Authors: Peter Lovesey
‘Then I don’t see what the problem is.’
‘He’s a missing child, that’s the problem.’
‘Big child.’
‘Under eighteen.’
‘It’s not unusual for a kid his age to take umbrage at something and go off on his own for a night, or a couple of nights.’
‘I want him found. That’s your job.’
‘One of my jobs. Now that you’ve reported it, I’ll get the word out. Did he take his motorbike?’
‘That’s gone, yes.’
‘Does he have money?’
‘Plenty.’
‘He wouldn’t be armed, would he?’
A suspicious glare. ‘What with?’
‘I was told you possess a number of licensed weapons, and I
mean real ones that fire. Have you checked them today? If any are missing, you must certainly let me know.’
The mention of weapons seemed to take all of the steam out of Nuttall. It was suddenly as if he wanted to be out of there and taking Diamond’s advice. ‘You’ll tell me right away if you see anything of him?’
‘Certainly.’
‘He may look like a man, but he’s just a kid really.’
‘We’ve both been that age,’ Diamond said as if he was a headmaster being merciful to an anxious parent. ‘Leave it to us, Mr. Nuttall.’
Left alone in the interview room, he asked himself why this bizarre scene had taken place. Why was a little Hitler like Nuttall demanding help from the police? It was obvious he wasn’t really troubled over Royston’s welfare. His own welfare was under threat. But he was unwilling to disclose the reason. First he had believed Royston was in custody. A serious issue, then, a criminal matter, else why did he assume that the boy was being held? Was he alarmed by what his offspring would disclose?
Learning that Royston wasn’t being held should have come as good news to Nuttall and obviously didn’t. He wanted him rounded up, and quickly. It seemed the lad was a loose cannon, capable of doing real damage. Did it go back to what had been said between father and son? By his own admission Nuttall had laid into Royston and accused him of everything under the sun. One of the charges must have stuck. Under interrogation or at liberty, the errant teenager was a direct threat to his father’s well-defended reputation.
But in what way?
He returned upstairs. The statements from yesterday, every word transcribed from Ingeborg’s hidden tape-recorder, were threatening to slip from the top of the tower of paper rising from his in-tray. He plucked them off and read Royston’s answers again and delved lower in the stack and found the report Paul Gilbert had written of the night touring Harry Tasker’s beat – Moles, the Porter, the Bell, Walcot Street and Club XL. The find of the night had been Anderson Jakes, the man who had put them onto Royston.
Then it became clear.
After reading precisely what Anderson Jakes had told Paul and Ingeborg, Diamond worked out how, where, when and why the boy would be found.
But he was in no mood for self-congratulation. There was an urgent need to revisit the crime scene.
He stepped out of his office. The incident room had gone quiet. Jack Gull, he learned, was trying to get hold of an interpreter who spoke Persian. Ingeborg, still preoccupied with the blog, was putting markers on a map of the city. Polehampton had gone to have a word with the custody sergeant. John Leaman and Keith Halliwell were together at the window, looking down into the street.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked them.
‘Come and see.’
He joined them in time to see Polehampton heading purposefully up Manvers Street towards the station. ‘Where’s he off to?’
‘The pub on the corner, the Royal, for another quick one. He needs it every two hours. It’s the strain of working with Gull.’
At any other time, he might have been amused. Today, he had too much on his mind. ‘I’m slipping out for a while myself. I need to go back to the crime scene as a matter of urgency.’
Paloma wouldn’t approve after the trouble she’d taken to protect him from being shot, but this had to be done. The streets of Bath were thronged as midday approached and he reasoned it would be crazy for anyone to loose off a round of ammunition. No potential killer could have anticipated him leaving the police station at this moment. Mingling with the shoppers and the tourists, he took the most direct route around Orange Grove, and along the High Street past the Guildhall and the Podium, all well-populated places at this hour, then left at St. Michael’s and up the steep rise of Broad Street and right at the top towards Bladud Buildings and the Paragon.
It was difficult to conceive of anyone planning the shooting of Harry Tasker without prior knowledge of the layout of the Paragon. The terrace of twenty-one houses as elegant as any corporation-built property in Britain stood in a gentle curve that followed the road’s contour rather than being designed as a crescent. All were similar in style, difficult to tell apart except for a few with window boxes on the first floor sills. From the front there was no sense that you were on the edge of a precipitous slope with vaulted basements overlooking Walcot Street.
