Dialogues of the Dead

181 another writer was writing about back in the historical world these novels of his are set in. I mean, I know he comes over as very direct and down to earth, a bit cynical even, the typical blunt Yorkshire tyke . ..' He realized Dalziel was regarding him leerily and hastened on. '.. . but even that's an act, isn't it? He's not a tyke, he went to public school, he's not even English. And when you look at where he spends his inner life, he's a long way detached from reality, it seems to me. That's what our job's about, isn't it, sir? Some of the time, anyway. Working out what's actually going on inside people who are trying to hide it. We all do that, I reckon, all try to hide it a lot of the time, and it's hard to know what anyone's really feeling or thinking. But a writer, an artist, has to give his inner life away much more than most people, 'cos that's what he's trying to sell us.' He halted, breathless, feeling he'd let his tongue run away with him and probably undone what little progress he'd made in his rehabilitation with the Fat Man, whose bloodshot eyes were regarding him like he'd just materialized out of a space capsule. 'You been spending a lot of time with Mr Pascoe, have you, lad?' he said finally. The, I can't get to grips with my Inner Life on an empty stomach, and from the way you're rambling, I reckon you've not been eating properly either. All right, don't look like I've just sat on your hamster. There's definitely something weird about Charley Penn, I'll give you that. But then I think there's definitely something weird about Charley Windsor too, and I'm not going after him. Now let's get serious. I recall that once upon a time they did a decent Scotch pie and mushy peas in this place. But I'll tell you something . . .' 'What, sir?' said Bowler. 'If yon barman gives me a Cornish pasty and says I won't notice , the difference, I'll shake the bugger till he spews his Inner Life i all over the bar!' Chapter Twenty

Jax Ripley had been born and brought up in a large village with aspirations to be a small town on the southern fringe of the North Yorkshire moors, and it was here that her widowed mother brought her back to be buried. If Charley Penn was right and Jax Ripley's killer was at her funeral, then the police were spoilt for choice, thought Hat Bowler, looking at the teeming graveyard from the vantage point of the church porch. Family, friends and professional colleagues would probably have formed a large congregation, but add to these those who imagined they knew her because of her TV show and those who were merely and vulgarly curious, and you were into celebrity proportions. John Wingate was there, of course, plus his cameraman filming from a discreet distance. A similar duality was visible in the Gazette presence, with Mary Agnew in mourning black, very much the grieving friend and colleague, while Sammy Ruddlesdin made sure that local decorum didn't prevent the Gazette photographer from sharing the photo-opportunities so ruthlessly seized by the unconscienced nationals whose hyenas were there in packs. Percy Follows and Dick Dee were there from the library. Hat had rung Rye to check if she was going but been told fairly brusquely that (a) she hardly knew the woman and (b) someone had to stay and do the work. Unmissable was Ambrose Bird, the Last of the ActorManagers. Hat wondered what his relationship with the dead woman had been. Perhaps he simply did not feel able to deprive such a theatrical scene of his strikingly melancholy presence, though there were some who felt that a calf-length purple cloak was more ham than Hamlet. He had overtaken Follows up the aisle and managed to get the last seat in the second row of pews, turning to smile triumphantly at his rival.