Bloodhounds

Chapter Thirty-one

About twenty to seven the same morning, a jogger on his regular route along the towpath, approaching the point where the canal passed under Cleveland House and Sydney Road before entering Sydney Gardens, caught sight through the tunnel of the first of the two wrought iron bridges. He always looked forward to this point of the run. Aside from the boost of knowing that he was two thirds of the way home, there was the sheer pleasure in the spectacle of the white-painted bridge framed by the arch of the tunnel.

Except that this morning something was different.

When you are jogging for exercise, you don't stop to get a better view of things along the way. As he approached the tunnel, the jogger thought he could make out an object suspended beneath the arch of the bridge, but he couldn't tell what it was. It isn't possible to run through the tunnel, so he climbed up to Sydney Road to enter the Gardens, cross by the iron bridge, and take the little gate down to rejoin the towpath. When he got closer he saw that he was not mistaken. Something was hanging from the bridge, and it was a body.

This section of canal is one of Bath's secrets, as charming as anything in the city, almost two centuries old, yet constructed with visual appeal, with sweetly curved passing places, and glimpses under the arches of several bridges, their reflections patterning the water.

By eight, the reflections included an inflatable dinghy, police, park officials, a doctor, and two ambulancemen. The entire area was cordoned off. The body was photographed in situ and seen by the police surgeon before police performed the tricky operation of cutting it down and lowering it into the dinghy. The dead man was dressed in a black leather jacket, striped shirt, navy blue corduroy trousers, and black shoes. He was thin, about six feet tall, and looked about forty-five. His neck was obviously broken, confirming a considerable drop. This, the surgeon pointed out, must have been an efficient hanging. Most suicide victims use a chair or a ladder and rarely break their necks, and in consequence die slowly.

The pockets of the leather jacket were found to contain a five-pound note, some loose change, a set of keys on a ring, and a padlock. An alert constable pointed out that the padlock was of the same make as the German one featured in the locked room case currently being investigated by the murder squad. The incident room was informed at once.

Peter Diamond had no breakfast that morning. He drove the short distance from his home in Weston to the Royal United Hospital in time to see the body brought into the mortuary. He was allowed to unzip the body bag and confirm that the dead man was Rupert Darby. And the noose was still around his neck. The rope had been cut higher up.

A real sense of loss affected the big detective on seeing Rupert's gaunt face, the bluish lips parted, revealing the gaps between a few nicotine-stained teeth. In that one short meeting the previous morning he had enjoyed talking to Rupert, quickly getting attuned to his irreverent wit and warming to his vitality. What remained of the man was wholly pathetic.

He would have liked to examine the arms and torso for possible bruising, but that was the pathologist's prerogative. To remove the clothes prematurely would be a major breach of procedure.

After viewing the corpse, Diamond went home briefly. Steph offered to cook his usual bacon and eggs, but he didn't fancy anything except a black coffee. He told her he expected another long day.

John Wigfull arrived an hour later than usual, with heavy shadows around his eyes, and was startled to find so much activity in the incident room. For a few nerve-racking minutes, he wondered if in the short time he had been away, the thief had got into the museum.

Diamond told him about Rupert Darby.

In turn, Wigfull told Diamond about the beret he had found. He didn't go into the problems Inky the poodle had given him, merely stating that he had picked up the beret soon after six thirty. "I'm bound to say I wondered about it when I saw it," he added.

"Where was it?" Diamond asked.

"Em, I picked it up in that temple thing near the railway bridge. Do you know where I mean?" He produced the beret from his pocket. "By the look of this, some animal has chewed it about a bit. A dog, I'd say. Do you think it was Rupert's?"

"Sure of it." Diamond flattened the beret on a table. "You can see where the paint spray got to it."

Wigfull hadn't heard about the paint, or the graffiti on the Walsingham Gallery window. He had to be told. He studied the tiny paint spots that covered about a third of the beret and said humbly that if he'd realized how crucial a piece of evidence this was, he'd have treated it more carefully.

Diamond had not deliberately withheld information, he made clear; he'd only heard about it late the previous afternoon. There had not been an opportunity.

