Reginald Hill - Dialogues of the Dead

“She wasn’t to know, was she?” said Hat, who was an Ellie Pascoe fan. “You must have read the story. How did it sound to you?”

“Good,” she admitted. “Dick thought it was the tops. I wasn’t quite so enthusiastic, but I did think it was good. Moving, you know. Lot of uplift. Not really my thing.”

The seed of a quip about a girl with a figure like hers not needing a lot of uplift spurted across his mind but died before it got close to ejaculation.

“Well, it seems what actually happened last night was this …” said Hat, who when he gave his trust didn’t care to stint.

It was Wield who’d filled him in. He’d have probably preferred to keep the whole business low-key but the way things panned, this hadn’t been an option. The story of Roote’s return visit was being told all over the station with advantages, and it seemed sensible to give Bowler a full account, to help set the record straight.

“It’s not CID at its best, but it’s a lot better than some of the versions that are fluttering about,” concluded the sergeant. “You hear them, you stamp on them, OK?”

“OK,” said Hat. “What’s the super’s reaction to all this?”

“Mr. Dalziel must have danced himself off the ground,” said Wield. “He’s not been seen yet. But no doubt he’ll appear shortly. And if you want to enjoy your day off, lad, I’d advise you to make yourself scarce. The super has a tendency to count days spent on sick leave as normal rest days.”

All this Hat now told Rye who frowned and said, “He does sound a bit weird.”

“Roote?”

“No. This Pascoe. I thought when I met him that this was one tightly held together guy.”

“Perhaps he needs to be. He feels threatened.”

“That’s it, isn’t it? He feels threatened. From what you say, there haven’t actually been any threats, have there?”

“No. But this Roote’s something else. I can see how he could threaten you without actually threatening you, if you know what I mean.”

She looked at him quizzically and said, “You’re a loyal man, Constable Bowler. Decided what you’re going to do about Georgie Porgie yet?”

That had been something else Wield had said. There’d been two or three more phone calls from Angela Ripley. Wield himself had taken one and, according to him, she didn’t sound altogether persuaded that Hat was really sick. The sergeant paused to allow explanation but when it didn’t come, he didn’t press. And he’d said absolutely nothing about talking to Rye about Charley Penn.

Discretion or distrust?

“Cat got your tongue?” said Rye.

“Sorry. Nothing is what I’m going to do about the DI,” said Hat defiantly. “Angela Ripley will be on her way back to the States today. I don’t see any reason to muck up George’s retirement party.”

Suddenly she kissed him again.

“And you’re a very nice man too,” she said. “Let’s go and look at some birds.”

It was a day of sun and light showers with a brisk west wind driving clouds down the sky and swirling leaves across the road in the MG’s path. He’d kept the hood up because of this but Rye had said, “Can’t we have it down?” and now as they sped along, she pulled off her beret and leaned her head back with eyes closed and such an expression of sheer delight on her face that now the dancing leaves seemed to Hat like rose petals scattered before a marriage procession.

Watch it, son, he mocked himself, or she’ll have you writing poetry next, you whose appreciation of verse never got much beyond “The Good Ship Venus.”

The thought was mother to a couplet.

I went out with Raina .

By God, you should have seen her .

He laughed to himself but she noticed.

“Come on,” she said, having to shout above the rushing air. “Today we share.”

He told her. It didn’t sound all that funny but it got a full-throated laugh.

Encouraged, he said, “Seeing it’s share time, how about the story of your life? How come you’re a librarian?”

“What’s wrong with librarians?” she demanded.

“Nothing,” he assured her. “Bit of an image problem, maybe. All I meant was you, with your background and looks and everything, how come you didn’t end up in the theatre? I mean, Raina Pomona, if ever a name looked custom-built for bright lights, that must be it!”

She said something but the wind caught it and whirled it away.

“Sorry?” he shouted.

“I said, once upon a time, maybe …but that was in another country and besides, the wench is dead.”

She laughed as she said this, not like before, but this time with an edge as bright and sharp as the wind that was rippling the silver blaze in her hair like a pike in a dark mere.

“You OK?” he said. “Do you want the hood up?”

“No,” she cried. “Of course not. Doesn’t this thing go any faster?”

He said, “How fast do you want to go?”

“Fast as you like,” she said.

“OK.”

They were off the main road now and on to narrow country byways. He leaned his weight into the accelerator and sent the hedgerows blurring by. He was a good driver, good enough to know that he was driving too fast, not for the bends in the road-those his technique could deal with-but for the unexpected which might lie in wait around any one of them.

But Rye was leaning against him, her right arm round his shoulders, her left hand gripping his forearm tight, her mouth so close to his cheek that he could feel the warmth of her breath mingling in the cold blast of air which their speed was driving in their faces.

He took a long left-hand curve, shallow enough to present no problems or even require any diminution of speed, but as the car came out of the bend, a deer jumped over the hedgerow on the right, paused long enough to register their approach, then bounded effortlessly into the field on the left.

Probably there was no risk of collision but instinctively his foot hit the brake, only for a second, but with the car still off-line and a scatter of wet leaves on the road, it was enough to set up a skid. As skids go, it was nothing, the kind of thing he could control in his sleep. But the road was narrow and the offside wheels were on to the grass verge in the brief moment before he regained full control. Fortunately the ground wasn’t boggy and there was no ditch, but it did make the whole thing a little more dramatic as hawthorn branches whipped across the windscreen and their faces before he brought the car to a halt which threw them forward against the seat belts.

“Well, that was fun,” said Hat. “Thank you, Bambi. Shit! Rye, are you OK?”

For the girl’s response to his attempted lightness was to let out a piercing cry of pain and collapse forward, sobbing convulsively.

He released his seat belt and turned to her.

“What’s happened? Where’s it hurt?” he demanded, looking for but not finding any signs of bleeding.

“It’s all right,” she gasped. “Really …there’s nothing …”

Gently he raised her head and looked into her face. There was no colour in her cheeks and her eyes were full of tears, but he felt no physical response as his fingers touched her neck and collarbone in search of damage.

She took several deep breaths, knuckled the tears from her eyes, and said, “Honestly, before you start getting too gynaecological, I’m OK.”

“You didn’t sound OK.”

“Shock.”

“Yeah?” He looked at her doubtfully.

“What?”

“A little skid. Over in a second. You don’t seem …”

“The type?” she completed. “So suddenly you know all about me, do you, Detective?”

“No. But I’d like to. After all, it was you who said that today was for sharing.”