Reginald Hill - Dialogues of the Dead

“I found him, sir,” said Hat. “I went into the Gents and he was on the floor. He wasn’t quite dead, he was trying to say something and I leaned down close to try and hear what it was but it didn’t make sense and then it just turned into a death rattle. I checked his pulse and there was none, and I went through all the resuss procedures, just in case, but nothing, so I called HQ for assistance and told them to send an ambulance too, though he looked beyond help to me, then I got a Centre security man to stand by the door and keep everyone else out, and I thought I’d better get up here and let you know, sir …”

He ran out of breath.

Pascoe said, “That’s good, Hat. You’ve called up assistance and you’ve secured the scene. Now perhaps we could just slow down and get a bit of necessary detail. Like, how about telling me who it is you’ve found?”

“Councillor Steel, sir. You know, the one they call Stuffer.”

“Good God,” said Pascoe. “And he’s definitely dead, you say? What was it, you reckon? Stroke?”

“No, sir. I’m sorry. It’s daft but it shook me up a bit. He’s been murdered. I should have said, he’s got a hole in the base of his skull. And I found what could be the weapon on the floor. I marked the spot and bagged it. Didn’t want anyone else to see it, it’s a bit unusual and I thought that it was best to keep it to ourselves for a bit. I’ve got it here.”

He pulled a transparent plastic bag out of the inside pocket of his jerkin and held it up. It contained what looked like some sort of small chisel.

“Did I do right, sir?” said the young DC anxiously.

But before Pascoe could reply, Jude Illingworth edged him aside.

“Now that’s what I call service,” she said. “I don’t care what your customers say about you, I think our police are bloody wonderful. Where did you find it?”

“Sorry?” said Pascoe.

“My burin,” said the woman, her eyes fixed on Bowler’s evidence bag. “Where did you find my burin?”

I stoop and make my necessary mark .

So there he lies, brought by a burin to his buriness, that breath that sank a thousand friendships stilled forever, that appetite which seemed ambitious to devour the earth soon to be engorged by it. I look down upon him and I share his peace .

But then like the Illyrian merchant who sees the Adriatic’s silken skin wrinkle at the first touch of the bora, I suddenly feel uneasy. In here all is peace, but outside in the corridor I sense movement, as if the bora were indeed beginning to blow …

Surely the Power that guides my fate cannot permit anything to go wrong?

Yes, I know I could have asked, but just then there seemed only one way to find out .

I move swiftly to the door and pull it open .

And I laugh out loud as I realize all I have felt is the return of time, exploding along the corridor as the dam breaks .

I compose my face and step out into its rushing current, happy to let it bear me where it will, certain that it will set me ashore safe on whatever spit or island is appointed for our next thrilling Dialogue .

Talk again soon!

“He was trying to speak, you said,” said Pascoe as he hurried down the stairs with Bowler. “Could you make out anything at all? Think hard while it’s still fresh in your mind.”

“Yes, sir. I’ve been trying. And …well, it’s a bit daft …but what he was trying to say sounded like …”

“Yes?” prompted Pascoe.

“ Rosebud . It sounded like rosebud .”

“Rosebud?” said Andy Dalziel. “Go to the pictures a lot, young Boiler, does he?”

“No, sir,” said Pascoe, relieved not to have to make the decision whether to explain to Dalziel that rosebud was the mysterious last utterance of the dying millionaire in Citizen Kane . The Fat Man could be brutally sarcastic if he felt his underlings were patronizing him. “Bowler’s never seen the movie so it meant nothing to him. More important, of course, is whether it meant anything to the councillor.”

“Mebbe. But I can’t see Stuffer going to the flicks unless there was free popcorn. You say young Bowler gave him the kiss of life?”

“So I understand,” said Pascoe.

“Braver man than me,” declared Dalziel. “I’ve had me doubts about the lad, but I reckon anyone who can give Stuffer Steel the kiss of life ought to be put up for the Queen’s Medal!”

Pascoe glanced nervously around in case there was anyone in earshot ready to be offended, but the mezzanine floor which included Hal’s café-bar and a book and souvenir shop was deserted except for a couple of uniforms. He’d been reluctant to close the Centre completely, but Dalziel had had no such qualms on his return.

The Fat Man was staring up at a security camera as if contemplating ripping it off the wall.

It wouldn’t have made any difference if he had.

One of the first things Pascoe had done was send Wield up to the security office on the top floor in the hope that there’d be something on video. His own expert eye had told him that the system was far from the state-of-the-art set-up you might have expected in such a new complex. Old-fashioned fixed cameras, and not a lot of them. But he hadn’t been prepared for the news that Wield returned with.

“You won’t credit this,” he said to Pascoe. “System’s not on during the day.”

“What?”

“No. Theory is that the sight of the cameras is deterrent enough. Wouldn’t have been on at night either if Stuffer had had his way.”

“Stuffer?”

“Aye, ironic, isn’t it? Every penny they spent on building this place, they got a battle from Stuffer over it. They had to let him win a few small victories else they’d never have got it finished. Security was one of them. He got the budget for installation, use and maintenance cut by eighty per cent. It was either that or lose a couple of staff.”

“Shit,” said Pascoe. “But it does mean that whoever did this probably knew he wasn’t on Candid Camera. That’s something.”

“Not much consolation to Stuffer, wherever he is, knowing if he’d not been so penny-pinching, he might still be here,” Wield had mused.

“How long’s yon sodding quack going to take?” demanded the Fat Man, turning his attention from the useless camera to the side corridor where the Gents was situated. “What’s he doing in there, for God’s sake? Going through Stuffer’s pockets for change?”

Yon sodding quack was the police medical examiner who was presently examining the councillor’s body. When Bowler’s judgment that Steel was definitely dead was confirmed by the paramedics, Pascoe had made them leave the body where it was, both to prevent further contamination of the scene and to please the imminent superintendent who had been heard to aver that looking at a murder site without a corpse was like eating an egg without a waxed moustache.

“I’m sure he’ll be out shortly,” said Pascoe.

“Talking of bogs, where’s our Boghead at now?”

“Up in the gallery with Wieldy, taking statements.”

There’d been some muttering when he’d told the remaining preview guests that they could not leave till they’d been interviewed, but he’d been adamant. The near certainty that the murder weapon was Jude Illingworth’s lost burin made everyone in the gallery a potential witness. Pursuing the departed guests was going to soak up a lot of man hours, so it made good sense to hang on to those still in the gallery.

“Not that bright when he’s a key witness himself, Pete. It’s his statement I want to hear. Get him down here, will you?”

Pascoe had learned not to defend himself against Dalziel’s reproofs. No way you could win even when you were entirely in the right. Also there was a trade-off, which was that if anyone else dared reprove you, the Fat Man was usually ready to interpose his own body, even if you were entirely in the wrong.