Dialogues of the Dead (31 page)

2J7 moved along a pew. Everyone turned to gawk, as if the 'Wedding March' had just struck up to announce the bride's arrival in the church. But Pascoe knew who it was before his eyes confirmed it. Slowly, silently, the slim figure of Franny Roote advanced up the aisle and climbed into the pulpit. He was wearing his usual black, broken only by a tiny white cross which, despite its size, seemed to burn against his chest. For a long moment, he stood looking down on the congreI'1 gation, his pale face expressionless, as if gathering his thoughts. When at last he spoke his voice was low, yet like an actor's whisper, it carried without difficulty to the furthermost corners of the silent church. 'Sam was my teacher and my friend. When I first met him, I was coming out of a bad time without any certain knowledge that a worse did not lie ahead. Behind me was a known darkness; before me was a darkness I did not know. And then, by human chance but, I am sure, by God's design, I met Sam. 'As a teacher, he was a light in the darkness of my ignorance. As a friend, he was a light in the darkness of my despair. He showed me that I had nothing to fear by going forward in search of intellectual knowledge and everything to gain by going forward in search of myself. 'I last saw him not long before his dreadful death. Our talk was mainly of matters academic, though as always other things were mixed in, for Sam didn't lock himself away in some elitist ivory tower. His domain was very much the real world.' He paused and his gaze nickered towards the array of academics surrounding Linda Lupin in the front pew. Then he resumed. 'I've tried to think of the things he said at that last encounter, for it is my belief that death, even when he comes - indeed perhaps especially when he comes - violently and unexpectedly, never comes without sending ahead messages that he is near. 'I know we certainly spoke of death. It is hard not to speak of him when discussing, as we were, Sam's favourite poet, Thomas Lovell Beddoes. And I know we spoke of death's mystery, and of the way our usual, though not our sole, medium of communi cation, language, by its very complexity often conceals more than it reveals. 'Did he have a premonition? I recall how he smiled, it seemed to me wryly, as he quoted a fragment from Beddoes:

'I fear there is some maddening secret Hid in your words (and at each turn of thought Comes up a skull,) like an anatomy Found in a weedy hole, 'mongst stone and roots And straggling reptiles, with his tongueless mouth Telling of murder . ..'

(It seemed to Pascoe that as the man spoke the word roots, his eyes sought out Pascoe's and a faint smile nickered across those pallid lips. But perhaps he was mistaken.) The man spoke on. 'Perhaps Sam was trying to tell me something, something he barely understood himself. Perhaps one day I will interpret that secret. Or perhaps I will have to wait till Sam himself interprets it for me. 'For though Sam did not subscribe to any organized form of religion, I know from our discussions that he had a deep belief in a life after death very different from but very superior to this grotesque bergomask we lumber through here on earth. In this, his soul was deeply in tune with that of Beddoes, and the book he was writing about him would have been a masterpiece of philosophy as well as scholarship. 'A few more lines of poetry, and I am done. Forgive me if they strike any of you as macabre, but believe me that they would not so have struck Sam. In fact he once told me that if he had the planning of his own funeral, he would like to hear these lines recited. 'So for his wish and my own comfort, let me speak them.

lWe do lie beneath the grass In the moonlight, in the shade Of the yew-tree. They that pass Hear us not. We are afraid They would envy our delight, In our graves by glow-worm night. Come follow us, and smile as we; We sail to the rock in the ancient waves, Where the snow falls by thousands into the sea, And the drowned and the shipwrecked have happy graves.'

