Another One Goes Tonight

8

Paloma Kean was Peter Diamond’s close friend, close enough to be intimate sometimes. But to call them lovers or partners wasn’t right. They slept with each other when it suited and the feeling between them was warm and affectionate. Until her divorce, Paloma had been in an abusive relationship and she valued Diamond’s respect for her. Although no one in their wildest dreams could describe him as romantic, he was strongly appreciative of her and he could be amusing, qualities that met her needs. On his side, there would always be the memory of his late wife, Steph, the one love of his life. He wasn’t looking for anyone to replace Steph and never would, but he liked the company of women and Paloma was attractive, intelligent and forgiving. As long as she would tolerate his rough edges, he was more than happy to share her company and sometimes her bed.

This afternoon, he made clear, he wanted her professional opinion. She had a successful business providing fashion information for film and TV companies. Her collection of images of historical costume was unmatched anywhere. If researchers needed to know about anything from bustles to bustiers she could supply online illustrations and information within minutes. Just about every TV costume drama in the past decade had benefited from Paloma’s expertise.

“Where did you nick that from?” was her first question on seeing the coil of pale silk he’d brought with him.

“I’d rather not say, but I need your opinion.”

With care, she unfurled the gown, shook it gently and held it at full length in front of her before draping it over her arm to examine the fixings.

“These are Murano beads, the best.”

“Is that a clue?”

She didn’t answer. She was examining the faded lettering Ingeborg had noticed along a seam close to the beads.

“We’re going to my office. I want to see this on a mannequin. If it’s what I think it is, an original, you’d better have a good explanation.” She was half playful, half suspicious of his conduct.

“Original as in handmade, you mean?” he said as he followed her upstairs.

“I mean a lot more than that.”

In the studio was what he would have called a dressmaker’s dummy, a headless female torso shape on a stand. As delicately as if she was handling spider threads, Paloma gathered the fabric and arranged it over the mannequin’s shoulders, letting it slip into the shape of the dress, weighted by the glass beads. She stepped back. “Isn’t that the most exquisite creation you’ve ever set eyes on?”

“I’m not the best judge.”

“Come on, Peter. Anyone can see it’s a classic. Is there another piece-a cape, a jacket?”

“I don’t think so. This is all there is.” He hesitated, the professional detective in him reluctant to volunteer information unless it brought a return. But this was Paloma, he reminded himself, and he was her sometime lover seeking advice. “Where this came from are two other gowns in different colours.”

Her eyes switched to full-beam. “You’re not serious?”

“Would I lie to you?”

“What have you done, you wicked man-raided the Fashion Museum?”

“An engineer’s workshop.”

“Get away.”

“True. I left the others stuffed in plastic pots, as this was.”

“You mean twisted into skeins?”

“Yes.”

“It wouldn’t do them any harm. They were often carried in small hatboxes. This is made from a single sheet of silk and the pleating is a legend in the rag trade, a secret process that died with the designer. Have you heard of Mariano Fortuny?”

He shook his head.

“I didn’t think you would have,” she said. “He didn’t murder anyone.”

That was below the belt but he was too interested to protest.

Paloma told him, “He was a genius from Spain who could turn his hand to anything creative. Funny you should have mentioned engineering, because Fortuny made his reputation as a lighting engineer in the early years of the last century, inventing new methods of stage lighting that were adopted by most of the great theatres and opera houses of Europe. The fashion was a secondary interest, but he married a dressmaker and she had a huge influence. They bought a palazzo in Venice and Fortuny used his analytical skills to revolutionise the preparation of silk fabric, in particular the dyes, using luminous colours and vertical pleating no one has ever matched. He became the designer every woman of taste would kill for. The man himself could have excelled at anything-painting, photography, architecture-and he hated being known only for the dresses he made.”

“And this is definitely one of them?”

“I’m certain it is, his Delphos gown, about a hundred years old and inspired by classical sculpture, the pleated robe worn by the charioteer of Delphi. There was a time in the twenties when all the great ladies of the theatre insisted on being seen in a gown like this. I could show you pictures of Sarah Bernhardt, Eleonora Duse, Isadora Duncan, all in their Fortuny dresses.”

“So it could be a valuable item?”

“At auction, anything up to ten thousand pounds.”

