Another One Goes Tonight

5

Georgina looked ready to unload a sackful of blame. She crooked a finger at Diamond when he arrived in the temporary CID room. Then she headed straight for the place he called the goldfish bowl and parked herself in his chair.

“Where have you been all morning?”

He glanced at his watch. “It’s not that late, is it? I was at the hospital, ma’am. Didn’t anyone tell you?”

“Your two assistants aren’t here.”

“Hard at work on their duties, Keith Halliwell at the autopsy and Ingeborg Smith with the press officer. It’s non-stop.” Diamond liked her to believe everyone was fully stretched and today it happened to be true. The Critical Care unit, the autopsy room and the press office. No one had been swanning around.

Georgina, in full battle order, was forced to abandon the charge. “And what news is there from the hospital? How is he?”

“Able to speak now.”

“Really?” Some of the disapproval vanished from her face. “Is he making sense?”

“On and off. He’s well dosed with morphine, or whatever they give them.”

“Was he able to tell you his name?”

“I didn’t ask.”

With a rasping catch of breath she was back on the attack. “That’s the first thing to find out.”

“I knew it already.”

“How is that?”

He frowned. “Have we got our wires crossed, ma’am? I’m speaking about Lew Morgan.”

“Morgan?” she said as if the injured sergeant was an alien creature. “For pity’s sake, I thought you’d been talking to the civilian you discovered. He’s our priority now. It’s not just a police car overturning. It involves a member of the public, and that’s the worst possible development.”

From the looks she was giving him, she blamed Diamond for finding the man. Would her life have been easier if the poor old coot had been left up there to rot? She probably thought so.

She was still on at him. “I thought you were telling me there was an improvement in his condition. Did you see him?”

“He’s critical. That’s the worst you can be, short of dead. They’d like to do a scan but they don’t want to unplug him.”

And now she had more worry lines than a Shar-Pei in a dog pound. “This could be catastrophic.”

“But we keep calm and carry on.”

She glared back. “Don’t try me, Peter. This investigation can be taken out of your hands.”

If only, he thought.

She shot him another reproachful look. “I’ll have to speak to Professional Standards.”

“I thought I was Professional Standards.”

“You’re their instrument. Did you say Ingeborg is with the press officer?”

“I did.” Being called an instrument was another first for Diamond and he didn’t much like it.

“Doing what?” Georgina asked.

“Issuing a statement about the man on the trike. As you were just saying, we urgently need to know who he is.”

Now her eyes bulged as if she’d swallowed her tongue. “You’re not making the information public?”

“We have to, ma’am, or we’ll never find out who he is. If he rides a trike around Bath, he must be well-known.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. The last thing we want is publicity. Don’t you ever read the newspapers? They love to run headlines about innocent people knocked down by speeding police cars.”

“We can’t pretend it didn’t happen. It’s going to get known anyway, so we might as well make it official.”

“Show me the statement you’re proposing to issue. I want to vet it first.”

“Too late for that, ma’am. It’s done and dusted. I asked Ingeborg to draft the piece and get it out as soon as possible. That was more than an hour ago. By now it’s public knowledge. The media can’t resist breaking news.”

“I’m speechless. You didn’t vet the statement before it went out?”

“I trust my team, ma’am. She’s an ex-journalist, as you know. There won’t be any grammatical errors.”

“That’s not the point, and you well know it. I wouldn’t have sanctioned this.” Georgina got up, walked to the door and looked out. “If it’s done and dusted, to use your phrase, why isn’t she back at her desk?”

“She’ll be with the press officer getting the first responses. Fingers crossed we’ll get his name shortly.”

“But at what cost? Headlines in the gutter press. I can see it already: pensioner critical after police car crash. All my efforts promoting our good name undone at a stroke. Attending countless civic functions being nice to people. I might as well give up trying.” Unable to think of a better exit-line, Georgina stomped through the CID room and out.

