Dialogues of the Dead

37

“The Bouphonia,” said Drew Urquhart, “which can be translated as ‘the murder of the ox,’ was an Athenian rite aimed at bringing an end to a period of drought and its associated deprivations. You’ll likely have read about it in The Golden Bough. …”

He paused and directed a smile at Dalziel, who said, “I don’t do much reading in pubs. Just give us the gist.”

“Frazer describes the ritual thus. Barley and wheat were laid on the altar and oxen driven close by. The animal that went up to the altar and started eating was sacrificed by men using axe and knife, which weapons they immediately threw away from them and fled. Ultimately everyone concerned in the animal’s death stood trial, each passed on the blame till it came to be laid completely at the door of the knife and the axe which were judged guilty, condemned and hurled into the sea.”

Pascoe, who had been listening closely-unlike his master who had cupped his great hands round his great face and was groaning softly into the resultant funnel with a sound like a rising westerly echoing through Fingal’s Cave-asked, “So you think this is why the Wordman threw the gun away but not the axe? The Hon. was dead when his head got chopped off so the axe wasn’t guilty.”

“That’s right. You’ll have noticed how he talks about the weapon more or less firing itself, just as he talks about the victim selecting itself, like the Athenian ox. By the by, did the PM find any sign he’d been eating anything?”

Pascoe glanced at Dalziel who was the arbiter of how much information they gave non-officials, but before he could get eye contact, Dr. Pottle (back to full smoking strength after his recent illness) said, “More significant than all these word games he clearly likes playing could be the strong sexual imagery he uses here. It’s what’s happening in his psyche that will give us the clue to track him down, not his warped rationality. That is an area over which, by its very nature, he still has some control. It’s the emotions, the passions, running out of control which will betray him in the end. At the very least, they may result in the deposit of significant physical traces. You’ve checked the ground thoroughly for signs of semen, I presume? It reads to me as if ejaculation almost certainly took place either during or immediately after the event.”

Dalziel’s head emerged from its cavern and he said coldly, “I’m not right sure what your job is, Dr. Pottle, but one thing I’m sure it’s not is telling me mine. By a stroke of luck which was long overdue it were one of my own officers who was first on the scene, so as far as possible it’s been kept uncontaminated. Yes, we’ve gone over every inch of that terrain for half a mile in all directions. Yes, everything there was to be recorded, removed, examined and analysed has been taken care of. We’ve dragged the tarn and found the gun and a deal of rubbish beside, none of which looks like it might be relevant. We’ve got the axe from the cottage and found traces of blood on it which show it was the same as was used on the Hon. Geoffrey. And, yes, Mr. Urquhart, the post mortem found traces of cucumber sandwich in his mouth and on the bank by the boat we found a sandwich, wholewheat bread, by the bye, with a single bite out of it. All this is confidential police information which I’m telling you just to show how far I’m willing to go to catch this lunatic. If any of it helps either of you two jokers to tell us owt useful, speak now or forever hold your pieces.”

He regarded the visiting experts with the open expression of a man who had laid all his cards on the table. Except of course, thought Pascoe, he hadn’t mentioned that Bowler had confessed to allowing his bit of skirt to seriously contaminate the scene, he hadn’t mentioned that they’d turned Stangcreek Cottage upside down and questioned Dick Dee for five hours straight off (during which time he hadn’t asked for his solicitor and at the end of which time he’d looked a lot fresher than his interrogators) before releasing him, and he hadn’t mentioned that a very alert forensic examiner had noticed faint traces of blood on the fish hook on one of the rods in the boat, which on examination had proved to be human and AB, unlike the Hon.’s which was A. And he certainly hadn’t mentioned that the Hon.’s Land-Rover, which they’d alerted police forces nationally to look out for, had just been discovered in the police car-pound to which it had been removed for illegal parking behind the railway station.

The Dialogue hadn’t turned up till Monday morning when it was discovered among the library mail, but from the moment Bowler had rung in on Sunday with news of his grisly discovery, they’d treated it as a Wordman killing.

Not, as Wield had observed, that this made them feel like they were one step ahead of the game, only that the bugger now had them all playing it according to his rules.

