ducked down behind the reception desk, came up smiling.
‘How clever of you. I’m back in time’s ever rolling stream which means I suppose we should get down to some work. Percy, are we finished?’
Follows said, ‘I hope so, Dick. I hope we’ve heard the last of this silly business, but if there are any further developments, I want to be the first to know. I hope you and your staff understand that.’
He looked accusingly at Rye who smiled at him, thought, OK, Perce, if that’s what you want, let me make your day, and said to Dee, ‘Dick, I’m afraid we’ve got another one.’
She held up the sheets of paper carefully by one corner.
She could see Dee understood her instantly but Follows was a little slower to catch on.
‘Another …? Oh God, you don’t mean another of these Dialogue things? Let me see.’
He attempted to snatch it from her fingers but she moved away.
‘I don’t think it would be too clever for anyone else to handle it,’ she said. ‘I think we ought to get it round to the police straightaway.’
‘That’s what you think, is it?’ said Follows, his hair sun-bursting once again.
She thought for a moment he was going to try ordering her to hand the Dialogue over. The library staff, he liked to claim, were one big happy family, but, as Dick Dee had once remarked, democracy was not a form of organization much practised in family life.
But on this occasion Follows had enough sense not to push things to confrontation.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘And perhaps we should make a copy for Miss sodding Ripley while we’re at it. Though it wouldn’t surprise me if she didn’t have one already.’
‘No,’ said Rye. ‘I don’t think so. Though she may be privy to the gist.’
She shook the sheets of paper gently.
‘I hope it’s all a sick fantasy, but if I read this aright, I think the Wordman is telling us that he’s just murdered Jax Ripley.’
Hat Bowler stared down at Jax Ripley’s body and felt a pang of grief which for a second almost took the strength out of his legs.
He had seen bodies before during his short service and had learned some of the tricks of dealing with the sight – the controlled breathing, the mental distancing, the deliberate defocusing. But this was the first time he’d seen the corpse of someone he knew. Someone he liked. Someone as young as he was.
It’s yourself you’re grieving for, he told himself savagely, hoping to regain control via cynicism. But it didn’t work and he turned away unsteadily, though careful not to grasp at anything in an effort to control his unsteadiness.
George Headingley was moved too, he could see that. In fact the portly DI had turned away and left the bedroom before Bowler and was now sitting in an armchair in the living room of the flat, looking distinctly unwell. He hadn’t looked too good when he arrived at work that morning. Indeed he’d been five minutes late, inconsequential in the routine of most CID officers over the rank of constable, but a seismic disturbance of the Headingley behaviour pattern.
When Bowler had burst into his office with the news that Rye had just given him over the telephone, he seemed to have difficulty taking it in. Finally, after Bowler had tried to contact the TV presenter at the studios, then by phone at home, Headingley had allowed himself to be persuaded that they ought to go round to Ripley’s flat.
Now, sitting in the armchair, staring into space, instead of a healthy fifty-year-old sailing serenely into a chosen retirement, he looked more like a superannuated senior citizen who’d hung on till decrepitude forced him out.
‘Sir, I’ll get things under way, shall I?’ said Bowler.
He took silence for an answer and rang back to the station to get a scene-of-crime team organized, adding, sotto voce, ‘And make sure the DCI knows, will you? I don’t think Mr Headingley’s up to it this morning.’
He’d managed to persuade the DI that an armchair in a murder victim’s flat was not the cleverest place to let a senior officer find you in and got him outside into the damp morning air before Peter Pascoe appeared.
‘George, you OK?’ he asked.
‘Yeah. Well, no, not really. Touch of flu coming on. Could hardly get out of bed this morning,’ said Headingley in a shaky voice.
‘Then if I were you I’d go and get back into it,’ said Pascoe crisply.
‘No, I’ll be OK. Got to get back inside and take a look round while the trail’s still hot …’
‘George, you know no one’s going inside there till everything’s been done that needs to be done. Go home. That’s an order.’
And to take the sting out of pulling rank on an old colleague who’d been a DI ever since Pascoe first arrived in the Mid-Yorkshire force as a DC, Pascoe said in a low voice as he ushered Headingley to his car, ‘George, with days to do, you don’t want this, do you? I mean, who knows, it could roll on forever. Grab the money and run for the sun, eh? And don’t worry, I’ll see you get credit for what you’ve done so far. Love to Beryl.’
He watched the DI’s car drive slowly away then with a shake of the head he turned back to the apartment building.
‘Right,’ he said to Bowler. ‘Better bring me up to speed on this.’
‘Yes, sir. Hope you didn’t mind me asking for you to be brought in. The DI really didn’t look well …’
‘No, you were quite right,’ said Pascoe. ‘You don’t look too clever yourself. Hope that there isn’t something going around.’
‘No, sir, I’m fine. Just a bit of a shock seeing Jax … Miss Ripley … I knew her a bit, you see …’
‘Yes,’ said Pascoe regarding him thoughtfully. ‘See her show last night, did you?’
‘Yes. Bit of a turn up, I thought. You saw it, did you, sir?’
‘No, as a matter of fact.’
But he’d heard about it when Dalziel had rung him up, uttering dreadful threats about what he was going to do to Ripley and Bowler, together and separately, when he got his hands on them.
Pascoe had calmed him down, pointing out that it wasn’t good policy to publicly assault a TV personality, and as for Bowler, if it could be proved he’d passed on the information, he’d be dealt with by a Board of Enquiry which at the very least would get him out of the Fat Man’s thinning hair.
The thought occurred to the DCI that maybe Dalziel had ignored his advice and that the DC’s pallor and maybe even the woman’s death were down to his direct intervention.
But when the scene-of-crime
