Dialogues of the Dead

'So what are you going to do about it?' asked Rye. 'If I knew that I wouldn't be sitting here spoiling your coffee break,' said Hat. He should have gone to Dalziel straightaway, or Pascoe at least, or even Wield. Off-loaded his suspicions, let them earn the extra money they got for being in positions of authority and responsibility. In fact he wouldn't even have needed to point the finger himself, merely handed over the copies of Jax Ripley's email which her sister had given him and let them draw their own conclusions. Instead he'd gone back to the station, found that George Headingley was still off sick, and persuaded himself that it could do no harm to sleep on it. It hadn't done any good either. The first person he'd seen when he entered the CID office the following morning was Headingley. He was a very different man from the relaxed, rather genial figure who'd been navigating his way serenely into the imminent harbour of retirement, and unrecognizable as the sexual athlete described in the e-mails. Jax had told her sister that she first detected her GP's interest at a media briefing when she'd caught him eyeing her, not with the calculation of a sexual predator but with the yearning of a small boy outside a sweet shop whose only calculation is that he can't afford to go in. She'd stayed behind and when he asked, 'And what can I do for you, Miss Ripley? Something you want to chew over?' she'd replied, 'Yes, as a matter of fact. I was wondering about chewing over your dick and my pussy,' and watched his face turn such a vein-bulging puce that she feared their relationship might be about to end before it had begun. But these symptoms, she soon discovered to her amusement and also to her pleasure, were merely the facial expression of a sexual arousal which turned the whole of his body into an erogenous zone. Now his portly figure seemed to have collapsed in on itself, his clothes hung baggily on his sagging frame and he looked a good ten years older than before. It was easy to trace the earth-slide of emotions which had been carrying him along for the past ten days. First the shock ofRipley's TV revelations and the fear that his own involvement might soon come out. Then her death, a second shock, accompanied by an initial great surge of relief followed almost immediately by a still greater surge of self-disgust that he could find comfort in the death of someone he'd been so intimate with. After that he'd headed for home, to the security of the undemanding domestic comfort which he probably expected to be ripped from him at any moment. It must have seemed impossible that the close and detailed investigation ofjax's affairs following her murder plus Dalziel's natural desire to find out who'd been leaking CID secrets to her, wouldn't rapidly bring the Fat Man to his door. And then everything would go. Pension ... marriage . .. reputation . .. character . .. the rest of his life as he had planned it... And now with Jax Ripley buried, he was perhaps beginning to allow himself to hope that, despite his sins, all manner of things could still be well. At the very least it must have seemed better to come into work and check for himself what was going on. He'd greeted Hat like a prodigal son and then questioned him about the course of the investigation in a manner which was both probing and hesitant, like a man who fears he may have cancer but does not dare ask his doctor direct. In the end, Hat had pleaded an urgent appointment and left the office. He had to talk to someone and almost without conscious decision he found himself ringing the library number. At first Rye had sounded rushed and faintly irritated, and, fearful she might be about to ring off, he said, 'Sorry to trouble you, but you did say you would like to be kept in the picture about the Wordman.' 'The Wordman? Has he . .. ? You mean .. . ? Look, if you fancy a coffee, I'll take my break early at Hal's.' Which was where they were now, at the same balcony table as before. News of the Fourth Dialogue hadn't been made public yet, but it couldn't be long before it was. At least so Hat assured himself