Beau Death

20

It occurred to Diamond as he was driving down to Twerton to see the bones that the timing wasn’t the best. Right now, a third corpse might shock Georgina into changing her mind. There was still a real danger of Charlie Crocker muscling in. There had to be a smart way to handle this.

What was that bit of twisted wisdom he had once heard?

When in charge, direct; when in trouble, delegate.

John Leaman had turned up a crucial bit of evidence, so why shouldn’t he be given the chance to follow it up? If Ingeborg’s hunch was right and it emerged that the remains were those of the wife or partner who had gone missing in the 1990s, then inevitably it wouldn’t be long before the male tenant known loosely as Harry came under suspicion of killing both the woman buried in the garden and the man found in the loft. The two enquiries would fuse as one.

Made sense.

Meanwhile, he would be in no hurry to tell Georgina about the find. The remains would need to be examined before anyone took them seriously.

At the site, Diamond drove over the rutted remains of the road and parked behind the Honda Civic hatchback owned by Leaman. How six men and a woman had squeezed into that small car to get out of the rain wasn’t nice to imagine.

Leaman was standing alone, arms folded, barely recognisable in mud-coated overalls and wellies. The king of spades, as Diamond now privately dubbed him, didn’t summon up as much as a nod. If he was jubilant at making the find, any joy was internalised.

‘You sent the others home, then?’

‘The minivan came for them. They had a hard day. We all did.’ He looked and sounded terribly down. Browned off in every sense.

‘Your car doesn’t look too mucky standing beside mine.’

‘You think so? It’s a disgrace. Want to see inside?’ Leaman’s striving for perfection was often helpful to the team, but made life difficult for himself.

‘I’ll take your word for it. Where are these bones?’

‘At the far end. You’re going to ruin your shoes.’

‘It’s why I’m here.’

Every part of the small garden seemed to have been turned over. Leaman led a snaking route around heaps of soil and deep trenches to the farthest end where yet another excavation had been started.

‘Not far down, then?’ Diamond said, looking in. ‘The typical shallow grave.’

Leaman took that as criticism. ‘It’s only shallow because I ordered a halt to the dig once we’d decided the first piece was definitely bone.’

‘I can’t see anything.’

‘What do you expect? It’s not the full skeleton.’ He crouched and pointed. ‘They’re quite small pieces, broken up by some of the heavy machinery that was here, no doubt.’ You would think from Leaman’s tone that the bulldozers had been sent in specially to spite him.

With difficulty, Diamond made out some greyish-brown scraps that could just as easily have been stones. ‘Is one of these the piece you examined?’

‘No.’

Leaman stood again, dipped a grimy hand into the pocket of his overalls and brought out a chunk of bulbous material almost the size of a golf ball, but emphatically bone, irregular on one side as if it had snapped off. ‘It’s the top of a femur where it joins the hip.’

‘May I?’

Diamond took the object in his hand, felt the weight, looked closely at the surface and turned it over.

He whistled.

‘Good find, John. And there’s obviously more.’

‘You can see pieces of the shaft. There ought to be other bones lower down. We only had spades and trowels to work with, which is why we stopped digging. We need finer tools and an expert now.’

‘I know exactly who to ask.’

‘Jim Middleton?’

‘No. Our bones man.’

‘Dr. Waghorn? I thought you didn’t get on with him.’

‘He’s a sarcastic old git and if this turns out to be animal bone he’ll give us hell, but I’m willing to risk it. You’ve opened a whole new line of enquiry.’

The ridges of resentment on Leaman’s mud-spattered face vanished like ripples in a puddle. He didn’t raise a smile, but he appeared less likely to offer his resignation. ‘What made you so sure there was someone buried here?’

‘I can’t take credit for that,’ Diamond said. ‘The possibility crossed my mind when I heard about a missing woman, but it was Ingeborg who convinced me we must dig. She won’t like me saying it was feminine intuition.’

‘Personally I don’t believe in that.’

‘Neither does she, but she has an uncanny way of pointing me in the right direction. Right now I’m interested in your abilities. How would you feel about taking on this side of the investigation?’

At first, Leaman was wary. He wasn’t going to be caught twice over. ‘I don’t want to spend any more time in this quagmire.’

‘John, I’m offering you the chance to head the enquiry.’

The voice changed. His entire manner underwent a transformation like a long-term convict at the moment he was told he’d been reprieved. ‘You want me in charge?’

‘You’ve got the experience.’

