Peter Diamond - 09 - The Secret Hangman

by Peter Lovesey

  A man in a white shirt and bow tie came from the back.

  ‘I translate, eh?’ Signor Tosi offered.

  ‘I figure we’ll get by,’ Luigi said in a smooth mid-Atlantic accent. He was tall and slim, with brown eyes that gave you undivided attention. ‘This is about poor Delia, I guess.’

  ‘Torto, torto,’ his boss said. ‘Delia Williamson.’

  ‘Can you get rid of this clown?’ Diamond said to Halliwell.

  Halliwell grasped Tosi’s arm and led him to the kitchen at the back of the restaurant.

  ‘What was he on about?’ Diamond asked the waiter.

  Luigi gave a wide smile. ‘He’s the boss. Thinks he has a divine right to know what I tell you.’

  ‘You don’t have any problem with the language, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Too much time watching movies.’

  ‘OK. While we’ve got the boss out of the way let’s talk about the set-up here. How many staff does he employ?’

  ‘Three only. Carlo, Delia and me. Carlo is the cook.’

  ‘You’re the head waiter?’

  He laughed. ‘I could live with that if it meant extra pay.’

  ‘Were all three of you on duty the night Delia went missing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did she get along with you?’

  ‘No problem. She was great, a good worker, always willing to help if I was under pressure.’

  ‘You get busy in here, then?’

  He shrugged. ‘People like Italian.’

  ‘When are you open. Evenings only?’

  ‘Six to midnight, depending how busy we are.’

  ‘On the evening we’re talking about, the Tuesday, I gather Signor Tosi went home early and left you in charge.’

  Luigi frowned, troubled that some of the blame might be coming his way. ‘He told you that?’

  ‘It’s true, isn’t it? You locked up?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘So who was here at the end of the evening?’

  Luigi curled his lip, not liking this line of questioning one bit. ‘She was, and so was I.’

  ‘The cook had left?’

  ‘Twenty minutes before she did.’

  ‘What sort of evening had it been?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Customers.’

  ‘I get you.’ The shift away from him personally came as obvious relief . ‘A quiet night. Party of four. Two couples. One man dining alone.’

  ‘Regulars?’

  ‘Yes, the four have a regular booking. Retired people. And one of the couples comes often. The others were new to me.’

  ‘Do you happen to remember who Delia was serving?’

  ‘That couple I just told you about. And the single man.’

  ‘Who you hadn’t seen before? What was he like?’

  ‘I didn’t speak to him. A businessman maybe, visiting the city. Suit and tie. Twenty-five, twenty-six.’

  ‘Why do you say he was visiting?’

  ‘Guy on his own. You get to recognise them. They’re stuck overnight in some hotel, so they look for a place to eat out. Most guys don’t eat alone if they live just up the street.’

  ‘Would he have booked?’

  ‘No, but I have his name, if that’s what you’re asking. When I heard you were coming, I looked through the credit-card slips for that evening. He was Mr D. Monnington.’

  It was a long time since Diamond had carried a notebook. He helped himself to a paper napkin from the nearest table and scribbled the name. ‘Did you notice if he was trying to chat her up?’

  ‘Hard to tell. Delia always talked to customers, ’specially if they were alone. I saw her at his table towards the end of the evening, after the coffee was served.’

  ‘What – just talking?’

  ‘I thought she was working for her tip, that’s all. We do if we think there’s a chance.’

  ‘She was no more friendly than you’d have expected?’

  ‘I didn’t hear what was being said.’

  ‘And Mr Monnington left when?’

  ‘Towards the end. Say about ten minutes before we closed.’

  ‘Ten to midnight?’

  He looked towards the kitchen, to make sure the manager couldn’t hear. ‘Actually, it was earlier. We had no more customers, so I closed at eleven.’

  ‘Tell me some more about Delia. Did she talk to you about her life at all?’

  ‘Not much. She once said she had kids. She lived with someone in the music business.’

  ‘Was she acting normally on that last evening?’

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘Was anyone waiting for her when she finished work?’

