“This is the night of the murder?”
“Yes. They’ve had a pleasant meal and he thinks he’s been invited back for some action. But instead, she has chosen this moment to hit him with her evidence about the Iraqis he was enrolling. It’s a setup. He said to me last night that he reckoned she was taping the conversation. Of course she was! She was a smart journalist collecting evidence. We know she used tapes in her work. She had two recorders, one of those heavy-duty things that you stack up in your living room—”
“A music center?”
“Right. And a neat little Japanese thing dinky enough to fit into a pocket or a handbag. After the murder we carted off boxes of her stuff, including tapes. The question is what happened to the Mountjoy tape?”
“If one existed,” said Julie.
“You can bet your life it existed.”
“I’ve been through the inventory of her material,” she said. “She was very well organized. There were upwards of fifty cassettes, every one dated and labeled, but nothing for the date of the murder. I’m sure I would have noticed.”
“The only person with an interest in possessing such a tape would be Mountjoy himself.”
“Unless it was still recording when the murder took place,” said Julie.
Diamond stared at her and snapped his fingers. “Brilliant! The killer may have taken it.”
“Cool—after killing someone, to check the tape recorder.”
“Very.”
“Unless ...”
“Unless what?”
“... he had the opportunity to collect it later.”
He stared out across the Square. “We’re back to Billington.” The disappointment was clear in his voice. “He was the one on the scene.”
Nothing was said for some time.
Finally, Julie spoke. “You don’t want Billington to be proved the killer, do you?”
“It’s so obvious. Why didn’t I pay him more attention at the time?”
“Because of his alibi, you told me. Any news of his condition?”
“I phoned the hospital first thing this morning. He’s improving slowly, but they don’t think he’s capable of answering questions yet. Meanwhile if we could find that missing tape in his house—”
“Won’t he have destroyed it by now—or just erased the recording? I certainly would.”
“The chances are that he did,” Diamond agreed, but with reluctance.
“Should we search the house, just the same?”
“Without a warrant?”
“To examine the scene of yesterday’s assault.”
Julie was giving top value for her muesli breakfast.
He grinned. “Let’s do that.”
Realistic about his own limitations, Diamond assigned Julie to conduct the search of the Billingtons’ house unaided. As a constitutionally clumsy man, in a search he was more likely to destroy clues than find them. Instead, he resolved to find out more about Britt Strand’s investigative journalism. Interviewing was his forte. He drove to Steeple Ashton.
In time for elevenses.
The cottage was rich with the aroma of two fruit cakes recently out of the oven. The bounteous Prue Shorter explained that they were destined to be tiers of a wedding cake, and if Diamond didn’t mind having the trimmings that had overlapped the tins, there were plenty of crisp bits to sample.
She made coffee and handed him a well-filled plate. “How’s the finger?” she enquired.
“Finger?”
“Was it a thumb, then?”
“Ah—my bee sting.” He glanced down at his hand. “The agony I put up with! I’d forgotten all about it, so it must be all right.”
“And you haven’t found that convict yet? He isn’t here, you know.”
“No, he’s someone else’s job. I’m still tidying up the facts about your former colleague.”
“Britt? I told you all I know, ducky.”
“You won’t have heard that her former landlord is in hospital after a fracas with his wife.”
“He’s in hospital?”
“She cracked him over the head with a bagful of coins and now she’s accused him of murdering Britt.”
“God Almighty!” She gave a huge, wheezy laugh and took a seat opposite Diamond at the kitchen table.
Cutting the merriment short, he broached the main business of his visit. “You called at the house a few times, I believe. Did you meet the Billingtons?”
She was shaking her head, not as a response, but a reaction to the latest twist in the Britt Strand saga. “Did I meet them? Yes, miserable buggers, both of them. Nary a smile between them. You pass the time of day and they treat it as a personal insult.”
“They remember you calling. At least, she does.”
“I don’t exactly merge into the background, do I?”
“So you didn’t have much conversation?”
“In a word, zilch.”
“I’m interested to know what Britt had to say about them, if anything. The man in particular.”
“Him? Silly old tosser! He fancied her, of course. Tell me a man who didn’t. She told me he used to chat her up, or try to, when his wife wasn’t about. Gave her the odd present. Is he really under suspicion?”
“Did he ever try anything?” Diamond persevered.
“You mean with Britt?”
What else did she think he meant? “Yes.”
She paused before replying. “Who knows? I didn’t know her that well. There were other men, weren’t there? It came out at the trial. She wasn’t unapproachable, but I think she’d draw the line at old Billington. She could do better than that. Are you married, Mr. Diamond?”
Annoyingly, he felt himself go pink. “As a matter of fact, I am,” he told her in a shirty tone.
“Kids?”
“No. Is this of any relevance?”
“I’m just interested. You don’t wear a ring, I notice.”
“Maybe you should be doing my job.” He recovered his poise. “You don’t wear one either.”
“That doesn’t mean a thing these days, ducky,” she said with a laugh that was more guarded than usual.
“But you were married once?”
She nodded. “It’s an unfair world, isn’t it? You probably wanted a kid and I got mine through a slipup. The father did the decent thing, as they say, and it lasted just over a year.”
