The Stone Wife (12 page)

But Leaman hadn’t finished. “I hope it’s all right with you. I thought we might need some expert help tomorrow.”

“You’re an expert yourself. Is that necessary?”

“I don’t know the place at all. I called the Bridgwater museum and they’re providing a local history person to show us round.”

“What did you tell them—that we’re the Bath murder squad?”

“No, I thought that would put them off. I said we’re writers researching Chaucer.”

“Couldn’t you think of anything better than that?”

“We do have to write stuff.”

Writers. Marvellous as he was at absorbing information, John Leaman hadn’t a creative thought in his head.

9

“Known to the police” is a badge of honour to certain people. They are the Teflon-coated tyrants behind most organised crime in the major cities. They preside over law-breaking on an industrial scale without ever getting blood on their hands.

So Ingeborg had little difficulty targeting Nathan Hazael as the most likely supplier of the gun that had killed John Gildersleeve. This sinister individual was notorious in Bristol, ruthless, feared by the entire criminal fraternity—and just about untouchable. He occupied a unique position in the city, overseeing multiple scams, hold-ups and thefts enacted under threat of death, but impossible to trace to him personally. He was protected by layers of insulation: at the lowest level, thugs; at the highest, lawyers. And between, an army of hitmen, con artists, pimps and protection racketeers held in thrall by blackmail, old scores and threats.

Most professional criminals in Britain do not own firearms. For a “hard job” they approach people like Hazael and rent by the day and the going rate is high. The trick is not to fire the things. There is a good rebate on a gun that was used merely as a threat. The science of ballistics and the difficulty in recovering used ammunition means that after a weapon has been discharged it becomes identifiable and loses almost all of its value. Most “hot” guns are broken up or buried.

Getting under Hazael’s radar was the challenge. Ingeborg believed she’d worked out a way to do it. She’d done her research, read everything on file, checked the man and his associates, familiarised herself with his methods. The precious
snippet of information she had seized on wasn’t in the police records at all. It was something she had found in a local arts magazine.

She knew she had to act on the discovery and she had thought of a way to do it. But of course there was a risk.

She needed to make a judgement about one of her oldest friends. Get this wrong and she could walk into a death trap. You can spend years being completely open with someone, sharing the ups and downs of life, but in the last analysis can you depend on them? She wasn’t going into this blindly. She knew Sylvie May was loyal and wouldn’t willingly betray her. This was a mate who stood by you, who wouldn’t allow anyone to get away with a mean-spirited remark. Given the opportunity, she would defend you to the death. But that same fighting spirit that made Sylvie who she was also made her a loose cannon. She never gave a moment’s forethought to what she was about to say. She was out with the response before she’d thought it through. Emotion ruled her, and that was the danger.

Yet she was uniquely placed to help.

She was the editor-in-chief of a popular weekly that covered the arts and entertainment in the southwest. There had been a time ten or so years ago when Ingeborg was freelancing as a journalist and Sylvie was the showbiz editor of a national daily and the two had helped each other to unearth the real stories behind the guff put out by the PR agencies. If you wanted the truth about some celeb’s secret dealings or latest conquest, Sylvie or Inge would have discovered it. They knew where the action was and time and again they came up with scoops any other journalist would have pawned her iPad to get.

Heart-stopping as it was, the risk of confiding in Sylvie couldn’t outweigh the opportunity. Ingeborg got in touch and fixed a meeting.

Any hope she might have had of a discreet
tête-à-tête
was quickly dashed. Sylvie’s
tête
was emerald green in corkscrew curls. Against the backdrop of the scrubbed-brick walls in Flinty Red, the small restaurant on Bristol’s Cotham Hill, the
look was startling. Before they went to their table Sylvie loudly demanded a hug that had everyone else in the restaurant turning to see the two noisy women who had arrived. This wasn’t going to plan.

Sylvie was a regular here and wanted everyone to know. She hugged the manager and the waiter. “They do the most amazing wine-tastings,” she told Ingeborg. “I can never remember the name of anything I try, so I have to keep coming back. All the reds are superb. For starters let’s plump for something Spanish and then we can think about France or Italy for the white.”

