Another One Goes Tonight

17

“Why exactly am I doing this?” Keith Halliwell asked nobody in particular towards the end of the day. He hadn’t struck gold with any of the local care agencies. He hadn’t struck anything at all, but he soon would, the way he felt. He was still trying to trace Jessie the housekeeper, giving Cyril’s name and address, and getting more frustrated with each call.

Then he spoke to someone who put yet another doubt in his head. “The person you’re looking for may not have gone through an agency. She could have been freelance.”

He stepped into Diamond’s office.

“Guv, I’m wondering if there’s an easier way.”

“What’s that?”

“Going back to the village and knocking on doors.”

“You’re serious?”

“All the hours I’ve spent on this already, I could have driven to Little Langford and back several times over. Cyril was an outgoing guy. The locals must have known him and they probably knew Jessie as well.”

Diamond saw the sense in what his deputy was saying. He, too, doubted whether it was worth spreading the net any wider. Local knowledge might be the key. “You’ll be on your own, I’m afraid. When will you go-tomorrow morning?”

“That’s my plan.”

“Right. Get the local map on your screen,” he said, to demonstrate his computer know-how. “I’ll show you where the cottage is.”

Halliwell grinned. “No need. I can use the satnav.”

“Okay-be like that.”

“If I see Cyril’s niece Hilary is it any use asking her?”

Diamond shook his head. “She’s not local and she doesn’t know Jessie’s surname. Talk to her by all means, but take my advice and don’t offer to move the furniture.”

That evening, Paloma came to the house and gave him a back massage.

“You may need to see a chiropractor,” she said.

“I don’t hold with that sort of thing.”

“You don’t have to do the holding. They hold you. It’s your spine that’s hurting, isn’t it? That’s their speciality. What I’m doing is superficial. It has no lasting effect.”

“Wrong. I’m feeling better by the second.”

“Until you try and sit up. What have you got against chiropractors? Don’t tell me you’d rather suffer than get help.”

“The body cures itself eventually.”

“Why ask me for a massage, then?”

“That’s different. You take away all the stresses of the day. Magic hands. Shall I turn over now?”

“I’m working on your lower back. If you’re looking for some other kind of massage, go to someone else and pay for it.” Her tone softened. “Are you really under stress?”

“Remember the Fortuny gown?”

“How could I forget? That’s my idea of magic. Have you solved the mystery yet?”

“I thought I had.”

“But something isn’t right? Hence the stress?”

“You’ve got it. I’m struggling. Most of my theories are falling apart. I realise I’ve done too much theorising and not enough solid detective work. But it’s like no case I’ve ever worked on. For one thing it’s unofficial. Keith and Ingeborg are helping, but no one else knows what’s going on. And the main suspect is on life support and there’s a shortage of witnesses.”

“Can’t you make it official?”

“Georgina would go spare. The Independent Police Complaints Commission are with us trying to work out whether Pellegrini-he’s my suspect-was injured through a driver error or some other mistake on our part. He’s painted as the victim, you see.”

“If he’s as badly injured as you say, he is a victim.”

“Yes and deserving of all our sympathy-which makes me a right shit for even thinking he’s a killer.”

“I wouldn’t call you that.”

“Plenty of others would. I can’t possibly go public.”

“I can see the difficulty. And you say there are problems with your original theory?”

“Large holes.”

“Do you want to tell me-strictly in confidence?”

He hesitated. He’d often discussed cases with his late wife, Steph, and she’d sometimes pointed him in a fresh direction that made all the difference. By mutual consent, his relationship with Paloma was not so close, leaving space for them to lead independent lives. It came down to trust. She’d already helped with her expert advice about the Fortuny gowns. She’d said “strictly in confidence”-volunteered it-and he believed she meant it.

“It would help to go back to what I know for sure. Thanks to you, I know where the three gowns came from.”

“The house in Cavendish Crescent?”

“Right. And of course I know where they ended up.”

“In your suspect’s workshop? You told me that much.”

“Did I tell you what else I found in that workshop?”

“More garments?” Her fingertips pressed into his flesh at the thought.

