Back in Bath he got in his own car and made his regular shopping trip to Sainsbury’s. These days he relied mainly on tinned food, pasta and eggs. He was capable of more adventurous cooking, but it wasn’t high in his priorities. Wasn’t everyone supposed to have oily fish two or three times a week? Well, he consumed his quota of tinned pilchards, several times over. The fact that everyone was also supposed to have fresh salad didn’t impress him. Salad was too fiddly. He had better things to do than washing lettuce and cutting up beetroot.
He also shopped for Raffles, his cat. More tins. When the Whiskas ran out, Raffles was willing to stretch a point and subsist on pilchards. Between them they must have sent a thousand empty tins for recycling. ‘We’re saving the world, you and me, puss.’
This evening he picked the cashier he called Fast Edie and was soon through her queue, pushing his trolley of bags to the exit. Traffic permitting, he’d be home for Channel Four News.
Then the usual challenge: where had he left the car? This was one of Sainsbury’s most elegant sites in Britain, at the converted Green Park station, a Victorian building with bold architectural features that tended to distract when you arrived. He clicked his tongue, thought hard, and headed in the right direction. Loaded the boot, returned the trolley to the bay, got into the car, started up, made sure his way was clear and reversed.
Something was wrong. He felt some resistance, as if he’d left the handbrake on. A glance at the control panel told him he hadn’t. He checked in both mirrors and continued reversing and now there was a definite lumpy feeling to the movement. A flat tyre?
‘That’s all I need.’
Then a man rapped on the window.
He wound it down.
‘Can’t you see what you’re doing, you berk?’ the man said. ‘You’re going over your shopping.’
He got out and had a look at a sorry mess. He’d reversed over two Sainsbury’s carriers. The first must have contained at least a dozen eggs and some milk. Egg yolk was dripping from his tyre into a puddle of milk, egg and what looked like jam or pickled beetroot. The second was still wedged under the wheel. Little, if anything, could be salvaged.
He said to the man, ‘It isn’t my shopping.’
‘It’s nobody’s now,’ the man said. ‘It’s history.’
He said by way of an excuse, ‘You can’t see from inside the car. It wasn’t there when I got in. I would have noticed.’
A few more people came over to look. ‘That’s them expensive free-range eggs,’ one woman said, bending for a closer inspection. ‘Extra-large free-range eggs. I can see the packet.’
‘Semi-skimmed milk,’ another woman said. ‘Scottish shortbread. What a waste.’
‘Who does it belong to?’ Diamond asked loudly enough to be heard by everyone. ‘It’s not my stuff.’ He crouched and tried without success to free the second bag. If he could move the car forward a few inches he might save some of the contents. He stepped back inside.
One of the women said, ‘He’s going to drive off.’
‘Hit and run,’ said someone else. ‘That’s someone’s shopping you’ve squashed. Bastard.’ She started hammering on the back window.
Diamond eased the car forward and got out. All the excitement had attracted quite a gathering, and the mood was not sympathetic. Not to him, anyway. He felt under the car and retrieved the second carrier bag. It dripped strange liquid over his shoe.
‘I can smell garlic,’ the woman who’d called him a bastard said. ‘That’s their best pesto sauce.’
Her righteous tone riled him. He looked in the bag. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘It’s minestrone soup.’ He wouldn’t have spoken if she hadn’t been so quick to condemn. ‘See?’ He lifted out a squashed carton. This is bizarre, he thought, a senior policeman arguing over a squashed packet of soup.
‘They put garlic in their minestrone,’ the woman said, looking round for support. ‘I told you I could smell garlic. What are you going to do about it?’
‘Someone bought this stuff,’ he said. ‘They should be back.’
‘A nice surprise they’ve got coming,’ she said. ‘You’d better speak to the management. Look at the mess you’ve made. That’s a traffic hazard. You’ll get cars skidding in it.’
