Dialogues of the Dead

Sam Johnson had immediately sought out Penn and said, ‘I believe you know more about Heine than anyone else in Yorkshire.’

‘That wouldn’t be hard. They say you know more about Beddoes than anyone in The Dog and Duck at closing time.’

‘I know he went to Göttingen University to study medicine in 1824 and Heine was there studying law.’

‘Oh aye? And Hitler and Wittgenstein were in the same class at school. So what?’

‘So why don’t we flaunt our knowledge in The Dog and Duck one night?’

‘Well, it’s quiz night tonight. You never know. It might come up.’

Thus had armistice been signed before hostilities proper began. When talk finally turned to the writing course, Penn, after token haggling, accepted terms for making the occasional ‘old pro’ appearance, and went on to suggest that if Johnson was interested in a contribution from someone at the other end of the ladder, he might do worse than soon-to-be-published novelist Ellie Pascoe, an old acquaintance from her days on the university staff and a member of the threatened literary group.

This version of that first encounter was cobbled together from the slightly different accounts Ellie received from both participants. She and Johnson had hit it off straightaway. When she invited him home for a meal, the conversation had naturally centred on matters literary, and Pascoe, feeling rather sidelined, had leapt into the breach when Johnson had casually mentioned his difficulty in finding a squash partner among his generally unathletic colleagues.

His reward for this friendly gesture when Johnson finally left, late, in a taxi, had been for Ellie to say, ‘This game of squash, Peter, you will be careful.’

Indignantly Pascoe said, ‘I’m not quite decrepit, you know.’

‘I’m not talking about you. I meant, with Sam. He’s got a heart problem.’

‘As well as a drink problem? Jesus!’

In the event it had turned out that Johnson suffered from a mild drug-controllable tachycardia, but Pascoe wasn’t looking forward to describing to his wife the rapid and undignified conclusion of his game with someone he’d categorized as an alcoholic invalid.

‘Mate of Elbe’s, eh?’ said Dalziel with a slight intake of breath and a sharp shake of the VCR which, with greater economy than a Special Branch file, consigned Johnson to the category of radical, subversive, Trotskyite troublemaker.

‘Acquaintance,’ said Pascoe. ‘Do you want a hand with that, sir?’

‘No. I reckon I can throw it out of the window myself. You’re very quiet, mastermind. What do you reckon?’

Sergeant Edgar Wield was standing before the deep sash-window. Silhouetted against the golden autumn sunlight, his face deep shadowed, he had the grace and proportions to model for the statue of a Greek athlete, thought Pascoe. Then he moved forward and his features took on detail, and you remembered that if this were a statue, it was one whose face someone had taken a hammer to.

‘I reckon you need to look at the whole picture,’ he said. ‘Way back when Roote were a student at Holm Coultram College before it became part of the university, he got sent down as an accessory to two murders, mainly on your evidence. From the dock he says he looks forward to the chance of meeting you somewhere quiet one day and carrying on your interrupted conversation. As the last time you saw him alone he was trying to stove your head in with a rock, you take this as a threat. But we all get threatened at least once a week. It’s part of the job.’

Dalziel, studying the machine like a Sumo wrestler working out a new strategy, growled, ‘Get a move on, Frankenstein, else I’ll start to wish I hadn’t plugged you in.’

Undeterred, Wield proceeded at a measured pace.

‘Model prisoner, Open University degree, Roote gets maximum remission, comes out, gets job as a hospital porter, starts writing an academic thesis, obeys all the rules. Then you get upset by them threats to Ellie and naturally Roote’s one of the folk you need to take a closer look at. Only when you go to see him, you find he’s slashed his wrists.’

‘He knew I was coming,’ said Pascoe. ‘It was a set-up. No real danger to him. Just a perverted joke.’

‘Maybe. Not the way it looked when it turned out Roote had absolutely nothing to do with the threats to Ellie,’ said Wield. ‘He recovers, and a few months later he moves here because (a) his supervisor has moved here and (b) he can get work here. You say you checked with the probation service?’

‘Yes,’ said Pascoe. ‘All done by the book. They wanted to know if there was a problem.’

