Dialogues of the Dead

18

“Well, look who’s here,” said Andy Dalziel. “Come in, lad. Find a chair. Make yourself comfortable. Good of you to spare the time.”

The academics, unreliable as ever, must have been punctual.

Spouting apologies, Hat concentrated on the guests, to blot out Dalziel’s threatening glower and Pascoe’s reproachful pout. Even Wield’s blankness spelt out well-I-did-warn-you.

Dr. Pottle, the psychiatrist, was a small man in late middle age who had deliberately cultivated a natural resemblance to Einstein. “Patients find it very reassuring,” he’d once told Peter Pascoe who was, unofficially and intermittently, one of those patients. “Also I like to tell the really dotty ones that I’ve built a time machine and travelled into the future and everything’s going to be all right for them.”

“And how does it look for me, Professor?” Pascoe had replied.

Pottle’s other idiosyncrasy was that despite all the social, medical and political pressure, he still chainsmoked. Dalziel, who was an off-on smoker currently going through a pretty extensive off patch, bowed to the inevitable, helped himself to a handful of Pottle’s fags, and was drawing on the first like a drowning sailor come up for the third time.

The other expert was introduced as Dr. Drew Urquhart. Not very old, as far as Bowler could make out through a wilderness of beard. Fortunately he kept his upper lip bare. Had he worn the kind of Einsteinian moustache Pottle favoured, his features would have been beyond even a mother’s recognition. Dressed in non-matching trainers, threadbare jeans and a T-shirt which had rotted under the armpits to provide what seemed like very necessary ventilation holes, he looked more like a resident of cardboard-box country in the shopping centre than the Groves of Academe.

“Fuck this,” he growled in a Scots accent, unidentifiable to Bowler except that it wasn’t Glaswegian. “If I’m going to be choked dead then I might as well do it on my own weed.”

He produced a cigarette paper and began to fill it with something he took from a small leather pouch.

Dalziel said, “You light that, sunshine, and I’ll kick you all the way back to the Kingdom of Fife.”

“You check up on all your visitors, do you, Superintendent?” sneered Urquhart.

“Don’t need to check. Should have thought being a linguist you’d know you give yourself away every time you open your gob.”

“I’m impressed. Deeply offended but impressed,” said Urquhart.

He put away the pouch with the offending substance and said, “Can we start? I’ve got places to be.”

“Oh aye? Going ratting, are you?” asked Dalziel, letting his gaze run up and down the linguist’s dress.

Pottle said, “Now that we have got these necessary pecking-order rituals out of the way, I too should like to put in an appeal for expedition.”

“I’ll not argue with that. Quicker the better, in my view,” said Dalziel. “Pete, this is your circus, so you’d better crack the whip.”

“Thank you,” said Pascoe. “May I say first of all how grateful we are to Dr. Pottle and Dr. Urquhart for coming along this morning at such short notice. It seemed to me that as we must now admit without any prevarication that we have a serial killer on our hands, the wider we cast our net in search of expert assistance, and the sooner we set about casting it, the better. I realize you have had what is in analytical terms a ludicrously short time in which to study the Wordman documents, but what first impressions may lack in depth they can make up in freshness, Dr. Pottle.”

“Let me first apologize to my esteemed colleague, Dr. Urquhart, in case anything I say should seem to trespass on his mystery, for of course my only route to understanding the writer of these pieces is via the words the writer uses.”

“Dinna fash yersel’, Pozzo,” said the Scot. “I’ll not be backward in dishing out the psychobabble.”

“Thank you. First Dialogue. The very use of the word Dialogue is significant. A dialogue is an exchange of ideas and information between two or more people. For these to be true dialogues our Wordman-I use the term for convenience-must be listening as well as speaking. And I think we can see that he is doing this in two ways. Firstly there are gaps in the text, blank lines, and it is not difficult to fill these in with unrecorded replies to the Wordman’s comments or questions. For the most part these would be conversational trivia rather than matter of deep import such as you might expect to find in a dialogue proper. For example, in this first one, between How’re you doing? and Me, I’m fine, I think, we might interpolate OK. How about yourself? Then between Me, I’m fine I think and It’s hard to tell sometimes, we might put What do you mean, ‘think’? It should be noted that the tone here, as throughout the Dialogues in these small exchanges, is friendly and familiar, as between people who are very close and on a fairly equal footing.”

