Dialogues of the Dead

by Reginald Hill

  236 youth. "Arma virumque cano," which Dryden renders as "Arms and the man I sing." Good title way back then. But a man would have to be very sure he had a highly cultured, intelligent and alert audience to try anything like that now.' 'You sound nostalgic. You reckon they were better times?' 'Certainly. For a start, we weren't born. Sleep's good, death's better, but best of all is never to be born at all.' 'Jesus!' he exclaimed. 'That's really morbid. Another of Virgil's little quips?' 'No. Heine.' 'As in Heine, that Kraut poet Charley Penn, is working on?' Something was ringing a very faint bell. 'In civilized circles I believe they're known as Germans,' she said seriously. 'You don't have to like them, but that's no reason to be beastly to them.' 'Sorry. Same applies to Penn, does it?' 'Certainly. In fact there's a great deal to like about him. Even his apparent obsession with my person might by some be considered not altogether reprehensible. That was one of his translations I just quoted which he brought to my attention when my refusal to let him cop a feel was rendering him particularly despondent.' Hat was beginning to understand the subtle stratagems of Rye's mockery. She left doors invitingly ajar through which a prat might step to find himself showered with cold water or plunging down an open lift-shaft. He said, 'So what's it mean precisely, that stuff about sleep and y so omi 'It means that once upon a time we were all enjoying the best of possible states, i.e. not being born. But then our parents got stuck into each other in a hay field, or on the back seat of a car, or between acts during a performance of a Shaw play at Oldham, and they blew it for us, forced us without a by-your-leave to make an entrance, kicking and screaming, on to this draughty old stage. Fancy a coffee?' 'Why not?' he said, following her into a tiny kitchen which was as well ordered as the living room. 'Hey, is that why they called you Raina? Because they were acting in this play when they .. . ? Now that's what I call really romantic.'

  237 'You do?' 'Yes. Can't see why you're so cynical about it. Nice story, nice name. Just think, you could have been called ...' He nipped open the play to the cast list: '.. . Sergius! Just imagine. Sergius Pomona! Then you'd really have had something to complain about!' 'My twin brother didn't seem to mind,' she said. 'You've got a twin?' 'Had. He died,' she said, spooning coffee into a cafetiere. 'Oh shit, I'm sorry, I didn't know ...' 'How could you? He gave me the Shakespeare you were looking at.' Serge. He recalled the inscription and blushed at the thought or his infantile jealousy. To cover his confusion he gabbled, 'Yes, of course, that explains the inscription, the Queen, May the first, Queen of the May, and he was the Clown Prince .. .' 'He was full of laughter,' she said quietly. 'Whenever I was down he could always cheer me up. It didn't seem too bad being called Raina while he was around.' 'I think it's a lovely name,' said Hat staunchly. 'And Sergius too. And I'm sure they were given to you with the best of inten tions. Being called after characters in a play, you didn't get that kind of romantic idea in my family!' 'Sweet of you,' she murmured. 'Yes, there was a time when I too used to think it romantic to hear my mother and father explaining that we were named after Raina and Sergius, who are the two supremely romantic characters in the play, because these were the parts my parents were playing when they conceived us. Then one day when I was sorting out some of their stuff, I came across a collection of old theatre programmes. And there it was. Arms and the Man at Oldham. The date fitted perfectly. The only thing was when I checked the cast list, it wasn't Freddie Pomona and Melanie Mackillop who were playing Sergius and Raina, it was two other people. My parents were playing Nicola, the head serving man, and Catherine, Raina's middle-aged mother. How's that for romantic, and do you take sugar?' 'A spoonful. Well, it's not really so terrible, is it? Improving on the past isn't exactly a capital crime.' 'I suppose not. Shaw would probably have liked it. The play's all about exploding inflated notions of romance and sacrifice and honour.' 'Then why so cynical?' She looked at him thoughtfully then said, 'Another rime, eh? Wetting my hair always loosens my tongue. Let's see if those chocs you brought are any good.' They went back into the sitting room. Rye opened the chocolate box, bit into one and nodded approvingly. 'Excellent,' she said. 'So how did you know I was ill?' 'Well, I was at the library today. ..' 'Why?' she demanded. 'Has something happened?' 'Yes,' he admitted. 'Strict confidence, OK?' 'Guide's honour,' she said. He told her about the new Dialogue. 'Oh God,' she said. 'I wondered when I heard about Johnson's death ...' 'What made you wonder?' he asked. 'I don't know. Just a feeling. And maybe because ...' What?' 'This connection with the library. I don't just mean the Dialogues turning up there, but these last three killings, there's been a kind of link. OK, it's tenuous, but it does create a sort of illogical sensitivity. ..' Suddenly she looked very vulnerable. 'Come on,' he said with an attempt at avuncular jocularity. 'Cheer up. No need for you to worry.' 'Really?' His reassurance worked insomuch as her evident vulnerability was instantly replaced by an air of nepotal admiration and trust. 'Oh, do tell why I shouldn't worry.' 'Well, because this guy, the Wordman, isn't one of your normal sexual psychos going around topping young women. So far there's only been one woman, Jax Ripley, and no sex. We don't know yet precisely what drum this lunatic's marching to, but there's nothing to suggest that someone like you is more likely to be in the firing line than, say, someone like me. As for the library thing, my notion is that the short story competition gave him the kind of way of slipping his Dialogues into the public consciousness which appealed to his warped mind ...'

