Reginald Hill - Dialogues of the Dead

It hit the ground, bounced, turned over, and out of it rolled a human head.

Even before it came to a halt at his feet, Hat had recognized that in one sense at least it was not out of place in this setting. If a man has to die, then let him die on his own land.

This was beyond all dispute the head of Geoffrey, Lord Pyke-Strengler of the Stang.

the sixth dialogue

Hello again .

Me too. What a wondrously varied path this is you’ve put me on! A Right to Roam Bill which did not need an Act of Parliament to make it law .

Winding through private properties and public buildings, tracking ancient highways and rural byways, and now leading me far from the populous city to the dark heart of the countryside. For it is the path that leads, not I who lead my chosen ones along the path. Indeed it is the path that does the choosing, letting them think always that they advance of their own accord. I myself am merely an instrument .

Or a French horn, maybe. I like the idea of being a French horn .

Seriously, my role as simple instrument has never been clearer than it was today. The chosen one answered his cues like one who had spent long hours conning the part. Never at the Athenian bouphonia did ox approach the sacrificial altar more willingly. All the necessary instruments he provided himself, even putting the guilty weapon into my hands with his own .

And in that moment time stopped. Nothing gradual, no slow slowing down as often before. Time is …time isn’t .

And the burbling of the creek around the moored boat joins with the twarting of a whaup into one long melancholy line of sound stretching up from the dimpled tarn into the vast inane of the sky, like a phone-line to the Gods .

How comforting to think of Them reclining up there, listening with solemn approval to all that goes on here below .

In my hands the oiled steel column trembles and throbs towards its spontaneous climax. And now its seed spurts out, as black and round as sturgeon roe, fanning through the air to plant immortal life in this mortal flesh before me. His mouth gapes wide in the ecstasy of that moment of ultimate penetration, but not as wide as this new red orifice about his throat out of which I see his soul fly like a bird escaping its cage. Off it goes, winging its way across the glimmering tarn, rejoicing in its sudden freedom, while here on the dull earth its empty cage collapses beside the laughing creek .

The guilty weapon I hurl into the cleansing waters .

No arm rises up to take it .

I have work still to do. The head, half-severed from its fleshy stalk by the shotgun blast, must be completely plucked and set in its container. The axe is at hand-where else would it be? Three blows complete the work, no more, no less. For this is a truly trinal day, three in one, the trinity completed as I roll the corpse into the sounding stream .

What of the axe? I heft it in my hand and contemplate the inscrutable waters. But it bears no guilt. It is an instrument of my path not his departure. So let it be .

Bearing it with me I move away, and with each step I feel time’s drag return .

Oh, let me come soon to that safe haven where I shall mark time forever .

And time will lose power to mark me .

“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.