‘What did you tell the buggers?’ said Dalziel, who classed probation officers with Scottish midges, vegetarians and modern technology as Jobian tests of a virtuous man’s patience.

‘I said no, just routine.’

‘Wise move,’ approved Wield. ‘See how it looks. Man serves his time, puts his life back together, gets harassed without cause by insensitive police officer, flips, tries to harm himself, recovers, gets back on track, finds work again, minds his own business, then this same officer starts accusing him of being some sort of stalker. It’s you who comes out looking like either a neurotic headcase or a vengeful bastard. While Roote … just a guy who’s paid his debt and wants nothing except to live a quiet life. I mean, he didn’t even want the hassle of bringing a harassment case against you, or a wrongful dismissal case against the Sheffield hospital.’

He moved from the window to the desk.

‘Aye,’ said Dalziel thoughtfully. ‘That’s the most worrying thing, him not wanting to kick up a fuss. Well, lad, it’s up to you. But me, I know what I’d do.’

‘And what’s that, sir?’ enquired Pascoe.

‘Break both his legs and run him out of town.’

‘I think perhaps the other way round might be better,’ said Pascoe judiciously.

‘You reckon? Either way, you can stick this useless thing up his arse first.’

He glowered at the VCR which, as if in response to that fearsome gaze, clicked into life and a picture blossomed on the TV screen.

‘There,’ said the Fat Man triumphantly. ‘Told you no lump of tin and wires could get the better of me.’

Pascoe glanced at Wield who was quietly replacing the remote control unit on the desk, and grinned.

An announcer was saying, ‘And now Out and About, your regional magazine programme from BBC Mid-Yorkshire, presented by Jax Ripley.’

Titles over an aerial panorama of town and countryside accompanied by the first few bars of ‘On Ilkla Moor Baht ’at’ played by a brass band, all fading to the slight, almost childish figure of a young blonde with bright blue eyes and a wide mouth stretched in a smile through which white teeth gleamed like a scimitar blade.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Lots of goodies tonight, but first, are we getting the policing we deserve, the policing we pay for? Here’s how it looks from the dirty end of the stick.’

A rapid montage of burgled houses and householders all expressing, some angrily, some tearfully, their sense of being abandoned by the police. Back to the blonde, who recited a list of statistics which she then précis’d: ‘So four out of ten cases don’t get looked at by CID in the first twenty-four hours, six out of ten cases get only one visit and the rest is silence, and eight out of ten cases remain permanently unsolved. In fact, as of last month there were more than two hundred unsolved current cases on Mid-Yorkshire CID’s books. Inefficiency? Underfunding? Understaffing? Certainly we are told that the decision not to replace a senior CID officer who comes up to retirement shortly is causing much soul searching, or, to put it another way, a bloody great row. But when we invited Mid-Yorkshire Constabulary to send someone along to discuss these matters, a spokesman said they were unable to comment at this time. Maybe that means they are all too busy dealing with the crime wave. I would like to think so. But we do have Councillor Cyril Steel, who has long been interested in police matters. Councillor Steel, I gather you feel we are not getting the service we pay for?’

A bald-headed man with mad eyes opened his mouth to show brown and battlemented teeth, but before he could let fly his arrows of criticism, the screen went dark as Dalziel ripped the plug out of the wall socket.

‘Too early in the day to put up with Stuffer,’ he said with a shudder.

‘We must be able to take honest criticism, sir,’ said Pascoe solemnly. ‘Even from Councillor Steel.’

He was being deliberately provocative. Steel, once a Labour councillor but now an Independent after the Party ejected him in face of his increasingly violent attacks on the leadership, hurling charges which ranged from cronyism to corruption, was the self-appointed leader of a crusade against the misuse of public money. His targets included everything from the building of the Heritage, Arts and Library Centre to the provision of digestive biscuits at council committee meetings, so it was hardly surprising that he should have rushed forward to lend his weight to Jax Ripley’s investigation into the way police resources were managed in Mid-Yorkshire.

