Death's Jest-Book

4

It had been the best weekend of Hat Bowler's life, no competition, not even from the winter weekend a couple of years ago when he'd trudged back from a long unproductive stint in a hide looking for a reported Rock Thrush and there it had been, perched on the bonnet of his MG where it stayed long enough to get three good shots with his camera.

It hadn't just been the sex but the sense of utter togetherness they shared in everything they did. Saturday had been a perfect day till dinner when she'd pushed away her plate and said, 'Shit, I'm getting one of my headaches.' At first he'd laughed, taking it as a joke, then had felt a huge pang of selfish disappointment as he realized it wasn't. But this had quickly been blanked by anxiety as her face drained of colour. She'd assured him it was nothing, taken a tablet, and when, instead of retiring to her own room, she lay willingly and trustingly in his arms the whole night through, this had seemed an affirmation of love more powerful than sex. Gradually the next morning the colour had returned to her cheeks and by lunchtime she was as active and joyous as ever, and that night… if ever joy was unconfined, it was in the boundless universe which was their bed that night. They didn't leave the room till halfway through Monday morning, and only then because they were due to check out. Slowly they drove back into Mid-Yorkshire. They were in Rye's Fiesta – Hat's MG was taking even longer than its owner to recover from the injuries sustained during the rescue mission – but it was lack of volition rather than lack of power which dictated their speed. Both knew from experience that joy is a delicate fabric and life's shoddy sleeve has a thousand tricks up it which can be played to bankrupt poor deluded humans even as they rake their winnings in. This journey was a time-out. In the car with them they carried all the joyous certainties of that hotel room, but what lay ahead could never be certain. Out of some part of Hat's subconscious, the existence of which he had hitherto not even suspected, the Gothic fancy leapt that if they had been driving along a narrow mountain road with a rock face on one side and a precipice on the other, it might have been well to seize the wheel and send them plunging to their deaths. Happily a hawthorn hedge and a turnip field didn't offer quite the same incentive, so it was a fancy easy to resist and one he decided to keep to himself. What after all was he feeling so pessimistic about? Had not Rye promised he would be safe with her, and he certainly intended exerting all his strength to ensure she stayed safe with him.

Impulsively he leaned over and kissed her, nearly bringing the turnip field into play.

'Hey’ she said, 'don't they do road safety in the police any more?'

'Yeah, but some of us get special exemption.' She reached over and touched him intimately. 'And that's a special exemption, is it? Hang on.' The turnip field came to an end to be followed by a meadow full of sheep with a rutted overgrown lane in between. Rye swung the wheel over and they bumped up the lane for twenty yards or so before jolting to a halt.

'Right,' she said, undoing her seat belt. 'Let's have a road safety lesson.'

For the rest of the journey his heart was like a nest of singing birds which permitted no discordant future possibilities to be heard. The world was perfect and all that lay ahead was an eternity exploring its perfections.

But, for all his certainties, he was sorry when the journey came to an end and they turned into Peg Lane where Rye lived. Somehow, cocooned in the car, they had seemed as solitary as Adam and Eve at the world's dawn. Still, God was obviously smiling upon them as there was a parking space right in front of Church View, the big converted townhouse which contained Rye's flat.

He followed her up the stairs, wondered as she inserted the key in the lock whether it would be naff to offer to carry her over the threshold, decided it wouldn't and who the hell cared anyway? put the cases down and stepped forward as the door swung open.

And saw over her suddenly rigid shoulder that the flat had been burgled.

The flat was a mess. It looked as if stuff had been removed from cupboards and drawers and hurled about recklessly in a desperate search, but as far as he could see the only thing that had been broken was a Chinese vase in the bedroom. It lay beneath the shelf it had fallen from. It struck Hat as he stood there looking down at it that this was the first time he'd been in Rye's bedroom. But not the last, he told himself complacently. Then he saw her face and all such smug self-congratulation vanished.

She was staring at the shards of the broken vase, her face as pale as the fine white dust which surrounded them.

'Oh shit’ said Hat.

He could guess what the vase had held. Aged fifteen, her twin brother Sergius had been killed in the car accident which left his sister with the head injury whose healing was marked by a distinctive silver blaze in her rich brown hair. The twins had been close in life, he knew that, but just how close Sergius had stayed in death he hadn't known till now.

How he would have felt about bedding down with Rye in the presence of her brother's ashes, he didn't know. Not that there looked any likelihood of being put to the test in the near future. He tried to put a comforting arm round her shoulders but she turned out of his grasp without a word and went back into the living room.

Personal contact not getting through, he tried professional, urging her not to touch any more than was necessary, but she didn't seem to hear him as she moved around the living room and the kitchen, checking drawers, boxes, private hiding places.

'What's been taken?' he asked.

'Nothing,' she said. 'So far as I can see. Nothing.'

Didn't seem to make her happy. Come to think of it, it didn't make him happy either.

He looked around himself, hoping to find a gap. She didn't own a TV set or hi-fi equipment, the obvious targets. Lot of books, wouldn't be able to check those till they were back on the shelves, but they didn't seem a likely target. He went back into the bedroom. What the hell was she going to do about those ashes? Her clothes, which had been tipped out of drawers, were scattered over them. Not the kind of thing you wanted to find in your undies, he thought with that coarseness policemen learn to use as a barrier between themselves and the paralysing effect of so much of what they see.