“A printout from some online forum on the subject of murder methods.” He felt her interest lessen. “All sorts of so-called clever ways of committing the perfect murder. I wouldn’t have thought much of it, but people around him were dying, too many to be normal. On the face of it they were natural deaths, none of them queried by the coroner. Four elderly men he knew because they shared his interest in railways, his own wife and the wife of one of the others-who originally owned the Fortuny gowns. And since then, I’ve learned of yet another. This was a man who used to visit Cavendish Crescent to play Scrabble. That’s seven in a little over two years.”

“That’s a lot, I agree.”

“Too many. But the death certificates tell a different story. One dies of flu, another of an aneurysm, pneumonia, narrowing of the arteries, one has a fall. There’s no pattern. Finding this out has rocked my confidence. Some of them may be innocent deaths. All of them, even. They’re all old people anyway.”

“You’re not convinced?”

“He’s an engineer by training, a clever man. Has he worked out his own way of fooling everyone?”

“Why? Why would he want to kill all these people?”

“I’ve thought long and hard about motive. The theft of the gowns suggests murder for gain, but what did he plan to do with the gowns? Sell them on? I don’t think so.”

“Neither do I,” Paloma said. “They’re works of art, like a Rembrandt or a Van Gogh. Put them on sale and keenos like me will want to know their provenance.”

“Just what I’m thinking. Anyway, he’s not short of money. I suspect they’re trophies, proof of his success. He gets his kicks from killing in some brilliant way he thinks is undetectable. When each death is registered as different from any of the others he’s not going to get found out.”

“What about the doctors?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The doctors named on the death certificates. Is one medic signing them all, by any chance?”

“Good thinking,” he said. “But no, each one is different.”

Paloma was using some kind of oil. She poured more into the palm of her hand. “If this is killing for the sense of achievement, I don’t understand why he takes the risk of stealing things as well. That’s not smart.”

“He’s a collector. I don’t know if I told you his workshop is filled with bits of railway junk that he’s acquired over the years. That’s his hobby-although I’d call it a compulsion really.”

“And you think he’s collecting murders?”

“Possibly. And for each successful killing he keeps a trophy of some kind. It started with cremation urns. He has three of them lined up on a shelf. They’re decorated with pictures of steam engines and the names of the victims.”

“It sounds more like a shrine than a trophy shelf. How did he acquire the pots?”

“I’m not telling it right. His railway club had an arrangement that when each one died his ashes would be scattered somewhere along the track. My suspect took on the job and that’s how he finished up with the empty pots.”

“Doesn’t necessarily mean he murdered them, does it?”

“You’re right,” he said. “Keith Halliwell agrees with you. I’ve got doubts myself since we discovered they were signed off as dying naturally and from all these different causes. Have I constructed a murder theory out of nothing? But there’s another twist.”

“What’s that?”

“The latest death.”

“The Scrabble player?”

“Yes. Cyril isn’t from Bath. He lived in a village near Salisbury and his body was found there six weeks ago. Died in his sleep… apparently. He was over ninety, but a lively ninety. He gave a very good tribute speech at Filiput’s funeral last year. I drove to his cottage the day before yesterday expecting to meet him. Instead I met his niece, who was clearing the rooms. That’s how I did my back, trying to give her a hand.”

“And root out more information, no doubt.”

“Well, yes. What I got was several shocks. This charming old man had been a compulsive gambler, deep in debt. And a thief. We found an antique necklace hidden in a mattress and I’ve since confirmed it was one of a number of pieces of jewellery stolen from Filiput’s house. Originally they belonged to Olga, the owner of the Fortuny gowns.”

“This Cyril was stealing to fund his gambling?”

“Or to pay off debts. Some very unpleasant people were asking him to settle.”

“Poor old man. He must have been desperate. At his age, pressure like that would be enough to bring on a heart attack.”

Diamond tried turning his head to see if she was teasing, but he couldn’t twist enough to tell. “Maybe.”

“You didn’t say that with any conviction. Is there something else I should be told?”

“Only this: shortly before his death, Cyril had a visitor. Pellegrini took a taxi all the way from Bath, stayed under half an hour and left without saying much at all.”

“No,” she said, making the short word long by rolling it in her throat before adding, “You’re not serious?”

“It’s true.”

“How do you know this?”