Now, on Tuesday morning, Pascoe had persuaded a reluctant Dalziel that it was time to hear what the “experts” had to say.

“Well?” growled Dalziel.

Urquhart scratched his stubbly chin with a noise which sounded like a challenge to the heavyweight champion of carnal frication who sat before him and said, “Trinal, trinity, in three parts. Find out what he’s on about there and you might be in sniffing distance of what makes the bugger tick.”

“Doesn’t it just refer to the three blows used to chop the head off?” suggested Pascoe.

“That certainly reinforces it,” said the linguist. “But a head and a body make two parts not three, so it’s not that. And why roll the body into the water and put the head into the fishing basket? There’s something going on here that we’re missing.”

“That it?” said Dalziel. “There’s summat we’re missing? Well, thank you, Sherlock. Dr. Pottle, owt you can add to that, or mebbe you feel your colleague’s said it all?”

Pottle lit a fresh cigarette from the one he was smoking and said, “He’s really getting into his swing. I don’t know how far away the proposed end is, but he’s completely sure he’s going to get there now. This is by far the shortest Dialogue yet. The further he gets, the shorter they’re likely to become. Reliving the last experience in words is merely occupying precious time which could better be devoted to looking forward to the next one. Now he’s certain he’s on the right path, his dialogue with his victims and with his spirit-guide can just as easily continue in his mind as on the page.”

“You think he might stop writing altogether?” said Pascoe.

“No. That part of the writing which is part of the game he’s playing with us will remain. It’s in the rules, so to speak. And he enjoys it. I said last time that his growing confidence is likely to be his downfall. I think that more and more he will be dropping little clues into his Dialogues. He’s like a squash player who is so certain of his vast superiority that he’ll start playing with the racket in his wrong hand, or boasting all his shots off the back wall. But the subconscious self-revelations which I am looking for will be much harder to find. Though it hurts me to say it, I think that from now on Mr. Urquhart’s skills are going to be more useful than mine.”

Dalziel let out a sigh so redolent of tragic despair he could have sold it to Mrs. Siddons. As if in response, his phone rang.

He answered. With most people it’s possible to gauge something of their relationship with a caller from tone of voice, vocabulary, body language, et cetera, but Pascoe had never found a way of working out whether Dalziel were speaking to the Queen or an estate agent.

“Dalziel,” he snarled. Listened. “Aye.” Listened. “Nay.” Listened. “Mebbe.” Dropped the receiver on to the rest so that it bounced.

Cap Marvell perhaps asking if he fancied a bout of violent sexual activity in his lunch hour? The PM offering him a peerage? The Wordman threatening his life?

“That it, gents?” said Dalziel hopefully.

Pottle and Urquhart looked at each other, then the Scot said, “Way I see it, words are the key. This is like breaking a text-based code. You can do it the long way, by sheer hard work, or you can hit lucky and find the significant text, or texts.”

“Or you can hope his growing arrogance results in a clue that someone can solve before rather than after the event,” said Pottle.

“I’ll make a note of that,” said the Fat Man dismissively. “Thanks, gents. Work to do. DC Bowler here will see you out.”

Pottle and Urquhart gathered their papers together. Pascoe said effusively, “Good of you both to come. Please don’t hesitate to give me a ring if anything occurs.”

At the door Urquhart said with heavy irony, “Don’t know why it is, Superintendent, but whenever I leave these meetings, I sometimes get to worrying just a wee bittie how much you really think I’ve managed to help you.”

“Nay, Mr. Urquhart,” said Dalziel with a fulsome orotundity, “I’d be real sorry to think I’d left you in any doubt about that.

“Plonker,” he added as the door closed, or maybe just a moment earlier.

“Then I don’t really see why you bother to sit in on these sessions,” said Pascoe, letting his irritation show.

“Because if I weren’t ready to spend time with plonkers, I’d likely be a lonely man,” said Dalziel. “Any road, I didn’t say he were a useless plonker. And if Pozzo says we ought to listen to him, then mebbe we should. He sometimes puffs out a bit of sense.”

