Dialogues of the Dead (28 page)

133 contraction of the left eyebrow confirmed that he was being sent up. Which felt much the same as being put down. If a riposte that was smart as well as being angry had risen to his lips, he would probably have uttered it. But to exit on, 'I'm not your bloody tea-boy, fatso. Make your own!' didn't seem wise, so he muttered, 'I'll get right on to it,' and went out. 'Hat.' He turned. Wield had followed him. 'Just because they're taking the piss doesn't mean they don't take you seriously.' 'No, Sarge.' 'And just because you're pissed doesn't mean you shouldn't take them seriously either.' 'No, Sarge,' he repeated, feeling for some reason slightly cheered up.

There were several Follows in the computer, but none called Percy and none bearing any resemblance to the librarian. A few Dees, but no Richard, no librarian. And no doctor either. That had been a Pascoe crack, which meant it was likely to be what Dalziel would call arty-farty clever. Worth finding out what it meant just to show that the DCI wasn't the only one here who'd got past his 0levels. But first things first. It was time to impress the Fat Man with his tea-making abilities.

By the time he left work that evening, Hat had fully recovered his normal cheerful spirits and persuaded himself that on the whole the signs were good. In the first months after his arrival, as his star rapidly sank, he had watched rather enviously as that ' of Detective Constable Shirley Novello steadily rose. But part of that rising he seemed to recollect had involved a deal of fetching | and carrying and gentle mockery, so why should he now resentis treatment which, doled out to her, he had once envied? | Plus he was going to see Rye and that was a prospect that ;ij automatically raised his spirits. It's not often in this existence that a man's fantasies move, precise in every detail, out of his mind's eye into plain view, and the shock is often counterproductive. So it was when the door of Rye's flat opened to reveal her standing before him in a loosely tied robe through whose interstices shone tracts of smooth flesh, both soft and firm, and all as richly golden as barley ripe for harvest. He stood there, motionless and speechless, more like a man confronted by Medusa than his heart's desire, till she said, 'Do words come out of your mouth or does it just hang open to give the flies somewhere to shelter from the rain?' 'Sorry ... I just didn't... they said you were ill and I thought ... I'm sorry to have got you out of bed ...' 'You haven't. I'm feeling a bit better and I'd just got up to have a shower, which I thought a man in your line of business might have worked out for himself.' She pulled the towelling robe firmly shut as she spoke, and now he raised his eyes he saw that her hair was dripping water down her face. Sodden wet, the rich brown had darkened almost to blackness against which the streak of silvery grey shone as if composed of electric filaments. 'Those for me or are they evidence in your latest big case?' He'd forgotten he was holding a bunch of carnations in one hand and a box of Belgian chocolates in the other. 'Sorry, yes. Here.' He proffered them but she didn't take them, only grinned and said, 'If you think you're getting me to leave go of this robe, you're sadly mistaken. Come in and put them down somewhere while I get myself decent.' 'Hey, don't let decent trouble you,' Hat called after her as she went out of sight. 'I'm a cop. We're trained to cope with anything.' He set his gifts on a coffee table and looked around the room. It wasn't large, but it was so neat and uncluttered that it felt more spacious than it was. Two small armchairs, a well-ordered bookcase, a standard lamp, and the coffee table, that was it. He went to the bookcase. You could find out a lot about people from their books, or so he'd read somewhere. But only if you knew a lot about books in the first place, which he didn't. One thing he could see was that there were a lot of plays here, reminding him that Rye came from a theatrical family. He

^5 plucked out a complete Shakespeare and opened it at the flyleaf. There was a date, i.'j.<) i, and an inscription, To Raina, Happy fifteenth to the Queen from the Clown Prince, with love from Serge xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Fifteen kisses. Was that a pang of jealousy he felt? Of someone he didn't know who could be any age giving a prezzie to Rye years ago when she was still a child? You'd better watch it, my boy, he admonished himself. As he'd worked out before, any sign of his interest becoming obsessively possessive was going to be a real turn-off to Rye. 'Improving yourself?' she said behind him. He turned. She'd put on a T-shirt and jeans and was still towelling her hair. He said, To Raina. I'd forgotten your full name.' 'Rye-eena,' she corrected his pronunciation. 'Otherwise I'd be called Ray.' 'Rye's better.' 'Whisky rather than sunshine?' 'Loaves rather than fishes,' he said with a grin. She considered this then nodded approvingly. 'Not bad for a plod,' she said. 'Thank you kindly. Where's it come from anyway, you never told me.' 'I don't recall you asking. It's a play.' 'Shakespeare?' he said, hefting the anthology. 'Next along,' she said. She went to the bookshelf and plucked out a volume. He replaced the Shakespeare and took it from her hands. 'Arms and the Man by G. B. Shaw,' he read. 'You know Shaw?' 'Nicked his brother once. GBH Shaw,' he said. 'Sorry.' 'Police-type joke. Funny title. Why'd he call it that?' 'Because he lived in an age when he could assume that most of his audience wouldn't need to ask why he called it that.' 'Ah. And that was because ... ?' 'Because a classical education was still regarded as the pedagogic summum bonum by the moneyed classes. And if you hadn't read at least the first line of Virgil's Aeneid, you'd clearly wasted your