‘I know, but—’

‘No false modesty, John. You can handle this, right?’ He pressed the piece of bone back into Leaman’s palm like a badge of office.

The hours of misery were as nothing now. ‘Right. Where do I start?’

‘First, you go and see Claude Waghorn at the university and ask him to confirm that this bone is human. Then you bring in the scenes of crime team to search for more clues. They’re professionals. You don’t have to stand over them. You can safely leave them to dig for days on end while you get on with the detective work.’

‘What should I be doing?’

Typical Leaman. ‘Where do I start?’ ‘What should I be doing?’ He’d do the job as well as anyone on the team and he probably knew the answers to his questions, but he was programmed to work to instructions.

‘Redouble your efforts to find who these tenants were. You know I met a Polish guy called Jerzy, don’t you, known to his mates as Yurek? Electrician working on the Manvers Street site. He and his partner were the last official tenants here before the squatters took over. They had the place eleven years. He didn’t meet the previous tenant, but he was told there had been a woman living in the house for a time. She left one day and wasn’t seen again.’

‘This is her?’ Leaman opened the hand containing the bit of bone.

‘A piece of her, possibly. You may get more clues as other bones are recovered. But your main line of enquiry has to be naming and tracing the main suspect.’

‘Her partner? What else do we know about him?’

‘Jerzy was vague. He said he’d been told the guy was a Brit and he suggested he was called Harry. Don’t place too much reliance on that. I couldn’t be sure if he was guessing.’

‘Probably was, then.’

‘The thing about these two is that they were firmly in the time frame when the skeleton was killed and hidden in the loft. Like I said, Jerzy was here eleven years and the squatters for over two after the place was condemned — two and a bit, they said. That’s thirteen since our mysterious couple were here, which checks neatly with our other point in time, the period when that particular pattern of Y-fronts was still in use.’

‘So how do you see it? Harry murders the man in the frock coat and the woman finds out and gets murdered herself?’ Leaman’s confidence was growing by the minute. He was sounding more like Diamond’s partner in the case.

‘I can think of a dozen scenarios. She was asking too many awkward questions. Or he was afraid she’d talk. Or he caught her trying to get into the loft. Or she was a good Christian soul with a conscience who wanted to go to the police. Or they did the killing together and fell out and he couldn’t risk a break-up. Or she demanded money in return for her silence. But it’s too soon to speculate. We’re at the stage of collecting information.’

‘How long was Harry living here alone?’

‘After the woman vanished? I got the impression it was a few years. Shall we move? I can feel the damp coming through my socks.’

‘I warned you, my friend,’ Leaman said. ‘You should have brought wellies.’

Diamond quietly noted ‘my friend’ and was amused. The two senior investigators wound their way through the heaps of earth and back to the cars.

‘The SOCOs aren’t going to be too pleased that we dug the site over already,’ Leaman said.

‘You did the heavy work for them. They’ve got the beauty part now, disinterring the bones.’

Paloma hadn’t wasted any time. She wanted Diamond for a fitting that evening at her house in Lyncombe.

‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’ she said when she took the rented outfit from its cover and showed it to him.

‘It’s pink,’ he said in alarm.

‘Pinkish-mauve. A soft shade like this shows off the embroidery.’

‘Flowers.’

‘Leaves and flowers. That was the style. You need to look authentic.’

‘Like the sugar-plum fairy. I can’t believe this is happening,’ he said. ‘Have you ever had that dream when you arrive at some posh event like a wedding and discover you’re naked? That’s how I’m going to feel.’

‘You’d feel far more embarrassed if you turned up in your day clothes. Try the breeches first. I got the largest size they had, but there’s room for adjustment. I can reposition the buttons if need be.’

‘I’m not that enormous. What’s in this packet?’

‘White stockings. I had to buy those. They don’t come with the costume.’

Grumbling to himself, he went behind a Chinese screen she had thoughtfully provided. The fit was pretty good. The breeches fastened over the stockings. He put on the linen shirt and tucked the flaps under the waistband. Apart from some tightness on the shoulders when he tried the frock coat, the costume would pass muster.

‘Better than I hoped,’ Paloma said when he emerged.

‘The jacket may be a size too small. I don’t want to burst a seam.’

She told him the armholes were cut high to achieve an erect posture. ‘Actually it’s a very nice fit. Be glad you’re not a woman and wearing stays.’

‘Have you got a mirror?’

‘Hey ho.’ She smiled. ‘I think someone rather fancies himself as an eighteenth-century gent.’

‘I need it for the wig.’

