Dialogues of the Dead

She smiled at him and said, “It’s your show, Hat. But if we have to cancel again, I may start wondering if fate isn’t trying to tell us something.”

“You leave fate to me,” he said, stifling a cough as he headed for the door. “Good night’s sleep and I’ll probably be back keeping Yorkshire safe for civilians first thing in the morning.”

“I believe you,” she said, kissing her index finger and placing it gently on his burning forehead. “I feel safer already. Goodnight, Hat. Take care.”

And such is the power of a good woman’s touch that he believed it himself as he went out to his car. Love can conquer everything and he knew he was truly, madly, deeply in love.

27

Sometimes even a good woman can get it wrong and next day Hat felt truly, deeply, madly lousy. His first impulse was to go to work so that they could see how bad he was, but when he fell over trying to pull his underpants on, he abandoned the idea and rang in instead.

He got through to Wield who sounded if not sympathetic, at least neutral; then he heard in the background Dalziel’s voice demanding who he was talking to and Wield explaining that it was Bowler who wasn’t coming in because he was ill.

“Not coming in because he’s ill?” said Dalziel with the amazement of a man who rated illness as an excuse for absence well below abduction by aliens. “Here, let me speak to him.”

He grabbed the phone and said, “What’s going off, lad?”

“Sorry, sir,” croaked Hat. “You were right, I’ve got that flu-bug.”

“Oh. My bloody fault, is it? What’s that music I can hear? You’re not in a night club with some totty, are you?”

“No!” cried Hat indignantly. “It’s the radio. I’m in bed. By myself.”

“Don’t get uppity. Remember Abishag and David. Or mebbe not. He died, if I recall right.”

“That’s what I feel like,” said Hat, playing for the sympathy vote. Then the faint bell he’d heard at Rye’s rang louder. “Sir, there’s something …”

“No last requests, lad. That’s just gilding the lily.”

“No, sir. It’s just that, in that last Dialogue, wasn’t there a bit about death at the end? Something about the best thing of all being never to be born?”

“Aye, that’s right, got it here. So?”

“So, I know it probably means nothing, but I think that guy, Heine, the one Penn’s translating, said something like that.”

It was remarkable how distance lent courage. After Pascoe’s discomfiture, he probably wouldn’t have dared bring up poetry again to the Fat Man’s face.

“Didn’t realize you were a German scholar,” said Dalziel.

“I’m not, sir. It’s just that Rye …Miss Pomona at the library, well, Penn sometimes leaves stuff lying around where she can see it, by accident on purpose, so to speak …”

“Aye, I read that in the DCI’s report. But I thought that were romantic stuff, trying to get his end away. How’d he get on to death?”

“Trying for the sympathy vote, maybe,” said Hat.

This tickled the Fat Man’s fancy and he laughed so loud Hat had to distance his earpiece.

“Aye, you can get a long way with the sympathy vote,” said Dalziel. “But it only works on lasses, not on superintendents. Get well soon, lad, else I may come visiting with a wreath.”

He put the phone down and returned to his office without speaking to Wield. There he sat for a little while deep in thought. He had to admit he was floundering. Well, he’d floundered before and always reached the shore, but this was more public than usual, and there were too many buggers out there eager to celebrate his drowning. Time to grasp a few straws.

He picked up his phone and dialled.

“Eden Thackeray, please. Nay, luv, don’t give me crap about important meetings. He’ll have just got into his office and he’ll only be there ’cos it’s quieter than home and he can smoke a cigar without his missus throwing a bucket of cold water over him. Tell him it’s Andy Dalziel.”

A moment later he heard the urbane tones of Eden Thackeray, Senior Partner though now officially semi-retired of Messrs. Thackeray, Amberson, Mellor and Thackeray, Mid-Yorkshire’s most prestigious solicitors.

“Andy, you’ve been frightening my new receptionist.”

“Part of the learning curve. How’re you doing, lad? Still pulling the strings?”

“It gets harder. It’s all right knowing, as you might put it, where all the bodies are buried, but the trouble is at my age it gets harder to remember.”

“Trick is, not letting any bugger know you’ve forgot. Any road, I don’t believe you. I’ll give you a test. You’re Lord Partridge’s lawyer, right?”

“Indeed I am, but, Andy, as you well know, professional ethics do not permit-”

“Nay,” interrupted Dalziel. “No need to lock your door and switch on your scrambler, I’m not after His Lordship. But, knowing you, I’d bet you’d know everything worth knowing about a big client like old Budgie, right down to his domestic staff, right?”

“Old Budgie? I didn’t realize you were on such close personal terms with His Lordship, Andy.”

“Old mates from way back,” said Dalziel. “Now, what I’m interested in is, there’s this German woman lives on the estate, used to be some kind of maid or cook or housekeeper …”