Reginald Hill - Dialogues of the Dead

“Stake my life on it, sir,” said Hat confidently. “If I’d been any discreeter, I’d have lost sight of myself in my shaving mirror.”

This had made Pascoe smile. Then he said resignedly, “OK. I think we’d better call it a day. Thanks for all your hard work. You did well.” Which Hat took to mean the Fat Man had finally sat heavily on the surveillance job.

But he was careful not to let his interpretation show, especially as, emboldened by the praise, he seized the chance to ask, with explanation, if he could have time off to attend the preview.

“Why not?” said the DCI. “Everyone else seems to be going. And who am I to stand in the way of true love?”

“Thank you, sir,” said Hat. And not wanting to appear too young and frivolous, he’d added, “Sir, it did strike me, with the Wordman using the library to get his Dialogues noticed, and this preview taking place in the Centre, do you think there’s any chance he could turn up there?”

And Pascoe had laughed and said, “You mean, if the two of us keep our eyes skinned and stay ready to pounce on anyone who looks like they’re about to commit murder, we might pull off a real coup! Seriously, Hat, you don’t get much free time in our job. My advice is, forget work, relax. No reason why our Wordman should be there, and, even if he is, he’s not going to be doing anything different from the rest of us, which is to say, looking at what’s on display and enjoying it. Right?”

“Absolutely right, sir,” said Hat. “I’m sorry. It was a daft thing to say.”

“Not daft, just above and beyond the call of duty. Forget the Wordman. Like I say, just relax and enjoy the preview.”

the fourth dialogue

Preview .

Now there’s a word to make a ghost laugh!

It amused me too. First thing I noticed as I wandered round the gallery was that nobody actually seemed to be viewing anything other than the wine glasses in their hands and the people they were talking to over them .

And as the crowded gathering seemed to comprise all the great and the good of Mid-Yorkshire who presumably had viewed each other many times before, it was hard to see where the actual previewing came in .

The only exhibit which attracted instant attention was a sort of priapic totem pole, six foot high, carved in oak with a chainsaw. But even that, after an initial lewd comment or two, was generally ignored except by those who used its rough-hewed ledges to rest their glasses on, though I did hear as I passed the art critic from the Gazette saying to his epicene companion, “Yes, it does have a certain, how shall I put it? a certain aura.”

Aura .

Now there’s another word .

From the Greek αυρα meaning breath or breeze .

But in medicine it is used to describe the symptoms which presage the onset of an epileptic fit .

Remember old Aggie who suffered from epilepsy?

That’s the one. Her aura consisted not of the usual facial twitchings or muscular spasms, but a sudden euphoria. Knowing what it presaged, she would cry, “Oh God, I feel so happy!” in a tone of such despair that strangers would be thrown into greater confusion by the oxymoronic clash of manner and meaning than by the subsequent fit .

Later when my burgeoning interest in the arcana of our existence made me aware that the old medicines interpreted fits as the reaction of weak human flesh to the invasion of divine energy when used as a channel for prophetic utterance, I thought of Aggie but I couldn’t bring to mind anything of significance in the sounds she made during her attacks. Might be worth asking her if you see her .

Please yourself. Anyway, now I’ve got personal experience to confirm what the old priest-doctors diagnosed .

For I too experience an aura, a divine breath blowing through me, though my aura might as easily be cognate with Latin aurum, meaning gold, as with the Greek. For the beginning of a new Dialogue is like a summer day’s dawning in me. I feel my whole being suffused in an aureole of joy and certainty which spreads further and further, stilling time for all who are included in its golden limits .

I felt its onset as I moved around the gallery but I confess to my shame that at first I tried to deny it. For though I knew that in the light of that aura, I had no one to fear, yet my Thomas of a mind kept asking, how could such a thing be, here, among all these people?

How could it be?

When Hat arrived at the preview, it was already fairly crowded, but to his surprise Percy Follows, gold mane freshly permed, and Ambrose Bird, ponytail freshly curried, broke off in mid-altercation and, like a quarrelling couple surprised by the vicar, made a bee-line towards him, their faces split by welcoming smiles.

It was only when they both passed him by that he realized with some relief that he was not their obscure object of desire.

Behind him, the Lord and Lady Mayor had arrived. He was Joe Blossom, a stout middle-aged man known in the local business community as Lord of the Flies as he’d made his money out of breeding maggots for the fishing fancy. She was Margot Blossom, the second wife for whom he’d abandoned his first, a one-time cabaret wrestler, ten years his junior, over whom he watched with possessive jealousy and on whom he lavished whatever gifts he felt would make her happy, or at least keep her honest, which included expensive foreign holidays, emerald nipple-studs, capped teeth and silicone implants. Of late she had developed a range of cultural pretensions which included passions for the classical ballet, fine wines, and the works of Charley Penn. Despite, or perhaps because of, these new and spiritually uplifting preoccupations, she was still capable of reverting to the habits of her youth and body-smashing anyone foolish enough to make a reference in her presence to the source of her husband’s wealth. Risk takers used the local pronunciation of her name which voiced the t, and behind her back they dropped the rtoo, but only those in love with death did this to her face.

Bird and Follows were competing wildly to be my host. For a moment it looked as if things might turn nasty, but in the event only verbal blows were struck and they divided the spoils, Bird making off with the maggots and Follows with the silicone.

Watching the bright check suit recede, Hat, who’d agonized over his own choice of burgundy chinos and a leather jerkin over a pale blue T-shirt inviting you to Save the Skylark, felt better already.

Now, like a good policeman, before progressing further into the gallery he paused and scanned the crowd. The casual observer might have thought he was checking faces against a mental mug-book, but in fact he paid scant attention to individuals till he’d spotted what he was looking for, that head of rich brown hair with a silver-grey flash.

She was moving around offering a trayful of drinks and nibbles to the guests. As if attracted by the intensity of his gaze, she glanced his way, nodded a welcome and resumed her duties.

Helping himself to a glass of wine from another young woman who gave him a smile he might have responded to if Rye hadn’t been within clocking distance, Bowler now began to register the crowded room in detail.

There was a police presence significant enough to make him wonder if he couldn’t perhaps claim overtime. The DCI was there and his wife whom Bowler liked. On their previous meetings Ellie Pascoe had run her bold and friendly gaze over him in a manner which was assessing and approving but in no wise inviting, and called him Hat, and not pulled any vicarious rank, confirming her reputation of being all right. She was standing next to Charley Penn on the edge of a group into which Follows had just insinuated his mayoral prize, who looked as if she were already favouring them with her considered judgment of the exhibits. As Hat watched, Ellie Pascoe turned her head away to yawn behind her hand, glimpsed him, and smiled. He smiled back and continued his scan and found himself smiling at the super, who didn’t smile back. Was there no escaping the man? By his side was the woman who’d been with him at the Taverna, a well-made lady but very much cruiser-weight to Dalziel’s super-heavy. Still, not a mismatch, by all accounts.