Dialogues of the Dead

‘Yeah, well, I suppose so. Silly old buffer’s always been terrified of making a mistake so when the family started causing a fuss, he took the easy way out. Anything goes wrong, it’ll be our fault.’

Takes one to know a one, thought Bowler as he studied the inquest report.

He soon saw there was a bit more to it than Headingley had implied, but not a lot. The question of why Ainstable had stopped in the first place hadn’t been satisfactorily answered. Call of nature had been theorized, losing his balance as he relieved himself over the shallow parapet. But his wife had tearfully protested that her Andrew was not the kind of man to pee off a bridge situated on a public highway, the pathologist had pointed out that his bladder was still fairly full, and PC Dave Insole, first cop on the scene, had confirmed that his flies were fastened.

Perhaps then he’d had a dizzy turn before he got started and had fallen? The post mortem hadn’t found evidence of any kind of ‘dizzy turn’, though the pathologist could think of several versions of this syndrome which would have left no sign, and the police report mentioned rather tentatively some scuffs on the parapet of the bridge which might possibly indicate he’d been sitting down and gone over backwards.

But the really puzzling thing was his tool box, which had been found resting on the road by the parapet.

Headingley didn’t think this was significant.

‘Clear as daylight,’ he said. ‘Driving along, feels dizzy, stops to get some air, climbs out, automatically picks up his tool box en route, ’cos that’s what he always does and, having a dizzy turn, he’s not thinking straight, right? Sits down on the bridge, everything goes black, over he goes, bangs his head on a stone, unconscious, drowns. Pathologist found no signs of foul play, did he?’

‘There wouldn’t be, would there, guv?’ said Hat respectfully. ‘Not when the crime’s letting someone die without trying to save them.’

‘Murder by neglect? On the basis of this?’ Headingley waved the Dialogues folder scornfully in the air. ‘Get real, son.’

‘And the other, guv? Driving straight at that kid on the bike? If the Wordman did that, well, that’s not neglect, is it? That’s pretty positive, wouldn’t you say?’

‘What did you call him?’ said Headingley, postponing answering the question.

‘The Wordman,’ said Hat. He explained about the In principio, then explained his joke, and if anything got an even dustier response than he had in the library. Clearly the DI felt that giving the author of the Dialogues a nickname gave him substance, making him harder to ignore, which was what he would have liked to do.

But Hat was determined to pursue him to a decision.

‘So you think we should just drop it, guv?’ he persisted.

He watched with hidden amusement as uncertainties chased each other like clouds across Headingley’s broad open face.

‘Well, I suppose you’d better take a look. Likes his t’s crossed with a ruler, that coroner,’ said Headingley finally. ‘But don’t waste too much time on it. I want a full report on my desk first thing tomorrow. That’s the real test of a theory, son, how much of it you’re willing to put in writing.’

‘Yes, guv. Thank you, guv,’ said Bowler, just staying this side of open mockery. Headingley might be a boring old fart, ambling towards retirement with little interest in anything other than protecting his ample back, but he still had rank, plus he had survived for many years under the unforgiving eye of Andy Dalziel, so there had to be something there.

He went to his desk, checked out the names and addresses he wanted, then set out on his quest. He had a double reason for being meticulous now – first, to impress Rye Pomona; second, to satisfy George Headingley. Not that he needed either part of the reason to motivate him. One thing he’d quickly learned as a young graduate cop was to be nit-pickingly thorough if you didn’t want some antique plod who’d come up the hard way shaking his head and saying, ‘Nay, lad, just because tha’s on the fast track don’t mean tha’s allowed to cut corners.’

He started with Constable Dave Insole who’d been driving the first police car to arrive at the scene. Once Bowler’s easy manner had dissolved his natural suspicion that CID was second-guessing him, Insole was co-operative enough. In his view, the most likely explanation was that Ainstable had stopped for a pee, clambered down the bank, slipped and fell as he reached the bottom.

‘You mentioned some scuffs on the parapet in your report,’ said Bowler.

‘That was my partner, Maggie Laine,’ said Insole, grinning. ‘Got ambitions to join your lot, has Maggie. Always looking for clues. No, he got caught short, and was in such a hurry to get out of sight of the road, he slipped. If he’d wanted to sit on the parapet or piss over it or whatever, he’d have parked on the bridge itself, wouldn’t he?’

‘His tool box was by the parapet, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah, but by the time we arrived there were half a dozen yokels gawking, any one of them could have moved it out of the way.’

‘But hardly have taken it out of his van,’ said Hat. ‘Which was parked where? Not actually on the bridge, I gather?’

