Upon A Dark Night

by Peter Lovesey

  Diamond understood. It was the kind of all-or-nothing motive that made a man into a hero, or a crook. Certain individuals had this supreme belief in themselves that in the right conditions produced great art, huge discoveries and inspiring leadership. But the same self-importance spawned dictators and murderers.

  ‘So he spent the weekend at the farm, searching,’ he said. ‘Worth the risk, I suppose. It could have been weeks before anyone else turned up there. Old Gladstone didn’t welcome visitors.’

  ‘Believe me,’ Emma stressed, ‘if it had been Queen Square in the centre of Bath, he would still have been there with his metal detector.’

  ‘So? Any joy? We saw the places where he dug.’

  ‘Only bits of scrap.’

  ‘What a let-down.’

  ‘He won’t accept that nothing is there. He still believes in this hoard.’

  ‘That’s the hope we’re hanging onto,’ said Diamond. ‘You were starting to tell me about that afternoon when Rose turned up at the farm.’

  ‘I’ve only heard William’s side of it. Rose doesn’t remember.’

  ‘Let’s have it.’

  ‘He told me time was getting on and he’d just about decided to stop for the day, when he heard a car come up the lane. It was a taxi, and it stopped in the yard, right beside William’s parked car. William took cover behind the chicken house. He heard someone get out, and the taxi driving off.’

  ‘This was Rose?’

  ‘Yes. William saw this woman arrive and he didn’t know who she was, or what to do. He stayed hidden while she walked up to the cottage and went in.’

  ‘It was open?’

  Julie, in the front passenger seat, turned and reminded him, ‘It doesn’t lock automatically when you close it. There’s a key that works from both sides.’

  ‘I get you,’ he said. ‘If it had been locked on the outside, then the suicide theory would have looked very dodgy indeed. So she went in.’

  Julie put in, ‘Which is why two of her hairs were found at the scene.’

  He didn’t like being reminded of his earlier theory. Ignoring that, he asked Emma, ‘What did Allardyce do?’

  ‘His first impulse was to run back to his car and drive off. But he had his metal detector lying on the ground where he’d left it and he went to pick it up and everything happened too quickly. She came rushing out in a state of hysteria. She saw William and ran towards him, for help, I suppose. She was gibbering, unable to speak. She must have had the most horrendous shock you can imagine, finding her own father like that. He’d been dead for two days. Enough-’

  ‘To blow her mind?’

  Emma returned Diamond’s gaze. ‘That’s what happened, isn’t it?’

  ‘Something shut down in her brain, for sure.’

  ‘William didn’t know what to do with this frantic woman. But she calmed down quite quickly, and he tried talking to her, yet still couldn’t get any sense out of her. Couldn’t even get eye contact. He asked who she was, and where she came from, and she just stared ahead, like a zombie, he said. Obviously she was in deep shock at finding the body. That suited William. His best plan was to get her away from the farm while she was still confused. So he put her in the car and drove off.’

  ‘And shoved her out a couple of miles down the road.’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Letting her take her chance with the traffic on the A46. Charming. What happened next? You read in the paper that she survived and was the mystery woman who lost her memory, right?’

  ‘Yes. William saw her picture. He was really alarmed. The report said she’d recovered her power of speech. He didn’t know if she remembered enough to give the police a description of him, or lead them to the farm. People might lose their memory for a short time, but they usually get it back.’

  ‘So he made the botched attempt to snatch her outside Harmer House – with you at the wheel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Using his red Toyota. If Ada hadn’t dented it, we would have made the connection sooner, wouldn’t we, Julie?’

  Julie didn’t look round, or speak.

  He turned back to Emma. ‘You drove the car knowing what you’d got yourself into.’

  ‘No.’ She was adamant. ‘In my worst nightmare I didn’t think Rose would come to any harm. I thought he wanted to talk to her, give her some story that would reassure her and keep her quiet. I was so upset about what had happened already that I didn’t think it through. It was only after he was so violent trying to get her in the car that I knew what danger she was in.’

