Another One Goes Tonight

by Peter Lovesey

  Fizzing with the force of it, he squeezed back. “Good man. We got there, thanks to Trixie.”

  Another twitch confirmed it.

  Communication at last.

  A small but sensational triumph.

  Nothing else happened. Pellegrini didn’t open his eyes and say, “You’ve got me bang to rights, officer, I’m ready to confess.” Something may have registered in the vital signs but Diamond missed it, too surprised to look up at the monitor.

  He was thrilled beyond description.

  Impossible to overestimate his sense of relief. The raw emotions of that morning on the embankment came flooding back: fear that he would get the compressions wrong and destroy a life he could have saved, revulsion at the mouth-to-mouth, exasperation with the discipline of counting, but above all the will to succeed—and all brought to a halt by the anti-climax of the paramedics taking over. From that moment until now, any hope had been put on hold.

  The immediate effect on Diamond was dramatic.

  The drip, drip of suspicion accumulated over the past week drained away. None of it had any part in this moment. He felt only the closeness of a shared experience, an irresistible warmth towards the helpless man who had freed him from uncertainty with no more than a touch.

  He had to tell someone and he’d taken Paloma for an evening meal at one of their regular haunts, the White Hart at the bottom of Widcombe Hill. Church pew seats, but cushioned, white walls and wood floors. Real ale, too.

  “It was uncanny,” he said, after a long first gulp. “I almost gave up, and then this. He may be a thief and a murderer. God knows I’ve found enough evidence to arrest him, but when I felt that tiny movement of his finger and knew he’d understood me, I melted. We were sharing in something intensely personal. If there hadn’t been so many tubes and wires I’d have hugged him. It’s unprofessional. It’s all about some primitive drive to connect.”

  “That’s understandable,” Paloma said. “You saved his life. You have a stake in his future.”

  “It goes deeper than that. I’m doing something a cop should never do—taking sides. In the face of all the evidence I’m now trying to think of reasons why he might be innocent.”

  “He has a right to be understood, whatever he’s done.”

  “My heart is ruling my head.”

  “It’s allowed,” she said.

  “Not in my job.”

  “Perhaps he is innocent. You said all the deaths were signed off by doctors as natural. The doctors may be right.”

  “How I wish!”

  “Well, you haven’t explained to me how the doctors could be mistaken.”

  “Actually, there’s a long history of doctors getting it wrong. They’re not trained to spot the signs of criminality. Some killers are so confident they call in their GP to examine the corpse and certify death.”

  “Confident of fooling them?”

  “The stuff he downloaded from the Internet was nothing else but clever ways of killing people.”

  “Doesn’t mean he put it into practice.”

  “That’s my hope.”

  She sat back and took a sip of wine. “You’ll know before long, so why agonise over it? He’ll get his head straight and you’ll be able to question him.”

  “That’s if he makes a full recovery. It’s not guaranteed. Parts of his brain may have been permanently damaged. He reacted to his wife’s name, and that’s a positive sign.”

  Paloma smiled. “A lot more positive than reacting to a steam train. There’s hope for him, whatever he’s guilty of. If I were you I’d soft-pedal until he’s well enough to give his own account.”

  Good advice, he decided.

  “How’s your back now?” she asked.

  “Much improved. Another massage might see it right.”

  She gave him a wide-eyed look that didn’t commit to anything.

  “Your place or mine?” he asked.

  “Well, I don’t think they’d welcome it here.”

  T he best-laid plans . . . I made my preparations and knew what ought to work, but the current one behaved out of character. People, being people, have minds of their own. I mustn’t let it get to me. I can’t bail out this time, because this one knows far too much and he has to go. Knows I’m coming? Possibly. It’s a new challenge for me. I simply have to be equal to it.

  Cool is the rule.

  20

  The soft-pedalling came to a stop as soon as the next morning when Diamond arrived at Keynsham. A note was on his desk asking him to call someone called Frankie on a Bristol number.

  Frankie turned out to be female and a forensics officer.

  He reached for pencil and paper. The science would go over his head if he didn’t jot down the salient points.

  “You recently sent us a pink plastic brush with some hair samples for testing.” Frankie spoke in a tone of disapproval, as if it had been a letter bomb.

  Jessie the housekeeper’s dyed hair ought not to have upset them. “The day before yesterday. Did you get anything from it?”

  Frankie wasn’t ready to say. She had questions of her own. “You found the brush at an address in Wiltshire, according to the information you supplied. Is that right?”

  “A cottage in Little Langford, not far from Salisbury.”

  “Was that you personally?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “And is there an unbroken chain of custody?”

  This was something Forensics were hot on. You had to keep a written record of the whereabouts of every piece of evidence to show it wasn’t corrupted, but it was a bit insulting to be asked. “I wasn’t born yesterday. Did you manage to get some DNA off it?”

  “We did, both nuclear, from the follicle cells, and mitochondrial, from a hair shaft, which is more difficult to extract. So we have a result. But you didn’t provide the name of the individual whose hair it is. Was there a reason for that?”

  He was writing and speaking at the same time. “We don’t have a surname. She’s known as Jessie.”