There was a lap-top open on a table by the bed. Funny that hadn't gone. Expensive model, easily portable. He noticed it was in sleep mode.

'You always leave your computer on?' he called.

'No. Yes. Sometimes,' she said from the living room.

'And this time?'

'I can't remember.'

He ran his fingers at random over the keyboard and waited. After a while it got the message and began to wake up.

Now the screen came into focus. There were words on it.

BYE BYE LORELEI, then they vanished.

He turned to see Rye had come into the room. She was holding the power cable which she had just yanked out of the wall socket.

'Why did you do that?' he asked.

'Because,' she said, 'if I want a detective, I'll dial 999.'

'And are you going to dial 999?'

She rubbed the side of her head where the silver blaze shone in the rich brown hair.

'What's the point?' she said. 'You lot will only make more mess. Best just to tidy up, get some better locks.'

'Your choice,' he said, not wanting to force the issue. 'But maybe you ought to make'absolutely sure nothing's missing before you make up your mind. You won't be able to claim unless your insurance company sees a police report.'

'I told you, nothing's missing!' she snapped.

'OK, OK. Right then, let's do a bit of tidying up, or would you like a drink first?'

'No’ she said. 'No. Look, I'll do the tidying up myself. I'd prefer it.'

'Fine. Then I'll make us a coffee…'

'Christ, Hat!' she exclaimed, her hand at her head again. 'What happened to that guy who was so oversensitive he couldn't make a pass? I'll spell it out. I don't want a fuss, Hat. I've got a headache, Hat. I would rather be alone, Hat.'

Of course she would. He forced himself not to glance towards the shattered vase.

He nodded and said brightly, 'I think I've got that. OK. I'll ring you later.'

‘Fine,' she said.

He went to the door, stood looking down at the lock, and said, 'Thanks for a great weekend. I had the best time of my life.'

She said, 'Me too. Really. It was great.'

He looked back at her now. She managed a smile but her face was pale, her eyes deep shadowed.

He almost went back to her but had the wit and the will not to.

'Later,' he said. 'We'll talk later.'

And left.

As Sergeant Wield approached Turk's his clear and well-ordered mind, long used to separating the various areas of his life into water-tight compartments, had no problem with setting out what he was doing.

He was an officer of Mid-Yorkshire CID, on duty, going to meet a. nineteen-year-old rent boy who might possibly have information which would be of interest to the police.

He was alone because said rent boy was not a registered informant (which would have required the presence of two officers at any meeting) but a member of the public who had indicated he wanted to speak to Wield only.

So far, so normal. The only abnormality was that he was having to remind himself!

Then through the grubby glass of the cafe window, he saw Lee sitting at the same table they'd occupied on Saturday night, looking like a kid who'd bunked off school, and he broke his stride to remind himself again.

Turk returned his greeting with his usual glottal grunt and poured him a cup of coffee. Lee's face, which had lit up with pleasure or relief on Wield's entrance, had resumed its usual watchful suspicious expression by the time the sergeant sat down.

'How do?' said Wield.

'I'm fine. Survived your sarney then?'

'Looks like it.'

There was silence. Sometimes in such circumstances, Wield let the combination of the silence and his un-readably menacing face work for him. Today he judged that whatever point was going to be reached would require a path of small talk. Or maybe he just wanted to talk.

He said, 'Lubanski. Where's that come from?'

'My mam's name. She were Polish.'

'Were?'

'She's dead. When I were six.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Yeah? Why?' His tone was sceptically aggressive.

Wield said gently, 'Because no age is good to lose your mam, and six is worse than most. Old enough to know what it means, too young to know how to cope. What happened then?'

He didn't need to ask. Like Pascoe in pursuit of Franny Roote, he'd done some research that morning. Lee Lubanski had a juvenile record, nothing heavy: shop-lifting, glue-sniffing, absconding from a children's home. Nothing there about rent-boy activities. He'd been lucky, or clever, or protected. A conscientious social worker had pieced together a brief family history when the boy first went into care. Grandfather was a Polish shipworker active in the Solidarity movement. A widower with dodgy lungs and a fifteen-year-old daughter, when General Jaruzelski cracked down on Walesa and his supporters in 1981, Lubanski, fearful that he wouldn't survive a spell in jail and fearful too of what might become of his daughter if left to run loose, had somehow got out of the country on a ship which docked at Hull. Seeing no reason why the UK authorities should be very much different from those back home, he'd slipped through the immigration net into the murky waters of metropolitan Yorkshire, only to find that what he'd fled from in Poland awaited him here. After a few months of precarious existence, he died of untreated TB, leaving a pregnant daughter with a basic knowledge of English and no obvious way of making a living other than prostitution, which was her profession when Lee slithered into this unwelcoming world.

