Peter Diamond - 09 - The Secret Hangman

by Peter Lovesey

‘So Geaves killed his ex-wife and then took his own life. Why – because he despised himself for what he’d done?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Or because he didn’t want to face the hue and cry? You were on to him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that, ma’am.’

  ‘You were actively searching for him. He’d disappeared from his lodging in Freshford and no one had seen him for days.’

  ‘I can’t argue with that.’

  Georgina drummed her fingers on the desk. She wanted closure on this case and she wasn’t getting much help from the man in charge. At some stage she would have to face her fellow chorister, Amanda. ‘Get a grip, Peter. You must have a view of what happened.’

  ‘I’m puzzled about the choice of location.’

  ‘The viaduct? What’s wrong with that? I thought a long drop was the best way to do it. The jerk on the rope must have broken his neck immediately. People who do it by stepping off a chair condemn themselves to slow strangulation.’

  ‘You’re missing my point, ma’am. This was so public. Why didn’t he hang himself in private as most suicides do?’

  She drew in a sharp, impatient breath. ‘Well, the place where he strung Delia up was public. He treated himself the way he’d treated her.’

  ‘Out of conscience?’

  ‘Presumably. We don’t know what was going on in his mind.’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ he said.

  ‘There was no note?’

  ‘Not at the scene. I’m having his place searched.’

  ‘Good. You might find evidence linking him to the murder.’

  ‘That would be a bonus.’

  ‘Don’t think of it like that,’ Georgina said in a tone of reproof, actually wagging her finger. ‘Just because the killer and his victim are both dead it doesn’t mean we treat the investigation lightly. We must make every effort to prove he murdered the woman.’

  ‘I intend to,’ he said.

  ‘Have you got the motive?’

  ‘Motive?’

  ‘The reason he killed her.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I suggest you work on that as a priority instead of waiting for evidence to fall into your lap.’

  ‘Right you are, ma’am,’ he said, and he stood up as if to prove he wasn’t waiting for anything. If he stayed here any longer being treated like a schoolkid he would say something mutinous.

  She flapped her hand and he left the room.

  The late breakfast was so late it became lunch. Afterwards he called Keith Halliwell, by now inside the Freshford house Geaves had lived in. ‘What’s it like?’

  ‘Tidy, guv. Horribly tidy. No sign of recent occupation. The stuff in the fridge is past its sell-by.’

  ‘Nothing so helpful as a suicide note?’

  ‘No letters at all except junk mail. No bank statements, passport, credit cards, address book. I get the impression he took everything important with him when he left.’

  ‘Not intending to come back?’

  ‘There are clothes in the bedroom, but he wouldn’t need a suit if he was planning to top himself.’

  ‘Wouldn’t need a passport, so far as I know. Have you talked to the neighbours?’

  ‘They never got much out of him. The one thing that’s certain is that he hasn’t been living here the last few days.’

  ‘Do you think he had a bolt hole somewhere else?’

  ‘Looks that way, guv. We did find one thing – a weird photo that had slipped down the back of a chest of drawers, but I wouldn’t read too much into it. Could have been left by some previous tenant.’

  ‘Weird in what way?’

  ‘You can’t see much. It’s badly focused or taken in very poor light. Some kind of hairy creature with eyes and teeth, but like nothing I’ve ever seen. Might be a still from a horror movie.’

  ‘Bring it in. I’ll take a look at it. You’d better come back here, then.’

  ‘See you shortly.’

  ‘Probably not,’ Diamond said. He’d been on the go since the crack of dawn and he was knocking off early.

  10

  The disappointment was huge. Truly challenging crimes are rare. You might get four or five in a career. Sure, there were questions to be answered, but they were just for the record. All the impetus had gone. He’d fallen prey to wishful thinking.