She held up an oval hand mirror. ‘Line it up with your forehead and pull it backwards over your head. Had to be white, I’m afraid. Only the Beau is allowed to wear black.’

‘Like this? Is it straight?’

‘Perfect. There’s a full-length mirror on the far wall.’

He went over and stared at his reflection. Pink or pink-mauve, the colour was still hard to accept. ‘I was thinking the coat would be dark grey or black.’

‘That wouldn’t be right. You’d look like an extra out of Pirates of the Caribbean. Take my word for it, Peter, this is what the others will be wearing.’

‘I can’t believe I’m doing this.’

‘Actors do it and think nothing of it.’ She reached for her phone. ‘Can I get a picture?’

‘Absolutely not. I’m getting out of this now.’

‘But you must practise the walk. You’re wearing something special and you need to flaunt it.’

‘I think you’re enjoying this.’

‘Someone has to. You made it very clear you aren’t. A prop might help. I’ve got a silver-handled cane somewhere. Try the walk while I’m out of the room.’

In truth, Paloma was right. He knew he must be convincing. Her advice chimed in with what Ingeborg had said earlier. This was about an attitude of mind. He’d need to banish the embarrassment.

He took a couple of hesitant steps and then lengthened his stride, puffed out his chest and walked the walk. I can do it when no one is watching, he told himself. Now I must have the guts to do it in public.

‘You don’t have to overdo it,’ came Paloma’s voice from behind. She’d returned unnoticed and was watching from the doorway. ‘That’s a little too much swagger. They’ll be comfortable in their costumes. They’re used to it. All you have to do is feel comfortable in yours. Now try with the stick.’

The stick definitely helped.

‘I like the look,’ she said. ‘Does wonders for your figure.’

‘Hides the pot belly, you mean?’

‘Beau Nash would approve. How are the shoes?’

‘They’ll do nicely.’ They were black with large silver buckles. In reality they were a size too large and slipped a bit, but he could pad them with paper tissue.

‘I could have got matching pink. Men wore all colours.’

‘Black is good.’

‘Why is this meeting important?’ she asked.

‘I’m hoping these people can help me put a name to the skeleton. Some of the older members were around at the time we think the murder was committed.’

‘They may put a name to your killer as well. Wouldn’t that make it all worthwhile?’

‘Just about.’

His first action next morning was to visit the drugs unit. Neither of the two sergeants was there. He knew he was in for a battle when he saw the man in charge. Inspector Don Tate was notorious for giving little away about the unit’s activities. Tate had left Scotland twenty years before but was as dour as any Aberdeen fish-filleter. Moreover he still had a brogue so broad that it took a while to tune in.

‘You know why I’m here?’ Diamond began.

‘The Peruvian marching powder?’

Diamond didn’t know the expression and not a word of it was understandable to him. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Cocaine.’

‘Got you. The stuff I brought in yesterday. Has it been analysed yet?’

Tate nodded and kept his mouth shut. Probably he felt he’d said too much already.

It was ridiculous to Diamond that the drugs unit couldn’t fully confide in CID, and the reticence wasn’t entirely down to Tate’s personality. He’d come up against this brick wall before. Everyone in the policing of drug offenders would talk of ongoing operations requiring secrecy, as if no other section worked on the basis of confidence. As Diamond saw it, all sections of the police were on the same side. This would not be simple. ‘How was the quality?’

‘Better than most.’

‘Pure cocaine?’

‘You don’t get pure cocaine here. It’s twenty to twenty-five percent at best.’

‘Not crack, anyway?’

‘Aye.’

‘Did your guys tell you who it came from?’

‘The laddie who put on the fireworks show, I was told.’

‘Correct.’

‘And now you’re going to ask me who his dealer was. I can’t tell you.’

‘I didn’t expect it from you, Don. But you can point me in the right direction.’

Tate pulled a face as if someone was trying to throttle him. ‘Sensitive information.’

Unmoved, Diamond told him, ‘I won’t share your precious secrets with anyone outside my team. We’re professionals, same as you.’

‘We have several ongoing enquiries.’

‘Is there ever a time when you don’t? That’s how you work.’

‘Aye, but I can’t have the work of many months compromised by your lot pulling in people under surveillance by my teams.’

‘This was murder, Don. I’ll pull in whoever I believe has information.’

‘You have your job.’ Tate glared. ‘I have mine.’

‘And you’re about to give me the tired old line about a conflict of interests. I’m looking for some cooperation here. Have you ever stopped to look at the name of this building when you come in each day? It’s Concorde House. Not a lot of concord in here this morning.’

