Diamond Dust

12

Curious as to what this fascinating object might be, Raffles arrived on the table with an agile leap whilst Diamond was performing a delicate operation with salad-servers and a chopstick.

'Get out of it.' He didn't want paw prints on Steph's handbag.

Raffles jumped down and went to look at the feeding dish instead.

Neither did he want more of his own fingerprints. He must have left some when he picked the bag out of the stone vase. Since then he'd been careful to handle only the strap. Forensics would bellyache about contaminated evidence. So he eased the sides open with the chopstick and started removing the contents with the salad-servers.

Plastic rain-hat.

Kleenex tissues, soggy and disintegrating. The damp had penetrated the bag.

Compact.

Oxfam ballpoint.

Lipstick (a devil to grip with the servers).

Purse, unzipped and empty except for a few small coins. But the credit cards were still in place in the side pocket. Warburton must have known no one would believe he possessed a credit card. He'd gone for the cash.

Keys.

Aspirin bottle.

Her little book of photos, of her parents, a group of her Brownies and Diamond himself, in uniform, the year they'd met. The pictures had suffered in the damp.

But where was the one thing he wanted to find?

He probed with the servers. Held the entire bag upside down on the end of the chopstick. A Malteser fell out and rolled across the floor. He watched Raffles hunt it down and flick it with a paw before discovering it was coated in chocolate. One item forensics would have to manage without.

They would get everything else. Presently he'd go into work and take quiet satisfaction in presenting McGarvie with the handbag and saying he'd found it at the scene. What was the figure they kept quoting – over a hundred officers involved in a fingertip search?

In truth, he knew how easy it was to miss something as obvious as the stone vases. Could have happened to anyone.

He poked with the chopstick at the objects on the table, trying to work out where Steph's diary was. Not in the house. She always had it with her. That little book was essential to the way she ran her life. Dates, times, important phone numbers and addresses. She didn't use it as some people use a diary, to write up a daily record of their lives. Recording the past was alien to her outlook. She was forward-looking. She scribbled in appointments, names, birthdays.

That diary was of no conceivable interest to anyone else.

So where was it?

He said, 'Stupid arse.'

The answer was as obvious as the stone vase in the park. In the lining inside the bag was a zip. She kept the diary in an inner pocket. Impatient now, he dropped the chopstick and used his finger and thumb to open the zip and feel inside.

Result.

The diary was dry and in near perfect condition. He turned to the date of the murder, Tuesday, February the twenty-third, and found an entry. Steph had written in her blue ballpoint:

T. 10 a.m. Viet. Pk, opp. bandstand

He frowned at the page, baffled, disbelieving, shocked. He'd been telling everyone it was most unlikely Steph had arranged to visit the park – because she hadn't said a word to him. But why hadn't she mentioned it? She was so open about her life. Always told him everything.

Didn't she?

All at once his hands shook.

He hesitated to check the rest of the diary. It would be an invasion of her privacy. Already he felt shabby for opening it. Then an inner voice told him the murder squad would pore over every page after he handed it in, and he was more entitled than they to know what was in the damned thing.

He had this gut-wrenching fear that his trust in Steph was about to unravel. Up to now he'd never had a doubt about her loyalty. Theirs had been an honest, blissful marriage. That had been one of the few certainties in his case-hardened life. Was it possible he'd been mistaken, that she had secrets she'd never discussed with him?

This looked horribly like one, this appointment in the park. Did 'T' stand for a name, someone she'd met, or – please, please – something totally different and innocent that happened in parks, like… like what, for Christ's sake?

Tennis?

Outdoors, in February? Ridiculous.

T'ai Chi, then?

Why not? Steph was forever trying therapies, holistic this and alternative that. Didn't always speak of them, because she knew he dismissed all of it as baloney. It was not impossible she'd joined a group who exercised in the park.

Somehow, he couldn't picture it.

Briefly he was tempted to destroy the diary without looking at any more of it. If he'd been living an illusion, wasn't it preferable to hold onto precious memories, even though they might turn out to have been unfounded?

He dismissed that. The diary was pivotal evidence, whatever else was in it. The killer had to be caught, and this proved Steph had made an appointment to go to her place of execution. The chance that some casual mugger had killed her was now so unlikely that it could be discounted. She'd obviously been lured to her death. The murder squad had to be told.