His lips vibrated softly. “Because of the rarity value?”

“And the fact that any woman will look incredible in it.” Paloma herself seemed mesmerised. The simple act of turning her eyes away was clearly difficult. “What’s going on, Peter?”

“Long story,” he said, and at once made clear that she wasn’t about to hear it. “A mystery asking to be solved-which is why I’m here. If a dress like this is as special as you say, experts like you must know about it. Is there any chance you can tell me its owner?”

She shook her head.

“I was hoping you could point me in the right direction.”

“But you haven’t even told me where it comes from. A workshop could be anywhere.”

“A private address in Bath.”

“Is that where they belong?”

“An open question.”

“I know of several in the Fashion Museum at the Assembly Rooms but I doubt if this came from there. You said there are two more. Fortuny gowns are masterpieces, Peter. They don’t often come on the market, even at the great auction houses.”

“Some well-known collector?”

“Not all collectors care to be well known. You say the gowns are shut away in a workshop. Are you thinking they’re stolen?”

“I can’t say for certain but I have my suspicions.”

“Well, they’re easy to coil up and take away, but a thief would find it difficult to sell them on, or fence them, or whatever the expression is. Have you checked the police computer to see if they are listed?”

“Not yet. I only found them this afternoon.”

She smoothed her fingers between the narrow seams for the pure pleasure of the touch. “Some people aren’t interested in making money. They’re the ones the tenth commandment was written for.”

“Was it?” Long time since he’d looked at the Ten Commandments.

“Thou shalt not covet.”

“I remember now: thy neighbour’s ox.”

“And a few other things, such as his house, wife, manservant, maidservant.”

“And you’re thinking a Fortuny dress might be coveted by someone?”

“By every woman who ever saw one.”

“But this is an old man, retired engineer, living alone.”

“Old men have their memories. Is he married?”

“Was, until his wife’s death last November, and she wasn’t interested in fashion.”

“A mistress, then?”

Caught unprepared, he gave it a moment’s thought first. “I could be mistaken but he doesn’t seem the sort. Railways are his secret passion. He has a toy train layout in the workshop.”

She laughed. “I’m with you, then. I doubt if he’s a ladies’ man. Can’t you question him about the dresses?”

“He’s in the RUH, on life support.”

Paloma nodded. “I’m starting to understand. Was he attacked?”

“I’d rather not go into that,” he said. “So can’t you give me any pointers as to how three Fortuny gowns ended up in Bath?”

She smiled. “I could insist on seeing the others before I give an opinion. In truth, I don’t know. If you like I can call Denise, my contact at the Fashion Museum, but I’d better warn you. She’s highly excitable. Just the mention of Fortuny will send her into ecstasy. She’ll demand all the details.”

“She can’t have them.” He’d been invaded by this image of a hyped-up Denise telling the whole of Bath about Pellegrini’s double life.

“Fine,” Paloma said. “You’re probably right.”

And yet… was he turning down the only chance of a breakthrough? The people at the Fashion Museum were more likely than anyone to know about collectors of rare and valuable items. “Is there any way you could get her opinion without actually saying we found these dresses?”

“Not easy. She’d be quick to pick up on anything like that.”

“But you…”

“You want me to try after all? All right.” She picked up the phone. “Would you like to speak to her yourself?”

“Christ, no.”

She smiled. “The look on your face.” Then, as the call was answered, she turned away from him and started speaking into the phone. He could hear only her end of the conversation. “Denise? How are you doing? It’s been far too long.” There followed some chat about a trip to Paris, a frustrating wait until she said, “I’m calling on behalf of a friend who’s trying to trace a person from this area with some extremely rare fashion items and I know you have contacts with people who loan things for special exhibitions. Can you think of anyone who specialises in Fortuny?… That’s what I said, but no, darling, nothing is being offered for sale. If it was, I’d tell you… Absolutely not. You’d be the first to know, I promise, cross my heart and hope to die…”

Diamond listened in awe of Paloma’s convincing rationale.

“I’m not explaining this very well… Yes, I did say Fortuny and there’s nothing, I repeat nothing, you should know… Actually my contact is a man.” She swivelled her chair and eyed Diamond.

He gave an encouraging smile.