  Back to reality. He stuffed his week’s washing into the machine and switched on. Ten minutes into the cycle he realised there was something amiss with reality. His thoughts weren’t fully on the job and he hadn’t put in any soap powder. He’d made this mistake before. Adding the tablets now was no use. They’d still be sitting in the dispenser when the wash finished. And if he opened the door – as he had a couple of times – he got water all over his kitchen floor. He’d just have to wait until this soap-less wash was through.

  He left it running and went to his overladen bookshelves in the front room, where the biographies of Scotland Yard’s finest, men like Fred Cherrill and Bob Fabian, kept company with his eighty-three-volume set of Notable British Trials, the most valuable possession he had. Reading about old murders could be therapeutic when he was hard pressed on his own investigations, reminding him that sometimes good sleuthing brought a result.

  Some of those shelves dipped dangerously in the middle. He kept telling himself he would thin the books out, but he hated throwing them away. There was a whole row of Agatha Christies that Steph had collected. He hoped to find someone who would appreciate them.

  He picked a book that had him absorbed until the wash was ready for its second try. The case was an old one, dating back to 1864, and so intriguing that he almost forgot the tablets again. And when he reached one footnote, he recalled a recent conversation, and smiled. His thoughts had turned to someone else who would be interested.

  Later, he went to the computer that he still thought of as Steph’s, because she’d made the most use of it, contacting her friends and finding out the details of films she wanted to see.

  The machine started all right, but wasn’t receiving e-mail, which meant he couldn’t send it either. He tried various options on the keyboard and then a message appeared suggesting he phoned his server. They must have given him up for dead, or decided he was a deserter. He dialled the number and found himself listening to syrupy music until his ear ached. A voice broke in occasionally to tell him he was in a queue. And paying for it, he thought.

  Finally he got through to a living individual.

  ‘You don’t seem to have used it lately,’ the woman on the line said.

  ‘But you’re getting my money each month,’ he told her. ‘It’s on direct debit.’

  ‘No problem,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean, “No problem”? I’m telling you there is a problem.’

  ‘Sir, if you wait a few minutes,’ she told him, ‘you’ll receive whatever has come in since you last opened your mail. There’s quite a lot of it.’

  ‘All junk, or spam, or whatever you call it,’ he said. ‘Don’t bother.’

  ‘I have to send it to reactivate the service.’

  ‘All I want is to send an e-mail myself.’

  When the avalanche arrived and the little counter logged up something over six hundred messages, he could tell at a glance that he’d not deprived himself of much. Ignoring the invitations to improve his sex life unimaginably, he clicked create mail and typed in Paloma’s address, copying it from the card she’d handed him. Surprise me with a really unusual request, she’d said.

  He kept the message terse.

  How about a Muller cut-down?

  Didn’t even add his name at the end. She’d see it was from Diamond when she downloaded.

  This had to qualify as an unusual fashion item. Franz Müller, he’d learned from the book, had been the first train murderer in Britain. He was a young German tailor. One foggy evening in July, 1864, he’d stepped into a railway compartment and sat opposite an old man wearing a gold watch and chain. The temp
tation was too great. Müller battered the old man senseless with his own walking stick, relieved him of the watch and his gold-rimmed glasses and pushed him out. The victim was found on the line between Hackney Wick and Bow. He died soon after. But Müller made a critical error when leaving the train. He mistook the old man’s black top hat for his own and left his own hat behind with the victim’s stick and bag.

  Within twenty minutes a reply came from Paloma.

  Is that Müller or Miller?

  She hasn’t heard of it, he thought. She’d also added a PS.

  This might be easier if we use a chatline. Are you on one?

  Good suggestion, he thought. Steph once used a chatroom to reach her friends. He went back to the desktop, found the icon and opened the page. Now what was her password? He typed in Raffles and it worked. Proud of his new-found computer skills, he put in Paloma’s address and was ready to go.

  Muller is correct. Should have an umlaut, but my machine won’t do one.

  These days, a hair sample from the killer’s hat would have provided DNA evidence. In 1864, proof of identity was more difficult. Fortunately for the police, the young tailor had remodelled his own hat, cutting it down an inch and a half and sewing it together again. Neatly stitched, of course. But it was not the work of a hatter, who would have used glue. Franz Müller’s altered hat became crucial to the hunt for the killer. His cut-down topper caught the interest of the newspapers. And started a fashion.

