Beau Death

by Peter Lovesey

  “What does Miss Divine say?”

  “She put down some food and water and phoned the RSPCA.”

  Diamond rolled his eyes. “I meant what did she say about Perry?”

  “He didn’t have a car. Like you thought, he used taxis to get about.”

  “Okay, we’re done. Let’s go. We haven’t learned as much as I hoped.”

  Ingeborg asked Gilbert to help her carry the computer downstairs. It was an all-in-one machine, twenty-three inches, not particularly heavy, but awkward. They wrapped it in a bed sheet from the linen chest.

  “This could be our best bet,” she said.

  “Our only bet,” Gilbert said.

  “No, the SOCOs found his phone.”

  They started the careful descent of the stairs, Diamond leading.

  Halfway downstairs, he changed his mind, stopped and almost sent the three of them and the pc crashing to the bottom. “Thought of something.”

  “The umbrella?” Ingeborg held it out to show she hadn’t forgotten it.

  “No. Excuse me.” He pushed past them both and up to the top. Straight to the cupboard over the microwave. Reached for the cornflakes.

  The carton had been opened but felt full, and heavier than it should. The flap at the top was fastened. He flicked it up and looked at the cornflakes inside. Pulled out the inner bag.

  Secreted underneath was a plastic box used to store 35mm slides—except that there were no slides in there.

  When he lifted the lid he found it was packed with layers of folded paper. He took one out, unwrapped it and found a small quantity of white powder.

  What next? In movies and TV, the detective dips a finger—always the small finger—into the substance and tastes it. Diamond was far too experienced to risk poisoning himself.

  “Good find, guv,” Ingeborg said with real admiration. “Is that what I think it is—wraps of some drug?”

  “I’ll be surprised if it isn’t.”

  “What made you think of the cornflakes?”

  “The crockery. He had plates and mugs, but no bowl. How would he eat his cornflakes on a flat plate?”

  19

  Georgina was pacing the CID room, lioness-like, when they returned. Gilbert entered first holding the computer still wrapped in the bed sheet. Diamond and Ingeborg followed. All of them were drenched.

  “Still tipping it down,” Diamond said unnecessarily.

  Georgina was eyeing the small object he was carrying wrapped in a pillow case. “What’s that?”

  “We’re not certain, ma’am. I’ve kept it covered.”

  “Is it alive?”

  “I hope not. It may be cocaine. I need to get it analysed.”

  “Cocaine from Perry’s flat?”

  He nodded. “If I’m right, he’s more than just a pyro.”

  Her face went through a series of rapid reactions, from interest to shock to guilt, and Diamond knew why. A suspected cocaine user had been given police permission—her permission—to stage the biggest firework display ever seen in Bath. “Does he have a record?”

  “We haven’t checked yet. We’re treating him as a victim, not a suspect.”

  She’d gone from Post Office red to Kleenex white. “I took him to be a competent young man. I ought to have checked with the PNC. Things could have gone disastrously wrong.”

  Could have gone wrong? Diamond was tempted to say that a fatal shooting was worse than wrong, but he spared Georgina’s feelings. No doubt she was thinking in terms of mortars smashing through windows in the Royal Crescent and creating an inferno of Bath’s most glorious building. “If it’s all the same with you, ma’am, we’ll get out of our wet things and take these items to someone who can deal with them.”

  “Do that,” she said, her eyes glazed.

  Diamond started to walk away, but Georgina’s powers of recovery were legend.

  “And then come and see me in my office, Peter. There are urgent matters on my mind.”

  While Ingeborg and Gilbert went to seek out a computer forensics expert, Diamond headed for the drugs unit. When he handed across the plastic box, the two sergeants in there asked what he thought was inside.

  “I’m keeping an open mind, but I wouldn’t have come to you if I wasn’t suspicious. It was well hidden.”

  “Have you tasted it, sir?”

  “No way. Is that what you do?”

  He got a pained look from the one who appeared to be in charge. “We’re not amateurs.”

  “How long will you take?”

  “About five seconds. Marley will know. Put the box on the floor. You can leave the lid on.”

  Five seconds was an overestimate. Marley was a brown and white springer spaniel who confirmed cocaine as soon as he was brought in. There was no barking, no yelping even. He went straight to the box, stood quite still and focused intently with eyes and nose.

  “That’s coke,” the sergeant said. “He’s been on more busts than any of us. The street value of the finds he’s made runs into millions. It’s the large nose and long muzzle of the breed. Good dog, Marley.” He took a plastic container from a shelf and rattled it. “Want to give him his reward?”

  “Will he take it from me?”

  “He will when he’s off duty. He’s a different dog then. He’s waiting for you to take the box away.”

  Diamond didn’t like that look in Marley’s eyes. “I’d rather you did that.”

  Georgina was behaving as if the entire population of Bath was on its way out to Emersons Green to lynch her.

  “It’s a bad, bad day, Peter.”

  “Why is that, ma’am?” he asked, feeling chirpy again.

  “Can’t you see? If this isn’t handled right, the media will portray us as incompetent. A shooting in front of the Royal Crescent when almost our entire strength was on duty there. And now this—a drug user in charge of a fireworks show.”

