Dialogues of the Dead

3^ him down, not his warped rationality. That is an area over which, by its very nature, he still has some control. It's the emotions, the passions, running out of control which will betray him in the end. At the very least, they may result in the deposit of significant physical traces. You've checked the ground thoroughly for signs of semen, I presume? It reads to me as if ejaculation almost cer tainly took place either during or immediately after the event.' Dalziel's head emerged from its cavern and he said coldly, 'I'm not right sure what your job is, Dr Pottle, but one thing I'm sure it's not is telling me mine. By a stroke of luck which was long overdue it were one of my own officers who was first on the scene; so as far as possible it's been kept uncontaminated. Yes, we've gone over every inch of that terrain for half a mile in all directions. Yes, everything there was to be recorded, removed, examined and analysed has been taken care of. We've dragged the tarn and found the gun and a deal of rubbish beside, none of which looks like it might be relevant. We've got the axe from the cottage and found traces of blood on it which show it was the same as was used on the Hon. Geoffrey. And, yes, Mr Urquhart, the post mortem found traces of cucumber sandwich in his mouth and on the bank by the boat we found a sandwich, wholewheat bread, by the bye, with a single bite out of it. All this is confidential police information which I'm telling you just to show how far I'm willing to go to catch this lunatic. If any of it helps either of you two jokers to tell us owt useful, speak now or forever hold your pieces.' He regarded the visiting experts with the open expression of a . man who had laid all his cards on the table. Except of course, thought Pascoe, he hadn't mentioned that Bowler had confessed to allowing his bit of skirt to seriously contaminate the scene, he hadn't mentioned that they'd turned Stangcreek Cottage upside \softline down and questioned Dick Dee for five hours straight off (during which time he hadn't asked for his solicitor and at the end of ' which time he'd looked a lot fresher than his interrogators) before ;, releasing him, and he hadn't mentioned that a very alert forensic examiner had noticed faint traces of blood on the fish hook on | one of the rods in the boat, which on examination had proved to ) be human and AB, unlike the Hon.'s which was A. And he certainly ) hadn't mentioned that the Hon.'s Land Rover, which they'd alerted police forces nationally to look out for, had just been discovered in the police car-pound to which it had been removed for illegal parking behind the railway station. The Dialogue hadn't turned up till Monday morning when it was discovered among the library mail, but from the moment Bowler had rung in on Sunday with news of his grisly discovery, they'd treated it as a Wordman killing. Not, as Wield had observed, that this made them feel like they were one step ahead of the game, only that the bugger now had them all playing it according to his rules. Now, on Tuesday morning, Pascoe had persuaded a reluctant Dalziel that it was time to hear what the 'experts' had to say. 'Well?' growled Dalziel. Urquhart scratched his stubbly chin with a noise which sounded like a challenge to the heavyweight champion of carnal frication who sat before him and said, 'Trinal, trinity, in three parts. Find out what he's on about there and you might be in sniffing distance of what makes the bugger tick.' 'Doesn't it just refer to the three blows used to chop the head off?' suggested Pascoe. 'That certainly reinforces it,' said the linguist. 'But a head and a body make two parts not three, so it's not that. And why roll the body into the water and put the head into the fishing basket? There's something going on here that we're missing.' 'That it?' said Dalziel. 'There's summat we're missing? Well, thank you, Sherlock. Dr Pottle, owt you can add to that, or mebbe you feel your colleague's said it all?' Pottle lit a fresh cigarette from the one he was smoking and said, 'He's really getting into his swing. I don't know how far away the proposed end is, but he's completely sure he's going to get there now. This is by far the shortest Dialogue yet. The further he gets, the shorter they're likely to become. Reliving the last experience in Words is merely occupying precious time which could better be devoted to looking forward to the next one. Now he's certain he's on the right path, his dialogue with his victims and with his spirit-guide can just as easily continue in his mind as on the page.' 'You think he might stop writing altogether?' said Pascoe. 'No. That part of the writing which is part of the game he's playing with us will remain. It's in the rules, so to speak. And he