Dialogues of the Dead

It hadn’t done any good either. The first person he’d seen when he entered the CID office the following morning was Headingley. He was a very different man from the relaxed, rather genial figure who’d been navigating his way serenely into the imminent harbour of retirement, and unrecognizable as the sexual athlete described in the e-mails. Jax had told her sister that she first detected her GP’s interest at a media briefing when she’d caught him eyeing her, not with the calculation of a sexual predator but with the yearning of a small boy outside a sweet shop whose only calculation is that he can’t afford to go in. She’d stayed behind and when he asked, “And what can I do for you, Miss Ripley? Something you want to chew over?” she’d replied, “Yes, as a matter of fact. I was wondering about chewing over your dick and my pussy,” and watched his face turn such a vein-bulging puce that she feared their relationship might be about to end before it had begun. But these symptoms, she soon discovered to her amusement and also to her pleasure, were merely the facial expression of a sexual arousal which turned the whole of his body into an erogenous zone. Now his portly figure seemed to have collapsed in on itself, his clothes hung baggily on his sagging frame and he looked a good ten years older than before.

It was easy to trace the earth-slide of emotions which had been carrying him along for the past ten days. First the shock of Ripley’s TV revelations and the fear that his own involvement might soon come out. Then her death, a second shock, accompanied by an initial great surge of relief followed almost immediately by a still greater surge of self-disgust that he could find comfort in the death of someone he’d been so intimate with. After that he’d headed for home, to the security of the undemanding domestic comfort which he probably expected to be ripped from him at any moment. It must have seemed impossible that the close and detailed investigation of Jax’s affairs following her murder plus Dalziel’s natural desire to find out who’d been leaking CID secrets to her, wouldn’t rapidly bring the Fat Man to his door. And then everything would go. Pension …marriage …reputation …character …the rest of his life as he had planned it …

And now with Jax Ripley buried, he was perhaps beginning to allow himself to hope that, despite his sins, all manner of things could still be well. At the very least it must have seemed better to come into work and check for himself what was going on.

He’d greeted Hat like a prodigal son and then questioned him about the course of the investigation in a manner which was both probing and hesitant, like a man who fears he may have cancer but does not dare ask his doctor direct.

In the end, Hat had pleaded an urgent appointment and left the office. He had to talk to someone and almost without conscious decision he found himself ringing the library number. At first Rye had sounded rushed and faintly irritated, and, fearful she might be about to ring off, he said, “Sorry to trouble you, but you did say you would like to be kept in the picture about the Wordman.”

“The Wordman? Has he …? You mean …? Look, if you fancy a coffee, I’ll take my break early at Hal’s.”

Which was where they were now, at the same balcony table as before.

News of the Fourth Dialogue hadn’t been made public yet, but it couldn’t be long before it was. At least so Hat assured himself as he heard himself whispering the details to Rye. Her interest and the fact that whispering meant they had to have their heads very close together made the risk of Dalziel’s wrath if he ever found out seem almost inconsequential. Rye prodded him with questions then when she’d finally got all she wanted, she put her hand over his, squeezed, and said, “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For trusting me.”

“No problem,” he said. “In fact, if you can spare a couple of minutes more, there’s something else I’d like to trust you with.”

He’d explained his dilemma without any exordium of confidentiality. She’d listened without interruption, asked if she could see the e-mails, read them, raised her eyebrows at, presumably, the raunchier parts, then asked her question, “So what are you going to do about it?”

And in reply to his answer she smiled and said, “I wouldn’t have come if I’d thought you were going to spoil anything. Look, I don’t want to teach my grandmother to suck eggs, but isn’t your first priority to check if he could have done it?”

“Sorry?”

“Killed Jax Ripley to shut her up. Isn’t that why her sister came to you with this in the first place?” She sat back and observed his expression then said, “Ah, I get it. You’ve automatically discarded that possibility. This colleague of yours might be an adulterous untrustworthy snake, but being a cop means he couldn’t possibly be a killer.”

“Now hold on, I know him, you don’t. Honestly, there’s no way …”