Dialogues of the Dead

‘Yeah, well, thanks for your input, we’ll bear it in mind,’ he said, trying to regain the professional high ground.

‘My pleasure,’ said Dee. ‘Well, back to the grind.’

He sat down at the table, picked up another story and started to read. Rye followed his example. Bowler remained standing, gradually deflating from cocky cop to would-be wooer.

There are more ways of withering than a blast of hot words, thought Rye gleefully.

Dee glanced up and said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Bowler, was there something else?’

‘Just something I was asking Rye, Miss Pomona.’

‘About the … Wordman?’

Hat shook his head.

‘Ah, a library enquiry then. Concerning your ornithological studies, I’ve no doubt. Rye, are you able to help?’

‘Not straightaway,’ said Rye. ‘It’s something I’ll need to think about, Mr Bowler …’

‘Hat,’ he said.

‘Sorry?’

‘My friends call me Hat.’

‘How very paronomasiac of them,’ she said, glancing at Dee, who smiled and murmured, ‘One might even say paronomaniac.’

‘Yeah, well, what about it?’ said Hat, his irritation at what felt like the intimacy of mockery making him abrupt.

‘Tell you what,’ said Rye. ‘Leave it with me. Perhaps we can talk again when you come back to tell us what you’ve found out about the accuracy or otherwise of the Dialogues. That suit you, Mr Bowler? Hat?’

He frowned for a moment then the smile broke through.

‘OK. That’s fine. I’ll get back to you. Meanwhile I’d keep this to yourselves. Not that there’s like to be anything in it, but better safe than sorry. See you.’

He turned and walked away. He moved well, with a cat-like grace. Perhaps that explained his interest in birds.

She glanced at Dee. He gave her a conspiratorial smile. Then he dropped his gaze to the sheets before him and shook his head ruefully.

‘Truth really is so much more interesting than fiction, isn’t it?’ he said.

She looked down at her next story.

The writing was familiar, large and spiky and purple.

It began Last night I had another wet dream …

‘You could be right,’ she said.

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_41ed80d1-3419-5d48-9252-69bd1684b25c)

Detective Constable Bowler’s considered professional opinion of the suspicions roused by the two Dialogues was that they were a load of crap, but if taking them seriously was a way to Rye Pomona’s heart and/or bed, then it was pursed lip and furrowed brow time. But only in her sight. Once out of the library, he did a little jig of delight at his luck and the sight of a wavering line of greylags crossing the rectangle of sky between the police station and the coroner’s court tuned up his spirits another notch.

He watched them out of sight then ran up the stairs to the CID floor whistling merrily.

‘You sound happy,’ said Edgar Wield. ‘Found Lord Lucan, have you?’

‘No, Sarge, but got something almost as odd.’

He showed the sergeant the two Dialogues and told him the tale.

‘It’s certainly odd,’ said Wield, sounding like he meant daft. Bowler couldn’t blame him.

‘Thought we should check it out,’ he said. ‘Just a feeling.’

‘A feeling, eh?’ said Wield, those dark eyes surveying him coldly from that fragmented face, as if well aware that the feeling in question had more to do with Rye Pomona and hormones than detective intuition. ‘You’re a bit junior for feelings. Even sergeants are only allowed three or four a year, between consenting adults. You’d best try this out on someone with a bit more brass about him.’

Bowler’s spirits hit an air pocket and sank as he contemplated taking something as airy-fairy as this to Andy Dalziel. It had been made quite clear to him that his fast-track transfer from the Midlands had been effected without Dalziel’s approval. ‘We’ll see how you shape,’ had been the gist of his welcome six months earlier. In his own eyes, he had shaped pretty well, or at least not made any major mistakes. But far from wriggling his way into the Fat Man’s affection, from time to time in the past few weeks he’d turned round as though prodded in the back to find those ice-pick eyes fixed on him with an expression somewhere between simple distrust and out-and-out loathing.

On the other hand, it was a comfort that only last week, the DCI hadn’t hesitated to pick him out for a bit of delicate investigation, checking out some nutter he thought was harassing him.

‘Yes, I thought maybe I’d mention it to Mr Pascoe. Need to chat to him anyway,’ he said airily, trying to give the impression of a special relationship existing between graduate entrants.

Wield, noting the attempt, said, ‘When you next report to him about Franny Roote, you mean?’

It didn’t do to let junior members of the team imagine they knew anything he didn’t. Peter had probably stressed to young Bowler that his interest in the behaviour and habits of Roote was technically unofficial and should not be mentioned in the super’s presence. In his present mood, the Fat Man seemed to believe that telling Bowler anything was like ringing up the tabloids.

‘Found anything interesting, have you?’ pursued Wield.

‘Not yet,’ admitted Bowler.

‘Keep trying. But keep out of sight. He’s got an eye like a hawk by all accounts.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that, Sarge,’ said Bowler confidently. ‘I won’t raise enough breeze to stir a feather. So what do you think about these Dialogues? Speak to Mr Pascoe?’

‘No,’ said Wield judiciously. ‘I think you’ll find that Mr Headingley’s your man.’

Detective Inspector George Headingley had a reputation for being a by-the-rules, straight-down-the-middle cop who treated hunches with embrocation and gut feelings with bismuth. ‘A safe pair of hands’ Pascoe had once called him in Bowler’s hearing, to which Dalziel had replied, ‘Nay, that were true once, but since he started counting the days to demob he’s become a safe pair of buttocks. Give owt to George and his first thought now is to sit on it till it can’t do him any harm. I blame all this new legislation. I’d hang bent cops by the bollocks till they twanged, but you can’t do the job properly if you’ve got to be looking over your shoulder all the time.’

This was a reference to the new climate of accountability. Gone, or at least going, were the good old days when a policeman who made a mistake could slip gratefully into a secure pension ‘on medical grounds’. And even those who’d retired in the fullness of time were no longer secure from retrospective investigation and changed pensionable status.

So perhaps it wasn’t surprising that someone as cautious as George Headingley entering the final straight of an honourable if not over-distinguished career, should have decided that the best way of not blotting his copybook was to write in it as little as possible.

Bowler’s suspicion that Wield was saying indirectly that the best place for something as daft as the Dialogues was under the DI’s ample buttocks was slightly allayed when he discovered that the case of the AA man’s death was there already. When the coroner had adjourned the inquest for the police to make further enquiries, Uniformed had passed it upstairs for CID to take a look at. Headingley had taken a glance, yawned, and was on the point of tossing it back downstairs with the required annotation that CID found no evidence requiring further investigation.

‘Now you come along with this,’ said the DI accusingly. ‘It’s a load of nothing. Can’t see why you think it’s worth bothering with.’

‘There has to be some reason why the coroner adjourned,’ said Bowler evasively.