‘We don’t know that. He may still be in a state of fugue.’
‘Like old Bach, you mean? Thought you said he weren’t all that musical.’
‘I think you know very well what I mean,’ she said dismissively.
Reckons she’s got my number now, he thought complacently. That was OK. He liked dealing with folk who believed they knew how his mind worked.
He said, ‘So if he’s in trouble, all mixed up, don’t know who he is or what’s gone off or owt, you’d like to help him, right?’
‘Of course I would.’
‘And if you find he’s alive, but not in trouble, what then?’
She took another drink of wine then said, ‘I may just kill the bastard!’
She spoke with deadly emphasis. Dalziel pursed his lips as if pondering the idea before nodding in approval. Now her features relaxed into a smile and finally she laughed out loud.
‘Sorry! What am I like? Mixed feelings is putting it lightly, Andy. Can I call you Andy?’
‘Why?’ said Dalziel.
‘Because Mick says it’s your name. Also because anyone overhearing me call you Mr Dalziel will imagine you’re either my boss or my sugar daddy.’
‘And calling me Andy ’ull make them think I’m your toy boy, is that it?’
She laughed again. A couple of glasses of wine had really loosened her up. What might a third do? It occurred to him that if Pascoe was keeping an eye on him, he might be getting the wrong idea about this lunch date. Serve the bugger right!
Gina said, ‘The thing is, Andy, you’re Mick’s idea, not mine. When he suggested contacting you, I thought that probably it would be a complete waste of time.’
‘And you don’t now? Why’s that?’
‘You’re not the only one who’s done some checking up,’ she said provocatively.
‘You’ve been checking on me, you mean? How’d you manage that?’
‘For a start, I spoke to Mick. I asked him to tell me all about you.’
‘Can’t have been that much to tell, we only ever met the once.’
‘Your reputation seems to have spread pretty widely in police circles, Andy. Do you like cowboy movies?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Mick’s a great fan. John Wayne, Clint Eastwood. We often spend a night watching old DVDs. When it’s my turn, it’s The Red Shoes or Tales of Hoffman. With Mick it’s Unforgiven or True Grit. That’s his favourite.’
‘Aye, I’ve seen it. Good movie.’
‘You remember the bit where the girl is looking for a marshal to pursue the man who killed her father? Depends what she’s looking for, she’s told. But if it’s true grit she wants, Rooster Cogburn’s her man. That’s what Mick said about you.’
Dalziel massaged his chins reflectively.
‘I told you already, I don’t kill people, not unless I really don’t like them,’ he said.
‘Same as Rooster, then,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I put together what Mick said with what I’d picked up from you in our short meeting. And I decided I’d be mad not to accept any help you can give me, if you’re up for it, that is.’
Dalziel looked at her over his wine glass. Were Mick Purdy and this woman jerking him around? But he had to admit the True Grit bullshit gave him a warm glow.
‘So what might you want me to do?’ he asked.
She became very businesslike as she said, ‘Well, here’s how I see things. There are only two possibilities that concern me. One, Alex is alive and will want to make contact with me if he knows I’m here. Two, Alex is alive and either won’t want to make contact or isn’t in a fit mental state to recognize me.’
Three, Alex is alive and doing the horizontal tango with some bit of dusky chuff in Buenos Aires, thought Dalziel. Or four, he’s a seven-year-old corpse.
He said, ‘Sounds reasonable. So?’
‘If it’s the first, I can take care of that myself. But if it’s the second, I’m going to have a hell of a job tracking him down on my own. Whereas someone with your experience and resources…’
‘You reckon? Any tips where I might start?’
She produced the envelope containing the page from MY Life.
‘You could start here. There are other people standing around him. I’m sure you’ve got the resources to blow their faces up then set about tracking some of them down. They might remember him, even know him.’
‘Mebbe,’ he said, taking the envelope. ‘Worth a try.’
Though he’d been planning to get the photograph from her so that he could test Purdy’s theory that it was a fake, getting it this way made him feel slightly uncomfortable. But it wasn’t his job to suggest to her that this might all be a put-up job with Mick as the main target. Was it?
He was saved from further debate by his mobile ringing once more.
‘He’s left,’ said Novello.
‘You mean you’ve lost him?’
‘He’s on a motorbike. I’ve got the number. Shall I run it?’
Dalziel took the point without need of elaboration. All requests to run vehicle numbers were logged and an off-duty DC would be expected to explain herself.
He could of course by a mere word turn this from unofficial to official. Even if Purdy’s notion that it was nothing more than a sick joke were right, the fact that their table had been bugged upped the ante considerably. But it could still be either owt or nowt. A couple of months back he could have shrugged off nowt with an even- Homer-nods indifference, but now he felt himself being weighed in the balance of his colleagues’ judgment.
Sod it. He was king of the castle, wasn’t he? And being king meant not having to explain yourself.
He said, ‘Give it to me.’
He scribbled it on his hand.
‘I’ll get back to you,’ he said.
He disconnected, thumbed Wield’s speed-dial number.
‘Wieldy, check this for me. And get back to me soonest, OK?’
He put the phone on the table and smiled apologetically at Gina Wolfe.
She said, ‘This is like being with Mick on his so-called day off. You never know when his phone’s going to ring.’
‘You must have got used to it during your marriage,’ he said.
‘To some extent. But after Alex moved up to DI, he was much more concerned with paper chases than blues-and-twos hot pursuit. It was good for a while. No more long white nights wondering what he was up to. Then we had other reasons for long white nights. And days.’
He said, ‘That must have been a terrible time. Hard to imagine worse.’
‘Mick told you the details about Lucy, did he?’
Her recent brightness had faded. He found he wanted to bring it back, and he had to remind himself that he wasn’t on a date.
He said, ‘Aye. So no need to talk about it if you don’t want to.’
‘No, that’s OK. Talking about it’s better than keeping it all inside, eating you up. That’s what it did to Alex. It ate him up. Which in a way was good for me. Keeping an eye out for Alex gave me a function.’
‘But you left him all the same.’
‘Because he’d gone beyond my help. There was an edge he was close to falling over. I knew if I stayed I’d probably go after him. I left to find strength to come back and save him. At least, that’s what I tell myself. But by the time I came back, he’d gone. Literally. I still wonder…’
‘Nay, lass, don’t. You don’t measure how you feel pain by how you bear it. Surviving don’t mean you’re less sensitive, just that you’re stronger.’
Jesus, Dalziel! he admonished himself. Might not be a date, but there’s no need to sound off like a big-tent preacher!
She said, ‘Maybe. Maybe his weakness has given him the chance to start over from scratch while all my so- called strength does is leave me bearing it forever. Just because I’ve reshaped my life doesn’t mean I’ve escaped
