Dialogues of the Dead

Follow The $ hadn't been a dollar sign, but merely the removal of the letter S. Bird and Follows. Who died, to make the whole thing even more complete, joined in a copula. He went back into the office for privacy, closed the door and pulled out his mobile. The case was altered. Before, he hadn't really been able to get his head round the idea of the gentle quiet librarian being in the frame for all these killings. Now all he could think

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was that he'd sent a solitary young constable out looking for a man who had leapt to the terrifying eminence of being prime suspect. 'Answer, sod you, answer!' he yelled at the phone. 'Hello?' 'Bowler, where are you?' 'At Dee's flat, but...' 'OK, don't go in .. .' 'I'm in.' 'Shit. OK. Smile sweetly and say you've got to fetch something from the car. Then get out. No buts. Do it!' He waited. Then to his relief he heard the youngster's voice saying, 'Sir, what's going in?' Quickly he ran through what he'd seen, what he was guessing, adding, 'It may be quite wrong or nothing to do with Dee but I want you to wait till. ..' But Hat was screaming at him. 'Sir, what's the next word? Tell me the next racking word!' Pascoe frowned, decided this was no time for a lecture on chain of command, went out of the office into the library and read, 'Follows - Haswed', pronouncing it as spelt, voicing the w. 'Has wed. . . that's it! A wedding was in the last Dialogue. Though in fact it might be pronounced Hasued. . .' 'I don't give a fuck how it's pronounced, what's it mean?' Once more Pascoe reacted to the urgency not the insubordination and checked. 'Marked with grey or brown,' he said. 'The Dialogue poem said "but wasn't white", remember? Now if only .. . Hat? You still there? Are you all right? Hat!' But Hat wasn't hearing. He was seeing a head of rich chestnut hair marked by a flash of silvery grey. And something else he saw too, trembling on his retina like the filaments of light presaging a migraine. 1576 Not a year. A date. / have a date, the poem had said. 1.5.76. The first of May, 1976. Rye's birthday.

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Chapter Forty-six

The chair she sat in like a burnished throne gleamed in the firelight. Sensuously she let her fingers trace the serpentine grooves of the intricately carved arm rests till she came to the sudden hard swell of the lions' heads. She smiled down at Dick Dee who squatted before her on the three-legged stool. Between them lay a Paronomania board, which, fully open, looked like some exotic medieval map of the cosmos. 'Will you take it with you?' she asked. 'The chair, I mean?' 'Strictly speaking, it isn't mine,' he said. 'And are you always a strict speaker, Dick?' 'Strict,' he mused. 'From strictus, past participle of stringere, to draw or bind tight. It's a synantonym, of course .. .' He paused and looked at her invitingly. Taking her cue, she said, 'A what?' 'A synantonym. One of those interesting words which can be their own opposite. Like overlook, impregnable, cleave.' Rye considered, then said, 'Those I can see, bur strict'?' 'There is a Scottish usage, meaning swift or rapid, particularly in relation to running water. So yes, I feel I can say I'm a strict speaker in one way or another.' 'But will you keep the chair?' 'In the sense of preserve it, yes. Indeed when I showed it to poor Geoffrey one day, he implied in his bumbling way that I might consider it a gift, though I doubt whether in law my unsupported recollection would be title enough. I fear you are in danger of being deflowered, my dear.' Rye looked at the board. She had just laid, not without some complacency, azalea. Now Dee crossed it at the 1 with genitalia, then carefully removed the rest of her tiles.

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