fit in with the First Dialogue.”
“Oh God,” said Dalziel. “Do I smell another obsession? I know Charley is mooning around after your bit in the library, but sooner or later, lad, you’ve got to start thinking with your head not your dick.”
Hat flushed and said, “You said yourself, sir, he’s something else!”
“Aye, he is, but that doesn’t make him a killer,” said Dalziel, rifling through his case file. “Here we are. Charley Penn. Asked as a matter of routine where he was Sunday afternoon. Said he went as usual to visit his mother who has a cottage on Lord Partridge’s estate at Haysgarth…that checked out, did it?”
Pascoe said, “More or less.”
Dalziel gave him a long look and said, “If I ask a lass, ‘Did you enjoy that, luv?’ and she answers, ‘More or less,’ I get worried.”
Pascoe said carefully, “It was Hat here who checked.”
“Bowler?” He looked at Hat with a predatory speculation. “You thought it worth a couple of hours of valuable CID time sending the lad out to Haysgarth rather than using the local woodentop? This one of your hunches, Pete?”
“I sort of volunteered, sir,” said Hat nobly.
“I see. One of your hunches then. So what did the old lady say?”
“Not much, at least not much I could understand,” said Hat ruefully. “Seemed to think I was a member of the Stasi, rattled away in German, and when I finally got her to speak English, her accent was so thick it was almost as hard to understand. All I got out of her was that her Karl was a good boy and loved his old mutti and the lovely cakes she makes so much he was hardly ever away from her. I asked about that Sunday and she said that he was with her every Sunday and every other day he could manage. And then she started in German again.”
“Said he likes her cakes, did she?” said Dalziel thoughtfully. “So, no written statement then?”
“It didn’t seem an option, sir,” said Hat uneasily.
“Nor indeed a necessity,” said Pascoe. “I think we’ve wasted enough time on Penn unless anyone knows of any real reason for putting Penn in the frame?”
“If you can fit Roote in, there’s lots of room for any bugger,” said Dalziel. “How about you, Wieldy? You got anyone you’d like to fit up? No? Good. Then let’s all start pulling in the same direction and see if we can’t plough this murdering bastard into the ground. Bowler, I reckon soon as I take my eye off you, you’ll go swanning round to that library you’re so fond of, so why don’t you go there officially and don’t come back till you’ve found out how and when this envelope was delivered, right? Even if it means stamping some of them dozy buggers overdue.”
“Yes, sir. I’m on my way.”
He vanished.
Dalziel said, “Nice to see someone so happy when I give ’em a job. Let’s see if I can’t do the same for you two miserable sods!”
Hat was indeed happy to have an excuse to visit the library. He’d thought of ringing Rye last night but decided it would be a wrong move. Progress was steady but a wise strategist knew when to press, when to hold back. That was the way the Jack-the-lad part of him analysed the situation. But there was another more shadowy area of thought and feeling which acknowledged that the more he saw of Rye, the more important it became to keep on seeing her. This wasn’t just another skirmish in that unremitting sexual campaign which all Jack-the-lad young men enter upon at puberty-approach, lay siege, negotiate terms, occupy, move on. This was…well, he didn’t quite know what it was because he belonged to a generation conditioned to mock the idioms of romantic love, and what we don’t have words for, we find it hard to think about. But he knew that to lose her by crowding her would be a folly he’d never forgive himself for.
But now, with new secret information to share, he anticipated being made very welcome. Jesuitically, he had worked out that the decision to go public about the existence of the two latest Dialogues permitted him to use his own best judgment about who he passed on the details to. And of course he’d swear her to secrecy. This too was a kind of intimacy, the Jack-the-lad strategist pointed out gleefully; and each such move was a move in the right direction. Which was, of course, bed. But more than bed. Breakfast and beyond. Even the bed bit was different. He’d always looked forward to sex with a healthy young appetite, but never before like this, for imagining it with Rye Pomona made the marrow bubble along his bones and pushed him into a languorous swoon which almost made him drive up the exit lane of the Centre car park.
Retreating under a chorus of protesting horns conducted by a flurry of abusive fingers, he found the correct entrance, parked and made his way to the main library.
With the image of a roused Dalziel fresh in his mind, his investigation was painstakingly thorough to a degree which brought the two women and one man involved to a state of mutiny. But by dint of forcing them to recall which of the reserved books had been collected earlier in the week, he managed to establish that the weight of probability lay on the side of the envelope not having been there on Monday morning. Tuesday, which was yesterday, the day that Johnson’s body had been found, was less certain. And today, Wednesday, it had of course been found.
Satisfied he could get no more out of them, he left and headed upstairs to the reference library. By now it was lunchtime, and he peered into the staffroom as he passed in case Rye was eating her sandwich there. No sign of her, nor at first glance in the deserted reference library.
He went up to the desk and through the partially opened door of the office behind the counter, he glimpsed Dick Dee, his head bent over something on the desk which absorbed him so much that he was oblivious to Hat’s silent approach.
He was playing Scrabble…no, not Scrabble, it must be that funny game, Paronomania. Hat felt pleased with himself for recalling the word, but his pleasure was quenched almost instantly by a jealous certainty that Dee’s opponent was Rye.
There was a click of tiles being moved and Dee shook his head, smiling in admiration at some adept move, and said, “Oh, thou crafty Kraut, well done indeed.”
And Bowler just had time to feel puzzled as to why Dee should be addressing Rye as Kraut, when a most unfeminine voice replied, “Thank ’ee kindly, whoreson,” and his tentative knock at the well-oiled door pushed it open sufficiently for him to see the distinctive profile of Charley Penn.
“Mr. Bowler, do step inside,” said Dee politely.
He went into the office. The men on the wall all seemed to be examining him critically like a candidate for a job they didn’t think he was going to get. On the other hand, the teenage trio in the photo on the desk seemed to look straight through him at a world which, united, they did not doubt their capacity to deal with.
“Is your errand avian, amoristic or authoritarian?” said Dee.
“Sorry?” said Hat.
Penn was grinning at him. Hat felt, unusually for one not naturally violent, like wiping his clock.
“Do you require information about birds? Or do you wish to ask after Rye? Or have you come to quiz us about the latest Dialogue?”
Hat forgot about Penn and said, he hoped neutrally, “What do you mean by that, Mr. Dee?”
“I’m sorry,” said Dee. “Is it confidential? Of course it is. Forget I spoke. It was crass of me, and certainly not a subject to be flippant about.”
The apology came across as sincere rather than an empty formality.
“Mr. Dee, I’m not saying there has been another, but if there was, I’d like to know what you know about it,” insisted Hat.
“All I know is what all the library staff know, that a suspicious envelope was found this morning and handed over to the police and as it hasn’t been returned since-though of course that too might be the purpose of your visit- then it seems likely it contained matter of interest to you. But please, forget and forgive my curiosity. I have no desire to embarrass you professionally.”
“Doesn’t bother me, though,” said Penn in his grating voice. “My guess ’ud be that you’ve heard from yon loony again and it’s something to do with Sam Johnson. Right?”
“That just a lucky guess, Mr. Penn?” said Hat.
His gaze engaged the writer’s and locked for a while, then fell. Never get into a fight it’s not worth winning. He found himself looking down at the Paronomania board. It was the same star shape as the one he’d seen in Penn’s flat, but the designs on it were different. These seemed to have been taken from an old map, with wind- puffing cherubs, spouting whales, towering ice-cliffs, disporting mermaids. The game was well advanced with
