Reginald Hill - Dialogues of the Dead

So why was she pussy-footing around? In this life you were either a player or a stayer. And I’m a player! she told herself as she headed into her office to make the necessary wake-up calls. No point jumping off a skyscraper unless you had the audience you wanted.

It was, viewers opined later, by Jax Ripley’s usual standards a rather slow show. In her intro and her link passages she seemed somewhat muted, a little lacking in her usual sparkle. Usually she almost came out of the screen at you. But not tonight. Tonight she clearly had something on her mind.

The last of the filmed items was an interview with Charley Penn about the new Harry Hacker series starting on television the following week. It was a good interview, with Jax at her seductive and Penn at his saturnine best. It ended with her asking him about the doppelgänger effect which he often used in his books, with Hacker finding himself being warned or otherwise aided by glimpses of a mysterious shadowy figure which seemed to bear a close resemblance to himself.

“Charley, tell me, do you really think it’s possible for a person to be in two places at the same time, or are you going to surprise us one day by revealing that Harry’s got a twin?”

Penn smiled at her, then looked straight into the camera.

“I don’t know about being in two places at the same time, but I have no problem with a character being in two times at the same place.”

She’d laughed at that. She was one of those few people whose mouth wide open in close-up was an on-turning rather than an off-putting experience.

“Too deep for me, Charley. But I love the new book. And though I say it as shouldn’t, reading it’s much better than watching the telly.”

End of film. Cut to Jax live in the studio, no longer relaxing, bare legs folded beneath her, on the white leatherette sofa she shared with her interview guests, but sitting on a hard upright chair, knees locked tight together, fingers closely clasped, face set and serious, looking like a young schoolteacher about to administer a stern rebuke.

“Doppelgängers apart,” she said, “it’s usually agreed that truth is stranger than fiction, but I did not realize just how much stranger it could be until a little earlier this week.

“The fiction in the case is contained in most of the entries submitted to the Gazette’s short story competition. Entries close tonight, so those of you still scribbling had better get your skates on. I hope to announce the short list and perhaps interview some of the hopeful authors on the show next week.

“But there is one person submitting material who probably won’t be rushing forward to be interviewed, the person the police are calling the Wordman …”

As she went on, around the county most listeners carried on with what they were doing, only gradually increasing their focus on what she was saying as its import struck home. But some there were who at the first mention of the short story competition had raised their heads, or reached forward to turn up the volume, or risen out of their seats, and a couple there were who as she went on began to swear violently, and there was one who sat back and laughed aloud and gave thanks.

After she’d finished and the brass band had played the show out, Jax sat still for a moment. Then John Wingate came bursting in.

“Jesus, Jax! What the hell was that all about? Is it true? It can’t be true! Where’d it come from? What evidence have you got? You should have cleared this with me first, you know that. Shit! What’s going to happen now?”

“Let’s wait and see,” she said, smiling, back to her old self now that the die was cast.

They didn’t have long to wait.

Even Jax was taken aback by the sheer weight of the reaction.

It came in a confusion of telephone calls, faxes, emails and personal visits, but it was divisible into four clear categories.

First came her employers, at levels stretching up from Wingate himself to top management in London and their legal oracles. As soon as these had pronounced, with all the usual caveats and qualifications, that there did not on the face of it seem to be anything actionable in what she had said, she passed rapidly from potential liability to embryonic star. This was a hot news scoop in the old style, something rarely seen on national let alone provincial television. Hence the interest from category two, the rest of the media.

Once she’d made up her mind to go ahead, Jax had seeded word of her intention in several potentially fruitful areas. Long hardened against hype, no one had fallen over with excitement, but now the smell of blood was in the air and jackals everywhere were raising their snouts and sniffing. If this turned out to be a story that ran, then it was crazy not to be in at the beginning and by the end of the evening Jax had signed up for a national radio spot, a TV chat show and a Sunday tabloid article, while a broadsheet had opened negotiations for a profile. Mary Agnew of the Gazette had rung too. A pragmatist, she didn’t waste time reproaching her former employee for scooping the story out of her lap.

“Well done, dearie,” she said. “You got a head start, but you’re going to need my help now.”

“Why’s that, Mary?”

“Because now you’ve done the dirty, your police source is going to dry up like a mummy’s crotch,” said Mary. “And because it’s the Gazette that this nut-if there is a nut which I’m not yet convinced-is sending his material to. So when the next one comes …”

“What makes you think there’ll be a next one, seeing you’re such a sceptic?” interrupted Jax.

“You do, dearie. You’ve practically guaranteed it. Even if it was a joke before, you’ve made sure every nut in the county will want to get in on the act, and God knows how far some of them will be willing to go. I’ll keep in touch. Sleep well.”

Bitch, thought Jax. Sick as a parrot and trying to get her own back by getting inside my skull. Do I need her? Probably not. On the other hand, pointless telling her to piss off till I’m sure.

But category three, calls from the public, made her think that maybe Agnew had called it right after all. Some were concerned, some abusive, some plain dotty, a couple positively threatening, but none obviously useful. All were recorded and copies of the tapes made ready for the police. One tape definitely wasn’t for the police, however. This was the call she had from Councillor Cyril Steel eager for any further ammunition she could supply him to aid his anti-cop crusade. Like Agnew, he was insignificant nationally but locally a big-hitter in his crusade against inefficiency and corruption. He’d given her a lot of good leads and what was more his omnivorous gut was the only appetite she was expected to satisfy in return. Now he was delighted at what he saw as a win-win situation. Either the police had failed in their duty by not telling the council about a possible serial killer in the town, or the ruling party had failed in theirs by keeping it to themselves. Minus her police ally, Jax was delighted to have whatever high-level support she could hang on to in Mid-Yorkshire and she let the halitotic councillor rabbit on for ten minutes or so before cutting him off with a promise to keep him up to speed.

Now she settled back to await the final category of calls.

This was the constabulary. The one she expected from her furious Deep-throat didn’t come, but an hour after the programme ended, Mid-Yorkshire’s press officer, a user-friendly inspector with a pleasant homely manner which disguised a very sharp mind, rang to wonder if the best interests of both the BBC and the Force might not be served by a bit of mutual co-operation. For example, if he promised to keep her in the picture, maybe she could tell him where she’d got her information? She’d laughed out loud and he’d laughed with her then said, “Please yourself, luv. But don’t be surprised if you hear a loud barking just now. It’ll be them upstairs coming round with the Rottweilers.”