The Stone Wife (32 page)

Halliwell and Leaman joined them and gave Ingeborg more of the welcome home that was her due. She launched into a snappy account of her adventure, from the night on the
Great Britain
to the escape with Lee Li. “I brought the sheets from the gunroom for you to study,” she said in conclusion. “I haven’t been through them myself.” She took the sheaf of papers from her pocket, unfolded them and handed them across.

Diamond said, “This is terrific. You didn’t get any photos of his collection, I suppose?”

She shook her head. “They took away my phone.”

“Not to worry.” Diamond brandished the gunroom log. “This is the star prize. With any luck we’ll recognise some names when we go through it.”

“I also brought away a gun, a Glock 17, for self-defence. It’s got my prints all over it, but it’s evidence that he deals in firearms.”

Leaman in his usual downbeat way said, “I doubt if we’ll find the rest of the guns. He’ll have shipped them out already. Even if we raided the place right now, we’d be unlikely to recover much.”

“We could find the room where they were stored,” Halliwell said.

Leaman shook his head. “I wouldn’t even count on that.”

Ingeborg said, “He may not have done anything about the guns. He’s got plenty else to keep him busy.”

“Repairing all the damage you caused?” Diamond said with a grin.

“I meant disposing of the body.”

“Which body?”

“Didn’t I mention the dead man in the grounds?”

25

Two busloads of armed police and the dog unit accompanied the response car that drove Diamond, Halliwell and Ingeborg to Leigh Woods—and for once there was no complaint from the big man about the speed they were going. Uncomfortable in their body armour, the three detectives were suffering far more aggravation from the mix of grief and anger in their minds. The only way to get through was to concentrate on practicalities. During the journey, Ingeborg described the layout of Nathan Hazael’s mansion in as much detail as she knew. “And there are at least four resident bodyguards armed with handguns,” she said.

“From what you were saying, they have an arsenal of weapons to choose from,” Halliwell said. “We could be facing carbines.”

“And there’s the dog, a Dobermann.”

Diamond emerged from a brooding silence to say, “Let’s be clear about this operation. The top priority is to discover what happened to Paul. To achieve that, we must arrest Hazael and question him. And we need the evidence to back up the charge. Inge, your first duty is to identify the spot in the grounds where you saw them standing over the body and tape it as a crime scene. I’ve already asked for a CSI team. There should be evidence of firearms use or other violence. I’m assuming they’ll have moved the body elsewhere.”

“And then shall I join you in the house?” Ingeborg asked.

“Soon as you can, yes.”

“Do we have a search warrant?”

“Leaman is arranging it as we speak. We’ll go through the
place with a fine toothcomb. But the focus of all our resources right now is Paul. The gun-running is secondary.”

“This may sound dumb, but did you try calling his mobile?” Ingeborg said.

“Switched off, or destroyed.”

“They’ve had several hours,” Halliwell said. “They’ll have worked out that Ingeborg was undercover and they’ll be expecting a raid from us.”

“So?”

“They could have chucked him in the river by now. It’s only a short drive.”

Diamond inhaled sharply while his imagination dwelt on the remark. “You can go straight down to the garage in the basement and check the vehicles, Keith, unless they’re out front. Two limos, you said, Inge, apart from the Aston Martin, which we assume is still abandoned on the quayside?”

Ingeborg nodded.

Persevering with the task in hand, trying to keep his darkest fear from taking hold, Diamond said, “We know one of the limos was used in the chase, but we can find out if they were driven after. See if either engine is still warm and check the boot, of course.”

“Are we nicking the bodyguards, as well as Nathan?” Halliwell asked.

“You bet we are.”

Already they were speeding along North Road with Nightingale Valley to their right, through the lush vegetation and millionaire estates of Leigh Woods. The resentment against Hazael and his crime-sourced fortune was almost tangible, but went unspoken.

Ingeborg alerted the driver when the turn came. They pulled up in front of the tall iron gate she had last seen from the other side.

