Upon a Dark Night (18 page)

“What’s this,’ said Diamond. ‘Archaeology?’

‘A pastime, at a very amateur level,’ said Treadwell.

‘You found those gorgeous old bottles on the river bank,’ said Emma.

‘They’re nothing special,’ said Treadwell.

‘Admit it, Guy. You get all the breaks.’

Allardyce said gallantly, ‘And your luckiest break of all was getting hitched to Emma.’

Emma blushed at the compliment, but her churlish husband said nothing.

Sally added for Diamond’s benefit, ‘He’ll go on denying he has a charmed life, but just don’t get into a poker game with him.’

Diamond asked what time the gatecrashers had started arriving and was told they first appeared around 9pm and soon it became unstoppable. The pressure only eased about 10.30, after the two policemen had called, following the complaint from a neighbour. By that time all the drink was gone and the clubs and discos were opening in town.

‘And some remained?’

‘Plenty,’ said Sally. ‘For hours.’

‘But you had no knowledge that anyone was on the roof?’

‘Not until we were told.’

Diamond went downstairs and talked to the sergeant at the door, a grizzled man with a face you could have struck a match on. ‘Do you have a personal radio?’

‘Yes, sir. Want to use it?’

He might as well have invited Diamond to perform brain surgery. ‘No. Has there been any word about the victim? Has anyone reported her missing?’

‘Nothing’s come through to me, sir.’

‘Were you here when they took her away?’

‘I helped put her on the stretcher, sir.’

‘In that case, you can tell me what she was like.’

‘A right mess, to tell you the truth. The crack in her head—’

‘Yes, I know all about that,’ Diamond firmly cut him off. ‘I was wanting some idea of her normal appearance.’

‘She was a brunette, sir. Quite short hair actually. Good figure.’

‘Clothes?’

‘She was covered with a blanket when I arrived.’

‘But you helped lift her onto the stretcher, right? What did you take hold of? Her arms?’

‘The legs. Well, the feet. She had black jeans, white socks, black and white trainers. Only one trainer, in point of fact. One was missing.’

‘Fell off, you mean?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Was it in the yard? Did anyone pick it up?’ Diamond’s voice had an edge of urgency that produced a nervous response from the sergeant.

‘Em …’

‘Think, man.’

‘I couldn’t say, sir.’

The missing trainer had galvanised Diamond. ‘Get on that radio of yours and find out if anyone has the shoe. Tell Manvers Street from me to contact everyone who was here at the scene, including the SOCOs, the police surgeon, the mortuary. If we have the shoe, I want to know exactly where it was found, on the roof, in the basement, or any other place. Do it now, Sergeant.’

Sixteen

Early the same afternoon, the filming of
The Pickwick Papers
was abandoned after two minibuses joined the other police vehicles in front of the Royal Crescent and a dozen officers emerged. The director said he would be consulting lawyers.

Inside the house the reinforcements began a ‘sweep’; collecting, bagging and labelling each item discarded by the party-goers the previous night. The residents took turns to make tea and coffee, and tried without much conviction to behave as if it were a normal Sunday. Diamond had asked them to remain indoors until the sweep was over. Complications could occur, he said darkly, if people weren’t present when their house was being checked for evidence. To encourage co-operation, he asked Julie to stay there. Any hope she had of lunch with Charlie had long since been abandoned.

The big man himself made a reluctant appearance at the Royal United Hospital mortuary. The corpse of the young woman, still in her bloodstained clothes, was wheeled out for his inspection.

He held his breath, but the injuries were less disfiguring than he had prepared himself for. The back of her skull had taken the main impact. Blood had congealed and encrusted in a patch not strikingly different from the dark brown of her hair. The unmarked face had the look of wax. Its serenity was an appearance, not an expression, confirming the melancholy truth that a detective’s job is doomed to be unsatisfying, for the best it can do is reconstruct facts and determine what happened and who was responsible. Nothing he could discover or deduce, however brilliant, would diminish the tragedy of a young life lost.

He stepped away for a moment, and the attendant asked if he’d finished.

‘Far from it.’ He approached the other end of the trolley and spent some time examining the black and white Reebok trainer on the left foot and the white sock on the right. The remaining shoe was fairly new, with little wear. It fitted snugly and was laced and tied with a double bow. The sock on the other, shoeless foot had been tugged down a little, so that the heel was hanging slackly. He attached no importance to this. It could easily have been done as the body was being moved. But he was intrigued to find the underside of the sock perfectly clean.

