Play Dead by Bill James

even OK-plus.
    The Biro face incision was on the far side from Harpur and out of sight. Speaking generally, Harpur felt glad of that. Although he thought the damage had been necessary as a playful deterrent in case Iles went totally and murderously berserk from sex jealousy, he didn’t want to spend much time looking at it, any more than he’d enjoyed hearing that wound lovingly try to hang on to the pen by flesh grip when Harpur pulled it out. Blood had rivuletted down the ACC’s face, soaking his shirt collar and jacket lapel. He looked like a fencing slip-up - sabre fencing as a sport, not the building site, Keep Out kind of fencing. In the sport, someone on the end of a hit would cry ‘touché’ to acknowledge token contact from the other’s foil. The delve into Iles’s face by Biro went several millimetres beyond a surface touch, though. The Assistant Chief’s mucked-up clothes could go with Harpur’s suit to the cleaners in the morning, unless Iles objected to having his gear treated as a unit with Harpur’s. He’d probably regard that as disgusting impudence, like being asked to use Harpur’s comb. The front passenger seat would need some scrubbing.
    â€˜What actual
type
of thing did we learn, or half-learn, sir - its ballpark category?’ Harpur asked. ‘Just for clarification.’
    â€˜Fuck ballparks. That’s not our lingo.’
    â€˜What actual type of thing did we learn, sir - its broad British category?’ Harpur asked. ‘Just for clarification.’
    â€˜I knew you’d get there eventually, Col.’
    â€˜Thank you, sir.’
    â€˜Off the beaten track, Harpur.’
    â€˜In which respect, sir?’
    â€˜Yes, off the beaten track.’
    â€˜New methods of looking at things, do you mean, sir - methods off the beaten track, so to speak? What’s referred to, I gather, as “
lateral
thinking”? Escape the narrowness and clichéd response of the usual approach?’
    â€˜Off the beaten track,’ Iles replied. ‘This comes out of our little sojourn on the Elms Estate housing project tonight. You might ask, “Who is or was off the beaten track, and which beaten track?” That’s an entirely reasonable question in the present circs, and a sign of your not by any means negligible acumen.’
    â€˜Which, sir?’
    â€˜Which what?’
    â€˜Well, circs,’ Harpur said.
    â€˜These.’
    â€˜Who is or was off the beaten track, sir? I think that’s an entirely reasonable question in the present circs.’
    â€˜Interesting, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Which?’ Harpur replied.
    â€˜Which what?’
    â€˜Which beaten track?’
    â€˜That’s the heart of it, in my view,’ Iles said. ‘Certainly worth some consideration. You’ve put your finger on it, Col. I was convinced you would. People say all those things about you, but I think they’re hasty.’
    â€˜Which things?’
    â€˜Malign.’
    â€˜In which respect, sir?’
    â€˜Don’t let them depress you, Col. You have your positive aspects. They’re not on palpable show but they’re there somewhere in you. I tell these critics it’s impossible and unfair to judge a man entirely by his slouch appearance and casual attention to hygiene.’
    â€˜Thank you, sir.’
    So, after their little charade on Elms, flitting in and out of their true selves, flitting in and out of their make-believe selves, alive and dead - Harpur and Iles went next evening to call on the real Jane and Gerald at their flat off Guild Square. It must be a weird experience for the ACC to, as it were, hand back their identities to this couple, Iles having been both of them less than twenty-four hours ago in very memorable conditions, voice bang-on for each, characters passably defined: she large-minded, bold; he cautious, sceptical. ‘But surely the case is closed,’ Gerald said,