The new mother touched surface just long enough for her son to be registered officially and for her to get the minimum benefits offered by a caring state, but then her father's fear of authority took over and she slipped out of sight again until Lee came of school age. Now the Law got a line on her, but by the time it was ready to pronounce on her status as an illegal alien, she was too far gone with her father's illness for there to be argument over anything but who was going to pay for the coffin.

Her son too was, as might be expected, tubercular, but happily at an early enough stage for treatment. The assumption of the social worker's report was that he'd been the product of an unprotected encounter with a client, but in this alone did Lee's fragmented account differ from what Wield had read.

'My mam were going to get married, but she couldn't 'cos she were only fifteen, so she had to wait till she were sixteen, and something must have happened with my dad…'

Had some bastard lied to the girl in order to get her into bed for nothing? Or had she lied to her son so that he wouldn't have to grow up thinking he was the product of a five-quid shag up against a garage wall?

Whatever, it was clearly important to the boy. To the young man. To the nineteen-year-old male prostitute who'd got him here on the promise of useful information.

Wield sat up straight and looked at his watch to break the thread of confidentiality.

'OK, Lee’ he said. 'I've got things to do. So what did you want to see me about?'

For a moment Lee looked hurt, then his features became watchful and knowing.

Thought you might like to hear about a heist that's coming off’ he said with an effort at being casual.

'A heist?' said Wield, hiding his smile at the use of this Hollywood word.

‘That's right. You interested or wha'?'

'Won't know till you tell me a bit more’ said Wield. ‘Like, what? Where? When?'

'Friday. Security van.'

'Good. Any particular security van?'

'You wha'?'

'You may not have noticed, lad, but the streets of our city are pretty well jammed with security vans at the busy times of day.'

'Yeah, well, it's one of Presidium's.'

This was better. Praesidium was a newish Mid-Yorkshire security company which by aggressive marketing was making its presence felt in a growth industry.

Wield close-questioned Lee about the cargo, time and location, but the boy just shrugged, and his only response to enquiries about the source of his information was it was guaranteed good, this with a double dose of that knowing look.

'OK, Lee’ said Wield. 'It's not much to go on, but I'll mention it to my boss. He's a payment-by-results man, by the way.'

'Payment? What payment?' said the youth angrily.

'You'll be wanting something for your trouble, won't you?'

'It was no trouble, just a favour, for what you did for me last night. Or should I have offered you money for that? Or summat else maybe?'

The implication was clear, but the indignation seemed genuine.

Wield said, 'Sorry, lad. Picked you up wrong. My line of work, you think… well, you know, you don't often get owt for nowt. Sorry.'

'Yeah, well, that's all right’ said Lee.

'Good. OK. Listen, how can I get hold of you?'

'Why should you want to get hold of me?'

'Just in case anything comes up. About the… heist.'

Lee thought a moment then said, ‘I’ll be in touch if there's owt, don't worry’

Wield said, 'Sure, that's fine’ not doubting he could get a line on the young man whenever he wanted. 'Got to go now. Cheers. You take care of yourself.'

This time he didn't look into the cafe as he walked by the window, not wanting to risk another glimpse of vulnerability. For the moment all that mattered was this tip. It was too vague to be of much use as it stood. He could imagine what Dalziel would tell him to do, so he might as well do the do-able part before he got told.

Back on his bike, he headed for the estate that housed Praesidium Security.

Praesidium's boss, Morris Berry, a fleshy man with sweaty palms, was unimpressed. He called up the job sheets for Friday on his computer and after a quick examination opined that, if the tip were true, they must be dealing' with a singularly unambitious gang of heisters as the only job worth the risk of a hit was the rural wages round. This delivered wage packets to various small businesses across the county. OK, with Christmas bonuses included, the initial amount carried was larger than usual, but it still only amounted to thousands rather than hundreds of thousands, and of course with each delivery, it got less.

Wield checked for himself and had to agree with the conclusion. At least it narrowed down the likely time of the hit as the gang must know that the longer they waited, the less they were going to get. Berry laughed and asked what made him think crooks were that clever. This lot must be really thick to contemplate attacking one of his state-of-the-art vans with the latest tracker devices installed so he knew their exact location all the time.

He demonstrated this with a computerized map of Yorkshire which showed van-shaped icons flashing away at various locations. Then he zoomed in on one of them.

There we are, Van 3 on the A1079 approaching The Fox and Hen. If the bastard stops there, he's fired!'

The bastard, happily for him, kept going. Wield, impressed enough to have even more doubts about Lee's tip, glanced at his watch. Jesus, it was two o'clock. Time for a pint and pie in what should by now be the CID-free zone of the Black Bull.

Peter Pascoe felt nervous. Despite all his assurances first to Ellie then to the Fat Man that the Linford case was well under control, he still had misgivings. At the heart of them stood Marcus Belchamber, advocate solicitor, of what was generally regarded as Yorkshire's premier law firm, Chichevache, Bycorne and Belchamber.

It was universally acknowledged that if you wanted to sue your loving gran for feeding you toffees at five to the detriment of your pancreas at thirty, or if you wanted rid of your spouse but not your spouse's assets, you retained Zoe Chichevache. If you wanted to draw up a commercial contract which would leave you keeping your fortune when all about you were losing theirs and blaming it on you, you retained Billy Bycorne. But if you simply wanted to stay out of jail, you sent for Marcus Belchamber.

