Reginald Hill - The Price of Butcher

Maybe it was for the best, thought Dalziel. Maybe for once in my life I should let sleeping dogs lie.

But an old lion on the prowl doesn’t give a toss about dogs, waking or sleeping. It’s his nature to carry on hunting till he sinks his teeth in his natural prey!

His temper had not been improved when he decided to call in at the Hope and Anchor on his way back to the Avalon. A perfect pint and a quiet chat with Alan Hollis, for whom he also had a few questions, seemed a good way to end his sojourn in Sandytown. But a notice in the window said the pub would not open on Saturday until six P.M., presumably to allow Hollis and his staff to go to the festival opening, though he could not recall seeing the landlord there.

So it was in a mood of some disgruntlement that Dalziel pushed open the door of his room.

Despite the fact that it was bright daylight still, the curtains were drawn.

He switched on the light.

The beams from the central bulb bounced back off the silver surface of Mildred, resting demurely on his pillow.

His mind threw up a possibility-some more than usually conscientious cleaner had looked in the lavatory cistern, spotted this intrusive object, removed it, and left it on the bed for its owner to claim.

His mind threw this up and in the same mental gesture threw it away.

He went slowly forward and picked the recorder up.

He knew at once this wasn’t his. The same make, the same model, meaning it was probably exactly the same in weight and shape. Yet one touch told him this wasn’t Mildred. Man doesn’t get to survive as long as he had without instantly being able to identify the woman he’s touching.

He went quickly into the bathroom to confirm what he’d guessed, that Mildred was no longer there.

Then he sat down on the counterpane with the false Mildred and looked at it for a long moment.

Finally he let his thumb stray to the Play button.

And pressed.

Good day to you, Andy.

Surprised to hear my voice?

Of course you are, but not perhaps as surprised as a lesser mortal might have been. For it is your capacity for taking a couple of long strides in a direction you’ve no reason to be going in, plus of course your sheer bloody tenacity of purpose, that have made me decide to contact you like this.

I know you hate loose ends, you hate a story unfinished, and so do I. So let me, like the all-seeing, all-knowing author of an old novel, stepping from behind the scenery he or she has created and addressing the reader direct, finish this one for you. Nor is this a simple act of that overinflated egotism you have accused me of in the past. There is a strong possibility, if left to your own devices, that you might inflict considerable collateral damage traveling by your normal elephantine route to the sunny uplands of knowledge I am now going to open up for you-damage to myself, I admit it, but also and more important to Peter’s career, to the lives of various other people I have come to love, to the prospects and reputation of dear little Sandytown, which has taken some hard knocks recently, and even perhaps to yourself.

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort. Myself included. This is not a confession. I have committed no crime, or at least none so serious as to be unforgivable by such a magnanimous judge as yourself.

Some brief autobiography first, to confirm or build on your speculation. I went to Europe determined to find a cure, and not much caring what form it came in. Ultimately, death is the cure of all diseases, is it not? I found a doctor as careless of his patients’ lives as I was of my own. To him each death was a necessary step on his way to greater understanding. I will skip the months of pain and struggle which ensued. It is not your sympathy which I am trying to win. But if you are interested, I gave Peter some of the details, slightly confused since, of course, I could only leave him with the hope of my restoration, not its fact. Suffice it to say, I learned how to walk again. I would have been happy to heap praise and gratitude on Dr. Meitler, my savior, and demand that his groundbreaking techniques be universally acknowledged and developed. Alas, he was as reckless of his own well-being as he was of his patients’, his laboratory was a firetrap, and while I was still learning how to crawl out of my chair, the good doctor and all his research records went up in flame.

So I kept quiet. My motive at first was a kind of vanity. I wanted to reappear before those who knew me fully restored. I wanted to amaze them! But as the long months of recovering my strength passed, I began to see that there might be certain advantages to keeping the change to myself. Travel, for instance. As I explained to you, it had become clear that, in the present climate, there was no way I would ever be able to visit America again. But if I could find another persona, another identity for my upright, perambulating self…

When I returned to the Davos Avalon, my thoughts were still confused, and I think I might have revealed everything to the head of the clinic, Dr. Kling, with whom I’d developed an excellent relationship. But I found he had done an exchange with Lester Feldenhammer, so I kept quiet, and kept to my chair. Then two things happened. Firstly, and sadly, a young man I had become friendly with in my previous stay at the clinic, Emil Kunstli-Geiger, died. He had just been admitted when I first met him and there were hopes he might recover. But after some false starts, his condition had deteriorated and now the end was near. He was pleased to see me again and I gave him what comfort was in my power. Strangely it was talking to Emil then as much as my own experience that made me start taking the ideas of Third Thought seriously. But my first and second thoughts were always of life, and one day while getting something for him from a drawer in his room, I came across his passport and his driving license. As I made the sad comparison between the way he’d looked then and the way he looked now, it struck me that there was a certain resemblance between us: shape of face, bone structure, that sort of thing.

A few days later he died. Before he passed away he thanked me for my care and urged me to take something to remember him by. I took his passport and driving license.

A long wig and a fringe of wispy beard, and suddenly I had another identity, though what I was going to do with it, I still wasn’t sure.

Meanwhile my relationship with Lester had been developing. Here was a man I could talk to. We were not yet so intimate as to be on confidential terms, but when Daphne Denham and her entourage showed up last Christmas, I quickly assessed the situation. She was the predator, he was the prey! But I had little time to spare analyzing Lester’s problems. I knew I had one of my own.

Do you believe in love at first sight, Andy? When you first encountered your partner, Cap Marvell, did you know she was the one for you? I can tell from the way you talk about her how much she means to you-yes, as I’m sure you’ve worked out by now, I’ve listened to all your fascinating recordings-but there’s no way of telling if it was a long slow burn or a sudden explosion.

With me and Esther Denham it was explosive. On my side it was like a message stamped on my soul with a white-hot iron- this is the woman for you! On hers, it was rather different. More, oh Jesus, I don’t believe this-can I really fancy a guy in a wheelchair? Get out of here now, you crazy bitch!

I could see she was attracted, could tell how much this shocked her. I knew she was resolved once she got out of the room, she’d make sure she never saw me again. In fact, she made an excuse almost immediately, said she needed to go to the loo. I boldly offered to show her where it was, a bit of behavior which might have struck Lester and Daph as odd if he hadn’t been in such a state of panic and she of lust!