Dialogues of the Dead

27

Sometimes even a good woman can get it wrong and next day Hat felt truly, deeply, madly lousy. His first impulse was to go to work so that they could see how bad he was, but when he fell over trying to pull his underpants on, he abandoned the idea and rang in instead.

He got through to Wield who sounded if not sympathetic, at least neutral; then he heard in the background Dalziel’s voice demanding who he was talking to and Wield explaining that it was Bowler who wasn’t coming in because he was ill.

“Not coming in because he’s ill?” said Dalziel with the amazement of a man who rated illness as an excuse for absence well below abduction by aliens. “Here, let me speak to him.”

He grabbed the phone and said, “What’s going off, lad?”

“Sorry, sir,” croaked Hat. “You were right, I’ve got that flu-bug.”

“Oh. My bloody fault, is it? What’s that music I can hear? You’re not in a night club with some totty, are you?”

“No!” cried Hat indignantly. “It’s the radio. I’m in bed. By myself.”

“Don’t get uppity. Remember Abishag and David. Or mebbe not. He died, if I recall right.”

“That’s what I feel like,” said Hat, playing for the sympathy vote. Then the faint bell he’d heard at Rye’s rang louder. “Sir, there’s something …”

“No last requests, lad. That’s just gilding the lily.”

“No, sir. It’s just that, in that last Dialogue, wasn’t there a bit about death at the end? Something about the best thing of all being never to be born?”

“Aye, that’s right, got it here. So?”

“So, I know it probably means nothing, but I think that guy, Heine, the one Penn’s translating, said something like that.”

It was remarkable how distance lent courage. After Pascoe’s discomfiture, he probably wouldn’t have dared bring up poetry again to the Fat Man’s face.

“Didn’t realize you were a German scholar,” said Dalziel.

“I’m not, sir. It’s just that Rye …Miss Pomona at the library, well, Penn sometimes leaves stuff lying around where she can see it, by accident on purpose, so to speak …”

“Aye, I read that in the DCI’s report. But I thought that were romantic stuff, trying to get his end away. How’d he get on to death?”

“Trying for the sympathy vote, maybe,” said Hat.

This tickled the Fat Man’s fancy and he laughed so loud Hat had to distance his earpiece.

“Aye, you can get a long way with the sympathy vote,” said Dalziel. “But it only works on lasses, not on superintendents. Get well soon, lad, else I may come visiting with a wreath.”

He put the phone down and returned to his office without speaking to Wield. There he sat for a little while deep in thought. He had to admit he was floundering. Well, he’d floundered before and always reached the shore, but this was more public than usual, and there were too many buggers out there eager to celebrate his drowning. Time to grasp a few straws.

He picked up his phone and dialled.

“Eden Thackeray, please. Nay, luv, don’t give me crap about important meetings. He’ll have just got into his office and he’ll only be there ’cos it’s quieter than home and he can smoke a cigar without his missus throwing a bucket of cold water over him. Tell him it’s Andy Dalziel.”

A moment later he heard the urbane tones of Eden Thackeray, Senior Partner though now officially semi-retired of Messrs. Thackeray, Amberson, Mellor and Thackeray, Mid-Yorkshire’s most prestigious solicitors.

“Andy, you’ve been frightening my new receptionist.”

“Part of the learning curve. How’re you doing, lad? Still pulling the strings?”

“It gets harder. It’s all right knowing, as you might put it, where all the bodies are buried, but the trouble is at my age it gets harder to remember.”

“Trick is, not letting any bugger know you’ve forgot. Any road, I don’t believe you. I’ll give you a test. You’re Lord Partridge’s lawyer, right?”

“Indeed I am, but, Andy, as you well know, professional ethics do not permit-”

“Nay,” interrupted Dalziel. “No need to lock your door and switch on your scrambler, I’m not after His Lordship. But, knowing you, I’d bet you’d know everything worth knowing about a big client like old Budgie, right down to his domestic staff, right?”

“Old Budgie? I didn’t realize you were on such close personal terms with His Lordship, Andy.”

“Old mates from way back,” said Dalziel. “Now, what I’m interested in is, there’s this German woman lives on the estate, used to be some kind of maid or cook or housekeeper …”

“You mean Frau Penck, mother to our own literary lion, Charley Penn?”

“That’s the one. So, from your knowledge of her, how’s she get on with Charley? OK to tell me that?”