‘Not his criticism that bothers me,’ growled Dalziel. ‘Have you ever got near him? Teeth you could grow moss on and breath like a vegan’s fart. I can smell it through the telly. Only time Stuffer’s not talking is when he’s eating, and not always then. No one listens any more. No, it’s Jax the bloody Ripper who bothers me. She’s got last month’s statistics, she knows about the decision not to replace George Headingley and, looking at the state of some of them burgled houses, she must have been round there with her little camera afore we were!’

‘So you still reckon someone’s talking?’ said Pascoe.

‘It’s obvious. How many times in the last few months has she been one jump ahead of us? Past six months, to be precise. I checked back.’

‘Six months? And you think that might be significant? Apart from the fact, of course, that Miss Ripley started doing the programme only seven months ago?’

‘Aye, it could be significant,’ said Dalziel grimly.

‘Maybe she’s just good at her job,’ said Pascoe. ‘And surely it’s no bad thing for the world to know we’re not getting a replacement DI for George? Perhaps we should use her instead of getting our knickers in a twist.’

‘You don’t use a rat,’ said Dalziel. ‘You block up the hole it’s feeding through. And I’ve got a bloody good idea where to find this hole.’

Pascoe and Wield exchanged glances. They knew where the Fat Man’s suspicions lay, knew the significance he put on the period of six months. This was just about the length of time Mid-Yorkshire CID’s newest recruit, Detective Constable Bowler, had been on the team. Bowler – known to his friends as Hat and to his arch-foe as Boiler, Boghead, Bowels or any other pejorative variation which occurred to him – had started with the heavy handicap of being a fast-track graduate, on transfer from the Midlands without Dalziel’s opinion being sought or his approval solicited. The Fat Man was Argos-eyed in Mid-Yorkshire and a report that the new DC had been spotted having a drink with Jacqueline Ripley not long after his arrival had been filed away till the first of the items which had seen her re-christened Jax the Ripper had appeared. Since then Bowler had been given the status of man-most-likely, but nothing had yet been proved, which, to Pascoe at least, knowing how close a surveillance was being kept, suggested he was innocent.

But he knew better than to oppose a Dalzielesque obsession. Also, the Fat Man had a habit of being right.

He said brightly, ‘Well, I suppose we’d better go and solve some crimes in case there’s a hidden camera watching us. Thank you both for your input on my little problem.’

‘What? Oh, that,’ said Dalziel dismissively. ‘Seems to me the only problem you’ve got is knowing whether you’ve really got a problem.’

‘Oh yes, I’m certain of that. I think I’ve got the same problem Hector was faced with last year.’

‘Eh?’ said Dalziel, puzzled by this reference to Mid-Yorkshire’s most famously incompetent constable. ‘Remind me.’

‘Don’t you remember? He went into that warehouse to investigate a possible intruder. There was a guard dog, big Ridgeback I think, lying down just inside the doorway.’

‘Oh yes, I recall. Hector had to pass it. And he didn’t know if it was dead, drugged, sleeping or just playing doggo, waiting to pounce, that was his problem, right?’

‘No,’ said Pascoe. ‘He gave it a kick to find out. And it opened its eyes. That was his problem.’

CHAPTER FOUR

the second dialogue

Hi.

It’s me again. How’s it going?

Remember our riddles? Here’s a new one.

One for the living, one for the dead, Out on the moor I wind about Nor rhyme nor reason in my head Yet reasons I have without a doubt.

Deep printed on the yielding land Each zig and zag makes perfect sense To those who recognize the hand Of nature’s clerk experience.

This tracks a chasm deep and wide, That skirts a bog, this finds a ford, And men have suffered, men have died, To learn this wisdom of my Word –

– That seeming right is sometimes wrong And even on the clearest days The shortest way may still be long, The straightest line may form a maze.

What am I?

Got it yet?

You were always a smart dog at a riddle!

I’ve been thinking a lot about paths lately, the paths of the living, the paths of the dead, how maybe there’s only one path, and I have set my foot upon it.

I was pretty busy for a few days after my Great Adventure began, so I had little chance to mark its beginning by any kind of celebration. But as the weekend approached, I felt an urge to do something different, a little special. And I recalled my cheerful AA man telling me how chuffed he’d been on his return from Corfu to discover that a new Greek restaurant had just opened in town.

