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head. And Dee, sprawled across the Paronomania board like somesacrificial ox, his body rent by so many wounds that the blood' from them had joined to cover him in a scarlet cloak, and alt, across that body, gleaming like stars in some alien red sky, and scattered across the floor like the Milky Way, were the game's letter tiles, bearing some arcane message for any who could readi.. To a neutral observer it might look as if it was Dee who'd been the victim of a maniacal attack. ;; Dalziel when he arrived hot on Pascoe's heels had taken this't in at a glance. 'l After they'd called for an ambulance and ministered to Hat and' Rye as best they could, the Fat Man had said, 'Best try somaj resuscitation here.' 'Nay, sir, he's gone,' said his driver with the authority of one; who'd attended more major traffic accidents than he cared t@; recall. W 'Even so, can't have folk saying we didn't try,' said Dalziel' firmly. 'Pete, give us a hand.' Pascoe knew what they were doing. It was called interfering' with a crime scene. It was also called making sure that when the enquiry team sat in judgment in some nice clean conference room with pads of pristine paper to make notes on and jugs of crystal water to refresh their throats when they became dry from askingi 2 too many dusty questions, no one would be able to pass around. photos of an abattoir, i, No way they could alter the pathologist's report, of course^ But verbal description of the wounds wrapped in formal medical j language, or even photographs of the cleaned-up body on a mor"^ tuary slab did not begin to convey the scene at Stangcreek Cottage. ;i These morbid reflections were driven from his mind by a dis^S; turbance in the corridor. •' 'Where's he hiding at?' cried a familiar voice. 'In here? Keep; it quiet, tha says, luv? Nay, I've dealt with more malingerers than,| tha's had hot flushes.' ', The door burst open and Dalziel filled the room. ' ; 'I knew it. Up and talking. No wonder the NHS is short of,' beds with fit buggers like you filling them.' Behind him an indignant staff nurse fluttered till Dalziel put her out of sight and mind by shutting the door. 'So, howst'a doing, lad? What fettle?' said the Fat Man, sitting on the edge of the bed which responded with the outraged squeak of a goosed matron. 'I'm OK, I think, sir,' said Hat. 'He will be OK in a few weeks, I imagine,' said Pascoe firmly. 'A few weeks?' said Dalziel incredulously. 'No, honestly, I think I'll be out and about before that,' said Hat. Dalziel regarded him closely, then shook his head. 'No you won't,' he said. 'The DCI's right. Couple of weeks at least. Then a couple more convalescing.' 'No, really. ..' said Hat this volte-face taking him by surprise. 'Fuck really,' said Dalziel. 'Listen, lad, out there while you're in here, you're a wounded hero. So in here you'll stay till we get that made official. Then when you do come out, them as wonder why you needed to stab Dee the Dick thirteen times can mutter all they like. Can't touch a hero.' 'Why did you need to stab him thirteen times, Hat?' asked Pascoe. 'Wasn't counting,' said Hat. 'And maybe I didn't need to, but I certainly wanted to.' 'First bit, good answer. Second bit, lousy answer,' said Dalziel. 'Best is no answer. Look pale, little wince of pain, then say it's all a blur, you remember nowt but this monster trying to kill this helpless innocent lass. All you knew was you had to stop him, even if it meant putting your own life on the line. And if you get a gong, say you reckon it's the lass as should have it, all you did was your job, they'll love that.' 'Yes, sir,' said Hat. 'Sir, what about Penn?' 'What about him?' 'He alibi'd Dee for the Stang Creek killing, remember?' 'Maybe he got the night wrong. Maybe he was doing his mate a favour. Or maybe Dee bamboozled us about what he were doing the other possible times. Not your worry, lad. Leave Charley Penn to me.' 'Yes, sir,' said Hat, closing his eyes momentarily and wincing. 'You OK?' said Pascoe, concerned. 'Fine,' said Hat. 'Didn't realize it was such hard work being a hero.'
