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So what language do the dead really speak if, as I presume, all the dead are capable of conversing with each other? A kind of Infernal Esperanto?
No, I reckon the dead must understand everything or else they understand nothing.
So how are things going? Comment ça va? Wie geht’s?
With me? Well, things are picking up speed. Yes, it’s harder. Don’t think I’m not glad to be getting more responsibility, but I won’t disguise, it’s harder.
I knew she would be back late after the broadcast, but I didn’t mind waiting. What’s a couple of hours in a journey as long as mine? And part of the pleasure lies in the anticipation of that moment when time will stop completely and everything will happen in an infinitely savourable present.
She’d been a possibility ever since the bazouki player, of course, but there’d been others with equal claim. I had to listen to them all to make sure. Nation shall speak unto nation, but it was that individual speaking to this individual that I wanted to hear. Then she made her broadcast and though her words were measured, with one eye fixed firmly on the Law, I could hear her underlying message aimed at one person only. Write me another Dialogue, she was saying. Please, I beg you, write me another Dialogue.
How could I resist such a clear invitation? How would I dare resist it when in this, as with the others, I feel myself your chosen instrument?
But being chosen does not exempt me from responsibility. Help I would be given, I knew that, but, after last time, only in the same measure as I shewed myself able to help myself.
That is why I sat in the car and waited to make sure she came home by herself. A woman with her appetites might easily bring back a companion for her bed. I waited a little while longer after I’d rung. I could have been with her in thirty seconds but I didn’t want her thinking I was so close.
When I pressed her bell she answered immediately through the intercom.
‘Is that you?’
‘Yes.’
The front door opened. I went in and started climbing the stairs.
Already I could feel time slowing till it flowed no faster than oil paint squeezed on to an artist’s palette. I was the artist and I was ready to set my new mark on this canvas which, complete, will place me in that dimension outside of time where all great art exists.
The door to her flat is open. But the chain is still on. I applaud such carefulness. I see her face in the interstice. I raise my left hand which is clutching a brown foolscap envelope.
And the chain comes off, the door opens fully. She stands there, smiling welcomingly. I smile back and move towards her, putting my hand inside the envelope. I see her bright eyes glisten with anticipation. She is in that moment of expectancy truly beautiful.
But like Apollonius looking at Lamia, I see through that fair-seeming to what she really is, the corrupter, the distorter, the self-pleasurer – and the self-destroyer too, for there is at the heart of the worst of us a nugget of that innocence and beauty we all bring with us into this world, and though I purpose to cut the depraved part out, that nugget will, I hope, remain, sending her out of the world as beautiful and innocent as she came into it.
I seize the haft of the knife inside the envelope and slide the long thin blade into her body.
I’ve read about the blow – under the ribs then drive upwards – but naturally I’ve had no chance to practise on living flesh. It’s the kind of thing people notice. But for all the trouble it causes me, you might imagine I came from a long line of Mafiosi.
Oh, how good it is when the word so surely conveys the deed and theory blends so smoothly into practice. The current runs along the wire and the bulb begins to glow; the spaceship balances on its tail of flame then begins to climb into the sky. Just so the blade slices under the ribs and almost of its own volition angles up through the lung to the beating heart.
For a moment I hold her there, all the sphere of her life balanced on a point of steel. The fulcrum of the planets is here, the still centre of the Milky Way and all the unthinkable inter-vacancies of infinite space. Silence spreads from us like ripples on a mountain tarn, rolling over the night music of distant traffic noises borne on a gusting wind, deadening all of humanity s living, loving, sleeping, waking, dying, birthing gasps and groans, snores and sniggers, tattle and tears.
Nothing else is. Only we are.
Then she is gone.
I raise her in my arms and carry her into the bedroom and lay her down reverently, for this is a solemn and holy step in both our journeys.
The parents still watch anxiously, but now the child, with wandering step and slow, begins to move alone.
I pray you, do not let me stumble. Be the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?
Speak soon, I beg you, speak soon.
CHAPTER TEN (#ulink_4bb6295b-8130-5792-b0d3-31284377928d)
On Saturday morning Rye Pomona had to field so many questions about Ripley’s TV programme from her colleagues en route to the reference library that she arrived ten minutes late and found that she’d missed the beginning of a half-furious row in the office.
The furious half was Percy Follows whose angry tirade bounced off the placid surface of Dick Dee, leaving no trace but a faint puzzlement.
‘I’m sorry, Percy, but I got the distinct impression you didn’t want to be troubled with anything to do with the short story competition. In fact I recall your exact words – you always put things so memorably. You said that this was such an inconsiderable task, you could see little reason why it should disturb any of the essential routines of the department and none whatsoever why you yourself should be troubled with it beyond news of its successful completion.’
Rye took a positive pride in her boss’s performance. That attention to and memory for detail which made him such an efficient Head of Reference also gave him a forensic precision in an argument. Not wanting to interrupt such good entertainment, she didn’t go into the office but sat down at the enquiry desk. The department’s morning mail had been placed there plus the all too familiar plastic bag containing the latest and (her spirits rose) presumably the last batch of short stories from the Gazette.