‘In Cradle Street, the Taverna,’ he said. ‘Good nosh and there’s a courtyard out back where they’ve got tables and parasols. Of course, it’s not like sitting outside in Corfu, but on a fine evening with the sun shining and the waiters running around in costume, and this chap twanging away on one of them Greek banjos, you can close your eyes and imagine you’re back in the Med.’

It was really nice to hear someone being so enthusiastic about foreign travel and food and everything. Most Brits tend to go abroad just for the sake of confirming their superiority to everyone else in the world.

Down there too?

There’s no changing human nature.

Anyway, I thought I’d give the Taverna a try.

The food wasn’t bad and the wine was OK, though I abandoned my experiment with retsina after a single glass. It was just a little chilly at first, sitting outside in the courtyard under the artificial olive trees, but the food soon warmed me up, and with the table candles lit, the setting looked really picturesque. Inside the restaurant a young man was singing to his own accompaniment. I couldn’t see the instrument but it gave a very authentic Greek sound and his playing was rather better than his voice. Eventually he came out into the courtyard and started a tour of the tables, serenading the diners. Some people made requests, most of them for British or at best Italian songs, but he tried to oblige everyone. As he reached my table, the PA system suddenly burst into life and a voice said, ‘It’s Zorba time!’ and two of the waiters started doing that awful Greek dancing. I saw the young musician wince, then he caught my eye and grinned sheepishly.

I smiled back and pointed to his instrument, and asked him what its name was, interested to hear if his speaking voice was as ‘Greek’ as his singing voice. It was a bazouki, he said in a broad Mid-Yorkshire accent. ‘Oh, you aren’t Greek then?’ I said, sounding disappointed to conceal the surge of exultation I was feeling. He laughed and admitted quite freely he was local, born, bred and still living out at Carker. He was a music student at the university, finding it impossible like so many of them to exist on the pittance they call a grant these days and plumping it out a bit by working in the Taverna most evenings. But while he wasn’t Greek, his instrument he assured me certainly was, a genuine bazouki brought home from Crete by his grandfather who’d fought there during the Second World War, so its music had first been heard beneath real olive trees in a warm and richly perfumed Mediterranean night.

I could detect in his voice a longing for that distant reality he described just as I’d seen in his face a disgust with this fakery he was involved in. Yorkshire born and bred he might be, but his soul yearned for something that he had persuaded himself could still be found under other less chilly skies. Poor boy. He had the open hopeful look of one born to be disappointed. I yearned to save him from the shattering of his illusions.

The canned music was growing louder and the dancing waiters who’d been urging more and more customers to join their line were getting close to my table, so I tucked some coins into the leather pouch dangling from the boy’s tunic, paid my bill and left.

It was after midnight when the restaurant closed but I didn’t mind sitting in my car, waiting. There is a pleasure in observing and not being observed, in standing in the shadows watching the creatures of the night going about their business. I saw several cats pad purposefully down the alleyway alongside the Taverna where they kept their rubbish bins. An owl floated between the chimneys, remote and silent as a satellite. And I glimpsed what I’m sure was the bushy tail of an urban fox frisking round the corner of a house. But it was the human creatures I was most interested in, the last diners striding, staggering, drifting, driving off into the night, little patches of Stimmungsbild – voices calling, footsteps echoing, car doors banging, engines revving – which played for a moment against the great symphony of the night, then faded away, leaving its dark music untouched.

Then comes a long pause – not in time but of time – how long I don’t know for clocks are blank-faced now – till finally I hear a motorbike revving up in the alleyway and my boy appears at its mouth, a musician making his entry into the music of the night. I know it’s him despite the shielding helmet – would have known without the evidence of the bazouki case strapped behind him.

He pauses to check the road is empty. Then he pulls out and rides away.

I follow. It’s easy to keep in touch. He stays well this side of the speed limit, probably knowing from experience how ready the police are to hassle young bikers, especially late at night. Once it becomes clear he’s heading straight home to Carker, I overtake and pull away.