“I think we just about got there by ourselves,” said Pascoe apologetically, aware of steatopygous squeakings from Dalziel’s chair. “You said there were two forms of dialogue. …”

“Indeed. The other is the more formal and mysterious one in which the Wordman believes he is receiving advice, aid, and instruction from some otherworldly power who may or may not be or may be in part only the familiar communicant of the first form. Finally of course the Wordman is indulging in a dialogue with us. That is, with you the investigators of these crimes, with Mr. Urquhart and myself as your associates, and with the world at large who form as it were his wider audience.”

“Can I say something here?” said Urquhart. “You may have missed it, Pozzo, and me I only picked it up through a reference in a dictionary, but then I got a friend to check it out …”

“Friend?” said Pascoe, again pre-empting the Fat Man. “You haven’t been showing the Dialogues to anyone unauthorized, I hope.”

“Don’t get your Y-fronts in a tangle,” said Urquhart. “It was just a wee hairie in the Eng. Lit. Department that I bang from time to time and she disna ken any more than she needs to ken. What she told me was that there’s this thing in literature called a ‘Dialogue of the Dead.’ Started way back with Lucian …”

“That’d be Lord Lucian?” said Dalziel.

“Ha ha. Second-century Syrian rhetorician who wrote in Greek. There was a big revival of interest in England in the eighteenth century, the Augustans and what followed, all that classical crap. Biggest success was Lord Lyttelton’s Dialogues of the Dead in 1760. Twenty-eight dialogues including three by some bluestocking called Mrs. Montagu-the best three my wee friend assures me, but she may be partial. There were a few more written right through the nineteenth century but the form had pretty well died the death before Queen Vicky snuffed it.”

“And what did this form consist of?” enquired Pascoe.

“Debates in the Nether Regions between the shades of real historical characters and imagined characters, sometimes with supernatural beings from mythology holding the ring. I checked a few out. There’s one with Mercury and an English Duellist and a North-American Savage, another with Sir Thomas More and the Vicar of Bray. Purpose usually, though not always, satirical. Written out like drama, name of character then what he or she says, but no stage directions or settings described. Meant to be read, not performed.”

“But we don’t get names given here,” said Pascoe, looking down at his copy of the Dialogues.

“You wouldn’t expect them, would you? That would give the game away from the start. May be a blind alley, but seems to me the Wordman’s dialogue is with someone dead and he’s certainly bent on increasing the population of the underworld. Seemed worth a mention. Anyway, in your business, leave no stone unturned if you want to see the wriggly wee insects run, eh?”

“We’re much obliged, Doctor,” murmured Pascoe, who’d been making notes.

“Oh God,” groaned Dalziel. “Not past the first word yet, and already me brain’s hurting.”

“Perhaps if we could move on,” said Pascoe, glancing at his watch. “I know your time is precious, gentlemen.”

“Very well,” said Pottle, lighting another cigarette from the butt-end in his hand. “After the title, the illustration-or should I say illumination? I gather that you have already received expert advice about the stylistic source …”

“In a manner of speaking,” said Pascoe carefully. “DC Bowler, perhaps you would like to fill us in?”

Taken by surprise, Hat swallowed nervously before replying, “Well, Mr. Dee at the library said he thought it was based on some medieval Celtic script. He showed me something that was a bit like it in, I think it was some eighth-century Irish gospel …”

He was aware that the Fat Man’s eyes had closed and his mouth opened in a hippopotamic yawn, and he cursed Pascoe for making his first contribution to the Great Consult something which was almost bound to get up those huge nostrils. But now the DCI, perhaps feeling guilty, took up the running and went on, “… and it would seem that the design represents the In P of the opening line of St. John’s Gospel: In principio erat verbum …”

“In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God,” intoned Dalziel, opening his eyes. “Yeah yeah, we all did Bible Studies, except maybe young Bowler here who probably had to learn the Kama Sutra or something. Doctor Pottle, can we mebbe just cut to a few conclusions and save all the fancy stuff for an article?”

“The first thing that struck me about the drawing was the way all the continuation letters were piled up together. I was reminded of a virus which once got into the hospital computer system and sent all the letters you typed tumbling to the foot of the screen. I wondered if perhaps this meant our Wordman felt of himself that he had some kind of virus affecting his brain.”