On this she was right. The mess had to be mopped up. He asked if anyone would mind waiting there in case the owner of the shopping came back while he was getting help from the shop. His main critic didn’t volunteer, but a man with a child in his arms said he didn’t mind waiting.
Five minutes later Diamond returned with a Sainsbury’s employee with mop and bucket. The crowd had dispersed except for the man and child. Diamond thanked them and scanned the car park to see if anyone was searching for their missing shopping. He didn’t like to leave without offering to pay for the crushed items.
Just as he was thinking about leaving his phone number in the shop, he spotted a woman in the next aisle but one, turning her head as if she’d forgotten where her car was.
He went over. ‘Excuse me, but you’re not by any chance looking for two bags of shopping?’
‘Do you know where they are?’ she said. ‘I feel such an idiot. I put them down, and I can’t find them.’
At least she didn’t look the sort to make a scene. She stared at him with anxious, nervous blue eyes, her blonde tinted hair in disarray where she’d been rubbing her head. She was probably in her mid-forties, a few years younger than he was, dressed simply in a pale blue top and jeans.
He cleared his throat. ‘I, em, I’m afraid your shopping came to grief, ma’am. I ran over it in my car. Didn’t see it when I was reversing.’
She said, ‘Oh.’
‘I’m really sorry.’
But she was going to be reasonable. She shrugged and said, ‘Never mind. It’s obviously an accident. My fault for leaving it in a stupid place.’
‘It’s over there where the man is mopping up. I don’t think there’s anything left,’ he said. ‘Listen, why don’t we fill your trolley again and let me pay?’
‘You can’t do that,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘But it was. I should have noticed. A driver is responsible for the damage he does.’
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’m blaming myself, not you.’
‘That’s generous, but not quite right. I’ll sleep easier tonight if I’ve taken my share of the blame. At least let me help with the bill.’
She smiled. ‘You’re a true gent, but—’
‘It will ease my conscience.’
She gave another shrug and her lips curved again and she started walking towards the shop with Diamond at her side. ‘You’re probably wondering why this happened, why I abandoned my shopping.’
‘I’m curious.’
‘I was on my way to my car and I saw a child, a young girl of eight or nine, with a puppy on a lead. One of those gorgeous little dogs they use in the Andrex commercials.’
‘Golden Labrador.’
‘Right, very appealing. But the collar must have been loose because it pulled away from her and slipped its head free. It was off straight away and the child burst into tears. I saw this and put down my bags and set off in pursuit. A puppy running free in a busy car park isn’t going to last long. I wish I could say I caught it.’
‘You mean this has a sad ending?’
‘No, someone else picked up the pup. At least I was able to say whose it was and return it to the little girl. I met the mother and we tightened the collar a notch and all was well again. Happy ending.’
‘Depends what you mean by happy. In the meantime I’d destroyed your shopping.’
She gave the sort of smile that forgives without a word being spoken.
‘It wasn’t a pretty sight,’ he added.
He collected a trolley and they started shopping. She said she couldn’t remember what she’d bought.
‘Don’t you have a list?’
‘In my head usually,’ she said. ‘All this has played ha
voc with my concentration.’
He named the free-range eggs and the minestrone and told her about the dispute with the woman who could smell garlic. She laughed and said she hadn’t realised what a rough time he’d had. They walked the aisles trying to refresh her memory. A few items went into the trolley, but not enough to fill two bags. He suspected she was keeping the bill down.
At the checkout he gave his credit card to the cashier.
‘You said help with the bill, not pay it all.’
‘It’s OK.’ He had already keyed in his pin number.
On the way out she said with more seriousness, ‘It isn’t OK. I’m sorry, but I’m uncomfortable with this.’
‘Don’t be. I drove over two of your bags. This is only one.’
‘At least let me buy you a drink.’
‘Now? I’ll be driving home and so will you, I expect.’
‘Later, then.’
He was unprepared. He didn’t know how to respond.
She said, ‘My treat.’
‘Tonight, you mean?’
‘Say about eight thirty. Are you local?’