This was a roundabout concession to Pascoe, who had a good personal relationship with Pottle, and knowing it was the closest he was likely to get to an apology, the DCI put aside his irritation and said, “So where do we go from here, sir?”

“Me, I’m going to see Desperate Dan. That were him on the phone. You, if I remember right, have got a date with the vultures. Don’t know what Wieldy here has got on. Mebbe he can find time to do a bit of police work if some bugger doesn’t want him to judge a bonny baby competition.”

Desperate Dan was Chief Constable Trimble. The vultures were the media. Interest in the Wordman killings had increased exponentially with each new death and this latest killing had rocketed it into an international dimension. Not only was the Hon. a peer of the realm, but one of the tabloids had worked out that there was a distant royal connection which put him at something like three hundred and thirty-seventh in line to the throne. American and European interest had exploded. One German TV company had dug up a would-be telly don whose claim that a Pyke-Strengler had been beheaded during the Civil War sparked speculation that a left-wing revolutionary movement was behind the killing. Attempts to fit the earlier killings into such a political pattern were proving ludicrous, but journalists haven’t reached the depths of their profession by allowing ludicrosity to get in the way of a good story.

Pascoe, who had ambiguous feelings about being regarded as the acceptable face of policing, had been elected spokesman at the forthcoming press conference. His ambiguity rose from a reluctance to accept the kind of type-casting which, while it might be good for his career, could also take it in directions he was not yet ready to go. The world of policy committees and high-level political contacts might get a lot of scrambled egg on your shoulders, but it was far removed from that other world of practical investigation which got a lot of honest dirt under your fingernails. Like St. Augustine and sex, he knew he’d have to give it up one day, but preferably not yet.

“Mr. Trimble wants an update, does he?” he asked.

“Update?” said Dalziel. “Nay, the bugger wants a result and he wants it yesterday. Someone up there’s giving him a hard time.”

He spoke with the grim satisfaction of one who knows what a hard time is. Pascoe observed him with a sympathy he was careful not to show. Dalziel drove his troops mercilessly when the occasion demanded, but he took his own bumps and rarely passed them on to his underlings. Going up or coming down, the buck stopped with Andy Dalziel, and Pascoe could only guess at the strain the Wordman case was putting the Fat Man under.

Hat came back into the room. His reaction to the discovery of the body had won grudging praise from Dalziel, though he had advised for future consideration that on the whole it was best not to let your bit of fluff play netball with the victim’s severed head.

In particular, Hat’s immediate return to Stangcreek Cottage where he’d promptly secured the axe and taken a preliminary statement from Dick Dee had been approved, not because of anything it produced but because it kept the librarian in situ as a witness. That he must also be classed as a suspect, Bowler had known from the minute he saw the body, and if Dee hadn’t been in the cottage when he and Rye got back to it, the DC would have put out a call to pick him up. Similarly if he’d tried to leave before the troops arrived, he would have arrested him which would have started the custodial clock ticking.

Not that it was just professional satisfaction at not wasting any precious senior officer interrogation time that he felt. The way that Rye had accepted Dee’s comforting on their return to the cottage had made him very aware that if she got a sniff he was treating her boss as a serious suspect, the smooth course of their relationship might have hit a rock. She’d probably got the message by now, but at a sufficient remove for the blame to be heaped on Pascoe or the Fat Man rather than his lowly self.

The good news (if the removal of a possible perp from the frame could be called good news) was that they’d found nothing positive to link Dee with the Hon.’s death.

It was true that his prints were all over the axe which Forensic had confirmed was the instrument used to sever the Hon.’s head, but as he’d been using it to split logs in Hat’s presence, this was hardly surprising. He did have a small cut on one of his fingers, but when his claim that his blood type was O was confirmed by a check of his medical records (written permission to see which “for elimination purposes” he readily gave), hope of tying him in to the AB blood spots on the fish hook faded.

Dalziel, who felt that anyone found using a bloodstained axe near a headless body was at the very least guilty of wasting police time, seemed inclined to blame the messenger, but Pascoe’s slim shoulders had grown professionally broad over the years and he was able to ignore the accusatory grunts and snorts and carry on with his meticulous summation of the lack of evidence against Dee.

