Death

'Oh yes? And what business is that of yours? Mebbe you should keep your nose out.'

Oh shit, thought Novello. When love came in the window, reason went out the door. Time to summon the bogeyman.

'It was Mr Dalziel's idea. You want I should tell Mr Dalziel to keep his nose out? Or would you rather do it yourself?'

For a moment Hat looked as if he might be seriously contemplating this, then reality set in and he said, 'So what did he tell you to do?'

Novello explained. She held nothing back. Dalziel had told her to handle things in her own way and that didn't include risking alienation of a colleague she might have to depend on at some future juncture.

Bowler seemed determined to be stupid.

'So he thinks that Penn's trying to get the papers interested in a scandal, only there's no scandal to get them interested in, is there? How much time and money are they going to waste on that, do you think? No story, end of story.'

'You're not looking at this straight on, Hat’ she said. 'Think of it this way. We collect evidence of what we think is a crime and we send it off to the CPS and half the time they look at what we think is a water-tight case and send it back saying, 'Sorry no can do, won't stand up in court.' So, a good case to us looks like crap to them, right?'

'Yeah but’

'The newspapers are to us what we are to the CPS. What looks like crap to us can look like a good case to them. They don't have to worry about proving things in court. Hints, allegations, lots of stuff in quotes, given half a chance they can probably make us look like we're doing more covering up than a drag queen.'

'Yeah, but if no one's done anything wrong, they can't hurt us, can they?'

Could he really be so naive? wondered Novello.

'If they find a story to run they'll run it hard,' she said patiently. 'There'll be questions, maybe another enquiry. You've been through one already, one that was on your side, and you came out a hero. The papers loved you. But love dies. Another scenario, another role. You may come out clean again, but that doesn't mean you won't be damaged. You know how it works, nothing on the record, but at every promotion board, someone asks, wasn't he the one…? Same with Rye. Yes, on paper she's good, but do you recall…'

'They still need a story to run,' he said obstinately.

'OK, try this. Librarian screws boss in country cottage. Jealous lover catches them at it. There's a fight. Lover stabs rival to death. Thirteen times.'

'That's a load of garbage!'

'Not the thirteen stabs. I've read the PM report.'

Hat said, 'Listen, Novello, don't you think I haven't been through all this? I was on my back with that bastard on top of me. He'd stabbed me already, would have killed me if Rye hadn't hit him with a bottle. That must've made him drop the knife and he started hitting me with this heavy glass dish and would probably have finished the job with that if I hadn't got hold of the knife somehow and stabbed him with it.'

'Yeah. Thirteen times. Mainly in the back, though you did manage to get him a good one under the ribs too. That would probably have been enough without the other dozen.'

For a moment it looked as if he was going to explode in resentful anger. Instead he closed his eyes tight and knotted his fists tighter, then slowly forced himself to relax.

'We were fighting, him for his freedom, me for my life,' he said quietly. 'We rolled around a bit, I suppose, but mainly he was on top of me with my arms round him, so his back was the easiest target. I don't remember much. I was losing consciousness. All I knew was while I still had an ounce of strength left, I had to use it against him.'

'And of course you were defending your girl's honour,' said Novello lightly. 'Real picture-book heroics.'

To her surprise he grinned at her mockery.

That's how it started maybe, but not how it finished. In the end it was all about me being scared shitless. Literally, I gather. I was convinced I was going to die and I was terrified. You must know the feeling, Novello. You've been there.'

Her hand went to the shoulder where she'd taken the bullet that had come close to killing her.

'Not straight off’ she said. 'For a time I was out of it. Still breathing, still moving, but too shocked to feel much. Later though, when it looked like all of us were going to end up dead and I was too weak even to think about resistance, then I got scared.'

'Shitless?' he said.

'I may have pee'd myself, but we ended up so wet there was no way of telling’ she said, smiling at him in a sharing moment. Then the smile faded and she said in a businesslike voice, 'OK, however you finished, you started off being a hero. In your statement you say that when you burst into the cottage, you found Rye and Dee struggling, both naked, lots of blood. And you assumed’

'I assumed nothing! I saw he was attacking her. And it wasn't just sexual, though that was bad enough. The bastard was trying to kill her!'

'Because of the knife, you mean? And because you'd worked out that all the evidence pointed to Dee being the killer known as the Wordman? If there hadn't been a Wordman connection and you'd come across the same scene, what would you have thought?'

'The same’ he said promptly. 'OK, different motivation. He'd wanted sex, she'd turned him down, he'd got nasty, tried to force her, and when she fought back, he lost it.'

'Right’ she said thoughtfully. 'But even given his sole aim was to kill her, there must have been some sexual element in the attack all the same. I mean, in your hospital statement you say she was naked, right?'

'Yeah. He must have torn her clothes off her, obvious.'

'Fair enough. No mention of this in the inquest evidence though.'

'No need. It wasn't down as an attempted rape.'

'No, of course not,' she said. 'Then there's Rye's injuries. It's on record she needed treatment, but mainly for shock. Physically there was nothing but a few scratches and a little bruising. No need for this to figure in the inquest record either, nor in the enquiry report. She was attacked, she was terrified, that was enough.'

'What's your point?' said Hat. 'In fact, what's the point of any of this? Like I say, I've been through it all before, with Mr Dalziel and with the enquiry. So why the hell do I have to sit here being interrogated by someone who knows nothing about the case and whose only claim to seniority is that she's been a DC a few months longer than me?'

'Do I have to explain it all again?' she said wearily. 'Mr Dalziel, and the enquiry team too, they had the same aim, to clarify the truth, but they had a bloody good idea what the truth they wanted to clarify was. Dee, the psychopathic serial killer, had been prevented from carrying out his last murder by the intervention of Bowler, the modest young hero. That is the gospel truth in the authorized version. Only there's Penn's revised version, which Fat Andy thinks he's persuaded the forces of Anti-Christ, better known as the tabloid press, to take an interest in. We can assume the cunning bastards will get hold of everything I've got hold of. And what we've got to ask ourselves so that we can be ready for it, is what are they likely to make of things like the thirteen stab wounds on Dee's body? The fact that they were made by the deadly weapon with which he was attacking Rye, indicating clearly that he'd been disarmed when he was killed? The absence of any significant and life-threatening wounds on Rye's body?'

She could have added Rye's nudity and the lack of any forensic evidence indicating that her clothes had been removed by force, but she felt she'd gone far enough. Hat, she observed with a pang, was looking worse than he had at any time since his return to duty. Then, apart from a little pallor, he had shown no signs of his illness, but had moved and behaved with all his old ebullience. Now he looked careworn and a decade older.

'So what do you make of it, Shirl?' he asked.

She hated Shirl, didn't much care for Shirley, was happy to be simply Novello which had a neutrality to match her work clothing. But Bowler's rare use of her first name signalled dependency rather than condescension.

'Not much, and I doubt they'll make much either, not without they get something else, like a few good quotes from you or from Rye,' she said reassuringly. 'So take care.'

'You bet,' he said, getting up. 'Back to the grind. See you upstairs.'