“I suppose,” said Thackeray judiciously, “that, as I act for neither of them, I am able, without commitment and off the record, to entertain such a question. Let me see. A fraught relationship, I would say. She thinks that Charley should be living with her, taking on the job of the head of the Penck household, vacated when her beloved husband died some twenty years ago. This would be the good old German way. She feels that he has forgotten his heritage and gone native. Not even his success as a writer counts too much. His books are not what in Germany is known as ‘serious literature,’ and besides, they are in English.”

“She does speak English?”

“Oh yes, fluently, though with a strong accent which grows stronger if she does not wish to understand what you say.”

“She got money?”

“Not that I know of. But she doesn’t need any. The family place a high value on her, and she on them. She lives in a grace-and-favour cottage and seems content to remain there for the rest of her days.”

“So how come Charley went to yon posh school, Unthank College? Old Budgie pay, did he?”

“His Lordship is not quite so profligate of his money,” said Thackeray drily. “The boy won a scholarship. I’m not saying strings might not have been pulled, but he was, by all accounts, a bright child.”

“And a rich one now, I dare say. Could easily set his old mam up in a nice house somewhere.”

“Which I believe he has offered to do. I gather he regards the Partridge’s grace and favour as cause for resentment rather than gratitude. His mother, however, tends to look upon England outside of the Haysgarth estate as an extension of the old East Germany, with people like yourself as lackeys of the English branch of the Stasi.”

“So if a cop turned up asking questions about her Charley, how would she react?”

“Uncooperatively, I would guess. He would be transfigured into the perfect devoted son against whom she would not hear a word said, in English or in German.”

“But if old Budgie or one of his chums spoke to her about Charley …?”

“If it was implied that she should feel herself lucky to have mothered a son who’d done so well in the great outside world, she would very forcibly point out his shortcomings as a good German boy. I know this because when I first encountered her, I fell into this error.”

“That’s grand,” said Dalziel. “Remind me I’m in the chair next time I see you at the Gents.”

This was a reference not to an assignation in a public toilet, but to their common membership of the Borough Club for Professional Gentlemen.

“I don’t suppose there’s any point in my asking what you are up to, Andy?”

“Right as always, Eden. Cheers!”

Dalziel put the phone down, thought for a moment, then picked it up again and dialled.

“Cap Marvell.”

“Hello, chuck, it’s me,” he said.

“Again? This is twice in a fortnight you’ve rung from work. Could I claim harassment?”

“No, them as I harass know they’ve been harassed,” he said. “Listen, luv, got to thinking, I’m a selfish sod, not good for a relationship.”

“Andy, are you feeling all right? You haven’t had a fall, banged your head, seen a flash of very bright light?”

“And what I thought was, this hop of the Hero’s out at old Budgie’s, why don’t we go? Long time since we tripped the light fantastic.”

“Sorry, Andy. I’ll have to sit down. I feel my vapours coming on.”

“That’s a date then? Grand. See you later.”

He pressed the receiver rest, dialled again.

“Hello, Lily White Laundry Service, how can I help you?”

“How do, luv,” said Dalziel. “Can you do a kilt for Saturday?”

When Pascoe arrived that morning, he reminded the others that Pottle and Urquhart were calling in later to review the latest Dialogue and give their considered judgment of the earlier ones.

“Oh God,” said Dalziel. “Wish I were ill, too.”

“Too?”

“Bowler’s gone sick,” explained Wield.

“It’s a sick world,” said Pascoe.

“Temperatures running high at home, are they?”

“Only metaphorically. Ellie and Charley Penn met to do the final judging for this short story competition last night. Sam Johnson should have been there too, so it wasn’t exactly a cheerful occasion. She came home demanding to know why we hadn’t got an inch closer to catching this madman.”

“That’s what you told her, was it?”

“She tends to go into a fit if I say things like enquiries are in progress and an arrest is expected soon.”

“I thought they might have cancelled the competition,” said Wield.

“Because one of the judges got killed? Doesn’t work like that, Wieldy. All those aspiring Scott Fitzgeralds don’t give a toss about Sam Johnson, whom they’d never heard of anyway. If it had been Charley Penn, it might have been different. As it is, far from cancelling the comp, Mary Agnew has been using the murder, all the murders, to get it a lot more publicity. Didn’t you see last night’s Gazette? She published the titles of the long short list-that’s about fifty stories. And she’s done a deal with John Wingate, the telly guy. All the short-list authors have been invited to the studio theatre in the Centre and the result is going to be announced in what used to be Jax Ripley’s Saturday-night slot.”