“You mean he knows he’s off his chump?” said Dalziel. “Great!”

“It fits in with other indications that he is not yet completely at ease with the idea of killing people,” continued Pottle serenely. “The drawing is only one of many attempts to fit his behaviour into a quasi-religious context which has two main functions. The first is, of course, justification. It is God, or his agent in the Other World, who points the finger in some sequential way still to be fathomed. The Wordman is to some extent an instrument of divine purpose, or of divine requirement if the Wordman is to achieve some purpose of his own, which is not altogether clear. Yet despite this pretence to supernatural necessity, the Wordman’s unease shows in the need he feels to suggest that the victims are better off dead, either for their own sakes or for the sake of society at large, or sometimes both. You have probably noticed that the drowned man in the water under the bridge also resembles a figure crucified, like St. Andrew, on an X-shaped cross.”

“Know how he felt,” muttered Andy Dalziel.

Pascoe gave him a glower and urged, “You said the religious context had two functions, Doctor. Justification and …?”

“Yes. And invulnerability. This suspension of time thing. It seems to be literal, not a metaphor. God or his agent is masterminding events and, being all-powerful, he is not about to let his instrument get caught. Herein perhaps lies your best hope of catching the writer. The risks taken in respect of Councillor Steel’s murder were enormous and could only be countenanced by someone who felt completely invulnerable. The longer this goes on, the greater the risks taken are likely to be.”

“You’re saying that with a bit of luck, and if he goes on long enough, we’ll catch him in the act?” said the Fat Man incredulously. “If that’s the best you can do, don’t it make all this palaver a bit pointless, Doctor?”

The degree of scorn Dalziel could infuse into a form of address could probably provide a linguist with material for a thesis, thought Pascoe.

“Maybe I can give a wee bit of practical help here,” said Urquhart. “See this bit of the illumination here …”

He pointed to the bottom of the twin stems of the I.

“Aye, the cows,” said Dalziel.

Urquhart laughed and said, “They’d need to be Highland cattle with horns like these. No, not cows. Oxen, I think.”

“Oxen. Great. Now we’re really getting somewhere. Make a note of that, Chief Inspector.”

“What are you getting at?” asked Pascoe.

“Aleph,” said Urquhart significantly.

“Is that Aleph in Wonderland or Aleph Through the Looking Glass?” enquired Dalziel.

“Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet,” said Urquhart. “It is also the Old Hebrew and Phoenician word meaning ox, and it seems likely that the form the letter takes is based on a hieroglyph of an ox’s head. Greek alpha is derived from this, and ultimately Roman and our own a which, in some versions of its capital form can still be seen to contain those original hieroglyphic elements. As thus in the Book of Kells …”

He took out a pen and drew a letter:

Dalziel looked at it in silence for a moment then said, “If they served me that as an ox’s head, I’d send it back. Is there any point to all this, lad?”

“A of course is also a word, the first word as it is the first letter of our alphabet. In the beginning was the word … And note the references in the Dialogue to the indefinite beginnings of the path. A is the indefinite article. You will be wondering perhaps why there are two oxen, two alephs …”

“The AA man,” said Pascoe. “Whose initials are also AA. Which the Wordman took for a sign. So what are you saying, Dr. Urquhart? That there could be some alphabetical sequence here?”

“No, sorry. I can see how that might be useful, but there’s nothing obvious in the others. You might get a b from boy or even bazouki in the Pitman case, but that would be stretching, and all the c’s in the Ripley case and the d’s in the Steel case seem completely out of reach. So I doubt if what you’ve got here is a straightforward alphabetical progression. Your Wordman might, of course, be simply spelling a word. In which case let us hope it’s a short one, but it’s just as likely it could be several words which form a message.”

“Am having a good time, wish you were here,” suggested Dalziel, scratching his crotch like a man refuting Bishop Berkeley. “Look, gents, as the actress said to the bishop, can you make this a quickie as I’ve got work to do? Any long-term stuff, or general theorizing, mebbe you could set it down in writing when you’ve had more chance to study the Dialogues, and I’ll hang it up in the CID bog so we all get a chance to use it.”