Wigfull, floundering in his own deceit, made no objection. Instead, he said, "He must have taken off the beret to fit the noose over his head. Probably left it on the bridge, and a dog picked it up."

"His own dog, I expect," said Diamond, reasonably enough.

"I shouldn't count on it," said Wigfull, going red. "I did happen to see a large poodle running loose in the gardens- quite near the temple, actually."

"Could have been the poodle, then."

"Doesn't really matter, does it?" said Wigfull, trying to emphasize the larger considerations. "The crucial thing is that we found it and confirmed what you heard about the paint marks. Pretty damning. This writing on the gallery window was a desperate attempt by Rupert to throw suspicion on someone else, wouldn't you say?"

"Looks that way," Diamond said.

"And when it didn't succeed, when you followed up yesterday, asking for him in all his usual haunts, he heard we were onto him and topped himself."

Diamond wasn't having that. He hadn't hounded Rupert to his death. "You're wrong there, John. This hanging wasn't something he thought of yesterday evening. It couldn't have been."

This drew a frown from Wigfull.

Patiently and without condescension, Diamond explained. "It was in the third riddle:

'To end the suspense, as yours truly did,

Discover the way to Sydney from Sid.' "

Wigfull's long, silent look showed that he dearly wanted to know what Diamond was getting at.

"The riddle predicted this hanging," Diamond went on." 'To end the suspense': That's what happened this morning. Rupert was suspended from the bridge. When he was cut down, we ended the suspense. It was a play on words, John, a gruesome double meaning. So it was all planned. 'Discover the way to Sydney' is what we did, except that we guessed wrong and picked the bloody museum instead of the bridge. If we'd thought more about every sodding word in the riddle, we might have anticipated this."

"Might not."

Really, Diamond had to agree. The lines had tantalized, as the previous riddles had. To have penetrated their true meaning would have required the brilliance of one of those fictional sleuths the Bloodhounds revered. He knew his limitations.

Wigfull took a more positive line. "At least you have your murderer, and I have my locked room thief," he pointed out. "All we have to do now is work out how it was done."

"You're assuming Rupert Darby is your man?"

"Aren't you?" said Wigfull, blushing scarlet.

Diamond said, "If you really want to know, John, I think you couldn't be more wrong. I know how it was done, but I'm damned if I know who did it."

"You're talking about the locked room mystery? You think you've cracked it?" said Wigfull on a shrill note of disbelief.

Diamond had cracked it all right. He was certain now, after thinking it through, going over it many times in his mind since getting the flash of inspiration the evening before. As he'd told Julie at the time, the breakthrough had come with her question: "What was the murderer doing there?"

Between them, on a table, labeled and bagged, were the contents of the dead man's pockets. Diamond pointed to the polythene bag containing the padlock. "Take a look. Is it, or is it not, indistinguishable from the padlock on the narrowboat?"

Wigfull turned it over several times. "It's the same make, certainly. But we've been through this before, my theory about a substitute padlock. You know we have. I thought I had the answer until you showed it was impossible. This padlock can't have been used. Milo's was on the door when we opened it that night, and he had only the one key. You proved that yourself when your divers found his old bunch of keys in the canal and the damned thing fitted. This doesn't prove anything unless the keys happen to be identical, and we were told by the locksmith that such a thing couldn't happen."

"Just in case, let's put that to the test," said Diamond. He went to a drawer and took out Milo's padlock and the key that fitted it. "Pass me the other bag, would you-the one containing Rupert's keys?"

"Do you think you ought to be handling them?" said Wigfull.

"The keys, please."

Wigfull shook the bag and dropped the key ring on the table top. He wasn't going to risk leaving his prints on them.

All work was suspended in the incident room. Everyone in there-detectives, filing clerks, computer operators-gathered around the two senior men. Julie Hargreaves was there, and Keith Halliwell, on tenterhooks to hear the explanation.

There were four keys on the ring: one of the Yale type that looked like a front-door key; a plastic-topped one that was probably for a car; and two small narrow ones, identical in shape. Diamond slotted one of the latter into Milo's padlock and tried unsuccessfully to turn it. To leave no one in any doubt, he tried the other, still with no result.