  ‘She didn’t say.’

  ‘What was she wearing?’

  ‘Same as usual. Jeans and a top. I can’t remember what colour.

  Trainers.’

  ‘She’d worn those things while she was working?’

  ‘No. We have lockers for our working clothes. We change into our own things when we leave.’

  ‘Changing rooms?’

  ‘One, the size of a cupboard.’

  ‘Unisex?’

  ‘One person at a time. You’d have a job getting two in there.’

  ‘In a minute you can show me. Who changed first?’

  ‘Delia did. When she came out I said goodnight and that was the last I saw of her. I changed into my day clothes and locked up and left.’

  ‘What, a few minutes after Delia? Didn’t you catch up with her?’

  ‘She goes a different way.’

  ‘I was going to ask about you,’ Diamond said. ‘Do you live alone?’

  Luigi blinked nervously now the focus was back on him. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So do I,’ Diamond said. ‘It’s not a crime. Where’s home, then?’

  ‘I have a flat in Twerton.’

  ‘I know Twerton. Which street?’

  ‘Innox Road.’

  ‘D’you walk it?’

  ‘Bike.’

  ‘Pushbike?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good man. No petrol fumes. Where do you keep the bike?’

  ‘Under the stairs you just came down.’

  ‘Do you have a car as well?’

  He hesitated. It was obvious what the question was really about. Delia’s killer had probably used transport. He said, ‘An old Honda, but I don’t use it for coming into work.’

  Carlo the cook was next up for questioning. His English wasn’t so fluent as Luigi’s, but he was better than Signor Tosi. In his kitchen, he continued peeling and chopping vegetables with a rapid movement that spoke of long experience. The knife was razor-sharp. Carlo had a mild, disarming manner. Short and bald, with a black moustache, he gave his answers in a subdued voice. No, he hadn’t emerged from the kitchen at all on Tuesday evening, so he couldn’t speak about the diners. Delia had seemed the same as usual. He liked her. She never hustled him when he was trying to get the orders out.

  ‘Did she talk to you about her life?’

  ‘That night?’

  ‘Any night.’

  ‘She liked Bath, she say. Plenty good ladies’ shops. Azzuro, Annabel Harrison, Kimberly. All her money go on nice Italian clothes. I have a joke with her that she serve Italian so she can buy Italian.’

  ‘Did she mention her two daughters?’

  ‘To me? No. Luigi tell me she have daughters.’

  ‘How about you, Carlo? Are you married?’

  ‘Am I married?’ He stopped chopping and drew the knife across the front of his throat, rolling his eyes. ‘Three times. Five kids. Four back in Napoli with wives one and two, must have cash every month. One baby son here. And wife number three.’

  ‘Here in the city?’

  ‘No chance. I keep her away from those dress shops. Combe Down.’

  ‘Do you drive?’

  ‘Can’t afford. I take the bus.’

  Diamond asked to see the locker room. It was through the kitchen and Tosi the owner took this as his c
hance to grab the limelight again. He wanted it known that his facilities met the hygiene regulations and insisted on showing the staff toilet and washroom as well. Luigi’s description of the locker room was right. It was little more than a cupboard with three metal lockers and barely space to change your clothes. When Diamond had established which locker was Delia’s, he asked Halliwell to go in and force the lock.

  ‘No, no,’ Tosi said in alarm. ‘No damage please. I have extra key.’

  He went away to fetch it.

  Halliwell leaned against the locker door and it opened. ‘Not much of a lock,’ he said.

  The faint smell of scent carried to them, as if Delia herself was protesting that her privacy was being invaded again. Diamond took Halliwell’s place in the small space. He found a hanger with two white blouses and a black skirt. On the shelf above were two bars of KitKat, a box of tissues, a mirror, a lipstick and a comb.

  Tosi returned with the key. ‘So I waste my time, eh? Open after all?’

  Ignoring him, Diamond stooped to pick up a pair of low-heeled black shoes. Under them was a book of matches. ‘Was she a smoker?’

  ‘No smoking, no.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Nobody here smokes,’ Luigi said.