  “And you’re absolutely sure the brush belongs to her?”

  “I found it under her bed.”

  “The hair is definitely female and originally brown in colour, tinted blonde,” Frankie said.

  “That all ties in,” he said. “Jessie has blonde streaks.”

  “Fortunately the chemicals used in tinting hair don’t degrade the DNA. We checked the national database. Currently it stands at six million DNA profiles.”

  “Don’t tell me you found a match,” he said, more in hope than expectation.

  “We did.”

  “Frankie, you’re a star.”

  She gave a grunt like a boxer taking a punch. Accepting a compliment was clearly difficult for her.

  “So what’s her surname?” He was ready with the pencil.

  “I can’t tell you.”

  The pencil broke. “What?”

  “The match is with an unknown woman.”

  “Unknown? How can that be? If it’s a database it has names.”

  “Not in her case. This individual was found dead in the River Avon two weeks ago.”

  He needed a moment to take it in. “That’s awful. Did she drown?”

  “The postmortem was inconclusive. Any pathologist will tell you drowning is difficult to be sure about.”

  Thoughts flapped around his head like trapped birds. Jessie dead? He’d counted on her as his key witness. She’d been at Max’s funeral. She’d been in the cottage when Cyril died. She’d spoken to Rex, the taxi driver. She must have had words with Pellegrini that night. Soon after that, she’d gone missing, but the possibility that she’d died hadn’t seriously crossed his mind.

  “Could there be a mistake?”

  Stupid bloody question.

  Frankie said after a couple of beats
to register disapproval, “No two people have ever been found to have shared the same DNA, other than identical twins. I wouldn’t be speaking to you if there was any doubt.”

  “Let me get this straight,” he said. “A woman’s body was found in the river. Where exactly?”

  “A few miles west of Bath, near Swineford.”

  “That’s a long way from Little Langford.”

  “It’s not my job to explain how she got there,” Frankie said. “You asked for the location and that’s it. Your own police authority must have dealt with it.”

  His own station.

  He was looking at the map on his office wall and Swineford was barely two miles from Keynsham.

  “I wasn’t informed. I’ll take it up with them. Will you be emailing your findings?”

  “All you need to know.”

  “Please make sure it reaches me personally. And, Frankie . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I wasn’t really casting doubt. You knocked me for six.”

  After ending the call, he went straight to the most senior uniformed officer on duty, Chief Inspector Richard Palmer.

  “Was there a body fished out of the Avon recently?”

  Palmer knew straight away. “Woman in her thirties, about two weeks ago. She hasn’t been named yet. Doesn’t match anyone reported missing.”

  “We weren’t told about this in CID.”

  “Get off your high horse, Peter. We’re dealing with it. If we gave you every death that got reported you wouldn’t be too thrilled. Accident or suicide, we believe. There’s no evidence of anything else.”

  “It could tie in with a case we’re working on. I should have been informed.”

  “It’s no secret. Been on the website all week. Don’t you look at it?”

  A low blow that he ignored. “Show me.”

  “Be my guest.” Richard Palmer found the Avon & Somerset Police website, clicked on “newsroom” and had the appeal on screen straight away:

  unidentified woman—can YOU help?

  The left side of the screen was filled with a photo of a blonde white woman you wouldn’t have known was dead unless you read the information. The eyes were open, as if looking at the camera. She had neatly shaped eyebrows, high cheekbones, a straight, small nose, fine, narrow lips and a dimpled chin. A good-looking woman probably in her late thirties.

  The text at the side read:

  A woman’s body was recovered from the River Avon, near the Avon Valley Country Park, Swineford, at 11 a.m. on Sunday, 29 March, and we are appealing for assistance from the public in identifying her. She is white, aged about 30–40, with tinted blonde hair and hazel eyes, of slim build and about 5ft 5in in height. She was wearing a light blue hip-length padded jacket made in China, white sweater size 10 from BHS and blue Chino style jeans and white socks with pink heels and toes. Her underwear was also from BHS, white, 34D bra and knickers. She was not wearing shoes or any form of jewellery. She is believed to have been in the water for up to twelve hours.

  If you were in the vicinity of the country park on Saturday 28 or Sunday 29 March and remember seeing a woman of this description alone or in company or if you recognise her picture, please contact us on 101 and quote the reference number 7773250.

  “Has anyone got in touch yet?” Diamond asked.

  “No one useful. We still don’t have a clue who she is.”

  “Has it got in the local press?”

  “Not yet. It will soon.”

  “And no signs of violence? What’s the thinking about her?”

  “She could be an immigrant. To me, the shape of the face looks Slavic. The eyes, the cheekbones. I sent the DNA profile to Interpol in case she fits one of their mispers.”

  “I meant, what’s the thinking about how she ended up in the river?”

  “Accident, probably. Saturday-night drinking.”

  “Round here, you mean?”

  “Some of them are legless by the end of the evening, and not only the men. It’s either that or suicide.”

  “Is there a pub at Swineford?”

  “Nice one. The Swan.”

  “I suppose you sent someone to ask?”