236 youth. "Arma virumque cano," which Dryden renders as "Arms and the man I sing." Good title way back then. But a man would have to be very sure he had a highly cultured, intelligent and alert audience to try anything like that now.' 'You sound nostalgic. You reckon they were better times?' 'Certainly. For a start, we weren't born. Sleep's good, death's better, but best of all is never to be born at all.' 'Jesus!' he exclaimed. 'That's really morbid. Another of Virgil's little quips?' 'No. Heine.' 'As in Heine, that Kraut poet Charley Penn, is working on?' Something was ringing a very faint bell. 'In civilized circles I believe they're known as Germans,' she said seriously. 'You don't have to like them, but that's no reason to be beastly to them.' 'Sorry. Same applies to Penn, does it?' 'Certainly. In fact there's a great deal to like about him. Even his apparent obsession with my person might by some be considered not altogether reprehensible. That was one of his translations I just quoted which he brought to my attention when my refusal to let him cop a feel was rendering him particularly despondent.' Hat was beginning to understand the subtle stratagems of Rye's mockery. She left doors invitingly ajar through which a prat might step to find himself showered with cold water or plunging down an open lift-shaft. He said, 'So what's it mean precisely, that stuff about sleep and y so omi 'It means that once upon a time we were all enjoying the best of possible states, i.e. not being born. But then our parents got stuck into each other in a hay field, or on the back seat of a car, or between acts during a performance of a Shaw play at Oldham, and they blew it for us, forced us without a by-your-leave to make an entrance, kicking and screaming, on to this draughty old stage. Fancy a coffee?' 'Why not?' he said, following her into a tiny kitchen which was as well ordered as the living room. 'Hey, is that why they called you Raina? Because they were acting in this play when they .. . ? Now that's what I call really romantic.'

237 'You do?' 'Yes. Can't see why you're so cynical about it. Nice story, nice name. Just think, you could have been called ...' He nipped open the play to the cast list: '.. . Sergius! Just imagine. Sergius Pomona! Then you'd really have had something to complain about!' 'My twin brother didn't seem to mind,' she said. 'You've got a twin?' 'Had. He died,' she said, spooning coffee into a cafetiere. 'Oh shit, I'm sorry, I didn't know ...' 'How could you? He gave me the Shakespeare you were looking at.' Serge. He recalled the inscription and blushed at the thought or his infantile jealousy. To cover his confusion he gabbled, 'Yes, of course, that explains the inscription, the Queen, May the first, Queen of the May, and he was the Clown Prince .. .' 'He was full of laughter,' she said quietly. 'Whenever I was down he could always cheer me up. It didn't seem too bad being called Raina while he was around.' 'I think it's a lovely name,' said Hat staunchly. 'And Sergius too. And I'm sure they were given to you with the best of inten tions. Being called after characters in a play, you didn't get that kind of romantic idea in my family!' 'Sweet of you,' she murmured. 'Yes, there was a time when I too used to think it romantic to hear my mother and father explaining that we were named after Raina and Sergius, who are the two supremely romantic characters in the play, because these were the parts my parents were playing when they conceived us. Then one day when I was sorting out some of their stuff, I came across a collection of old theatre programmes. And there it was. Arms and the Man at Oldham. The date fitted perfectly. The only thing was when I checked the cast list, it wasn't Freddie Pomona and Melanie Mackillop who were playing Sergius and Raina, it was two other people. My parents were playing Nicola, the head serving man, and Catherine, Raina's middle-aged mother. How's that for romantic, and do you take sugar?' 'A spoonful. Well, it's not really so terrible, is it? Improving on the past isn't exactly a capital crime.' 'I suppose not. Shaw would probably have liked it. The play's all about exploding inflated notions of romance and sacrifice and honour.' 'Then why so cynical?' She looked at him thoughtfully then said, 'Another rime, eh? Wetting my hair always loosens my tongue. Let's see if those chocs you brought are any good.' They went back into the sitting room. Rye opened the chocolate box, bit into one and nodded approvingly. 'Excellent,' she said. 'So how did you know I was ill?' 'Well, I was at the library today. ..' 'Why?' she demanded. 'Has something happened?' 'Yes,' he admitted. 'Strict confidence, OK?' 'Guide's honour,' she said. He told her about the new Dialogue. 'Oh God,' she said. 'I wondered when I heard about Johnson's death ...' 'What made you wonder?' he asked. 'I don't know. Just a feeling. And maybe because ...' What?' 'This connection with the library. I don't just mean the Dialogues turning up there, but these last three killings, there's been a kind of link. OK, it's tenuous, but it does create a sort of illogical sensitivity. ..' Suddenly she looked very vulnerable. 'Come on,' he said with an attempt at avuncular jocularity. 'Cheer up. No need for you to worry.' 'Really?' His reassurance worked insomuch as her evident vulnerability was instantly replaced by an air of nepotal admiration and trust. 'Oh, do tell why I shouldn't worry.' 'Well, because this guy, the Wordman, isn't one of your normal sexual psychos going around topping young women. So far there's only been one woman, Jax Ripley, and no sex. We don't know yet precisely what drum this lunatic's marching to, but there's nothing to suggest that someone like you is more likely to be in the firing line than, say, someone like me. As for the library thing, my notion is that the short story competition gave him the kind of way of slipping his Dialogues into the public consciousness which appealed to his warped mind ...'

