Another One Goes Tonight

by Peter Lovesey

  “They’re trying to resuscitate him,” the operator said.

  “I know that. Do we know his name? Was he carrying any form of ID?”

  “Apparently not.”

  He was stung by their lack of urgency. “Someone at your end should have identified him by now. It’s not rocket science. How many blokes in Bath own motor-powered tricycles? Was he registered to ride the thing?”

  “One moment, sir.”

  He told Halliwell the operator was checking. “Idle bastards. This should save us no end of time and hassle.”

  The operator got back to him. “An electric bike is an EAPC.”

  “What’s that when it’s at home?”

  “I’m not quite sure, sir. The thing is, it doesn’t have to be registered, taxed or insured.”

  “Great.” He ended the call and told Halliwell.

  “Not to worry, guv. As soon as it’s on the local news, someone will know who he was. You can’t ride a thing like that around Bath without people asking who the hell you are and why you do it.”

  “Good point.” He checked his watch. “Which house did Ingeborg go into?”

  “The one with the tiled porch.”

  “D’you think she’s okay?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s been in there the best part of half an hour. The naked man could be in one of these houses.”

  “She’d kick him where it hurts most, guv.”

  Halliwell was right. Ingeborg could look after herself. She hated being treated as the helpless female. More than once, Diamond had made the mistake of fretting over her as if she was a daughter. He hardened his heart and watched the lifting gear being attached to the wrecked car, ready to hoist it on to the flat-bed truck. At least one life had been lost, but for the professionals it was just another traffic accident.

  There was a movement under the tiled porch.

  “Here she comes,” Halliwell said, “looking none the worse.”

  “I hope you’ve got something for us,” Diamond told her when she joined them.

  “Afraid not,” she said. “It was an old lady in a panic because the carer hadn’t arrived. She had no idea what was going on outside.”

  “So you did some caring?” Halliwell said in a mocking tone, still smarting from being called a fascist.

  “I couldn’t just walk out. She was in a wheelchair.”

  Diamond stopped himself from making an approving comment about Ingeborg’s feminine side.

  “I did ask her the questions,” she added, “just in case.”

  “And the other people you spoke to?”

  “No help at all. Just like her, they had questions for me.”

  He decided to cast the net wider. He wanted to explore the top end of this road, where the man on the trike had come from, leaving Ingeborg and Halliwell to knock on doors at the other end. When he stepped over the do not pass tape, edged through the gawpers and headed up the street, it was a relief to leave the mayhem behind.

  If the truth were told, he needed a chance to collect his thoughts. Accident investigation was new in his experience. At a murder scene, he’d be making the decisions. He’d decide the scale of the investigation, how many CID people to employ. A procedure was observed. As SIO he’d seal the immediate area and control the access and the screening of the body. He’d liaise with the scene-of-crime people, a police photographer, the divisional surgeon and usually a forensic pathologist, and there was no question who conducted the operation.

  Here, he’d been one of many response people from the different emergency services. They respected each other, for sure, only they all had jobs to get on with. Nobody wilfully contaminated the scene, but it was a dog’s breakfast compared with the painstaking process he was used to. And the noise level had been a pain. In these conditions it was easy to act and hard to think.

  He asked himself what he could usefully do before the doctors allowed him to interview the key witness, Lew Morgan. In the next twenty-four hours or so there would be a postmortem on the dead driver. He’d long ago learned that a postmortem was a false dawn. It happened soon after death and you hoped for swift information, but then samples of blood and body fluids were sent for testing and the testers wouldn’t be hurried. In this case the cause of death was obvious. All he wanted to know for sure was that the late PC Aaron Green had no trace of alcohol or drugs in his system.

  As Halliwell had rightly commented, identifying the civilian victim shouldn’t be a problem once the incident had some publicity. Not many people rode the streets of Bath on tricycles. Somebody would be able to put a name to him.

  Towards the end of Beckford Gardens he found he’d been misinformed. The street didn’t just become a dead end in Hampton Row as the man in combat trousers had claimed. Beckford Gardens ended at a left turn called Rockliffe Road. The man on the trike could easily have come from there.

  You need to check every damned thing yourself.

  He moved on, muttering. After the Rockliffe Road turn, Beckford Gardens had a change of identity as Cleveland Row and finally Hampton Row. At least the description as a terrace of small dwellings had been accurate. By the look of them, they were two hundred years old or more, some shabby, some nicely renovated. At the far end, where the road went no further, was the bridge over the railway, and he couldn’t imagine anyone struggling to hoist a tricycle over that. He climbed the steps and watched a First Great Western express from Paddington shoot beneath him on its way to Bath Spa station. The small boy in him thrilled to the power of the train making the bridge vibrate.

  On returning to street level he spotted a postman dressed in shorts, as so many are in all weathers. He went over.

  “Morning, postie. Is this your regular route?”

  “It is.” The postman spoke the words on the move, making clear he hadn’t much time to chat.