  Paloma answered. There will now be a short delay.

  He smiled and looked at the time. After twelve minutes came back the response.

  It’s a style of top hat shortened, circa 1865. Am I right?

  She’d done her research by now and probably knew the grim story behind it.

  Perfectly. Your reputation is safe. This isn’t a fashion question, but how about a Muller Light?

  I’d enjoy that. Where and when?

  He smiled. She’d fallen into his trap.

  A Muller Light was an idea from the railway company to tempt people back onto trains after all the bad publicity. It was a peep-hole cut between compartments so that passengers would feel safer. It had the reverse effect and put them off.

  She wrote back. I’m a fashion person, not a railway expert. My last message stands. Why not come here about seven tomorrow and I’ll get some in?

  This time it was his turn to delay. He’d started this. Perhaps subconsciously he’d been pitching for a date, and this hadn’t been about Franz Müller’s hat but Peter Diamond’s suppressed desires.

  He stared at her message for another minute before writing: Just checked my diary. I’d be delighted to come He hesitated. Now what? A full stop, or a ‘but’ . . . ? Go for it, he told himself, and pressed the full stop key.

  11

  Two reports were on his desk next morning. The first, from the Wimbledon scene of crime people, had an immense amount of detail about hairs and fibres found in Dalton Monnington’s car, but nothing to connect the travelling salesman with Delia Williamson. He slapped it on the heap of papers waiting to be filed. Monnington was old news.

  Dr Sealy’s report was just as predictable. A Post-it note was attached to the front. ‘Knowing you prefer it simple,’ the sarcastic little doctor had written, ‘the deceased died at the scene, of spinal damage caused by sudden suspension. It was like a judicial hanging except that the drop was longer, so the jerk of the rope was more than enough to dislocate the neck and cause instant death. There were no contrary indications.’

  Not liking the assumption that he was ignorant, Diamond glanced through the detailed findings, but the pathological jargon only irritated him more. It was as if Sealy had dressed it up to demonstrate his superiority. The cervical spine was disrupted at the atlanto-occipital joint, rather than the more usual mid-cervical portion. Cleverclogs.

  He showed the note to Halliwell.

  ‘That’s it, then, guv?’

  ‘You’d better stand down the team,’ he said. ‘The pressure to find the killer is off.’

  ‘But we still have to report to the coroner, don’t we?’

  ‘You and I do that.’

  ‘It won’t be easy,’ Halliwell said. ‘We know sod all about Geaves.’

  ‘We know he was a callous bastard who walked out on his partner and two little daughters and didn’t bother seeing them again.’

  ‘According to Corcoran.’

  ‘Well, yes. It’s all second-hand stuff. We know he ended up in Freshford and had the reputation of a loner. Liked to do the crossword in the pub and speak to no one.’

  ‘Anyone who appears in a pub can’t be all bad.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put money on that.’

  Halliwell dropped a small photo on the desk. ‘This is what I was telling you about. The creature.’

  ‘Found in his room?’ He picked it up. He could just about make out the shape. There was no colour to speak of. It could have been a black and white print. Small gleaming eyes, caught perhaps by the camera flash. Large ears, pricked. Some kind of snout. ‘Horrible. What is it?’

  ‘Don’t ask me, guv.’

  ‘A bat?’

  ‘Now that’s a good thought.’

  ‘I do have them sometimes. Maybe he’s a bat expert. There’s a fancy name for it, I’m sure.’

  ‘Batman?’

  He aimed an imaginary pistol at Halliwell’s head. ‘Did you try running a full trace on him?’

  ‘He hasn’t got form if that’s what you were thinking.’

  ‘No, I’m thinking we can find more stuff about his background, where they were living and what job he did. It’s all on record somewhere. Run a check on the man. Meantime I’ll go and see the girls’ grandma, Amanda Williamson. She’s the best hope.’