‘What it shows clearly,’ he told DCI John Wigfull in his Manvers Street lair, ‘is that she didn’t put her foot on the ground without the shoe. The dirt runs off the roof and collects in the gully behind the balustrade. You can’t avoid stepping in muck.’

‘What did she do, then? Hop?’

Diamond shot him a surprised look. Sarcasm wasn’t Wigfull’s style. He was about as waggish as a Rottweiler.

‘I suppose she kicked the shoe off as she jumped,’ Wigfull said, more soberly.

‘But where is it? That shoe is missing. I’ve checked with everyone. No sign of it, on the roof or down in the basement yard.’

‘The adjoining basement?’

‘My lads aren’t amateurs, John. I said it’s missing.’

Wigfull’s unappreciative gaze rested on Diamond for a moment. ‘You have a theory, I suppose?’

‘Someone picked up the damned shoe and took it away.’ Having delivered this startling opinion, Diamond paused. ‘You’re going to ask me why.’

A sound very like a snort of contempt escaped from under the Mexican moustache. ‘I wouldn’t give you that satisfaction.’ Wigfull was definitely getting uppish.

‘Suit yourself.’

‘Before you dash off, I think I’m entitled to know what you’re doing about this woman up at the Crescent.’

‘She isn’t up at the Crescent any more. She’s down at the RUH.’

‘This missing shoe. What does it mean, in your opinion?’

A grin spread across Diamond’s face. ‘I thought you weren’t going to ask. There are two questions, aren’t there? How did the shoe get parted from her foot, and where is it?’

‘Well?’

‘Question One, then. If you take it from me that she didn’t put her foot to the ground, then the shoe must have come off while she was sitting on the balustrade. She was seen up there some time around eleven-thirty to midnight, “dangling her legs”, so I was told. If her legs were visible, she was facing outwards looking at the lights of Bath. Of course, she
may
have dangled so energetically that it simply…’

‘Slipped off her foot?’

‘Yes. Or, more likely, she struck her heel against one of the stone things underneath. What are they called?’

‘Balusters.’

‘Against one of the balusters, loosening the shoe, in which case it dropped to the ground, or the basement.’

‘But you said it hasn’t been found.’

‘Don’t rush me, John. Something I didn’t say is that the other trainer, on the left foot, is securely tied, laced with a double bow.’ He paused. ‘Now, you were saying…?’

Wigfull was not so laid-back now. In fact, he was hunched forward. ‘Where is the damned shoe?’

‘Thank you. That’s my Question Two. It isn’t there any more, so - as I said a few minutes ago - it must have been removed from the scene.’

‘But who by?’

‘This is just a theory. Someone else was up there on the roof. The woman hears something and turns, feeling vulnerable. The other party goes to her and there’s a struggle in which the shoe is tugged off. The victim falls to her death.’

Wigfull’s brown eyes widened. ‘Peter, you’re talking murder now.’

‘I didn’t say the word.’

‘You were about to.’

‘Hold on,’ said Diamond, deliberately playing down the obvious. ‘The second person could have been trying to
prevent
the victim jumping off. It could have been a rescue attempt that didn’t succeed.’

Wigfull was unconvinced. ‘Why would the rescuer want to get rid of the shoe?’

Diamond didn’t offer a theory.

‘The only certain thing,’ said Wigfull, ‘is that she fell to her death - or was pushed.’

‘No, there is another certain thing, and that’s that her shoe is missing.’

‘Quite true, and that’s difficult to reconcile with a rescue attempt.’

‘Agreed.’

Diamond, forceful by reputation, was rather relishing this softly-softly approach with his old antagonist. He wasn’t going to thump the desk and say this stood out as a case of murder.

Wigfull said, ‘Do you really think someone else is involved?’

‘Allowing that the shoe went missing, yes. Otherwise, where is it?’

Wigfull sank back into his chair and said with an air of martyrdom, ‘God, why didn’t I ask you to take on the student?’

‘I offered.’

‘I know. You’re saying because the shoe is missing someone else must be involved. What do they gain from disposing of the shoe? What are they worried about? Prints? Fibres?’

‘You know what forensic say: every contact leaves its traces.’