Was this the worst mistake of Ingeborg’s career? Today of all days she needed a clear head.

Sylvie had moved on to the lunch menu. “You haven’t gone veggie or anything? You were never predictable. I want you to try the braised octopus with harissa, coriander and potato.”

“Don’t I get a choice?”

“Trust me.”

After they’d ordered, Sylvie pitched her voice at a more normal level, which was a blessing, because she was straight into her journalistic Q&A mode. “You got made up to sergeant, I hear. How’s the detective business going?”

Questions like this were to be expected. Ingeborg would normally be relaxed about them. She was clear in her mind how much she could safely say. The danger was that girl-talk loosens the tongue and that was without the assistance of alcohol. “Good and bad days. You get them in any job, don’t you? I wouldn’t go back to being a hack.”

“And how do Bath CID take to a sassy blonde telling them Colonel Mustard did it with the candlestick in the library?”

“They’re fine. Some are more serious-minded than others, but you need people like that. Policing isn’t one big laugh.”

“And the boss?”

“He’s good.”

“Yes, but what’s he like? What makes him tick?”

“Now you’re asking.” She could picture Diamond’s horrified
reaction if he ever discovered his personal qualities were the small talk in a public restaurant. “He brings out the best in the team. A good brain, which is essential. You think you can predict how he’ll handle any situation because he’s a seasoned cop, and then suddenly he’ll surprise you. I’ve never known anyone quite like him. He plays up to his image of being all fingers and thumbs and at war with technology, but I suspect he could build his own spacecraft and fly it to the moon if needed.”

“Sounds like you’re a secret admirer.”

Ingeborg smiled. “Give me a break, Syl. He’s at least twenty years older than me. But if I wanted to bank on someone to save my life, I’d pick Peter Diamond every time.”

“I bet he fancies you, whatever age he is.”

“There you go. Don’t you ever stop working? He’s in a relationship with a smart lady who understands him better than I ever will.” Ingeborg paused while the wine was poured, and told herself she really must go on with this. “And now that I’ve given you the rundown on my professional life, how’s yours? Thriving, by the look of you.”

Sylvie flicked the curls into motion again. “It’s cut-throat, as always. Changes of owner, bosses who can barely speak a word of English. We’re like one of those premiership football clubs, easy prey to foreign oligarchs. They hire and fire at will, and you can never be sure who’ll be sitting in the chair when you walk into the boardroom.”

“But you keep
your
job.”

She gave a broad wink. “Made myself indispensable, haven’t I? If they sacked me, they’d lose my contact list, which I guard like the Crown Jewels. It
is
the Crown Jewels.”

“Can’t someone hack into it?”

“No chance. The numbers aren’t on any computer. They’re in a battered old Filofax that stays zipped in my bag. It’s there now. And if anyone nicked it they wouldn’t be able to read my shorthand. You’re under the letter S with all the other Smiths, in case you’re wondering. I’m rather chuffed to have a private line into Bath CID.”

“Not much use to you,” Ingeborg said.

“No?”

“Absolutely no.”

“Go on. I wouldn’t mind betting you know secrets about the glitterati of Bath I could share with my readers. A hint about some celeb in the frame for pimping in the pumproom?”

“Sylvie, if it happened, you’d be the first to know.”

“Says who?”

“You’d be on the case before I was.”

“Oh, come on. Now I understand where the word ‘copout’ comes from. You must have any number of juicy stories crossing your desk.”

“You wish.”

The good-natured fencing continued right through the main course. It was becoming obvious to Ingeborg that she’d have to give a little to get the favour she wanted.

“That was truly out of this world,” she said when she put knife and fork together on her empty plate. “You should write the food column for your magazine.”

“Between you, me and the manager, I sometimes do.”

“I still read your feature articles regularly. Even when you don’t give yourself a byline the style is unmistakable.”

Sylvie took a long sip of the Chablis and stared over the glass with a look that refused to be schmoozed. “And the reason we’re here must be because some piece of deathless prose I wrote lately has caught your beady blue eye? Go on, nice cop. I’m listening.”

No backing off now. Out of sight under the table Ingeborg’s fingers laced together and squeezed. She hoped to God she’d judged this right. “The issue before last, you had a piece on a singer from the Far East who is moving up the charts.”

