Dialogues of the Dead

“Listen, Angie,” said Hat, “it’s not me you should be talking to. I’m going to have to take this to my bosses, Mr. Dalziel and Pascoe, that’s them you were talking to before, so you might as well see them now. They’re coming along behind us, I think …”

He glanced over his shoulder to confirm this and felt her gentle grip on his arm become a savage elbow-lock.

“Don’t be stupid!” she hissed. “That was what I was going to do earlier when I met them and realized they were top cops.”

“Oh,” said Hat, feeling inappropriately miffed to realize he hadn’t been her first choice of confidant. “So what did they say?”

“Nothing. I said nothing. Jax never gave me his name. Whatever they say about e-mail security, if you’re a journalist, you don’t trust it that much. But over the past few months, she’d given me a description, a pretty detailed intimate description, I mean. Like I say, we let it all hang out. So I think I could be dead sure if I saw him in the skin, but even with his clothes on, the description fitted well enough to make me think it might not be such a good idea to talk to this guy, which is why I came looking for you.”

“Hold on,” said Hat. “You’re saying you think that one of them …”

He glanced back again to where Dalziel and Pascoe were tracking their path.

“Which one, for God’s sake?”

“She described him as middle-aged, what hair he had going grey, always nicely turned out in an old-fashioned kind of way, and so well padded that being on top of him was like bouncing on sponge rubber but having him on top of you was like wrestling with a large gorilla. Not just his weight, he was also very hairy, and there was other stuff about his sports tackle that means I could pick him out pretty definitely in a sauna, but even with his clothes on, that guy Dalziel came close enough for me not to take any risks.”

“Dalziel? For God’s sake, he’s my boss, he’s head of CID!”

“And that means he doesn’t enjoy sex with a woman half his age? If that’s a condition of promotion, I’d get out as soon as you can. No, listen, I can’t be definite, but everything fits. And I think he suspects something. When I asked if you were here, because Jax had mentioned you to me, I thought his eyes were going to start smoking. You want to watch out for him.”

“No, I think that’s something else …I think you’re wrong …”

But part of him, not a big part but large enough to make itself felt, was speculating with something close to glee on the possibility that the Fat Man himself had been Jax’s mole, which meant his aggressive attitude to Hat might be based on …jealousy?

“You mean you’re going to let some silly sense of loyalty stop you from following this up?” she said fiercely. “Maybe I should do what Jax did and go public.”

“No, please. I’ll check it out, I promise. Was there anything else she said? We found a diary, more of an appointments book, and she jotted down the letters GP from time to time, but there didn’t seem to be anything medically wrong …”

“No,” said Angie excitedly. “No, that was him. Georgie Porgie. You know, pudd’n and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry. That was what she called him because he was so fat. Hey, your Dalziel’s not called George, is he?”

And suddenly Hat saw the truth, almost as unbelievable as discovering Dalziel was Deep-throat, and infinitely sadder.

“No,” he said unhappily. “No, he’s not.”

But he knew somebody who was.

21

“So what are you going to do about it?” asked Rye.

“If I knew that I wouldn’t be sitting here spoiling your coffee break,” said Hat.

He should have gone to Dalziel straightaway, or Pascoe at least, or even Wield. Off-loaded his suspicions, let them earn the extra money they got for being in positions of authority and responsibility. In fact he wouldn’t even have needed to point the finger himself, merely handed over the copies of Jax Ripley’s e-mail which her sister had given him and let them draw their own conclusions. Instead he’d gone back to the station, found that George Headingley was still off sick, and persuaded himself that it could do no harm to sleep on it.