He was of course an ornament of Yorkshire society, exuding reliability and respectability. His standing as a minor man of learning, particularly in the field of Roman Britain, was unassailable. Even his one approach to flashness was an unobtrusive learned jest in that he drove a Lexus bearing the numberplate jus 10, which, if you took the digit 1 as letter I could be translated as Behold the Law!

Dalziel had a dream. 'One day the bastard 'ull overreach himself and I'll have his bollocks for breakfast.'

But, in the private opinion of the Fat Man's colleague, such a culinary treat was unlikely ever to be on the menu. Why should one who could so easily gather the golden apples free ever risk lending his clients his arm to shake the tree?

And today Belchamber was appearing for the accused, Liam Linford.

Pascoe had been in on this case almost from the start, which was late one November night when John Longstreet, twenty-six, taxi driver, had arrived home from his honeymoon with his wife, Tracey Longstreet, nineteen. Home was a flat in Scaur Crescent on the Deepdale Estate. Because the street in front of the flats was lined with cars, Longstreet had parked opposite. As he unloaded the cases, his young wife, eager to enter her new home, had set out across the road, pausing in the middle of it to turn and ask him if their honeymoon had left him so weak he needed a hand.

As he started to reply to the effect that he'd soon show her how weak he was, a car came round the corner at such speed it threw his wife ten feet into the air and thirty feet forward so that she crashed down on the windscreen of the braking vehicle, slid along the bonnet and rolled off under the wheels. The low-slung machine trapped her beneath the chassis, dragging her along the road for two hundred yards before finally scraping itself free of what remained, and accelerating away into the night.

Pascoe first saw John Longstreet forty-five minutes later at the City Hospital. He was advised by the attendant doctor that he was in such deep shock it was pointless talking to him. Indeed, when Pascoe, ignoring the advice, took a seat next to the man the only coherent phrase he managed to get out of him was 'black skull' repeated over and over.

But for Pascoe it was enough. He put it together with another phrase elicited from the one extremely distant independent witness to the effect that it was a 'yellow sporty job going a hell of a lick', and he set off towards the substantial residence of Walter Linford.

Wally Linford was an entrepreneur who'd ostensibly made his fortune out of a travel company in the loadsa-money eighties, but in CID it was known this side of proof that his true metier was the financing of crime. Not directly, of course. Projects would be vetted, proposals assessed, terms agreed, at some distance from the man himself. And his approval would never be written, indeed often not spoken, but just made manifest in the form of a nod. If things went wrong, Wally stayed right, able to enjoy the fruits of his investments and bask in the respect and approval of his fellow citizens, to whom he appeared as a fair employer, a generous supporter of good causes, and a loving father.

This last at least was true. He had one son and heir. It was perhaps all he wanted because, contrary to the common run of things in which the new mother under pressure of all her new responsibilities shows a disinclination for sex, it was Wally who vacated the marriage bed after Liam's birth. His wife, a quiet, rather introverted young woman, neither complained about nor commented on this state of affairs for some five years until, rather belatedly catching a whiff of the rampant feminism strutting the streets of Mid-Yorkshire in the eighties, she appeared one night in her husband's room to petition for her rights only to find the situation already filled. By a muscular young man.

In divorces generally, judges are inclined to favour the mother in matters of custody. In cases like this, it is more than an inclination, it is almost an inevitability.

But Wally had turned to Chichevache, Bycorne and Belchamber who specialized in avoiding the inevitable. And Liam had grown up under the sole tutelage of his father.

And yet he had by no means turned out as his father might have wished him.

Loud, louche, and loutish, he made no effort to win the respect of the common citizenry, or indeed of anyone. He seemed to see it as his bounden duty to dispose of as much of his father's wealth as he could in the pursuit of personal pleasure with no regard whatsoever for the rights and comforts of others. And his father, apparently blind to his defects, did nothing to disabuse him of this belief. His eighteenth birthday present six months earlier had been a canary yellow Lamborghini Diablo and he'd already run up nine penalty points on his licence for speeding. In fact it was suggested by some that had it not been for Wally's standing in the community and close friendship with several members of the Bench, Liam would have been disqualified long since.

Well, that was between them and their conscience, thought Pascoe as he headed straight round to the Linford mansion. What was more interesting to him was the fact that Liam had thought to enhance the beauty of his machine by having a grinning black skull stencilled on the bonnet.

There was a car in the driveway of Linford's house, but it was a Porsche, not a Lamborghini. Wally Linford himself answered the door, courteously invited him in. Liam was in the lounge, enjoying a drink with his friend, Duncan Robinson, known as Robbo, another young man whose parents had more money than anything else. Pascoe enquired after the Lamborghini. Oh yes, Liam replied, he had been driving it that night. He'd gone to the Trampus Club, met some friends, had a dance and a few drinks, just a few but he realized when he got up to leave that he might be over the limit, so like a good citizen he had accepted a lift home with his old mate, Robbo. Check it out, the Diablo should still be in Trampus's car park.

Pascoe made a call. They sat and waited. The reply came. The car wasn't there.

