Free The Dying of the Light: A Mystery by Michael Dibdin Page B

week-by-week league position, 1956–1962’).
    The door was opened by a lanky man in his mid-forties wearing a blue blazer and white flannel trousers. His long florid face rose to a mat of slicked hair which had receded to the centre of his skull. In his left hand he held a cut-glass tumbler filled with an amber liquid. He peered at Jarvis.
    ‘Not today, thank you,’ he said, starting to close the door. ‘Nor indeed any other day, for that matter.’
    Jarvis flashed a regulation smile.
    ‘Mr Anderson? I believe you’re expecting me.’
    The man eyed him blearily.
    ‘You may also believe that the earth is flat, for all I know. It doesn’t follow that such is in fact the case.’
    Jarvis felt his guts clench as though in the first stirrings of indigestion. Just when everything had seemed to be going so well. He unbuttoned the dark blue overcoat he’d got half-price in the sales, revealing an acrylic-rich suit from which he produced his warrant card.
    ‘Detective-Inspector Stanley Jarvis, sir . I am calling with regard to Mrs Dorothy Hilda Davenport, née Cooke, deceased.’
    The man squinted at the warrant card.
    ‘You don’t look anything like the person in this photograph.’
    ‘I was given to understand that you had been informed of and had agreed to this visit,’ snarled Jarvis, with whom the quantity of weight gained and hair lost over the past few years was a sore point. ‘One of my associates was in telephonic communication with a certain …’
    He took out his notebook.
    ‘… Miss Davis.’
    Anderson raised his hands in surrender.
    ‘Ah, the fair Letitia! That explains everything. Say no more, Inspector! I’ll come quietly, it’s a fair cop, lock me up for my own good, I get these terrible urges, etcetera etcetera.’
    He opened the door wide and Jarvis stepped inside. The hall was deep, bare and resonant. A boar’s head projected from a trophy hung high on one wall. Next to the door stood an elephant’s foot hollowed out to take an assortment of sticks and umbrellas. The air was chill and dank, the light dull.
    ‘This way, Inspector!’
    Anderson padded across the flagstones towards a lighted doorway. Hush Puppies squealing underfoot, Jarvis followed. The room they entered was small and windowless and smelt strongly of mould. All four walls were covered in shelving crammed with books of every conceivable size, shape and colour. The furniture consisted of a leather armchair which had seen better days and an antique writing-desk supporting an array of spirit bottles.
    Jarvis looked round at the serried spines and titles, most of which were either illegible or incomprehensible. Several were in foreign languages. None seemed to have anything to do with the history or fortunes of Accrington Stanley FC.
    ‘Like books, do you, sir?’ he remarked archly.
    ‘How very astute of you, Inspector. One can readily see why you have risen to a position of such eminence. As you so rightly surmise, bibliomania is indeed one of my principal pleasures, the other being alcoholism.’
    He selected one of the bottles from the escritoire and poured a generous quantity into his tumbler.
    ‘I’d be more than happy to offer you a dram,’ he told Jarvis heartily, ‘but generations of literary coppers saying “Not while I’m on duty, sir” have no doubt made it impossible for you to accept such an offer even if you felt so inclined. Thus are we constrained by fictions.’
    Leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece, Anderson fixed his visitor with an expression of polite attention. Jarvis realized it was incumbent on him to say something. He consulted his thoughts. They were empty.
    ‘This is just a routine visit, sir,’ he declared.
    ‘That’s what they all say, Inspector.’
    Jarvis cleared his throat.
    ‘Who all?’ he demanded. ‘I mean, all who?’
    That didn’t sound right either.
    ‘Along with refusing a drink because they’re on duty,’ said Anderson, taking a gulp of his whisky.
    We’ve got a right one