Dialogues of the Dead

The degree of scorn Dalziel could infuse into a form of address could probably provide a linguist with material for a thesis, thought Pascoe.

“Maybe I can give a wee bit of practical help here,” said Urquhart. “See this bit of the illumination here …”

He pointed to the bottom of the twin stems of the I.

“Aye, the cows,” said Dalziel.

Urquhart laughed and said, “They’d need to be Highland cattle with horns like these. No, not cows. Oxen, I think.”

“Oxen. Great. Now we’re really getting somewhere. Make a note of that, Chief Inspector.”

“What are you getting at?” asked Pascoe.

“Aleph,” said Urquhart significantly.

“Is that Aleph in Wonderland or Aleph Through the Looking Glass?” enquired Dalziel.

“Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet,” said Urquhart. “It is also the Old Hebrew and Phoenician word meaning ox, and it seems likely that the form the letter takes is based on a hieroglyph of an ox’s head. Greek alpha is derived from this, and ultimately Roman and our own a which, in some versions of its capital form can still be seen to contain those original hieroglyphic elements. As thus in the Book of Kells …”

He took out a pen and drew a letter:

Dalziel looked at it in silence for a moment then said, “If they served me that as an ox’s head, I’d send it back. Is there any point to all this, lad?”

“A of course is also a word, the first word as it is the first letter of our alphabet. In the beginning was the word … And note the references in the Dialogue to the indefinite beginnings of the path. A is the indefinite article. You will be wondering perhaps why there are two oxen, two alephs …”

“The AA man,” said Pascoe. “Whose initials are also AA. Which the Wordman took for a sign. So what are you saying, Dr. Urquhart? That there could be some alphabetical sequence here?”

“No, sorry. I can see how that might be useful, but there’s nothing obvious in the others. You might get a b from boy or even bazouki in the Pitman case, but that would be stretching, and all the c’s in the Ripley case and the d’s in the Steel case seem completely out of reach. So I doubt if what you’ve got here is a straightforward alphabetical progression. Your Wordman might, of course, be simply spelling a word. In which case let us hope it’s a short one, but it’s just as likely it could be several words which form a message.”

“Am having a good time, wish you were here,” suggested Dalziel, scratching his crotch like a man refuting Bishop Berkeley. “Look, gents, as the actress said to the bishop, can you make this a quickie as I’ve got work to do? Any long-term stuff, or general theorizing, mebbe you could set it down in writing when you’ve had more chance to study the Dialogues, and I’ll hang it up in the CID bog so we all get a chance to use it.”

Bowler, who’d been puzzled by the academics’ apparent indifference to the Fat Man’s sceptical rudeness, caught a glance passing between Pascoe and Pottle, and it came to him that the DCI had forewarned them of Dalziel’s likely reaction, which previous acquaintance had probably prepared them for anyway.

Urquhart said, “I’d certainly like more time to check out this illumination. It wouldn’t surprise me to find a lot more stuff hidden there. But for the time being I think I can say that what you’ve got here is someone obsessed with language, not just at a linguistic level, but at a philosophical level, maybe even a magical level. Words originally were simply the names of things and human transactions, both practical and abstract, couldn’t have functioned without them. I mean, if you don’t know the names, you have to produce the things themselves, and you end up like the academicians in Swift’s Lagado, dragging around a bagful of articles you may possibly want to refer to. In primitive societies the belief still exists that knowledge of the real names of individuals or even certain objects gives you power over them which is why they are at such pains to keep them secret. Spells are words arranged in a significant order and often coupled with the secret names of deities or devils-”

“So we’re looking for a nut who probably likes doing riddles and crosswords?” Dalziel crashed in brutally. “Dr. Pottle?”

“I think your Wordman is a seriously disturbed personality who will show very little sign of this on the surface, in fact may appear a particularly laid-back and unflappable individual. But this will have been acquired behaviour and if you look back far enough in their lives, such individuals will almost inevitably have done something or experienced something which gives a hint that dangerous currents and tangling weeds may lie beneath that placid surface.”

“Well, that really narrows things down,” said Dalziel. “That it, then?”

His tone didn’t invite further discourse but Pascoe said, “Before you go, I wonder if this means anything to either of you?”

He showed them a piece of paper on which was drawn.