Read Online The Language of the Dead by Stephen Kelly - Free Book Online Page A

took his beer to the woman’s table. She looked up at him.
    â€œMay I join you?”
    She smiled, faintly. “Suit yourself.”
    Wallace offered his hand. “David Wallace,” he said. She shook his hand but said nothing. Wallace thought that she must be playing a game. But he didn’t mind a game now and again. He smiled. “So, you have no name, then?”
    She didn’t answer. Her faint smile reappeared.
    â€œDo I have to guess?” Wallace asked.
    â€œIf you like.”
    He pretended to appraise her. “Let me see,” he said. “Green eyes, green dress.” He pulled his chair back from the table and looked beneath it. “Ha!” he said. “Green shoes! Your name is Miss Green.”
    She laughed—a kind of twitter. “Not even close.”
    â€œYou have auburn hair. Miss Brown, then?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œLet’s see. I’m running out of colors. Miss Yellow?”
    She laughed.
    â€œTurquoise? No? I know—you’re French! Blanc. Miss Blanc! Hold on! You’re blushing. Miss Rose?”
    He believed the game to be a test. She wanted to see not only if he was willing to play, but how well he played. Apparently, he’d done well. The bloke of the night before likely hadn’t.
    â€œVery well,” she said. “I suppose I’ll have to tell you.”
    â€œI’m all ears,” Wallace said. He tugged at his ears, pulling them out from his head.
    She laughed again—snorted. She put her right hand over her mouth, as if the unfeminine sound mortified her.
    â€œSeriously, my dear,” Wallace said, affecting an upper-class accent. “What
is
your name? Mother
insists
on knowing.”
    She twittered again. “Delilah,” she said.
    Wallace sipped his beer, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Delilah what?”
    â€œJust Delilah.”
    Another game
. Delilah intrigued him. He quietly appraised her plump body. She was
voluptuous
—that was the word. He reckoned she was maybe twenty-one. A good age. She had neither the look nor attitude of a virgin. Her modesty—the hand over the mouth and the rest of it—was affected, which added to her mystery.
    She told him that she worked as a secretary in a firm of solicitors and was considering joining the WAAFs. He said that he was a copper, a sergeant. When she asked—as they always did—if he was stalking a killer, he told her as much about the Blackwell case as seemed prudent. She listened, rapt, as he described how they’d found Will Blackwell’s body.
    â€œIt all sounds so frightening,” she said.
    Wallace shrugged. “I suppose. Though dead is dead, after all.” He smiled.
    â€œYes, but the
way
he died.” She looked at her beer, which she’d hardly touched. “Poor old man.”
    â€œIt’s possible he didn’t feel anything beyond a knock on the back of the head. The killer drove in the pitchfork while the old boy wasunconscious. So the doc says.” He wondered if he was saying more than he should—if the beer was loosening his tongue. He must watch himself.
    They talked for another half hour. Wallace tried to get more out of Delilah—who she was, really, and why she had come to The Fallen Diva to sit alone. But Delilah deflected his questions. At closing, she said “I must get home now.” She offered no explanation and Wallace asked for none. He wondered if he’d pressed her too hard for information.
    She picked up her purse and stood. Wallace escorted her to the dark street. He’d had his three pints and felt within himself. He was prepared to go home, get a decent night’s sleep, and appear in the nick on the following morning ready to go, like a loyal dog. Except that he didn’t want to go home. Not yet.
    The night had grown cool enough for a sweater, though Delilah had none. Wallace removed his coat and put it around her shoulders. To