Rye was back at work the next day. While many employers bow to the inevitable and close down for the whole of the holiday period, Mid-Yorkshire Library Service was of sterner mettle, recognizing that after the penal sociability of Christmas, many people would be keen to get back to the solitary confinement of books.
On the twenty-seventh the reference library was fairly busy, but there was one notable and unregretted absentee. Charley Penn.
But midway through the morning, the door opened and Penn came in. He headed for his usual seat but without giving her the benefit of his usual glower and after five minutes looking at an unopened book, he rose and came to the desk.
Without preamble he said, 'Wanted to say I'm sorry about kicking up that fuss on Christmas Day. I were right out of order. Won't happen again.'
'Fuss?' she said. 'Oh yes, someone did say something about a drunk on the landing. I didn't actually notice, but I'm glad to hear of your resolution to reform, Mr Penn. Is that with immediate effect or do we have to wait till the New Year?'
Their eyes engaged, hers wide and candid, his deep-set and watchful. Neither blinked, but before it became a playground contest, Penn said, 'Work to do’ and turned away.
Behind him Rye said, 'Going well, is it?'
If he was surprised, it was hidden by the time he turned back to her.
Two steps forward, one step back, you know how it is with research’ he said.
'Not really. I suppose I've never been interested enough in a complete stranger to want to know everything about him.'
'You don't start with a stranger. You start with someone you're acquainted with, if only through their works. That's the contact makes you want to know them better. And sometimes they turn out very different from what you imagined. There's the fascination.'
'I see. And is it harder or easier if they're dead?'
'Both. They can't answer questions. But they can't lie either.'
She was silent long enough for him to wonder if this unexpected exchange were at an end, then she said, 'And they can't object to someone sticking an unwanted nose into their private affairs. That must be an advantage.'
'Think you might be confusing my line of work and your boyfriend's,' said Penn.
'Parallel lines that sometimes intersect, aren't they?'
'That's a bit too clever for a simple soul like me,' said Penn.
'Simple, Mr Penn? With all those books to your name?'
'There's nowt clever in making things up about folk you've invented,' he said with the harsh dismissiveness of success.
'But you haven't invented Heine. And I hope you're not making things up about him.'
'No, he's real enough. But finding out the truth about him doesn't need cleverness, just hard work and a taste for truth.'
'And translating his poems?'
The same.'
'You surprise me. I never seem to see any of your translations any more, Mr Penn. There was a time when I was always coming across them.'
She spoke gravely, with no hint of mockery, but they both knew she was referring to a period when the writer had paid oblique court by leaving translations of Heine's amatory verses where she would chance upon them. When she made it plain she wasn't interested, the poems continued to appear but with a mocking irony colouring his choice. Dick Dee's death brought a halt to all such games.
'I didn't seem able to get down to it for a while’ he said. 'But I'm getting back into the swing now. Hold on a sec. There's something here I'd value a reaction to.'
He went to his cubicle and returned with a sheet of paper which he laid in front of her. It contained two verses side by side.
The rock breaks his vessel asunder But when in the end the wild waters
The waves roll his body along Plug his ear and scarf up his eye
But what in the end drags him under I 'm certain his last drowning thought is
Is Lorelei's sweet song The song of the Lorelei.
She read them without touching the paper.
'So?' she said.
'Two versions of the last verse of Heine's 'Lorelei' poem, you know, the one that starts Ich weifi nicht was soil es bedeuten Daft ich so traurig bin.'
'I've come across it’
'Both very free. I give a parallel literal translation, but in my metrical version I try for the spirit rather than just the plain sense of the original. My dilemma is, does Heine want us to think that Lorelei deliberately sang to destroy the boatman? Or simply that it's her nature to sing and the boatman destroyed himself by listening? What do you think?'
'Don't know’ said Rye. 'But I don't much care for 'waters' and 'thought is'.'
'An aesthetic rather than a moral judgment? Fair enough. I'll go with the first.'
He nodded, turned on his heel like a soldier and went back to his seat, leaving the sheet of paper on the desk.
A woman who had been observing this scene from the doorway now advanced to the desk. Rye Pomona looked up and saw a youngish female, rather stockily built, wearing no make up and a rain-spattered, mud- coloured fleece open to show a baggy grey T-shirt whose folds did nothing for her figure and whose colour sat uneasily against her dark complexion. She was holding a Tesco carrier bag and Rye snap-judged her as housewife who'd had kids early, let herself go a bit, and today, with the longueurs and rigours of Christmas behind her, had come to the library determined to seek some educational route to a life less tediously forecastable than her current prospects seemed to offer.
Must be Hat's influence, she told herself. I'm turning into a detective. Which thought, and the thought of Hat himself, brought a smile of such warmth to her face that the woman responded in kind, making her several years younger and three times as attractive. 'Hi,' said Rye. 'Can I help you?' Making sure her body screened out any observation from the library, the woman slid an ID card across the desk.
'Hi,' she said. 'DC Novello. Maybe Hat's mentioned me?'
In fact Hat, to whom love meant no no-go areas, had talked about his colleagues and his work and himself with a complete but subjective openness. His account of his arch-rival, Shirley Novello, had created in Rye's mind a picture of a smooth svelte sophisticated creature, mobile glued to her left ear, organizer welded to her right hand, each colour co-ordinated with her designer power suit. It took a moment to readjust from both that false impression and her equally flawed attempt at detection and Novello said reassuringly, 'It's nothing heavy. Mr Dalziel asked me to look in to see you were all right.'
What the Fat Man had actually said was, 'Let her know to be careful about some slimy sod oozing his way into her confidence. At the same time, do a bit of oozing yourself and make sure she doesn't have owt to hide’
'What a kind man Mr Dalziel is,' said Rye. 'As you can see, I'm fine.'
'Oh good. Wasn't that Mr Perm who was talking to you just now? I heard what happened on Christmas Day. He wasn't bothering you, I hope?'
'No, not in the least. We were just discussing a point of literature.'
Novello's gaze dropped to Penn's sheet of paper. Rye slid it away but not before Novello had read the lines of verse upside down.
'Lorelei,' she said. 'Wasn't that what you found on your computer after the break in?'
Done your homework, thought Rye. This was more in accord with Hat's picture.
'Yes,' she said.
'And you're sure Mr Penn wasn't bothering you?'
'Honestly, I know when I'm being bothered’ she smiled. 'I'm sure this was just coincidental. He came to apologize. I don't think we're going to be best friends, but if he wants things quiet, I'm not going to quarrel with
