ll be talking profiles next. How do you think Charley Penn fits in here, then?”

The Fat Man’s tone was sceptical and mocking, yet Bowler felt that there was a real and testing purpose in his question.

He recalled what Rye had told him about Penn and said, “He’s a man who feels he’s been diverted for the last twenty years or so from his real purpose by having to make a living out of some historical fantasy world.”

“And that makes him doolally? That would mean all novelists are a bit dippy, wouldn’t it? You could have something there.”

“Yes, sir. But the real purpose Penn has been diverted from isn’t getting to grips with the real world but writing about what another writer was writing about back in the historical world these novels of his are set in. I mean, I know he comes over as very direct and down to earth, a bit cynical even, the typical blunt Yorkshire tyke …”

He realized Dalziel was regarding him leerily and hastened on.

“… but even that’s an act, isn’t it? He’s not a tyke, he went to public school, he’s not even English. And when you look at where he spends his inner life, he’s a long way detached from reality, it seems to me. That’s what our job’s about, isn’t it, sir? Some of the time, anyway. Working out what’s actually going on inside people who are trying to hide it. We all do that, I reckon, all try to hide it a lot of the time, and it’s hard to know what anyone’s really feeling or thinking. But a writer, an artist, has to give his inner life away much more than most people, ’cos that’s what he’s trying to sell us.”

He halted, breathless, feeling he’d let his tongue run away with him and probably undone what little progress he’d made in his rehabilitation with the Fat Man, whose bloodshot eyes were regarding him like he’d just materialized out of a space capsule.

“You been spending a lot of time with Mr. Pascoe, have you, lad?” he said finally. “Me, I can’t get to grips with my Inner Life on an empty stomach, and from the way you’re rambling, I reckon you’ve not been eating properly either. All right, don’t look like I’ve just sat on your hamster. There’s definitely something weird about Charley Penn, I’ll give you that. But then I think there’s definitely something weird about Charley Windsor too, and I’m not going after him. Now let’s get serious. I recall that once upon a time they did a decent Scotch pie and mushy peas in this place. But I’ll tell you something …”

“What, sir?” said Bowler.

“If yon barman gives me a Cornish pasty and says I won’t notice the difference, I’ll shake the bugger till he spews his Inner Life all over the bar!”