researches into Thomas Lovell Beddoes, and I shan't come back to Fichtenburg till Monday, when hopefully her mother's presence and her friends' absence will combine to keep Mouse in her right senses.
Ihrer guter Freund
Franny
In the no-man's land between Christmas and New Year, a deathly stillness falls across the ravaged landscape with devastated survivors picking their way carefully round the shops exchanging rubbish they have been bought for rubbish more to their taste, while in empty offices telephones shrill their urgent summonses in vain. It's as if the great heart of the city has paused to breathe, and even crime itself has taken a rest.
It is a lull which policemen take advantage of in many different ways. Andy Dalziel used it for a bit of deep thought, which might have surprised the casual spectator, for in his work as in his play on the rugby fields of his younger days what caught the eye was the sheer brutality of his approach.
But there was more to him than just destruction. Not for him the expense of energy in vain pursuit of the fleet young gazelles behind the scrum. Instead he sent his mind after them, plotting the likely progress of a move on the basis of what he knew of his opponents, what he saw of the conditions. He wasn't always right, but at the end of a game many an opposing winger wondered how it was that after jinking his way round the full back, instead of open countryside ahead, he had found himself, like Childe Roland, suddenly confronted by the Dark Tower.
For Dalziel this calm between the two great orgies was time to sit and read the game.
There was a smell of danger in his nostrils and he didn't yet know precisely where it was coming from except that it had something to do with the Wordman case.
The case was officially resolved and he had the plaudits to prove it. What was more, it had been resolved in the best possible way. Not only had the perpetrator been caught in the act, he'd been killed in the act, thus at the same time providing incontrovertible evidence of his guilt and depriving all those arty-farty-Number-10-party, greenery-yallery-play-to-the-gallery lawyers of any opportunity to controvert it.
Of course only the Law could decide a man's guilt, but you can't libel the dead, and the papers hadn't held back from doing what the courts couldn't by crying Gotcha! and proclaiming Dick Dee Guilty as not charged!
A good story. But how much better a story it became, now that everyone except those most personally involved had forgotten the triumphing tabloid headlines, if one of the same papers could dig up evidence to suggest a doubt.
He thought of Penn's crack about the truth dropping through his letter box some morning. Watch this space! he'd said.
And hadn't Pascoe's chum, Roote, said that Penn was mouthing off about getting help?
That dangerous smell had a strong reek of investigative journalism about it.
This was bad news. Nowadays investigative journalism wasn't just some nosey reporter wanting to make a name, it was big business. If a paper felt there was something to get its teeth into, there would be no shortage of money, expertise or advanced surveillance equipment. And they didn't play by the rules.
He'd thought Dee's death had blown no-side on the Wordman game, but now it looked like somewhere out there the ball might be back in play.
A lesser man might have expended emotion agonizing over the possibility that the police had got it wrong, and wasted his time going over the whole investigation with a fine-tooth comb in search of flaws. Not Andy Dalziel. OK, he'd put someone on it, but meanwhile his place was not at post mortems. Out there on the field was where things got settled. Be first at the breakdown and make sure that after all the shoving and wrestling and kicking and punching are over, you're the man who comes up with possession.
And the best way of doing that was to be the man who hit the bastard with the ball in the first place. So, who to hit?
Not Charley Penn. He'd hit him already and it was clear Charley was indestructible in his conviction that Dee was innocent. Didn't matter. Charley was a nuisance, but writers weren't newsworthy, not unless they were very old, very rich, or very obscene. No, the guy who needed chopping off at the knees was the sodding journalist.
He'd be out there somewhere. And he wouldn't be coming at you like good old Sammy Ruddlesdin of the Gazette, fag on lip, notebook in hand, asking where you'd buried the bodies. Nowadays the sting was the thing; they donned disguises, got you relaxed, listened sympathetically as you talked, and all the time the little recorder they'd got taped to their dick was whirring away. Or to their tit. Let's not be sexist about this.
Targets? They'd want a cop. Bowler was an obvious choice. Key witness to Dee's murderous attack on Rye Pomona, plus he was young and impressionable. Definitely the tit-tape there. Rye herself. Get her to admit what Dalziel had gleaned from her tearful ramblings while Bowler lay at death's door – that she had been stripped off, all systems go for a bit of bump and grind with Dirty Dick before the cavalry came on the scene. By the time she was fit to make a written statement, he had nudged her into several small shifts of emphasis so that her readiness to perform had been reduced to a pleasant relaxation induced by wine and warmth from an open fire. Her voluntary nudity was nowhere mentioned. In the confrontational atmosphere of a criminal court, there was no way she could have got away with such fudgings, but the gentle questionings of a sympathetic coroner had sketched a picture of a modern young woman believing her boss was making a play for her and trying to turn him down, when suddenly to her horror it became clear that it was a knife Dee wanted to stick into her, not his knob.
Clearly the version of the incident which Penn would have been urging on his tabloid accomplice was that, having been led to the very brink of passion's pool by this prick-teasing tart then told he couldn't drink, Dee had reacted like any normal stallion and kicked out in fury and frustration. Enter jealous boyfriend, and battle was joined. As for Dee's knife, well, he was going to make toast, wasn't he? And when the big boys arrived on the scene and realized that one of their own had been in a fight and a member of the public lay dead, they'd set about rearranging the facts to make it look like a good killing.
Dalziel was uncomfortably aware that the tidying up he'd done both of the scene and of both Rye's and Hat's account of events would provide some sustenance for Penn's version. His motive had been to protect his young officer from accusation of undue force and the girl from any hint that she was no better than she ought to be, and everything that he'd said or done had been underpinned by his utter conviction that Dick Dee was the Wordman. But he didn't think the tabloids would be much interested in making fine distinctions between a tidy-up and a cover-up.
So, apart from Hat and Rye, what would an investigative journalist go after?
The transcript of the inquest proceedings was in the public domain, so they'd already have that. But there were other things the bastard would be eager to get his hands on. Like police and medical records, particularly the PM on Dee. And GPS records. Dan Trimble, ever a belts-and-braces man, had wanted a GPS opinion to back up the assumption of Dee's guilt. What the CPS had replied was that their business was with realities not hypotheses, but all things being equal maybe there was just a chance that a prosecution could possibly have been successful… perhaps…
Par for the course, Dalziel had growled. And now he groaned at what the Sunday Smear or the Daily Dirt might make of all those hesitations and qualifications.
Frankly, but, it didn't matter what they made of it. It was, from their point of view, such a very good case, weird, bloody, baffling, terrifying and at times grimly comic, that even though the dust had hardly settled, already it must feel ripe for a re-run, and if some smart hack could make a story out of Penn's half-baked allegations, let's go for it!
So, how to proceed? Cover everything was the textbook policy. He'd worked out the road he thought this still-hypothetical hack would take, so warn those who needed warned, and send one of your own down the same road. Preferably a new face, fresh eyes.
He picked up his phone, pressed a number, said, 'Ivor there? Send her in, will you?'
Detective Constable Shirley Novello had been hors de combat during most of the Wordman investigation. When she returned, Bowler had been on convalescent leave. Now he was back too, it was evident to the Fat Man's sharp eye that a healthy rivalry for top DC status existed between them. Meaning, given the right direction, both would go the extra mile in the hope of impressing their lord and master.
Yes, Ivor would do very nicely as a key figure in defence.
But this didn't affect Dalziel's gut feeling that this wasn't one to counter with subtle defensive tactics, this was one to hit in mid-flight with a hospital tackle!