Diamond stepped out and buzzed the intercom on the gatepost. There was some delay before a woman’s voice responded over the static.

“Yes, who is it?”

“Police. Open up, please.”

“Mr. Hazael isn’t here.”

Ingeborg told Diamond, “Sounds like Stella, the housekeeper.”

“Open the gate or we’ll take it down.”

After more hesitation, the ironwork was activated with a shudder and began its slow inward movement.

They drove through the woods towards the house, already visible ahead, overblown and pretentious with its turret and battlements. Ingeborg said to the driver, “Slow up a bit, would you?” She was concentrating on the swiftly changing view across the turf, trying to visualise the scene she’d passed in a very different light. This time there were no flashlights and no people under the trees to mark the spot. A massive oak came up on the right. “We’re coming to it, I think. Stop. I’ll get out here.”

“Are you certain?” Diamond asked.

“As near as I can be.”

“They’ll have police tape and cones in the bus. See you presently.”

The car and the second bus drove right up to the house. The armed police in their Kevlar jackets poured out and spread wide across the frontage. Diamond marched up to the already partly open front door and flashed his ID to the middle-aged woman barring the way. She looked aghast at such a large police presence.

“You must be Stella, the housekeeper.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’re coming in to search the building. A warrant has been issued. Where’s Nathan Hazael?”

“He went out earlier with some of his staff. He didn’t say where.”

“Some of his staff, or all of them?”

“The catering people are still here.”

“So has he taken all the cars?”

“I expect so. I didn’t see them leave.”

“Step aside, please. We’re coming in now.”

“I don’t know if Mr. Hazael would like that.”

“We don’t give a toss what he would like. Do you want to be charged with obstruction?”

She stepped back to avoid the inflow of armed officers. Halliwell asked her which way the garage was and she pointed to a passage on the right. He led a group straight through.

Diamond remained with Stella, reminding himself she was only one of the staff, low in the pecking order. He’d let rip at the door and now he needed to keep his emotion in check. In a measured tone, he said, “I’m going to warn you that withholding information is an offence. We have reason to believe there was a violent incident here overnight. A man was attacked and possibly murdered in the grounds. You must have heard the alarm go off.”

She nodded, wide-eyed. “I didn’t know anyone was murdered.”

“Come on. Everyone must have been talking about it. What did you see?”

“Someone came through my bedroom in the night, a woman, a journalist who was staying here. I don’t know what it was about.”

“That was before the alarm, right? What did you do when you heard the alarm?”

“I got out of bed and ran downstairs. I thought there must be a fire, but there wasn’t. One of Mr. Hazael’s personal staff was in the front hall and told me to go back to bed. He said a guard dog had found a trespasser in the grounds and they were dealing with it. I took him at his word and went back to my room. Soon after that I heard shooting.”

“Where from?”

“Outside.”

“More than one shot?”

“I wasn’t counting. Several.”

“And when you got up in the morning? What time were you about?”

“My duties start at eight, so I was up soon after seven.”

“What was going on at that time? Did you speak to anyone? See anything?”

“Plenty was going on, but I’m not sure what. People up and down stairs, in and out of the house. I was told by the kitchen staff that no one was eating breakfast. They were all too busy with other stuff. Lily—that’s Mr. Hazael’s partner—had left the house in the night with the journalist and taken the sports car from the garage. They drove off while the men were out in the grounds dealing with the intruder.”

“Does anyone know what exactly happened with this intruder? Did they attack him?”

“He was hiding up a tree, I was told, and fell out.”

“Fell out? He wasn’t shot?”

“I don’t know about that. I wasn’t there.”

“Who told you this?”

“The cook.”

“But you say you heard gunfire in the night. Didn’t you get up to look?”

“In this house it’s not wise to be too curious. I covered my ears and stayed in bed.”

“Was an ambulance called for the man?”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t hear one.”

“The man was a police officer keeping the house under surveillance,” Diamond told her. “It’s possible he was murdered. You won’t need telling how serious that is. I’ve warned you already about withholding information. The man isn’t out there now. Do you know what they did with him?”