2^ 'Sorry, run that by me again.' 'He's got a puzzler's mind, the kind that sees everything in terms of hidden answers, and deceptions, and references, and connections, and riddles, and word games. Hiding what's turned out to be fact in a great pile of fiction is exactly the kind of thing that would appeal to him.' 'This degree they say you did, what was it in? Ornithology with psychiatry?' she said, half mocking, half complimentary. 'Geography,' he said, adding, 'with Economics,' like a plea in mitigation. It didn't work. 'My God. You mean I'm getting involved with a bird-watcher with a geography degree? At least I won't have to worry about getting to sleep at nights.' He examined this, decided there was more in it to be pleased with than to take offence at, and went on, 'Being a detective's like learning to use the reference library. It's all a question of knowing where to look. We had these guys down from the Uni, a trick cyclist and a linguist. I took notes. What I'm saying is that while everyone should take care, there's no group in particular we can advise as being at greater risk than any other. Saying everyone's in danger may sound like cold comfort, but if you look at it statistically, if everyone's in danger, the odds on you being the one are pretty long. So take care, but don't take to the hills. Not without company, anyway. Talking of which, are you going to be fit for our expedition this weekend?' 'No problem,' she said, stretching back sinuously so that her T-shirt rode up from her jeans revealing a band of gently rounded belly which set all those alarms flashing and ringing along his arteries once more. 'I'm feeling better by the minute. Who did you see at the library? Dick?' 'Yes,' he said. If she'd wanted to flick a bit of cold water at him, introducing Dee's name at this juncture did the trick. 'Talking of Dee, you ever hear of a doctor with that name?' 'Not unless you mean the Elizabethan astrologer and necro mancer,' she said. 'Yeah, that'll be the one,' he said. Clever old Pascoe, ho ho ho. 'This the latest theory, the Wordman's a magician and Dick's a descendant of the doctor?' 'Well, you've got to admit he's a little bit weird,' he said, adding quickly to dilute his criticism, 'Must be the time he spends with Perm. When I went up to the Reference, they were in the office, playing that funny board game. Paronomania.' He looked at her closely to see if he'd got it right. Rye laughed and said, 'You do listen, then!' 'Depends who's talking. You said the word actually means an obsessive interest in word games?' 'That's right. It's a mix of paronomasia, that's word-play or a pun, and mania, with maybe a touch of paranoia thrown in. What are you looking at me like that for?' 'You realize you've just repeated more or less what I was saying about the Wordman?' said Hat. 'Oh, come on,' she said with irritation. 'What your tame experts said, you mean? Listen, these two have been playing this game ever since I joined the staff. It's no big secret vice. I asked about it and Dick explained the name, no problem. He even gave me a copy of the rules and so on. I've got it somewhere.' She started looking through a drawer. 'The two boards I've seen looked hand-painted, and they were different.' said Hat. 'Is it a real game? Or just one they made up?' 'What on earth would the difference be?' she said, smiling at him. 'I know it started at school when they were playing Scrabble .. .' 'At school?' he interrupted. 'Dee went to Unthank too?' 'Yes. That a problem?' 'Of course not.' But it might be an answer. 'So, Scrabble.' 'That's right. It seems there was a dispute about some Latin word that one of them used, and it lead to them playing a version in which you couldn't use anything but Latin. Things developed from that, they wanted something more complicated, with a bigger board, more letters, different rules, and the players take turns in choosing the language . .. Oh, here it is - no, don't read it now, you can keep it, time I was clearing out some of this clutter.' Hat folded the sheets of paper she'd given him and put them in his wallet. 'No wonder I couldn't understand any of the words I saw,' he said, reluctantly impressed. 'How many languages do they speak, for God's sake?'