So he started leafing through. It was a small diary with seven days spread over two pages, and Steph's entries were short. They took some interpreting. 'Ox' meant her stints at the Oxfam shop. They varied a bit from one week to the next, so she had to keep a record of them. She'd also scribbled in appointments with the doctor and dentist, family birthdays, dinner invitations and theatre bookings. He was looking for other things.

Disturbingly, he found them.

Monday 15 February Ox 2-5 P out. Must call T.

With that, the T'ai Chi theory went down in flames.

Wednesday 17 February Ox 10-1. Hair (Jan) 1.30.

Friday 19 February P out. Call T tonight.

On the following Tuesday – Shrove Tuesday, the diary reminded him – she'd had her fatal meeting in the park with the person she called "T". These were crucial entries and he copied them into a notebook of his own.

It was deeply worrying, not to say hurtful. The first mention of 'T', on Monday the fifteenth, seemed to be linked with the note that he, 'P', was out. He remembered. It had been one of his regular, mind-numbing PCCG meetings with local residents' groups. Evidently on the Wednesday she'd had her hair done, which was usually a sure sign of some important occasion ahead. Another call to 'T' on Friday. And she'd said not a word about all this.

Hold on, he told himself, this is your wife Steph. Don't read too much into it. But the suspicion of a secret affair was planted. How could he interpret it as anything else?

For crying out hud, be realistic! Steph wasn't two-timing me. I'd have picked up some signals. She was as loving as ever in those last few days of her life, on our last night together. There's another explanation. Has to be.

He went methodically through the eight weeks up to the date of her death and found no other mention of this 'T'. It was no use looking for last year's diary, because she always threw them away at the end of the year. His hands still shook as he replaced this one in its pocket of the handbag and closed the zip.

There was no sense of triumph in handing the bag to McGarvie. He simply walked into the incident room, passed it over and said where he'd found it.

'I thought those bloody great things were solid stone,' McGarvie said as if Diamond himself had conned him. 'I suppose you looked inside?'

He nodded. 'You'll find some of my prints on it. And Warburton's, no doubt. The purse is in there, minus the money. And her diary.'

'The diary.' The tired eyes widened.

'She had an appointment in the park the day she died.'

'Who with?'

'Someone she called “T”.’

McGarvie looked around the incident room. 'Did you hear that, everyone? This is the breakthrough.' He looked animated for the first time in a month. 'Any thoughts?'

Diamond shook his head. 'Like I said, she hadn't mentioned a thing.'

'Boyfriend?'

'Some boyfriend, if he put a bullet through her head.'

'Sorry. I've got to cover every angle. And you think Warburton took the cash?'

'I'm sure of it'

'And tossed the bag in the vase?'

'He told me he did. Took me to the place. There was only forty quid. If you're thinking of charging him, don't. He gave me his co-operation.'

'I'll handle this my way. I still want to speak to him. Look, I'm grateful you found this.'

'But…' Diamond said.

'You know what I'm going to say?'

'Save it. I'm not trying to take over. I'll keep my distance.'

'That's not good enough, Peter.'

'It's the best you'll get.'

Specially, he thought, when I'm ahead of you.

He turned right outside the police station and walked the length of Manvers Street and beyond, where it became Pierrepont Street. At the far end he turned left into North Parade Passage, and straight to Steph's hairdresser, called What a Snip.

He asked for Jan. She was with a client.

'If it's about an appointment,' the receptionist said with a dubious look at Diamond's bald patch, 'I can do it from the book.'

'You can show me the book. And you can tell Jan to break off and speak to the police.'

She went at once.

Steph's name was in the book for one-thirty on Wednesday, February the seventeenth.

'Does this tick beside her name mean she definitely came in?' he asked Jan when she appeared.

'She did. Mr Diamond, I can't tell you how shocked I was when I heard what happened,'Jan said. She was the senior stylist and manager, meaning she was all of twenty-one with the confidence of twice that, blond, elfin, with eyes that had seen everything and dealt with every kind of client. You wouldn't mess with Jan. Steph must have liked her.

'I want you to cast your mind back to that Wednesday. I'm sure she chatted as you were doing her hair.'

'A bit, yes.'

'Can you remember any of what was said?'

'That's asking. The weather, naturally. My holiday in Tenerife. The night before's television, I expect. And the kind of cut she wanted.'