  ‘You feared for her life.’

  ‘And I still do. I fear for it now.’

  As if he were tuned in on the radio, the driver in the police car ahead switched on his siren. With blue lights flashing, the convoy of three slipped past the line of traffic at the junction of the London Road with the A46, jumped the traffic lights and started the long climb up Nimlet Hill.

  Diamond had to wait for the siren to stop before he picked up the thread. ‘You meant to stop him from harming her. You say you were too upset to think straight, but you must have got your thoughts in order.’

  ‘I had to.’

  ‘Your plan was more subtle than his, and it worked. You went to Avon Social Services and told them you were Rose’s stepsister. They were taken in because you had those photos. Where did the pictures come from? Rose’s handbag, I suppose.’

  Emma nodded. ‘The bag was in the car the evening he drove her away from the farm. That’s how we found out who she is. Her name, Christine Gladstone, was on a chequebook and the credit cards. William asked me to get rid of it for him. He kept involving me at each stage. Going through the bag, I found the pictures and kept them. Old photos are precious. Everything else is at the bottom of the river.’

  ‘You won over the social worker with those pictures. She was the crucial person.’

  ‘Yes. The others were uneasy, I could see, but they weren’t taking the decision.’

  ‘So you had to hide her away. You nicked a set of keys from Better Let and took her to the basement flat in St James’s Square. But you moved her soon after. Why?’

  ‘William spotted her in the street.’

  He said in surprise, ‘You let her out?’

  ‘I wasn’t capable of keeping her hidden all the time. She thought I was family and she co-operated. It was just bad luck that William saw her. I suppose it was good luck that he didn’t see me with her. Anyway, he followed her to St James’s Square. He appeared at the window. Of course Rose recognised him as the man who’d tried to snatch her outside Harmer House. She heard someone let him into the house and she panicked. Climbed out of the kitchen window at the back. Those houses are built on a steep gradient and it was a long drop, longer than she expected in the dark. When I found her next morning, she’d spent the night lying in pain in the yard. I had to get her to hospital.’

  ‘Hospital?’ His voice piped high. ‘Are you saying she’s injured?’

  ‘A broken ankle.’

  ‘That’s all we need.’

  Julie said, ‘In plaster?’

  ‘Yes.’

  All that softly-softly stuff went out of the window. Diamond clenched a fist and brought it down hard on his thigh. ‘Jesus Christ, you’re telling us she’s immobile?’

  ‘She has crutches.’

  ‘Terrific.’

  He was temporarily lost for words, so it was Julie who asked, ‘Didn’t the nurses find out who she is?’

  ‘They’re terribly overstretched. In the Triage Room all they wanted was her name and date of birth. I gave it.’

  ‘Yes, but in Casualty Reception…?’ Julie knew the procedures at the RUH.

  ‘I told them we were sisters visiting Bath and made up an address and the name of a GP in Hounslow and they were satisfied.’

  ‘Rose didn’t speak up?’ said Julie.

  ‘She didn’t know any different.’

  ‘They must have asked how the accident happened.’

&nb
sp; ‘I told the truth, or most of it. A fall from a window. I said she was trying to hide from someone and underestimated the drop. Accidents often sound stupid when they have to be explained.’

  ‘And Rose went along with this?’

  ‘She was feeling pretty bad at the time, and was happy for me to do the talking.’

  ‘She trusted you?’

  ‘I hadn’t been unpleasant to her. What she couldn’t understand was why we didn’t go back directly to West London, where I said we lived. I’d made up a story about being on holiday with my partner and wanting to spend a few more days in Bath for his sake.’

  Diamond chipped in again, needing to press on urgently. Already they had reached the approach to Dyrham. ‘So after she had the foot plastered, you moved her to Prior Park Buildings, to another furnished flat. What about Allardyce? At which point did he start to suspect you were double-crossing him?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Emma told him. ‘He heard from somewhere that her family had collected her and she didn’t remember anything and at first he was relieved. I think it must have been the evening of the party when he got suspicious.’