  So why did she want matches? Diamond returned the shoes to the locker, picked up the matches and folded back the flap. None had been used. They were black, with white tips, from the Hilton Hotel, Bath. Someone had written the number 317 under the flap. He slipped them into his pocket.

  On the way out, he stopped to look at Luigi’s bike, chained to a post in the space under the stairs. ‘I should get one of these,’ he said to Halliwell without meaning it. ‘Give me six months and I’d be as slim as that waiter.’

  ‘It’s the job that keeps him in shape,’ Halliwell said.

  ‘What are you saying – that I should get off my butt more often?’

  ‘I was talking about the waiter, guv.’

  Towards the bottom of Milsom Street, outside Waterstone’s bookshop, Diamond stopped walking again, causing Halliwell real concern about his health. The short distance they’d covered had been all downhill. ‘We’ll go in here,’ the big man said.

  ‘Are you after a book, guv?’ Halliwell said, playing along with him.

  ‘They have a coffee shop up here,’ he said, surprising Halliwell by climbing the stairs two at a time. At the top he was still breathing normally. ‘I was counting on Tosi offering us one. He missed an opportunity of cosying up to us there. Not so much as a complimentary peppermint on the way out.’ He looked over the display of pastries. ‘We’ll go halves on one of those almond croissants, right?’

  Halliwell, who never took snacks, didn’t like to disappoint him.

  At a table by the window they shared their findings. Luigi the waiter had to be a prime suspect. He’d been the only man in the restaurant at the end of the evening, the last known person to have seen Delia alive. Never mind his insistence that he’d used a bike that evening. He owned a car and he could have parked it nearby and offered her a lift and driven her to his home for a night of passion.

  ‘Two nights,’ Diamond said, recalling that she wasn’t found until Thursday. ‘That’s a lot of passion.’

  ‘Maybe he was keeping her there against her will,’ Halliwell said. ‘Most Italian guys think they’re God’s gift to women.’

  ‘And finally killed her when it didn’t work out the way he wanted?’

  As for the others in the restaurant, Diamond said, he didn’t rate them as suspects. He couldn’t see the pot-bellied Signor Tosi suspending a body from a swing. It would require considerable strength. Neither could he picture Carlo as the killer. The way the little cook had talked of having three wives – rather than two ex-wives – suggested he collected women rather than disposing of them.

  ‘There’s the lone diner as well,’ Halliwell said.

  ‘Mr D. Monnington. Decent of Luigi to go to all the trouble of getting the name for us,’ Diamond said with irony.

  ‘You think he’s keen to swing it on someone else?’

  ‘That was my reading.’

  ‘Monnington’s top of my list,’ Halliwell said. ‘I can see it happening: the businessman stuck in a hotel, looking for amusement. Goes for a meal, picks up a waitress, invites her back. Likes her enough to spend the next day with her. Something goes wrong between them and he gets in a strop, strangles her and hopes to fake the suicide and get away with it.’

  ‘Put like that, it’s possible. Have him checked out when we get back, Keith.’

  ‘How do you mean? See if he’s got form?’

  ‘And check the hotels.’ Diamond muttered something under his breath as another thought struck him. ‘But would a stranger to the town know where to string up the body?’

  ‘Maybe they took an evening walk in the park and he saw the swings and took his opportunity.’

  ‘With a length of plastic cord someone had conveniently left?’ Diamond said, sitting back and shaking his head. ‘I don’t think this was dreamed up at the scene, Keith. The killer planned it.’

  ‘And you’re backing Luigi?’

  ‘I’m saying he’s got to be taken seriously, along with the missing father of her children, Danny. And of course Ashley, the laid-back musician.’ He looked across at the rest of the almond croissant sitting on Halliwell’s plate. ‘Aren’t you going to eat your half?’

  Out in the street again, he put his hand in his pocket and felt the hard edge of the book of matches. ‘Let’s cut through Shires Yard. I wouldn’t mind visiting the Hilton.’

