Reginald Hill - Dialogues of the Dead

“Do you think I should say something to the super?” Bowler had asked in some agitation.

“I shouldn’t,” said Wield. “Denial afore you’re asked is as good as an admission in our game. He seemed quite pleased with the way you handled yourself yesterday. So forget it. The future’s what matters, not the past. But be warned. You see a reporter, you run a mile.”

That would mean taking up the marathon, thought Hat. The media interest in Ripley’s murder had been vast and though there was as yet no official acknowledgement of a link with Steel’s death, they were close enough in time and location for the bloodhounds to be sniffing the air once more and sending up their howls of speculation. Privately Hat thought Dalziel’s notion of keeping quiet about the Fourth Dialogue was stupid, but not as stupid as giving any hint of what he thought.

“Yes, Sarge. So what’s the state of play at the moment? Any other developments?”

“Well, there’s a meeting in the super’s office at ten. It’s the DCI’s idea. The Great Consult, he calls it.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Something about all the devils getting together to decide how to get out of hell. Mr. Pascoe sometimes lets himself go a bit poetic when things get tough,” said Wield indulgently. “Any road, he’s persuaded the super that it’s time to call on some outside expertise, like Dr. Pottle, the shrink, and some language expert from the university.”

“Jesus, things must be bad!” exclaimed Hat, who knew how the Fat Man felt about what he usually referred to as arty-farty crap-merchants .

“You’re right. We’re really scraping the barrel. You’re invited.”

“Me?”

Exhilaration fought with apprehension at the news.

“Aye. So get yourself right up to speed. But first you’d best go and ring that lass from the library and tell her you’ll definitely not be coming out to play today.”

As he began to dial Rye’s number, Hat had wondered how the hell Wield knew he had a date with Rye. But by the time he’d pressed the final digit, he’d worked out that the sergeant must have overheard all of the conversation before the hug which might have turned into an embrace.

That sod misses nothing, he thought, half admiringly, half resentfully. But I’m a lot prettier!

Half seemed a good measure and he decided he’d take only half of Wield’s advice. He wouldn’t say anything to the Fat Man about his unjust suspicions but he wouldn’t forget them either. He knew he was innocent, which meant some other bugger wasn’t and he didn’t see why he should go through his career with this question mark against his name in Dalziel’s book of remembrance.

Meanwhile, he was determined to build on the good impression he seemed to have made on the super yesterday. Being invited to join the Holy Trinity at this Great Consult was a large step. He recalled the pangs of envy he’d felt on earlier occasions when he’d seen DC Shirley Novello, who wasn’t that much senior, being admitted more and more to the inner triangle. Novello was still on sick leave after taking a bullet in the course of duty a couple of months before. Any hopes Bowler had had of filling the gap had soon been squashed, leaving him disappointed and puzzled till Wield had made things clear. Now he had his chance to shine and he wasn’t going to miss out.

He spent the hour’s grace he had going through witness statements. As every guest at the preview had been interviewed, there wasn’t time to read them all. Fortunately, with typical efficiency Sergeant Wield had already collated these under several headings with cross-references. The largest group was those who left the preview and the Centre more than ten minutes before the councillor’s departure and also gave negative responses to the key questions- Did you talk to Councillor Steel or overhear him talking to anyone else? Did you observe anyone behaving oddly in the vicinity of Jude Illingworth’s engraving demonstration?

A note had been added in Pascoe’s boyish scrawl. I don’t think the killer would risk lying about the time of his departure though it is of course possible that he left earlier then waited for the councillor’s departure. As for answering the two questions, I think it unlikely the killer would give a negative response to both, partly because I reckon that he probably did talk to Steel, but mainly because I doubt that someone as wordy as the Wordman could bear to say nothing .

Clever sod, thought Hat. Though it was well to remember that the Wordman was a clever sod too. But it helped him choose what to look at and what to shove aside for later examination.

He turned his attention to those who had something to report about the councillor and/or thought they’d noticed something at the demonstration.

He rapidly came to the conclusion that most of the reports of odd behaviour were motivated either by an over-eagerness to help or by a simple longing for importance. None of the professional observers there, i.e. himself, Wield, Pascoe, and the super, contributed anything, which might or might not be significant. Five witnesses recalled that when they were watching the engraver at work, a nearby table had been jostled and a couple of glasses had fallen to the floor, which could have been a deliberate diversion. Unfortunately, none of them had a distinct memory of who was in the vicinity at the time; indeed only one of them could recall the presence of any of the others.

Stuffer Steel had made rather more impression, though much of the recollection centred on the amount of food he managed to put away. Reports of his actual conversation suggested a preoccupation with two themes. The first was that most of the art on display was a load of crap and spending public money on displaying it was a scandal and he’d be proposing a motion of censure on the Finance Committee at the next council meeting. The second was that Jax Ripley’s death had fallen very fortuitously for the Mid-Yorkshire police whose extravagances and inefficiencies she was, with his assistance, in the midst of exposing.

Mary Agnew in particular had got an earful, as had Sammy Ruddlesdin, and John Wingate from BBC MY. Several witnesses reported that Wingate had interrupted Steel after a while and there had been a heated exchange, ending with the TV man walking away. Wingate himself gave a full account of this, saying that he’d got pissed off with listening to the councillor rattle on as if the only important thing about Jax Ripley’s death had been its effect on Steel’s campaigning. This was an understandable reaction from a colleague of the dead woman, but Bowler recalled his own speculation when getting a statement from Wingate after the murder that there might have been a more than professional relationship between the two of them.

He made a note and read on, concentrating on those who’d left round about the same time as the councillor. Wield had already done the groundwork here also, producing a neat graph showing who was where at what time. A copy of Hat’s own statement was here, of course, and he read through it with as much detachment as he could muster. It was a good policeman’s statement, precise and detailed. It said nothing of that feeling he’d had when he entered the toilet of stepping into a new dimension in which nothing existed but himself and the body on the floor, curled in a foetal question mark. How long he’d simply stood and looked at it he did not know. In fact, How long? did not seem a question that applied, not when it seemed possible to step back into the corridor, wait a second, then re-open the door and find that the image had been erased. Of course he’d done no such thing. Of course the training had snapped in and he’d gone into the sequence of checking pulse, calling help, attempting resuscitation, making the scene secure, and by the time he went to bed that night, the sense of disassociation had faded to a memory of natural shock at such a grisly discovery.