ZS9 He stood as still as the carved eagle whose spread wings held the pulpit lectern, looking down at the congregation with a fierce intensity to match the bird's. The silence in the church felt more than mere absence of noise. It was as if they had drifted out of the main current of time into some bye-water which promised a Lethean oblivion to any strong enough to reach over the side and drink. Then Roote himself broke the spell as he descended and walked back down the aisle, his shoulders hunched, his head bowed, no longer a commanding other-worldly presence but a waif and forlorn boy. 'Follow that!' whispered Ellie. She was right, thought Pascoe, relieved. It would have taken an ego as insensitive as a politician's to stand up now and proclaim what must inevitably sound a more prosaic sorrow. He saw Linda Lupin crane her head to follow Roote's progress down the aisle. Then she spoke sharply and urgently to the ViceChancellor. Wanting to know who this weird creature is who's presumed to so disturb the even tenor of the funeral, thought Pascoe, wondering, not without a certain glee, what retribution for such impertinence she might be able to drop on to Roote from her political eminence. After the interment, as people milled around the churchyard prior to running the gauntlet of journalists and cameramen lined up outside the gate, he saw that Loopy Linda had actually taken matters into her own hands and had Roote in her grasp and was pouring out her anger into his shell-shocked ear. 'See that,' he murmured to Ellie. 'I bet our Franny wishes he was back inside.' 'What makes you say that?' 'Because anything must be better than oral acupuncture,' said Pascoe. But even as he spoke, the reason for Ellie's doubtful response penetrated as he saw Roote finally open his mouth in reply and something like . .. no, something that definitely was a smile broke out across Linda Lupin's face. They were having a conversation, not a row. 'I thought she'd be a straight up-and-down old-fashioned C. of E. Christian, help the deserving poor and sod the rest, no farting in church,' he said, disappointed. 'I was looking forward to seeing her tear Franny's head off.' 'Where've you been, Peter? Our Linda is, naturally, a modern loopy touchy-feely, I-hear-voices kind of Christian. Her most recent loopiness is a deep involvement with the Third Thought Counselling movement... You have heard of Third Thought Therapy, haven't you?' 'Anything to do with Third Age, University of?' 'Only in terms of its target audience. Its subtitle is Hospice for the Soul. Some Belgian monk started it. Basically it's a raft of stratagems for coming to terms with death, bottom line being that you shouldn't wait till it comes looking for you but go out to confront it while you're still fit in mind and body.' 'And Third Thought?' 'I know you rarely get past the sports page in your paper, but what happened to education?' 'Not Beddoes, is it?' said Pascoe. That bugger kept on cropping up. The last line of Roote's tribute still echoed in his mind .. .

. . . and the drowned and the shipwrecked have happy graves.

Hadn't the First Dialogue talked about the drowned AA man having a happy grave? 'Don't be silly,' Ellie said. 'It's Big Daddy himself. Will the Shake. Prospero. "And then retire me to Milan where Every third thought shall be my grave." How could you not recognize that?' 'Not everyone had the advantage of playing Caliban in the school play,' said Pascoe. 'Ariel,' she said, punching him. 'Anyway, Linda, it seems, met this monk and was bowled over by him, since when she has been advocating pumping large sums ofEuro-dosh into the movement.' 'But he's Belgian, you say?' 'Linda has nothing against foreigners so long as they don't want to tell us what to do, and of course acknowledge the superiority of the Brits, which this guy clearly did when he chose an English name for his therapy, though I suspect his reason was commercial, wanting maximum recognition on his website.' 'A website in a monastery?'

261 'Peter, leave Dalziel's Disneyland for a while and try the real world.' 'How come you know so much about Loopy?' 'Like the little red book says, know thyself, but know thine enemies a bloody sight better. But to get back to what we were talking about, far from dropping himself in deep doo-doo with Ms Lupin by maundering on about graves and things, I think our friend, Roote, may have done himself a lot of good. You see, by a strange chance, the symbol of Third Thought is a tiny white cross, so Roote must be into it as well. Lucky boy.' 'Lucky,' spat Pascoe. 'I doubt if luck had anything to do with it. Cunning little bastard!' 'Quote, Chief Inspector?' said Sammy Ruddlesdin, leaping out from behind a basalt angel. 'You got a quote for me?' 'Sammy, why don't you fuck off?' said Peter Pascoe. Chapter Twenty-nine

By the time Saturday evening arrived, Pascoe would have paid cash money for the pleasure of stretching out in his favourite armchair and letting the inanities of weekend television lull him to sleep. The call of duty demanding his presence at the short story result ceremony was growing ever fainter. Nothing was going to happen relevant to the Wordman enquiry and, in any case, Edgar Wield would be there to keep an eye on things. Even Elbe generously encouraged him stay away. 'As a judge, I've got to go,' she said. 'No need for you to suffer though. Put your feet up. I'll cancel the baby-sitter.' He thought of all the tedious police social occasions she'd endured on his behalf and his conscience pricked him mightily. 'No, I'll go,' he said. 'It's not like it's the Oscars with acceptance speeches going on forever. How long is the TV spot? Half an hour?' 'That's it. Plus there's drinks before for distinguished guests and their undistinguished partners. Few snorts of the hard stuff and a bit of lively conversation might be just the thing you need.' 'We'd better take a taxi then,' said Pascoe. But to start with, it looked like Ellie had got it entirely wrong. If anything, the atmosphere at the drinks party was slightly less lively than the university church that morning. The last time most of those present had been gathered together in the Centre, Councillor Steel had been murdered. And enough of them had attended Sam Johnson's funeral for his death to darken their thoughts too. But as with most wakes, two or three drinks eventually brought light and a dawn chorus of chatter, and though the first person to laugh out loud looked a little apologetic, soon the gathering was indistinguishable in jollity from any other party which isn't