  The curious thing about working in a city is that you don’t get to see the hotels that visitors regard as a major part of the experience. Diamond wasn’t all that familiar with the Hilton. Built as the Beaumont Hotel in 1973, a low point in Bath’s architectural history, its blocklike exterior, with yellow stone cladding pretending to be the real local stone, led locals to describe it as a giant hunk of cheese.

  To be fair, the management had done much to upgrade the interior. And Jenny the receptionist proved to be a star. ‘Does this count as helping you with your inquiries?’ she asked Diamond after he’d shown her his warrant card.

  ‘You’ll really help my inquiries if you can solve this puzzle,’ he said, handing her the book of matches. ‘It’s one of yours, right?’

  ‘Yes, they’re complimentary in the bar. What’s the puzzle?’

  He asked her to open it.

  ‘Is it a trick?’ she said, as she unfastened it. Then she saw the number and smiled. ‘A room number?’

  ‘That’s what I was thinking,’ he said. ‘Do you have a 317?’

  ‘We do indeed.’

  ‘And would your computer tell us who has been staying in there over the last few days? It could be important,’ he added.

  She got them a printout.

  There were five names. The fourth was Dalton Monnington.

  Diamond exchanged a look with Halliwell.

  ‘Would you have this one’s address?’

  Jenny used the keyboard. Dalton Monnington was from Wimbledon. He’d stayed one night at the hotel and paid with a voucher from a travel agent.

  ‘You wouldn’t happen to remember him?’ Diamond said, and this was the moment when she proved herself a star.

  She must have dealt with scores of guests, but she had perfect recall of this one. ‘Quiet, black hair and brown eyes, mid-twenties, average height, dark grey suit, white shirt and striped tie. He carried a biggish case, the kind reps have for their samples, and a sports bag for his clothes.’

  ‘You spoke to him?’

  ‘Twice about the parking. And later he asked for a city map and I gave him one.’

  ‘You didn’t register him?’

  ‘No, that was someone else.’

  ‘He stayed Tuesday night, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And went out to eat? Well, we know he did. Would you remember what time he came in?’

  ‘No, I knocked
off early. And you don’t see all the comings and goings from here, especially if guests don’t want to be seen.’

  He showed her the picture of Delia. ‘Have you seen this woman at all?’

  She glanced at it, then shook her head. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You don’t have to be sorry, Jenny,’ he said, picking up the photo and the matches. ‘You cracked the puzzle.’

  5

  DC Paul Gilbert, the latest member of the murder squad, had transferred from headquarters a month ago. He was still in awe of Peter Diamond.

  ‘Tell him,’ Keith Halliwell said.

  ‘Should I? It’s only a suggestion.’

  ‘Save it for the briefing, then. Let him say his piece and then bring it up.’

  And now the opportunity was imminent. It was Saturday morning and Diamond was holding forth to the team, dramatising the crime to get total attention. ‘He strangles her. We don’t know where. Possibly in a hotel or his home, wherever that is. Then he has to dispose of the body. He could dump it in the woods, bury it, dismember it. He does none of these things. He transports it to a public park and hangs it on a swing where everyone will see it. What kind of nutcase is this?’

  He seemed to be waiting for an answer. The older hands said nothing.

  DC Gilbert glanced towards Halliwell, but there was a shake of the head. This was not the moment.

  It was Ingeborg who piped up with, ‘A publicity seeker?’

  ‘You mean with a stunt like that he’s sure to make the papers. You’re the expert.’

  ‘If he’d buried her, like you just said, nobody would hear about it.’

  There was some amusement at this, but not from Diamond.

  ‘All right, let’s say he wants the world to know about his crime. What’s it about – his ego? Am I going to have to bring in one of these profilers?’ The way he said the last word showed what he thought of the science of offender profiling.

  Halliwell said, ‘There’s got to be some reason for taking a risk like that, stringing her up in the park.’

  From the back of the room DI John Leaman said, ‘He was trying to pass it off as suicide.’

  ‘We’ve been over that,’ Halliwell said. ‘Any fool knows a hanging leaves a different mark.’