I have no plan but I know from the merriment bubbling up inside me that a plan exists, and when I pass the derestriction sign at the edge of town and find myself on the old Roman Way, that gently undulating road which runs arrow-straight down an avenue of beeches all the five miles south to Carker, I understand what I have to do.

I leave the lights of town behind me and accelerate away. After a couple of miles, I do a U-turn on the empty road, pull on to the verge, and switch off my lights but not my engine.

Darkness laps over me like black water. I don’t mind. I am its denizen. This is my proper domain.

Now I see him. First a glow, then an effulgence, hurtling towards me. What young man, even one conditioned to carefulness by police persecution, could resist the temptation of such a stretch of road so clearly empty of traffic?

Ah, the rush of the wind in his face, the throb of the engine between his thighs, and in the corners of his vision the blur of trees lined up like an audience of old gods to applaud his passage!

I feel his joy, share in his mirth. Indeed, I’m so full of it I almost miss my cue.

But the old gods are talking to me also, and with no conscious command from my mind, my foot stamps down on the accelerator and my hand flicks on full headlights.

For a fraction of a second we are heading straight for each other. Then his muscles like mine obey commands too quick for his mind, and he swerves, skids, wrestles for control.

For a second I think he has it.

I am disappointed and relieved.

All right, I know, but I have to be honest. What a weight – and a wait – it would be off my soul if this turned out not to be my path after all.

But now the boy begins to feel it go. Yet still, even at this moment of ultimate danger, his heart must be singing with the thrill, the thrust, of it. Then the bike slides away from under him, they part company, and man and machine hurtle along the road in parallel, close but no longer touching.

I come to a halt and turn my head to watch. In time it takes probably a few seconds. In my no-time I can register every detail. I see that it is the bike which hits a tree first, disintegrating in a burst of flame, not much – his tank must have been low – but enough to throw a brief lurid light on his last moment.

He hits a broad-boled beech tree, seems to embrace it with his whole body, wrapping himself around it as if he longs to penetrate its smooth bark and flow into its rising sap. Then he slides off it and lies across its roots, like a root himself, face up, completely still.

I reverse back to him and get out of the car. The impact has shattered his visor but, wonderfully, done no damage to his gentle brown eyes. I notice that his bazouki case has been ripped off the pillion of the bike and lies quite close. The case itself has burst open but the instrument looks hardly damaged. I take it out and lay it close to his outstretched hand.

Now the musician is part of the night’s dark music and I am out of place here. I drive slowly away, leaving him there with the trees and the foxes and owls, his eyes wide open, and seeing very soon, I hope, not the cold stars of our English night but the rich warm blue of a Mediterranean sky.

That’s where he’d rather be. I know it. Ask him. I know it.

I’m too exhausted to talk any more now.

Soon.

CHAPTER FIVE

On Thursday morning with only one day to go before the short story competition closed, Rye Pomona was beginning to hope there might be life after deathless prose.

This didn’t stop her shovelling scripts into the reject bin with wild abandon, but halfway through the morning she went very still, sighed perplexedly, re-read the pages in front of her and said, ‘Oh hell.’

‘Yes?’ said Dick Dee.

‘We’ve got a Second Dialogue.’

‘Let me see.’

He read through it quickly then said, ‘Oh dear. I wonder if this one too is related to a real incident.’

‘It is. That’s what hit me straight off. I noticed it in yesterday’s Gazette. Here, take a look.’

She went to the Journal Rack and picked up the Gazette.

‘Here it is. “Police have released details of the fatal accident on Roman Way reported in our weekend edition. David Pitman, 19, a music student, of Pool Terrace, Carker, was returning home from his part-time job as an entertainer at the Taverna Restaurant in Cradle Street when he came off his motorbike in the early hours of Saturday morning. He sustained multiple injuries and was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. No other vehicle was involved.” Poor sod.’

Dee looked at the paragraph then read the Dialogue again.

‘How very macabre,’ he said. ‘Still, it’s not without some nice touches. If only our friend would attempt a more conventional story, he might do quite well.’