Lying at the top of the bag, half in, half out, was a single sheet with only a few lines typed on it. Still listening to the row, she picked it up and read.
I see thee as a flower, so fair and pure and fine. I gaze on thee and sadness steals in this heart of mine.
‘But this wasn’t about the competition, was it?’ Follows was blustering. ‘These Dialogues, so far as I can make out, must have got mixed up with that by accident. Ripley said they were probably meant for the news desk of the Gazette.’
Trying to put distance between the library and any bad fall-out from the Dialogues, thought Rye as her eyes continued to scan the verses.
It is as though my fingers should linger in your hair, praying that God preserve thee so fine and pure and fair.
In the office Dee was enquiring courteously, ‘Are you saying I should have known this and returned them to the Gazette?’
‘That’s what Mary Agnew thinks,’ said Follows. ‘She was on to me as soon as that Ripley woman finished last night. I don’t think she believed me when I protested total ignorance.’
‘I’m sure on mature reflection she won’t have any difficulty with that concept,’ said Dee.
This was good stuff, uttered so politely that Follows could only do himself damage by acknowledging the insult, thought Rye. The poem was pretty good stuff too. It would be nice to think that Hat Bowler had broadened his chat-up technique to include this old-fashioned approach, but somehow she couldn’t see him as a lovelorn poet. In any case, she didn’t need to be Miss Marple to detect the true source of the stanzas. Slowly she raised her eyes and found herself, without surprise, looking across the library at Charley Penn, twisted round in his usual chair, regarding her with undisguised pleasure.
She let the sheet slip to the floor, wiped her hand as if to remove some sticky substance, then ostentatiously applied herself to the task of opening the mail. There wasn’t much and what there was didn’t require her special attention, so finally with reluctance she turned her attention to the story bag. This might be the last consignment, but its bulk suggested there’d been a last-minute rush.
The row was still going on though clearly not going anywhere.
Dee was saying, ‘If I’d any idea this was going to blow up the way it has, of course I would have filled you in, Percy. But the police urged absolute discretion upon us, no exceptions.’
‘No exceptions? Don’t you think you ought to have consulted me before involving the police in the first place?’
At last Follows had laid a glove on Dee, thought Rye. But the Library Chief didn’t have enough sense to jab at this weak point but kept flailing away in search of a knockout blow.
‘And how the hell did Ripley get to know about this anyway? She took you to lunch yesterday. What did you talk about, Dick?’
Not a bad question, thought Rye, easing the stories out on to the counter.
‘The short story competition, of course. It was clear she was on a fishing expedition, asking about strange and unusual entries. Without direct reference to the Dialogues, she gave me the impression she somehow knew a great deal about them, but I certainly didn’t add to her knowledge.’
True or false?
She certainly couldn’t imagine Dick Dee being indiscreet unless he wanted to be. On the other hand, he would probably be scrupulous in a deal, even if the terms were unspoken. And just because he’d never used the opportunities offered by their working proximity to make even the most casual of physical contacts, let alone cop a feel, why should she be surprised, and even a little jealous, to find that Jax Ripley with her blue eyes, blonde hair and wide mouth had proved the type to ring his bell? As for the journalist herself, she thought with less generosity, her burning passion for a good story would probably have made her very willing to waggle Dee’s clapper.
She almost laughed aloud at the way her metaphor had developed, and close by heard an answering chuckle. Penn had left his seat and come to the desk.
‘Good, isn’t it?’ he murmured. ‘I’m so glad I got here early. Ah, there it is. I should hate it to get mixed up with these … effusions.’
He stooped and picked up the poem from the floor.
‘I stopped at the desk with a bunch of stuff I wanted to talk over with Dick, but the fun was just starting and I didn’t want to interrupt. This must have slipped out. A version of ‘Du bist wie eine Blume’. I quite like it. What did you think?’
‘Me? Didn’t really take it in. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m busy. Unless you’d like to help me sort out your fellow writers?’
He grinned at the attempted gibe and moved away, saying, ‘I fear not. How could my little light bear the glare of all that talent?’
But she wasn’t paying attention. As was her usual practice, she’d been dividing the stories into handwritten and typewritten, following which she would dump all those in the former group which didn’t reach her increasingly exacting standards of legibility. But it was a typewritten sheet she had in her hands and was studying with growing agitation.
‘Oh shit,’ she said.
‘In any case,’ Dick Dee was saying, ‘I dare say that despite Miss Ripley’s efforts to stir it up, this will after all turn out to be nothing more than a storm in a tea-cup, leaving her (to re-direct the image) with egg on her face, and your good self without so much as a breadcrumb on the snow-white lace doyley of your reputation.’
It was, Rye had come to know, a habit of Dee’s to coat his more acerbic ironies with garishly colourful layers of language, but the assurance seemed enough to mollify Percy Follows, a process signified physically as he came out of the office by an attempted smoothing down of his mane of golden hair which at times of stress exploded electrically like the tail feathers of a randy bird of paradise.
I shouldn’t bother, Perce, thought Rye.
