Dialogues of the Dead

  21^ and Hat Bowler, who'd looked very relieved to be rid of his Roote-sitting duty, reappeared. 'Sir,' he said to Dalziel with some urgency. 'Can I have a word?' 'Aye. Make a change to talk to a grown-up,' said Dalziel. He rose and went out. Pascoe recorded this on the tape but didn't switch it off. Roote shook his head and said ruefully, 'Knows how to get them in, doesn't he? You've got to give it to Mr Dalziel. He's a lot brighter than he looks. Which perhaps explains why he chooses to look like he does.' 'What's wrong with the way he looks?' asked Pascoe. 'You're not being sizeist, I hope?' 'I don't think so, but every size has its limitations, doesn't it?' 'Such as?' Roote thought for a moment then gave a conspiratorial grin. 'Well, fat men can't write sonnets,' he said. He's taking control, thought Pascoe. He wants me to ask why not. Or something. Change direction. He said, 'Tell me about "Dream-Pedlary".' The change seemed to work. For a second Roote looked nonplussed.

  'It's a poem,' said Pascoe. 'By Beddoes.' 'Gee, thanks,' said Roote. 'What's it got to do with anything?' 'Dr Johnson - Sam - was reading it. At least, that's where the book on his lap was open.' Roote closed his eyes as if in an effort of recollection. 'Complete Works, edited by Gosse, 1928 Fanfrolico Press edition,' he said. 'That's right,' said Pascoe looking at his, as always, comprehensive notes. 'Decorated with Holbein's Dance of Death. How did you know it was this edition, Mr Roote? There were several collections of Beddoes' poems on Sam's shelves.' 'It was his one of his favourites. He liked the woodcuts. And he'd been using it earlier.' 'During your tutorial, you mean?' Roote ignored the sceptical stress and said, 'That's right. But it was the first volume he was using, the one with the letters and Death's Jest-Book. "Dream-Pedlary" is in the Second Part. Whoever killed him must have put it there.' 'Indeed,' murmured Pascoe. 'Any notion why?' Roote closed his eyes and Pascoe saw his lips move silently. Despite his pallor and the dark hollows under his eyes, he looked for a moment like a child trying to recall its lesson. And Pascoe who had read and re-read the poem was able to follow the verses on those pale lips and observe the hesitation when they came to the fourth.

  If there are ghosts to raise, What shall I call, Out of helPs murky haze, Heaven's blue pall? Raise my loved long-lost boy To lead me to his joy. There are no ghosts to raise; Out of death lead no ways; Vain is the call.

  'No,' said Roote. 'Can't see any special reason, except that it's about death.' 'It would seem to me on a cursory glance through the volume,' said Pascoe, 'that you could do a dozen sortes and ten of them would be guaranteed to be about death.' 'As few as that?' said Roote with a savage grin. 'I think I'll go now, Mr Pascoe. Clearly we're getting nowhere. Mr Dalziel is persuaded Sam killed himself. You, on the other hand, have a notion, or shall we call it a preference, that I killed him. Well, like Mr and Mrs Sprat, I hope you can come to an accord. Meanwhile .. .' He began to rise. Pascoe said, 'You see, what I was wondering was whether in view of Dr Johnson's reasons for wanting to leave Sheffield, the reference in the poem to his loved long-lost boy might not have been significant. Any view on that, Mr Roote?' The black-clad pale-faced figure froze like a mime artist in mid-movement. Then the door opened. Dalziel said, 'Peter, a word. Best close the interview if you've not done it already.' Angrily, Pascoe switched off the tape and went outside. 'Lousy timing, sir,' he said. 'I was just getting to him.'

  215 Chapter Twenty-four,

  THE FIFTH DIALOGUE

  Oh, the bells bells bells.

  Yes, I remember, like bagpipes, they make a fine noise -- between consenting adults and a guid Scots mile away! But close by, when you 'we got a hangover .. . Who but a sadist would programme an alarm, call on the one scheduled day of rest?

  Sorry. Blasphemous. No sadist, but my light and salvation; which is why I don't have to fear any sod. But the sound does get on my nerves. Noisy bells, be dumb. I hear you, 1 will come. And come I did eventually to that stately old terrace, led not by forethought but the convolutions of that serpent path which after the Feydeau farce of the events at the Centre I know now I can follow in utter inviolability.

  Yes, I know 1 shouldn 't need convincing but I was always a very good doubter.

