Dialogues of the Dead

“Wash your mouth out, lad!” exploded Dalziel. “Yon daft business is the kind of thing that gets CID a bad name. No, with a bit of luck, what we’ve got here is a good old straightforward killing, and once we’ve interviewed all the preview guests, we’ll have it all tied up, neat and tidy, afore Match of the Day.”

But for once Dalziel’s prognostication was wrong. By mid-evening all the guests had been tracked down and interviewed. None of them had noticed anything suspicious in regard to the theft of the burin. Councillor Steel’s conversation, though as full as ever of complaint and accusation, did not seem to have broken any new ground. The nearest thing to an altercation was Charley Penn’s annoyance at Steel’s efforts to shut down his literature group. But, as the novelist pointed out, if you took that as a motive, then everyone employed in the HAL Centre must be suspect as the councillor proposed to make half of them redundant and slash the salaries of the rest. Mary Agnew recalled descending the stairs from the gallery with him, during which short interlude she got a quick-fire summary of her newspaper’s major failings. On reaching the mezzanine, he’d said, “Got to spend a penny,” and turned away, presumably towards the men’s toilet. She hadn’t noticed anyone else going after him.

Pressure applied by Dalziel to the Chief Constable had been passed on and a preliminary post mortem report was available by early evening. It stated that Steel had died as a result of a single blow from the burin (now confirmed as the murder weapon by Forensic), which had cut right through to the medulla and pons of the brainstem, and had been, as Bowler had said, either very lucky or very expert. The burin had been wiped clean of prints.

Andy Dalziel read the report, said, “Sod it,” and went home.

He checked his phone for messages. There was just one, from Cap Marvell. She regretted again the ruining of their planned afternoon by Steel’s untimely death and would have been happy to sit around like Marianna of the moated grange had she not received an invite from some old radical chums to go out on the bevvy and maybe check out the latest Full Monty act at Jock the Cock’s Nite Spot.

Dalziel sighed. He could not fault the wisdom of her choice, but he missed her. On the other hand, left to his own devices, there were certain refined pleasures a man could enjoy without fear of comment or complaint.

He went into the kitchen, emerging a few moments later equipped with what he thought of as The Four Last Things, viz a fork, a jar of pickled herring, a half-pint mug and a bottle of Highland Park. He poured the fourth into the third, plunged the first into the second and settled back to enjoy Match of the Day which was a poor substitute for a real game like rugby football, but Manchester United were playing Leeds, so the violence factor ought to come close.

Two yellow cards later the phone rang.

“Yes!” he bellowed.

“It’s me,” said Pascoe.

“Oh shit.”

“That’s a pretty fair description,” said Pascoe. “Security man at the Centre doing a sweep heard the main letter box rattle and when he checked he found an envelope marked ‘Reference Library.’ Normally he’d have left it, but because of the murder, they’re very much on the qui vive, and he reported to his Control and they got on to the factory.”

“And you were still there?” said Dalziel. “What’s up? Ellie locked you out?”

“No, sir. I was at home. Seymour rang me. I think he didn’t want to disturb you …”

“Glad there’s someone who’s got some consideration. All right, lad, the music’s stopped, the parcel’s in my lap. Tell me I’m guessing wrong.”

“Doubt it,” said Pascoe. “You know you were hoping the Steel case would turn out a nice straightforward murder? Forget it. The envelope contained a Fourth Dialogue. Looks like the Wordman has uttered again.”

There was silence, then a great anguished cry.

“Sir? You there? You OK, sir?”

“No, I’m bloody well not,” said Dalziel. “First you tell me my unfavourite loony’s still at it, then, to cap it all, Man, United have just scored!”

17

Murder investigation is the conventional peak of detective work, but Hat Bowler was beginning to discover how much it could snarl up your social life. Any vague hope he had of being able to keep his Sunday date vanished with the discovery of the Fourth Dialogue. He’d seen Rye briefly the previous afternoon after she’d made her statement and had tried to sound optimistic, but she’d looked at him sceptically and given him her home number in case there were problems and on Sunday morning, for the second week in succession he rang her to cancel.

She listened to his apologies for a while then cut in, “Hey, no big deal. Another time maybe.”

“You don’t sound very disappointed,” he said accusingly.