Dialogues of the Dead

359 'Councillor Steel,' said Dee readily. 'Then Sam Johnson and Geoff PykeStrengler.' 'They tripped nice and easy off your tongue, Mr Dee,' said Dalziel. 'Oh dear. Was that a trap? If so, let me make a suggestion, Mr Dalziel. I have up till now been happy to play my part in the charade that I was being questioned as a witness. But your continuing interest makes me wonder if it might not be time for both of us to come out in the open and acknowledge that I am a suspect.' His expression now was one of eager almost ingenuous enquiry. 'You want to be a suspect?' said Dalziel curiously. 'I want to have the opportunity to remove myself from your list - if, as I fear, I'm on it. Am I on it, Mr Dalziel?' 'Oh yes,' said the Fat Man, smiling. 'Like Abou Ben Adhem.' 'Thank you,' said Dee, smiling back. 'Now let's try to discover some single point of fact that will prove to you I'm not the Wordman. You may ask me anything you like and I will answer truthfully.' 'Or pay a forfeit.' 'Sorry?' 'Truth, Dare, Force or Promise. Used to play it a lot when I were a kid. You had to choose one of them. Or you could pay a forfeit, like taking your knickers off. You've chosen Truth.' 'And I intend to keep my knickers on,' said Dee. 'Oh aye. You bent?' 'Bent as in crooked, or sexually deviant?' 'Both.' 'No.' 'Never?' 'Well, I have in my time committed various offences, like breaking road traffic regulations, shading my expenses, and using library stationery for my own purposes. Also there are one or two small amatory idiosyncrasies which I enjoy if I can find a willing partner of the opposite sex. But I believe that all of these fall within the margins of normal human behaviour, so I feel able to answer no even though I am not strictly able to answer never.' 'So you and Charley Penn never pulled each other's plonkers?' 'As young adolescents, yes, occasionally. But only as, if you'll forgive the expression, a stop-gap strategy to fill that anguished period between the onset of puberty and access to girls. Once girls appeared on the scene, our friendship became nunlike in its chasteness.' 'Nunlike? Not monklike?' 'After the bad press many of the Catholic male Orders have been getting in recent years, I think I'll stick to nunlike.' 'Could Charley be the Wordman?' 'No.' 'How so sure? 'Less you're the Wordman yourself, of course.' 'Because, as I'm sure you have already ascertained, on the first of the two evenings you questioned me about, when I was enjoying the company of Percy Follows, Charley was culturally engaged with his literary group. And on the second evening he was with me.' 'Who says the killing took place in the evening? OK, that second day, you gave each other alibis in the evening, and your work means you've got an alibi for the day. But not Charley. He's very vague about what he was doing that day. Says he thinks he probably went to the library but nobody seems able to confirm this. Not unless you're suddenly going to remember seeing him there?' 'Now why should I do that?' 'One good turn, mebbe. But like mutual masturbation.' 'You mean in return for the good turn he has done me by alibiing me for that evening? But that would only make sense if we were both the Wordman.' 'That's an interesting thought.' 'And one which I doubt has just sprung ready-formed into your mind, Superintendent. Afolie a deux, is that the way you're seeing things? Oh dear, and here was I thinking it was only myself I had to remove from your hook.' 'Hook. Like in fishing. Do any fishing yourself?' 'I have done, yes. Why?' 'The Hon. Geoff had a couple of rods with him. Like he'd mebbe gone out to fish with a mate.' 'I think perhaps you are mistaking our relationship.' 'Oh aye? How about your relationship with that lass of yours. You banging her?'