Dialogues of the Dead

GEOFF: May have got something there, Councillor. But I mean Wordman with a capital W, the one who’s been doing all these killings.

STUFFER: Oh, yon bugger. No, Mr. Dee, you may be a lot of things, most on ’em useless, but you’re definitely not that

Wordman, not if that’s the bugger who killed me.

DICK: Thank God, thank God. But if it’s not me, then who is it? Who was it who killed you, Councillor?

STUFFER: You really don’t know? Aye well, fair do’s. Took me some time to twig even after I got here. I mean, you’re standing there washing your hands in a gent’s bog and you look up and see a bonny young lass in the mirror, you don’t think straight off, she’s come to top me!

DICK: A young lass …oh my God …

STUFFER: Coming back, is it now? Aye, well, I looked at her and she looked at me, this big reassuring smile on her face. And I said what the hell are you doing in here, lass? And she said, I just wanted to tell you I’ve got that dinner you asked for sorted. You know, rib beef and Yorkshire pudding and lots and lots of roast spuds. And I thought, well that sounds all right. Then I felt summat at the back of me neck and next thing I’m on the floor and it’s all getting dark. Then there was this young fellow-me-lad bending over me and asking if I were all right and I knew I weren’t all right, I knew I were on my way out, and I’d no idea why, that’s what bothered me.

DICK: And you said rosebud to him. Why did you say rosebud?

STUFFER: Don’t recollect saying owt, but if I did, I know it bloody weren’t rosebud! No, it ’ud be roast spuds! You see, what I couldn’t get my head round was why she’d been going on about me dinner. But I’ve worked it out since. She wanted me to die happy. Aye, that must have been it. She didn’t want me to die thinking, ‘Oh Christ, there’s someone here going to kill me.’ She wanted me to go thinking I was about to get me dinner. Not much bloody hope of that down here, far as I can see, but it was a kindness, aye, I’ll give her that. It was kindly meant.

DICK: And this was definitely Rye? This was Miss Pomona?

GEOFF: You know it was, Dick. It’s coming back now, isn’t it? Like the councillor says, takes a bit of getting hold of. When I saw her pointing the Purdy at me, I just said, careful, my dear. Not good form to point a gun at anyone. It might go off. Then it did. Still thought it was an accident when I found myself here, but once I got talking to the others …Well, I should have known, pretty young lass like that fluttering her eyelashes at me and saying she was really interested in night fishing and she’d heard I’d got this boat out at Stang Creek-must have heard that from you, I suppose, Dick-no, it didn’t make sense, I thought, not unless maybe she fancied me. Don’t suppose that made sense either, but I have been fancied in my time, and an old cavalry horse don’t pay much attention to anything else when he hears the bugle playing! Who knows, out in the country, snag a couple of trout, bake them over a fire, bottle of vino, anything can happen. And it did!

DICK: It’s coming back now but I still can’t believe it. We were getting on like a house on fire. She sent out all the signals. They seemed unmistakable, but I still needed to be absolutely sure. No way I wanted to risk our working relationship by giving her cause to think I was taking advantage. So I left her alone to give her time to think things over, cool off, if that’s what she wanted, but when I peeped through the door, she was standing at the window taking her clothes off. Well, that was it. Couldn’t be clearer, I thought. I slipped out of my kit in a trice, then just to keep it all light and easy, I grabbed a loaf of bread and a knife …we’d been talking about how nice toast tasted made over an open fire …and I went back in and said that I thought we’d have some toast afterwards. But she looked at me as if she wasn’t listening …well, to tell the truth it was my erection she seemed to be looking at …I was well aroused, and she seemed to be really focused on it …quite flattering, really …and she came towards me, and I felt her take the knife from my hand, and next thing I had this feeling in my stomach, oddly it wasn’t a pain, not at first, just a very strange and not at all distressing feeling which got somehow all mixed up with my desire for her, and she held me very close to her, and I felt myself beginning to go. I’d read about young women swooning with desire in Charley Penn’s books and I recall thinking, I must tell Charley it happens to fellows too, and Rye was screaming with passion, at least that’s what I took it to be though it did seem a bit strident, then suddenly it was as if I’d been grasped from behind and dragged backwards to the floor, and after that I’ve no idea what happened …

GEOFF: You got used for target practice by the look of you. Hello, what’s all that noise down by the river?

STUFFER: I’ll go and see.

GEOFF: Notice anything about the councillor?

DICK: Apart from that hole in the back of his neck? No.