  ‘Suspicious! He killed the German girl.’

  She swallowed hard. ‘Yes.’

  ‘That party. Was it really got up that night as you told me, with no planning?’

  ‘It was just as we told you. Thanks to Guy’s lucky streak we won a small prize on the lottery and our house was taken over. I was glad of the distraction, to tell you the truth. The tensions had been pretty bad in the house.’ She sighed. ‘I can’t tell you much about the poor girl who was killed except that she was behaving strangely, very inquisitive, looking into store cupboards and trying to get into the basement at one point.’

  ‘And the attic,’ Diamond enlightened her. He had long since worked out what Hildegarde had been up to that night. ‘She was looking for Rose. She didn’t speak much English, but she got about, and she was sharp-eyed. She was a witness to the kidnap attempt outside Harmer House. She tried to report it to us.’

  Emma’s eyes registered surprise.

  ‘We got a translation and filed the statement,’ he said. ‘Put it down as a scuffle in the street, unfortunately. We had the same story from Ada. They both lived in the hostel.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Later, Hildegarde thought she recognised you when you came to the hostel to collect Rose. Her suspicions were fuelled, but she didn’t have enough English to discuss it with Ada, who was the obvious person to talk to. Instead, she made the fatal mistake of doing some investigating of her own. She followed you that Saturday night when you met in the Grapes. She was a regular there, and she saw you and the others come in. She was positive she knew you this time, because Allardyce was with you. She was right about so much, but wrong in one crucial matter. She suspected you were keeping Rose at the Royal Crescent, and the chance of getting into your house was too good to miss.’

  With an insight that impressed even Julie, he was drawing together strands of the case she had not thought about until now.

  ‘At the party, she checked everywhere in the house she could imagine as a possible place where Rose was kept and finally she was left with the attic room. Allardyce had noticed her prowling around. He was worried about this woman’s strange behaviour. He noticed her looking at him suspiciously. He may have seen her previously, tracking his movements out on the streets of Bath. So when she went through the bedroom and up the stairs to the attic, he followed. Hildegarde heard him and opened the window and climbed out onto the roof. Fatal. He saw his chance to be rid of her. Pushed her off. There must have been a struggle, because one of her shoes came off – something Allardyce didn’t know until the body was found by the paper-boy. The shoe was still up on the roof. Too late to place it beside the body, he disposed of it. Only he knows where. I don’t suppose we’ll find it.’

  Julie explained, ‘He had to get rid of it after handling it. Forensic traces.’

  Diamond asked Emma, ‘Did he tell you any of this?’

  She shook her head, visibly shaken at hearing her lover’s callous conduct set out in full.

  Pitying her, he said, ‘Don’t be in any doubt. Your efforts to hide Rose saved her life.’

  But she shook her head. ‘He’ll have killed her by now.’

  They had reached the Tormarton interchange. The convoy crossed above the motorway and took the right turn that would bring them north of the village and out another mile to the Gladstone farm.

  He spoke over the radio to the other cars. This was a covert operation, he informed them. They were to switch off the beacon lights immediately. They would park on the main road opposite the farm and cut their lights, and not under any circumstances drive up the track. All personnel would assemble at the near end of the track leading to the farmhouse and await instructions.

  ‘And now pray to God our hunch is right,’ he told Julie.

  The first car drew up as instructed. Diamond ordered his own driver to stop in a position that sealed the lane. He had Emma moved to one of the other vehicles at the roadside. An officer had to be spared to guard her. That left seven, including Julie and himself.

  In a subdued voice, he issued orders. They would know at once, he said, if the suspect was present in the farmhouse because his car, a red Toyota Previa, must be in the yard. If so, it was to be disabled as a precaution, and one of the officers was deputed to do this. The others would surround the house. The suspect, Diamond went on, was not known to possess a firearm, but extreme care was to be taken. This was a potential hostage situation, complicated because the hostage was a woman whose leg was in plaster.