“Lee Li. You saw it?”

“I did.”

“Okay,” Sylvie said. “She’s definitely one to watch. She blends classical Chinese melodies with modern music of all sorts from reggae to soul. A bright kid who will make it big if I’m any judge.”

“Was she pleased with what you wrote?”

“Over the moon. I’m quoting her actual words, as texted on the day of publication. She talks in clichés, by the way, and I found it rather endearing. English is her second language. What’s your interest? Professional, no doubt.”

“I downloaded her Cherry Blossoms album. The voice is special, thrilling on the lower registers.”

“But that’s not what we’re here about,” Sylvie said with her trademark directness.

“True. Towards the end of the article you throw in the names of some people who helped Lee in her career so far, producers mostly.”

“Lifted straight out of the promo literature. They all like their credit if they can get it.”

“One name stood out because I didn’t know he has form in the popular music world.”

“Who’s that?”

“Nathan Hazael.”

“Can’t hear you.”

Of course she’d heard. She just wanted a moment to think. Ingeborg leaned forward and repeated the name without raising her voice.

Sylvie laughed. “He’s not a muso. He’s a crook.” She stabbed a finger in Ingeborg’s direction. “Now I know what this reunion is really about.”

“You could be getting warm.”

“Well, I hope Bath police will be picking up the bill. I only mentioned the son of a bitch because the girl kept on about him and his many acts of kindness.”

“So he wasn’t in the promo material?”

She laughed. “He’s the sugar daddy. She may be talented, she may have a voice in a million and a sweet personality, but it’s who you know, isn’t it? She needs Nathan’s help to rocket her to the top of the music business.”

“Is she living with him in his mansion on the Leigh Woods estate?”

“That’s the price of success.”

“And does she know he supplies the firearms for threequarters of the serious crime in the southwest? Allegedly.”

“Remarkable as it may seem to you, my precious, my interview with Lee didn’t get round to the subject of guns. She spoke of him with unbridled admiration every time his name came up. That’s what I’m telling you and that’s what I’ll tell Nathan’s lawyers if they come visiting. Have you got something new on the scumbag, because it had better be foolproof.”

“Don’t I know it,” Ingeborg said with feeling. “The last time a major investigation targeted him he walked out of court a free man and the DCI on the case and two others were suspended. No, I don’t have an arrest warrant in my back pocket. I simply find it bizarre that this godfather figure suddenly has a stake in a pop singer from Taiwan.”

“A peach of a singer. And a rising star. You said so yourself. It’s the old, old story. He likes young flesh and Lee Li needs funding. It may be distasteful, but she’s a grown-up. It’s not against the law.”

Trying to sound casual and not feeling it in the least, Ingeborg put the question she’d rehearsed in her mind a hundred times. “If I wanted to meet her what’s the best way to go about it?”

“Meet her—or him?” Sylvie said. “You’re too transparent for a super sleuth, darling.”

“I can’t knock on his door with my list of questions,” Ingeborg said.

“I wouldn’t recommend it. He’s nobody’s fool. And he’s very, very dangerous. Even I know that, and I haven’t met the guy.”

“So the best approach is through Lee.”

“And you want me to set it up? How, exactly?”

“It can’t be too obvious. I’m thinking of telling her I’m a freelance.”

“As you were.”

“And wanting to do a photo feature.”

“As you—” Sylvie rocked back in her chair. “Hold on, you’re no photographer.”

“Let me explain. I’d tell her I’m pitching an idea for a
regular two-page spot in one of the weekend colour magazines in the national Sundays, a new take on one of those ‘day in the life’ things. It would be called iPhone Diary and consist of up to a dozen shots taken with my phone to give a record of her wild and wacky day from wake-up to lights out.”

“Wicked—but no picture editor I know would agree to use your fuzzy iPhone pictures.”

“The fuzziness doesn’t matter,” Ingeborg said. “It’s meant to have a slightly amateurish look, as if these are sneaky pics of something private. With an intro from you, I can convince Lee that I’m genuine. I’ll flatter her by telling her she’s been picked because she’s so famous and attractive, my number one choice for the pilot feature.”