‘Not far.’ This had thrown him. He’d turned down her offer of a drink more sharply than he intended. She was insistent that she wanted to square things. She couldn’t have been more reasonable about losing her shopping. To walk away now would sour a pleasant encounter. ‘All right. You’re on.’
‘How about meeting here?’
‘The scene of the crime.’
7
In his own house with all its memories he was less comfortable about what he had agreed. He hadn’t gone out for a drink with a woman in years, except for police colleagues when there was some work topic to be discussed. If he was going to take the plunge he’d have preferred not to be pulled in. ‘You won’t believe this, Raffles,’ he said as he opened a tin and forked tuna flakes onto the cat’s plate. ‘I’m going for a drink with a woman and I don’t even know her name.’
It wasn’t in his make-up to break a date with a lady, so he showered and thought about what to wear. He decided his daytime suit wasn’t right for this adventure. So what did he have in the wardrobe that was more relaxed and didn’t look as if it came out of a charity shop? Leather jackets had never gone out of fashion and they were safe from moths. He took his off the hanger for the first time in a couple of years and decided it would fit the occasion even if it didn’t fit the body. He wouldn’t button it up. Under it he’d wear a check shirt, jeans and trainers. He looked in the mirror to see if he needed another shave. Stubble was sexy these days, wasn’t it? Man, oh man, you’re acting like a sixteen-year-old, he told himself.
He drove back to the car park where all this had been set in motion and chose a slot at the opposite end from where he’d been before. Early as always, he sat listening to a football commentary without caring who the teams were. At eight thirty he got out and looked across the roofs of the parked cars to see who was about. Nobody he recognised. He locked up and strolled towards the spot where he’d driven over the bags. Sainsbury’s staff had done a good job of clearing up. Just a few bits of eggshell were lodged in a crack in the tarmac. It wasn’t all that long since he’d worked as a trolleyman and dogsbody himself in London, at that low point after he’d resigned from the force. He knew what it was like to be called to a mess with his mop and bucket.
He stood there, whistling quietly.
Ten minutes passed and he was getting reconciled to her not coming. Reconciled? Relieved, really. Sensible woman, she must have decided she’d acted on impulse. Just as he had.
Then a horn sounded behind him and he saw her at the wheel of a silver sports car. ‘I’ll find a space and join you,’ she called out.
He pointed to one in the row behind. She raised a thumb.
‘Nice little run-around,’ he said when she got out.
‘It gets me where I want to be,’ she said. She, too, had decided on a change of clothes, a blue and yellow jacket patterned with chrysanthemums and worn with a terracotta top and white linen slacks. She’d put up her blonde hair with two combs. A musky scent was part of the makeover.
‘We could have that drink right here in the Brasserie,’ he suggested to keep it simple. The Brasserie was part of the old Green Park station complex. It had once been the booking hall and wasn’t a bad place for a drink.
‘Uh-uh,’ she said, wagging her finger and smiling. ‘My treat, remember?’
‘Got somewhere else in mind?’
‘I phoned ahead. It’s not far.’
Phoned ahead? That sounded ominous.
‘You look worried,’ she said. ‘Are you thinking it might rain?’
‘Hadn’t even crossed my mind. I’m Peter Diamond, by the way.’
‘Paloma Kean. And before you ask, the nearest my parents got to Spain was the paso doble at the local Mecca ballroom. They simply liked the sound of Paloma.’
‘So do I. Good taste.’
‘I didn’t think so when I was going through school. I was known as Plum.’
‘Did you mind?’
‘I got used to it. There are worse names.’
She stepped out across James Street with him at her side trying to guess where they were heading. No bar he knew in Bath insisted on advance bookings.
‘We agreed just a drink,’ he reminded her a little way up Charles Street.
‘Why – have you eaten?’
‘No, but I will later.’
In Saw Close they passed the theatre and she stopped next door, at Strada, an Italian restaurant newer and smarter than Tosi’s.