“You’ve got to appreciate that I’m out to nail this man. I figured that if he murdered Cyril, he must have needed transport. We traced the driver who made a trip from Bath to Little Langford that night.”

“Top marks. Did Pellegrini give his name and address?”

“He’s too smart for that. He picked a cab from the rank at Orange Grove outside the Abbey rather than having it fetch him from his house. At the end of the evening, he asked to be put down in the same place and he paid in cash. He has an account with one of the big taxi fleets but that night he didn’t use them.”

“How can you be sure this man was Pellegrini?”

“The driver picked him out from a group photo.”

Silence filled the next few seconds while Paloma continued to work on his back, weighing the significance of all he’d told her. “You’ve got a strong case. Are you suggesting this was the night Cyril died?”

“It was. We confirmed it.”

“This is your smoking gun, Peter.”

“Not quite. There are problems with it. While the driver was waiting outside the cottage, another car drove up and a woman got out: Jessie, the housekeeper.”

“Cyril had a housekeeper?” she said with surprise. “How could he afford her?”

“Thanks to his late wife, Winnie. She was a smart lady with a secretarial business in London worth millions. When she made her will she set up a trust and one of its provisions was a salary for a housekeeper for the rest of Cyril’s life. She must have known he was hopeless with money.”

“Enter Jessie.”

“She wasn’t the first. She was the latest in a long line of carers. She lived in and did her best to look after him-the shopping and the cooking, driving him about and so forth.”

“And trying to discourage the gambling? Tough call.”

“It would be.”

“You said she returned to the cottage while Pellegrini was inside with Cyril?”

“That’s my first problem. If Pellegrini was there to murder Cyril, Jessie walked straight in on them.”

“Could he have murdered them both?”

“No chance. She was a reasonably fit, middle-aged woman. Besides, the only corpse found in the cottage was Cyril’s. And there’s the question of her car. If she was dead, it would have remained outside.”

“Did Pellegrini know of Jessie’s existence?”

“Certainly. They met at the funeral.”

“So if he made that trip to Little Langford with the purpose of putting an end to Cyril’s life, he must have factored in Jessie?”

“I’m sure of it. He’s a meticulous planner. He may have spoken to Cyril on the phone and said he wanted to see him alone. Jessie went out but returned early.”

“You need to interview this woman.”

“Problem two,” he said. “Jessie has vanished. She hasn’t been seen since Cyril died.”

“When you say ‘vanished’…?”

“I’m being melodramatic. We haven’t been able to trace her.”

“Have you made a TV appeal?”

“I can’t. It’s not an official investigation. It’s just Ingeborg, Keith and me working our butts off.”

“From what I can see from here,” Paloma said, “you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Cruel!”

“But you do need to find Jessie.”

“Tell me about it. Keith spent most of today phoning round the care agencies. First thing tomorrow he’s off to Little Langford to question the neighbours.”

“This is a mystery in itself,” she said. “What do you think happened inside the cottage when she walked in?”

“Nothing dramatic. Cyril was still alive. He died later in bed, apparently of a heart attack. This was the MO-the modus operandi. Each of the victims dies in bed. My best guess is that Pellegrini used some form of drug with a delayed reaction of an hour or so. The two old men had a drink together. Have you heard of a Mickey Finn?”

“Some kind of knock-out pill?”

“A century ago when the term was invented they used chloral hydrate, but there are modern sleepers that are more effective and more lethal. Temazepam is the best known. After half an hour or so he’d feel drowsy and if he was given enough he wouldn’t wake up.”

“Wouldn’t it show in the blood?”

“Who’s going to order a postmortem? These are elderly people dying in their sleep. This is my current thinking, anyway. To come back to what happened, Cyril has his doctored drink and is ready for bed when Jessie comes in. Pellegrini helps rinse the glasses and leaves. Next morning Cyril doesn’t get up.”

“You make it sound terrifyingly simple.”

“The clever murders are.”

“So Pellegrini got into his taxi and left them to it?”

“Job done.”

The skin she had massaged was glowing pleasantly. He was getting drowsy himself. Paloma covered him with a quilt and went to wash her hands.

He wasn’t sure how much time had gone by when he heard her making coffee.