Wigfull said smugly, "You see. It doesn't match. Let's compare it with Milo's key. I'm willing to bet the whole shape is different."

He was right. When placed together, the two keys were clearly cut for different locks.

Diamond was not discouraged. Far from it. "Right. This is the way it was done. It's going to make you groan, it's so simple. This is Milo's padlock, right? And this is the key that fits it, the one key available at the time. Milo had possession of the key, so Milo was the only person who could open the padlock at any time. Everyone agreed?"

There were some cautious murmurs. Nobody really wanted to be shown up as gullible.

"Now imagine Milo going to his locked boat anytime you like. He uses his key to open the padlock. Now what does he do?"

Halliwell said, "Removes the key and replaces it in his pocket."

Diamond wagged a stubby finger in confirmation. "Right. The keys go back into his pocket. What about the padlock?"

"He doesn't put that in his pocket," said one of the computer operators. "It's too bulky."

"So what does he do?"

"Leaves it hanging on the staple."

"Correct. Locked or unlocked?"

A moment's hesitation. Then, from Wigfull: "Unlocked, presumably. No point in locking it while he's at home. If he wants privacy, he can use the fingerbolts on the inside of the door."

Diamond gave a nod and referred the matter to everyone else by spreading his hands. "Reasonable? Now, let's take this on a bit. Milo is aboard his boat, sitting in the cabin watching TV or cooking. The door is bolted from the inside. The padlock is hanging from the staple outside the door with the shackle-this arched bit at the top-unfastened. Anyone could lift the padlock off. Are you with me still?"

There were nods and murmurs all around.

"Now along comes our villain with a similar padlock- different key, of course-unhooks Milo's padlock and substitutes his own. Done in a moment without Milo being aware of it. He goes away and waits for his opportunity."

There were definite sounds of understanding.

"You're onto it, aren't you?" said Diamond. "Milo decides to go out. And what does he do to lock his door? Simply closes it, lifts off the padlock-the new padlock, believing it to be his own-and slots the hasp over the staple. Puts the padlock in position and presses it home. He doesn't need to use his key. They lock automatically, as anyone who has used a padlock knows."

They were not only up with his explanation now; they were ahead. The murmurs were of appreciation.

"But of course," Diamond said, "the padlock he's just attached to his boat belongs to the villain, who can now unlock it at will. So the villain lets himself in, does his dirty work, and leaves. And when he leaves, he fixes Milo's padlock on the door and presses it closed. Milo comes back later, unlocks as usual, and can't fathom how someone could have got inside his cabin."

Julie said, "Nor could anyone else until this moment."

Halliwell said, "You've cracked it."

Even Wigfull was nodding.

A couple of people applauded, and almost everyone joined in.

Diamond flushed with embarrassment and reminded them that there was work to be done. His stock had never been higher at the Bath nick.

Later, at the bridge in Sydney Gardens, he examined the scene of the hanging. The approaches were still cordoned off. The Scenes of Crime officers had come and gone. Part of the rope was still attached to the iron parapet.

"If you wanted to end it all," Diamond said to Julie, who was with him, "there are worse ways than this. You sit on the railing here with one end around your neck and the other attached to the bridge and jump down. Mercifully quick."

"Is that what happened?" Julie said. Something in his tone had suggested otherwise.

"He certainly broke his neck."

She nodded. "Only I notice you haven't used the word suicide once."

"Because I'm not sure," he said.

"Murder by hanging would be pretty unusual, wouldn't it?"

"Very."

"Have you ever come across one?"

"Never. The victim is going to struggle, isn't he? I reckon you'd need a couple of people to carry it out. It's not as if his arms and legs were pinioned, as they are in a judicial hanging. Unless he were very feeble for some reason, or so pissed out of his mind that he didn't know what was happening-"

"That might be true in this case," she said.

"He was out early last evening," Diamond confirmed. "I did establish that he had a quick pint in the Saracen's Head about seven and went off to meet someone else."

"Did he say who?"

"No. But it was at some other pub, which was why he didn't have the dog with him. He told them in the Saracen's that you couldn't count on every pub accepting animals."

