Dialogues of the Dead

“Yes, I’m ready. Andy, I’m really touched you said you’d come tonight …”

“… but?”

“But nothing.”

“I know a but when I hear one,” said Dalziel. “But will I promise to behave myself, is that it?”

She laughed and said, “Don’t be silly. Half the pleasure of going to my son’s regimental ball is the chance to behave badly. I’ve been trying to embarrass him for years. I think he enjoys it. No, if there was a but it was: But I hope that for once there’s no chance of work rearing its ugly head. This is one time I’d be really pissed off to find myself coming home early, or left to the tender mercies of baby-faced subalterns who treat me like their gran, or randy majors who think it would be a laugh to stick it to the colonel’s mother.”

“Any on ’em try that and it’ll be piss-pots at dawn,” said Dalziel. “I promised, luv, remember? No bugger knows where I’m at, and if you and the Hero don’t mention what I do for a living, I certainly won’t. Let the sojer boys think I’m your rich sugar daddy. As for being called out, I’ve not got a mobile or even a pager with me. You can search me, if you like.”

He looked at her hopefully.

“Later,” she laughed. “I look forward to searching you later. So that’s a promise. You won’t even be thinking about work.”

“Nay, I never said that,” he protested. “When I’m having the time of my life, you’d not deprive me of the pleasure of thinking about all those poor sods back here working their fingers to the bone.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you? When the cat’s away …”

He smiled tigerishly.

“There’s cats and cats,” said Andy Dalziel.

As the taxi bearing Dalziel and his lady to the ball headed into the dark countryside, Peter Pascoe was feeling very much like a mouse, but a mouse being played with rather than playing.

After receiving his prize and making a touching little speech in which he dedicated his story to the memory of Sam Johnson, Franny Roote had returned to Pascoe and said, “I’m sorry I had to cut you short before. I’m all yours now if you still want me.”

Tell him to sod off, thought Pascoe. Collect your wife and go home, there’s nothing in this for you.

So the voice of experience spoke in his mind, but the mill of duty was grinding and could not so easily be switched off.

Ellie looked ready to hit him when he told her he had to go to the station, and when she realized it was on account of Roote, she turned and walked away, as if not trusting herself to speak.

Back at the station, Roote sat quietly while they played the security tape to him, then he smiled and said, “It’s a fair cop. Does it mean I’m disqualified?”

“We’re not talking driving offences here, Mr. Roote,” snapped Pascoe. But his agile mind was already anticipating the man’s explanation.

“Of course you’re not. I meant from winning the prize. Look, it’s silly, only I’d been shilly-shallying about putting my story in-you know how it is, you write something and it feels great at the time, then you look at it later and wonder how you could have imagined anyone would ever want to read it. I’m sure Mrs. Pascoe must have been through all this and more when she was writing her novel, which, incidentally I’m really looking forward to reading. Anyway, I woke up on Saturday knowing I’d missed the deadline and thinking what an idiot I was, and I got the idea of taking it round to the Gazette first thing and asking if I could have a special dispensation to add it to the others. Well, they told me there that the stories had already been sent round to the library for their initial sorting out by Mr. Dee and Miss Pomona. So I headed round to the Centre, I really don’t know why, but I suppose I had some idea of throwing myself on Mr. Dee’s mercy-he’s such a nice man, isn’t he? But when I got up to the reference library, I could hear him having a rather heavy discussion with Mr. Follows in the office, and there on the counter was this plastic sack, open, and I could see it was full of the competition stories. I think I went on auto-pilot then. I found myself thinking, Where’s the harm, it’s not going to win anyway, and I slipped mine in. I suppose that technically I broke the competition rules. On the other hand, the Friday night time limit was for submission at the Gazette office, and I wasn’t submitting my story there, was I? Perhaps you could advise me here, Mr. Pascoe. I’m a child when it comes to the law and you’re an expert, aren’t you? I’m in your hands.”

He held his own hands out before him as he spoke, as if to show there was nothing in them, and smiled ruefully.

Pascoe said, “Do you really imagine that I give a toss about this sodding short story competition, Mr. Roote?”

“It does seem rather strange. But I thought maybe because Mrs. Pascoe was involved in the judging, you felt a little protective of her reputation. I suppose, in a manner of speaking, this is her first professional engagement, and naturally you’d be very solicitous to see she got it right.”