  “He didn’t personally light the fireworks.”

  “He was the front man and probably high on cocaine at the time.”

  “What do you want me to do—hush it up?”

  “No, no. It will leak anyway. But if questioned, you don’t need to go into detail about whom he approached.”

  He enjoyed the “whom.” She was a stickler for correct grammar.

  “I’ll do my best to cover up for whomsoever you mean, ma’am.”

  She twitched and looked towards the window. The lynch mob couldn’t be far off. “It’s not a case of covering up for anybody. You can give a vague answer, can’t you?”

  “If pressed.”

  “This is our reputation at stake. God knows we’ve had more than our share of scandals in recent years. How do you propose to handle this murder?”

  “In the usual way, ma’am,” he said in a fine demonstration of vagueness.

  “Meaning what?”

  “We’ll gather all the evidence we can and decide on possible motives and draw up a list of suspects.”

  “When you say ‘we’ . . . ?”

  “Me and my team.”

  “Is that wise?”

  He frowned, not liking this. “We’re CID. That’s what we do.”

  “But you’re already at full stretch on the Twerton murder. You can’t be in two places at once.”

  He got it. She wanted to hand the Beau Nash case to someone else. “We can, between us. We’re an experienced team. DI Leaman is currently out at Twerton on the dig you and I discussed the other day.”

  “They’re digging—in weather like this?”

  “In waterproofs and wellies. I made sure they went prepared.”

  “Has he found anything?”

  “I haven’t heard from him this morning.”

  “Drowned, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  He gratified her with a grin. “He’s unsinkab
le, is John Leaman.”

  “I hope so, for his sake.”

  “Not forgetting the six diggers, ma’am.”

  “Absolutely not.” But the six diggers weren’t high in Georgina’s thoughts. She beat a short tattoo with her fingers on the arms of her chair. “This new case will require more resources. It’s not as if it happened twenty-odd years ago, like the Twerton murder.”

  “More resources would be good,” he said, ignoring the last low punch. “We can always use help. Where from?”

  She didn’t exactly answer. “There’s a drug element and we both know how dangerous that can be. I want you leading the team. Peter.”

  “Well, I am.”

  “Fully engaged, I mean, with all your senior people involved, including Inspector Leaman.”

  Now the warning light had gone from amber to red. “Then what’s going to happen about Twerton? We can’t just fold our tents and walk away. The press are on at us all the time for updates. It’s an active case, a headline story.”

  “Credit me with some intelligence, Peter. I’m bringing in a team from Bristol.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  This was beyond all. “You can’t do that. It’s my patch.”

  “It’s what the government keeps telling us about: maximising resources. Bristol are overmanned just now. We’re all Avon and Somerset, aren’t we? I’ve discussed it with senior colleagues at Bristol Central. They’ll relieve you of the Twerton case. Detective Chief Inspector Crocker will take over.”

  “Crocker?” He could barely get the word out. “Charlie Crocker. He can’t do it. He’s all wind and piss.”

  “Please. That’s no way to speak to me, and no way to speak of a colleague.”

  “No colleague of mine. He’d ruin everything, destroy all the work we’ve put in. You can’t honestly think a goon like that—”

  “Before you go on, Charlie Crocker earned a chief constable’s commendation for the way he dealt with the neo-Nazis at College Green last year. He’s a valued officer clearly destined for higher things.”

  “So they jump at the chance of unloading him on us. The man’s a walking disaster area.” But insults wouldn’t win this contest. He had to think of something that would make an impact on Georgina. He thought hard and, as so often when the adrenalin was pumping, a bold idea came. “Can you imagine him interacting with your friends from Charlcombe?”

  She blinked. “The Parises?”

  “I wonder how Sir Edward and Lady Sally will take it when he wades in, bragging about kicking shit out of the neo-Nazis. Could be okay, I guess. For all I know, they may hold ultra-right-wing views themselves.”

  “I think not. My impression is that they’re liberal-minded about most things.”

  “So they won’t mind Charlie’s effing and blinding. Fine.”

  The worry lines were multiplying by the second. “Is he like that?”

  “Only when he gets on one of his hobbyhorses, like the class system. Abolish the House of Lords and string them all up from Westminster Bridge, Charlie says. But that’s okay if your friends are liberal-minded. The problem as I see it lies elsewhere.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Beau Nash Society. When he visits there, he’ll come up against a few of the filthy rich, as he calls them. Sure to.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “I may be wrong. He could choose to remain silent. He won’t have much to talk about except his politics. He doesn’t know the first thing about Beau Nash.”

  “Does he need to go there?”

  “It’s arranged, isn’t it? Sir Edward is expecting a senior detective. You had me in mind when you promised to send your man to the next meeting.”

  “Oh dear, yes.”

  “That’s why I’ve been doing a crash course on the Beau and his fifty years of life in Bath: the houses he lived in, his mistresses, his circle of friends. And his rules for the Pump Room. I’m so well briefed I could go on Mastermind, I was told. The reason I’m doing so much homework is to blend in with the members. Simply wearing the frock coat and the wig isn’t going to fool anybody.”

