Reginald Hill - Dialogues of the Dead

Before he could respond, Penn sneered, “Not got her number yet, lad? You’re not making much progress, are you?”

Hat resisted the urge to reply that he’d made a lot more progress than some geriatrics not a million miles away and she’d given him her number unasked. Instead he took out his notebook, said, “That would be kind, Mr. Dee. I seem to have mislaid my pen. May I borrow a pencil?”

He stepped forward to the desk, picked up a pencil, and stood with it poised.

From this angle he could see the tiles in the third rack.

There were six of them. J O H N N Y.

Dee, with a faintly conspiratorial smile as if he recognized a charade when he saw one, gave him the number. Carefully Hat wrote down Johnny .

“Thank you, Mr. Dee,” he said. “I’ll certainly be enquiring after Rye’s health. Good day.”

He left without looking at Penn. He could see, though he rather resented being able to, why Rye got so defensive of Dick Dee. There was something almost naively amiable about the man. However, any slight revision of his feeling towards the librarian was more than balanced by the steady augmentation of his antipathy for the novelist. Puffed-up prick!

And he found himself imagining how nice it would be to prove that Penn was the Wordman and have the fingering of his collar.

Such feelings were dangerous, he admonished himself sternly. Having got back to something like an even keel with the super, it would be foolish to risk rocking the boat by letting personal dislike cloud his judgment.

As he left the library he took out his mobile, intending to dial Rye’s number, but before he could start, it rang.

“Bowler,” he said.

“Pascoe. Where are you?”

“Just leaving the library, guv.”

“You get anything?”

“Not really.”

“You’ve been there a long time for nothing,” said Pascoe accusingly. “You’ve not been in the Reference chatting up that girl again?”

“No, sir,” said Hat indignantly. “She’s off sick.”

“Oh yes? And how do you know that? Never mind. Listen, someone’s ringing wanting to speak to you urgently. Name of Angie. I wondered, is she some snout you haven’t bothered to register? Or just one of your other conquests that you’ve got into trouble?”

Angie? For a moment his mind was blank, then he remembered. Jax Ripley’s sister.

“No, sir. But it’s personal.”

“Is that so? Wasn’t that sister we met at Ripley’s funeral called Angie?”

“Yes, sir,” said Bowler, thinking shit! “I told her if ever she wanted to chat about Jax, just to give me a ring.”

“Maybe you should have been a social worker,” said Pascoe. “But if she says anything you feel might be relevant to the case, you won’t forget you’re drawing your pay as a cop, will you? Back here soon as you can, OK?”

“Yes, sir,” said Bowler.

He switched off thinking Pascoe sounded in an untypically sour mood.

He thumbed through his wallet till he found the piece of paper he’d scribbled Mrs. Ripley’s phone number on. Angie answered on the first ring.

“Look,” she said, “I’ve got to head back to the States at the weekend and I just wanted to check what you’ve done with that stuff I gave you.”

“I’m still working on it,” he prevaricated. “It’s a delicate business …”

“The bastard who stuck a knife in my sister wasn’t being delicate,” she snapped. “This Georgie Porgie guy, is he being questioned?”

“Well, no …I mean, we don’t know who he is for sure, do we?”

“How many cops have you got that fit that description?”

“More than you’d think,” said Hat. “Believe me, Angie, if there’s anything here that helps us find Jax’s killer, I’ll leave no stone unturned.”

He spoke with all the vibrant sincerity he could put into his voice but she still sounded less than persuaded as she replied, “Well, OK. You’ll get in touch? I’m relying on you, Hat.”

“You can do. Take care,” he said and switched off.

He stood outside the Centre, trying to work up a head of indignation because there was nothing he could do except help deprive a middle-aged detective of his dignity and perhaps even his pension, but all he felt was a rat.

He felt a strong need to talk to Rye about the affair again, but not on the phone. Anyway, it didn’t seem such a good idea to ring her any more. If, as seemed likely, she was deep beneath the bedclothes feeling lousy, she wasn’t going to be very well disposed to the idiot who got her out to ask how she was. Better to go round later with a bunch of grapes and a box of chocolates. That way if he got her out of bed …

He had a sudden vision of the door opening and Rye standing there, all bed-tousled in a loosely tied robe which permitted tantalizing glimpses of firm round flesh, like sun-warmed fruit seen through shifting leaves …

A yearning groan slipped through his lips and an old bag-lady passing by looked at him anxiously and said, “Are you feeling all right, son?”

“I hope so,” he said. “Just hunger pangs, ma. But thanks for your concern.”

And dropping a handful of change into her nearest bag, he walked briskly on.

Pascoe was indeed in a sour mood.

Wield had contacted Sheffield as requested and got the bare bones of the dead student business.

“Seems this lad wasn’t doing too well. Johnson was his main tutor and it fell to him to warn the boy that if his work didn’t improve, he was out. There was a vital piece of work, some kind of dissertation, due in early in the summer term but the lad didn’t show up with it and a couple of days later he was found dead in his room. Drug overdose. No suicide note. In fact his dissertation papers were all over the floor and it looked like he’d been trying to keep himself sharp in order to get the thing finished and he’d overdone it. The inquest jury brought in accident. But Johnson seemed convinced it was suicide and took it very personally, so much so he wanted a change of scene at any price, and in the end, got a special dispensation to take up this job at MYU even though he couldn’t give the required amount of notice.”

“And that’s it?” said Pascoe. “No mention of Roote?”

“They didn’t mention him and I wasn’t going to, was I?”

“You could have dug a bit deeper,” suggested Pascoe ungraciously. “Still could.”

“Look, Pete, I got what they had to give me. This was supposed to be about possible state of mind in a possible suicide case, right? That was just about plausible. But now we know that Johnson’s death was definitely a Wordman killing, state of mind doesn’t come into it. If you find something to tie Roote into all these killings, the super will give you a medal. But you’ve got to keep an open mind. No joy at the hospital either. If they lost any Midazolam, they’ve covered it up and are keeping it covered. So my advice is, forget Sheffield.”

There had risen to Pascoe’s lips a sharp reproof based on their difference of rank but fortunately he had caught it before it slipped out. Wield’s friendship was important to him and he knew how punctilious the sergeant was never to overstep police hierarchical lines in public. His part of this unspoken accord must be never to insist upon them in private, else something would go forever.

But his mood stayed sour and when Bowler returned, he said, “Get your private business with Ripley’s sister sorted, then?”

“Yes, sir. She was just ringing to tell me she had to get back to the States at the weekend and wanted to say goodbye.”

“You must have made a strong impression on her, considering you’d never met till the funeral,” said Pascoe.

“It was just me knowing Jax so …quite well,” emended Hat, thinking, Jesus, this is just confirming all their suspicions that I was Deep-throat.