She smiled back and seemed to take wicked delight in watching him as she said, “A rather sad guy who was adopted and is trying to trace his real parents and the only information he has is that one of them lives locally and owned some Fortuny gowns… That’s the thing. He has no idea, poor lamb. Definitely on the level, yes. A thought like that hasn’t crossed his mind, I’m certain. If you could only point him in the right direction, it will make his day, his year… You can? Well, that’s brilliant!”

Diamond leaned forward, eager not to miss a syllable. He’d already forgiven the bit about the sad guy.

“You’re better placed than anybody. You’ve got to be right. There can’t be any others in Bath. We both know you can’t get them for love nor money… Very rich? Well, they’d have to be… Cavendish Crescent? I know it… But how public-spirited. When people who possess beautiful things are willing to allow others to appreciate them it restores one’s faith in humanity.”

This was promising. Generous owners and just up the hill in Cavendish Crescent.

Then Paloma said into the phone. “Dear God, he’ll be heartbroken. How long ago was this?… A good age, yes, but so sad when it comes. What was her name?… Could you spell that?… Filiput. Got it. And what happened to the collection after her death?… The husband is dead, too? This is too much. I’ll have to break the news to my little guy… And the dresses? I suppose they were part of the estate… Never! What happened, then?… What do you mean ‘disposed of them’?… I’m speaking for myself now, Denise. My little guy’s interest was entirely in the couple, not their possessions. But you and I have a right to be concerned. The world needs to keep tabs on irreplaceable items like this.”

“Such lies,” she said to Diamond after switching off. “I’ll roast in hell for this. I think you heard most of it. Good news and bad. There were definitely Fortuny gowns in private hands in Bath. The owner was a woman of East European origin married to an Italian, and the gowns were handed down through three generations. She wasn’t really a collector but she treasured them for their sentimental value and she did once lend a gorgeous blue one to the museum for an exhibition about Fortuny and his influence on design.”

“Sounds like the one I saw coiled up.”

“Yes, she had two in the Delphos style and one Peplos, a variation with an attached tunic.”

“Did I hear you say her name?”

“Filiput. Olga Filiput. She and her husband had a large house in Cavendish Crescent.”

“A whole house to themselves.”

“Old money. She was over ninety when she died in 2013 and the old man lasted about six months longer. But-and this is the bad bit-during that time he seems to have disposed of a lot of her things, including the Fortuny gowns. When he died, they weren’t among the items listed as part of the estate.”

“Did they have family?”

“No heirs, apparently.”

“And didn’t Denise have any information about where the gowns ended up?”

“You don’t need to ask,” she said. “You know.”

“The engineer’s workshop. So she has no record of them being acquired by a local engineer?”

“None whatsoever-and Denise wouldn’t miss news of a transaction like that. She’s alert to everything. You should have heard her when I mentioned Fortuny. Peter, I’m suspicious.”

“Me, too.” He grasped Paloma’s hand and squeezed it. “You did brilliantly. I owe you a meal out for this.”

“Is that the best you can do? I was telling the most horrendous lies for you.”

“And a theatre trip.”

“Not good enough, big spender.”

“A weekend away. A hot-air balloon ride. What more can I offer?”

“I thought you’d never ask. I’ll settle for the dress.”

Driving home (with the dress), Diamond felt elated by the fresh discoveries, yet wary of where they were taking him. Valuable fashion items owned by one family for three generations end up with rich old lady. Death of old lady. Death of old lady’s husband. Items missing from the estate turn up hidden in cremation pots in engineer’s workshop. Engineer has a macabre interest in ways of killing. What could you read into that except a rising scale of suspicion? A deal? A dirty deal? Confidence trickery? Theft? Murder? Double murder?

Hold on, he told himself. This is the man whose life I fought for. He and I are linked by the intensity of those desperate moments. I was alone with him, willing him to survive, mouth to mouth, forcing my breath into his lungs, an intimacy you can’t forget. Nothing in my world mattered more than his precious life.

A few sheets printed out from the Internet debating methods of murder don’t make anyone a killer.

The truth probably lies elsewhere.

How frustrating that the man himself is alive yet unable to speak. No use relying on an improvement in his condition. Even if he does recover, there’s no certainty he’ll speak sense. He talked bollocks about rabbits. Lew Morgan, an experienced cop well used to dealing with tall stories, decided the man was a nutcase.