Shock! Horror! It must have been stolen, declared Liam.

And I'm to be Queen of the May, said Pascoe and arrested him. He tested positive both for booze and coke. Put him in the car and he was going down for a long, long time.

But this didn't prove easy. Robbo vigorously confirmed Liam's story, and several other people at the club recalled hearing the lift being offered and accepted before the two of them left together. The Diablo was found nearly eighty miles away, burned out, despite which Forensic managed to find enough traces of blood to make a match with the dead girl's. So it was definitely the accident vehicle, but the distance involved gave further support to Liam's story. No way would he have had time to drive that far, torch the car and get back home before Pascoe arrived to arrest him. CPS were shaking their heads very firmly.

Then a witness came forward, Oz Carnwath, a student at the local Poly earning some money by working at Trampus's as an occasional barman. He'd been dumping rubbish in the big wheelie bin at the rear door when he saw Liam and his friend cross the car park, each get in his own car, then drive away separately. He'd kept his mouth shut at first, not wanting to get involved, and believing that Liam would get his come-uppance without any help from himself. But when the youth reappeared in the club, boasting that he was home and free, this stuck in Carnwath's throat and he went to the police.

So far Robbo had stuck to his story, though not without uneasiness in face of Pascoe's assurance that, if Liam was found guilty, the police wouldn't rest till he joined him in jail for attempting to pervert the course of justice. But clearly he was even more scared of what Wally Linford would do if he came clean. In addition he must have been mightily reassured to see the firm of Chichevache, Bycorne and Belchamber retained for the defence.

But Pascoe suspected Wally wouldn't put all his trust in legalities, and ordered a close watch to be kept on Carnwath till they got his evidence into the record at the committal proceedings. So far the business with the lost undertaker had been the only scare. And yet…

He saw Marcus Belchamber coming through the main entrance of the court complex and felt relieved that soon the action would commence. Then it dawned on him that Belchamber was alone. No Liam. No Wally.

No sodding trial!

'Mr Pascoe, I'm so sorry, but it seems we are wasting our time today. Young Mr Linford is too ill to attend. Possibly the advance guard of this new flu virus which is rife in London. Kung Flu, they call it, a play I assume on Kung Fu, because it knocks you down and leaves you helpless. I have the necessary medical certificate, of course. Forgive me. I must go and apprise the Bench.'

The man smiled apologetically. One civilized cultured guardian of the law exchanging courtesies with another, both of them engaged in the great pursuit of justice.

And yet as Pascoe left the court he felt more stitched up than the Bayeux Tapestry. '

With Fat Andy being lunched by the Chief Constable and Pascoe locked in mortal combat with Marcus Belchamber, Wield anticipated having the Black Bull pretty much to himself. And if there were any junior colleagues taking advantage of their superiors' absence to linger late, one glower from the most frightening features in the Force would send them scurrying back to their desks.

But the two DCs he saw as he entered the bar showed no signs of scurrying.

They were Hat Bowler and Shirley Novello, deep in conversation. Slightly surprising, as he got the impression that Bowler regarded Novello as his most potent rival. Perhaps, both having been wounded in the line of duty, they were swapping scars.

They stopped talking as he approached.

'Nice to see you, lad,' he said. 'When are you due back? Wednesday, isn't it? Breaking yourself in gradual, is that the idea?'

'Actually, I was hoping to see you, Sarge,' said Hat.

'Is that right?' said Wield. 'I'll just get myself a pie and a pint first.'

'My shout’ said Novello.

As she waited at the bar, she saw Bowler talking earnestly to Wield. She guessed he was telling him the story of returning to his girlfriend's flat and finding it burgled. He'd come in, looking for Wield, but when she told him that the sergeant had gone out at the end of the morning and not reappeared yet, he had started talking to her, not because he regarded her as a confidante, she guessed, but merely as a rehearsal for what he was going to say to Wield. She suspected there was more to his tale than he'd told her, but now that his true audience was here, she'd probably get to hear the lot.

When she returned to the table Bowler was just reaching a rhetorical climax.

'So, you see, it's got to be Charley Penn!' he pronounced with all the fervour of Galileo reaching the end of his detailed proof that the earth went round the sun.

Wield was regarding him with all the enthusiasm of an overworked Inquisition officer who didn't fancy having to attend yet another bonfire at the height of an Italian summer.

'Why so?' he said.

'Because Lorelei's that German-stuff he messes with, and because he hates me and Rye, and because I've got a description… oh hell!'

'Well well well! What's this? A wounded heroes' conference? It's purple hearts all round! And mine's a pint!'

Andy Dalziel had burst through the barroom door, radiating more geniality than a Harrods Santa Claus, but Hat Bowler flinched away from the glow like a scientist in the presence of a reactor gone critical.

How could this be? he asked himself aghast. Hadn't he in his cleverness rung the station and established that Pascoe was in court and the Fat Man wasn't expected back from lunch with the Chief before dusk, leaving the way clear for him to buttonhole Wield in the Bull?