“Any improvement?” she asked when she arrived with the tray.

“Vast.”

“Don’t sit up suddenly. Easy does it.”

When he was propped against the pillows, she said, “Your Mickey Finn theory is persuasive but there’s one thing you didn’t explain.”

“What’s that?”

“Why he did it.”

He added sugar to his coffee. “The best I can think of is this: Cyril and Pellegrini were both taking advantage of their mutual friend Max, stealing valuable items from the house. And I know from Max’s doctor that the old man had some suspicion this was going on. He was becoming confused towards the end of his life and he may have thought he’d put things away in places he’d forgotten, but it worried him enough to speak to the doctor. Are you with me?”

Paloma nodded.

“Now Cyril was his oldest friend and they spent afternoons together playing Scrabble. It’s not unlikely that Max confided the same worries to Cyril, not realising he was talking to one of the thieves. And he may have gone so far as to say the Fortuny gowns weren’t stored in the place he remembered putting them and he wondered if someone had taken them. Cyril would surely ask who he suspected and Max would say it was one of his railway friends called Ivor.”

“I can see where this is going,” Paloma said. “Cyril would seize on the chance of blackmail. He meets Pellegrini at the funeral and decides he’ll put the screws on him-not realising he’s dealing with a killer.”

Not for the first time, Diamond was impressed by her clarity of thought. “The events dovetail neatly. The funeral marks the end of Cyril’s stealing. Everything is taken over by the executors, listed and locked away. One steady source of income has dried up, but blackmailing Pellegrini is a new opportunity.”

“Wicked old man.”

“It didn’t help him, did it? He was up against a master criminal.”

“I don’t know why you’re so uneasy about it all,” she said. “You seem to have it buttoned up.”

He shook his head. “None of this will stand up in court. I need evidence and witnesses.”

“You’ve got the gown.”

“I returned it to the workshop.”

“Well, you know where it is. You can go there any time. Have you still got the stolen necklace?”

“I have, but it incriminates Cyril, not Pellegrini. And Cyril is dead.”

“What about the printout from the workshop-the murder forum? You have that still?”

“I do. But it proves nothing, except an interest in criminology, as any lawyer would point out in court.”

“A morbid interest.”

“Plenty of people like to read about such things.”

“I know,” she said. “I’ve looked along your bookshelves. But you’re a professional. You need to know about this stuff. A retired engineer doesn’t.”

“You can’t convict on people’s interests,” he said. “Pellegrini is no more culpable than all the people who contributed to the forum. Less so, if he simply reads the stuff and doesn’t join in. We can’t even prove it was downloaded to his computer.”

“When he comes out of the coma, he’ll have plenty of questions to answer.”

“If he comes out of the coma.”

“That’s defeatist talk I don’t expect to hear from you, Peter Diamond.”

His mobile phone rang. He’d left it in the hall by the front door.

“Do you want me to get it?” Paloma asked.

“Don’t bother. It’ll be some cold call.”

“Do you get them this late? I don’t.”

“Not usually, but I’ve known it to happen.”

“Could be an urgent call from the police.”

“Yes, and I could be out walking the dog.”

“You don’t have a dog.”

“The neighbour’s dog, then. If it’s important, they’ll try again.”

The ringing stopped.

“Where were we?” Paloma asked.

“Defeatist talk.”

“Yes, you were saying Pellegrini might never come out of the coma, but even if that’s the case, the truth about his crimes needs exposing.”

“Sorry to disillusion you,” he said, “but we drop the investigation when there’s no one to prosecute.”

She frowned. “You mean they’re the winners if they die first?”

“In a sense they are. We can’t collar Cyril for stealing the jewellery. He gets away with it. All we do is make a note on file that he was the main suspect.”

“And what if he was the killer? Is that the end of all interest as far as the police are concerned?”

“Cyril the killer? That’s a new angle.”

“For argument’s sake, I mean.”

But Diamond was already running with this fresh idea. “He was desperate enough to kill. Bath’s lowlife were issuing threats. But I can’t see how it would help him to have Max dead. That’s killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.”

“I wasn’t serious.”

“I am. We can’t rule out anything. Let’s not forget Max was getting suspicious about the jewellery disappearing. How do we know he didn’t confront Cyril and accuse him of being the thief?”

