Dialogues of the Dead

I felt its onset as I moved around the gallery but I confess to my shame that at first I tried to deny it. For though I knew that in the light of that aura, I had no one to fear, yet my Thomas of a mind kept asking, how could such a thing be, here, among all these people?

How could it be?

When Hat arrived at the preview, it was already fairly crowded, but to his surprise Percy Follows, gold mane freshly permed, and Ambrose Bird, ponytail freshly curried, broke off in mid-altercation and, like a quarrelling couple surprised by the vicar, made a bee-line towards him, their faces split by welcoming smiles.

It was only when they both passed him by that he realized with some relief that he was not their obscure object of desire.

Behind him, the Lord and Lady Mayor had arrived. He was Joe Blossom, a stout middle-aged man known in the local business community as Lord of the Flies as he’d made his money out of breeding maggots for the fishing fancy. She was Margot Blossom, the second wife for whom he’d abandoned his first, a one-time cabaret wrestler, ten years his junior, over whom he watched with possessive jealousy and on whom he lavished whatever gifts he felt would make her happy, or at least keep her honest, which included expensive foreign holidays, emerald nipple-studs, capped teeth and silicone implants. Of late she had developed a range of cultural pretensions which included passions for the classical ballet, fine wines, and the works of Charley Penn. Despite, or perhaps because of, these new and spiritually uplifting preoccupations, she was still capable of reverting to the habits of her youth and body-smashing anyone foolish enough to make a reference in her presence to the source of her husband’s wealth. Risk takers used the local pronunciation of her name which voiced the t, and behind her back they dropped the r too, but only those in love with death did this to her face.

Bird and Follows were competing wildly to be my host. For a moment it looked as if things might turn nasty, but in the event only verbal blows were struck and they divided the spoils, Bird making off with the maggots and Follows with the silicone.

Watching the bright check suit recede, Hat, who’d agonized over his own choice of burgundy chinos and a leather jerkin over a pale blue T-shirt inviting you to Save the Skylark, felt better already.

Now, like a good policeman, before progressing further into the gallery he paused and scanned the crowd. The casual observer might have thought he was checking faces against a mental mug-book, but in fact he paid scant attention to individuals till he’d spotted what he was looking for, that head of rich brown hair with a silver-grey flash.

She was moving around offering a trayful of drinks and nibbles to the guests. As if attracted by the intensity of his gaze, she glanced his way, nodded a welcome and resumed her duties.

Helping himself to a glass of wine from another young woman who gave him a smile he might have responded to if Rye hadn’t been within clocking distance, Bowler now began to register the crowded room in detail.

There was a police presence significant enough to make him wonder if he couldn’t perhaps claim overtime. The DCI was there and his wife whom Bowler liked. On their previous meetings Ellie Pascoe had run her bold and friendly gaze over him in a manner which was assessing and approving but in no wise inviting, and called him Hat, and not pulled any vicarious rank, confirming her reputation of being all right. She was standing next to Charley Penn on the edge of a group into which Follows had just insinuated his mayoral prize, who looked as if she were already favouring them with her considered judgment of the exhibits. As Hat watched, Ellie Pascoe turned her head away to yawn behind her hand, glimpsed him, and smiled. He smiled back and continued his scan and found himself smiling at the super, who didn’t smile back. Was there no escaping the man? By his side was the woman who’d been with him at the Taverna, a well-made lady but very much cruiser-weight to Dalziel’s super-heavy. Still, not a mismatch, by all accounts.

He broke away from the Fat Man’s basilisk gaze, but his sense of being back at work still continued, for now, perhaps even more surprisingly, Sergeant Wield’s unmissable features gloomed out at him like a goblin who’d strayed into an elfin rout. But why should this be a surprise? A man didn’t need to be a work of art to appreciate art, and in any case, as Bowler knew himself, there were reasons other than aesthetic to urge attendance.

Rye was still moving, but not in his direction, so he let his gaze keep drifting.