  They started along the mud track. Diamond had not gone more than a few steps when he spread his arms to signal a halt. His heart pumped harder. The Toyota was standing, as he had predicted, in the yard in front of the farmhouse.

  What he had failed to predict was that the engine roared, the lights came on full beam and the car raced towards them.

  Thirty-three

  Ever since she fell from the kitchen window in the St James’s Square basement and broke her ankle, Rose had been shackled, physically and mentally. The plaster was an obvious constraint; so, also, was her flawed relationship with Doreen. She was not deceived. Yes, her memory had stalled, but not her logic. She knew for certain that the whole truth about her life was being denied to her. There were times when Doreen refused point-blank to answer questions. Her actions – the daily shopping, the care for her comfort and safety – were decent, sisterly, genuine – but whenever Rose asked for more freedom, more space, Doreen was rigid and unforthcoming. She was not malicious; Rose would have detected that. But the trust was absent.

  Until this evening.

  Doreen’s entire manner had been different when she had arrived in the flat in Prior Park Buildings. Usually so well-defended, she seemed uneasy, as if her strength were undermined. When Rose had asked for the umpteenth time about her family, Doreen had spilled it out, confiding astonishing things to her. The truth was deeply distressing, so painful that she could appreciate why Doreen had delayed discussing it with her. Her father, an elderly farmer living alone, had recently been found dead with half his head blown away by a shotgun. Rose had visited the farm expecting to find him alive. The dreadful scene had affected her brain. In effect, she was denying her own existence to shut out the horror.

  She heard all this with a sense that it must be true, but still without remembering any of it. She had no recollection of being at the farm, or walking in on the bloodbath within, or what happened after. She was left emotionally drained.

  After a while, Doreen had told her other things. She had talked of the family’s unusual claim to fame, her grandfather’s discovery of the Tormarton Seax during the war. Two generations of Gladstones had resisted all requests to excavate the ground. They wanted only to be left alone to earn their living from farming. But now her father was dead, there was renewed interest in the site, even rumours that other objects had been recovered
by the family. The smiling man who had tried to abduct her was almost certainly acting on the rumours.

  Rose was white-knuckled thinking about that evil predator. Thank God Doreen had moved her to another flat. This place seemed even more tucked away than St James’s Square. Unless you knew it was here, masked by trees and up the steps from Prior Park Road, you would probably go straight past.

  Doreen had stayed with her until late. She left about ten-thirty. Afterwards, horrid images churned in Rose’s brain and she knew she would not sleep. For distraction, she switched on the TV. An old black and white film was on, with James Mason looking incredibly boyish as an Irish gunman on the run from the police. She watched it intermittently while clearing the table. Everything she did was slowed by the crutches, but she liked to be occupied, and she had insisted Doreen left the things for her to carry out.

  On about the fourth journey between kitchen and sitting-room she happened to notice two slips of paper lying on the armchair. They must have fallen out of Doreen’s pocket when she took out a tissue. At a glance they were only shop receipts. She left them there; when you depend on crutches, there is a limit to the number of things you stoop to pick up.

  She finished washing up and went back to the armchair. The film was reaching a climax. The girlfriend had found James Mason in the snow surrounded by armed police. She would surely draw their gunfire on to both of them.

  Involved in the drama, Rose gripped the underside of her thigh and her hand came into contact with one of those scraps of paper. When the film ended, Doreen’s receipts were lying in small pieces in her lap. While watching the last tragic scene she must have been shredding them. Stupid.

  They didn’t belong to her. They might have been needed for some reason.

  To make sure they were only receipts, she spread the pieces on the table and put them together, jigsaw fashion. Astra Taxis, the first said, From: Bath Stn. To: St Jas Squ. + waiting, with thanks £30. She had seen the transaction herself, watched the receipt being handed across after the drive from Harmer House to St James’s Square. Her short-term memory couldn’t be faulted.