‘Whose fault is that?’ Tate said.

Diamond rolled his eyes. ‘I brought the cocaine straight to your team. Don’t you owe me something in return?’

‘It may seem a big deal to you, Peter, but having a user ID’d is no help to us when he’s already dead. We’re interested in the big boys.’

‘So am I, ultimately. The boys who order the shooting of dopers they want eliminated.’ Diamond had known it would be like this but being forewarned hadn’t made him any less irritated. ‘For now, I’ll settle for the name of his supplier. You don’t want me making wholesale arrests, you say. Better name someone, so I can get the job done with minimal damage to your stings.’

Tate gave him a level look. ‘Nice try.’

‘What do you suggest, then — that I get out on the streets and run it my way, putting the fear of God into all the coke-heads we can find so that they cough up the names of these people you’re unwilling to identify?’

‘You wouldn’t do that.’

‘Try me.’

‘Perry Morgan wasn’t on our radar. I’d tell you if he was. So how could I know who supplied him?’

‘You said it was good quality cocaine.’

A nod.

‘And you saw the wraps. Plain white paper. Was there any indication from the way it was folded who might have made them?’

‘We had a look.’

‘Got any prints?’

‘From what?’

‘Give me a break, Don. The wraps, folds, bindles or whatever the current term is. You don’t have to be obtuse as well as tight-lipped.’

‘Nothing definite was found.’

‘But you have your suspicions? You’re not going to let a chance like this go begging.’

Tate sneered. ‘And you’re not going to stop trying, are you?’

‘Why would I? The signs are that Morgan was addicted and using a large part of his income to keep stocking up. He must have become a nuisance or a threat to his killer. Is there anyone in your sights who would resort to murder?’

‘That would be unusual.’

‘But not unknown?’

‘The barons are into other crimes.’ Sensing he was on safer ground, Don Tate expanded a little. ‘Money-laundering more than anything. That’s how we get on to many of them in the first place. They have cash-flow problems, but not the sort you and I would have. They have to find ways of hiding their dirty money in offshore accounts or in businesses that routinely handle large amounts of cash.’

‘I understand that. One way of disposing of hot cash is to pay a gunman to take out someone you don’t like.’

‘In which case,’ Tate said, looking away, out of the window, ‘first find your gunman.’

‘There were no witnesses.’

‘Ballistics?’

‘May identify the weapon. Not the man. If I don’t get names from you, Don, I’m serious about taking to the streets.’

‘You’d set us back months of patient work if you do. And you’d get nothing. The guy you want doesn’t do street dealing.’

This sounded awfully like confirmation that a particular individual was in the frame, teased out of the wily Scot through sheer persistence. Long experience of questioning tight-lipped criminals might be about to pay off. ‘So you do have someone in mind.’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’

‘Of course you wouldn’t if you could avoid it, but you just did. He doesn’t do street dealing, so he must be selling at a higher level to better-off celebrities and the like. Am I right?’

Rattled, Tate pointed a finger and said, ‘Lay off, Peter.’ He rolled the final ‘r’ like a motorbike revving up.

‘Touched a raw nerve, did I?’ Diamond said. ‘If you won’t tell me, there are big-name people in this city who can. I see it in your eyes, Don. And your white knuckles. Where shall I go looking for these snow birds — the racecourse, the Pump Room, the theatre, or can you suggest a top hotel?’

‘You could blow an entire operation.’

‘Sorry,’ Diamond said with irony. ‘You can’t say I didn’t inform you first.’ He got up from the chair. ‘I must get started.’

Tate gave him a murderous look. ‘The wraps would appear to have been made by a dealer we already have under surveillance. He folds them in a particular way we recognise. He will have bought the cocaine from someone higher up the chain who imported it, someone outside our authority. We’re working closely with the National Crime Agency.’

The mention of the all-powerful NCA was supposed to spook Diamond. It didn’t.

‘Name?’

Tate flapped his hand in derision.

‘I’m asking for the name of the local man.’

‘He’s small time, not likely to possess a firearm or think of hiring a gunman. We don’t regard him as dangerous in that sense.’

‘So you can safely tell me who he is.’

‘I canna.’

There is an old proverb about using a sprat to catch a mackerel. This was the moment Diamond reversed the process.

‘Someone else will.’

‘Who do you mean?’

‘Don, we both know who I mean. His distributor.’

If Tate had been tasered he couldn’t have twitched more. ‘You don’t...’

‘But I do. Albanian and dangerous.’