“Did he get custody?”
“No. Johnny was happy for me to keep her, because he was clearing off to Northern Ireland.” She gave a belly laugh. “He’s been stuck in Belfast with his mother and the troubles since 1982, and the best of luck. Men? You can keep them. I went back to my maiden name. Why should I put up with his for the rest of my life?”
“So you became—what’s the current expression?—a lone parent.”
She hesitated and her tone of voice altered. “I won’t pretend it was easy, but if I could have the time back, I would. Sometimes I’m asked to make birthday cakes for other people’s kids. I usually shed a few tears.”
“And now?” said Diamond, to steer the conversation back to a less distressing topic.
“Now?”
“Is there anyone else?”
She said sharply, “If you’re about to ask me if I’m a dyke, save your breath. I saw it in your eyes the first time you came here. Just because I don’t diet or wear pretty clothes, it doesn’t mean I was always built like a planet.”
Diamond said, “I wasn’t probing. Just now you asked me if I was married and I responded.”
The face relaxed slightly. “Fair enough. I’m unattached. I’m straight. And interested in other people. We chubbies have a lot in common, right?”
He wasn’t happy with “chubby.” “Burly” was how he preferred to think of himself. She pushed more cake toward him to show solidarity, only at that moment he wanted to appear less solid. “Did Britt ever discuss her sex life with you?” This was a question he could ask more easily now.
“The men she had? No. I told you when
you came before, she didn’t gossip. What I learned, I picked up here and there. The last boyfriend—I hate that word, but ‘lover’ sounds even more outdated—was that show jumper.”
“Marcus Martin. Did you meet him?”
“No. She was watching him on telly one day when I called. Frankly, he’s the last one I would have picked out of ail the riders. Little red-haired runt.”
“But a rich red-headed runt,” said Diamond. “And G.B. ? Last time we spoke, you weren’t willing to rate him as a boyfriend. I’ve met him since. He admitted to being keen at the time.”
“You’re telling me. He was undressing her with his eyes when we did the shoot in Trim Street,” she confirmed. “He certainly fancied his chances. She certainly didn’t. She was just toying with him.”
“That’s what he says now.”
“Men are so gullible.”
He gave a shrug. “If I may, I’d like to take another look at the, em, pics you took.”
“The Trim Street set? No problem.”
She went upstairs to fetch them. The smell of fruit cake was undermining Diamond’s defenses, so he stepped out of the kitchen. She had moved things round in the living room since his first visit. The alcove where the small violin had been displayed now had a green porcelain bowl, a special piece, no doubt, but of less appeal to Diamond, who warmed to children’s things in a house—with the exception of samplers, which tended to depress him when he thought of the forced labor involved. There were none here. Some of the pictures had been changed, however; instead of the Redoute roses, she had hung woodland scenes that weren’t much to his taste.
“What do you think?” she asked, on her way downstairs with the photos. “I found them in an antique shop in Bradford-on-Avon.”
“You collect Corots then?”
She shrilled in surprise, “You know about art?”
“I know he writes his name very clearly in the corner.”
“Ah.”
Smarting at the contempt in that “Ah,” Diamond went on to say, “But I’ll tell you something about Corot. For every one of his paintings there are over a hundred forgeries. He’s the most forged painter in the world.” This useful piece of trivia had lodged in his memory thanks to a lecture at police training college. “These, I’m sure, must be genuine.”
“Genuine prints, ducky.” She handed him the manila folder of photos. “What are you looking for this time?”
“Some reason why Britt went to the trouble of visiting a squat,” he answered truthfully. “I still haven’t worked it out and G.B. was no help.”
“At least you caught up with him.”
“Yes. He’s a bright lad, but he couldn’t help.”
“Why is it important?”
He started working his way slowly through the photographs. “Because it may yet provide the answer to why she was murdered.”
“Isn’t old man Billington the answer?”
“We don’t know for sure.”
“You think Britt stumbled into something dangerous?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think Britt ever stumbled into anything. She knew precisely what she was up to, and why. I wish we did.”
“She could still have given one of the crusties a fright without knowing it,” Prue Shorter speculated, standing close to Diamond. “Just look at this lot! There really were some hard cases among them. God knows what unspeakable things they got up to. It only wanted one of them to think his past was about to be resurrected. I tell you, ducky, they scared me.”
He studied each photograph, characterizing the hard-faced people as individuals rather than an amorphous mob. Certain of them had obviously appealed to Prue as subjects, for they were prominent in the majority of the shots: a man with a Mohican bar of hair down the center of an otherwise shaven skull; a woman with a cropped head and round glasses; a heavily tattooed man clutching a bottle of cider and lying with his eyes closed in most of the pictures; and of course G.B., dominant in height and personality, judging by the attitudes others around him struck. Having established the leading players, Diamond took stock of the others, the less photogenic, sometimes just out of focus, or half obscured by furniture or bisected by the frame of the picture.
“This one,” he said, his finger on a slim, large-eyed girl with dark hair in a plait, “do you remember her?”
“I remember them all,” said Prue, “but I’ve no idea of their names, if that’s what you’re asking. Introductions weren’t encouraged.”