263 going to last long and where somebody else is paying for the booze. Who exactly, Pascoe didn't know. Probably the Gazette. It occurred to him that the only person to ask the question out loud would have been Stuffer Steel, keen to ensure the ratepayers weren't being ripped off. And Johnson might have been a little satirical too, though both of them would have made sure they got their share of what was on offer. Not that anyone else seemed to be holding back. Nothing like the awareness of death for making folk grasp at life, thought Pascoe, looking round and counting heads. Yes, all the preview luminaries seemed to be here. Except of course those who were dead. And the dancing Dalziel. And the Hon. Geoffrey, or rather Lord Pyke-Strengler of the Stang, his full tide now being due since, according to the papers, the sharks had left enough gobbets of his father to merit a small burial. 'So who's the winner, Mary?' Ambrose Bird asked the news paper editor. 'I've no idea,' said Agnew. Bird cocked his head on one side, very bird-like, and said sceptically, 'Come on, I'm sure you and dear Percy here have made damn sure no one's going to win who might bring a blush to your maiden cheeks.' This certainly made Follows flush, with irritation rather than embarrassment, but Mary Agnew laughed and said, 'I think you're confusing me with some other Mary, Brose. It's true the winning story is a charming modem fairy tale, fit for children of all ages, but the two runners-up are a lot more gutsy. And it was Charley and Ellie here who selected them without interference from either Percy or myself.' 'No interference from Percy? That must have been a blessing,' said Bird. 'Some of us are capable of doing our designated jobs without sticking our long bills into other people's business,' snapped Follows. 'Children, children, not in front of the adults,' said Charley Penn. Bird glowered at Follows, then forced a smile and said, 'Charley, you certainly must know the name of the winner. How about a hint?' 'Wrong again, Brose,' said Penn. 'I know the name of the winning story and the pseudonym of the winner, but not his or her real name. Couldn't have found out even if I wanted to. Mary could make Millbank look like Liberty Hall, she's such a control freak. Seems every entry had to be accompanied by a sealed envelope with the story title and a pseudonym printed on the outside and the writer's real name and address inside. She kept the envelopes well away from the judges. In fact she's made rules about the rules. What it said in the Gazette was that no envelope would be opened till the decision had been made. But since the whole farce has turned into a mini-Booker with the results being announced live on the box, she and Spielberg there -' nodding towards John Wingate - 'decided to screw up the tension by directing that none of the envelopes would be opened till tonight.' Pascoe and Wield exchanged glances. It wasn't strictly true. After the recognition that the Dialogues were fact, not fiction, every entry to the competition had been matched with its envelope, and in the half-dozen or so cases where the chosen typeface seemed to correspond with that of the Dialogues, the envelopes had been opened and the writers checked out. It had proved as fruitless an exercise as Pascoe had guessed it would be, but, like the PR handouts say, behind the apparent glamour of detective work lie hundreds of tedious hours spent in such necessary humdrum elimination. The thought provoked a yawn and Wield said, 'You should try sleeping a bit more often.' 'I'd like to, but it's not in my job description,' said Pascoe. 'I'll maybe catch up when I retire.' 'Like old George?' 'I think he's kept in practice. Sorry. That's not very charitable. And he's not been looking so well recently, has he? I hope he's not going to be one of those poor devils who look forward to retirement then when it comes, pffut!' The too. I always had him down for a natural pensioner. Cottage in the country, potter around with his roses, write his reminiscences. Duck to water, I'd have said.' 'Maybe it's started to hit him. Thirty-odd years it's been. Where did he see it all leading back then? Now here he is, wondering where it's all gone and how come all those paths of glory haven't