"So it was a boozy evening," said Julie. "Do we know what time he died?"

He shrugged. "They can never tell you with any precision. Between midnight-when Wigfull came through here- and six thirty in the morning."

Julie tried to picture the scene. "If he was drunk by then-I mean so helpless that someone could hang him-this would be a long way to bring him. Can you get a car along these paths?"

Diamond's immediate response showed that he'd given the problem some thought already. "Yes, you can drive straight in from Sydney Place. There's no gate."

"Difficult to prove," Julie remarked.

"Impossible."

"I meant the possibility of murder."

"You never know what the postmortem may show up," he said. "I've asked Jack Merlin to do it."

Merlin was the top forensic pathologist in the west of England. He would have to drive seventy miles, from Reading. He and Diamond knew each other of old, but he would have needed some convincing that a routine suicide by hanging was worth the journey.

"You do believe there's something suspicious," Julie probed.

He made some indeterminate sound and pulled a face. "Nothing very solid."

To draw him out, she said, "There wasn't any suicide note. If he did this from a sense of guilt, you'd think he would want to confess."

Again, he gave a shrug. "It's early days to worry about a note. Could be at his house, or in the post. The thing that makes me pause for thought is the padlock being found in his pocket. If you were going on a bender with a friend, would you carry a damned great padlock with you? What would be the point? It's not as if he was going to try the locked room trick on Milo's boat again. No point in that, surely? The only reason I can think of is to link him with the killing of Sid Towers. That may have been Rupert's way of telling us he was guilty. But as you just pointed out, he could have done that better in a written confession."

"And if we're talking murder," said Julie, "the padlock in his pocket is a lot easier to plant than a fake confession. It still frames him."

Diamond turned and looked along the strip of blue-green water toward the second iron bridge. "Another murder on the canal? I wonder, Julie. I wonder."

The first task after entering the house in Hay Hill that afternoon was to open a tin of dog food and pour some water into a bowl. Marlowe was ravenous.

Julie saw to it. "Poor thing-he's been alone here since seven last night. I'm going to take him for a walk. You don't mind?"

"If it doesn't take long."

He opened some windows.

The second task was to find the suicide note, if one existed. He looked in the obvious places, over the fireplace and by the bed. On the kitchen table. Beside the ancient typewriter in the back room.

No joy.

He found some cash, about thirty pounds, in an old box file, along with an out-of-date passport, letters from the local Job Center and the Social Security office, unfilled tax declaration forms, doctors' certificates, and beer mats with some names and addresses scribbled on them that meant nothing to Diamond. Nothing so helpful as a diary. A testament to a chaotic existence. He was learning nothing new about Rupert.

While his thoughts were still full of the dead man, he felt a sudden pressure against his leg. "Jesus!"

Marlowe was back from his walk and wanting more food.

Julie followed the dog in. "He's a super old thing really," she said. "Just wants some training. I'm sure he'd pick it up."

"You'd better open another tin before he has my leg," said Diamond, less enchanted.

"Found anything useful?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"So we wait for the postmortem?"

"Well, I did ask the1 police surgeon to take a blood sample. There may be some news on the alcohol content. We'd better be getting back to the nick, anyway."

"What about the dog?"

Diamond's mind was on other things.

Julie said, "We can't leave him here and forget about him. What's going to happen to him?"

He yawned and said as if such details were beneath him, "The Dogs' and Cats' Home at Claverton, I reckon."

Julie's blue eyes moistened at the thought. "We can't just stick him in a home."

"My cat, Raffles, came from there."

"He's not a young dog, you can see that. No one would want to take him on."

"There's no alternative."

"There is. He can come home with me. I'll have him."

His eyes widened. "You've got two dogs already, haven't you?"

"So I'm used to it."

He felt compelled to ask, "What's your husband going to say?"

"Charlie? I'll talk him into it."

"But if you've got the dog with you already…"

She smiled. "Exactly. When he sees Marlowe, he won't turn him away."

He didn't pursue it. Julie's domestic arrangements were her own business. They drove back to Manvers Street with Marlowe seated contentedly on the backseat, spreading gusts of his doggy breath around the car.