Bowler, who’d been puzzled by the academics’ apparent indifference to the Fat Man’s sceptical rudeness, caught a glance passing between Pascoe and Pottle, and it came to him that the DCI had forewarned them of Dalziel’s likely reaction, which previous acquaintance had probably prepared them for anyway.

Urquhart said, “I’d certainly like more time to check out this illumination. It wouldn’t surprise me to find a lot more stuff hidden there. But for the time being I think I can say that what you’ve got here is someone obsessed with language, not just at a linguistic level, but at a philosophical level, maybe even a magical level. Words originally were simply the names of things and human transactions, both practical and abstract, couldn’t have functioned without them. I mean, if you don’t know the names, you have to produce the things themselves, and you end up like the academicians in Swift’s Lagado, dragging around a bagful of articles you may possibly want to refer to. In primitive societies the belief still exists that knowledge of the real names of individuals or even certain objects gives you power over them which is why they are at such pains to keep them secret. Spells are words arranged in a significant order and often coupled with the secret names of deities or devils-”

“So we’re looking for a nut who probably likes doing riddles and crosswords?” Dalziel crashed in brutally. “Dr. Pottle?”

“I think your Wordman is a seriously disturbed personality who will show very little sign of this on the surface, in fact may appear a particularly laid-back and unflappable individual. But this will have been acquired behaviour and if you look back far enough in their lives, such individuals will almost inevitably have done something or experienced something which gives a hint that dangerous currents and tangling weeds may lie beneath that placid surface.”

“Well, that really narrows things down,” said Dalziel. “That it, then?”

His tone didn’t invite further discourse but Pascoe said, “Before you go, I wonder if this means anything to either of you?”

He showed them a piece of paper on which was drawn.

Pottle examined it, turned it round, shrugged and said, “I’d need to know much more about its context to even hazard a guess.”

Pascoe said, “There was a wound on Councillor Steel’s head. It may be, and certainly we can find no other candidate, the necessary mark referred to in the Dialogue. When the blood was washed away, these are the marks left by the burin. They could of course be accidental, but their resemblance to letters, a P certainly, and a badly formed M perhaps. The squiggle between could be simply an incidental ripping of the skin or it may be another less well-defined but nonetheless deliberate mark.”

Dalziel looked sceptical but his left hand was scratching his stubble pate as if impelled by some irresistible sympathy.

Urquhart suddenly snickered a laugh.

“Share the joke, sunshine?” suggested Dalziel.

“The councillor was called Cyril, wasn’t he?” said the linguist. “In the Russian Cyrillic alphabet, what looks like our P is in fact an R, while that thing that you called a badly formed M could be a Cyrillic P. And if the scratch in between is just a shorthand I which is rather a complex letter in Russian and not easy to do in a hurry on a head with an engraving tool, this could simply be RIP in the Cyrillic alphabet. Gerrit?”

Dalziel shook his head as if to clear it of the aftereffects of long slumber and rose slowly to his feet.

“Gorrit,” he said in a mild, long-suffering voice. “Right joker, this Wordman, ain’t he? What’s it they say? Laugh and the world laughs with you. Thanks, gents. That’s definitely it. Sergeant Wield will show you out.”

Pascoe, clearly feeling that this expression of appreciation fell some way short of warm, said, “It’s been really useful. Many thanks for giving us your time this morning. We’ll look forward to hearing from you again as soon as you’ve had time for mature reflection, won’t we, sir?”

“Can’t wait,” said Dalziel. “And Sergeant Wield, be sure to arrest Dr. Urquhart if he starts smoking that stuff afore he leaves the building.”

The linguist, who had once more taken his leather pouch from his pocket, paused in the doorway, smiled at Dalziel and said, “Away play wi’ yersel’, Hamish.”

It wasn’t often his underlings had the pleasure of seeing their Great Master nonplussed but for a moment after the door closed behind Pottle, Urquhart and Wield, this was an experience Pascoe and Bowler enjoyed.

Then he turned his gaze on them and they both smoothed away all signs of anything but alert intelligence from their faces.

“So, Peter, you happy now?” demanded Dalziel.

“I think it was a very useful meeting, sir, and with luck we’ll get a great deal more help from the pair of them.”

