Reginald Hill - Dialogues of the Dead

(It seemed to Pascoe that as the man spoke the word roots , his eyes sought out Pascoe’s and a faint smile flickered across those pallid lips. But perhaps he was mistaken.)

The man spoke on.

“Perhaps Sam was trying to tell me something, something he barely understood himself. Perhaps one day I will interpret that secret. Or perhaps I will have to wait till Sam himself interprets it for me.

“For though Sam did not subscribe to any organized form of religion, I know from our discussions that he had a deep belief in a life after death very different from but very superior to this grotesque bergomask we lumber through here on earth. In this, his soul was deeply in tune with that of Beddoes, and the book he was writing about him would have been a masterpiece of philosophy as well as scholarship.

“A few more lines of poetry, and I am done. Forgive me if they strike any of you as macabre, but believe me that they would not so have struck Sam. In fact he once told me that if he had the planning of his own funeral, he would like to hear these lines recited.

“So for his wish and my own comfort, let me speak them.

And the drowned and the shipwrecked have happy graves.”

He stood as still as the carved eagle whose spread wings held the pulpit lectern, looking down at the congregation with a fierce intensity to match the bird’s. The silence in the church felt more than mere absence of noise. It was as if they had drifted out of the main current of time into some bye-water which promised a Lethean oblivion to any strong enough to reach over the side and drink. Then Roote himself broke the spell as he descended and walked back down the aisle, his shoulders hunched, his head bowed, no longer a commanding other-worldly presence but a waif and forlorn boy.

“Follow that!” whispered Ellie.

She was right, thought Pascoe, relieved. It would have taken an ego as insensitive as a politician’s to stand up now and proclaim what must inevitably sound a more prosaic sorrow.

He saw Linda Lupin crane her head to follow Roote’s progress down the aisle. Then she spoke sharply and urgently to the Vice-Chancellor.

Wanting to know who this weird creature is who’s presumed to so disturb the even tenor of the funeral, thought Pascoe, wondering, not without a certain glee, what retribution for such impertinence she might be able to drop on to Roote from her political eminence.

After the interment, as people milled around the churchyard prior to running the gauntlet of journalists and cameramen lined up outside the gate, he saw that Loopy Linda had actually taken matters into her own hands and had Roote in her grasp and was pouring out her anger into his shell-shocked ear.

“See that,” he murmured to Ellie. “I bet our Franny wishes he was back inside.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because anything must be better than oral acupuncture,” said Pascoe.

But even as he spoke, the reason for Ellie’s doubtful response penetrated as he saw Roote finally open his mouth in reply and something like …no, something that definitely was a smile broke out across Linda Lupin’s face. They were having a conversation, not a row.

“I thought she’d be a straight up-and-down old-fashioned C. of E. Christian, help the deserving poor and sod the rest, no farting in church,” he said, disappointed. “I was looking forward to seeing her tear Franny’s head off.”

“Where’ve you been, Peter? Our Linda is, naturally, a modern loopy touchy-feely, I-hear-voices kind of Christian. Her most recent loopiness is a deep involvement with the Third Thought Counselling movement …You have heard of Third Thought Therapy, haven’t you?”

“Anything to do with Third Age, University of?”

“Only in terms of its target audience. Its subtitle is Hospice for the Soul. Some Belgian monk started it. Basically it’s a raft of stratagems for coming to terms with death, bottom line being that you shouldn’t wait till it comes looking for you but go out to confront it while you’re still fit in mind and body.”

“And Third Thought?”

“I know you rarely get past the sports page in your paper, but what happened to education?”

“Not Beddoes, is it?” said Pascoe.

That bugger kept on cropping up. The last line of Roote’s tribute still echoed in his mind …

… and the drowned and the shipwrecked have happy graves .

Hadn’t the First Dialogue talked about the drowned AA man having a happy grave?

“Don’t be silly,” Ellie said. “It’s Big Daddy himself. Will the Shake. Prospero. ‘And then retire me to Milan where Every third thought shall be my grave.’ How could you not recognize that?”

“Not everyone had the advantage of playing Caliban in the school play,” said Pascoe.

“Ariel,” she said, punching him. “Anyway, Linda, it seems, met this monk and was bowled over by him, since when she has been advocating pumping large sums of Euro-dosh into the movement.”

“But he’s Belgian, you say?”

“Linda has nothing against foreigners so long as they don’t want to tell us what to do, and of course acknowledge the superiority of the Brits, which this guy clearly did when he chose an English name for his therapy, though I suspect his reason was commercial, wanting maximum recognition on his website.”

“A website in a monastery?”

“Peter, leave Dalziel’s Disneyland for a while and try the real world.”

“How come you know so much about Loopy?”

“Like the little red book says, know thyself, but know thine enemies a bloody sight better. But to get back to what we were talking about, far from dropping himself in deep doo-doo with Ms. Lupin by maundering on about graves and things, I think our friend, Roote, may have done himself a lot of good. You see, by a strange chance, the symbol of Third Thought is a tiny white cross, so Roote must be into it as well. Lucky boy.”

“Lucky,” spat Pascoe. “I doubt if luck had anything to do with it. Cunning little bastard!”

“Quote, Chief Inspector?” said Sammy Ruddlesdin, leaping out from behind a basalt angel. “You got a quote for me?”

“Sammy, why don’t you fuck off?” said Peter Pascoe.

By the time Saturday evening arrived, Pascoe would have paid cash money for the pleasure of stretching out in his favourite armchair and letting the inanities of weekend television lull him to sleep.

The call of duty demanding his presence at the short story result ceremony was growing ever fainter. Nothing was going to happen relevant to the Wordman enquiry and, in any case, Edgar Wield would be there to keep an eye on things. Even Ellie generously encouraged him to stay away.

“As a judge, I’ve got to go,” she said. “No need for you to suffer though. Put your feet up. I’ll cancel the baby-sitter.”

He thought of all the tedious police social occasions she’d endured on his behalf and his conscience pricked him mightily.

“No, I’ll go,” he said. “It’s not like it’s the Oscars with acceptance speeches going on forever. How long is the TV spot? Half an hour?”

“That’s it. Plus there’s drinks before for distinguished guests and their undistinguished partners. Few snorts of the hard stuff and a bit of lively conversation might be just the thing you need.”

“We’d better take a taxi then,” said Pascoe.