Dialogues of the Dead

He showed his ID again and asked if Dee had been in. She said she hadn't seen him, but she'd just arrived herself. Pascoe went behind the enquiry desk and tried the office door on the remote chance that the man was working inside, too rapt to hear conversation without. The door opened and suddenly Pascoe had a vision of discovering Dee sitting there with his throat cut. The office was empty. Pascoe went in and sat behind the desk to collect his thoughts. He must be getting hard. He felt relief that his absurd imagining had turned out to be just that, but it wasn't relief that a human being wasn't dead, but rather relief that a promising line of enquiry hadn't been nipped in the bud - or nicked in the jugular! Just how promising was this line anyway? Dee was a good fit for the profile Pottle and Urquhart had produced between them. There was the obsession with word games, the delight in his own cleverness, and if he wanted the other world focus which the Dialogues seemed to illustrate, then perhaps he didn't need to look further than this photograph on the desk. The three boys, two of them bright and sharp and fighting their way out of adolescent adversity into premature adult control, the third still childish, innocent, in need of love and protection. He recalled that poem again, the one on the page opened in the book in Sam Johnson's dead hands.

If there are ghosts to raise, What shall I call, Out of hell's murky haze, Heaven's blue pall? Raise my loved long-lost boy To lead me to his joy .. .

But these were not the kind of ideas the GPS liked to be presented with. They wanted something with much more shape and substance, hard physical evidence, preferably accompanied by a water-tight confession. And he had ... a thumb print and a bite mark. Neither definite. Both of doubtful admissibility. He closed his eyes and tried to ease his way back into that state of timelessness in which the answer had seemed almost within his grasp ... the Twentyseventh psalm: "God is my light. .." Dominus ilhiminatio men... Then he opened his eyes and he saw everything.

Hat's heart leapt up as he dragged the MG round the corner of the street in which Dee's apartment was situated. He had been frightened he would find Rye's car parked outside, lending weight to a fantasy he fought against but could not resist of Dee's door opening in response to his frenzied knocking to reveal over the man's bare shoulder a bedroom, and a bed, and Rye's tousled chestnut hair with its distinctive blaze of grey spread out across the pillow .. . But of course there was no sign of the car. No, she'd be safe at home. He thought of ringing her number, then decided that contact was better delayed till Dee was safely down the nick and he could see which way things were going. With luck she need never know that he himself had done the arresting. Not the arresting, he corrected himself. Pascoe wanted this played cool. A smiling invitation to have a friendly chat. No frenzied knocking then. None needed at the front entrance, which was open. He went sedately up the stairs and tapped gently on the door. It opened almost at once. 'What's this? A raid?' said Charley Penn. 'Don't tell me. Andy Dalziel's lying out there with a Kalashnikov, right?' 'Mr Penn. I was looking for Mr Dee ...' 'Well, you've come to the right place, but not at the right time,' said Perm. 'Step inside before someone shoots me.' Hat went in. 'Mr Bowler, how nice.' Franny Roote was smiling up at him from a chair placed before a table on which lay an open Paronomania board. There was no one else in the room. Unhappily, Hat let his gaze rum towards the bedroom door. 'Is Mr Dee ...' Penn went and threw the door open. 'No, not in here. Unless he's under the bed. Nor in the kitchen or the bog either, take a look. Sorry.'

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