“I think I know this one’s name,” said Diamond.
“The thin woman?”
“Can you remember her?”
“Only vaguely. She stayed in the background. One of the squaws. Who is she?”
“Her name is Una Moon.”
“Should I have heard of her?”
“No.” And he didn’t enlighten her. Una Moon was the young woman he had last seen at the nick with Warrilow, the one who had first reported that Samantha Tott was missing.
Chapter Nineteen
Mountjoy’s barely functioning brain struggled to explain how it was possible that a woman was with him in his cell in Albany. He could definitely hear her moaning quite close to him. A conjugal visit—that great myth so often spoken of by the wishful thinkers? Conjugal visits—in Albany? About as likely as balloon trips. Even if they were permitted, who in the world would want to be conjugal with him? Sophie had sworn never to speak to him again after the divorce, let alone visit him in jail for what she would surely regard as the ultimate degradation.
And why was he lying on the floor instead of in bed? The thin mattress they provided was bloody uncomfortable and sometimes you could hardly tell the bed from the floor, only this felt cold as well as solid. And there was a woman somewhere close.
He shifted slightly, freeing his right arm and confirming that he was lying on a flat, smooth surface that had to be lino. His fingertips ran across one of the joins. He lifted the corner of the lino and felt underneath and traced the join between two floorboards. No prison he knew had a board floor.
He opened his eyes, saw an old-fashioned fireplace and a window without bars and remembered where he was. He cursed himself for falling asleep.
He told Samantha, “Stop moaning, will you?”
“I hate it here.”
“What?”
“This place.” She was sitting in the center of the floor wrapped in blankets, rubbing at her face with the back of her tied hands. “It’s giving me the creeps. I’ve never been anywhere so musty and horrible.”
“For God’s sake, I got you out of that cave, didn’t I?” Mountjoy said. “I brought you blankets, food, drink. I let you keep your precious violin.”
None of that counted, apparently. “It feels as if no one’s been in here for a hundred years. The toilet, with that wooden seat. That’s antique. This old fireplace with the iron grate. It’s bizarre, like being in a time warp.”
“Give it a rest, will you?”
“Where are we?” she asked. “I can hear traffic. Why won’t you tell me where we are?”
“You hungry?”
“No.”
“Cold?”
“Not really.”
“Well, then.”
“I’d like to know where I am.”
“Wouldn’t you just?”
“I’ve lived nearly all my life in Bath. I wouldn’t have believed a place like this still existed.”
“You live and learn.” Mountjoy yawned. Needing to stop himself drifting into sleep again, he got up and went to the window. Below, a long way below, the traffic moved tidily around the one-way system of the Orange Grove, past Bog Island and up Pierrepont Street toward the railway station. The view from this height was unmatched anywhere in the city because there was no obstruction except for the great square tower of the abbey to his right. He could see the gleam of the Avon and the lawns of the Parade Gardens. Further off, beyond the spire of the Catholic Church, rising above Brunei’s railway viaduct, was the wooded slope of Lyncom
be Hill, leading the eye to Beechen Cliff. And out to the left was Bathampton Down; last night, out on the balcony, he’d seen Sham Castle floodlit. For Mountjoy’s purposes, this bolt-hole had certain merits, but he would still have favored the caravan park if only bad luck hadn’t forced them out. The stone mine was always going to be unsuitable, an overnight stop, no more. He’d seriously considered taking over the house in Morford Street, but that would have compelled him to take two more hostages. What a prospect! So he’d brought Samantha here. She would have to put up with the Edwardian plumbing.
He knew what she meant about the time warp. It was slightly eerie here. The place did seem remote from modern life and it wasn’t merely the dust and cobwebs. Down there, somewhere, that fat detective Diamond ought to be working his butt off to get to the truth of the Britt Strand murder, yet here, six floors up, in another age, there were hours of waiting to be endured, hours when confidence drained.
How much longer?
Mountjoy yawned again. Chronic fatigue was his problem. He kept Samantha tied hand and foot and still didn’t allow himself proper rest because of the risk of being ambushed by the police. It was making him twitchy, shivery and depressed; if he hadn’t planned and worked so single-mindedly for justice—if he’d merely escaped—he would have traded his freedom right now for an undisturbed night in his cell in Albany. When it was over, whatever the outcome, he was going to sleep. For days.
He felt his head sinking. Catnaps were dangerous, yet he craved them like a fix. Deciding to sit rather than stand, he settled against the wall. His lids drooped.
Minutes must have passed when he opened his eyes next. How many, he couldn’t tell. The one thing he could see for sure was that Samantha was no longer in the room.
Gone.
The blankets lay in a heap beside her violin case. The rope that had bound her wrists was on the floor with the flex he used for her ankles.
He got up and dashed to the door.
It wouldn’t open. Locked. Momentarily he concluded that she had locked him in after escaping. Then he felt in his pocket and found the key still there. He’d locked the door himself. Where was she, then? He crossed to the second door that connected with the next room. The door was slightly ajar. Before flinging it fully open, he hesitated. What if she were waiting inside, poised to strike him?
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