  He was just going into the building as I approached. As soon as I saw him 1 knew why I was there. But it wasn 't yet, not yet a while, for clocks still ticked, and bells still rang, and all the chronometrical corsetry of everyday existence still clasped me in its shaping grip. Also, he was not alone and though two might be as easy as one, the purity of my course must not be sullied by an insignificant death. In any case, I was not ready. There were preparations necessary to

  217 make, for each step along my path is an advancement of learning, taking me from eager pupillage to equal partnership. Two hours later 1 returned. Two hours because that was the time my pace along my path required far my preparations, and it was no surprise in time to find my timing perfect, for the visitor was just leaving, slipping out of the street door like the shadow he resembles, with the result that the door didn 't swing back with enough momentum to engage the lock and I was able to enter without having to ring any bell but that to his apartment.' He was surprised to see me though he hid it well and courteously invited me in and offered me a drink. I said coffee to get him into the kitchen. And as he turned and left me I felt my aura breathe through my flesh, as time began to slow like a goshawk soaring till it attains its motionless apogee. Through the half-open door I see he is making filter coffee. In my book, casual and probably unwanted visitors merit no more than a spoonful of instant at best. 1 am flattered and touched by this courtesy. And in return, I take just as much care with his drink, pouring a carefully judged measure from my little vial into the open whisky bottle standing by the open book and empty glass on his chairside table. No chance of interruption. I am examining his bookshelf when he comes in with the cafetiere. I see he has brought two mugs. If I were in time, I might have been disconcerted, fearful that by joining me in coffee, he will not take any more whisky till he is in another^ company who might observe his symptoms and make efforts to save him. But out of time, I sit and smile, secure in my certainty that what is written is written, and nothing can change its course. He pours the coffee, then picks up the bottle, offers to add some to my mug. 1 hesitate then shake my head. I have work to do, I tell him, work that requires a clear head. He smiles the smile of a man who does not believe that liquor affects his judgment and, to make his point, adds a good inch of Scotch to his coffee. Poor doctor. He is right, of course. Drink no longer affects his judg ment because it is his affected judgment that makes him drink. Does he yet know where his unhappiness has brought him? Does he realize haw unhappy he is? 1 doubt it, else he might have already sought without my help the quietus 1 am about to give him. He drinks his doubly laced coffee with every sign of pleasure. This is well arranged. Two strong tastes to conceal one weak, though strong in everything else. We talk and drink. He is enjoying himself. He pours more coffee, more Scotch. We drink and talk . . . and talk .. . though soon the words that he imagines pearls come rolling misshaped to his lips and stick there, hard to dislodge, yet because all is still so clear in his mind, he thinks this mere inadvertence, too dry a mouth perhaps, easily cured by yet more drink. He yawns, tries to apologize, looks slightly surprised to find he can't, clutches his chest, begins to gasp. In time, I would have been surprised. I had looked to see him fall asleep, then I would have taken the cushion his head rests on and used it to send him to a still softer rest. But now I see that I am not called on to do any more, and I am not surprised. He stops gasping, closes his eyes and slumps back in his chair. Soon his breath is so light that it would hardly shake a rose-leaf down. Soon I cannot detect it at all. I place a hair over his lips then pass a few minutes washing my coffee mug and making sure no traces of my presence remain. Finished, I check that the hair has not moved. He has gone. Would that all our goings were so easy. Now I arrange him to be found as he would have wished, at his ease, with his book and his bottle, and steal away softly as if fearful of awaking him. Softly and sadly too. Yes, this time
I am surprised to detect so much of sadness in my joy, a sense of melancholy which remains with me even as I step out into the empty street and feel the tremor of time beneath the pavement once more. Why so? Perhaps because he smiled so welcomingly and made me real coffee instead of instant. Perhaps because here was a man who should have been happy but for whom, as he might have said himself, life became too great a bore ...

  No, not doubts, not second thoughts.

  Just a sense that, no matter how desirable my ultimate destination, this journey might yet take me to places I would rather not visit.

