And see if you can squeeze anything but abuse out of the wife.'
He told Wield about the lab report.
'Soaked? But why should the money have got wet?'
'Search me. It may not even be the same money, of course.'
'Perhaps not, sir. But I did have a thought about the other things. The ring and the watch. There's a jeweller's near the bank. Conrad's, I think. Locked up for the holidays, but he'd have been there on that Thursday.'
'Nice thinking,' complimented Pascoe. 'Let me know how things go. By the way, if a female solicitor called Pritchard shows up, be polite but firm. She's got no official standing. All right?'
'None politer, none firmer,' said Wield.
Next Pascoe got through to the Department of Education and Science in London, where after various delays and changes of personnel he was told that yes there was a Forces' school called Devon School near Linden, but for details of personnel he would need to get in touch with the Service Children's Education Authority at the Institute of Army Education. With a sigh Pascoe obeyed.
Things were no better here. Pascoe had to repeat himself several times and wonder audibly if there were some clause in the Official Secrets Act which covered Army education before he finally got someone who preferred to remain anonymous but who sounded sympathetic to promise to get back to him as soon as possible.
'Though it may be Monday morning,’ concluded the voice, somewhat spoiling the good impression.
'I didn't think the Army recognized weekends,' said Pascoe.
'Things have changed. They run a course in weekend recognition at Sandhurst now,' said the voice. 'Bye.'
As Pascoe replaced the receiver, there was a perfunctory knock and Dicky Gladmann came in. 'They seemed pretty busy downstairs, so I just came on up,' he said, mouth a-beam above his spotted bow tie, and brightly bloodshot eyes flickering inquisitively round the room.
'So much for security,' said Pascoe.
'Should I have been announced? I'm sorry,' said Gladmann with cheerful insincerity. 'But I carry my credentials with me.'
He held up a Sainsbury's carrier bag.
'The tapes? Oh good. So Mr Urquart is going to materialize also?'
'I think not,' said Gladmann, sitting down. 'We popped across to the University at lunch-time…'
'The University? I thought you said you had all you needed out at the College.'
'Not so. As you must know, being a sort of in-law of the place, the College is very small beer academically speaking, soon to evaporate completely. Our language lab is pretty OK but we felt we would really like to make sonograms of the tapes…'
To make what?' interrupted Pascoe once more.
'Sonograms. Oh sorry. I thought the police were so technical these days. A sonogram is an analysis printed out by a machine called a sonograph and it displays the various distributions of energy across the frequency spectrum that occur for different sounds. OK?'
'If you say so. And there's one of these machines at the University?'
'Plus a rather delectable assistant professor who finds Drew's intellectual arrogance, social gaucheess and undamped body odour irresistible. God knows what noises they analyse together, but it's a wonder the machine hasn't exploded. So, while I have returned post-haste, he has remained. In the interests of science, naturally.'
'Naturally. Is there anything useful you can tell us, Mr Gladmann?' asked Pascoe.
'Well now. Here we go,' replied the linguist, upending the carrier bag so that the tapes and various bits and pieces of paper fell on to Pascoe's desk.
'This is our report,' said Gladmann, holding up a handful of sheets stapled together. 'It's pretty clear, I would say. I could take you through it if you like.'
'I'd be grateful.'
'OK. First, we're pretty well agreed there are four speakers involved here – or a very high degree of mimicking. There was some resemblance in tempo and pitch range between (A) and (D), that is to say, now get you to my lady's chamber etc., and the time is out of joint etc. But there are several significant differences. They both use RP, Received Pronunciation, but it's fairly clear it's been received in rather different ways, ha ha.'
'Ha ha,' said Pascoe. 'Explain.'
'Well, if we look at the phonetic realization of those phonemes we find in both utterances, we can spot the following. In the word to, (A) uses a central vowel while (D) has a close back vowel. Like this.'
Gladmann demonstrated, Pascoe looked doubtful, Gladmann repeated the demonstration, Pascoe echoed the sounds, hesitantly at first, then with more certainty.
'By George, you've got it. I think you've got it,' said Gladmann.
'I could have danced all night,' rejoined Pascoe. 'Go on.'
'Next take (A)'s now and (D)'s out. (D) has the usual RP diphthong in which the glide begins with an unrounded open back vowel, whereas (A) has a diphthong in which the glide begins from much further forward and nearer a half open position.'
Again the demonstration.
'Note also,' continued Gladmann, the bit between his teeth now, 'that where (D)'s stressed-syllable-initial voiceless plosives (as in time and cursed) are aspirated, in (A) they are not.'
'Hang on. What does that mean?'
'Well, when they're aspirated, they're said with a little puff of air accompanying the release…'
'I know what aspirated means, also exasperated,' said Pascoe. 'But what does it signify?'
'Ah, always the policeman,' said Gladmann sadly. 'You could say that the aspiration is normal in RP, and its absence often occurs in Northern regional accents. Similarly, while the one final voiceless plosive we find in (D), that is, in spite, is unreleased, in (A) all the final voiceless plosives are globalized.'
'You mean, spat out?'
'If you like,' said Gladmann, as if disheartened.
'So, conclusions please.'
'If you must,' said Gladmann, '(D) is fairly simple. He speaks RP of a kind he probably learned in a middle- class home and during the course of an education, not necessarily private, but certainly grammar school and probably in the Home Counties. There are a couple of relatively conservative features of his version of RP which underline these conclusions. When he says 0, the glide of the diphthong begins with a centralized back vowel quality and in born his pronunciation of the vowel is diphthongal rather than the monophthongal one common among younger RP speakers.'
'Yes, yes,' said Pascoe impatiently. 'And (A)?'
'Here we would say there has been a fairly marked regional accent which has been changed, for whatever reason, towards a modified RP. Some regional features remain. Northern, certainly. Drew Urquhart did some field work in dialectology in north Derbyshire last summer and he claims he got an odd echo from those parts, but he tends to be a bit obsessive about his own interests.'
'OK,' said Pascoe. 'What about the others.'
'Well, they say rather less, but fortunately say it rather more revealingly in regional terms. One may smile and smile, and be a villain. Note the giveaway one, the diphthongal pronunciation of the vowel in be and the very close articulation of the first vowel in villain. West Midlands, certainly. Birmingham, very likely. And even you, I'm sure, Inspector, spotted that (C) was a Scot. The final 'r' in or tells all, though if you want further evidence, you could point to the use of a closer back vowel for not than an educated Englishman would employ.'
'That's excellent,' said Pascoe, not sure if it was or not. 'And these are the sonograms I suppose. What do they tell us?'
He picked up some lengths of thin paper printed with wavy varying vibration patterns above a scale.
'They help to confirm that four different speakers are involved,' said Gladmann. 'And if you're fortunate enough, or perhaps unfortunate enough, to get another message on tape, they'd help us work out which of these four it might have come from. Do you think that one of these is definitely this Choker chappie?'
'It's very likely,' said Pascoe.
'Well, I hope you get him. Though incidentally, young Drew asked me to be certain to reiterate his objection
