“That would be me.”
“And the next thing she’d grabbed me and was holding the scissors to my neck.”
“My stupid fault, blundering in,” he said. “Shouldn’t have alarmed her.”
“Don’t be daft, Pete. You’re not responsible for her actions.” She smiled and reached for his hand. “I’m not having it. You’re my hero.”
Cue the violins.
Paloma was recovering. Her brain had processed the events and now she understood enough to become calm and get back to normal. She propped herself on her elbows and then sat up, eyes clear and looking into his.
But this couldn’t be the romantic ending. Diamond said, “Forgive me. I need to phone a couple of people.”
He took out the mobile and spoke first to Ingeborg, warning her that Sally might attempt to drive through the gate.
“You mean Lady Sally?”
“I’ll explain all later. Just stop her and make an arrest if she comes your way. I must update Keith now.”
So much had happened since he’d last been in touch with Halliwell that he was shocked to hear his back-up team were still making the difficult ascent from the valley. Tempted to ask what had kept them, he bit back the question and instead asked how much farther they had to go.
“Five minutes max. There’s a huge trough below the pool that catches the water tipping down and most of us are level with that.”
“When you reach the top you can show yourselves. There’s no need for secrecy any longer.”
Who was he to be talking about secrecy after confiding so little? It was a bit rich coming up with a name and telling Halliwell who to arrest at this late stage, but suspicion, even strong suspicion, hadn’t amounted to certainty when they’d spoken earlier. “It’s unlikely she’s armed,” he added, “but be careful. She’s on the run now.”
More minutes needed to pass before he felt confident enough about Paloma’s recovery to return downstairs with her. She seemed to sense where his thoughts were and offered to try and stand, but he insisted they waited.
When they finally managed the stairs, Paloma hanging on to his arm, and emerged from the house, he expected all the action to be over. Even so, an arrest at a garden party wouldn’t have been easy. Nicking the hostess, a woman popular with just about everyone, was even more problematical, party-pooping with a vengeance.
Much as he’d anticipated, the conviviality was at an end. High spirits and excited voices had been supplanted by a sense of shock. The guests were huddled in small groups in near silence. Some had their hands to their mouths. Some were actually crying. He could see uniformed police down by the pool.
But something was wrong. Everyone was staring in the same direction, towards the infinity pool.
Now he saw why.
Sally Paris was still at liberty.
She was standing barefoot and precarious at the end of the infinity pool, right on the vanishing edge. She had found a way of stepping along the hidden narrow wall that contained the great mass of the water and she’d ventured as far as it was possible to go. She had her back to everyone and was poised like a high diver above the almost vertical drop.
A suicide bid.
Diamond muttered an apology to Paloma, paused only to point to a bench under a tree, and started running down the slope of the lawn, asking himself how this had been allowed to happen. Why had nobody stopped her?
She must have started her perilous walk along the edge before the police arrived: the only explanation. Her guests had no reason to think she was a fugitive from the law. If the lady of the house chose to perform a balancing act on the tiled side of her own pool, who were they to stop her?
The first familiar face he spotted in the crowd was Keith Halliwell’s, creased in concern, sweaty, dusty and red-eyed, but so good to see.
“Sorry, guv. We took longer than I said. When we finally got to the top she was already out there.”
“Is she saying anything?”
“Not much at all. Soon as anyone starts to move towards her, she turns her head and threatens to jump.”
“What’s the other side?”
“Immediately below her? A wall. If she goes over where she’s standing, she’s likely to break her spine on the rim of the catch basin. If she misses, she’ll fall another hundred feet down the slope we came up, easily.”
The sense of helplessness at the poolside was overwhelming.
Ed Paris was there, hands cupped to his mouth, appealing to his wife to come back.
She appeared indifferent. Actually she presented an amazing image. The artifice of the infinity pool suggested she was standing on water with her own reflection crystal clear beneath her.
“This is sheer bloody lunacy,” Ed shouted across the pool. “What’s got into you, Sally?”
He got no response.
Diamond needed a plan, and fast. He had all his back-up team available. Their reason for being here was to deal with a possible escape bid. In any other capture operation he’d be deploying the men, directing them to close in and make the arrest, but normal strategies wouldn’t work here. Policemen in uniform weren’t just superfluous, they were counter-productive.
Ed bellowed to his wife to see sense.
“We can’t deal with it in front of this crowd,” Diamond told Halliwell. “Get your men to move everyone away, right back and out of sight inside the house.”
Ed Paris gave another despairing shout. “You’ll kill yourself, Sal.”
“Him, especially,” Diamond said.
A familiar voice hailed him from behind. “Peter, this has got out of hand. Do something for pity’s sake. Lady Sally is my friend.”
Georgina.
This would not go down as the best afternoon of Diamond’s life. Did the twelve labours of Hercules include a lecture from the assistant chief constable? He took a deep breath and said, “It’s under control, ma’am.”
“It doesn’t look like it. What can I do to help?”
“You?”
“You heard me. Shall I step along the edge of the pool and speak to her?”
Amazing.
She meant it, too. Behind the officious manner was a brave woman.