What Bowler hadn't made allowances for was that chief constables earned their extra thousands by being even cleverer than detective constables. Dan Trimble, knowing from experience that lunch with Dalziel could blend imperceptibly into high tea then supper, had arranged to be bleeped by his secretary. The bleep had come with their puddings, the meal already having begun to stretch, but the loss of a creme brulee seemed a small price to pay for an early escape. He made a brief phone call, put on a concerned look, then explained with much apology that urgent business required his instant return to his office. 'No need for you to rush, Andy,' he said as he rose. 'Enjoy your pudding. Have a drink with your coffee. I'll leave the bill open.'

Trimble was a decent man and it was guilt that made him utter these words, but the guilt even of a decent man is a delicate flower and his had faded before he reached his car, leaving him asking himself, aghast, 'Did I really say that?'

Behind him Dalziel finished his bread and butter pudding, sampled the Chief's creme brulee, ordered two more with the comment, 'Tell the chef this is nice nosh, only he don't give a man enough to put in his eye!' then, washing down his Stilton with a large port, he applied himself to the serious business of choosing what malt to drink while his coffee went cold.

Despite this he was on his way back to the station at half past two, which was a lot earlier than he'd anticipated. He was in a taxi, having gone to the restaurant in the Chief's official car, and thinking it a shameful thing for a man to have no better place to go to on an afternoon he'd regarded as taken care of than his place of work, he commanded the driver to divert to the Black Bull.

He paid off the cab with a generous tip which went down on the receipt he collected to send to Trimble's office for reimbursement. The thought of the Chief's face when he saw it (hopefully at the same time as he registered the extra creme brulees and the malts) had filled him with a delight which had bubbled over into his somewhat over-effusive reaction at the sight of Hat Bowler.

'What did I say, Wieldy?' he went on. 'Out of his hospital bed and into his lass's, he'll be so full of vim, he'll not be able to wait to get back to work! Isn't that what I said?'

'Not as such’ said Wield, observing that young Bowler, once Dalziel's bete noir, did not seem delighted at his apparent upgrading to palace favourite, even though it was in the presence of Novello, his main rival for the spot. She had returned from the bar with Dalziel's drink. To get Wield's, she'd had to wait her turn, but at the sight of Dalziel, Jolly Jack, the lugubrious landlord, had pulled a pint in a reaction worth a Pavlovian paper.

'There's that not as such again, Wieldy,' reproved the Fat Man, sinking into a chair and taking his glass from Novello.

He drank half of it like a traveller in an antique land who hadn't seen liquid for many a hot day, and said, Thanks, Ivor. Now what's the crack?'

Wield hesitated. He'd already begun to suss there was something not quite right about this burglary report. The youngster had escorted his girlfriend home after what had been (if Wield read the signs right) a sexually and emotionally successful holiday and had found her flat had been burgled. Naturally, being a DC, the boy would have promised to kick-start a thorough CID investigation. Which a phone call would have done. Instead of which Bowler had turned up at the Bull and, what was even odder, a couple of hours must have lapsed since the burglary.

There were other things too, and Wield would have been happy to let the full story emerge at the DC's own pace. But now the case was altered.

He said, 'DC Bowler was just reporting a burglary to me, sir.'

'Ee, that's champion. On the job, off the job, back on the job, all in the twinkle of an eye. That's the stuff a good detective's made of. So, fill me in, lad.'

With all the enthusiasm of a politician admitting a bribe, Hat began his story again.

Dalziel soon interrupted, picking up points Wield had not yet commented upon.

'So nowt taken. She says. You believe her?'

'Of course.' Indignantly. 'Why should she lie?'

'Summat she was embarrassed by. Sex aids. Pictures of her six illegitimate kids. Summat she didn't care to tell a cop about. Bag of shit. Bundles of used notes she'd got on the black and wasn't going to let on to the Revenue about. Summat she didn't want her employers to hear about. Expensive books she'd liberated from the reference library. Why should a woman lie about anything, lad? Mebbe just because they've got a talent for it! Am I right or am I right, Ivor?'

Shirley Novello said, 'You know I think you're always right about everything, sir.'

Dalziel looked at her suspiciously, then his face lit up and he exploded into laughter.

'There, young Bowler, see what I mean! Fortunately us fellows have got a talent for sussing out lies, or ought to have. So, I'll ask you again. You believe your lass?'

'Yes’ said Hat sullenly.

‘That your head or your hormones speaking?'

'My head.'

'Grand. No sign of forced entry, you say?'

'Couple of little scratches round the lock, but nothing positive.'

'Never mind, we'll know for sure when we take the lock to pieces.'

Hat looked even more unhappy, but the Fat Man was in full spate.

'So, just this message on her computer then. OK, what's it say?'

'Bye bye Lorelei.'

'Lorelei? What's that? Hang about. Weren't Lorelei the name of someone in a film

'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Marilyn Monroe,' said Wield.

'You been checking on the opposition, Wieldy? Lovely girl. Shame about yon fellow.'

Whether Dalziel's objection was to baseball players, playwrights or Kennedys wasn't clear, nor about to be made so as he pressed on. 'So what's its significance here? Come on, lad. Don't tell me you've not got a theory. When I were your age I had as many theories as I had erections, and I couldn't go upstairs on a bus without getting an erection.'