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'Expensive work too,' said Dalziel. 'First round in the Black Bull's on you when you get back. Come on, Pete. Lad needs his rest and some of us have got work to do.' Out in the corridor, Pascoe said, 'Do we need to worry about Penn?' 'Only if he feels he donj,t need to worry about me. Hello, what's this? Don't usually see folk running into these places, just out.' The door at the end of the corridor had burst open to admit Rye Pomona at a run. She didn't look as if she would have stopped, but Dalziel's body was an obstacle not easily ignored. 'I got a message saying he's awake,' she gasped. : 'Awake, compos mentis, and asking about you,' smiled Pascoe. 'He's OK? Truly OK?' She spoke to Dalziel. Fair enough, thought Pascoe. I'm good enough for reassurance, but for assurance. Fat Andy's your only man. 'He's grand, luv. Bit weak still, but sight of you'll have him standing up in no time. How about yourself? You OK?' She looked OK. Indeed, with her golden skin flushed from running and her rich chestnut hair with its distinctive silver flash becomingly dishevelled, she could have modelled for a pre-Raphaelite picture of Atalanta diverted from her race by Aphrodite's golden apples. Except there were only three of them and with Andy Dalziel as diversion, the artist would have need to paint a whole barrelful. 'Yes,' she said impatiently. 'I'm fine. Went back to work today.' 'What? Miserable buggers. Should have thought they'd give you a month at least.' This indignation from one who believed that wheelchair access to police stations had been provided in order that convalescing cops could get back to their desks as soon as possible amused Pascoe. He saw it amused the young woman too. 'To do what?' she said. 'I've seen the quacks and the counsellors, I've taken the long country walks, I've got the victim T-shirt. I'm better off at work, and they're a bit short-handed there at the moment. We lost a couple of librarians recently, or haven't you heard? Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go and see Hat.' She pushed past and went into the room. 'Good lass, yon,' said Dalziel. 'Bit lippy, but I don't mind that in a woman long as she's got the tits to go with it. Reminds me a bit of your Ellie when she were a lass.' Making a note to pass this intimation of senescence on to Ellie, Pascoe glanced through the glass panel. Rye was kneeling by the bed, clasping one of Hat's hands in both of hers and looking into his eyes. They weren't speaking. Pascoe did not know where they were, did not know about that magic mist which had wrapped itself round them the rime they walked along the margin of Stang Tarn, but he knew they were far away in some private place where even his distant gaze was an intrusion. 'Takes you back a couple of years, eh?' said Dalziel, who was peering over his shoulder. 'Further than that,' said Pascoe. 'Takes you right out of rime. Come away. We're strangers here.' 'Nay, lad. Not strangers. Just too busy to visit very often,' said Andy Dalziel.
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Chapter Forty-eight
THE LAST DIALOGUE ^ ,a^, :;>; dick dee: Where am I? geoff pyke-strengler; Dick Dee, by all that's wonderful! Hv^^ are you, old chap? ':',, ')'' DiCK:I'm. . .I'm not sure howlam. Geoffrey, is'that'you':'I'm so sorry .. .1.
geoff: What on earth for? Not your fault we're here. . ' ;
dick: Isn't it? I thought that... what is this place ... ? ;. geoff: Hard to explain, old boy. Not really a place at all. If you get', my drift. hots did you get here, anyway? ^ dick; It's all mixed up .. . there was this tunnel with a very bright:' light at the end of it... i sam johns on: How very conventional. I had bells and explosions amt. birdsong, bit like the 1812 re-orchestrated by Messiaen. ; dick: Dr Johnson . . . you too . . . I'm sorry ... i sam: You will be. Oh yes, you will be. it geoff: Ignore him. He's a bit down. The tunnel thingy, that's just^ an impression of the process of getting here. Quite a popular one, as in happens. I meant, what happened to start the process? ^
dick: / can't remember ... there was ... no, it's gone. | geoff: Not to worry. It generally takes a hit of time before memory] comes back. sam: Enjoy it while you can. It's when you start remembering that the pain starts. Oh God, here it comes. We may have left the stage but we still have the pantomime horse.
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PERCY FOLLOWS 1 Hello, Dick. AMBROSE BIRD J percy: How are things back there? Who's got my job? I half expected it might be you. brose: Can hardly be him when he's down here with us, can it? percy: You know what I mean. brose: Only because my powers of interpretation compensate for your inadequacies of expression. How on earth you got to be borough librarian I cannot im
agine. percy: By the same process as a pipsqueak blowbag like yourself got to be the Last of the Actor-managers, I dare say. Where do you think we are going? brose: For a walk by the river. percy: But we went for a walk by the river this morning. brose: That was when it was your choice. Now it's mine and I choose to go there again. Anyway, there's nowhere else. Come on, no dawdling. percy: Don't poke. You're poking again. I promise you, if you start poking, I'll start jerking. dick: I wanted to say something to them but they didn't give me the chance to get a word in. And why are they walking so close together like that? geoff: That's how they arrived, sort of joined up. And the way you arrive is the way you stay, it seems, at least till you cross the river. You may have noticed I'm having to hold my head on, for instance.