  Not so. When he tried Amanda Williamson’s home number, her recorded voice announced, ‘I’m sorry but I’m not taking calls this week or next. You can leave a message after the tone.’ Shot yourself in the foot, Diamond, he thought.

  Maybe she gave her temporary address to Corcoran. He called him and got another recording. Whoever invented the answer-phone should be made to listen to recorded messages for eternity.

  He believed in seeing people face to face. He drove to Walcot Street and was about to press Corcoran’s doorbell when he became aware of a young woman at his side, small, dark and oriental. She could only be Marietta, the Filipino child-minder. Her arms were full of shopping, and as she struggled for a door key a French loaf slipped out of its paper wrapper.

  Diamond held on at the second attempt, inches from the ground. Not bad for the world’s worst catcher, he told himself.

  But in handing the loaf back he knocked it against his other elbow and snapped it.

  ‘Sorry.’

  She seemed to forgive him without speaking.

  He felt for his ID and showed it. ‘I came to see Mr Corcoran, but maybe you can help. I need to speak to Mrs Williamson – Amanda. I know she has the children and she’s gone to a different address.’

  Marietta shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, sir, this is not possible.’

  ‘Little girls? Sharon? Sophie?’

  She shook her head.

  He put out his hand for the door key. ‘Let me do that.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. This is not possible. I cannot allow this.’

  ‘I must speak with Mr Corcoran,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You go away, please, sir.’

  ‘Police,’ he said, taking her hand and guiding it into the lock.

  She sighed as the door swung inwards.

  The moment he stepped in he understood why he wasn’t welcome. Ashley Corcoran was on his back on the Afghan rug. He was naked and so was the large blonde riding him like a three-day eventer.

  12

  He didn’t check the time, but he guessed it was about ten fifteen in the morning. He hadn’t imagined this kind of thing going on in Bath when other people were sitting at their desks or doing the shopping. And his arrival didn’t affect the performance
. The bouncing blonde came to a resounding climax. Literally resounding. She repeated ‘yes’ seven times, as positive an endorsement as any lover could wish for.

  After the last ‘yes’, Diamond looked away and discovered Marietta had disappeared with her shopping.

  The blonde disconnected and stood up. She was built like a ship’s figurehead. She spotted Diamond and padded across the wood floor, slapping the fronts of her thighs. ‘It really gets you here,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t have a ciggy, by any chance?’

  From the floor, Corcoran called out, ‘Who’s that? Who are you talking to?’

  ‘One of your muso friends, I guess,’ the blonde said.

  Corcoran sat up. At the sight of Diamond, he put his hand over his crotch. ‘Who let you in?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Diamond said, doing his best to emulate the blonde’s self-possession. ‘I tried phoning first.’

  ‘What do you want this time?’

  ‘To find Amanda.’

  The blonde put her hands on her hips. ‘And who the fuck is Amanda?’

  ‘I take it she’s got Sharon and Sophie with her,’ Diamond said, trying to confine the conversation to Corcoran and himself.

  ‘A threesome?’ the blonde said in an outraged voice.

  ‘They’re little girls,’ Diamond said in an aside to calm her down.

  ‘That’s disgusting.’

  ‘Her grandchildren.’

  ‘I’ve heard enough,’ she said. ‘I’m off. Do you mind? You’re standing on my bra.’

  She was right about that. He moved his foot. Her clothes were in a heap just inside the door. It seemed she’d stripped the moment she’d arrived. Whether she was here on a professional visit or out of friendship he didn’t ask. Whichever it was, Ashley Corcoran hadn’t wasted much time grieving for his former lover.

  Diamond took a few steps towards him, allowing the blonde to get dressed out of his line of vision. ‘She must have told you where she was going.’

  ‘The noticeboard above the kettle.’

  He crossed to the kitchen and found the address scribbled on the back of an envelope pinned to the board. Amanda had gone to friends in Bradford on Avon.