“Ripley’s slot? God, bloody media will cash in on owt. They’re probably going to charge folk for pissing in the bog where Stuffer Steel got topped!” exclaimed Dalziel. “I reckon if I live long enough, I’ll see them bring back public hangings. Come to think of it, there’s a few as I’d pay good money to see hanged.”

Pascoe and Wield exchanged that blank glance through which over the years they had come to share amusement at the Fat Man’s often outrageous illogicalities.

He appeared not to notice and went on, “Ellie tell you owt about the winner, did she? No doubt it’ll be some blood-and-guts story, all about perves and kinky sex.”

Putting aside the question as to whether this was a comment on public taste or his wife’s predilections, Pascoe said, “Yes, she said that I’d probably be glad to hear that the winning story was a gently amusing little tale, almost a fairy story, which would leave children and adults alike feeling good about themselves.”

“And Charley Penn went for that? Must have been sniffing lighter fluid. Who’s the genius who wrote it?”

“That we shan’t know till Saturday night when the winner’s sealed envelope is opened. You coming along, sir?”

“You must be joking!”

“Not really. I just thought there could be a chance the Wordman might turn up.”

“That’s what you said about the preview.”

“Actually it was Bowler who said that.”

“Well, I hope he’s not boasting about it,” growled Dalziel. “And if chummy does turn up, you think this time he’s going to wear his I’m the Wordman T-shirt, do you?”

“Who knows? Pottle said that as he gets more and more convinced of his invulnerability, he’ll delight in taking risks. Anyway, I’ll definitely be there, with Ellie being a judge.”

“Oh aye? And you’re worried the losers might turn nasty? Well, with the Wordman being so easy to spot, one pair of police eyes should be enough.”

“Two pairs,” said Wield.

“You’re going?”

“Edwin likes to support local cultural activities.”

This time it was Pascoe’s and Dalziel’s glances that met.

“If it’s a local cultural activity,” said Dalziel, “I’ve filled my quota for the month. Any road, Saturday night I’m going dancing.”

“Dancing,” said Pascoe, trying to keep all expression or interrogation out of the word.

“Aye. Man. Woman. Music. Rhythmic movement. If you’ve got your clothes on, it’s called dancing.”

“Yes, sir. And would that be salsa? Line? A rave? A hunt ball? A thé dansant?”

“That’s for me to know and you to exercise your imaginations on,” said Dalziel, rising. “Give us a shout when Pinky and Perky show up, will you? But if I’m dead, don’t bother getting out the Ouija board.”

He went out of the room.

“Not a happy man,” said Wield.

“Probably saw that piece about him in the Sun this morning. Headline was ‘WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE WORLD.’ He needs a result on this one pretty quick.”

“Don’t we all? You got any ideas?”

“Apart from herding everyone vaguely connected with the case into a field and beating them with a dead chicken till one of them confesses? No. Perhaps the dynamic duo from Academe will point us in the right direction.”

“You reckon?” said Wield. “Think my money’s on the dead chicken.”

In the event, Urquhart turned up alone, Pottle having been overtaken by the rampaging virus which had laid low Rye Pomona and Hat Bowler. He sent in a written summary of his conclusions which didn’t add a lot to what he’d said at the previous meeting. The Wordman was growing increasingly bold as each killing confirmed his sense of invulnerability. His purpose had clearly been to render Johnson defenceless by the drug before dispatching him by stifling. But when the lecturer had died without need of hands-on contact, this had been seen as yet another affirmation that he was on the right path.

“The Wordman is ruthless in performance, but not in retrospection,” wrote Pottle. “The Dialogues are being held with three respondents. The first is the Underworld being who is at the same time both a shade of some individual and the Power which connives at this series of murders; the second is you, me, anyone reading the Dialogues, who will (he hopes) at the same time understand and approve his purpose, and admire and be baffled by his ingenuity; the third is himself. In the real world, as opposed to the timeless world of his ritual, he sees the victims as real people, not just necessary signposts on his mysterious path, and needs to persuade himself that they personally, or those who remain, benefit from their death.”

Cautiously he refused to put down on paper any suggestion as to the kind of person they should be looking for but in a handwritten note invited Pascoe to give him a ring next week when he hoped to be recovered.

Urquhart appeared, more, it seemed to Pascoe, for the pleasure he got out of provoking Andy Dalziel than because he felt he had anything useful to contribute. Or perhaps it was that a lifetime of adopting anti-authoritarian attitudes had left him unable to offer assistance to the police directly so he slipped it in obliquely under the guise of mocking them.