But was all the crazy talk just a front, an attempt to distract from a more likely reason for his night ride: the illegal scattering of ashes along the railway? Illegal, but not unworthy. He definitely lied when he said the cremation urn contained his late wife’s ashes. The talk of bringing her on the ride must have been his cover story. Maybe the rabbits are no more than an extra touch of idiocy to convince the two policemen he was gaga, and basically harmless.

Or could there be a germ of truth in the story?

Lew Morgan ought to be able to throw more light. He was the last to speak to Pellegrini. That weird conversation in the small hours of the morning could be the key to understanding whether the man was criminal, crazy or misunderstood. The version Lew gave was spoken in snatches when he was still in shock and under sedation.

He had to be given his chance to talk some sense.

The monitoring equipment took up so much room that when Diamond arrived at the ward next morning he had to slot a chair into a space between bags of fluid hanging from drip stands. This time he hadn’t been required to dress in the sterile clothes. Lew Morgan was out of intensive care and in a private room, fully conscious and propped up on the adjustable bed. No restrictions had been placed on the visit, even though it was little over a day since the patient’s left leg had been amputated above the knee.

He started to introduce himself again as “Peter Diamond from the nick”-without mention of rank-hoping Lew would open up and fill in some of that crucial extra detail. After everything the poor guy had been through, he was unlikely to have any memory of the previous visit and its abrupt, abusive end.

But Lew interrupted him. “I know who you are. You were here a couple of days ago asking questions.”

“You were heavily sedated.”

“So what’s new?”

“You sound brighter.”

“High as a fucking kite. Haven’t the faintest idea what they’re pumping into me except blood and I need plenty of that. Is this still about Aaron’s driving? He did nothing wrong, poor sod.”

“Glad to hear it. There was nothing at the crash site to suggest any different.”

“So what’s your problem? I can speak up for Aaron.”

“But you told me you didn’t see the crash because your eyes were closed.”

“That’s a fact. When I opened them we were out of control and turning over. He screamed out ‘Jeez’ and now I know why: that old git on the trike.”

“You remember him, then?”

Lew’s hands gripped the bedding as he spoke of the still-vivid experience. “He comes out of nowhere. Aaron swings the wheel and takes us up the bank and we swerve across the street on two wheels and hit the wall.” He added through gritted teeth, “They tell me the old fuck is on life support. Let me anywhere near and I’ll switch him off even if I have to hop there on my one leg.”

“It can’t have been deliberate,” Diamond said.

“How do you bloody know? You weren’t there.”

“I’ve been to the scene. There were stationary vehicles. Aaron was unsighted, and so was the tricyclist probably.”

“He was an accident waiting to happen. Unsteady.”

“How do you know that if your eyes were closed?”

Lew hesitated and screwed up his face in thought. “We stopped him earlier. Fucking demented. He shouldn’t have been out.”

“I want to ask you about that, Lew. We touched on it when I saw you last but you weren’t able to say much. Where was he when you first pulled him over?”

“Out Bathampton way. This was early in the shift, around two-thirty. Bathampton Lane, in fact. He was the only thing on the road but he didn’t have a crash helmet, so we stopped to have a word. Well, I did. Aaron stayed in the car.”

“What exactly was said?”

“Straight off I could tell he was going to give me lip. The posh voice, calling me officer.”

“Patronising?”

“That’s the word. I tell him he shouldn’t be driving a motorised vehicle without a helmet and he says, cool as you like, he’s legal on account of it being an EAPC.”

“What’s that?”

“Electrically assisted pedal cycle.”

“And was he right?”

Lew nodded. “Smug bastard.”

“So at that stage he was talking sense?”

“Every fucking thing he said sounded sense the way he spoke it, like I was a peasant, if you know what I mean. He said he had the government guidance about EAPCs on a piece of paper and I reckon he did, but I didn’t give him the chance to show me because it was getting to be a battle of wills.”

“I can understand.”

“I asked about the contents of his saddlebag and he listed every fucking thing as calm as if he was reading the football results. Mostly it was stuff you’d use to look at wildlife, like binoculars, camera and so on. And his food. Banana, slice of cake, flask of tea. Nothing alcoholic. And Trixie.”

“His wife.”