Events didn’t pan out as speedily as Diamond had predicted. He was told by John Wigfull, the ex-cop who had returned as their press and PR man, that Ingeborg had gone out for a coffee.

“Did she hand you the press release? Has it gone out?”

“It’s on my to-do list,” Wigfull said. “My in-tray is heaving.” Like Diamond, he never allowed anyone to think he was underemployed.

Theoretically, then, there was still a chance for Georgina to put a stop to the process.

“I didn’t hear that, John.”

“What?”

“‘On my to-do list.’ Get it on the done list before the ACC puts you in her out-tray.”

He wasn’t a detective for nothing. He found Ingeborg where he knew she would be: at Verona Coffee, their new place of escape from the police centre. He ordered a cappuccino for himself, tipped in more sugar than was good for him, asked for a triple chocolate muffin as well, and carried them to the table where his usually alert sergeant was so engrossed in the Guardian that she hadn’t seen him coming.

“Don’t tell me,” he said. “Murders are down and crimes against women are up. So what’s new?”

“Hi, guv.” She pushed the paper aside. “How was the hospital?”

“You mean, how were the patients? As expected. Lew Morgan is talking some sense and some nonsense. He’s going to lose a leg, poor guy, but I don’t think anyone has told him yet.”

“That’s awful.”

“Yes, and I’m not sure if trike man is brain dead. They don’t want me to see him.”

“Maybe it’s a coma. People can go for years like that.”

“What a comfort you are.”

“I was looking on the bright side.”

“If that’s the bright side, next time I go for coffee I’ll join John Leaman.”

“You said Lew spoke some sense. Is there anything I should hear about?”

“Not a lot. He can recall the events leading up to the crash.”

“That’s all we need to know, isn’t it?”

“Except he had his eyes closed and didn’t see how they lost control. It had been a long night turn, he said. He heard the driver say ‘Jeez!’ and opened his eyes and they were already on two wheels.”

“Imagine.”

“I can, all too easily.” Diamond’s unease in fast cars was almost a phobia. “But he was also talking about trike man, called him Sherlock fucking Holmes.”

“You just said he didn’t see anything.”

“This is where it gets confusing. He must have got a sight of the old guy in the deerstalker.”

“In that instant he opened his eyes, obviously.”

“Then he started rambling about hops.”

“Hops they make beer from?”

“I didn’t think so. I assumed he was thinking of rabbits. He said you could hear them digging their holes.”

“Rabbits? Never.”

“You’d have to be up close to hear that going on. But let’s not forget we already decided the old guy could be a wildlife enthusiast. He was carrying field glasses and a camera. Lew mentioned something else: they were heading towards Bath at a mile a night.”

“What, the rabbits?” She laughed. “Beware the bunny invasion. Where did all this come from?”

“Hallucinating, I reckon.”

“But he knew about the man on the bike.”

“Evidently. When I asked if he’d seen him in Beckford Gardens, he denied it and turned angry and accused me of trying to get inside his head. He called the sister and she saw he was upset and asked me to leave.”

“His head will be clearer next time.”

“I wouldn’t count on it, with major surgery to come.”

“Well, then”-she sat forward in her chair and made a steeple of both hands-“he must have seen trike man being catapulted in the air by the crash and his brain is suppressing it. That’s why he got angry with you, because you tried forcing him to confront the ugly reality. If Aaron Green was at fault in his driving, going too fast or not concentrating, Lew wouldn’t want it known.”

“He did say something about nutcases.”

“And we know where he wants to point the blame.”

“I welcome your ideas on this, Inge, but let’s not make up our minds before all the evidence is in. We haven’t got Dessie’s report and we don’t know much about trike man-whether he was fit to be out on the roads at night.”

“I gave the press release to John Wigfull. We’ll get some take-up shortly.”

“Let’s hope so. And by the way, Georgina Dallymore isn’t too thrilled that we went public. She thinks Bath Police will be hung out to dry by the press for injuring a harmless old man.”

