Dialogues of the Dead

^ 'And what's that, sir?' enquired Pascoe. 'Break both his legs and run him out of town.' 'I think perhaps the other way round might be better,' said Pascoe judiciously. 'You reckon? Either way, you can stick this useless thing up his arse first.' He glowered at the VCR which, as if in response to that fear some gaze, clicked into life and a picture blossomed on the TV screen. 'There,' said the Fat Man triumphantly. 'Told you no lump of tin and wires could get the better of me.' Pascoe glanced at Wield who was quietly replacing the remote control unit on the desk, and grinned. An announcer was saying, 'And now Out and About, your regional magazine programme from BBC Mid-Yorkshire, pre sented byjax Ripley.' Titles over an aerial panorama of town and countryside accom panied by the first few bars of 'On Ilkia Moor Baht 'at' played by a brass band, all fading to the slight, almost childish figure of a young blonde with bright blue eyes and a wide mouth stretched in a smile through which white teeth gleamed like a scimitar blade. 'Hi,' she said. 'Lots of goodies tonight, but first, are we getting the policing we deserve, the policing we pay for? Here's how it looks from the dirty end of the stick.' A rapid montage of burgled houses and householders all expressing, some angrily, some tearfully, their sense of being abandoned by the police. Back to the blonde, who recited a list of statistics which she then precis'd: 'So four out of ten cases don't get looked at by CID in the first twenty-four hours, six out of ten cases get only one visit and the rest is silence, and eight out of ten cases remain permanently unsolved. In fact, as of last month there were more than two hundred unsolved current cases on Mid-Yorkshire CID's books. Inefficiency? Underfunding? Understaffing? Certainly we are told that the decision not to replace a senior CID officer who comes up to retirement shortly is causing much soul searching, or, to put it another way, a bloody great row. But when we invited MidYorkshire Constabulary to send someone along to discuss these matters, a spokesman said they were unable to comment at this time. Maybe that means they are all too busy dealing with the crime wave. I would like to think so. But we do have Councillor Cyril Steel, who has long been interested in police matters. Councillor Steel, I gather you feel we are not getting the service we pay for?' A bald-headed man with mad eyes opened his mouth to show brown and battlemented teeth, but before he could let fly his arrows of criticism, the screen went dark as Dalziel ripped the plug out of the wall socket. 'Too early in the day to put up with Stuffer,' he said with a shudder. 'We must be able to take honest criticism, sir,' said Pascoe solemnly. 'Even from Councillor Steel.' He was being deliberately provocative. Steel, once a Labour councillor but now an Independent after the Party ejected him in face of his increasingly violent attacks on the leadership, hurling charges which ranged from cronyism to corruption, was the selfappointed leader of a crusade against the misuse of public money. His targets included everything from the building of the Heritage, Arts and Library Centre to the provision of digestive biscuits at council committee meetings, so it was hardly surprising that he should have rushed forward to lend his weight to Jax Ripley's investigation into the way police resources were managed in MidYorkshire. 'Not his criticism that bothers me,' growled Dalziel. 'Have you ever got near him? Teeth you could grow moss on and breath like a vegan's fart. I can smell it through the telly. Only time Stuffer's not talking is when he's eating, and not always then. No one listens any more. No, it's Jax the bloody Ripper who bothers me. She's got last month's statistics, she knows about the decision not to replace George Headingley and, looking at the state of some of them burgled houses, she must have been round there with her little camera afore we were!' 'So you still reckon someone's talking?' said Pascoe. 'It's obvious. How many times in the last few months has she been one jump ahead of us? Past six months, to be precise. I checked back.' 'Six months? And you think that might be significant? Apart