“The path. report suggests the Hon. had been dead between two and four days. Dee’s alibi’d at work for most of the relevant daylight hours. After work with the evenings drawing in, seems less of a possibility. The time it would have taken to get out there means it would have been dusk when they arrived-”

“They?” interrupted Wield.

“The killer must have driven the Hon.’s Land-Rover back from the tarn, ergo he must have gone out there in it,” said Pascoe. “However, we do know that the Hon. often spent time out there fishing at night. In fact, interestingly, it was Dee himself who told us that. He has been most helpful and co-operative throughout.”

“That’s a mark agin him,” said Dalziel hopefully. “Member of the public trying to help the police has got summat on his conscience, that’s my experience.”

“Perhaps you should widen your social circles, sir,” murmured Pascoe. “But it makes little difference as Dee is alibi’d for the nights too.”

“Oh aye? Shagging someone, is he?” said the Fat Man.

“He didn’t volunteer any details of his emotional life,” said Pascoe. “But he spent one of the evenings in question at a county librarians’ meeting in Sheffield to which he drove with Percy Follows, getting back here after midnight. The other he spent at Charley Penn’s flat where, having drunk very freely of Penn’s Scotch, he spent the night on the sofa. Penn confirms.”

The phone rang. Dalziel picked it up, listened, then said, “If I were on my way, I’d not be answering the sodding phone, would I? Soon!”

He banged it down again.

“Mr. Trimble?” said Pascoe.

“His secretary. If it had been Dan, I’d not have been so polite. Pete, I’m letting you rabbit on like this in the hope you’re keeping the good news till the last. Should I hold my breath?”

“No, sir. Sorry.”

“Then sod it, I might as well go and help Dan find where he’s hid his Scotch,” said the Fat Man, rising and making for the door.

“Sir,” said Hat.

“What sir’s that, lad?” said Dalziel in the doorway.

“Sorry, sir?”

“Is it ‘Mr. Dalziel, sir, please don’t leave ’cos I’ve got summat very perceptive to say’? Or is it ‘Mr. Pascoe, sir, now the old fart’s gone, I’ve got summat very perceptive to say’?”

Hat knew that there were some questions better unanswered.

He said, “I was just thinking, what if there were two of them?”

“Two bodies you mean? Wieldy, you were at the PM. Didn’t the loose bits match?”

Wield said, “Think he means two killers.”

“Jesus. Why stick at two? If we’re into invention, let’s make it a mob.”

“Two would mean that neither of them actually needed to have travelled out to the tarn with Lord Pyke-Strengler,” said Hat. “And there’d have been a spare driver to bring his Land-Rover back.”

“To what end?” enquired Pascoe.

“The Land-Rover would get noticed from a distance out there,” said Hat. “The body where it was could have lain there a lot longer if we hadn’t happened to stumble on it. The longer it lies, the less there is for us to find. Or maybe the idea was to shift it. Maybe that was what Dee was up to, but he saw us wandering around on the far side of the tarn and when we started out towards the cottage, he got back there fast to intercept us. He didn’t seem very keen for us to go on.”

“In your statement all you say is he remarked it got a bit boggy further along the shore,” said Pascoe.

“Well, there’s different ways of saying things,” said Hat, blushing slightly.

“Especially if they don’t fit a thesis, eh?” said Pascoe. “Where’s this leading, Hat? Are we still talking about Dee? Like I just told you, he’s alibi’d.”

“Not if Charley Penn’s the other half of the pair, he isn’t,” said Hat.

Dalziel said, “Still fancy Charley, do you, lad? I’ll say this for you, once you get someone in your sights, you keep the bugger there.”

There wasn’t the usual force in his mockery, however, and Hat felt encouraged enough to go on.

“And if they were both in it, then it doesn’t matter that Penn’s got an alibi for the Johnson killing.”

“Which you established by interviewing his mother,” said Dalziel. “I were going to talk to you about your interview techniques, lad.”

His tone was now distinctly unfriendly.

“Something come up, sir?” said Pascoe.

“Nothing important. Just that Sherlock here got it all wrong and it seems Charley weren’t anywhere near his ma’s place that Sunday.”

