Dialogues of the Dead

‘Right,’ he said to Bowler. ‘Better bring me up to speed on this.’

‘Yes, sir. Hope you didn’t mind me asking for you to be brought in. The DI really didn’t look well …’

‘No, you were quite right,’ said Pascoe. ‘You don’t look too clever yourself. Hope that there isn’t something going around.’

‘No, sir, I’m fine. Just a bit of a shock seeing Jax … Miss Ripley … I knew her a bit, you see …’

‘Yes,’ said Pascoe regarding him thoughtfully. ‘See her show last night, did you?’

‘Yes. Bit of a turn up, I thought. You saw it, did you, sir?’

‘No, as a matter of fact.’

But he’d heard about it when Dalziel had rung him up, uttering dreadful threats about what he was going to do to Ripley and Bowler, together and separately, when he got his hands on them.

Pascoe had calmed him down, pointing out that it wasn’t good policy to publicly assault a TV personality, and as for Bowler, if it could be proved he’d passed on the information, he’d be dealt with by a Board of Enquiry which at the very least would get him out of the Fat Man’s thinning hair.

The thought occurred to the DCI that maybe Dalziel had ignored his advice and that the DC’s pallor and maybe even the woman’s death were down to his direct intervention.

But when the scene-of-crime team had finished their preliminary examinations and he finally got to look at the body, he crossed the Fat Man off his list of suspects. The stiletto wasn’t his weapon. He’d have torn her head off.

Such frivolous thoughts were his usual technique for distracting himself from the close encounters with the dead kind which were his most unfavourite occupational hazard. A greater distraction was imminent. He heard it first like a distant mighty rushing wind entering the building and he checked his head for cloven tongues of fire in the long mirror above the bed. But of course it was only the most unholy spirit of Andrew Dalziel that burst into the room.

‘Fuck me,’ he said, coming to a halt at the foot of the bed. ‘Fuck me rigid. Last night I wished her dead, I really did. You should never wish things, lad, less’n you’re sure you can thole it if they come true. How long?’

‘Eight to ten hours estimate from body temp and the degree of cyanosis, but we’ll need to wait …’

‘… for the PM. Aye, I know. Always the sodding same, these medics. More scared of commitment than a randy Iti. That’s a handy mirror.’

Long used to such sudden changes of direction, Pascoe studied the reflection in the long wall glass above the bed-head. Ripley looked very peaceful. The silk robe she was wearing had been parted to permit the medical examiner to check the fatal wound but Pascoe had drawn the garment together again to cover her torso.

‘For sex, you mean?’ he said.

‘Nay, wash tha mind out with carbolic! You’ve been reading them mucky books again. Has she been moved?’

‘Only as much as was necessary for the ME to do his job. I said you’d want to see her in situ.’

‘Oh aye? That one of them Japanese beds? This one’s old-fashioned Yorkshire by the look of it. Nice strong bed-end to give a man something to push against. No, lad, take a look at her in the mirror. What do you see?’

Pascoe looked.

‘Roots?’ he hazarded. ‘She dyed her hair blonde?’

‘Yes,’ said the Fat Man impatiently. ‘But we’d have spotted that on the slab, wouldn’t we? No, I mean the other end.’

Pascoe looked at the woman’s feet up against the bed-end which Dalziel so favoured. She was wearing a pair of comfortable-looking leather mules. From the bottom of the bed they were invisible. From the side, they were unremarkable. But viewed in the mirror, there was something … hard to tell, they were so shapeless, but …

‘They’re on the wrong feet?’ he said tentatively.

‘Right. And how’d they get on the wrong feet?’

‘Presumably they dropped off as the Wordman carried her through …’

‘The Wordman? Aye, where did that bloody name come from anyway?’

‘Seems it was DC Bowler’s nickname for the lunatic who’s writing these Dialogues.’

‘Boghead’s name, you say? And Ripley were bandying it about on her programme?’ Dalziel scowled. ‘I want a word with that young man. Where’s he at?’

‘I sent him to the library to pick up this new Dialogue, the one that put us on to … this.’

‘You sent him? Nay, come to think of it, doesn’t matter, does it? Who’s he going to leak it to with the Ripper dead? This Wordman bang her, front or back, before or after the event, did he?’

Dalziel’s apparent callosity in face of murder was, Pascoe hoped, his preferred way of dealing with distress. Or maybe he was just callous.

‘We’ll need to wait for the PM results, but the preliminary exam didn’t turn up signs of sexual interference in any quarter. Sir, these shoes …’

‘Mules, lad. Wordman must have put ’em back on. Ergo, he touched them. And they’ve not been dusted for prints, have they?’

He was right. Every other likely surface in the flat bore a light scattering of powder.

‘I’ll see they get done,’ said Pascoe. ‘Here’s Bowler now.’

The young DC came hurrying into the flat but stopped short when he saw Dalziel.

‘You look like you’ve just remembered somewhere else you ought to be, lad,’ said the Fat Man. ‘That this Dialogue thing drooping in your hand or are you just sorry to see me?’

‘Yes, sir. The Dialogue, sir,’ stuttered Bowler.

He handed it over in its transparent plastic folder.

Dalziel scanned through it then passed it to Pascoe.

‘Right, young Bowels,’ he said. ‘Let’s you and I have a look around, to see if she kept a notebook or a diary.’

He observed the DC closely for signs of a guilty start as he said this but got nothing, or maybe the youngster’s expression was already too unhappy for anything else to show.

When the Fat Man found a small appointments book, he tossed it to Pascoe as if afraid that Hat would snatch it from his hand and try to eat it, then said, ‘Right, lad. Why don’t you pop downstairs and tell those grave robbers out there that the late Ms Ripley is ready for removal to the mortuary?’

When he’d gone. Dalziel turned to Pascoe, who’d been riffling through the pages of the book, and said, ‘Anything?’

‘Relevant to the murder? Not that I can see, sir.’

‘Relevant to who’s been leaking this stuff,’ snarled the Fat Man.

‘Looking back, there’s a significant number of appointments with someone or something designated as GP,’ said Pascoe.

‘GP? What’s that? Her sodding doctor?’