  “It’s a part of the city I don’t know too well,” Diamond said, keeping pace. “I’m in the police, investigating the crash back there.”

  “I saw.” The postman had his attention on the letters in his hand, checking address numbers.

  “The driver was killed and two people are in intensive care. One of them was travelling from this direction on a tricycle. Quite early, before seven. Have you ever seen him along here?”

  “No.” He hadn’t even looked up.

  Diamond wasn’t letting him off so easily. “If he lived in one of these houses, he’d need to park his trike in front. I noticed bikes leaning against some of the railings. I expect you’d have spotted a trike if someone owned one.”

  “I haven’t.” Which closed that line of enquiry.

  Try the other, then. “Someone called 999 about a naked man in Beckford Gardens. That’s why the patrol car was here.”

  Not a flicker of interest.

  “Ring any bells? I’m asking you as someone who knows this neighbourhood.”

  “Can’t help you,” the postman said, almost causing another accident by swinging his trolley wide and over Diamond’s foot.

  “Do you mind? You don’t even sound surprised. A man with no clothes on. It’s not a common sight.”

  “I expect he came up from the lido.”

  A light bulb went on in Diamond’s head. Something had been on the local TV news a while back about an old Georgian swimming baths beside the Avon that had got into disrepair and was having millions spent on it. There was a trust and they’d staged some kind of open day when over a thousand people had turned up, including folk in costume looking like characters out of Jane Austen. He hadn’t connected the report with this row of poky artisan dwellings.

  He almost hugged the postman. “Now that could be vital information. Would that be the outdoor pool they’re renovating with lottery money? It’s round here? I’ve heard about that, and never seen it. Where exactly is it?”

  “You
walked straight past.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  But this postman wasn’t the kidding sort. “Them two stone pillars between Fir Tree Cottage and Rose Cottage. Now can I get on with my round?”

  “Is it open to the public, then?” he shouted after him.

  There may have been a shake of the head. There wasn’t anything more.

  He’d have to see this for himself, so he stepped out and entered the narrow passage between the terraces. The footpath was steep, and he wouldn’t care to make the descent after frost. But after being in that narrow road between the houses and the railway it was good to see the valley open up below him.

  Before he had gone far, the lido came into sight among the trees, the view he remembered from the TV, a cream-coloured crescent-shaped facade reflected in the pool. The centrepiece was the supervisor’s cottage with a grey tiled roof and arched entrance. Rows of changing cubicles extended either side. They looked elegant in the context of the building, dark, perpendicular spaces at regular intervals, but he guessed the interiors would need updating to modern standards. However, it was not impossible that some resident of Beckford Gardens or Hampton Row was in the habit of going for an early-morning dip—even a skinny-dip.

  He didn’t need to go right down there. He’d learned all he wanted, so he turned and picked his way up the path. When he reached Hampton Row the postman wasn’t around for further questioning.

  T hat one went to plan. Silly old buffer didn’t see it coming, didn’t know anything about it. Job done. And now it’s a matter of acting normally, given that my normal is a little different from everyone else’s. The aftermath will be just as testing as the act itself. As long as I act the innocent and sound surprised by his passing I should be fine.

  Sleeping reasonably well, without medication. Vivid dreams left me sweating the last couple of nights, but I know the pattern. They won’t trouble me for long.

  3

  His phone sounded. Even after years of using mobiles, Diamond disliked them going off unexpectedly, much preferring the old days when he could leave the office knowing no one could reach him. This time it was Bath Police and for once it was a message he wanted to hear. The emergency control room at Portishead had supplied the phone number of the caller who had spotted the naked man.

  He noted it on the palm of his hand.

  “And while you’re on,” he said to the civilian operator, “I’m going to need a printout of all the exchanges between our own control room and Delta Three from the time they came on duty to the moment of the crash.”

  “I’ll need to speak to my supervisor about that,” she said.

  “Please do—now—and be sure to tell her that this is urgently required by Professional Standards, and not just me.”

  Back at the accident site, the wrecked car had already been driven away for examination by the police collision unit and the last of the oil was being hosed from the road surface. It wouldn’t be long before Beckford Gardens was open to traffic again. The only evidence of the crash would be the broken wall and the inevitable tributes of cut flowers.

  He caught up with Ingeborg first. “It’s frustrating,” she said. “People want to help, but no one saw what happened.”

  Keith Halliwell joined them and it was obvious from his expression that he too had nothing useful to report.

  Diamond told them about the footpath down to the lido. “Could be unrelated, a complete red herring,” he said, “but I’m wondering if our naked man came up from there after an early morning dip.”

  Instead of cooing in admiration, Ingeborg said, “Does it matter? He’s a side issue. He may not even exist.”

  “How do you work that out?” Halliwell said.

  “A nuisance call. They get them all the time.”

  “You’re starting to sound like John Leaman.”

  “It’s been a depressing morning. Look, whatever you think about that stupid call, it wasn’t directly responsible for the crash. The blame for that lies squarely with the driver of the police car or the old man on the trike.”