'Did she say anything about the reason for the hairdo?'

'Not that I remember.'

'Try, please. She wasn't one for regular appointments, as you know. She only booked you when she had something coming up. Did she mention what it was?'

She shook her head. 'I would have remembered if she'd said anything. People often do, and I like to know about their lives. But I never ask if they don't want to say. I don't believe in being nosy.'

'Are you sure she didn't tell you something and ask you to keep it.to yourself? – because if she did, it's got to come out now. You don't have to spare my feelings, Jan. I need to find her killer before someone else is murdered.'

'And I'd tell you if there was anything to tell, but there isn't'

He believed her.

The phone was beeping and the cat mewing when he came through his front door. He ignored the phone, but Raffles got fed. Then he heated some baked beans, cut the stale end off a loaf and made toast, topped with tinned tomatoes and a fried egg that smelt fishy. Looked at the post without troubling to open anything. The solicitor, the bank, the funeral director. They could wait. In less than twenty minutes he was out again, driving to Bristol.

He called at two pubs in the old market area and asked for John Seville, an informer he'd known and used a few times. No snout is totally reliable, but Seville was better than most. The problem was that nobody had seen him since the Carpenter trial. Bernie Hescott, hunched over a Guinness in the Rummer, was definitely second best.

'Haven't clapped eyes on him in weeks. I wouldn't like to think what happened. He was too yappy for his own good, I reckon.'

'Maybe you can help.' Diamond showed the top edge of a twenty-pound note, and then let it slide back into his top pocket. 'You heard what happened to my wife?'

'It was in all the papers, wasn't it?' said Bernie, a twitchy, under-nourished ex-con in a Bristol Rovers shirt. 'Wouldn't wish that on anyone.'

'It was done by a pro.'

'You think so?'

'I was going to ask John Seville if he'd heard a whisper about a hitman.'

'Was you? Well, he's not around.'

Diamond fingered the note in his pocket. 'I could ask you, couldn't I?'

Bernie shrugged and took a sip.

'Who do the Carpenters use – their own men, or someone down from London?'

'What – for a contract?'

'Yes.'

'Job like that – I'm talking theory now – she was gunned down in broad daylight, I heard – job like that doesn't look like a local lad. There's no one I can think of in Bristol.'

Diamond took the folded banknote from his pocket and placed it on the table with his hand over it. 'I could show appreciation, Bernie, if you put out some feelers.'

'Bloody dangerous.'

'You can't help me, then?'

'It'll cost you.'

'This is personal. It's worth it' He took his hand off the banknote and revealed a crisp new fifty. He lifted it and the twenty was underneath. He returned the fifty to his pocket and slid the twenty across the table. 'I'll be in again Friday or Saturday.'

He drove up College Road to Clifton, looking for the house where Danny Carpenter lived. Back in the early nineteenth century when the city had been infested with cholera, the affluent Clifton residents instructed their servants to leave blankets and clothes halfway down the hill for the poor wretches in Bristol, and the place still has a determination not to be contaminated by the noxious life below Whiteladies Road. Danny's residence was on the Down, in one of the best positions in the city, with views along the Gorge to the Suspension Bridge. Old stone pillars at the entrance with griffins aloft gave promise of a gracious house. In fact, the original building at the end of the curved drive had been demolished at the time when architects went starry-eyed over steel and concrete. To Diamond's eye the replacement was an ugly pile of lemon-coloured, flat-roofed blocks. Even so, its location and scale represented money.

Before he got out, the security lights came on. A dog barked. A large bark. No need, really, to touch the bell push, but he did, and was rewarded with the first bars of Danny Boy.

The door opened a fraction and a snarling muzzle was thrust through.

Diamond took a step back. Someone swore, and hauled the dog inside. A man's face appeared, without doubt the face of a minder. 'Yeah?'

'Danny at home?'

'Yeah.'

'I'd like to see him, then.'

'Yeah?'

'The name's Diamond. He's heard of it.'

'Yeah?'

This might have continued for some time if a woman's voice had not said from the inner depths, 'Who is it, Gary?'

Silence. Gary had forgotten already.

Diamond called out his own name and presently Gary's ravaged head was replaced by one easier on the eye, one Diamond knew, red-blond and green-eyed. She had been in court for much of the Jake Carpenter trial.