“That’s a fine offer, ma’am, but I can’t allow it. We could lose both of you. There’s something else you can do.”
“Tell me, then.”
“Set an example and move up to the house. We’re in the process of clearing the poolside, taking some of the pressure off her.”
“But can you save her from jumping?”
“That’s my sincere hope, ma’am.”
Georgina didn’t act as if she was wholly confident, but others were already heeding the call and starting to move off. Sighing and shaking her head, she joined them.
Ed Paris was refusing to leave. John Leaman was with him and made the mistake of grasping his arm. Ed turned on him and all the stress exploded. “Don’t you dare bloody touch me.”
Diamond went over. “Leave it, John.” With a tilt of his head he sent Leaman away and stepped closer to the troubled tycoon to speak in confidence. “Sir Edward, I’ve been talking to your wife. There’s distressing stuff in her past that made her resort to this, things bottled up from before you ever knew her.”
The already alarmed eyes widened even more. “What do you mean?”
“There isn’t time to explain. She’s obviously at desperation point and she’s not going to be persuaded by anything you can say.”
Ed’s mouth tightened in disbelief, but he didn’t answer.
“There’s a chance, just a chance, I can get through to her. Will you let me try?”
For a second or two more, Ed wrestled with the suggestion. It must have been obvious to him he wasn’t getting anywhere with Sally himself, but it was like a betrayal to give up. “She’s my whole life,” he blurted ou
t. “I couldn’t bear to lose her.”
Diamond wouldn’t give up. Ed, more than anyone, could ruin any chance of talking Sally down. He had to be persuaded to leave. “I’m asking everyone—that’s everyone including you—to leave me here to reason with her.” He added, almost in a whisper, “Trust me. I can save her.”
Still the anguished husband lingered.
“Please.”
“My God, man, you’d better be right.” With that Ed turned away and followed the general movement towards the house.
Relieved that something was being done, most people had responded quickly once the police had started issuing instructions.
In the remaining time it took for Diamond to be sure he was alone with Sally, he thought about what he would do to make this succeed. Ed’s words would haunt him for ever if this gamble ended in disaster.
Across the pool, nothing had changed. A faint breeze disturbed Sally’s white dress, but her stance was rigid.
He stripped to his boxers, left his clothes where they fell on the marble flagstones and stepped down the tiled steps into the blue water. Success or failure and nothing between—he was committed now.
The sensation of the cool water on his skin after the heat of the afternoon should have been bracing. He scarcely registered the change, intent on what he needed to do. The depth was a little over four feet. He bent his knees, submerged his back and shoulders and started a silent breaststroke up the centre of the pool.
No heroics. He wouldn’t be grabbing her legs and hoping she tipped backwards. She’d just as likely topple forward.
He swam to within ten feet of her and stopped. The depth was no different at this end, so he was able to stand with head and shoulders clear.
The next stage was steeped in danger, however he handled it. She would already be aware that the conversation behind her had stopped. Hearing his voice unexpectedly might startle her and that could be the end.
He said in little more than a murmur, “Sally, it’s all right.”
Plainly she didn’t hear.
He repeated the words, still with scarcely any volume, and her calf muscles twitched.
She didn’t change her stance or turn her back, but she rotated her head as far to the right as possible. It was the briefest of looks before she faced the front again and she couldn’t possibly have seen him. He was way outside her angle of vision. At best she might appreciate that the poolside was deserted now.
“Everyone’s gone except me,” he told her. “Peter Diamond, in the water behind you. Turn right round and check if you want.”
Too much to ask. She was facing death and she wouldn’t budge.
So be it, he told himself. This will be a monologue.
How to start? Say something reassuring. “Your husband Ed pleaded with me that he should stay here, but I persuaded him to go up to the house with the others. He doesn’t know what we discussed in the dressmaking room. Nobody knows, except you, me and Paloma, and I doubt if Paloma took much of it in.”
Her clenched hands tightened. She was listening, for sure.
“I don’t suppose you’ve thought it through, what will happen next, so I want to explain some things you may not appreciate. I’ve got a lot of sympathy for you, Sally, and I’m certain any court of law will be sympathetic, too.”
The balance between empathy and harsh reality was so difficult to strike. In a sense, her footing was far more secure than his.
“Only you know precisely what happened in the Twerton house in 1997, how Sidney Harrod met his death. I’m assuming he got physical, coming on to you sexually, and you didn’t intend to kill him. You acted in self-defence. If so, it wasn’t murder. There was no premeditation. You picked up the scissors to defend yourself. At worst, it would count as manslaughter if the force you used was not reasonable, but any lawyer worth his salt would convince a judge and jury that you were under attack and the worst thing you did was to conceal a death and fail to report it and I’m guessing Harry Morgan was the instigator there. You wouldn’t walk free without some sort of technical penalty, but judges have a lot of discretion and it’s well possible you’d receive a deferred sentence.”
He was trying to thought-read from watching her back. There was visible flexing in her shoulders while he was speaking. At least he was getting a hearing.