Lew’s eyes widened. “You know about this? Did I tell you before? It was when it became obvious he was nuts. He was talking about Trixie’s ashes. He’d brought the urn with him in the saddlebag, so she could join him on the trip.”

“Weird.”

“I was already wishing I hadn’t started with him. Next I asked where he was going and he said he wouldn’t know until he got there because they were always on the move.”

A warning light flashed in Diamond’s brain. He wasn’t sure if it was wise to go down the crazy route again. “Who were?”

“He didn’t actually say but I took it to be rabbits because he said they covered about a mile each night, using hops. That’s got to be rabbits or hares, hasn’t it?” Lew seemed to want to discuss this rationally.

“Frogs? Fleas?”

“You’re joking, I hope. He wouldn’t want binoculars to look at fucking fleas.”

“A mile a night? Do rabbits go that far?”

“Hares might. They get up speed, don’t they? Hares, rabbits, kangaroos, take your pick. It’s all horseshit, anyway. He said they were heading for Bath.”

“I find that impossible to believe,” Diamond said.

“You’re not the only one. And when I asked how he knew where to look for them, he said, as straight-faced as I’m speaking to you now, he could hear them digging their holes. That was when I decided enough was enough. Either he was taking the piss or he was round the twist.”

“So you returned to the car?”

“After telling him to keep off the main roads. He said he always did and I told him other traffic might not see him coming. He said a full moon helped. I remember thinking you can say that again, you fucking loony. We watched him start up and ride away and I thought that was the end of it. Shows how wrong you can be, doesn’t it?”

“You didn’t breathalyse him?”

“No point. As far as the law was concerned he was riding a pushbike. Anyway I’d have spotted the signs if he was over the limit. I’m not new in the job.”

“Unsteady, you said.”

“I meant his riding, kind of wobbly, due to age, not alcohol. If I’d thought a charge would stick, I’d have done him.”

“In the conversation you had, did he mention the railway at any stage?”

“Never a fucking word. Why?”

“We think he was following the main line. It runs close to Bathampton Lane and Beckford Gardens. He’s one of these railway enthusiasts.”

Lew frowned. “Yeah?” He looked as if this new suggestion was more than he wanted to know.

Diamond spared him a description of Pellegrini’s model train set. “Thanks, Lew. You’ve helped a lot.”

“And I bet this isn’t the end of it. I’ll get plenty more like you giving me a hard time. Headquarters and the IPCC, I shouldn’t wonder.”

“You know the drill, then.”

“I can handle it as long as they jack me up with whatever it is I’m on right now. What did you say you are at the nick-accident investigator?”

“That’ll do,” Diamond said.

Ivor Pellegrini was fast becoming more villain than victim. He had an unhealthy interest in murder. He was a danger on the roads who had probably caused the death of one police officer and the loss of another’s limb. He certainly wasn’t senile. He’d refused to be intimidated by a police car stopping him. He’d run rings around Lew Morgan and he’d manifestly lied about the purpose of the cremation urn. The valuable Fortuny gowns hidden in his workshop needed explaining.

All this was painful to think about. There was no logic decreeing that the man whose life you saved had to be worthy of survival. But each offence was wounding.

Just to be certain there was no change in the patient’s condition, Diamond visited the Critical Care unit before leaving the hospital. The redoubtable sister he’d seen before was on duty.

“What is it this time-a get-well card?” she said.

“Would he appreciate one?”

“Not yet.”

“He’s still out cold, then?”

“That’s not a term we use, but yes.”

“No improvement at all?”

“Nothing anyone has noted. What’s happened to Hornby?”

He took a moment to remember who Hornby was. “He’s doing fine now.”

“Who’s looking after him?”

“Er, family.”

“We were told there isn’t any family.” Nothing got past this sister. Anyone in need of intensive care would be fortunate to have her in charge.

“My family.”

“You took him in? That’s nice.”

I took you in as well, sister, Diamond thought, and I’m starting to get a conscience about it. “Cats are easy to board. It’s just for a short time, I hope.”

“That’s what we do at this stage, hope,” she said. “It’s better than despair.” Evidently impressed that Diamond was a caring man, she said, “I can let you see him if you wish.”

“Please.”

“You’ll need kitting out first.”