And the Fat Man too, realized Pascoe in a flash of insight, actually enjoyed the bouts. His dismissal of the linguist as an over-educated underwashed blot on the Scottish escutcheon was an equally knee-jerk reaction. How much benefit he felt he derived from Urquhart’s input was hard to guess, but he enjoyed the crack.

“So what’ve you got for us, Rob Roy?” he opened.

“Haud yer weesht, Hamish, and ye’ll maybe find oot,” replied Urquhart.

That was twice the Scot had shot Hamish at Dalziel like a custard pie, and twice Dalziel had looked momentarily spattered. Am I missing something? thought Pascoe.

What Urquhart had got for them wasn’t much, and at least as literary as linguistic, which made Pascoe suspect his wee hairie in the Eng. Lit. Department was seeing more of the Dialogues than she ought to be. Well, as long as the leak stopped there and didn’t trickle into the tabloids, no harm done, and they were getting two experts for the price of one.

“Pozzo said something about this guy and religion, didn’t he? Not a religious maniac in the obvious sense, in fact probably totally a-religious on the surface. That’s always the way with these trick-cyclists, isn’t it? They give with one hand while they’re taking away with the other, and in the end you’re left with fuck all.”

“Better a handful of fuck all than a handful of crap, which is all I’m looking at so far,” growled Dalziel holding up a great paw as if in illustration.

“Me too,” said Urquhart, staring hard at him. “Like I said, lots of religious language, both in tone and direct reference, but you’ve probably noticed that yourself, Mr. Pascoe.”

Nice stress there, implying that I’m the police force’s token literate, thought Pascoe.

“Yes, I did notice a few,” he said.

“But one thing keeps on coming up. First Dialogue: ‘the force behind the light, the force which burns away all fear …’ Third: ‘be the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid …’ Fourth: ‘in the light of that aura, I had no one to fear …’ Fifth: ‘my light and salvation which is why I don’t have to fear any sod.’ I checked these out. And what I got was Psalm 27.”

He produced a Bible and read, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” then looked around triumphantly, as if the silence which followed were tumultuous applause.

“Interesting,” said Pascoe hurriedly. “May I see?”

He took the book from Urquhart and read the beginning of the psalm.

Dalziel said, “And?”

“And me no ands, Andy,” said Urquhart. “Except maybe I did wonder, looking at yon illustration in the First Dialogue, could that object in the bowl of the P be a book, maybe the Bible itself, or a missal in which you’d find the psalms?”

Pascoe put the Bible down and looked at the illuminated letter.

“You could be right,” he said. “It could be the spine of book. But what about the design on it? Any thoughts on that?”

“Maybe it’s meant to be the specific codex that contains the illuminated In Principio this is based on?” suggested Urquhart. “But you’d need a specialist to help you there.”

Dalziel, who’d picked up the Bible to thumb through it, recited sonorously, “‘Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.’ Please, no more specialists.”

“Aye, I can see how they’d be a bother to you,” said Urquhart.

But he soon after brought his textual analysis to a conclusion.

“So it would seem to me that our wee Wordman could regard certain printed texts as a sort of coded gospel. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding, sort of thing.”

“That’s Revelation, not a gospel,” said Dalziel. “Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man.”

“Now why am I not surprised you know that, Superintendent?” said Urquhart. “One last thing. In the Fifth Dialogue ‘life became too great a bore …’ that looks like a quote from the last letter that guy Beddoes poor Sam Johnson was researching wrote before he topped himself. ‘Life was too great a bore on one leg and that a bad one.’ Seems the poor sod had tried killing himself before and only succeeded in having a leg amputated. Him a doctor, too. Would have made a great NHS consultant from the sound of it!”

“That it?” said Dalziel. “All right, young Lochinvar, you can ride back into the west.”

This time Urquhart let the Fat Man have the last word and as if in acknowledgement, Dalziel waited till the door had closed behind him before he said, “Another waste of fucking time!”

“I don’t think so, sir,” said Pascoe firmly. “We’re building up a profile. And that last thing about the Beddoes quote, that tells us something.”

“Oh aye? From what you said about your mate being a bit of a piss-artist, mebbe it means he died legless, too,” said Dalziel.

“Very good, sir. But it means the Wordman must be quite well acquainted with Beddoes’ writings. And I know someone who’s deeply interested.”

“Oh God, not Roote again!” groaned the Fat Man. “Give it a rest, will you?”

“Arrest?” said Pascoe. “That’s exactly what I want to give him.”

Dalziel regarded him sadly and said, “Pete, tha’s beginning to sound like this Wordman. You ought to get out more. What is it the kids say nowadays? Get a life, lad. Get a fucking life!”