Hat took a deep breath and said, 'Well, sir, Lorelei's a sort of water nymph in this German fairy tale. There's this big rock or cliff on the Rhine, that's called the Lorelei too, and she sits there singing, and it's so beautiful that fishermen sailing by get distracted listening to her and run their boats on the rock and drown.'

'Used to feel like that about Doris Day’ said Dalziel. 'Sounds like one of them sirens.'

'They're Greek I think, sir’ said Wield.

'All in the bloody European Union, aren't they?' said the Fat Man, his geniality beginning to fade like morning dew. Airy-fairyness he could put up with from his DCI when more down to earth approaches were looking unproductive, but it wasn't something he encouraged in DCs making preliminary reports about burglaries. 'So we're into a German fairy tale now. Hope it's got a happy ending, lad.'

Bowler, who was beginning to learn that life with Dalziel meant having to put up with four injustices before breakfast, pressed on manfully.

'I looked it up. Seems this German poet, Heine, wrote a poem about this Lorelei

'Hold on. This yon Heinz that Charley Penn's always going on about?' said Dalziel suspiciously.

'Heine, yes’ said Hat.

'I thought I heard you mention Charley when I came into the room’ said Dalziel. 'I hope this isn't leading where I think it's leading?'

It was time to get this out in the open, thought Wield.

He said, 'Yes, sir, DC Bowler was just telling me of three links he made putting Penn in the frame. The message was one, the second was

… remind me, Hat.'

'Because he hates Rye, and me’ said Bowler.

'Charley Penn hates every bugger’ said Dalziel. 'What makes you two so special?'

'Because we were both involved in the death of his best friend, Dick Dee’ said Hat defiantly. 'I'm sure he doesn't believe Dee was the Wordman. And he reckons that I killed Dee because I was jealous that he was getting it off with Rye, and that the pair of us covered it up by fitting Dee up with responsibility for the Wordman killings. And you all went along with it because it meant you could tell the media you'd got the bastard’

Now Dalziel was right out of Santa Claus mode.

'You reckon that's what Charley thinks?' he said. 'He's not said it to me, but you'll know that, seeing he's not walking round with his head shoved up his arse. Wieldy?'

'He said some pretty way-out things to start with,' admitted the sergeant. 'But since then I've not heard him sounding off.'

'That could be because he thinks it's pointless making a fuss and he's planning to do something,' said Hat.

'Like breaking into your girlfriend's flat?' said Dalziel. •Why?'

'Looking for something to support his story, I suppose. Or maybe he thought he'd find her there and…' Hat tailed off, not wanting to encourage them to follow him down the alleys of his more lurid imaginings.

Then, seeing the scepticism on their faces, he burst out, 'And he was round there a couple of days ago, I'm ninety-nine per cent sure of it. I went and knocked at some doors in Church View. And I got two witnesses, Mrs Gilpin who lives on one side of Rye and Mrs Rogers on the other. They both saw a strange man outside Rye's flat last Saturday morning, and the description they gave fits Charley Penn to a T.'

This was stretching things a bit. True, Mrs Gilpin, a voluble lady who had lived in the block long enough to regard it as her personal fiefdom, had described a skulking villainous creature who with only a little prompting had been shaped into Penn. But Mrs Rogers, a younger but much more retiring woman, had at first said that, having only just moved in, she didn't really know which people she saw were residents, which visitors. At this point Mrs Gilpin, who unbeknown to Hat had followed him to Mrs Rogers' door, came in with a graphic description which the other woman, perhaps in self-defence, admitted put her in mind of someone she thought she might have seen perhaps on Saturday morning. Upon which Hat, fearful that the sound of Mrs Gilpin's voice, which a town-crier would not have been ashamed to own, might bring Rye to her door, had swiftly brought the interviews to a conclusion.

Wield's face didn't show much, but his words made it clear he was starting to feel annoyed.

'You're admitting that you discovered a crime and, instead of ringing it in and getting a proper investigation under way, you wasted time poking around, disturbing the ground and probably making sure anything you did find will get tagged as inadmissible in court?'

'No, Sarge. Well, yes, in a way. But not really.'

'We'll be into not-as-such land just now,' said Dalziel. 'I'm a fair man, young Bowler, and I'll not see someone hanged without giving him a chance for an explanation, so why don't you have a stab at one while I tie this knot?'

'The thing is, there isn't a crime, sir. I mean, there's a crime, but there isn't a complaint. Rye, Miss Pomona, says she doesn't want to pursue it.'

Now all was clear to Wield. The love-sick lad's investigation had to be unofficial because officially there was nothing to investigate. He'd come to the Bull in search of a sympathetic ear, and while the sergeant felt faintly flattered that he'd been the sympathetic ear that Hat had come in search of, he wondered what it was the boy had expected him to do. Nothing, possibly. Maybe the sympathy would have been enough.

Dalziel said, 'Well, God's jocks, now I've heard it all. Wasting police time on a load of nowt

I'm still on sick leave, sir, so it's my own time I'm wasting,' snapped Hat unwisely.