In the protective apron and mask he was escorted to the side room where the patient lay tubed, wired and ventilated and showing no signs of life that were not medically induced. He seemed diminished by all the equipment. With most of his features hidden under the mask inflating the lungs, he was hard to recognise as the man Diamond had attempted to revive a few days before. Grey hair, wrinkles, large ears, arthritic hands with one finger attached to a pulse oximeter.

“Is this what they call a vegetative state?”

“Keep your voice down, superintendent.”

He said in a whisper, “Or is it a persistent vegetative state?”

“It’s only termed persistent after four weeks.”

“How long do you reckon to keep them going?”

“Not my decision, I’m glad to say. Have you seen enough?”

He drove to work with the image difficult to shift from his brain. Strange to think if he hadn’t chosen to explore the uncultivated side of Beckford Gardens at the time he did but an hour later, the old man would certainly have been dead and none of the elaborate medical effort would have come into play. For the health professionals there was no dilemma. Life was a universal entitlement and their job was to bend every effort to preserve it. Diamond’s own view was less clear. Already he was questioning whether it would have been better for everyone concerned, including the patient, if he hadn’t performed CPR. He could recall from his schooldays a couple of lines from a poem by Arthur Hugh Clough he’d been made to learn:

Thou shalt not kill; but need’st not strive

Officiously to keep alive.

When he got to work, his first action was to make a transcript of everything Lew Morgan had told him. He prided himself on his power of recall, but inevitably some of it would go if he didn’t commit it to paper, so it all got into record as near to exactness as he could manage.

That done, he stepped into the CID room and asked Ingeborg to make an online search for obituary notices for Mrs. Olga Filiput, a former resident of Cavendish Crescent, who had died about 2013, aged over ninety, and her husband, first name unknown, who had outlived Olga by about six months.

“Is there something I should know about these people, guv?” she asked.

He was so used to getting Inge’s help accessing the Internet that he’d asked without thinking. Officially she was back on routine CID duties. His orders. The mystery surrounding Ivor Pellegrini was no longer her concern, or shouldn’t be. She didn’t need to be involved in suspicions that were Diamond’s alone. If Georgina learned he was using his staff to pursue what was little more than a private hunch, he’d be in trouble.

But he’d set this ball rolling and he couldn’t stop it now without giving offence. He told Inge what he had learned from Paloma and her Fashion Museum contact, Denise.

“You’re really into this, aren’t you?” she said. “What do you hope to get from it?”

That word again. His take on hope wasn’t the same as the sister’s in Critical Care. “In this job, you don’t hope for anything if you’ve got any sense,” he said, trying to keep some distance from Ingeborg and sounding lofty and ungrateful in the process. “You make your enquiries and see what emerges.”

This is not good, he told himself. If you can’t be frank with your closest colleagues you shouldn’t be in the job.

The Bath Chronicle was online and the death notices easy to access. Ingeborg found the announcement of Olga Filiput’s death before Diamond had made his first coffee of the morning.

“It’s only brief,” she said when he came, mug in hand, to look at her screen, “but it tells us the husband’s name among other things. He was Massimo.”

“Good work. What does it mean?”

“The name? Like maximum, I think. The greatest.”

“I wonder how anyone lives up to that.”

She highlighted the notice for him, one among many:

FILIPUT, Olga, beloved wife of Massimo, passed away peacefully on 2 November, aged 92. Funeral service and cremation at Haycombe, Bath, 2:45 p.m. on 17 November.

“Okay,” he said. “Now find Massimo’s death notice for me.”

“I can’t,” she said. “Not here, anyway. His name would have popped up in the search, but it didn’t.”

“He went about six months after Olga. That’s May, 2014.”

“You told me already, guv.”

“And you haven’t been able to find it?”

“It’s not there.”

“Massimo-the greatest-and he doesn’t even get a death notice in the local rag? Try again.”

She sighed. “It doesn’t work like that. I made the search under Filiput and Olga was the only one that came up. If I repeat the search I’ll get the same result.”

“Why didn’t the old man get a mention in the paper if she did? They weren’t short of the pennies.”

“You’d have to ask his family-if there is one.”

“Find them, Inge. They’ll be a younger generation, so check the social media. It’s an unusual surname.”

