Dialogues of the Dead

“The Wordman is ruthless in performance, but not in retrospection,” wrote Pottle. “The Dialogues are being held with three respondents. The first is the Underworld being who is at the same time both a shade of some individual and the Power which connives at this series of murders; the second is you, me, anyone reading the Dialogues, who will (he hopes) at the same time understand and approve his purpose, and admire and be baffled by his ingenuity; the third is himself. In the real world, as opposed to the timeless world of his ritual, he sees the victims as real people, not just necessary signposts on his mysterious path, and needs to persuade himself that they personally, or those who remain, benefit from their death.”

Cautiously he refused to put down on paper any suggestion as to the kind of person they should be looking for but in a handwritten note invited Pascoe to give him a ring next week when he hoped to be recovered.

Urquhart appeared, more, it seemed to Pascoe, for the pleasure he got out of provoking Andy Dalziel than because he felt he had anything useful to contribute. Or perhaps it was that a lifetime of adopting anti-authoritarian attitudes had left him unable to offer assistance to the police directly so he slipped it in obliquely under the guise of mocking them.

And the Fat Man too, realized Pascoe in a flash of insight, actually enjoyed the bouts. His dismissal of the linguist as an over-educated underwashed blot on the Scottish escutcheon was an equally knee-jerk reaction. How much benefit he felt he derived from Urquhart’s input was hard to guess, but he enjoyed the crack.

“So what’ve you got for us, Rob Roy?” he opened.

“Haud yer weesht, Hamish, and ye’ll maybe find oot,” replied Urquhart.

That was twice the Scot had shot Hamish at Dalziel like a custard pie, and twice Dalziel had looked momentarily spattered. Am I missing something? thought Pascoe.

What Urquhart had got for them wasn’t much, and at least as literary as linguistic, which made Pascoe suspect his wee hairie in the Eng. Lit. Department was seeing more of the Dialogues than she ought to be. Well, as long as the leak stopped there and didn’t trickle into the tabloids, no harm done, and they were getting two experts for the price of one.

“Pozzo said something about this guy and religion, didn’t he? Not a religious maniac in the obvious sense, in fact probably totally a-religious on the surface. That’s always the way with these trick-cyclists, isn’t it? They give with one hand while they’re taking away with the other, and in the end you’re left with fuck all.”

“Better a handful of fuck all than a handful of crap, which is all I’m looking at so far,” growled Dalziel holding up a great paw as if in illustration.

“Me too,” said Urquhart, staring hard at him. “Like I said, lots of religious language, both in tone and direct reference, but you’ve probably noticed that yourself, Mr. Pascoe.”

Nice stress there, implying that I’m the police force’s token literate, thought Pascoe.

“Yes, I did notice a few,” he said.

“But one thing keeps on coming up. First Dialogue: ‘the force behind the light, the force which burns away all fear …’ Third: ‘be the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid …’ Fourth: ‘in the light of that aura, I had no one to fear …’ Fifth: ‘my light and salvation which is why I don’t have to fear any sod.’ I checked these out. And what I got was Psalm 27.”

He produced a Bible and read, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” then looked around triumphantly, as if the silence which followed were tumultuous applause.

“Interesting,” said Pascoe hurriedly. “May I see?”

He took the book from Urquhart and read the beginning of the psalm.

Dalziel said, “And?”

“And me no ands, Andy,” said Urquhart. “Except maybe I did wonder, looking at yon illustration in the First Dialogue, could that object in the bowl of the P be a book, maybe the Bible itself, or a missal in which you’d find the psalms?”

Pascoe put the Bible down and looked at the illuminated letter.

“You could be right,” he said. “It could be the spine of book. But what about the design on it? Any thoughts on that?”

“Maybe it’s meant to be the specific codex that contains the illuminated In Principio this is based on?” suggested Urquhart. “But you’d need a specialist to help you there.”

Dalziel, who’d picked up the Bible to thumb through it, recited sonorously, “‘Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.’ Please, no more specialists.”

“Aye, I can see how they’d be a bother to you,” said Urquhart.

But he soon after brought his textual analysis to a conclusion.