Death's Jest-Book (51 page)

And the figure leaned forward
till she was able to recognize the unwelcome welcome face of
Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel.

Dalziel relaxed in his chair and
watched the woman as she busied herself round the room, turning the
music off and the lights on. The round anonymity of her face, which
must be useful in her line of work, had somehow vanished. Perhaps it
was the shock of sudden awaking to this strange invasion or the
absence of make-up or the fact that her hair was no longer neat and
carefully coiffed. Her round features now seemed sharp and well
defined. She slept in nothing but a thin white T-shirt and it could
be that the new awareness this gave him of her sexuality aided the
defining process. He noted that, despite her delaying tactics, she
made no attempt to get a dressing gown. Bright lass, he thought. Gets
herself together, but reckons there might be some advantage in
distracting me with her tits.

Finally she sat down opposite
him, very demurely, pulling the T-shirt over her knees.

'So,' she said, 'Superintendent
Dalziel, you have broken into my flat at one o'clock in the morning.
You are drinking my whisky, which is theft, and as you've gone
through my tapes, I presume you've performed an illegal search. Or is
there something I have missed?'

'Nay, lass, that just about wraps
it up. Nice whisky too. Was a bit worried you might have nowt but
schnapps or some other Kraut firewater. Going to join me?'

She smiled and leaned forward to
fill a glass and said, 'I'm really interested to know why a senior
policeman should put his career at risk in such a way.'

'Aye, that's the tie-break
question, isn't it? To tell you the truth, all I really came lor was
to find out why you are leaving.'

'Leaving?'

'Come on, luv. You don't imagine
someone with your record can book plane seats without half the police
forces in Europe knowing.'

This was a lie. In the three days
since getting Wield's report, the Fat Man had certainly spent a lot
of time planning his strategy with regard to Richter, but he'd had no
idea of her plans to return to Germany until he'd found the plane
ticket in her desk drawer. It was for tomorrow, it was one-way, and
it was first class.

His conclusion had been that she
felt her job here was either over or getting nowhere and he'd been
tempted to steal away as silently as he'd come, but only for a
second. It was, he'd discovered in the course of a life packed, both
professionally and personally, with problems, a delusion that they
ever went away.

And Charley Penn certainly wasn't
going away.

She said, 'So you have also been
illegally accessing computer databases?'

'Not sure what that means, but I
dare say you're right. So let's get down to it, Fraulein Richter.
Here's what I know about you and what I want from you. You're an old
mate of Charley Penn's, on good shagging terms, from the look of
things. You came here at his instigation to see what you could sniff
out via Miss Pomona about the circumstances of Dick Dee's death. Now,
what I'd like for you to do is tell me what you imagine you've found
out, then we can all get into our beds. All right?'

She shook her head in not
altogether affected amazement.

'Charley told me about you, Mr
Dalziel, but I did not altogether believe him. Now I realize he got
it wrong. He told me you were arrogant and ruthless, but he did not
tell me you were also stupid. Do you really think you can break your
English law and violate my rights in this way and get away with it?
You say you've studied my background. You must know I've helped put
more powerful and important men than you behind bars.'

I'm sorry, luv,' said Dalziel,
deliberately misunderstanding. 'My dad told me never to contradict a
lady, but I've got to say that, when it comes to putting buggers
behind bars, I reckon I’can give thee half the Sudeten-land
start and still be in Prague afore ye. But why make such a pother?
It's tit for tat, you help me, I'll help you, can't say fairer than
that.'

'What could you help me with?'
she asked mockingly. 'Are you going to fix a parking ticket,
perhaps?'

'I can manage
that too, but I were thinking more of keeping you out of jail’
said Dalziel, leaning forward to help himself to more whisky. 'Jail?
For what?' she demanded. 'You got no laws in Germany then? Well,
we've got enough to go round. First off, personation, forgery and
deception. You took this flat telling the estate agent you were
English and called Myra Rogers, and handing over a set of references
to show what an upright British citizen you were. Want more? You've
got a bagful of interesting-looking white powder in your fridge. And
while you may have a licence back home for that natty little gun you
were waving just now, I can't find any trace of anything which
makes it legal here. Want more? You've employed Mr Tristram Lilley to
introduce illicit surveillance equipment into a private dwelling
which involved illegal entry. Yes, I've had a word with him I being a
self-centred little scrote, he's talking so fast, his own equipment
can't keep up. Want more? I haven't even started with the stuff I can
heap on top of you yet.'

These are empty threats,
Superintendent,' she said calmly. 'I have been hounded by experts and
threatened with physical violence, death even, and I am still here. I
know lawyers who will get me out of your clutches without even
leaving their offices.'

‘I can believe it. They
ought to geld one a day to encourage the others. Aye, the law's an
ass, all right, but the good thing is it's a broken-winded and
spavin'd ass. Now I'd guess that maybe one thing that's helped you
decide to leave first class is someone back in Kraut-land has offered
you a real job setting the world to rights.'

She was good at hiding, but he
was better at seeking and saw he'd scored a hit.

He went on, 'I think I can
guarantee you'll stay banged up long enough for your friends back
home to find themselves another Mata Hari. And I'll make sure that
you get such publicity all over Europe, you'll need to wear a beard
next time you go undercover.'

She thought for a moment then she
smiled at him.

'Perhaps you're right,' she said.
'Tell me what you want and I'll see if I can help you.'

Then she shivered and went on,
'It's so cold in these English flats, don't you think so? In Germany
we know how to keep warm.'

As she spoke, she half turned to
the gas fire and arched her body towards it as if in search of heat,
hitching the T-shirt up as she did so.

Dalziel relaxed in his chair,
nodded approvingly and raised his glass.

After a moment, Richter pulled
her T-shirt back over her knees.

'Nice try, lass, but I've got one
of my own at home that I'd like to get back to,' said Dalziel. 'Save
it for Charley. Though I can't understand what you see in him myself.
Thought you lot liked a bit more meat on your men.'

'Charley is a good man,' she said
seriously. 'And not a stupid one. When he told me his story and asked
for 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’