He was angry with himself for taking so long to tumble to the obvious. All the pressure of pursuing the man in the woods had stopped him thinking straight. Finally, he’d worked it out. Whoever
murdered Harry must have visited the Paragon house before. They had to know the set-up.
The residents had some explaining to do.
He eyed the bell-push panel and the handwritten names: S.Willis, MA, Mr. & Mrs. D. Murphy and Sherry Meredith. The fourth bell, for the unoccupied basement, had no name against it. After a moment’s thought, he pressed the third. Sherry Meredith worked in the cosmetics department in Jolly’s, only a short walk away, and it was just possible she came home in her lunch break.
‘Hi, who is it?’ said the shrill voice on the entryphone.
He smiled. His guardian angel was doing the biz today. ‘Peter Diamond, Detective Superintendent.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t buy anything at the door.’ The line disconnected. She couldn’t have been listening properly.
He tried again, twice. He’d kick the door in, if necessary.
At the third attempt, she came on again and said, ‘Please go away.’
‘Police,’ he said, ‘about the murder.’
After a pause, she said, ‘Why didn’t you say so? Push the door.’
Trying to give the appearance of calm, he stepped inside. Sherry Meredith, exquisitely made up, was halfway along the passage holding a door open, a yoghurt pot in one hand, a teaspoon in the other. ‘You’ll have to be really quick. I’m due back at work in fifteen minutes and I can’t run in these heels.’
She showed him into the flat. Decorated in primary colours, blue and yellow, it had shelves with collections of pottery figures, rabbits along one wall, Disney characters and fairies another. ‘I’d invite you to sit down, but there really isn’t time,’ she said. ‘I’ll be in awful trouble if I’m late back.’
Diamond shrugged. ‘So we’ll get down to it. We talked before about what happened early Sunday morning. I need to know more about you and your background. I expect you have plenty of boyfriends.’
The false eyelashes did some rapid work. ‘As many as I want. But one at a time.’
‘Not going steady, then?’
‘It’s funny. I always start off thinking I am.’
‘Where do you meet them – nightclubs?’
‘Mostly, yes.’ The blue eyes widened. ‘How did you know that?’
‘It’s my job. Have you ever dated a policeman?’
She was open-mouthed. ‘I don’t wish to be rude, but I’m only twenty. Aren’t you a bit senior for me?’
He remembered how tricky it was to interview her. ‘I’m not talking about myself. This is an investigation. Would you answer the question, please.’
She appeared to decide he wasn’t, after all, chatting her up. ‘A policeman? I’m not sure.’
‘You must know.’
‘With some guys I never find out the jobs they have. We talk about other stuff – if we talk about anything at all. The bands we like, and that. Some of them like to get physical straight away. I’ve discovered it’s best to stay clear of the silent ones.’
‘There’s a lad called Royston,’ Diamond said. ‘Younger than you, but mature in looks. He’s often around the clubs. Ever met him?’
‘I don’t think so. Cute name. I’d remember it.’
‘How about Anderson, a black guy?’
‘Everyone’s heard of Anderson,’ she said. ‘He’s cool. But he’s never shown any interest in me. Why are you asking me about these guys?’
‘I need to know who has visited here.’
Her mouth formed a perfect O. ‘I don’t bring them home. If I spend the night with them it’s never here. I wouldn’t want that. I mean, they might ask to use my bathroom.’
‘It’s a case of his place, or his place?’
She giggled. ‘That sums it up.’
‘You’re telling me you haven’t entertained a man here in the past year?’
‘Only my Dad and he brings a blow-up bed.’
He believed her. He doubted if she had the ability to lie. ‘I’ll be frank with you, Sherry. What I need to know is who could have visited this house with a view to planning the murder of PC Tasker.’
‘Not Daddy,’ she said. ‘He’s a parish councillor.’
‘No, not him. Do you remember any other visitors?’
‘To me?’
‘To anyone in the house.’
‘They could be visiting upstairs, I guess. It’s a quiet house. The Murphys have friends in on Friday evenings. I think they play bridge. They’ve been coming for years. They’re all about eighty.’