A moment of silence before a rare smile dawned. ‘Albanian? Who are you kidding? Newburn doesn’t buy from an Albanian.’

Diamond smiled back. He’d caught his sprat.

‘Thanks. And where do I find Newburn?’

Don Tate sighed heavily. ‘He’s a gallery owner.’

‘Which gallery?’

‘Upmarket.’

‘I’m sure. But what’s it called?’

‘I told you — Upmarket.’

‘That’s the name of the shop?’

‘The top of Broad Street. If you question him, for Christ’s sake don’t give him any hint that he’s already on our radar.’

‘Relax,’ Diamond said. ‘We’ll make it clear we’re investigating Perry’s death and checking everything on his phone.’

‘You’ll keep me informed what happens? Now I’ve told you this, I’m insisting on cooperation.’

‘That’s rich,’ Diamond said.

‘You gave your word.’

‘All right. You’re in the loop, don’t worry. We got there in the end. You know, Don, you could take lessons from one of your team.’

‘Who do you mean?’

‘He doesn’t believe in faffing about. I’ve seen him in action. He’s straight to it.’

Tate reddened. ‘Who the fuck are you talking about?’

‘Marley the sniffer dog.’

Paul Gilbert had hit a problem with the task Diamond had given him as family liaison officer: there wasn’t any family to liaise with. The dead man Perry Morgan seemed to have been without a living relative. Miss Divine from the toy shop had performed the macabre duty of identifying the corpse before the autopsy and up to now she was the main authority on his life.

‘Have you discovered anything at all from public records?’ Diamond asked when he returned to the CID room.

‘He’s a Bathonian, born in Dolemeads in 1990.’

‘Where exactly?’

‘One of the cottages opposite the Baptist church.’

‘Prepare to meet your God.’

Gilbert blinked and stared back at Diamond, who wasn’t known to quote the Bible or utter death threats.

A nice moment this, watching the changes in the young man’s face as the penny dropped. ‘The writing on the roof?’

‘Spooky, eh, in view of what happened to him?’

‘As it turned out, yes.’

Widcombe Baptist Church, formerly the Ebenezer Chapel, on Pulteney Road, is distinguished by the sobering texts emblazoned in huge white letters on the four sides of its roof (the others being ‘Christ died for our sins’; ‘We have redemption through his blood’; and ‘You must be born again’). When the district known originally as ‘mud island’ changed over the decades from a slum to a new council estate to a gentrified locality where the average price of property rose to over half a million, requests were made by aspiring Widcombe residents to have the texts erased, but they remained and as part of a Grade II listed building their survival passed into the safe hands of English Heritage. For Peter Diamond, they were a feature of the city worth keeping, particularly as he didn’t live within view and see the messages each morning when he pulled back the curtain.

‘So you have the birth certificate, do you? Who were his parents?’

‘Henry Morgan, taxi driver, and Fiona Glynn, unemployed.’

‘Unmarried by the sound of it. Aren’t they still around?’

‘Both dead,’ Gilbert said. ‘I got the certificates. She went first, of cancer, in 2002, and he was killed in a car crash five years later. He was only forty-three.’

‘Perry would have been eleven or twelve when his mother died. Bloody hard for a kid that age.’

‘Really tough. I found the notice of her death in the Chronicle and he’s mentioned as her much-loved son.’

‘You’ve been busy. Was an address included?’

‘Not in the paper. On her death certificate. Oldfield Road.’

‘Anything in the report about her partner the taxi driver?’

‘They seem to have separated at an early stage. Not even sure if they ever lived together. His fatal accident gets a write-up in 2007 with a photo of his wrecked taxi. He broke down at night on the M4 coming back from Heathrow and was stationary on the hard shoulder when a transporter ploughed into the back. Pure bad luck.’

‘Not all that uncommon, sadly. Does Perry get a mention?’

‘In the paper? Briefly, as a son, living with him at Larkhall. But he’s named on his father’s death certificate as the informant.’

‘Same address as his father?’

‘Doesn’t tell you. It just says Perry Morgan, son.’

‘I’m getting the picture,’ Diamond said, more for his own benefit than Gilbert’s. ‘Brought up by mum until her death, when he goes to live with dad in Larkhall. After the crash he’s alone in the world at sixteen or seventeen. I wonder what he did next. The shock of being orphaned must have taken a while to get over. Can’t see him running the sixth-form disco. Yet in a few short years he becomes the local impresario staging everything from wrestling to the world fireworks competition.’

