Reginald Hill - Dialogues of the Dead

In the event the Deputy Chief Constable who turned up was dogless, but did his best with his own teeth. He asked her to reveal her sources. She refused on the grounds of journalistic privilege. He spelled out the obligations the law placed upon anyone with information relevant to a crime, whether already or still to be committed. He then wished her all the best in her future career, hoped for her sake it would be in an area far removed from Mid-Yorkshire, smiled caninely, and left.

You’d better get this London job, girl, she told herself. I think things could get pretty uncomfortable for you round here.

But the pluses were too many for the negativisms of Mary Agnew and the DCC to depress her spirits for long and when she finally decided to call it a night, she was bubbling inside like a bottle of champagne about to pop. John Wingate was still around, looking slightly less anxious now that it seemed likely her revelations on air were going to attract plaudits rather than brickbats. Sex seemed a good way to uncork her energies and she said, “Fancy coming back with me for a celebratory drink, John?”

He looked at her, looked at his watch, all the anxiety back on his face. He’s recalling what it was like, she thought. He’s thinking that with a bit of luck I’ll be out of his hair and his life in a very short while, so why not one for the road? If I reached out and touched him and said, “Let’s do it here,” he’d be on me like a flash. But she didn’t want a quickie on a dusty office floor.

She said, “You’re right, John. Family first, eh?” kissed him lightly on the cheek and walked away, aware that the sway of her end in retreat was probably making him ache with regret. But she didn’t want a man who’d be thinking of going even as he was coming. Tonight was an all or nothing night, and as she ran through a list of possibles in her head, it began to seem more and more like nothing. No one seemed to fit the bill perfectly …except maybe …but no, she couldn’t ring him!

She let herself into her flat and kicked off the murderously high heels she wore to work. Despite or perhaps because of coming at people like Penthesilia on the charge, she was desperately self-conscious about her height, particularly on camera. Her clothes followed. She let them lie where they fell and slid her arms into her fine silk robe and her feet into a pair of unbecoming but supremely comfortable soft leather mules. Too wound up to think of sleep, she went to her computer and rattled off ane-mail to the one person she could talk to with (almost!) complete freedom: her sister, Angie in America. It wasn’t sex, but it was a form of relief after a day spent weighing her words as closely as she’d been doing for the past several hours.

As she finished, the phone rang.

She picked it up and said, “Hi.”

A voice started speaking immediately.

She listened then said incredulously, “And you’ve actually got this third Dialogue with you?”

“Yes. But it will have to be handed in tomorrow. If you want to see it …”

“Of course I want to see it. Could you come round to my place?”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“OK. Five minutes.”

The phone went dead.

She put down the receiver and punched the air, a gesture she’d always thought rather naff when she saw footballers and gameshow contestants using it. But now she knew what it was expressing.

“Ripley,” she said. “Someone up there really likes you.”

the third dialogue

Ave!

Why not?

In the beginning was the Word, but what language was the Word in?

Spirits always speak in English at séances. Except probably in France. And Germany. And anywhere else .

So what language do the dead really speak if, as I presume, all the dead are capable of conversing with each other? A kind of Infernal Esperanto?

No, I reckon the dead must understand everything or else they understand nothing .

So how are things going? Comment ça va? Wie geht’s?

With me? Well, things are picking up speed. Yes, it’s harder. Don’t think I’m not glad to be getting more responsibility, but I won’t disguise, it’s harder .

I knew she would be back late after the broadcast, but I didn’t mind waiting. What’s a couple of hours in a journey as long as mine? And part of the pleasure lies in the anticipation of that moment when time will stop completely and everything will happen in an infinitely savourable present .

She’d been a possibility ever since the bazouki player, of course, but there’d been others with equal claim. I had to listen to them all to make sure. Nation shall speak unto nation, but it was that individual speaking to this individual that I wanted to hear. Then she made her broadcast and though her words were measured, with one eye fixed firmly on the Law, I could hear her underlying message aimed at one person only. Write me another Dialogue, she was saying. Please, I beg you, write me another Dialogue .

How could I resist such a clear invitation? How would I dare resist it when in this, as with the others, I feel myself your chosen instrument?

But being chosen does not exempt me from responsibility. Help I would be given, I knew that, but, after last time, only in the same measure as I showed myself able to help myself .

That is why I sat in the car and waited to make sure she came home by herself. A woman with her appetites might easily bring back a companion for her bed. I waited a little while longer after I’d rung. I could have been with her in thirty seconds but I didn’t want her thinking I was so close .

When I pressed her bell she answered immediately through the intercom .

“Is that you?”

“Yes.”

The front door opened. I went in and started climbing the stairs .

Already I could feel time slowing till it flowed no faster than oil paint squeezed on to an artist’s palette. I was the artist and I was ready to set my new mark on this canvas which, complete, will place me in that dimension outside of time where all great art exists .

The door to her flat is open. But the chain is still on. I applaud such carefulness. I see her face in the interstice. I raise my left hand which is clutching a brown foolscap envelope .

And the chain comes off, the door opens fully. She stands there, smiling welcomingly. I smile back and move towards her, putting my hand inside the envelope. I see her bright eyes glisten with anticipation. She is in that moment of expectancy truly beautiful .

But like Apollonius looking at Lamia, I see through that fair-seeming to what she really is, the corrupter, the distorter, the self-pleasurer-and the self-destroyer too, for there is at the heart of the worst of us a nugget of that innocence and beauty we all bring with us into this world, and though I purpose to cut the depraved part out, that nugget will, I hope, remain, sending her out of the world as beautiful and innocent as she came into it .

I seize the haft of the knife inside the envelope and slide the long thin blade into her body .

I’ve read about the blow-under the ribs then drive upwards-but naturally I’ve had no chance to practise on living flesh. It’s the kind of thing people notice. But for all the trouble it causes me, you might imagine I came from a long line of Mafiosi .

Oh, how good it is when the word so surely conveys the deed and theory blends so smoothly into practice. The current runs along the wire and the bulb begins to glow; the spaceship balances on its tail of flame then begins to climb into the sky. Just so the blade slices under the ribs and almost of its own volition angles up through the lung to the beating heart .