Reginald Hill - Dialogues of the Dead

Trimble said hopefully, “This killing couldn’t be just a bit of good old-fashioned gay-bashing, could it? That would make things such a lot simpler.”

Pascoe opened his mouth to make a sharp response to this crass comment, but Wield came quickly in with, “Sorry, sir, but there’s nothing in the Dialogue to suggest the Wordman disapproves. He may be mad but that doesn’t mean he’s got to be bigoted.”

Then he glanced at Pascoe and dropped an eyelid as if to say, I’m a big boy now, I can look after myself .

Pottle added, “I agree with the sergeant. Indeed so far I have found little to suggest that the Wordman disapproves in moral terms of any of his victims. Certainly there are no traces of homophobia.”

“Yes, of course. Sorry,” said Trimble. “Mr. Pascoe, please go on.”

“Yes, as I was saying, the pathologist has confirmed that death was by electrocution. After death the bodies were interfered with in a curious way …”

“After!” grunted Dalziel.

“… with Follows having a mark scratched on his fore-head. Scratches on skin are difficult but the best guess is it was intended to look like this.”

Pascoe went to the drywipe board and drew: $

“It’s a dollar sign,” said Trimble.

“Possibly,” said Pascoe. “And certainly if that’s what it is meant to be, there is a link of a kind with what was found in Ambrose Bird’s mouth.”

He produced a plastic evidence bag in which a small metal disc was visible.

“It is a Roman coin, copper or bronze. We showed it to Ms. Carcanet, the Heritage Director. As you may know, she’s been unwell and the news of what had happened in the Roman Experience didn’t do her state of mind any good. But she managed to tell us that the head stamped on the coin is probably that of the Emperor Diocletian, though it’s very worn, far too badly for the inscription to be legible.”

“But it is genuine?” asked Trimble.

“Oh yes. Most of the coins in the tourist bags like the one Follows was carrying are replicas, but for authenticity they decided to include a few examples of the real thing, well-used Roman coins too worn to have any value to a collector. Did the Wordman select it deliberately because he wanted the real thing, I wonder. And perhaps too we should recall that the classical Greeks used to place an obolus or small coin in the mouth of the dead so that they could pay Charon to ferry them over the Styx.”

“Karen?” said Dalziel. “Over the sticks? Grand National’s not been the same since they invented women jockeys.”

Pascoe, who’d heard it all before, ignored this provocative philistinism and concluded, “Anyway there we have it, a dollar sign and a Roman coin. I suppose it could be some kind of statement about money being the root of all evil?”

He looked hopefully towards the two doctors.

Pottle shook his head.

“I doubt it. As I say, I find little evidence of any warped moral schema here. He’s not killing people because they are prostitutes, or black, or Arsenal supporters. No, I’d guess that the coin and the sign are riddle elements rather than psychological indices. Perhaps our semiotic expert can help.”

He blew a wraith of smoke towards Drew Urquhart who had apparently overcome all the gymnastic problems inherent in going to sleep on a hard office chair.

The linguist opened his eyes, yawned, and scratched his stubbly face.

“Thought about it,” he said. “Not a fucking clue what they mean.”

Dalziel rolled his eyes like ten-pin bowls but before he could knock the Scot over, he continued, “But there is a couple of wee things that did strike me. I’ll go through the Dialogue bit by bit if that’s OK, Mr. Trimble?”

He looked deferentially towards the Chief Constable. The sly sod’s sending Andy up! thought Pascoe. With an embarrassed glance at his Head of CID, Trimble nodded.

“First para takes the form of a question, establishing a dialogue between him and us. Second starts biblically, ‘me of little faith,’ version of Matthew 14.31. Then note ‘a quarter of the way.’ Eight deaths so far, implying another twenty-four to go, though not necessarily, as I shall explain later.”

“Can’t wait,” said Dalziel.

“Cross your legs and think of Jesus, my old gran used to say,” said Urquhart. “Something else here, same para, you must have noticed it with your guid Scots ancestry, Mr. Dalziel. ‘Braggart step.’ Now how does it go?”

He started humming a tune, then interpolated the odd word as though having difficulty remembering, the whiles looking imploringly at Dalziel who suddenly amazed them all by breaking forth in a not unpleasing baritone and singing, “If you’re thinking in your inner hairt the braggart’s in my step, ye’ve never smelt the tangle o’ the Isles!”

“Bravo,” said Urquhart. “Guid to see you’ve not gone completely native.”

“So the Wordman knows the song. So what?”

“By heather paths wi’ heaven in their wiles,” murmured Urquhart. “It all builds a picture. Next para: ‘Happy word.’ Presumably followed because of course he is following Follows. Well, we knew he was a word freak, but more interestingly, note the bit which says that Follows is equally part of the plan, ‘though his time seemed some way removed.’ Question, how so? Presumably it means that Follows wasn’t the next in sequence. The next but one, maybe? Then why say some way removed? Also notice half a dozen paras on, ‘the middle step still not clear.’ As if to say that even with the real next target, which must be Bird, available, there’s still an intermediary step between Bird and Follows.”

“Like last time,” said Pascoe, who’d been listening with intense interest. “He talked about three steps, didn’t he? Even though there was only the one body.”

Urquhart nodded approvingly as though at a favoured pupil and went on, “Makes me wonder if the coin and the dollar sign might not have something to do with this middle step. But fuck knows what. Let’s move on. Next para, nothing. Then they start talking. This felt literary to me. I checked it out with my wee hairie. ‘What a fearful night is this! There’s two or three of us have seen strange sights,’ is Julius Caesar , Act One Scene Three. But Diomed and Glaucus don’t seem to be in Shakespeare.”

“Bulwer Lytton, Last Days of Pompeii , Chapter One,” said Dalziel. “Thought everyone knew that.”

It was a show-stopper for everyone but Pascoe, who knew that this volume was a pretty well permanent feature of Dalziel’s bedside table. His knowledge did not come from any personal acquaintance with the Fat Man’s sleeping arrangements but because on one of the rare occasions Ellie had been in his house, she had “inadvertently” wandered into the bedroom when looking for the bathroom, an “error” she repeated on the next two rare occasions. The book remained in place, but the bookmark she noticed in it had changed places, suggesting either a very slow or a cyclic reading.

She’d also noted that the volume was stamped Property of the Longboat Hotel, Scarborough and the bookmark was a folded copy of a bill for a week’s stay directed to the account of Mr. and Mrs. A.H. Dalziel. Little was known, or perhaps self-preservation ensured little was said, about Dalziel’s ex-wife. But Ellie, noting the date on the bill, declared, “This must have been their honeymoon! And he’s kept the book he stole by his bed all these years. How romantic!” and immediately went out and bought a second-hand copy. Pascoe had tried to read it but gave up after a couple of chapters so had to be content with his wife’s psychological exegesis.

All this flitted across his mind, plus an epiphanic revelation of the significance of that second initial which he’d never known the Fat Man use anywhere else as he heard Urquhart say, “Don’t know it, Hamish. What’s it about?”