  2^ 'Sorry, run that by me again.' 'He's got a puzzler's mind, the kind that sees everything in terms of hidden answers, and deceptions, and references, and connections, and riddles, and word games. Hiding what's turned out to be fact in a great pile of fiction is exactly the kind of thing that would appeal to him.' 'This degree they say you did, what was it in? Ornithology with psychiatry?' she said, half mocking, half complimentary. 'Geography,' he said, adding, 'with Economics,' like a plea in mitigation. It didn't work. 'My God. You mean I'm getting involved with a bird-watcher with a geography degree? At least I won't have to worry about getting to sleep at nights.' He examined this, decided there was more in it to be pleased with than to take offence at, and went on, 'Being a detective's like learning to use the reference library. It's all a question of knowing where to look. We had these guys down from the Uni, a trick cyclist and a linguist. I took notes. What I'm saying is that while everyone should take care, there's no group in particular we can advise as being at greater risk than any other. Saying everyone's in danger may sound like cold comfort, but if you look at it statistically, if everyone's in danger, the odds on you being the one are pretty long. So take care, but don't take to the hills. Not without company, anyway. Talking of which, are you going to be fit for our expedition this weekend?' 'No problem,' she said, stretching back sinuously so that her T-shirt rode up from her jeans revealing a band of gently rounded belly which set all those alarms flashing and ringing along his arteries once more. 'I'm feeling better by the minute. Who did you see at the library? Dick?' 'Yes,' he said. If she'd wanted to flick a bit of cold water at him, introducing Dee's name at this juncture did the trick. 'Talking of Dee, you ever hear of a doctor with that name?' 'Not unless you mean the Elizabethan astrologer and necro mancer,' she said. 'Yeah, that'll be the one,' he said. Clever old Pascoe, ho ho ho. 'This the latest theory, the Wordman's a magician and Dick's a descendant of the doctor?' 'Well, you've got to admit he's a little bit weird,' he said, adding quickly to dilute his criticism, 'Must be the time he spends with Perm. When I went up to the Reference, they were in the office, playing that funny board game. Paronomania.' He looked at her closely to see if he'd got it right. Rye laughed and said, 'You do listen, then!' 'Depends who's talking. You said the word actually means an obsessive interest in word games?' 'That's right. It's a mix of paronomasia, that's word-play or a pun, and mania, with maybe a touch of paranoia thrown in. What are you looking at me like that for?' 'You realize you've just repeated more or less what I was saying about the Wordman?' said Hat. 'Oh, come on,' she said with irritation. 'What your tame experts said, you me
an? Listen, these two have been playing this game ever since I joined the staff. It's no big secret vice. I asked about it and Dick explained the name, no problem. He even gave me a copy of the rules and so on. I've got it somewhere.' She started looking through a drawer. 'The two boards I've seen looked hand-painted, and they were different.' said Hat. 'Is it a real game? Or just one they made up?' 'What on earth would the difference be?' she said, smiling at him. 'I know it started at school when they were playing Scrabble .. .' 'At school?' he interrupted. 'Dee went to Unthank too?' 'Yes. That a problem?' 'Of course not.' But it might be an answer. 'So, Scrabble.' 'That's right. It seems there was a dispute about some Latin word that one of them used, and it lead to them playing a version in which you couldn't use anything but Latin. Things developed from that, they wanted something more complicated, with a bigger board, more letters, different rules, and the players take turns in choosing the language . .. Oh, here it is - no, don't read it now, you can keep it, time I was clearing out some of this clutter.' Hat folded the sheets of paper she'd given him and put them in his wallet. 'No wonder I couldn't understand any of the words I saw,' he said, reluctantly impressed. 'How many languages do they speak, for God's sake?'

