officer you’ve praised up to the heavens one day goes down for corruption the next!”
“Corruption? Now there’s a big word for a little thing like dipping your wick. Have you clocked George’s missus lately? Like a bin liner stuffed with frozen broccoli. Man like George was sitting there, just begging to be taken for a ride by owt with big ambitions and tits to match. I should have taken greater care of him.”
This display of paternalistic guilt should have been comforting, but Pascoe wasn’t in the market.
He said indignantly, “He’s been selling us out for a quick jump!”
“Lots of jumps, if you read between the lines, and some on ’em not so quick either. Teach us all a thing or two, could George.”
“I’ll skip the lesson, thank you,” said Pascoe primly. “What on earth made Angie Ripley want to share these rather sordid details with the Chief? I mean, they don’t exactly reflect well on her sister.”
“She weren’t thinking of her sister’s reputation, she were thinking of her murder,” said Dalziel.
“Her murder…Jesus! You mean she reckons that wanting to shut her up could have been a good motive for killing her? George Headingley killing her? She must be crazy!”
“She didn’t know George, did she? In fact after we met at the funeral, it seems she decided the description fitted me! Minute Dan read them but, he knew it must be George. Silly cow.”
He sounded indignant. On the other hand, thought Pascoe, having mistaken the Fat Man for her sister’s lover, it was very easy to see how she took the step of suspecting him to be her sister’s killer!
He kept the thought to himself and asked, “But what’s going to happen…? In fact, what has happened? What did you tell the Chief to make him so happy?”
Trimble was retailing George Headingley stories with great zest and rolling his audience in the aisles. He did not sound like a man who had any fear that his valedictory encomium might one day be presented as evidence of his poor judgment and lack of managerial control.
“Told him that in my opinion any resemblance between Jax Ripley’s roly-poly Georgie Porgie and our George were purely coincidental, or at worst, Ripley based the fantasies she invented for her sister’s entertainment on George because he was the officer who did a lot of our media briefings. Told him that I’d checked out George personally and that I could give my personal assurance there were nowt in it. And finally I told him that the stuff about a motive for killing Ripley was totally irrelevant and there’d be no come-back from sister Angie because in a very short while we’d be charging someone with the Wordman killings, including Jax’s.”
“Will we?”
“You want to tell Dan we won’t?”
They were interrupted by a crescendoing round of applause shot through with cheers and whistles as the Chief Constable reached the climax of his address and a flushed and beaming George Headingley rose and went forward to receive the state-of-the-art fishing rod and associated tackle which had been his chosen gift.
“Oh, and one other thing,” said Dalziel as he clapped his hands together thunderously. “Seems that Desperate Dan weren’t the first police officer Angie confided in. Seems she took her suspicions first of all to young Hat Bowler and it were only when she thought he was dragging his feet that she decided to ring Dan afore she took off home.”
“Hat? But he hasn’t said anything, has he?” “No. Gave him plenty of chance to, but he kept mum.”
“But why? When it would have cleared him of suspicion?”
“Mebbe he looked at George and thought, Here’s a guy, long years of honourable service, sailing into retirement, do I want to be the one who torpedoes him? Mebbe he thought that sometime in the future he might be dependent on someone turning a blind eye to something he’d got up to too.”
“And which of these made you decide to keep quiet?” asked Pascoe.
“Me? I didn’t have to decide,” said Dalziel. “Let’s go and congratulate George, shall we? Looks like he’s getting a round in.”
As they made their way back to the bar, Pascoe said, “Have you told Hat yet?”
“Told him what?”
“That he’s off the hook.”
Dalziel roared with laughter.
“Don’t be daft. Why should I do that?”
“Because…well, because he deserves it. He’s got the makings of a good cop.”
“No argument there,” said Dalziel. “He’s bright and he’s keen and he’s proved he’s dead loyal. He could go far with the right incentive, and that’s what I’m giving him.”
“How?”
“Well, every time he thinks he can relax on the job, I’ll just need to give him that fish-eyed look which says I’ve still got doubts about him and he’ll be doing double-overtime without pay just to prove me wrong, won’t he? And one thing I’ll never have to worry about is him letting his gob be ruled by his bollocks rather than his brain.”
Oh, Andy, Andy, thought Pascoe, you think you’re so clever and you may even be right. But you’ve forgotten, if you ever knew it, the absolute power of young love. I’ve seen the way Bowler looks at Rye Pomona and I’m not sure that even the fear of the Great God Dalziel is enough to keep him quiet if she asks something nicely.
The Fat Man, unaware of these treacherous doubts about his infallibility, had gone through the crowd at the bar like Lomu through an English defence.
“George, lad,” he cried, “congrats, you’ve made it at last, out into civvy street, safe and sound.”
“Andy, I was wondering where you’d got to. What are you drinking?”
“Only two minutes out of the job and the bugger’s forgotten already!” declared Dalziel plaintively. “I’ll have a pint and a chaser. So, George, you take care of yourself, eh, it’s a wilderness out there.”
“I’ll be careful,” said Headingley.
“I’m sure you will, wandering round the countryside with that lovely new rod of thine. Just one bit of advice from one old angler to another.”
Dalziel took Headingley’s hand as he spoke and pressed it tight.
“What’s that, Andy?”
The pressure increased till the blood could hardly reach the DI’s fingertips and at the same time the Fat Man stared unblinkingly into his watering eyes as he said softly, “Don’t go dipping it in any forbidden waters, George, or I may have to come looking for you.”
They stood there looking at each other for several seconds. Then behind the bar a phone rang.
The barman picked it up, listened, then called, “Is there a policeman in the house?”
Through the laughter he added, “It’s the station. Would like to speak to someone in CID. Mr. Dalziel or Mr. Pascoe preferred.”
Pascoe said, “I’ll get it.”
He took the phone, listened for a while, then said, “On our way.”
He put the receiver down. Dalziel was watching him. He jerked his head to the door.
Out of the press around the bar, the Fat Man said, “This had better be good. I’ve got a pint and a gill back there surrounded by bastards with the scruples of a starving gannet.”
“Oh, it’s good,” said Pascoe. “It was Seymour.”
DC Seymour had drawn the short straw and been left to look after the CID shop.
“He’s just had a call from the security guard at the Centre,” he went on.
“Oh fuck. Not another body.”
“No,” said Pascoe, pausing long enough for Dalziel to look relieved before going on. “Another two bodies. Ambrose Bird and Percy Follows. Dead in the Roman Experience bathhouse.”
“Oh shit,” said Andy Dalziel. “Shit and double shit. How dead? Drowndead?”
“No. Electrocuted-dead,” said Peter Pascoe.
42
the seventh dialogue
Do you recall how at the beginning I said my heart fainted at the distance I saw stretching between my