dick: Yes, I'm so sorry ...
geoff: Bad habit that, always apologizing.
dick: But your poor head... g e o f f : / know. But look, old boy, there 'syou bleeding all over the place and I'm not apologizing, am I? andrew ainstable: 'Scuse me, gents, but I'm looking for a bridge. Couldn't tell me if it's upstream or downstream, could you? I've got a Home Start waiting and I was due there .. . can't recall when exactly, but I know he's waiting.
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g e o f f : Try upstream, old boy. dick: Who on earth was that? geoff: On earth he was an AA man. He's still a bit confused even though he's been down here longer than any of us. Spends all his time. looking for a bridge.
dick; Bridge? I'd say he's tried to swim across, from the look of him. geoff; Not an option, old boy. No, that's the way he came, dripping, wet. He wants to find this bridge 'cos that's where he left his van.
dick; This is very confusing. And I keep on hearing music ... geoff; Oh yes, that's young Pitman. He just lies around on the bank all day playing his bazouki. Seems perfectly happy and he can't frighted' the fish because there don't seem to be any. Disappointing that. I know'^ it's not real - not in the real sense - but if you're going to have a , not-real river, you might as well stock it with not-real fish. Instead .i we've got that odd-coloured mist. Sort ofpurply. Looks industrial to me, like there's some big plant with furnaces and such quite close. And that spells pollution with a big P. That's what I used to love about the tarn. Creek ran into it straight from the hills. Nothing up there to pump chemicals and sewage into the water. Miss it, you know. Hope when we '; get across we might find somewhere a man can cast a line and hope to hook something more than an old bedstead. /.
sam; My God, will you listen to him? It's over, old boy. All that stuff;; belongs somewhere else. Here it's done with, finito, kaput. The nearest ' you 're ever going to get again to that creek you keep on going on about is being right up it, without a paddle. Oh shit, here she comes, I'm out of here. geoff; Poor chap, it's hit him bad. You never know how people will, take it. Me, remembering how things were keeps me going. Poor Sam it just drives mad. That's why he can't stand Jax. All she wants to talk about is the past. Jax, my dear, how are you? Look who's just arrived. jax ripley; Dick, is that you? Lovely to see you. Is my Wordman story still running? Do I still get a credit whenever anyone does a piece? What about movie rights? Or a TV drama-doc? It rates a drama-doc, at least. Who have they got to play me? God, I hope it's not that girl in EastEnders, you know, the one with hair. I know she's the right size, but everything else about her is so wrong. That mouth .. . I dick; I couldn't really say. Jax . .. what happened . .. Pm sorry ... jax: Are you? That's not much of a compliment. I seem to remember really enjoying it.
geoff: He's still a bit confused. jax: No use to me then. Unless you managed to smuggle a mobile in. No? Thought not. God, what wouldn't I give for a mobile! Catch you later, Dick. Be good. geoff: Lovely girl. Interviewed me once, you know. Thought I might have a chance afterwards, things going really well, then that blasted phone of hers rang. How about you? She seemed genuinely pleased to see you. Did you ever... ? dick: I'm not sure . . . I seem to recall something . . . but I can't be sure. . . geoff: You are in a had way, aren't you? dick: I'm trying to get my head round all this. We are dead, right? geoff: Got it in one, old chum. Yes, there's no getting away from it. That's what we are. Dead.
dick: And this place ... geoff: I've thought a lot about that. Conclusion - it's not really a place, it's more a sort of state. Not like Mississippi... except insofar as it's got this bloody great river . .. but like I just said, it's not a real river either . . . more a sort of visible metaphor ... hark at me, talking like a critic!... hut you know what I mean .. . it helps our minds keep a bold on things . .. rather like you seeing dying as a tunnel... it's all a bit hard to grasp at first... dick: Butyouseem to have grasped it better than anyone, Geoff. Why's that? geoff: Born to it, I suppose. dick: You mean, because you've got a title? geoff: Good lord, no. Load of bollocks, all that stuff. It's just that, well, I'm connected, you know. Sort of divinely.