“Of course the other death, the shooting of Perry, is more serious in the eyes of the law because there was an element of planning. You took the gun with you to the fireworks show intending to shoot him, to kill him, in fact, and that’s murder. A mandatory life sentence. But do you have any idea what that amounts to?”
He paused. He wasn’t expecting her to reply. His best hope was to engage her in what he was saying. He waited and she turned her head a fraction as if she wanted to hear more and he took that as involvement.
He started over. “I shouldn’t be saying this, but I’ve known cases where a life sentence meant less than six years in prison. These days a judge looks at all the circumstances and decides on the tariff, the term you actually serve. It can be as low as five years and once you’ve served that you can be considered for release on parole.”
This was so difficult without seeing the reactions playing over her face.
“It’s all about mitigating factors. Perry was trying to blackmail you. He needed the money to fund his drugs and it was obvious that if you paid him, the demands would go on indefinitely. An addict isn’t reliable. You couldn’t have any confidence he would keep your secret even if you paid him. Those are the mitigating factors your legal team would make clear to the judge. I can’t predict what your minimum tariff would be, but it doesn’t mean spending the rest of your life in prison, that’s certain.”
There wasn’t any more he could usefully tell her. She’d need to plead guilty and that would be factored in by the judge, but he didn’t want to inundate her with detail. He’d made the point about life sentences and, frustratingly, all he’d achieved were minimal signs of interest. She remained one short step from killing herself.
There was a last card he could play.
“Your husband’s going through hell, Sally.”
Unexpectedly, she turned her head again. And remarkably she had something to say.
“That’s a prize porky if ever I heard one.”
The first words she’d spoken in ten minutes were a rebuke, defiant and typical of the spirited woman he knew her to be.
She hadn’t finished either. “Ed doesn’t have the faintest. We’ve been married twelve years and I’ve told him diddley-squat about my past.”
Her remark of much earlier, about the failing marriage, could be the clue to what was going on here.
But Diamond had got a different impression. Ed’s desperation was fresher in his memory. “You misunderstood me. He’s not going through hell because you killed two men. The poor guy’s at the end of his tether. He can’t understand why you’re doing this. He loves you to bits—that’s obvious. He’s immensely proud of you. I’ve seen the look on his face when you’re hosting an event like today, charming everybody, making sure it’s a big success.”
She’d gone silent again.
“Believe me, Sally, he’ll be devastated if you jump. It won’t just be your life that comes to an end. His world will collapse as well.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks.”
She exhaled, turned right about, stepped off the wall and plopped into the water. A massive anticlimax. As a demonstration of love, it was unusual, but that was what it was, her commitment to Ed confirmed in one life-affirming drenching.
She surfaced and said, “Come on, squire, I’d better face the music.”
After splashing towards him she linked her arm in his and together they waded the length of the pool. It was the strangest arrest Diamond would ever make. He didn’t have the heart to speak the formal words required by law.
They made their way up the sloping lawn, she in her bare feet and wet, clinging dress, he in nothing except his striped boxer shorts. As they approached the ugly steel and glass house, the guests streamed out to meet them and formed an impromptu guard of honour and applauded. They didn’t know Sally was a double-killer. She was their hostess who had come to her senses and chosen life over death.
The exhausted policemen who had spent most of the afternoon climbing the hill joined in the clapping. Even Georgina was celebrating the moment. The CID team were savouring it as well. Someone had collected Ingeborg and she was getting a photo.
Ed was waiting at the top of the steps with towels. He gave Sally a hug that seemed to last forever and then he turned to Diamond and hugged him as well. “Thanks, mate. I owe you a drink.”
They moved into the reception room.
That wretched hologram was still on its stand facing them. Diamond couldn’t be certain, but he thought he got a wink from Beau Nash.
A Note on Sources
Oliver Goldsmith’s Life of Richard Nash, of Bath, Esq (1762), written a year after Nash’s death, with the advantage of access to Nash’s own fragments of autobiography, remains a fascinating work that can be read online. The other biographies consulted by the present author were Bath under Beau Nash, by Lewis Melville (Lewis S. Benjamin) (Eveleigh Nash, 1907); Beau Nash: Monarch of Bath and Tunbridge Wells, by Willard Connely (Werner Laurie, 1955); Splendour and Scandal: the Reign of Beau Nash, by John Walters (Jarrolds, 1968); and The Imaginary Autocrat: Beau Nash and the Invention of Bath, by John Eglin (Profile Books, 2005). Nash’s entry in the Dictionary of National Biography was first written by Thomas Seccombe in 1894. The latest online version is by Philip Carter in 2009.
Of the sources mentioned in passing, the contemporary account of Nash’s funeral was in the Whitehall Evening Post or London Intelligencer, 21 February 1761. The notice of Juliana Papjoy’s death and strange living arrangements is in the Annual Register for March, 1777. George Scott’s correspondence of 1761 concerning the formidable Mrs. Hill is discussed in Eglin’s book and is held at the British Library in the Egerton collection. The details of Dr. Walsh’s participation in the 1909 Bath Pageant can be found in The Year of the Pageant, by Andrew Swift and Kirsten Elliott (Akeman Press, 2009).
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