Reginald Hill - Dialogues of the Dead

They got back into the car.

As they pulled away, Hat said, “So what did happen to the acting career?”

“Career’s putting it a bit strong,” she said. “Thing was, when I finally got back to normal after about six months, I found it had all gone, all that ambition, all those dreams. I’d lost Serge and now I could see beyond all doubt what a sad pair my parents were. Incidentally, it came out later that the urgent business my father had to attend to that night was banging away with some stage-struck groupie who believed all his name-dropping big-time luvvie stories. It wasn’t a life I wanted to have anything to do with any more.”

He said, “So this is why you sounded so cynical when you were telling me about your name?”

“About finding out they’d lied about the parts they were playing? Yeah, that just seemed to confirm it. Even their real life was an act and the only way they could deal with their children was by making them bit players.”

“So you chose another role entirely.”

“Sorry?”

“Librarian. Traditional image is about as anti-luvvie as you can get, isn’t it? Quiet, demure, rather prim, glaring at noisy readers over horned-rim specs, staidly dressed, a bit repressed …”

“This is how you see me, is it?”

He laughed and said, “No. All I mean is, if that was what you were aiming at, someone ought to tell you you’ve missed by a Scots mile.”

She said, “Hmm. I’ll take that as a compliment, shall I? So now we’ve got me sorted, let’s turn the spotlight on your interesting bits.”

“I’ll look forward to that,” he said. “But tell you what, we’re nearly there. So rather than risk frightening the birds, let’s leave my interesting bits till after lunch, shall we? Then I’ll be happy to let you pick over them to your heart’s content.”

“OK, but just tell me one thing first,” she said as the car turned down a track marked by an ancient finger post which read Stang Tarn . “Do you cops learn innuendo during your probationary year or is it a prerequisite of joining?”

“Andy, you look like you’ve just come back from a trip to the underworld in every sense. Hard night on stake-out, was it?”

“You could put it like that,” said Andy Dalziel.

It was a hard thing to admit, but the days were past when he could drink and dance till dawn, take a taxi home, live up to his vainglorious sexual promises, snatch an hour or so’s sleep and be in The Dog and Duck at opening time without some evidence of his energy-sapping activities being inscribed upon his face.

“But it’s nowt that another pint won’t put right. How about you, Charley?”

“Nay, but I’ve just come in. Give us a chance to wash my teeth with this one,” said Charley Penn.

Dalziel went up to the bar, noting with approval that the barman, observing his approach, stopped serving another customer to pull the anticipated pint. Marvellous what a few kind words would do to set a man on the straight and narrow, thought Dalziel complacently.

He returned to the table and sank a gill.

“That’s better already,” he said.

“So what’s going off?” enquired Penn.

“Eh?”

“Come on, this isn’t your usual watering hole,” sneered the writer. “You’re here for some special reason.”

“I hope there’s not a pub in this town where I’m not known and welcome,” said Dalziel in an injured tone.

“You’ve got that half-right,” said Penn. “Last time I saw you in here, it was definitely business. Me and that lad, Roote, and Sam Johnson …”

His face clouded as he spoke of Johnson and he said, “Last Sunday. Christ, it’s hard to credit it were only last Sunday. And now the poor sod’s in the ground. That felt like indecent haste. What happened, Andy? Loopy Linda jerk your wires?”

“She’s a strong woman, Charley, hard to gainsay,” said Dalziel. “Or so I gather. Never met her myself.”

“I noticed you weren’t at the funeral,” said Penn.

“Well, bury one you’ve buried them all,” said Dalziel. “Went OK, did it? I gather young Roote did a turn.”

“He spoke from the heart, nowt wrong with that,” said Penn.

“Oh aye, most things he does come from the heart, I don’t doubt it,” said Dalziel. “You sound impressed, Charley.”

“He seems a good lad. He’s put the past behind him. Something a lot more of us should try to do, maybe. And he’s got talent. You heard he won the short story competition?”

“Aye.”

There’d been a message, or rather a series of messages on Dalziel’s answering machine, in which Pascoe had brought him up to speed on the events of the night.

“Good story, was it?”

“About the only one,” grunted Penn, who was notorious for stinting praise. “When I saw some of the crud on the short list, I was glad I hadn’t had to read the stuff that didn’t make it. But Roote’s story would have shone in any company. It was a good night for the lad, pity your lackeys had to try and spoil it for him.”

“Lackeys? Don’t recall noticing I had any lackeys last time I looked. Must have drunk some genetically modified ale.”

“Yon DCI, Ellie Pascoe’s man. She’s a grand lass. You’d’ve hoped, being wed to her, he’d know better. And that one with the face. God, take him round the maternity ward, you’d not have to waste time and drugs inducing labour.”

“You should be careful what you say, Charley. Likely there’s an Ombudsman and a tribunal I could report you to for nasty remarks like that.”

“I’d not be surprised. Anyway, Andy, shall we get down to it, then you can go home and crawl back into bed which is what you shouldn’t have got out of?”

Dalziel finished his pint and looked with surprise into the empty glass.

With a sigh, Penn finished his drink and went to the bar for replacements.

“That’s kind,” said Dalziel.

“Self-interest. You’d not arrest a man who’d just bought you a drink. Would you?”

“Well, I’d be mad to arrest the bugger afore he bought it, wouldn’t I?” said Dalziel. “Charley, I want you to think hard before you answer this. Last Sunday you said you had to go off because on Sundays you always went to visit your old ma. When you were asked later in the week where you’d been that’s what you said, visiting your ma. And that’s more or less what your ma said too.”

“You’ve been talking to my mother?” exclaimed Penn.

“Nay, Charley, did you think we wouldn’t check up? We check out everything anyone tells us, especially if they make their money inventing things.”

“And my mother, what does she say?”

“She says her Karl is a good boy, a perfect son.”

“There you go then,” said Penn. “So what are you saying, Andy?”

“I’m saying I can see where you got your talent for fiction from,” said Dalziel. “Where were you last Sunday afternoon, Charley?”

Penn took a long slow draw on his beer. Wondering whether I’m bluffing, thought Dalziel. Wondering whether he should call it.

“Is this about Sam Johnson?” said Penn, postponing the moment.

“What else?”

“You think mebbe I’m this Wordman?”

“Well, it sounds like a trade description of your job, Charley.”

“You think I may have murdered-how many is it? — five people, and you can still sit there having a drink with me?”

“Love the ‘how many is it?’, Charley. Innocent, guilty, you know exactly how many it is. Writer like you’s probably got a little notebook where you jot down owt of interest that comes up. Unless you’re not interested in murder.”

“Only as a fine art,” said Penn.

“That a confession? ’Cos I get the impression that’s how this lunatic keeps himself going, got his head bent round some daft idea or other in which killing isn’t wrong, or at least is necessary for the sake of something more important.”