dick: You mean you're God? geoff: Of course not. Don't say things like that. Got one of my ancestors into a lot of bother way back. No, but I am family, so to speak. Sort of
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fourth cousin, x times removed. It's the fallen angels, you see. Some of them got the option of turning human rather than spending an eternity in hell. Hard choice to make, I should think. Back on earth, the connection's not much help, but down here, it seems to give us descendants a bit of an inside track on things. Not that I know much more than here we are and here we'll stay till we're all here, then we'll go across.
dick: Who's all? And where'1 s across? And bow long do we have ftfi: wait? ,;; geoff; Forget how long, old boy. No time here. Time's away and^ somewhere else. Don't know where that came from, must have beeffi^ something I learned at school, but it's true. As for all, I mean all thosV"^ that the Wordman kills. ;/'
dick: The Wordman ... but aren't I the Wordman? ,' ' geoff: You? My dear Dick! What on earth put that notion in yowr^ head? ';
dick: / don't know... just something... I feel responsible somehow ... ' geoff: And that's why you're apologizing left and right! My dean'' chap, rest easy. You couldn 't hurt a fly. I recall the first time I gave'1^ you a pair of trout and you realized you had to clean them out yourself^; You turned white! No, you 're like the rest of us, a victim here. Look,, [ at you, all chopped about like a baited badger. Councillor, you tell him. stuffer steel: Tell him what? " " geoff: The dear chap thinks he's the Wordman. :
stuffer: So he is. All them buggers as work in yon poncy Centre, all;: sodding wordmen, never done an honest day's work between 'em. :; geoff: May have got something there. Councillor. But I mean Word- „ man with a capital W, the one who's been doing all these killings. y
stuffer: Oh, yon bugger. No, Mr Dee, you may be a lot of things, ; most on 'em useless, but you're definitely not that Wordman, not if'^ that's the bugger who killed me. dick: Thank God, thank God. But if it's not me, then who is it? Who was it who killed you. Councillor? stuffer: You really don't know? Aye well, fair do's. Took me some time to twig even after I got here. I mean, you 're standing there washing your hands in a gent's bog and you look up and see a bonny young lass in the mirror, you don't think straight off, she's come to top me!
dick: A young lass... oh my God... stuffer: Coming back, is it now? Aye, well, I looked at her and she looked at me, this big reassuring smile on her face. And I said what the hell are you doing in here, lass? And she said, I just wanted to tell you I've got that dinner you asked for sorted. You know, rib beef and Yorkshire pudding and lots and lots of roast spuds. And I thought, well that sounds all right. Then 1 felt summat at the back of me neck and next thing I'm on the floor and it's all getting dark. Then there was this young fellow-me-lad bending over me and asking if I were all right and I knew I weren 't all right, I knew I were on my way out, and I'd no idea why, that's what bothered me.
dick: And you said rosebud to him. Why did you say rosebud^ stuffer: Don't recollect saying owt, but if I did, I know it bloody weren't rosebud! No, it W be roast spuds! You see, what I couldn 't get my head round was why she'd been going on about me dinner. But I've worked it out si
nce. She wanted me to die happy. Aye, that must have been it. She didn 't want me to die thinking, "Oh Christ, there's someone here going to kill me." She wanted me to go thinking I was about to get me dinner. Not much bloody hope of that down here, far as I can see, but it was a kindness, aye, I'll give her that. It was kindly meant.
dick: And this was definitely Rye? This was Miss Pomona? geoff: You know it was, Dick. It's coming back now, isn't it? Like the councillor says, takes a bit of getting bold of. When I saw her pointing the Purdy at me, I just said, careful, my dear. Not good form to point a gun at anyone. It might go off. Then it did. Still thought it was an accident when I found myself here, but once I got talking to the others . . . Well, I should have known, pretty young lass like that fluttering her eyelashes at me and saying she was really interested in night fishing and she'd heard I'd got this boat out at Stang Creek - must have heard that from you, I suppose, Dick - no, it didn't make sense, I thought, not unless maybe she fancied me. Don't suppose that made sense either, but I have been fancied in my time, and an old cavalry horse don't pay much attention to anything else when he hears the bugle playing! Who knows, out in the country, snag a couple of trout, hake them over afire, bottle of vino, anything can happen. And it did!
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