Dee followed, smiled at Rye and said, ‘Good morning.’
‘Morning. Sorry I was late,’ she said, watching Follows and hoping he would leave the Reference.
‘Were you? I’m not in a position to notice. I seem to have mislaid my watch again. You haven’t seen it?’
Dee’s watch was a running joke. He didn’t like working at a keyboard with it on, claiming it unbalanced his prose, but once removed it seemed to have what Penn called Fernweh, a longing to be somewhere distant.
‘Try the middle shelf. It seems very fond of there.’
He ducked down behind the reception desk, came up smiling.
‘How clever of you. I’m back in time’s ever rolling stream which means I suppose we should get down to some work. Percy, are we finished?’
Follows said, ‘I hope so, Dick. I hope we’ve heard the last of this silly business, but if there are any further developments, I want to be the first to know. I hope you and your staff understand that.’
He looked accusingly at Rye who smiled at him, thought, OK, Perce, if that’s what you want, let me make your day, and said to Dee, ‘Dick, I’m afraid we’ve got another one.’
She held up the sheets of paper carefully by one corner.
She could see Dee understood her instantly but Follows was a little slower to catch on.
‘Another …? Oh God, you don’t mean another of these Dialogue things? Let me see.’
He attempted to snatch it from her fingers but she moved away.
‘I don’t think it would be too clever for anyone else to handle it,’ she said. ‘I think we ought to get it round to the police straightaway.’
‘That’s what you think, is it?’ said Follows, his hair sun-bursting once again.
She thought for a moment he was going to try ordering her to hand the Dialogue over. The library staff, he liked to claim, were one big happy family, but, as Dick Dee had once remarked, democracy was not a form of organization much practised in family life.
But on this occasion Follows had enough sense not to push things to confrontation.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘And perhaps we should make a copy for Miss sodding Ripley while we’re at it. Though it wouldn’t surprise me if she didn’t have one already.’
‘No,’ said Rye. ‘I don’t think so. Though she may be privy to the gist.’
She shook the sheets of paper gently.
‘I hope it’s all a sick fantasy, but if I read this aright, I think the Wordman is telling us that he’s just murdered Jax Ripley.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#ulink_2c7471af-4b67-5c64-8706-5061f379e058)
Hat Bowler stared down at Jax Ripley’s body and felt a pang of grief which for a second almost took the strength out of his legs.
He had seen bodies before during his short service and had learned some of the tricks of dealing with the sight – the controlled breathing, the mental distancing, the deliberate defocusing. But this was the first time he’d seen the corpse of someone he knew. Someone he liked. Someone as young as he was.
It’s yourself you’re grieving for, he told himself savagely, hoping to regain control via cynicism. But it didn’t work and he turned away unsteadily, though careful not to grasp at anything in an effort to control his unsteadiness.
George Headingley was moved too, he could see that. In fact the portly DI had turned away and left the bedroom before Bowler and was now sitting in an armchair in the living room of the flat, looking distinctly unwell. He hadn’t looked too good when he arrived at work that morning. Indeed he’d been five minutes late, inconsequential in the routine of most CID officers over the rank of constable, but a seismic disturbance of the Headingley behaviour pattern.
When Bowler had burst into his office with the news that Rye had just given him over the telephone, he seemed to have difficulty taking it in. Finally, after Bowler had tried to contact the TV presenter at the studios, then by phone at home, Headingley had allowed himself to be persuaded that they ought to go round to Ripley’s flat.
Now, sitting in the armchair, staring into space, instead of a healthy fifty-year-old sailing serenely into a chosen retirement, he looked more like a superannuated senior citizen who’d hung on till decrepitude forced him out.
‘Sir, I’ll get things under way, shall I?’ said Bowler.
He took silence for an answer and rang back to the station to get a scene-of-crime team organized, adding, sotto voce, ‘And make sure the DCI knows, will you? I don’t think Mr Headingley’s up to it this morning.’
He’d managed to persuade the DI that an armchair in a murder victim’s flat was not the cleverest place to let a senior officer find you in and got him outside into the damp morning air before Peter Pascoe appeared.
‘George, you OK?’ he asked.
‘Yeah. Well, no, not really. Touch of flu coming on. Could hardly get out of bed this morning,’ said Headingley in a shaky voice.
‘Then if I were you I’d go and get back into it,’ said Pascoe crisply.
‘No, I’ll be OK. Got to get back inside and take a look round while the trail’s still hot …’
‘George, you know no one’s going inside there till everything’s been done that needs to be done. Go home. That’s an order.’
And to take the sting out of pulling rank on an old colleague who’d been a DI ever since Pascoe first arrived in the Mid-Yorkshire force as a DC, Pascoe said in a low voice as he ushered Headingley to his car, ‘George, with days to do, you don’t want this, do you? I mean, who knows, it could roll on forever. Grab the money and run for the sun, eh? And don’t worry, I’ll see you get credit for what you’ve done so far. Love to Beryl.’
He watched the DI’s car drive slowly away then with a shake of the head he turned back to the apartment building.