  “Hang on a minute. What if no one was to blame?” Halliwell said. “What if a tyre burst or the brakes failed? Let’s keep an open mind.”

  “And you’re starting to sound like Dessie.” She held up her hands. “Okay, that was a bit sweeping.”

  Halliwell said, “So we all agree to follow up any lead we can get?”

  Diamond had been content to let this little spat play out. Now he showed them the number on his hand.

  “Go for it, guv,” Halliwell said. “Let’s find out if it was genuine.”

  Ingeborg gave a nod and said no more.

  Diamond pressed the numbers and waited.

  A man’s voice gave a guarded, “Yes?”

  Diamond explained who he was.

  “Police? It’s about time. I called you over three hours ago.”

  “You made the emergency call, sir?”

  “Why? Do you doubt me?” The guarded voice now became aggressive. “I’ve heard that response times are a disgrace but this must be a record. What time is it now?”

  Scarcely believing what he was hearing, Diamond said, “Maybe you’re not aware there was a fatal accident up the road.”

  “Of course I am. I couldn’t help hearing it, but an emergency is an emergency. Your job is to get here as soon as possible.”

  Everyone had their own ideas on Diamond’s job this morning. “Could I have your name and address?”

  “Don’t you know already?”

  “When an emergency call is received, we’re more concerned with the situation and where it’s happening than who the informant is.”

  “And now you want to know? Heaven help us. Well, I’m Cedric Bellerby and it’s obvious where I live, in Beckford Gardens.”

  “Which number, Mr. Bellerby?”

  “Bellerby Lodge, the one with the flagpole. Where are you speaking from? You can probably see it from where you are.”

  He spotted the Union Jack fluttering high above the rooftops towards the Hampton Row end. He must have walked past without noticing. A fine detective he was.

  “I can now. As you’re at home, we’ll come and see you.”

  “Now that the horse has bolted.”

  Diamond acted as if he hadn’t heard. In his time he’d locked horns with bigger beasts than Cedric Bellerby. “Be with you in two or three minutes and if you can run to a coffee—or three—we’ll be grateful. It’s been one of those mornings.” He ended the call before there was any comeback.

  So all three arrived on the doorstep of Bellerby Lodge, a modest-sized bungalow considering its owner’s air of importance. When the man appeared, he, also, was modest-sized except for a black moustache you could have fitted to the hose of a vacuum cleaner. He looked the visitors up and down before allowing them in.

  The interesting thing about the front room was two pairs of binoculars on the windowsill. Otherwise it was the conventional three-piece suite, bookcase, TV and fitted carpet. “You said something about coffee,” their host told them, “but this won’t take more than a couple of minutes if all you want to hear about is the degenerate with no clothes. He’s long since made his escape.”

  “We’ll have the coffee first, then,” Diamond said cheerfully. “Mine is white with two sugars and the others like it black without.”

  Outfoxed, Bellerby sighed, shook his head and disappeared to the kitchen. Diamond immediately picked up a pair of binoculars and tried them. They weren’t cheap goods. He trained them on the site of the collision more than a hundred yards away and got a sharp image of Dessie, clipboard in hand, taking paces across the road.

  He passed the glasses to Ingeborg to have a try. She held them to her eyes for a few seconds before handing them to Halliwell.

  The sound of a throat being cleared heralded Bellerby’s arrival with
the tray.

  “Put them down, Keith,” Diamond said. To Bellerby he added, “He can’t keep his hands to himself. Always fidgeting with things. Are you a birdwatcher, sir?”

  “I have them for the magnificent view.”

  “Of your neighbours?”

  He screwed up his face in disapproval. “The valley, from the back of the house.”

  “But you keep them here, on the windowsill?”

  “Not usually. I was observing the goings-on after the car crash.”

  “And did you see the naked man through the binoculars?”

  “That was earlier.”

  “Before dawn?”

  “I’m an early riser.”

  The coffee was handed round. Halliwell had replaced the binoculars on the windowsill.

  “Your 999 call was timed at six-fourteen,” Diamond said. “Not much light, was there?”

  “One set of glasses is for night vision.”

  “Really? What do you study after dark?”

  “Wildlife mostly. Foxes, badgers, deer.”

  “And naked men?”

  Bellerby glared back. “It’s never happened before. That’s why it was such a shock.”

  “Take us back to when you first caught sight of this offensive spectacle. Where were you—in here?”

  “The back bedroom.”

  “With the wonderful view?”

  “Yes.”

  “May we see?”

  He clicked his tongue. “I thought this was just routine, following up on my call.”

  “We’re investigating what you saw, Mr. Bellerby, and what happened after. Do you live alone?”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “If there’s a lady in the back bedroom, she may not welcome three strangers coming in.”

  “My wife and I separated years ago.”

  Diamond thought of a comment but chose not to make it. “That’s all right, then. Lead the way, would you? We won’t spill our coffee on the carpet.”

  Bellerby tried to make a stand. “I don’t see the need.”