He left her to start the search and it was a longer process. He had time to check with DI John Leaman on what else had been happening in CID. The church-roof lads had appeared in court and been remanded in custody. A spate of burglaries had shocked the affluent residents of St. James’s Square. Nothing Leaman and the rest of the team couldn’t deal with.

“Massimo seems to have been the last of the Filiputs in Bath,” Ingeborg told Diamond when he checked with her again. “I drew a blank. I suppose there was no one left to arrange for a death notice.”

“The Internet failed us?” he said.

“On the other hand he may have left instructions that he didn’t want his funeral announced. Some house-breaker could have seen the notice and raided the home in Cavendish Crescent on the day of the funeral. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened.”

Tempted to have another dig at Ingeborg about the limitations of the Internet, he spared her and moved on. “Find one of those websites that lists properties that were sold in the last two or three years.”

Easy.

Most of the crescent was divided into four-bedroom flats that sold for anything up to £750,000. The only sale of a complete house that fitted the time-slot was at £2.3 million. Ingeborg found the agent who had handled the sale, called them and learned that the Filiput property had been sold by Fathom and Peake, a firm of solicitors.

“We’re motoring now,” Diamond said. “I mean, I’m motoring now, back to Bath.”

The lawyers’ office was in Henry Street, close to the former home of CID. The receptionist asked what the enquiry was and Diamond flashed his ID and said he needed to see the solicitor who had dealt with the late Massimo Filiput’s affairs.

“I’m not permitted to disclose client information,” she said.

“Ma’am, I’m not asking you to disclose anything. Just press the right buzzer and I’ll turn my back if you want.”

“It’s not as straightforward as that.”

“It never is in these places,” he said. “Okay, let’s try another approach. Who’s the most senior person in the building?”

“That would be Miss Hill.”

“Not Mr. Peake? I was hoping to go right to the top.”

This receptionist was impervious to rapier wit from visitors. “The founders are all deceased.”

“Miss Hill, then, if you would be so kind.”

One law as rigidly enforced as any on the statute book is that solicitors keep you waiting. He’d thumbed through most of an out-of-date issue of The Bath Magazine before a large lady in a black suit invited him into a spacious office smelling of lavender furniture polish. How the world had changed since he’d last spoken to a solicitor. There wasn’t a dusty old book or an overflowing in-tray in sight. Just a bare desk and a flat-screen computer.

“It’s about Massimo Filiput,” Diamond said after shaking a hand that was mainly rings and fingernails. “I believe he instructed you or one of your colleagues.”

Hard to believe anyone would instruct Miss Hill. Nothing about her suggested she was the submissive type. Black hair forced into a tight scrunch. Eyes that missed nothing and lips he couldn’t imagine smiling if he’d presented her with a box of the finest chocolates and an armful of daffodils.

“Do you know about client confidentiality?” she asked.

“The client’s dead,” Diamond said.

“I’m aware of that.”

Still in motoring mode, he moved rapidly through the gears. “I can get copies of his will, his wife’s will, the documents pertaining to the sale of the house. I can check the names of the executors, the beneficiaries and the purchasers. But it all takes time, Miss Hill, and I don’t have much of that and neither do you, I’m sure, so let’s cut through the red tape, shall we, and do what we can to allay the suspicion?”

She gave him a glare that would have sent a lesser man straight out of the door. “Suspicion of what?”

“Difficult to say without seeing the paperwork. Any malpractice was out of your control, I hope and believe.”

“Malpractice?”

“For want of a better word.”

Going by Miss Hill’s body language any other word in the dictionary would have been an improvement. “Have a care. I don’t take insinuations like that from the police or anyone else.”

He took a more persuasive line.

“Why don’t you go to your files for copies of the wills, and then I can give you chapter and verse? You’ll be giving nothing away. You obtained probate on both, so they’re public documents now.”

“You used the word ‘malpractice.’ I must warn you that a term like that is actionable.”

“Only if it turns out to be unfounded.”

“You’d better explain yourself, superintendent.”

“Not without the paperwork,” Diamond said and threw discretion out of the window. “If you want to turn this into a damaging police investigation involving the Crown Prosecution Service, I can leave now, but I hate to think of the aggro.”

“This is highly irregular.”

“I couldn’t put it better myself.”

She picked up her phone and asked for copies of the wills.