‘No. He stopped just before it, right where he could scramble down the side to the bank of the stream,’ said Insole triumphantly.

‘Just about where he’d have stopped if there’d already been a car parked on the bridge then?’ said Bowler.

‘Yeah, I suppose, but what are you driving at?’

‘Better ask Maggie,’ laughed Bowler, heading for the door.

The Ainstable house was a thirties semi on the northern fringe of town. The stout woman who answered the door turned out to be Mrs Ainstable’s sister from Bradford who’d come to stay. The first thing Bowler noticed as he was ushered into the living room was a tank of tropical fish standing on top of a sideboard. The second thing was a small pale-faced woman curled up on a large settee. Grief usually ages, but in Agnes Ainstable’s case it had shrunk the mature woman into an ailing child who looked more like her sister’s daughter than her sibling.

But when she spoke, Bowler began to understand why the coroner had opted to adjourn the inquest for further enquiries. Her attitude was simple. If something as slight as a slip of the foot had deprived her of her husband, she wanted the circumstances to be laid out before her in unambiguous detail. There was nothing rational in her demands, but they were made with an intensity that would have daunted the most insensitive of men.

The upside of this was that she answered all Bowler’s questions without showing the slightest curiosity about his reasons for asking them. It was enough that they related to the further enquiries the coroner had promised her.

Yes, Andrew had once talked about his tropical fish on a local radio chat show; yes, they’d been to Corfu for their holiday this year; yes, they’d had a meal at the Taverna.

At the front door as he left, the sister said, half apologetically, ‘It’s her way of hanging on to him. Once she admits she knows everything there is to know, he’s gone completely, and that terrifies her. All these questions you’re asking, they mean anything or are you just going through the motions?’

‘Wish I knew,’ said Bowler.

He wasn’t being disingenuous. There were many ways in which the writer of the First Dialogue could have got the details it contained. He could simply have known Ainstable, be a workmate or a member of the tropical fish fancy, have travelled to Corfu on the same package holiday … the possibilities if not endless were numerous enough to leave suspicion uselessly fluid. Facts were the only hardener that a good detective took any heed of. And he was a long way short of anything he’d like to hear himself explaining to a nit-picking coroner.

Now he drove south, leaving the town behind, and speeding along Roman Way as young David Pitman had sped on his way home to Carker.

The Pitman house was a spacious whitewashed cottage in a large garden, very different from the Ainstable semi, but the grief it contained was much the same. Bowler spent a heart-rending hour being taken through a family photograph album by Mrs Pitman, David’s mother. But he came away with confirmation that everything written in the Second Dialogue about the bazouki was accurate.

On his way back into town along Roman Way he stopped at the accident site. It was easy to identify. The tree which the bike had hit bore a scorched scar like a roughly cauterized wound. The impact of the boy’s body against the neighbouring tree had left damage less visible, but close up the bruising of the smooth beech bark was unmistakable.

He didn’t know why he’d stopped. Even Sherlock Homes would have been hard put to glean anything significant from the scene. Without the Dialogues, there was little suspicious in either of the deaths and in both cases it was easy to think of ways the Wordman could have got hold of the information they contained.

So really he’d got nothing, which was precisely what George Headingley hoped he would get. But he hadn’t joined CID to keep the likes of old George happy.

He raised his eyes to take in the long straight road down which the Roman legions had marched for the last time seventeen hundred years ago when the order came to abandon this chilly corner of the empire to its troublesome natives. The town boundary was only a mile away but the brow of the hill completely hid any sign of its encroaching sprawl. Only one building was visible among the fields bordering the road and that was an old grey farmhouse which looked like it had been there long enough to be naturalized as part of the landscape.

You’d have a perfect view of the road from its windows, thought Bowler.

He started the MG and drove up the long potholed driveway to the house which had the initials I.A.L. and the date 1679 engraved over the door.

A woman answered his ring. At first glance to Bowler’s young eye she looked as old as the house. But the voice which demanded his business was strong, and now he saw that through a fringe of grey hairs he was being observed by a pair of bright blue eyes, and if her skin was beginning to wrinkle like an old apple’s, she still had the flush of a sweet pippin in her cheeks.

He introduced himself and learned he was speaking to Mrs Elizabeth Locksley. When he mentioned the accident, she said, ‘How many times do you need told?’

‘Someone’s been round?’

‘Yes. Next morning. Lad in uniform.’

So they had been thorough. No mention of the visit in the report, which meant it was subsumed under the terse comment, No witnesses forthcoming or discovered.

‘And you told him?’

‘Nothing. Which was all there was to tell. We go to bed early here and sleep sound.’