Dialogues of the Dead

'What the fuck are you playing at, Roote?' snarled Peter Pascoe. Snarling wasn't a form of communication that came easily to him, and attempting to keep his upper teeth bared while emitting the plosive P produced a sound effect which was melodramatically Oriental with little of the concomitant sinisterity. He must pay more attention next time his daughter's pet dog, which didn't much like men, snarled at him. Roote pushed the notebook he'd been scribbling in beneath a copy of the Gazette and regarded him with an expression of amiable bewilderment. 'Sorry, Mr Pascoe? You've lost me. I'm not playing at anything and I don't think I know the rules of the game you're playing. Do I need a racket too?' He smiled towards Pascoe's sports bag from which protruded the shaft of a squash racket. Cue for another snarl on the line, Don't get clever with me, Roote! This was getting like a bad TV script. As well as snarling he'd been trying to loom menacingly. He had no way of knowing how menacing his looming looked to the casual observer, but it was playing hell with the strained shoulder muscle which had brought his first game of squash in five years to a premature conclusion. Premature? Thirty seconds into foreplay isn't premature, it is humiliatingly pre-penetrative. His opponent had been all concern, administering embrocation in the changing room and lubrication in the University Staff Club bar, with no sign whatsoever of snigger. Nevertheless, Pascoe had felt himself sniggered at and when he made his way through the pleasant formal gardens towards the car park and saw Franny