“She’s right about that, only it’s better to go public now than wait for it to leak out.”

“My feelings exactly, but I just hope we get some information back. I’m in the dog house already. I know where I’ll end up if this doesn’t succeed and it won’t be fragrant.”

Keith Halliwell was back from the postmortem when they returned to the police centre. He was able to report that Aaron Green had died from compression of the heart between his sternum and his vertebral column.

“Basically,” Halliwell said, “his upper body hit the steering wheel with such force that he died at once.”

“And I bet he wasn’t wearing the seatbelt,” Ingeborg said.

“It’s not compulsory for police drivers.”

“I know that.”

“I can see the reason if you’ve made an arrest and got a suspect in the car,” Diamond said, “but it’s stupid not to use one if you’re on an emergency call.”

“They think it’s macho to go without,” Ingeborg said. “The younger guys in particular.”

“Macho? Lew Morgan was wearing his and it saved his life. He’d have been flung through the windscreen.”

“He’s still going to lose a leg,” Ingeborg said.

Halliwell shook his head. “That’s bad. I didn’t know.”

Diamond said, “I was at the hospital this morning.”

“Me, too,” Halliwell said. “I could have given you a lift.”

Diamond could tell it wasn’t meant as a dig. Halliwell came out with things like that from genuine willingness to be helpful. There was an understanding in CID that he stood in for Diamond at all postmortems. The big man was uncomfortable with dissections. But he was also self-conscious about it.

Diamond updated Halliwell on his somewhat surreal conversation with Lew Morgan. Halliwell was unable to throw any light on the matter. Rabbits, he said in his forthright way, were outside his experience. He’d seen them in the lanes around Bath but never travelling with any purpose.

“Me neither,” Diamond said. “Maybe we should put it down to the painkillers he was on.”

Before lunch, calls started coming in. The first appeal for information had been on BBC Radio Bristol and a number of Bathonians had phoned in to say that the tricyclist in the deerstalker was a well-known local character. This was a beginning, even though no one seemed to know his name or address.

“It’s only a matter of time,” Ingeborg said. “Someone will know.”

Diamond hoped so. He needed the result before the police were hammered by the headlines in next day’s papers.

So there was great relief all round when, about two-fifteen, a Mrs. Roberts from Henrietta Road called the radio station to say that the man was almost certainly one of her neighbours. Her contact details were passed to the police.

“He’s called Ivor,” she told Diamond when he phoned her. “An elderly gentleman all on his own. Lives in a big house up the road from us. All we’ve got is a two-bedroom flat. Ivor’s place is easy to spot because there’s a large workshop at the side with a corrugated-iron roof. How he got planning permission is beyond me. It doesn’t do anything for the beauty of the street. But I feel sure he must be the person they spoke about on Radio Bristol because of the deerstalker hat and the tricycle. You don’t see that too often, do you? His wife died some time towards the end of last year. And as if that isn’t enough to bear, poor man, now this happens. Will he pull through?”

“We hope so. Do you know his name?”

“I told you: Ivor.”

“The surname.”

“I can’t help you there. We don’t say Mr. this and Mrs. that. We’re friendly along here, even though some live in million-pound mansions and others more modestly, like my husband and me. He always gives us a wave as he goes by, but being on his tricycle he doesn’t stop for a chat. I heard he was an engineer before he retired.”

This checked with Dessie’s evidence that the bike was homemade and expertly welded. “How long has he lived there?”

“Quite a long time. We arrived sixteen years ago and they were here then. His wife Trixie was a dignified lady who I never once saw without a hat, rather shy, I always thought. Flat shoes and twin-sets. No make-up. But they were very close. She had an unusual shopping trolley with large wheels that I think she once said he made her. She had a beautiful funeral. Lots of flowers and a white coffin. They buried her up on Lansdown in the cemetery there.”