  219 Chapter Twenty-five

  The Dialogue had been found in its usual buff envelope, once more addressed Reference Library, tucked away behind a pile of books reserved for collection on the reception counter close by where the morning mail basket was placed. Whether it had fallen there by accident or been placed there by design was impossible to say as no one on the staff could assert with absolute certainty that it hadn't lain there unnoticed since Monday. Even worse, from Dalziel's point of view, was the fact that the young female librarian who'd found the envelope had excitedly shared her suspicion of its contents with her nearest colleagues and a couple of eavesdropping members of the public before calling the police. Keeping the Fourth Dialogue out of the public domain had been easy with only the Centre security firm who'd handed over the unopened envelope to threaten into silence. But with rumours of the Fifth already starting to circulate, sitting on the Fourth could rapidly turn into a public relations disaster, and Dalziel found himself ordered from above to get his revelation in first. So a statement was put out and a press conference promised for a later date. Pascoe, after digesting the new Dialogue, saw no reason to change his tack. 'This alters nothing,' he said. 'Except maybe now we know why Roote's been sitting there crying murder. Why pretend it's anything else when you know the Dialogue admitting all is on its way? Or maybe he thought we'd seen the Dialogue already and were trying to do a bluff on him by ignoring it, and that really got up his nose.' 'But, sir,' said Bowler, 'the Wordman describes seeing Roote go in with Drjohnson, then he had to wait till Roote came out.' 'Jesus,' said Pascoe in exasperation. 'If Roote wrote the

  221 Dialogue, that's exactly what he would say, isn't it? I mean, he knows we know he was there. You two saw him going off with Johnson on Sunday, we've got witnesses who recall seeing them going into the block of flats - but none, incidentally, who recall noticing anyone else unaccounted for hanging around the place -and forensic have picked up traces of him all over the apartment.' 'That it?' said Dalziel. 'And there's the poem Sam was reading. It took someone pretty familiar with both Beddoes and Sam's Sheffield background to make sure the book was open at something so appropriate.' He had told Dalziel about the alleged reasons for Johnson's move. The Fat Man had yawned. Now Pascoe concentrated his arguments on the potentially more sympathetic ear of Bowler. 'And if we look at the Dialogue, see here, there's a reference to the poem, this bit about his breath being so light it wouldn't have shaken a rose-leaf down. That's almost a direct quote from the first stanza, don't you see?' 'Yes, sir, I see, sir,' said Bowler. 'But.. .' 'But what?' Doubt from Dalziel was one thing, but from a DC it came close to mutiny! 'But it's all a bit ... convoluted, isn't it, sir?' 'Convoluted?' echoed Dalziel. 'It's fucking contortuplicated!' That sounded like a Dalziel original, but Pascoe had been caught out before and made a note to look it up before making comment. Dalziel went on, 'It's bad enough having this bugger sitting out there, laughing at us, without going looking for trouble. You've had Hawkeye here give Roote the once-over already, and I dare say you're so obsessed with the nasty little sod that you've checked him out against every bit of nastiness that's gone on since he arrived in town. And you've not come up with owt, else you'd have him banged up, preferably underground and in shackles. Any other ideas? Anyone?' Hat took a deep breath and said, 'If we're looking for someone with a strong connection to all the-vicrims, except the first two who seem to be random, well, there's Charley Penn. And he drives an old banger which would fit in with the First Dialogue.' 'Oh God,' said Dalziel. 'Do I smell another obsession? I know Charley is mooning around after your bit in the library, but sooner or later, lad, you've got to start thinking with your head not your dick.' Hat flushed and said, 'You said yourself, sir, he's something else!' 'Aye, he is, but that doesn't make him a killer,' said Dalziel, rifling through his case file. 'Here we are. Charley Penn. Asked as a matter of routine where he was Sunday afternoon. Said he went as usual to visit his mother, who has a cottage on Lord Partridge's estate at Haysgarth ... that checked out, did it?' Pascoe said, 'More or less.' Dalziel gave him a long look and said, 'If I ask a lass, "Did you enjoy that, luv?" and she answers, "More or less," I get worried.' Pascoe said carefully, 'It was Hat here who checked.' 'Bowler?' He looked at Hat with a predatory speculation. 'You thought it worth a couple of hours of valuable CID time sending the lad out to Haysgarth rather than using the local woodentop? This one of your hunches, Pete?' 'I sort of volunteered, sir,' said Hat nobly. 'I see. One of your hunches then. So what did the old lady say?' 'Not much, at least not much I could understand,' said Hat ruefully. 'Seemed to think I was a member of the Stasi, rattled away in German, and when I finally got her to speak English, her accent was so thick it was almost as hard to understand. All I got out of her was that her Karl was a good boy and loved his old mutti and the lovely cakes she makes so much he was hardly ever away from her. I asked about that Sunday and she said that he was with her every Sunday and every other day he could manage. And then she started in German again.' 'Said he likes her cakes, did she?' said Dalziel thoughtfully. 'So, no written statement then?' 'It didn't seem an option, sir,' said Hat uneasily. 'Nor indeed a necessity,' said Pascoe. 'I think we've wasted enough time on Penn unless anyone knows of any real reason for putting Penn in the frame?' 'If you can fit Roote in, there's lots of room for any bugger,' said Dalziel. 'How about you, Wieldy? You got anyone you'd like to fit up? No? Good. Then let's all start pulling in the same direction and see if we can't plough this murdering bastard into the ground. Bowler, I reckon soon as I take my eye off you, you'll

