Dialogues of the Dead (45 page)

377 open at the head of the main stair down to the Experience effect ively cut out the corridor along which Follows must have approached from the library and therefore cut out the pursuing Wordman too. There is no video camera in place yet in the Experience area. I presume Bird and Follows knew this otherwise they'd hardly have rendezvoused there. You look doubtful, Hat.' 'It's just that, well, those two didn't seem the type ...' Pascoe raised an eyebrow, Wield scratched his nose, and Hat stumbled on, '... sorry, I didn't mean not the type to be gay,[ because I don't know what that would be, but they didn't seem to like each other, in fact the few dmes I saw them, they seemed to be getting right up each other's noses.' 'Not their noses you should have been watching,' muttered „ Dalziel. Pottle said, 'This apparent antagonism was almost certainly? their way of concealing the relationship, though it may well be ]i that a real antagonism actually played a significant role in it too.; There are certain kinds of lovers' quarrels which add a positive1' spice to heterosexual relationships. The vigorous verbal battles'' we so often find being joined between men and woman in Shake-speare are nearly always a prelude to their eventual coupling.' ' 'I should add,' said Pascoe, 'that the security man does recollect other occasions when Bird used the theatre for what he called lighting rehearsals, just him and allegedly the lighting director, though the security man once glimpsed what he called this lanky blonde in an off the shoulder dress before a door was shut in his face. I suspect they had been taking advantage of Bird's access to props and costumes to play out their fantasies for some time and; the completion of the Roman Experience had seemed like an opportunity not to be refused.' 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'snothing 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 forehead. 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

379 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 nicking 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 ifthat'sOK.MrTrimble?' 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,'1 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 srill 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

?8i 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?' 'About the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed the city way back in Roman times.' 'Well, that fits with all that stuff about lava later on. And the Julius Caesar quote might suggest that a tyrant is about to be overthrown .. .' 'Hang on,' said Pascoe. 'These aren't the Wordman's words but what Follows and Bird said to each other.' 'We only have the Wordman's word for that,' said Urquhart. 'And I did say might suggest. I'm just trying to strike a few ideas here. On a bit. "Middle step, lava", done that. Ah yes, the para about them getting down to it in the water. Bit of excitement here. No moral disapproval, I'd agree with Pottle there, but I think the Wordman got a wee bittie titillation here, maybe. "Like a full-acorned boar, a German one . .."' He looked invitingly at Dalziel who said, 'Nay, lad. Tha's had all the help tha's going to get from me. I don't keep pups and yap.' 'Shakespeare again. Cymbeline. Posthumus imagines the suppositious coupling of his wife, Imogen, with her alleged lover, lachimo.' 'Like a mll-acorned boar, eh?' savoured Dalziel. 'Not bad. So what do you make of that, dominie?' Urquhart grinned at the appellation and said, 'Fuck all. On we go. Para starting "Like a surgeon", note the little play on hand and foot. This cunt really lives in a world where words and their relationships mean more than people and theirs. "Questing vole" is a bit odd ...' 'Evelyn Waugh,' said Pascoe. 'Oh, her,' said Dalziel. 'Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole. Scoop,' said Pascoe. 'Significant?' wondered Urquhart. 'It's parodic. And of course comic. I suppose it reinforces what you said about the Wordman's preference of words to people. Yet wasn't there in the first couple of Dialogues anyway some sense of genuine, I don't know, almost affection for Mr Ainstable and young Pitman?' They all considered for a moment then Novello said, 'Maybe the difference was, he didn't know them. Not personally.' This was her first contribution. She really didn't look well, thought Pascoe, determined that she was going to be dispatched home the minute this lot was over. Hat Bowler checked out his colleague's pallor with less sympathetic eyes. What the ruck was she doing here anyway? he asked himself. This case was his big chance to establish himself firmly as a player in the Holy Trinity's game and he didn't care to see an old favourite coming up on the rails. But you don't shoot old favourites down, not in public anyway.

He said brightly, 'That's right. He seems to have got started on this by chance. But after those two, all the others seem to be connected in some way, either with the investigation or with the library. How about if he knew the others and had reasons for not caring about them?' 'Or reasons for not letting his acquaintance with them get in the way of killing them. Word-play, jokes, quotation can be useful distancing devices,' said Pottle. Dalziel made a noise like an old iron pier undermined by the suck of the sea and said wistfully, 'Are we near done?' 'Not quite. The best is still to be,' said Urquhart. 'Last prose para. Thought you might have had something to say about this, Pozzo.' 'His sense of peace, you mean? His belief that he is invulnerable, invincible? I hardly feel it necessary to point out the obvious. As I've said before, eventually it is this belief that he can tell us anything about himself and his purposes with no risk of either

383 prevention or detection that will be his downfall. But of course we need your linguistic skills, Dr Urquhart, to interpret these nods and winks.' 'Well, thank you kindly. OK, the wee bit of verse at the end, it's a riddle of course. Right wee Jimmy riddler, this guy. And when you find answers, they usually just ask more questions.' 'Which is what the press out there are waiting to do,' said Trimble sourly. Poor old Clan, thought Pascoe. He came along hoping that rabbits were going to plucked from hats by the burrowload. Instead, the end of the expert evidence is in sight and he doesn't feel he's even glimpsed a vanishing rump! 'Aye, well, if the guid Lord had gi'en us the airt to see the morn today, we'd all be farting through silk, as my auld Kirkcaldy grannie used to say. But dinna despair. Pozzo's right, he's giving us clues and I'm the boy to grasp 'em. Anything strike you about this wee doggerel?' They all looked at their copies of the Dialogue, then Bowler and Novello said simultaneously, 'The print,' and looked at each other speculatively. 'That's right. The print. All them capitals. Could they mean something, I asked myself,' said Urquhart. 'Like he's a lousy typist,' said Dalziel. 'Not anywhere else, he's not,' said Urquhart. 'No, I reckon this is a chronogram.' He looked around triumphantly. The returned gazes were blank. 'A chronogram,' he explained, 'is a piece of writing in which certain letters are made to stand out to express a relevant date or epoch. Mostly it used Roman numerals because of course they , are expressed in letters. For example, Gustavus Adolphus, the ; Swedish king killed during the Thirty Years War, had a medal ; struck to commemorate a victory in 1632 with this inscription.' He went to the drywipe board and wrote:

ChrIstVs DVX: ergo trIVMphVs :i

'Which of course means .. .' '' He paused expectantly, playing up to the dominie role that ; Dalziel had mocked him with. 'With Christ in charge, we'd solve this in no time,' said Novello pertly. They all laughed, even Trimble, and Urquhart flashed her the louche smile which probably pulled any number of female students, thought Hat maliciously. 'That'll do nicely,' said the linguist. 'Now, think Roman numerals and check out the upper case letters. In Latin inscriptions, U's are normally printed as V's of course. Which gives us ' he wrote 100+1+5+500+5+10+1+5+1000+5 - 'which equals 1632. This also works in English. A famous example is ...' He wrote again.