‘Where would he get the confidence?’

‘Cocaine helped.’

‘Yes, but...’

‘I know. There has to be some kind of grounding in event management. He didn’t leave Bath, it seems. These are the years we need to concentrate on. Make a list of all the shows he organised and start contacting the people he would have dealt with. How did they hear about him and what do they know? Find out who he mixed with.’

‘Miss Divine said he didn’t get visitors.’

‘Doesn’t mean he didn’t make contacts outside. He knew how the world works, so he must have rubbed shoulders with all sorts. He was capable of thinking big and persuading people he was the real deal. They call it chutzpah, but where did Perry get it from at such an early age? My first thought is some kind of training in art.’

‘Art? Why?’

‘Artists carry conviction. Tell you a row of bricks is a masterpiece and you look at it and believe them.’

‘Sometimes you do,’ Gilbert said in a tone suggesting he, for one, would take some convincing.

‘It’s all about persuasion. Where would he go to study art?’

‘The university?’

‘Why not? The art courses are all based at Newton Park these days, aren’t they? At one time it was the Academy of Art at Corsham Court and then it was Sion Hill and then it was all taken over by the university. See if there’s any record of him on their courses. He could have been a dropout.’

‘How about the cocaine angle?’ Gilbert asked, not wholly sold on the art college theory. ‘Does he have form?’

‘Nothing was known to the drugs unit until I mentioned it, but he seems to have bought his wraps from a supplier called Newburn.’ Diamond snapped his fingers. ‘And Newburn is a gallery owner. Must be why the art popped into my head.’

‘Want me to visit him, guv?’

‘I’d better go myself. DI Tate in drugs is pissing his pants about us interfering. You’ve done a useful job already. Now fill in the missing years.’

Paul Gilbert was proving to be a vital member of the team, growing in self-confidence. The best detectives have an inner fire. Motivation. A sense of justice. Commitment to the cause. Whatever it was that made a good cop, the young man had it in large measure.

Ingeborg had her hand raised to get Diamond’s attention. She, too, had proved her worth many times over. He crossed to her desk, tidy as always. A see-and-store book of 8 x 10 photos of the crime scene. Phone, notepad, pen neatly positioned.

‘The first ballistics report is in, guv.’

‘Quicker than usual.’

‘I’ve been giving them a hard time. I mean, when they’ve got bullets that impacted with soft turf, as they have, it shouldn’t be difficult getting the striation pattern.’

He was eager to hear this. The markings on the bullets — as individual as fingerprints — would have been compared with a huge bank of gunshot data to see if there was a match with any other crime. A positive result would very likely confirm that they were dealing with a contract killing. ‘So what are they telling us?’

‘There were no casings recovered, meaning almost certainly that the shots were fired from a revolver rather than an automatic. The shell casing stays in the chambers until it’s manually removed. They’re 9mm, which is nothing unusual. They checked the pattern with the national database and got a nil return.’

He frowned. ‘This isn’t helpful, Inge. You’re telling me the gun hasn’t been used before in any recorded crime.’

‘I’m just reporting what they told me.’

‘So what are we to make of it? Either the killer isn’t a professional gunman or he is — because he’s smart enough to arm himself with a new weapon.’

‘That’s devious thinking. You’re ahead of me.’

‘Doesn’t help us, though.’

‘I wonder if we’re dealing with an amateur,’ she said.

‘Who keeps a revolver in his sock drawer? This isn’t America.’

‘It happens. There are guns in private hands. A one-off shooting by someone driven to desperation.’

‘By drugs, you mean?’

‘Possibly. Or some personal issue.’

‘People with personal issues mostly make a poor job of murder and it’s often spur-of-the-moment. There was definitely premeditation here. The killer chose the time and the place. The gunfire was masked by the fireworks and everyone except him was staring up at the sky.’

‘He wasn’t all that accurate.’

‘Two hits out of five? That isn’t bad. Anyone who has used a handgun knows it’s a crude weapon compared to a rifle. Didn’t we learn anything else from ballistics?’

‘That’s it in a nutshell. We’ll get some detail later.’

Ingeborg never showed much in her expression, but he thought he saw some disbelief.

‘I heard what you said, Inge, about an amateur. They aren’t all hotheads, I have to say. I may be influenced by the drug element. Perry was pretty successful at what he did and that can lead to all sorts of jealousies by less talented people. Let’s keep an open mind about motives. We don’t know enough about his contacts yet.’

‘Are you going to make a call on his supplier?’

‘Newburn? He’s next.’