‘You’re not bringing me here?’ he said in concern.
‘Why not? They’ll serve us a drink. I often come here.’
To Diamond, this was unfamiliar territory. For years, it had been Popjoy’s, known for its fine cuisine and high prices. You couldn’t see any of the interior from the street. It had been a private house that had once belonged to Beau Nash, the man who made Bath fashionable in the eighteenth century. They were admitted by a waiter who greeted Paloma as Mrs Kean and showed them to a reserved table in the Georgian sitting room.
She was handed the wine list, and she asked what he would like.
‘Do they stock a low-alcohol lager?’
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Live dangerously. They do a good range of wines.’
‘No, I mean it.’
‘Worried about the drive home?’
‘I’d better come clean with you. I’m in the police. The sure way to put a damper on the evening.’
‘I can’t think why,’ she said without even blinking. ‘You won’t find my name in your files.’
If she wanted some banter, he was up for it. ‘Is that because you’re good, or good at getting away with it?’
‘I leave you to guess.’ She ordered champagne for herself.
‘Now I know why they call you Plum.’
Another waiter approached with the menu.
Diamond started to say, ‘I really didn’t—’
Paloma made a slight downward movement with her hand. ‘It’s my choice.’
He stopped protesting, ordered a mushroom risotto, and then said, ‘I owned up to my job.’
‘And?’
‘I get the impression you also have a career.’
‘In the absence of a sugar daddy? Yes, I’m one of the self-employed. Any guesses?’
Difficult. He didn’t want to cause offence. She had a good income if she was used to eating out. ‘Something artistic?’
‘Only marginally.’
‘Theatrical?’
‘Vaguely.’
‘You write plays.’
She laughed. ‘I’m not creative at all. I have a business supplying illustrated material for the media, pictures of past fashion basically. If someone is writing a piece about Edwardian ball gowns, for example, they look on the internet and find I have hundreds of contemporary pictures they can choose from.’
‘You collected these?’
‘It’s been a li
felong passion. Plum the schoolgirl was filling scrapbooks when she was eleven years old. When I got older I bought from dealers. Now I have the biggest collection in the country, probably in the world. Magazines, newspapers, pattern books. Someone asks for examples and I scan them and send them back in a very short time. The internet has transformed the way it’s done.’
‘And this is mainly as a service to journalists?’
She shook her head. ‘There are all kinds of requests. Film and television costume departments are always wanting ideas. There are classics being filmed all the time. They know they can rely on me for something the rival company hasn’t already used.’
‘What’s your business called?’
‘Once in Vogue.’
‘Cool,’ he said, borrowing from Ingeborg. ‘Do you supply the costumes as well?’
She winced at the idea. ‘Couldn’t possibly. Just the pictures.’
‘You must have an efficient filing system.’
‘I’m well organised. If you really are interested, I could demonstrate. Do you have a computer at home?’
‘Rarely used. It belonged to Steph, my late wife.’
The mention of Steph didn’t throw her at all. ‘Well, if you want to look me up, if you ever want a picture of a Victorian policeman, or a Bow Street runner, click on onceinvogue.com.’
‘I will.’
‘But you must give me a challenge. Surprise me with a really unusual request.’
There was just the hint of playfulness.
‘I’ll try and think of something. Speaking of surprises, you certainly ambushed me with all this,’ he said.
‘Their desserts are good.’
‘Thanks, but I’ll pass on the dessert.’
‘Don’t run away with the idea that I come here every night,’ she said. ‘I do most of my eating out of packets, same as you, I expect.’
‘Tins, in my case.’
‘Baked beans?’
He grinned. ‘You’ve got me sussed.’ But he wished he hadn’t said it. He wasn’t the helpless man and he didn’t want to give that impression.
‘Was your late wife a cook?’
‘She was good at it. We both went out to work so I did my share with the saucepans.’
‘On the baked bean nights?’
Peter Diamond - 09 - The Secret Hangman Page 6