“You reckon? And mebbe I’ll join the Women’s Institute. Jesus, you’d think on the Sabbath, we could get just a little bit of real help in taking things forward. Owt ’ud do. Just a name with enough justification for me to go and kick shit out of it.”

“There’s always Roote.”

“Still whistling that tune, Pete? Thought your dog here had sniffed him out and found nowt.”

First Wield, now the Fat Man. Not forgetting, of course, Roote himself. Did the whole world know about his so-called secret surveillance? wondered Hat.

“And there weren’t owt in his statement nor anyone else’s to put him in the frame for the councillor, were there?”

“He’s a clever fellow,” said Pascoe.

“Ah, I see. That means the cleaner he looks, the guiltier he obviously is, does it? Tell you what, minute you see him walking on water with an angelic choir singing ‘Jerusalem,’ you pull your wellies on and put him under arrest. Bowler, how about you? Are you good for owt more than kissing strange men in public lavatories?”

It wasn’t a very inviting invitation, but Hat guessed it was the only one he was likely to get.

He said, “I checked out one or two people, and something came up, probably nothing …”

“You’d best not be wasting my time with it if it’s probably nothing, lad,” growled Dalziel.

“No, sir. It’s this writer fellow, Charley Penn. He was at the preview, and it’s reported that he had a bit of a set-to with Councillor Steel, so that’s why I ran him through the computer. And it turns out he has a record.”

“For writing crap?” said Dalziel.

“No, sir. For assault. Five years ago he got bound over in Leeds for assaulting a journalist.”

“Oh aye? Should have given him the George Cross. Pete, you know owt about this bugger’s homicidal tendencies?”

“Yes, sir,” said Pascoe almost apologetically, not wanting to sound like he was putting Hat down. “I mean, I’ve heard a story, though I wasn’t sure how apocryphal it was. Version I heard, Penn got pissed off with a review and crowned said journalist with a slice of gateau, so not exactly a deadly weapon.”

“Way my missus baked, it was,” said Dalziel. “That it then, Bowler? You reckon we should pull Penn in and wire his bollocks to a table lamp just because he shampooed some miserable reporter with a cream cake?”

“No, sir. Not exactly …what I mean is, I thought he might be worth a chat …”

“Oh aye? Give me half a good reason.”

“The journalist’s name was Jacqueline Ripley, sir.”

Dalziel’s jaw dropped in exaggerated amazement.

“Jax the Ripper? By God! Pete, why’d you not tell me it was Jax the Ripper?”

“Didn’t know, sir. Sorry. Well done, Hat.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Bowler, blushing faintly. “I even managed to get a copy of the article.”

“How on earth did you manage that?” said Pascoe.

“Well, I rang the Yorkshire Life office. Chances of finding anyone there on a Sunday didn’t seem good, but I hit lucky and got the editor, Mr. Macready, and he was very helpful and dug out the piece and faxed me a copy …”

“You mean you’ve alerted a journalist to the fact that we’re trying to make connections between Charley Penn and a murder victim?” snapped Pascoe. “For God’s sake, man, what were you thinking of?”

Hat Bowler, who had produced the fax sheet with the flourish of a Chamberlain announcing peace in our time, looked aghast at the speed with which war had been declared.

But help came from an unexpected source.

“Nay, never fear,” said Dalziel, plucking the fax from his nervous fingers. “I know Alec Macready, big church man, big swordsman too. He’ll be no bother, not if he wants to stay on the Bishop’s Christmas card list. Well done, young Bowler. It’s good to know there’s still someone round here willing to do a bit of old-fashioned police work. Charley Penn, eh? Now, if I recall aright, his chosen place of worship on a Sunday morning is The Dog and Duck. Let’s go and find him.”

“Sir, wouldn’t it be better to ask him to come here perhaps …I mean, it’s a bit public …”

“Aye, that’s why they call them pubs, lad. For God’s sake, I’m not going to arrest him. Hit Jax the Ripper with a slice of cake, did he? Good old Charley! I’ll mebbe buy the bugger a drink.”

“I think,” said Pascoe, “in view of the fact that Ripley has just been murdered it would be undiplomatic to take that line in the pub, sir.”

“Bad taste, tha means? Likely you’re right. I’ll not buy him a drink then. Bowler, got your wallet? You can buy us both one!”