Read Online Midnight Fugue by Reginald Hill - Free Book Online Page A

that blank, unyielding face could make a nun check if her lacy knickers were showing.
    ‘Nowt official yet. That’s why I’m here on my day off,’ he said. ‘Pete around?’
    ‘No, sir. His day off, too. He’s going to a christening.’
    ‘Eh? Ellie’s not dropped another? I weren’t out of the loop that long, surely.’
    ‘No. They’re guests. Like you, seeing as you’re not official.’
    ‘Don’t get cheeky. Was a time when I’d be met with smiles and coffee.’
    ‘Was there, sir? Can’t bring it to mind. Shall I organize a coffee?’
    ‘I’d rather have it than one of thy smiles, Wieldy. No, you get right on to Wolfe. I’ll wake one of them idle buggers out there.’
    He followed the sergeant to the door and looked around.
    His gaze lit on DC Shirley Novello, engrossed in her computer screen.
    ‘Ivor!’ he bellowed. ‘Coffee!’
    The young woman looked up and replied, ‘No thanks, sir. I’ve just had one.’
    Something that on another face might have been called a grin touched Wield’s lips, then he moved away swiftly.
    ‘Now!’ bellowed Dalziel. ‘Why else do you think we let women into the Force?’
    He went back into his office and sat at his desk. The encounter with the blonde at the cathedral had kick-started his day, but he still felt a bit out of sorts. He’d got the problem of the lost day sorted, so what was left to bug him? If he did any more internal digging, he’d be looking at his belly button from the inside, so he changed his point of view and looked around the room. After a few moments, he got it.
    Problem solved, or just about to be!
    Six or seven minutes later Wield dead heated with a coffee-bearing Novello at the Fat Man’s door. No plastic beaker from the machine this; she’d have had to go down to the canteen to get half a pint of the Super’s favourite blend in his own mug. It smelled good, but from the look on Novello’s face, Wield thought it might be wise if Dalziel got her to taste it before touching it himself.
    He opened the door for her and followed her into the room.
    It had changed. Most of the drawers on the desk and filing cabinet were pulled out, a dented metal waste bin lay on its side against a dented wall, and in the furthermost corner as if hurled there with great force lay a file that the sergeant recognized as the one containing Pascoe’s briefing notes for the case-review meeting. The window was wide open and the breeze so admitted was having a great time rustling through various loose sheets scattered across the floor.
    Dalziel noted him noticing and said, ‘Been doing a bit of tidying up. Ivor, you can’t have much to do if you’ve time to fetch coffee. Run me this number will you?’
    He scribbled Gina Wolfe’s car number on the back of an unopened envelope that bore the Chief Constable’s insignia and the words
Urgent and Confidential
.
    Novello took it, turned, rolled her eyes when she had her back to the Fat Man and went out.
    ‘Right, sunshine, what’ve you got?’
    Wield said, ‘Seven years back, DI Alex Wolfe was targeted by the Met’s Internal Investigations. He was a key man in a team investigating a financier, David known as Goldie Gidman.’
    ‘So Wolfe was a paper-chaser,’ said Dalziel with the muted scorn of the front-line cop for the Fraud Squad. In the Fat Man’s eyes, boardroom crime was to real crime what soft-porn movies were to child prostitution.
    ‘Foot in both camps; he’d done his share of hard-end stuff,’ said Wield. ‘Commendation for bravery during the Millennium siege. Also I get the impression this weren’t straight Fraud Squad stuff. The officer initiating it was a deputy assistant commissioner. Owen Mathias. You know him?’
    ‘Heard of him,’ said Dalziel. ‘Took early retirement and died. Dicky heart.’
    ‘That’s right. Seems to have had Gidman in his sights for a long long time, but never laid a finger on him. That’s likely why he called this op Macavity. Turned out a bit too accurate.