‘And the man on the top floor?’
‘Mr. Willis with the ponytail? He’s younger and he has a lady
caller I’ve met at the door a couple of times. Thick dark hair and too shy to smile. I know she has a key because she lets herself in at night sometimes. She’s really quiet, but some of the stairs creak, so I hear her. I don’t mind. It’s romantic. She’s gone before morning. I can’t believe she’d murder anyone.’
‘He must have other visitors.’
‘Well, I don’t see all the comings and goings. I’m at work most of the day.’
‘So is he. He’s a civil servant. Have you ever seen him carrying a gun?’
‘Lordy, no.’
‘He belongs to a gun club.’
‘Never. Who would have thought it?’
‘His shooting friends could come calling.’
‘With guns?’
‘Probably not. Just socially.’
‘They’re very quiet if they do. I don’t hear anything.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I have to go. I don’t want to lose my job.’
‘You can tell your supervisor you were being interviewed by the police.’
‘I don’t think I will.’
He allowed her to leave, but he remained in the building. After she’d closed the door behind her, he went upstairs and tried the Murphys’ door. They didn’t answer his knock. He went up another flight and found Willis wasn’t at home either.
But he had the opportunity of another look inside the basement flat, which was unlocked. Forensics had been through on the first day, so he didn’t expect to find a vital missing clue. Yet it was helpful to stroll through the rooms imagining how the killer could have passed several hours waiting to go into the garden and position the rifle for the shooting of Harry Tasker.
The garden, when he ventured outside, he found transformed. It had been levelled of those tall weeds, so he couldn’t easily picture the second phase of the crime, the attack on Ken Lockton. Somewhere here, or inside the flat, the carefully executed plan went wrong. The killer had almost been caught red-handed – or with the G36 in hand – when Lockton arrived with Sergeant Stillman. Then it was a case of lying low, waiting for an opportunity to escape. Lockton had dismissed Stillman and gone to the front door with him. The sniper had retrieved the rifle, skulked in the
undergrowth until the chance came to make a dent in Lockton’s head with the stock. In the minutes that followed, nobody else came and the chance of escape was possible and ultimately simple.
Well-planned? There had been a plan, certainly, but luck must have played a part as well. He walked to the railings and looked down into Walcot Street, busy with the lunchtime crowd. Difficult to visualise the same street at 4
A.M
. on Sunday morning with just a lone policeman almost at the end of his beat, passing under the lamplight.
Calculating and cold-blooded.
Diamond gave a soft sigh for the death of his brother officer and the way he’d been ambushed.
Back in the nick, the desk sergeant told him he was wanted in the interview suite.
‘Wanted who by?’
‘Mr. Gull. The interpreter arrived.’
He glanced at his watch. Not much time.
In interview room two, Gull greeted him with, ‘Been out to lunch? All I have time for is a fucking sandwich.’
‘Is that better than egg mayo?’
The joke was lost on Gull. ‘Pull up a chair.’
‘I may have to leave shortly. You can’t turn up late to a funeral.’
As usual, Gull was oblivious of Diamond’s needs. ‘This is Polly. She’s English.’
The reason he’d said so was because the young woman seated opposite was wearing the hijab. She looked young and confident.
‘Married to an Iranian living here,’ she explained.
Gull was impatient to begin. ‘I’ve filled her in on the background.’
The prisoner was brought in, his bored expression suggesting he was resigned to yet another unproductive session. But the hours in custody had improved his appearance. The red-raw look from living outdoors had toned down to a passably healthy glow and a few hours’ sleep had made his eyes brighter and less sunken. He looked younger, closer to twenty than twenty-five. The whole face lit up when he saw Polly and she said something to him in Persian.
Miracle of miracles, he spoke some words back.
‘He is Iranian,’ she said, ‘from Tehran.’
Jack Gull didn’t have the grace to acknowledge that Diamond and his team had done their homework and got it right. There wasn’t even a glance Diamond’s way. ‘We’d better issue the caution, then.’
Polly was well organised. She had a card ready in her hand with the words in the Persian language. Then she introduced Gull and Diamond.
‘And is he going to tell us his name?’ Diamond asked in the spirit of the Chinese proverb that when heaven drops a date, open your mouth.