  “I’d forgotten about the costume. Have you hired it already?”

  He hadn’t, but he wasn’t going to say so. “Paloma is looking after that. You expressly told me to get one, if you remember. Funny, I can’t picture Charlie in the gear. Have you told him?”

  She coughed as if she had a bone stuck in her throat. “I haven’t spoken to him. His name came up when I phoned my opposite number at Bristol.”

  “It would,” Diamond said. “The first name they’d think of.”

  A pause for reflection.

  “Do we really need to have someone attending the Beau Nash Society?” Georgina said.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m confused. You told me I should go there and mingle with the elderly members who were around at the time of the murder. You said you’d done me a good turn and arranged it with Sir Edward. ‘Hire a costume’ were the words you used.”

  “So I did.”

  “We can see if it fits Charlie Crocker, but I doubt it somehow. He must be six inches taller than me and built like a super-heavyweight. Mingling with the elderly members will be a challenge. I hope he doesn’t knock any of them over.”

  Georgina caught her breath and covered her eyes. “Say no more. I’ve made a ghastly mistake. This man mustn’t be allowed within a mile of the Beau Nash Society.”

  “How can we put him off?”

  “You say you’re well prepared. We’ll go back to Plan A.”

  “With me in charge?”

  She nodded and he could see the full consequence of the decision struggling to emerge on her beleaguered face, so he helped with a suggestion.

  “You’ll speak to Bristol and tell them we don’t need reinforcements after all? We can cope?”

  “If you’re confident we can.”

  “Not a problem, ma’am.”

  He came out of the office pumped up—until he realised he’d just talked himself into dressing in the damned frock coat and breeches and enduring a deeply embarrassing night. Up to this minute he’d promised himself it wouldn’t happen because he’d conjure up some excuse. No escape now.

  Towards midday Keith Halliwell appeared in the CID room looking like a piece of twine chewed by Marley the sniffer dog.

  “Caught up on your sleep, then,” Diamond said and didn’t wait for a reaction. “Did the crime-scene guys make any more discoveries?”

  “They made a preliminary check and put up a forensic tent and then decided to wait for daylight before doing the fingertip search.”

  “Sensible.”

  “But Jim Middleton arrived and made an inspection of the body by flashlamp. After an hour and a half he stopped for a cup of tea from his thermos.”

  “Tea and conversation, knowing him.”

  “I wouldn’t call it that. He did all the talking. It was more of a monologue than conversation.”

  “What about?”

  “Fishing. He’s an angler. So there we were at three in the morning talking about something called the perfection loop which had nothing to do with the killing. It’s a knot they use in fly fishing. Finally he got back to the job and did another hour.”

  “What did he have to say about the shooting?”

  “Bullet to the head would have been fatal whether it was the first shot or not. He wasn’t willing to say the range it was fired from except it wasn’t a contact wound. There was another through the chest. He ruled out suicide.”

  “That hadn’t even crossed my mind.”

  “Nor mine. We finally got away about four a.m. He arranged for the body to be removed at first light and he wants to do the autopsy this afternoon if we can get someone to make the identification. Is there a next of kin?”


  “We haven’t found one. We could ask his landlady, Miss Divine.”

  “Will she be okay with that?”

  “I’m sure she will. The first thing she said to me was that she’s dealing with life and death all the time. Can you be the police presence?”

  “I always am.”

  “Untrue,” Diamond said, hackles rising. “I did the last one myself.”

  Halliwell grinned. “The bones. So you did, guv. So you did.”

  “But with two investigations to oversee—”

  “Say no more.”

  He asked Ingeborg to drive him back to the Royal Crescent. Although the rain had eased off, the turf was squelchy to walk over. Below the ha-ha, council workmen were clearing rubbish left by last night’s spectators. On the residents’ lawn, the crime scene area was marked with do-not-enter tape. High above it like a rebuke the charred figure of Beau Nash was outlined against the louring sky, Jane Austen having been dismantled.

  The forensic tent, too, had gone. The body had been removed to the mortuary. Bright yellow evidence markers had been placed on the surface where items of possible interest had been found.

  “How many bullets?” he asked the senior man.

  “Five for sure.”

  “Are you thinking a revolver?”

  “We’re not thinking anything, Mr. Diamond. We’re just collecting and marking at this stage.”

  “Any footprints?”

  “Shoeprints, unless you were expecting Man Friday. So many, it’s ridiculous. The world and his wife came by for a look. And where the surface turned to mud, all that rain has spoilt our chance of some nice prints. I wouldn’t pin any hope on a result.”

  “DNA?”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Why is it never like it is in the training sessions?”

  “You tell me.”

  Diamond doubted whether there was any value in remaining there and said so to Ingeborg. “I’m going to speak to the drugs squad again.”

  “You think that’s behind this?”

  “With guns in play? Got to be, hasn’t it? Perry must have upset someone big time. Our lot have the latest intelligence. They’ll know what’s happening on the street and who’s really dangerous.”