my help, I admit it did not seem like my kind of thing.'
'Which is political corruption on a big scale, right?'
That sort of thing,' she smiled. This sounded, personal, petty. At best, if Charley had got it right, it was about some insignificant provincial bobbies covering their tracks. It might make a little stir in the English papers, but anything makes a stir here. But Charley is an old friend, and it suited me to rest quiet a few weeks away from home. So I came.'
'Saw, and conquered. You certainly seem to have conquered little Miss Rye,' said Dalziel. 'So what have you found out?'
She hesitated and he growled from deep in his chest, The truth, remember.'
She said, ‘I am not thinking of a lie. No, it is the truth that I have to work out, for to tell the truth I don't know what I have found. Except that Rye is very disturbed, and distressed. Her boyfriend, the young policeman, he makes her very happy, but he is also the cause of much of her unhappiness too. All this I have found hard to understand. When I first spoke to her she was scattering the contents of a vacuum cleaner into the churchyard. I later found when we became friends that it was the ashes of her dead brother which had been spilt during that strange burglary she had.'
'Strange? How was it strange? It was Charley Penn, wasn't it?'
'No. Not so. Charley was here that morning because he spent the night with me. No danger, we knew Rye was away, just like you know she is away tonight, I presume, else you would not have played the music so loud.'
'Aye, she's round at young Bowler's’ said Dalziel. 'So what happened?'
‘I don't know. We heard a crash, like something breaking. It seemed to come from next door, but we knew the flat was empty. Charley went out to listen at the door. That's when Mrs Gilpin saw him, so he didn't come back in to me but went home.'
'You sure it weren't you?' said Dalziel doubtingly. 'Some bugger left a message about Lorelei on her computer. Right up Charley's street, that, and not far from the bottom of your street back home, if my information is right.'
'You've been digging deep, Mr Dalziel,' she said. 'Yes, she told me about the message when we became friends. Very odd, especially because of the link with Charley. Another odd thing was the quiet.'
'Sorry?'
'She said her flat was a mess, things knocked over, drawers emptied. Yet apart from the one crash, I heard nothing. Also odd is the other bug.' 'Eh?'
'Did not Tris tell you when you spoke to him?' she said, giving him a sharp look which Dalziel received with apparent complacency. The truth was he'd never talked to Lilley. The man lived in London and it would have been difficult to roust him out without reference to the Met. He wanted to keep his interest in Lilley and Richter low profile. But from what he'd read and seen of the man, he got the impression that he'd be quick to do a deal to save his own skin, and Richter clearly found this easy to believe too.
So, this other bug Lilley was likely to have mentioned…
He said, 'Oh aye. That. He did say summat, but it's yours I'm interested in.'
She let out a burst of triumphant laughter.
'Because the other bug is your own, right? And, let me guess, it has not been working properly? Perhaps Tris did something to it when he found it.'
She'd noted his hesitation, but jumped to the wrong conclusion. That's the trouble if you spend your life looking for conspiracies, you start seeing them everywhere!
'Always said you can't trust this modern technology,' he said, trying to sound sheepish but not too much.
'Tris says so too. One bug is never enough. You must ask for a bigger budget.'
'Oh, I shall. But let's concentrate on what you've got, shall we? Bugs are all right, but there's nowt like a close friend for getting to the heart of things.'
She didn't blush but she looked distinctly unhappy. Could journalists feel guilt? Why not? They were only human. In some cases, only just human. But Richter's motivations in the past seemed to have more to do with moral principle than personal profit. And now, if she thought the police had planted this other bug, she could be seeing him as a fellow investigator rather than an object of investigation.
He said, 'I know it's hard when you like someone. I like Rye, too. And I like my lad Bowler. And I want to do what's best for both of them. But I can't do that without I know what's going on, can I?'
He sounded so serious and sincere, he could have sold himself insurance.
She nodded and said, 'OK. I think Rye is troubled because perhaps she knows more than she has said about this Wordman. It is very personal to her. She talks sometimes when she has drunk a lot of wine as if he had something to do with her brother, which cannot be as he died when she was only fifteen. But these things have got mixed up in her mind. She blames herself for the death of her brother, I think, and perhaps somehow she blames herself for the death of this Dick Dee also. She liked him very much, that is clear. And if once you get it in your head that being close to you is what has killed people you love, then you are on the way to breakdown.'
'But why should she blame herself for Dee's death?'
'Perhaps because she'd begun to suspect he was the Wordman but wouldn't let herself believe it. Perhaps she engineered a situation in which he would have to reveal the truth and it all went wrong. And because the truth was never revealed clearly and unambiguously, his death troubles her. What if he were innocent?'
'She's said that, has she?' asked Dalziel. 'She thinks Dee were innocent?'
'She said to me one night, 'What if the Wordman wasn't dead, Myra? What if he was still out there, checking out his next victim? What if he's just waiting till everyone's guard is down, then it's all going to start again?' I asked her if she had any reason for thinking this. All I wanted to do was comfort her, but I owed it to Charley to ask.'
'And her answer?'
'She fell asleep in my arms, so I put her to bed,' said Richter tenderly.
'Didn't jump in beside her?' enquired Dalziel casually. Women could do whatever they wanted in his book, so long as they didn't do it in the street and frighten the plods. Or unless one of them was as good as engaged to one of his DCs.
She grinned at him, looking wickedly sexy, and said, 'No, I am aggressively hetero, Mr Dalziel. But you're going to have to take my word for that.'
'Missed the bus, eh? Story of my life. But I never like to climb aboard unless I'm sure I can afford the ride. On you go with your tale.'
'There is not much more to tell,' she said. 'On the tapes I have of her alone, sometimes there is sobbing. Sometimes there is the sound of her pacing around in the night. And sometimes she talks aloud, to her dead brother, often very angrily, as if she blames him for her unhappiness. Also to Hat, full of love, and regret, and apology. More like someone taking leave than someone talking to the person she wants to spend the rest of her life with. But this was before’
'Before what?'
She emptied her whisky glass, filled it up again, emptied it again.
'I do not know if I have the right to tell you this, and I do not think I could tell you this if I was going to stay and be her friend as she believes I am. And I believe it too, or believe it could be so, which is why I am leaving and why I will never see her again, and also why I am able to break the word I have given.'
'Slow down, luv,' said Dalziel. That Scotch is turning you German. Breaking confidence is like taking off a sticky plaster. There's only one way, short and sharp.'
She nodded, took a long slow breath, then said, 'On Monday she went to the hospital for tests. She has a brain tumour. She is going to die.'
'Well fuck me rigid and sell me to the Tate!' exclaimed Dalziel, who had let his mind rehearse half a dozen possible revelations without getting close. 'Can't they do owt?'
'She does not want anything done’ said Richter.
'Shit. Someone's got to talk to her’ said the Fat Man agitatedly. 'These days they can cure owt save foot and mouth and politicians. Does Bowler know?'
'No one knows. Except me. Now you. So now it is your responsibility not mine to decide what to do. This is