  223 go swarming round to that library you're so fond of, so why don't you go there officially and don't come back till you've found out how and when this envelope was delivered, right? Even if it means stamping some of them dozy buggers overdue.' 'Yes, sir. I'm on my way.' He vanished. Dalziel said, 'Nice to see someone so happy when I give 'em a job. Let's see if I can't do the same for you two miserable sods!'

  Hat was indeed happy to have an excuse to visit the library. He'd thought of ringing Rye last night but decided it would be a wrong move. Progress was steady but a wise strategist knew when to press, when to hold back. That was the way the Jack-the-lad part of him analysed the situation. But there was another more shadowy area of thought and feeling which acknowledged that the more he saw of Rye, the more important it became to keep on seeing her. This wasn't just another skirmish in that unremitting sexual campaign which all Jack-the-lad young men enter upon at puberty - approach, lay siege, negotiate terms, occupy, move on. This was .. . well, he didn't quite know what it was because he belonged to a generation conditioned to mock the idioms of romantic love, and what we don't have words for, we find it hard to think about. But he knew that to lose her by crowding her would be a folly he'd never forgive himself for. But now, with new secret information to share, he anticipated being made very welcome. Jesuitically, he had worked out that the decision to go public about the existence of the two latest Dialogues permitted him to use his own best judgment about who he passed on the details to. And of course he'd swear her to secrecy. This too was a kind of intimacy, the Jack-the-lad strategist pointed out gleefully; and each such move was a move in the right direction. Which was, of course, bed. But more than bed. Breakfast and beyond. Even the bed bit was different. He'd always looked forward to sex with a healthy young appetite, but never before like this, for imagining it with Rye Pomona made the marrow bubble along his bones and pushed him
into a languorous swoon which almost made him drive up the exit lane of the Centre car park. Retreating under a chorus of protesting horns conducted by a flurry of abusive fingers, he found the correct entrance, parked and made his way to the main library. With the image of a roused Dalziel fresh in his mind, his investigation was painstakingly thorough to a degree which brought the two women and one man involved to a state of mutiny. But by dint of forcing them to recall which of the reserved books had been collected earlier in the week, he managed to establish that the weight of probability lay on the side of the envelope not having been there on Monday morning. Tuesday, which was yesterday, the day that Johnson's body had been found, was less certain. And today, Wednesday, it had of course been found. Satisfied he could get no more out of them, he left and headed upstairs to the reference library. By now it was lunchtime, and he peered into the staffroom as he passed in case Rye was eating her sandwich there. No sign of her, nor at first glance in the deserted reference library. He went up to the desk and through the partially opened door of the office behind the counter, he glimpsed Dick Dee, his head bent over something on the desk which absorbed him so much that he was oblivious to Hat's silent approach. He was playing Scrabble .. . no, not Scrabble, it must be that funny game, Paronomania. Hat felt pleased with himself for recalling the word, but his pleasure was quenched almost instantly by a jealous certainty that Dee's opponent was Rye. There was a click of tiles being moved and Dee shook his head, smiling in admiration at some adept move, and said, 'Oh, thou crafty Kraut, well done indeed.' And Bowler just had time to feel puzzled as to why Dee should be addressing Rye as Kraut, when a most unfeminine voice replied, 'Thank 'ee kindly, whoreson,' and his tentative knock at the welloiled door pushed it open sufficiently for him to see the distinctive profile of Charley Penn. 'Mr Bowler, do step inside,' said Dee politely. He went into the office. The men on the wall all seemed to be examining him critically like a candidate for a job they didn't think he was going to get. On the other hand, the teenage trio in the photo on the desk seemed to look straight through him at a world which, united, they did not doubt their capacity to deal with.