  Palmer grinned. “Thinking of volunteering, Peter? Hard cheese. It’s been done. Actually the body was about a mile downstream from the Swan. It could have carried from there. Swineford weir gives a boost to the flow.”

  “Was she checked for alcohol?”

  “Negative, but it could have metabolized in the time she was in the water. Basically, we’re at a loss.”

  Diamond decided he’d better share some of what he knew. “I may have some information for you, going by DNA evidence, but it won’t answer all the questions.” He told Palmer the little he knew about Jessie the housekeeper’s history, but he didn’t go into the case against Ivor Pellegrini. His feelings about the eccentric engineer had undergone another step change.

  “Isn’t it likely someone in Little Langford knows this woman’s name?” Palmer asked.

  Diamond shook his head. “I had a man doing door-to-door yesterday. If anything new turns up, I’ll let you know.”

  “Likewise,” Palmer said.

  “So how did he do it?” Ingeborg was quick to ask when Diamond told his small team how Jessie’s life had ended.

  “Who are we talking about here?” he said.

  Ingeborg and Halliwell exchanged startled looks.

  “Come on, guv. Pellegrini, of course. It’s obvious Jessie knew too much and had to be silenced. She came back to the cottage that night and if she didn’t catch him red-handed murdering Cyril she was left in no doubt who was responsible. The only question is how an old guy in his eighties or whatever age he is succeeds in killing a fit woman forty years younger.”

  “Seventy,” Halliwell said.

  “What?”

  “His age. He’s seventy. He may look older in his present state of health, but that’s his age.”

  She swung round to face him. “How do you know that?”

  “Because of that name-plate in his workshop. County of Somerset. The locomotive was built in 1945 and got its name the next year. I thought we’d all agreed they linked themselves to trains built in their birth years.”

  “Did we?” She turned to Diamond.

  The big man’s thoughts were elsewhere. “I’ve changed my mind about Pellegrini.”

  “You don’t mean that,” she said, appalled.

  “We assumed from the start that he was a murderer because of his wayward behaviour.”

  “Wayward? I’d call it guilty.”

  “Hold on, Inge. Highly suspicious, anyway, the night excursion, the cremation urns, the valuable gowns found in his workshop and the Internet material about perfect murders. We soon had him down as a serial killer, but we were forced to modify that when the death certificates came in and we found his railway friends died from things like flu and an aneurysm.” He could tell they were both on the point of interrupting again, so he raised his hand. “I know what you’re going to say, there were other deaths, Max’s and Cyril’s, and we found solid reasons why he might have wanted those two dead, basically to cover up the theft of the gowns. But Max and Cyril died in bed, like the others, and their doctors signed them off as natural deaths. No sign of a struggle, no marks. If he’d murdered them, we’d have found out by now.”

  Ingeborg couldn’t contain herself. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Isn’t this the whole point, that he was researching murder methods? There’s a load of circumstantial evidence. We can place him at each scene shortly before the deaths. We just have to work out how he did it. We know why, basically—because his friends got wise to his thieving.”

  And now Halliwell chimed in. “Let’s not forget the deaths of Trixie Pellegrini and Olga Filiput.”

  Diamond shook his head. “They were
n’t murders. Olga had a fall, which would be a crude and unreliable method for a man supposedly carrying out perfect murders. And there’s no reason for him to kill her.”

  “Same motive,” Halliwell said. “She owned this stack of jewellery and antiques and he figured Max was easy prey once Olga was dead.”

  “And his wife, Trixie? He didn’t murder her.”

  “She probably found out she’d married a kleptomaniac and challenged him with it.”

  “After a lifetime together? She would have found out sooner than that.”

  “Okay, it was a long-term problem and she finally got sick of it and threatened to call the police.”

  “I said he didn’t murder her and I’ll tell you why.” He shared with them yesterday’s experience in the hospital and the first thrilling sign of life from Pellegrini, the response to Trixie’s name. “He loved her. When his finger pressed into my hand like that, I don’t mind telling you I was moved. By then I’d gone through what I thought was a list of buzzwords and names, but it was Trixie who was the spark. It’s hard to explain. No one’s more hard-bitten and cynical than I am. This time there was communication, like some form of telepathy. He was telling me she was more important to him than all the railway stuff I’d been going through, all his friends and carers. He was coming alive for Trixie and her alone.”

  The silence that followed told Diamond he hadn’t done a good job of explaining the extraordinary revelation Pellegrini’s touch had been for him.

  The team looked embarrassed.

  It was Ingeborg who finally spoke. “This is difficult to say, guv. Is it possible you were influenced by personal experience?”

  “I don’t know what you’re on about.”

  “Him responding when his dead wife’s name was spoken.”

  “You mean . . . ?” He couldn’t complete the sentence, couldn’t even say Steph’s name without getting a lump in his throat. “I don’t think so, don’t think so at all.” He forced himself to get a grip. “It’s not obvious to me, anyway.” But inside, he knew Inge could be right.

  She now made an effort to cover the raw wound she’d exposed. “It doesn’t affect the point you’re making. You’re saying we may have misjudged him?”