“Buried her? Are you sure she wasn’t cremated?”

“Absolutely. You can visit the grave. It’s very peaceful up there and she’s got a lovely headstone.”

So much for Lew Morgan’s information about Trixie’s ashes. And Ingeborg’s theory about the scattering of them.

Mrs. Roberts talked on, through his distracted thoughts. “But I was telling you Ivor was the only mourner who went from the house and only a handful came back after. Sad, really. I don’t know if they had family.”

“Have you seen him riding out early in the morning? The accident happened about six.”

“Lord help us, I’m never up as early as that. What would he be doing out at that hour?”

“We don’t know. That’s why I asked. Does he drive a car?”

“Years ago he had a beauty, one of those expensive German makes. White, it was, and he kept it beautifully clean, but I haven’t seen it for ages. He must have given up the driving when he got older. He gets about on the tricycle these days.”

Mrs. Roberts had been a useful source but she’d told him as much as he needed, so he thanked her and ended the call. Ingeborg had already found the house on Google Earth and got the number. The electoral roll gave the name of the occupier: Ivor Pellegrini. His wife Beatrix was still listed.

“Distinctive name,” Diamond said. “Stay online and see what else you can find. It would be good to get a picture, to be certain this is the right man.”

“I doubt if he’s on Facebook, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Me?”

She smiled. The boss didn’t do his networking electronically.

“But check it, by all means,” he said.

“Can we speak to the people next door? They might know more than I can get from the Internet.”

And now he grinned. “That’s a big admission, coming from you. Okay, we’ll try both. You get surfing or tweeting or whatever and I’ll visit Henrietta Road and do some old-fashioned door-stepping.”

The buildings in Henrietta Road lined one side only because one of Bath’s prized green areas was opposite. Henrietta Park, originally part of the Bathwick Estate, had been gifted to the city in 1897 by one Captain Forester to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. The Pleasure Ground Committee had arranged for the ground to be turfed and given paths and a drinking fountain. When the park opened, the villas along the west side of the triangular plot were already in place and their situation was much enhanced by the new amenity. Most had since succumbed to economic constraints and been divided into flats. As properties they were not the grandest in Bath but, as Mrs. Roberts had accurately stated, you would still need more than a million to buy a single villa outright.

She had also been right about the iron-roofed workshop. The advantage to Diamond was that no other villa had such an eyesore in front, so Ivor Pellegrini’s home was easy to spot, a handsome three-storey stone building with large sash windows and a corniced entrance with a front door painted yellow.

He left his car outside and took a closer look, starting with the workshop. Clearly the retired engineer liked to keep his hand in with some mechanical projects, but whatever was inside couldn’t be inspected. The windows were too high to see into, the door was sturdy and fitted with a lock that looked as if it would do for Lubyanka prison. A metal plaque said the building was protected by a response alarm. He spotted the bell under the overlap of the roof.

Switching his attention to the main building, he saw at once that it was fitted with CCTV-and the cameras were not dummies. Nothing remarkable in that. If you had a nice house you might well discourage intruders. He took a stroll round the side.

Unexpectedly, an upstairs window was drawn upwards and a woman looked out and said, “What are you up to?”

“Nothing to worry about, ma’am,” Diamond said. “Police officer, making enquiries about the owner of the house.”

“Oh yes?” She sounded sceptical.

“I’m right that Mr. Ivor Pellegrini lives here, am I?”

“What of it?”

“We’ve reason to believe he had an accident yesterday.”

“Oh my God. What happened?”

“Are you related to him?”

“Me?” Her voice shrilled in denial. “I’m only the cleaner. I come in twice a week. Nobody told me he was hurt. Is it bad?”

“Before I answer that I’d like to be sure we’re talking about the same man. Does Mr. Pellegrini ride a tricycle and wear a deerstalker hat?”

“He does.”

“And is there anything to show he’s been home in the last twenty-four hours?”

