Reginald Hill - Dialogues of the Dead

“Yes,” said Roote. “I rang the bell. No reply. And no reply on the phone, either. His answering machine’s not on. He always left his answering machine on when he went out.”

“Always?” said Hat. “That’s a bit precise.”

“In my experience,” emended Roote, frowning.

“So let’s go and see,” said Pascoe.

Back at the paternoster, he hurled himself on to the first platform. That way at least he was able to make his flustered exit unobserved.

Outside a problem arose because there was no way they could get three into Bowler’s MG without breaking the law.

Roote said, “I’ll go in my own car. Care to join me, Mr. Pascoe? Could be more comfortable.”

Pascoe hesitated then said, “Why not?”

The car turned out to be a Cortina of some antiquity. But it was certainly easier to get into than the MG and the engine sounded sweet enough.

“Thought you said it was an old banger?” said Pascoe.

Roote glanced at him and smiled his secret smile.

“I had the engine tuned,” he said.

He drove with the exaggerated care of a man undergoing a driving test. Pascoe could almost feel Bowler’s exasperation as he trailed behind them. But he also felt that there was more than just mockery in Roote’s mode of driving. He was going slow because he was reluctant to arrive.

The flat was on the top floor of a converted townhouse in a Victorian terrace which had gone down and was now on its way up again. They gained entry by ringing all the bells till a man responded. Pascoe identified himself and they went in. There was no lift and the stairs were steep enough to make him almost nostalgic for the paternoster. At Johnson’s door, he rang the bell and could hear it echoing inside. Then he tried knocking, registering that the door was pretty solid and didn’t feel like it would yield easily to even a young man’s shoulder.

He called down to the elderly man who had let them in and was lurking curiously a little way down the stairway, and asked who the flat agents were. It was a well-known firm with their office only a mile or so away. He dialled the number on his mobile, got a girl who seemed disinclined to be helpful, advised her then to call a carpenter and a locksmith to make good the damage that usually resulted from opening a door with a sledgehammer and rapidly found himself talking to the firm’s general manager who assured him he’d be there within ten minutes.

He made it in five.

Pascoe took the key from him and turned it in the lock.

He opened the door a fraction, sniffed the air, and closed it again.

“I’m going to go in now,” he said. “Bowler, you make sure nobody else comes in.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bowler.

He opened the door just enough to let his slim frame slip through, then closed it behind him.

There was death here, he’d known that as soon as he first opened the door. The blast of warm air that hit him carried its odour, not yet unbearably pungent but still unmistakable to anyone who’d had cause to be around corpses as often as Peter Pascoe.

If it hadn’t been for this, he might have thought Sam Johnson was simply asleep. He sat in an old wing chair, his feet stretched out on to the fender of a fireplace tiled in the high Victorian style, like a scholar made drowsy by draughts from the whisky bottle standing by his arm and the lulling rhythms of the volume which lay open on his lap.

Pascoe paused to take in the room. First impressions were important. The old grate had been replaced by a modern gas fire which was the source of the heat. On the mantelshelf an ormolu clock had stopped at twelve. Beside the clock lay what for an unpleasant moment Pascoe thought was a turd but on closer examination proved to be some blocks of melted chocolate. Alongside the whisky bottle and empty glass on the low table next to the chair stood a cafetière and a coffee mug. On the other side of the fireplace was a small sofa with a broken leg “repaired” by a hefty tome and another low table with an empty tumbler on it.

He turned his attention to the body and confirmed by touch what he knew already.

There was nothing to show how Johnson had died. Perhaps after all it would turn out to be a simple heart attack.

He looked at the open book without touching it.

It was open at a poem called “Dream-Pedlary.” He read the first verse.

Dreams to sell. His eyes prickled. Detectives don’t cry, he told himself. They do their jobs.

He retreated to the door as carefully as he’d advanced. There was a lot of noise outside on the landing, Roote’s voice raised angrily, Bowler’s at first reassuring, then stern. Better to get the machine rolling before he went out there to restore order. He took out his mobile and dialled.

He was halfway through issuing his precise instructions when the voices outside suddenly reached a climax of screaming and the door burst open, catching him in the back and throwing him forward into the room.

“Sam! Sam!” screamed Franny Roote. “Oh, Jesus. Sam!”

He rushed forward and would have flung himself on top of the corpse if Pascoe hadn’t grappled one of his legs, then Hat Bowler arrived in a flying tackle which ended with all three sprawling on the carpet in a heaving, swearing tangle of bodies.

It took another couple of minutes for the two of them to drag the distraught man out of the room, but once the door was closed, all strength of muscle and emotion seemed to drain out of Roote and he slid down the wall and sat there with his head bowed between his legs, still as an imp carved on a cathedral tower.

“Sorry about that, sir,” whispered Bowler to Pascoe. “He just exploded. And he’s a damn sight stronger than he looks.”

“I know it,” said Pascoe.

He stared unblinkingly at Roote’s bowed head.

The man’s eyes were invisible; if open they could only see the landing floor.

So why do I feel the bastard’s watching me? thought Pascoe.

From the start it was Franny Roote who cried murder. Which, as Dalziel pointed out, was odd, as at the moment if they wanted a suspect, he was the only one on offer.

“Then we’d be silly not to take him,” said Pascoe, too eagerly.

“Nay, lad. First thing you do with a gift horse is kick it in the teeth,” said Dalziel. “Four possibilities. Natural causes, accident, suicide, murder. Post mortem report will give us a line mebbe, but at the moment what we’ve got is a guy with a heart condition looking like he died peaceably by his own fireside. God send us all such a nice exit.”

This pious sentiment was offered with the unctuous smile of a TV evangelist looking forward to getting out of the studio back to his hotel bedroom where a trinity of booted ladies stood ready to mortify his sinful flesh.

“Look, sir, I know we’re under pressure with this Wordman business …”

“Wordman? What the hell has this got to do with the Wordman?” demanded Dalziel, moving from unction to abrasion with no perceptible interval. “That’s why I’m sitting on the Stuffer Dialogue. Once that gets out, they’ll all be like you. Every little old lady falling downstairs will have been shoved by the sodding Wordman!”

This was so manifestly unjust that Pascoe untypically allowed himself to be provoked.

“Well, I think you’re making a big mistake there, sir. OK, there’s nothing to suggest Sam’s death has anything to do with the Wordman, but if there is another Wordman killing, you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.”