Hat felt both crestfallen and elated at the same time.

Pascoe said, “He admits this?”

“He does now,” said Dalziel. “But don’t start oiling your handcuffs. He says he’s got another alibi. Claims he spent the afternoon on the nest with a ladyfriend.”

“And what’s the ladyfriend say?”

“Nowt. Turns out she’s on holiday in the Seychelles for three weeks. With her husband. So we need to tread careful.”

“Why’s that?”

“Seems the lady in question is Maggot Blossom. That’s right. Helpmeet and comfort to Joe Blossom, the Lord of the Flies, our beloved mayor. So we’ll need to wait till they get back afore we make enquiries.”

“Not like you to be so diplomatic, sir,” said Pascoe provocatively.

“Not diplomatic. Careful. Yon Maggot’s got a leg-lock could break a man’s spine.” Then in face of Pascoe’s sceptical moue, he added, “Also, she’s got a tattoo somewhere Charley couldn’t know about unless …Any road, unless young Bowler here can come up with summat more than a funny feeling, looks like Penn’s right on the edge of the frame.”

Hat looked around desperately as if he hoped a messenger might arrive with a freshly penned confession.

Pascoe said encouragingly, “Nothing wrong with informed speculation, Hat. You must have something going through your mind to suggest the possibility that Dee and Penn might enter into a conspiracy?”

Hat said, “Well, they went to the same school.”

“So did Hitler and Wittgenstein,” laughed Pascoe. Then recalled where he’d got this bit of information. From Sam Johnson’s account of his first meeting with Charley Penn. He stopped laughing.

“And they play this weird game together,” Hat went on. “I saw them at it.”

“At it? You talking game as in rumpty-tumpty?” said Dalziel, interested.

“No, sir. It’s a board game, like Scrabble, only a lot harder. They use all kinds of different languages and there’s a lot of other rules. We saw a board when we were round at Penn’s flat, sir.”

“So we did,” said Pascoe. “Some odd name, what was it?”

“Pa-ro-no-mania,” said Hat carefully.

“Not paronomasia?” suggested Pascoe.

“No. Definitely mania. The other means word-play or punning, doesn’t it?” said Hat, happy to show Pascoe that he wasn’t the only clever bugger around.

“So it does,” said Pascoe. “And what does your word-which I must say I’ve never come across-mean?”

“It’s a real word, sir,” averred Hat, detecting a hint of dubiety. “It was Miss Pomona who told me about it after I saw them playing. Hang on, I’ve got a copy of the rules …”

He began to search through the wallet into which he’d put the papers Rye had given him before he’d taken to his sickbed.

“Here we go,” he said triumphantly, handing the tightly creased sheets to Pascoe who unfolded them carefully and read them with interest.

“OED, Second Edition. I stand corrected.”

“And I’m standing like a spare prick at a wedding,” said Dalziel. “This is worse than listening to yon pair of epidemics.”

“Sorry,” said Pascoe. “Hey, now, how about this. The OED always gives the earliest known usage of the word and in this case it’s, wait for it, Lord Lyttelton, 1760, Dialogues of the Dead. How’s that for coincidence?”

“I don’t know. How is it?” said Dalziel. “And what’s it mean, this word?”

“Well, seems it’s a factitious word, formed from a union of paronomasia and mania …”

Dalziel ground his teeth and Pascoe hurried on.

“… and it means basically ‘an obsessive interest in word games.’ Since 1978, it’s also been the proprietary name of this board game Penn and Dee are so fond of.”

“Never heard of it,” said Dalziel. “But I lost interest in board games after I found you got more rewards for climbing boring ladders than sliding down lovely slippery snakes.”

Pascoe avoided Wield’s eye and said, “Looking at the rules, I’m surprised anyone has ever heard of it: ‘language of shuffler’s choice …double points for intersecting rhymes …quadruple points for oxymorons …’ Jesus! Who’d want to play this?”

“Dee and Penn play it all the time evidently,” said Hat.

“Miss Pomona told you that too, I presume?” said Pascoe. “And how long have you been nursing this interesting information to your bosom?”