“He hasn’t,” she said. “The bed hasn’t been slept in and I found two days’ letters and papers on the doormat when I let myself in.”

“You have a front door key?”

“It’s all above board. I’ve been doing for him and his late wife for the best part of ten years. What’s happened to the poor man, then? How bad was this accident?”

“Let me in and I’ll tell you.”

She was Mrs. Tessa Halliday, from Fairfield Park on the northern outskirts, he learned when she had shown him through a carpeted entrance hall into a kitchen almost as big as the new CID room at the police centre. Old-fashioned in style, with a built-in dresser and walk-in pantry, it even had a servant bell box. But the Aga was modern and so were the double-door fridge, dishwasher, hob and hood.

He told her about the accident but without saying a police car had been involved or that Pellegrini had lain unconscious and unnoticed for three hours. Even so, he left her in no doubt that her employer was critically ill and unable to receive visitors.

In turn, she told Diamond that the Pellegrinis-she called them Ivor and Trixie-had lived in Bath most of their married life. They were a devoted couple, regular churchgoers and wholly upright citizens. Ivor had held a senior position with Horstman’s, one of Bath’s main employers, at their Newbridge works, before the factory closed and was moved to Bristol. Then he’d taken on consultancy work for a number of local firms.

“I know where Horstman’s used to be,” Diamond said. “Just up the road from where I live in Lower Weston. Good firm, good reputation. Is engineering what he does in the workshop?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” she said.

“You don’t go in there to clean?”

She shook her head. “I’m not even sure Trixie was allowed in there. It’s his holy of holies.”

“He doesn’t go in there to say his prayers, by all accounts. I heard he made her a shopping trolley and we think the tricycle was homemade as well.”

“He’s clever with his hands. Is that what you call engineering, then?”

“I would say so.”

“I thought it was just engines and that.”

“This is a sensitive question but I’d like you to try and answer it. Have you noticed anything different about Mr. Pellegrini’s behaviour since his wife died?”

“What do you mean? Of course he’s different and so would you be.”

That raw nerve twitched. He didn’t inform her how right she was, that he, too, was a widower, deeply scarred by his loss. “He was out on the roads on his tricycle in the small hours of the night. Is he mentally okay?”

She looked surprised. “In the night? Why would he do that?”

“My question, exactly. Eccentric, is he?”

She frowned and thought before answering. “I suppose you might get that impression because of the clothes he wears, but people wear all sorts these days, don’t they? There isn’t anything wrong with his brain, if that’s what you’re asking. If he went out at night there must have been a good reason.”

“Do you know if he likes a drink or two?”

“Nothing alcoholic, that’s for sure. They both had strict views about that.”

“Does he have family-anyone we should notify?”

“I can’t think of anyone. I went to Trixie’s funeral and there weren’t any family there, just a few of us from Bath who knew her, some people from the church and some neighbours from long ago. It’s sad, but they were a close couple and didn’t mix much.”

“One last thing,” he said. “Is there a photo of Ivor anywhere about the house? I’d like to make absolutely sure he’s the man who had the accident.”

There was a nice one in the library, she said, and led him upstairs to an even larger room where the two longest walls were lined with books and each had one of those rolling ladders attached to a track for reaching the top shelves. He couldn’t resist moving one along a short way.

“Runs well.”

“All his own work,” she said. “Is that engineering as well?”

“Definitely.”

The end walls were used to display pictures, mostly of steam trains. He’d already noticed several shelves of books about railways. “He’s a train enthusiast, then?”

Her mouth twitched into a slow smile. “He’s a man.”

“I expect it’s more than collecting numbers in his case,” Diamond said. “He’ll know how they work.”

“The only thing that interests me is will they go on time,” Mrs. Halliday said. “The photo is up the other end.”

He was prepared for this but he still felt his flesh prickle. It was of Ivor at the wheel of an open-top sports car in his younger days, darker and with more hair, but definitely trike man. All doubt was removed: this was the accident victim.

