Bernard MacLaverty

It was him and it wasn’t him

Did you ever hear tell of the writer Lynn C. Doyle?’ She shook her head. ‘Well that’s not his real name. It’s a pen name. A joke name. Because it sounds the same as linseed oil. They’re homo-phones. Homo – same, phono – sound.’
‘What?’
‘Things that sound the same. Lynn C. Doyle and linseed oil. Get it?’
She nodded to please him. If he were here now she would say to him Bartók and bar talk. But he was dead, lying in the other room and would never chuckle at her discovery.

Locked in the safe. In isolation.