“Good call, Miss Hill,” Diamond said. “I’m sure you and I can sort this out between us.”

She didn’t comment, preferring to punish her computer keyboard. Definitely more of a dominatrix than a submissive, Diamond decided. Finally, the receptionist arrived with two box files.

“I drew up both wills myself,” Miss Hill told him as she opened the first box. “They were perfectly straightforward. Mrs. Filiput left everything to her husband in the event of her predeceasing him. And he made a similar will in her favour.”

“Tidy.”

“It’s common practice when a husband and a wife without family are making provision for their deaths.”

“But she died first, so he inherited everything. Did that mean rewriting his will?”

“No, each of them made their wishes clear for all eventualities.”

“Your firm acted as executors for each of them?”

“I thought I made that clear.”

“So after Massimo Filiput died, you wound up the estate?”

“Correct.”

“You personally?”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“Which must have meant drawing up an inventory of his possessions and selling the house in Cavendish Crescent?”

She nodded. “It fell to me to do everything, even arranging the funeral. They had no family.”

“And previously, when Olga Filiput died, did you also make an inventory of her possessions?”

“That had to be done for probate purposes.”

“Her clothes? In particular, I’m interested in three antique evening gowns owned by Mrs. Filiput.”

“There were far too many items of clothing for me to remember them all.”

“The dresses I’m speaking about were valuable items,” he said, “made by Fortuny about a century ago, and worth about ten thousand pounds each.”

“I told you. I don’t recall them.”

“Would you mind checking? This could be important.”

She made a sound deep in her throat like a distant tsunami. Then she lifted a stack of documents from the filing box and selected one.

Diamond watched and waited.

“Yes,” she said. “Antique evening dresses by Fortuny of Venice.”

“That’s the list of Olga’s possessions?”

“Yes.”

“Now would you check the documents for Massimo and tell me if the same dresses are included in the inventory of his possessions?”

The tsunami sounded ten miles closer.

She opened the second box and found the relevant list.

She blinked, ran her finger twice down the list and finally looked up. “There’s nothing here about gowns.”

Just as he expected.

“He could have sold them, I suppose,” he said. “If so, it would show in his bank statements. Presumably you have those as well.”

You could have made bricks from her silence and built the Great Wall of China in the time she took to move, but in the end she looked for the statements and found them. After a close inspection, shielding the figures with her free hand, she said, “There are no transactions here that aren’t accounted for.”

“What happened, then?” Diamond asked. “Could he have given them away? You see the difficulty? Three valuable gowns willed to him by his wife and six months later they have disappeared.”

“I hope you’re not suggesting we connived at a fraud.”

“Not at all. I happen to know where they ended up. You’re not under suspicion, but someone else is.”

“Who’s that?”

He managed an apologetic look. “Can’t say for legal reasons.”

She inhaled sharply.

He was unmoved. “Is the death certificate in the box? May I see it?”

She was unwilling to give him a sight of anything.

“Anyone can get a copy from the General Register Office,” he said. “It’s not classified information.”

The copy was reluctantly handed across.

“‘Cardiac failure and coronary atheroma.’ Heart, then. Much to be expected when you get to ninety-odd.” He gave it back. “So what happened to the contents of the house after he died?”

“Everything of value was put into an auction. It realised just under a hundred thousand pounds.”

“Would that have been mainly his stuff, or his wife’s? Presumably she left some jewellery?”

“Most of it was antique and must have belonged to her family. Their origins were Austro-Hungarian. There was also period furniture, paintings and books.”

“So the auction takings formed part of the estate. After you’d added in the sale of the house and any stocks and shares, building society accounts and so on-and subtracted the taxman’s share, and of course your modest fees, how much was left?”

“A little over two and a half million.”

“Not bad. And who were the lucky beneficiaries?”

“There was only one. The National Railway Museum.”

I was thinking today about the first two. I’m not stony-hearted but I’ve made it a rule never to mention names or dates in these occasional jottings. I’m not going to forget who I helped on their way. If I ever DO forget, it will be time to stop. No, I remember every one, some with more regret than others.

There are times when I wish I could share my experience with someone else, but it can’t happen. If ever I’m feeling isolated, I can glance through these notes and take stock of myself and how I handled matters. It’s not as if I’m lonely. There’s this area of my life that is private, that’s all.