He gave her the bad news.

“That’s awful,” she said. “What will happen now?”

He shrugged.

“Is he going to die?”

“They’ll do all they can to keep him alive.” He looked at the picture again. “Does he do any driving these days, or does he only use the trike?”

“He gave up some time back. He has an account with a taxi firm for longer trips.”

The doorbell rang.

“Who’s that?” Mrs. Halliday said.

She’d asked a question Diamond himself wanted answered. “Let’s see.”

He was down those stairs quicker than hell would scorch a feather.

He opened the front door to a smiling woman holding a plate with something on it covered in tinfoil. But the smile changed to drop-jaw surprise. “I was expecting Ivor. Who on earth are you?”

He told her and said, “I’m afraid he’s in hospital.”

“Really?” Her face creased in concern. “What’s wrong? I’m Elspeth Blake from the church. We do a bit of baking for him since his wife died.”

“A road accident. He was knocked off his bike.”

Mrs. Halliday piped up in support from somewhere behind him. “They didn’t know who he is. I was able to show the officer his picture. What have you cooked for him, Elspeth?”

“A quiche Lorraine,” Elspeth Blake said. “Perhaps I should take it to the hospital.”

Diamond explained that Pellegrini was too unwell to enjoy a quiche. “Is it still warm? Smells good.”

Mrs. Halliday said, “The best thing we can do is let it cool and put it in the freezer for when he comes home.”

“I don’t think so,” Elspeth Blake said, friendly but firm. “I can easily make him something fresh when he’s better again.”

Unlikely, going by the look of him this morning, Diamond thought. Pity to let a good quiche go unappreciated. “A not-so-old person might appreciate it while it’s still warm-or three not-so-old people. It’s my lunchtime. Is it yours, ladies?” He watched for a positive reaction.

Never tangle with a lady on a mission of goodwill. She laughed-and there was real amusement in the laugh-yet she backed away a step. “I hope you’re joking. They’ll be happy to take it at Julian House.”

Impossible to go into competition with Bath’s shelter for the homeless. “If you like I can deliver it for you,” he offered without any ulterior motive. “I’m going that way shortly.”

She gave a smile and a knowing look that said nice try but no chance. She was an attractive redhead in her forties with eyes that glittered behind tinted green-rimmed glasses and anyone would think he’d suggested something far more lewd. “Thanks, but that won’t be necessary. I’m going that way myself. Where is Ivor, in the Royal United?”

The question seemed to suggest Diamond might have been making it up about poor Ivor’s plight. His try for the quiche had turned him into a con artist in her eyes. “Critical care. It isn’t possible to visit.”

“We’ll pray for him then.”

“Good plan.”

Elspeth and the appetising quiche left the scene.

He closed the door. “I didn’t handle that very well, did I?” he said to Mrs. Halliday. “I thought we were in for a tasty lunch.”

“She had other ideas.”

“More’s the pity. Smelt really good to me. Would you have had a slice if it was offered?”

She didn’t admit to it right away. Finally, without a smile, she said, “Possibly.”

Not the conspiratorial pact he was trying for. Undeterred, he asked the question he’d been leading up to. “Is there a key to the workshop? I’d like to see inside.”

“He keeps it to himself,” she said. “I wouldn’t know where to look. I must get on. There’s a lot more to do.”

“I’ll take a chair to stand on and see if I can look through the windows.”

She gave him a suspicious look. “What do you want to do that for? You know who he is.”

“Yes, but I don’t know why he was out in the small hours of the night.” He returned to the kitchen and found a high stool that was probably used to reach the top shelves. After missing out on the quiche he wasn’t going to be denied again. He took the stool outside and positioned it under one of the workshop windows.

He wasn’t prepared for what he saw. On a shelf directly under the window were three terracotta-coloured plastic containers that he recognised as cremation urns.