'I'm not talking about your sodding time, which I agree isn't worth much,' grated Dalziel. 'I'm talking about my time, which is worth millions, and the sergeant's time, which is worth quite a lot. Tell me this, lad. You're quick enough to spout accusations against Penn. You find something bad about your girl, you going to be as quick letting us know?'

Hat did not answer.

'Right. Then sod off out of here and next time I see you, bedtime 'ull be over and I'll not make allowances.'

Hat, blank faced, only a certain rigidity around the shoulders indicating any feeling, left, not closing the door behind him because he didn't trust himself not to slam it.

The Fat Man glowered after him then redirected the glower at Shirley Novello.

'Let that be a lesson to you, lass.'

'Yes, sir. What about, sir?'

'About the price of tea, what d'you think? And while you're at it, what do you think?'

'I think being in love doesn't necessarily make a man stupid, sir.'

'Aye, but it helps mebbe. You not got any work to do, lass?'

'Yes. What about you?' was the answer that orbited Novello's mind without getting anywhere near escape velocity. She was also wondering, being the kind of cop who could think of several things at the same time, whether she should mention the broken vase containing the ashes of Pomona's twin brother. Hat had mentioned this as he poured out the story to her, and maybe her raised eyebrow reaction had kept it out of the version he gave both Wield and Dalziel. Probably wise. She shuddered to think what the Fat Man would have made of it. As for herself, the questions to answer were, was it relevant? And was there any professional advantage in revealing it?

Answer to both at the moment was, not so far as she could see.

'Just going, sir,' she said. And went.

'So, Wieldy, what do you make of it?'

The sergeant shrugged, 'Owt or nowt, sir.'

'Aye. Owt or nowt’ said Dalziel thoughtfully. ‘I’ll have a word with Penn. You watch Bowler, OK? I think the bugger's given me indigestion. I'd best have another pint.'

Wield took the hint and stood up. When he returned, the Fat Man was eating his pie.

'Glad to see that lunch with the Chief hasn't spoilt your appetite, sir,' he said.

'Watch it! Sarcasm I'll take from buggers with letters after their name, they can't help it. But sergeants ought to talk as plain as they look.'

This looked like a cue, so Wield told him about the Praesidium heist tip.

'Bit vague. No names? Times? Details?'

'No, sir.'

'Source reliable?'

'Can't say, sir. This is a first.'

'Aye, but in your judgment?'

Wield considered then said, 'Don't think they'd deliberately jerk me around, but that doesn't mean they're not just trying to impress.'

'And how much did this excuse for a tip-off cost us?' said Dalziel.

'Nothing. Down to civic duty.'

'Oh, aye? Don't see much of that these days. Not getting yourself a fan club, are you, Wieldy?' said Dalziel, shooting him that keen glance which was one of the few missiles Wield did not feel his inscrutable features a complete defence against.

'Just came up in casual conversation,' he said.

'Bit too bloody casual for me. Not till Friday, but? That gives you time to see if you can get a bit of flesh on your new chum's bones then. By God, this pie's good. Jack must've changed his barber. You not eating, Wieldy?'

'No, sir. Things to do. See you back at the station.' He rose, intending to make a dash for the door, when it opened and Pascoe came in.

'My God,' said Dalziel. 'What's up wi' thee? You look like a hen that got shagged by an ostrich and feels an egg coming on. And why aren't you in court?'

'Postponed till Wednesday. Belchamber says his client's too ill to attend. Reckons he's got this Kung Flu.' 'Kung arseholes! And the beak bought it?' 'Belchamber produced a doctor's certificate. But give the beak his due, he said, "All right, same time Wednesday, but take notice, Mr Belchamber. If your client is still too ill to attend, we shall proceed in his absence." Which got an unctuous reassurance and a little apologetic glance in my direction. There's something about that bastard… I need a drink.'

'I'll have one with you. Man shouldn't drink alone.' The Fat Man watched Pascoe go to the bar, then said, 'Don't often see Pete letting someone rattle his cage, not unless he's called Roote. What do you think, Wieldy? Yon greaseball Belchamber up to summat?'

'Wouldn't know, sir.'

'Why not? He's one of yours, isn't he?'

'Meaning gay?' said Wield unfazed. 'Wouldn't surprise me, but it doesn't mean we meet in the Turkish baths and exchange confidences. How about you in the Gents, sir?'

This was a good riposte, but not a counter accusation. 'The Gents' was short for the Mid-Yorkshire Gentlemen's Club, of which Dalziel was a member mainly because so many people had wanted to blackball him.

'Most on 'em think the sun shines out of his arse’ said Dalziel. 'Wankers. Couldn't separate steak from kidney in a pudding.'

Wield looked sadly at the few crumbs of his pie remaining on the plate, then took his leave once more and made for the door. Pascoe returned from the bar with two pints. Normally he Wasn't much of a beer drinker at lunchtime, but the Belcher left a nasty taste.

As he sat down he said, 'Sir. I've been thinking…'

'Sod thinking. Try drinking. All things come to him who sups.'

Pascoe raised his glass.

'For once, sir,' he said, 'you may be right. Kill all the lawyers!'

'I'll drink to that,' said Dalziel.