Dialogues of the Dead

“Yes, sir, thank you,” said Hat, recognizing the DCI’s kindness in so reassuring him and feeling all the worse for it. “Sir, there’s something else, just occurred to me now really …that guy Roote you’ve had me watching …”

He had Pascoe’s full attention.

“I think he was …I mean, he certainly was eating at the Taverna the night David Pitman was killed …”

And now Peter Pascoe was looking at him with no kindness whatsoever in his eyes.

12

The good thing about Pascoe was that he didn’t nurse grudges, or at least didn’t seem to, which might of course be the bad thing about Pascoe.

Hat had volunteered to go and interview Roote about his visit to the Taverna but the DCI had said no, and then, as was usual with him though unusual in most senior officers, gone on to explain his reasoning.

“Roote doesn’t know your face-unless you’ve alerted him?”

“No way, sir,” said Hat confidently.

“Let’s keep it that way then. I’ll send Sergeant Wield to do the interview. He is, of us all, the most …how shall I put it? …unreadable. If anyone can convince Roote he’s just a possible witness like everyone else who dined at the Taverna, then it’s Wield. Of course, that’s all that Roote probably really is. A possible witness.”

Oh yes, thought Hat. But you’re hoping like mad he’s a lot more than that!

“Meanwhile,” said Pascoe, “you get yourself round to the Gazette. Ripley was killed late last night. Unless the Dialogue was written in advance, and it certainly doesn’t read like that, it must have got into the bag some time in the ten hours before nine this morning when it was found. I want to know how. I’ll double check the library end. Meet me there when you’re done. And, Hat, play it cool, eh? All hell’s going to break loose when the press get on to this story. Let’s stretch out the calm before as long as we can!”

Hat’s visit to the Gazette office didn’t last long. Pascoe’s hopes for a breathing space proved vain. News of the latest Dialogue had already reached here, and Mary Agnew was more interested in trying to get information than in giving it. Eager to be out of her reach, Hat stonewalled stubbornly till he got what he’d come for. It wasn’t very helpful. Friday night was always hectic with preparation for the Saturday edition, and Jax Ripley’s broadcast had made it even more so, giving Mary Agnew a last-minute lead story she couldn’t ignore. This meant that no one had noticed a secondary effect of Ripley’s revelations which was that for some reason they seemed to have reinforced her reminder of the closing date for entries to the story competition. Early next morning the post-boy who, having better things to do than watch television on a Friday night, remained blissfully ignorant of all the excitements, discovered the dozen or more late entries, shoved them into the sack with all the others which had turned up during the day on Friday and, glad to see the end of what he found a very tedious task, delivered them post haste to the Centre. Mary Agnew, who’d naturally checked everything in the sack after watching Ripley’s show, was furious when she now realized for the first time that more had been added later and Hat sneaked away under cover of the fire and fury she was raining on the post-boy’s bewildered head.

As he reached the Centre, which was only a couple of minutes’ walk away, he saw the DCI’s lean and rangy figure pushing through the glass doors and hurried to catch up with him.

“You’ve been quick,” said Pascoe accusingly.

Hat, who’d been expecting compliments for his speed, gave what he thought was a very professional almost Wield-like summation of his findings, but found insult added to injury when Pascoe seemed inclined to believe he must have let the cat out of the bag about the Dialogue. He defended himself vigorously but it turned out unnecessarily, for when they entered the Reference, evidence that Agnew already knew everything was there in the shape of the spare, stooping nicotine-impregnated figure of Sammy Ruddlesdin, the Gazette’s senior reporter.

He was in the middle of what seemed a heated exchange with Percy Follows and a short stocky man wearing a check suit bright enough to embarrass a bookie and a ponytail like a donkey’s pizzle. Standing to one side like adjudicators at a livestock show were Dick Dee and Rye.

Dee, noting their arrival first, said, “Visitors, Percy,” in a quiet voice which somehow had sufficient force to cut through the debate. The three men looked towards the newcomers. Follows’ mouth stretched into a smile almost too broad for his small face and with an equine toss of his luxuriant mane he made a bee-line for Pascoe, thwarting the attempts of ponytail to interpose his own body, but unable to prevent the man from interposing his own voice which was astonishingly deep and resonant, as if issuing from the depths of a cavern.

“DCI Pascoe, isn’t it? I have the pleasure of your wife’s acquaintance, sir. Ambrose Bird. This is a dreadful business. Dreadful.”