He spoke with studied politeness but Hat caught his drift instantly and said, “Not long. I mean, I only found out about it last week, and then I went sick, and really it didn’t seem to mean much, not till I heard Dr. Urquhart and Dr. Pottle going on today, then Mr. Pascoe said about Penn giving Dee his alibi for one night last week, and I thought …”

“Nay lad, wait till you’re in the dock afore you start summing up for the defence,” said Dalziel, not unkindly. “Likely it’s a load of nowt anyway. I mean, you can’t go to jail for playing games, not even two fellows having a romp together, so long as it’s between consenting adults in private, eh, Wieldy?”

“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant. “Except if you call it rugby football, when you can sell folk tickets to watch, so they tell me.”

Emotion always found it hard to get a fingerhold on the sergeant’s face but this was said with a lack of expression that made Charles Bronson look animated.

“Rugby,” said Dalziel. “Aye, that’s a point. The Old Unthinkables. Nice one, Wieldy.”

To be complimented on his attempted gibe at Dalziel’s favourite sport did bring a look almost recognizable as surprise to the sergeant’s features.

“Sir?” he said.

“The Old Unthinkables,” repeated Dalziel. “That’s what they call Unthank College’s Old Boys’ team. Not bad for a bunch of pubic school poofters, saving your presence. Not afraid to put the boot in, that’s one thing they’ve learned for their daddies’ money.”

He spoke approvingly.

Wield said, “Missing your point, I’m afraid, sir.”

“Penn and Dee went to Unthank, and so did John Wingate, yon telly belly, Ripley’s boss. I know ’cos he used to play for the Unthinkables. Scrum half. Nice reverse pass.”

The phone rang again.

“And?” said Pascoe.

“He must be about the same age as Penn and Dee. Might be worth a chat, Pete. Find out what they got up to as kids. Christ, I must be desperate, can’t believe I’m saying this. I’ve spent too much time listening to your mate Pozzo.”

The phone was still ringing.

Pascoe said, “Shall I answer that? Could be the Chief’s office again.”

“Then he’ll think I’m on my way,” said Dalziel indifferently.

He glanced at his watch.

“Tell you what, Wingate’ll be at your press conference with all the other vultures. Reel him in when it’s over. Knowing your style, Pete, that should be about half twelve. These telly bellys like shooting the questions, let’s see if he can take his own medicine.”

“You’ll be finished with the Chief by then?”

“Unless he opens a new bottle of Scotch,” said Dalziel. “Bowler, you be there too. After all, this is your idea.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Hat, delighted.

“Don’t get carried away. Likely it’ll turn out a waste of time, and I just want you close so I don’t waste my energy kicking summat inanimate.”

He left. Hat turned to the others, smiling, inviting them to share Dalziel’s joke.

They didn’t smile back.

Pascoe said thoughtfully, “Not like the super to chase rainbows.”

“Not unless he’s got an itch in his piles …”

They contemplated the Fat Man’s famous haruspical piles for a moment, then Pascoe said, “Wieldy, the OED’s online now. Ellie’s a subscriber, if I give you her details, can you whistle it up on the computer?”

“You authorize it, I can whistle up the PM’s holiday snaps,” said Wield.

They followed him to his computer and watched as he ran his fingers over the keyboard.

“Right,” he said. “Here we are.”

“Great. Now find paronomania,” said Pascoe.

But Wield was ahead of him.

“Paranomasia we’ve got. And paromphalocele we’ve got too, which from the sound of it we could do without. But no sign whatsoever of paronomania. So unless the great Oxford English Dictionary’s missed a bit, there’s no such word.”

“And yet,” said Pascoe, “we have all seen it, and its definition. Interesting. While you’re at it, Wieldy, try contortuplicated.”

“That’s what the super said,” said Hat. “I thought he just made it up.”

“No,” said Wield. “It’s here. ‘Twisted and entangled.’ But it’s obsolete. Just one example and that’s 1648.”

“Not attributed to A. Dalziel, is it?” said Pascoe. “Let that be a lesson to you, Hat. Never underestimate the super.”

“No, sir. Sir, how did Mr. Dalziel know about Mrs. Blossom’s tattoo?”

“Can’t imagine,” said Pascoe. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”