“I was told they took him away.” She was clearly frightened and the answer sounded genuine.

“The cook told you this?”

She nodded.

Diamond’s phone buzzed. It was Halliwell. “The garage is empty, guv.”

“Get onto the PNC and find out which vehicles are registered to Hazael. Do we know what make the limos are? Ask Ingeborg. And then get an all-units out. Two black limos,
possibly together.” He turned back to the white-faced Stella. “Did you see them lift the body into one of the cars?”

Her voice shook. “I didn’t myself …”

“Someone else did?”

“Cook mentioned seeing something.”

“Take me to him now.”

“Cook is a lady.”

The lady—the fount of all knowledge about the morning’s events—was in a white linen jacket outside the kitchen door, mid-fifties, reed-thin, twitchy and lighting a cigarette. Diamond went through the necessary cautions and added some veiled threats of his own. These women knew their employer was a monster and must have realised instant dismissal would be the least of their problems if they grassed to the police. But they were up against another ogre and today he was fired up by emotions of his own. Last night he’d left young Gilbert to fend for himself, unarmed in this hostile place. Conscience strikes deep into the soul.

“Did you hear the shooting in the night?”

She was a cooler character than Stella. She took her time stubbing out the cigarette on the stone wall, then gave a nod.

“And was that before the alarm went off or after?”

“After.”

“How many shots?”

The answer was a shrug.

He moved on to the more crucial incident. “I heard what you witnessed this morning. I want to hear it in your own words. What time was it?”

“Six, or soon after.”

“And where were you?”

“In the dining room, trying to find out if anyone wanted a cooked breakfast before I started. No one was in, so I looked out the window.” She was probably lying about her reason for snooping, but it didn’t matter if she spoke the truth about what she had witnessed.

“What exactly did you see?”

“One of the cars on the drive with the back open. Mr. Hazael under the trees with two of his staff. There was shouting, but I couldn’t hear the words. He seemed to be angry. I saw the men bend down and pick something up and carry it across the grass towards the car and when they got nearer I could tell it was a person.”

“Dead?”

“You should have seen the way it was being carried. They dumped it in the boot and shut the lid down.”

The “it” was chilling. “Then what?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean—
nothing
?” For all his good intentions, he was getting irritated with this cold-eyed woman.

“Nothing happened for a long time.” After some hesitation she seemed to sense his anger and decide more had to be revealed. “No one came in for breakfast except Stella, the housekeeper. I told her what I’d seen and we talked about the disturbed night we’d had. After she went, when I was clearing plates, I saw them drive off.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Hazael and his men.”

“So how long had the limousine been waiting on the drive?”

“An hour, easy.”

“With the man shut in the boot?”

“Must have been, mustn’t he? The second car came round the side of the house and they all drove off.”

“Which car was Hazael in?”

“The first.”

“The one with the body?”

“Yes.”

Diamond checked his watch. “That was about two hours ago and they haven’t returned. How many were in each car?”

“Three in the first. I’m not certain, but there must have been two in the second.”

“And you didn’t overhear anything about their plans?”

“I told you already. They were too far away.”

He left her and rounded the house to the front. Ingeborg
and her team had taped off the area under the oak. The dog-handlers were making a wider search of the grounds. He went over.

“Plenty of shoeprints,” Ingeborg told him, “and four shell cases we spotted and left where we found them. There could be more.”

“They were firing at you when you drove past.”

“Right. So I expected to find something.”

“I’m trying to find out precisely what happened, and when. The housekeeper heard some shooting, several shots, and I assume that was the bodyguards firing at you in the Aston Martin. Whatever happened to Paul must have been done before then, right?”

“The body was under the tree when I drove past. They were there with the dog.”

“So Paul could have been attacked at any time in the night?”

Ingeborg tapped a finger against her lip, remembering. “When I was escaping from the tower, out on the battlements, I heard a lot of barking down below. I reckon he was still alive then.”