  241 'French, German - Penn's fluent in that, of course - bit of Spanish, Italian, the usual stuff. But it doesn't matter. They don't have to know a language to play in it so long as there's a dictionary in the library. That's part of the fun, it seems. It's like poker. One will produce a word which looks like it might be Slovakian, say, then defy the other to challenge him. Is it a bluff or has he swotted up a bit of Slovak the day before, and is now trying to provoke a challenge? Then out comes the dictionary and it's lose a go and fifty points if it's a false word, and the same if it's an unsuccessful challenge.' 'What a pair of sad plonkers,' muttered Hat. 'Why do you say that?' she asked, looking at him curiously. 'Two consenting adults, and they play in private, they're not trying to impress anyone.' 'They seem to have impressed you. Ever try it yourself?' 'Wouldn't have minded, but I've never been asked,' she said. 'Story of my life, really. Lots of interesting games going on, but nobody asks me to play.' Was this a hint? An invitation? Or just a tease? He drank some coffee to moisten his suddenly dry throat as he tried to work out whether the time was ripe for a move. His body certainly thought it was. He could feel his flesh beginning to overheat. 'You all right, Hat?' said Rye, looking at him with some con cern. 'You're looking very flushed.' 'Oh yes, I'm fine,' he said. But even as he spoke, it occurred to him he was far from fine and that this heat had more to do with debility than desire. 'You don't look fine, not unless you always start flushing in patches at this time in the evening,' she said. 'In fact you look like what I felt like at work yesterday.' 'You mean I've caught your lurgy?' said Hat, choking back a cough. 'I knew we had a lot in common.' 'Please. I hate a plucky trooper. You feel OK to drive home?' It occurred to Hat that if he played his cards right, he could claim sanctuary here, then he recalled that Rye herself was only just recovering from the bug. In romantic fiction, the patient often got the nurse on to his bed. On the other hand, he suspected that all a pair of patients would get on was each other's nerves. 'Yeah, no problem. So what's the prognosis?' 'Well, you'll feel a lot worse before you begin to feel better, but the good news is that it may be nasty but it's short.' 'So I should be OK for the weekend then?' She smiled at him and said, 'It's your show, Hat. But if we have to cancel again, I may start wondering if fate isn't trying to tell us something.' 'You leave fate to me,' he said, stifling a cough as he headed for the door. 'Good night's sleep and I'll probably be back keeping Yorkshire safe for civilians first thing in the morning.' 'I believe you,' she said, kissing her index finger and placing it gently on his burning forehead. 'I feel safer already. Goodnight, Hat. Take care.' And such is the power of a good woman's touch that he believed it himself as he went out to his car. Love can conquer everything and he knew he was truly, madly, deeply in love.

  243 Chapter Twenty-seven

  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,

  MS 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, know ing 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 inter ested 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, h
ow'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-andfavour cottage and seems content to remain there for the rest of her days.' 'So how come Charley went to yon posh school, Unthank Col lege? 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.'