Reginald Hill - Death

'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.