“Max died in bed,” Paloma said.

“I’m not suggesting they came to blows. It’s the same MO, some slow-acting knockout drug. Cyril was on Temazepam for his insomnia. He was already out of his mind with worry about Larry Lincoln demanding payment.”

Seeing it now, she took over. “To cap it all, Max-pathetic old scatterbrain that he is-works out what’s happening and threatens to blow the whistle on him. The thieving has to stop.”

“Exactly. What do you do with a goose that stops laying? You kill it.”

“So you’re stymied,” she said.

“Why?”

“If Cyril is the killer and he’s dead there’s no one to prosecute. Case closed.”

The phone rang again, except this time it was the landline beside his bed. If this was the same caller, they had to be someone who knew him well.

“What time is it?”

“Almost ten,” Paloma said. “You’d better pick it up.”

“Guv?” The voice was Ingeborg’s and she sounded excited. “Sorry to trouble you this late. I thought you might like to know I found something tonight on Pellegrini’s hard disk.”

“Great!”

“I’ve been checking his files all day. It’s why I wasn’t in. You got my message, I hope? I needed to work alone.”

“What have you found, Inge?”

The words came in a torrent. “A file in a place where you wouldn’t go looking for it, among the administrative tools. It’s clearly been put there for a reason. It doesn’t even have a name, just a number, and it’s been stored among about ten others with numbers, but they must be a distraction for this one to hide among. They’re mostly empty or have a jumble of letters and numbers that he’s typed in at random.”

“You’re talking to a computer dummy, Inge.”

“I’m trying to use simple language, guv.”

“Just tell me what’s on the file.”

“I can’t. It’s encrypted.”

“Great.” This time he spoke the word ironically.

“But I can tell it’s nothing like the extraneous stuff. There’s something there for sure. Solid information that he’s gone to a lot of trouble to hide using an encryption tool that employs algorithms.”

“Can you decrypt it-if that’s the word?”

“It’s well beyond my level of competence but the data forensics unit could surely crack it.”

He sighed. “I can’t use police people, Inge. I’d have to explain what it was for and Georgina would be on my back straight away.”

“That’s a pain. Wouldn’t one of them do it unofficially?”

“I don’t know any of them well enough to ask a favour. They’re not my choice of drinking companions. We soon run out of things to talk about. They might respond to you, the blokes, I mean. In fact, I’m certain they would.”

Mistake.

“Don’t start me off,” she warned him. “You ought to know by now I’m not going down that route.”

He felt the sting of her disapproval down the phone line.

Rapid rethink. “Before computers took over the world we used to have a young guy called Alex who dealt with the queries. This would have been before your time. He was red-hot, and he was at least nine parts human.”

“Did he give up?”

“He was transferred to another station and I heard later he couldn’t take any more, so he left.”

“A personality clash?”

“The nature of the work. Not many last long as police geeks these days. They’re forced to spend most of their time trawling through sickening footage of child porn, rape and every kind of extreme sexual behaviour and if they can’t stand that they find themselves doing counter-terrorism-torture and beheadings. Alex jacked it in for some kind of job outside the police. Industrial espionage, I think. But I’m sure I can track him down and see if this interests him. He’s discreet.”

“He’ll want a fee, no doubt.”

“I’ll deal with that. Bring in the box of tricks tomorrow and we can see if we get lucky.”

Paloma had stepped out of the room while the call was going on. She returned wearing her jacket. “Was it a call worth taking?”

“It was. We could be on the verge of a breakthrough.”

“Don’t get carried away,” she said. “Normal life goes on. I just opened a tin for Raffles. He was hungry.”

“He was fooling you. He had his supper two hours ago. He’ll get overweight.”

“Look who’s talking.” She zipped up her jacket.

“Aren’t you staying the night?” he asked.

“With a back patient? You’re joking.”

T oday I’m rather pleased with myself. A situation has arisen giving me the chance to insure my secrets against discovery. It’s the conjuror’s trick of misdirection, simple, but effective. The nice thing is that I am uniquely placed to pull this off. I’ve baited the trap and we’ll see if it works. No worry if it doesn’t.