Dialogues of the Dead

“Let me say again how sorry I am about this misunderstanding, Mr. Roote,” he said. “A simple breakdown in communication, I’m afraid.”

“That’s what lies at the root of most human problems, isn’t it, Mr. Pascoe?” said the man earnestly. “A simple breakdown in communication. If only words always did what we want them to. Goodnight.”

He climbed into the police car provided to take him back to his flat, smiled up at Pascoe through the window and gave a little wave as the vehicle moved off into the darkness.

Pascoe watched it go.

“I think words always do exactly what you want them to do, Franny, my boy,” he murmured. “The root of most human problems. Oh yes, that fits you to a tee. But I shall pull you up out of the earth before I’m finished and consign you to the bonfire like any other noxious weed. I shall. I shall. Believe me, I shall!”

He went to his own car, climbed in, and drove home.

31

“My God,” said Rye Pomona as she opened the door. “The birdman cometh!”

“What?” said Hat Bowler, his face darkening.

“What what? It’s called a joke. Or is there some rule which says twitchers’ gear mustn’t be a source of merriment?”

Hat, though he felt rather dashing in a Great Outdoors windswept sort of way, was more baffled than offended by this reference to his camouflage forage cap, RSPB tanktop and moleskin breeks. Then his error dawned on him.

“Sorry. You said birdman. I thought you said Wordman, which I didn’t think was very funny. …”

“Which indeed it would not have been, had I indeed said it,” replied Rye coolly. “Is there anything else I haven’t said which you would care to be offended by?”

This wasn’t the start he’d hoped for, thought Hat. Time to regroup.

“You look great,” he said, running his eyes down her yellow top and burgundy shorts. “The birds will be watching you.”

She made a face like she’d just sucked a lemon, which was not the optimum reaction to what had in the past been a pretty successful chat-up line but nonetheless preferable to chilly reproach.

“You’d better come in before someone sees you and sends for help,” she said. “As I suspect you’ve guessed, I’m not ready. You’re early, aren’t you?”

He followed her into her flat. There were old movies, he recollected, where a guy drove up to a girl’s front door, blew his horn, and watched her come running down the steps, big smile on her face, hoping she hadn’t kept him waiting. But this was a recollection he thought better to keep to himself, as was the observation that no, he wasn’t early, but so dead on time you could have set a nuclear clock by him.

He sat down and said, “Hey, I saw you on telly last night.”

“You did? You must have sharp eyes.”

“Twitchers’ eyes,” he said. “Spot a redwing at three hundred paces. By the way, don’t know if it’s the same for girls, but my mother used to tell me to be careful pulling funny faces or I might stop like that.”

That worked. The renewed sour-lemon look vanished to be replaced by a broad grin.

“You think it’s easy scowling when what I planned was …”

“What?”

“Something like this.”

She stooped over him and kissed him on the lips, lightly but with a definite hint of tongue.

This was even better than smiling girl running down the steps to the car.

She said, “I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.”

He watched her go into what he presumed was the bedroom and fantasized about following her. Decided no. That kiss was encouraging but not an invitation. Besides, these moleskin breeks were hell to get out of in a hurry, and in the distant future he wanted their first time to be replayable for passion not for laughs.

The distant future.

Why was he so certain they were going to have a distant future together in which to remember a first time?

Because he couldn’t imagine any kind of future apart.

“So what was that all about last night?” she called to him through the partially open door.

“All what where who?”

“Don’t be coy. All that with your two colleagues, Dorian Gray and the attic.”

He worked this out.

“DCI Pascoe and Sergeant Wield,” he said. “You mean at the presentation?”

He’d seen it on TV. And he’d got a detailed background when he called in at the station that morning, thinking, with the kind of logic he’d have probably laughed at in a woman, that after a couple of days on sick leave it might be well to establish that he was recovered sufficiently to take his day off.

“You see, you do know all what where who,” Rye said from the bedroom. “When that creepy guy Roote came up to get his prize, I saw beauty and the beast watching him like they’d have preferred to be massaging his extremities with a cattle prod. At least, that’s how the good-looking one looked. The other always looks like that, I guess.”

“Well, there’s a bit of a history there,” said Hat.

She came out of the bedroom. The top and shorts had been replaced by jeans and a chunky brown sweater and her crown of hair tucked into a drab green beret.

“Will the birds still be watching me?” she said challengingly.

“Only if they’ve any sense,” he said.