‘Which makes murder a strong bet. But why? Why attack her at all?’

Diamond spread his hands wide, like Moses arriving at the Promised Land. ‘That’s all to be discovered.’

‘You don’t even know the victim’s name. Is anyone reported missing?’

‘What time is it?’ asked Diamond.

‘Two-thirty.’

‘Most of that crowd who were partying last night will be scarcely out of bed. And when they are, a lot of them won’t know whose bed it is. To expect them to notice someone is missing is asking a lot, John.’

‘What was she like, this woman?’

‘Mid-twenties. Dark, with shortish hair. Average height and build. Brown eyes. Dressed for an evening out, in a pink sweater and black jeans.’

‘White socks and one Reebok trainer,’ Wigfull made a point of completing it for him. He liked his reputation as a stickler for detail.

‘She was seen at the party sitting on the stairs with some bruiser in a leather jacket.’

‘And he hasn’t come forward?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Is that the best description you’ve got?’

‘Of the victim? I could do better. I could circulate a picture if we’re serious about murder. This is what I wanted to talk to you about. Unless she’s identified, the post-mortem will have to be delayed, just like it is for your farmer. I’m about to put out a press statement asking for information. Do you want a hand in it?’

Wigfull sighed. If he’d known this unexplained death would shape up as a murder inquiry, he’d have grabbed it for himself. Now that he’d handed the job to Diamond, the official head of the murder squad, he could hardly claim it back.

He conceded bleakly, ‘This one is yours.’

At his own desk Diamond cleared a space with a swimmer’s movement and started drafting the press release, a task he would have handed to Julie if she were not still at the Crescent. Julie was good with words - only she was also a model of tact, the ideal person to have in charge at the scene of the incident, keeping the tenants from getting stroppy. She’d radioed in to say that the sweep through the house was complete. Nothing of obvious significance had been found, certainly no Reebok trainer.

He had radioed back and ordered a search of the building, a specific search this time, for the missing trainer. Yes, a search, he emphasised to Julie. A different exercise from the sweep. This time the team would open cupboards, look into drawers, between layers of bedding, under loose floorboards. When Julie pointed out that they had no search warrant, Diamond told her brusquely that a DI with her experience ought to have the personal authority to carry through an exercise like this. It wasn’t as if anyone was under suspicion of hiding drugs or stolen goods. It was a pesky shoe they were looking for. Julie, caught in the trap familiar to female police officers - the suggestion that they lack assertiveness - bit back her objections and went off to supervise the search.

The press release.

He wrote in his bold lettering,
A woman aged between twenty-five and thirty died, apparently from a fall, at a party at number ??
[He’d need to check the number again]
The Royal Crescent, Bath, late on Saturday night. Police are anxious to identify the woman and trace witnesses who may have seen her before the incident. She was wearing…
Then he looked up.

A sergeant had come through the open door, embarrassment writ large across his face. Before any words were spoken, the reason was clear. Apparent behind the sergeant, too large to be obscured by his merely average physique, followed Ada Shaftsbury.

The sergeant started saying, ‘Sir, I did my—’

Ada elbowed him aside and advanced on Diamond. This female lacked nothing in assertiveness. ‘Here he is, the original shrinking violet. Just who do you think you are -the Scarlet sodding Pimpernel? I spend half the day sitting on my butt waiting for a sight of you and you don’t even get up to shake hands. What are you afraid of- that I’ll get mine around your throat?’

Diamond had nothing personal against Ada. In small amounts, and at the right time, he enjoyed listening to her. As a senior officer, he had tried once or twice to stop her causing mayhem in the charge room and quickly came to appreciate her sharp humour and agile brain. Also the strong moral values that, ironically, many habitual criminals possess. Her morality happened to be a little out of kilter with the law, that was all. It allowed her to shoplift with impunity, but never to steal from individuals.

‘Ada, if I had the time …’ He waved the wretched sergeant away. ‘I can give you three minutes. It’s red alert here.’

‘It always bloody is,’ she said, tugging a revolving chair from the desk Julie used and sinking onto it with a force that would forever impair its spring mechanism. ‘I’ve waited all the frigging morning to see you, Mr Sexton bloody Blake, and now you’re going to listen. They asked me to make a written statement. What use is that? I know what happens to bits of paper in places like this. I’ve seen it.’