'Evening, Celia.'

She said, 'You've got a bloody nerve.'

'I'm here to see Danny.'

'Not by invitation, you're not.'

'About the murder of my wife.'

'We don't know nothing about that. He spoke to your people and he's in the clear.'

'Then he hasn't got a problem. He can see me.'

'Aren't you forgetting you banged up his brother for a life term? Why don't you go forth and multiply, Mr Diamond? Danny's busy.' She turned her head and shouted, 'Gary, we may need that dog again. The visitor is leaving.'

'I've got some questions for you,' Diamond said.

'Me? What have I got to do with it?'

'Do you want to come down to Bath, or shall we talk inside?'

'Hang about,' Celia said. 'What's this about?'

'I don't conduct interviews on doorsteps, Celia.'

'I've done nothing wrong.'

'So it's a trip to the nick, is it?'

She opened the door wider. 'You'd better come in, you sly bastard.'

The entrance hall was virtually a foyer, circular, with doors off, a grand staircase and a marble fountain. A life-size statue of a nude woman held up a shallow bowl from which the water cascaded.

Celia showed him into a reception room that seemed to have been removed from a safari lodge, with zebra skin hangings, Zulu shields, crossed spears and huge wooden carvings of animals.

She told him, 'I'm not saying a word without Danny here.'

That suited Diamond. 'Good thinking. You'd better fetch him right away.'

She was so flustered at being fingered as a possible suspect that she didn't realise Diamond had got his way.

He stood at the window taking in the view and musing on these villains' overview of all the little mortgaged houses like his own.

He heard someone behind him say, 'You've been upsetting my wife.'

'Someone murdered mine.'

He turned. Danny Carpenter, the best-looking of the brothers, still dark-haired at forty-five or so, stood in a red polo shirt and black jeans in front of a mural of a stalking lion. Celia wasn't even in the room. No matter, now Danny had been flushed out. His short, bare arms had the muscle tone of a regular weight-lifter.

Diamond added, 'I'm trying to find the reason.'

'What reason?'

'Why she was murdered.'

'Not here, you won't,' Danny said. 'We're clean. Your people spoke to me already.'

'You've got nothing to hide, then.'

'I was at the gym.'

'And afterwards with your solicitor. I heard. A five-star alibi.'

Danny displayed his gold fillings in a slow, wide grin.

This stung Diamond into commenting, 'It's almost as if you knew something was going to happen.'

'Watch it.'

'Your brother Des is watertight, too.'

'This is going nowhere, squire,' Danny said.

'Don't tell me the Carpenter family draw the line at killing women. You could have used one of your heavies. Or hired someone.'

'You've got to be joking,' Danny said. 'Who do you think we are – Fred Karno's Army? Listen, if we wanted to get at you, we wouldn't top your wife.'

Put like that, it chimed with Diamond's own assessment, the main objection to the Carpenters as the killers: their uncomplicated notion of revenge would have resulted in his own death, not Steph's.

'If you want us off your back,' he said as if he was speaking for the entire police operation, 'you could tell me what the latest whisper is. Have you heard anything?'

'About the shooting?' Danny shook his head. 'What sort of piece was used?'

'Point three-eight revolver.'

'Doesn't say much.'

'It will when we find the weapon.'

'He'll have got rid of it, won't he?'

'Not necessarily,' Diamond said. 'This was a professional job, and professionals get attached to their pieces – don't they, Danny?'

'Let's leave it there before you say something that really gets up my nose.'

Not yet, he thought. Up to now, he'd got no signal that Danny knew more about Steph's murder than he wanted to admit. The purpose of this call was to assess the man, tease out the guilt if possible.

He tried another approach. 'You think your brother Jake's conviction was down to me, don't you?'

'You were on the case, sunshine.'

'He wasn't fitted up, you know. The girl's blood was on his shoes, in his car. This was no contract job. He flipped when she tried to sling her hook. You didn't see what he did to her face. I did. Seventeen, she was.'

Danny stared out of the window, unmoved.

Diamond said, 'There was never any doubt. The jury took under an hour.'

Still the brother was silent.

'PC Plod could have handled the case,' Diamond pressed on recklessly. 'Okay, Celia and the other women stood outside the court giving me lip, and one of them clawed my face, but they know it wasn't down to me. Your brother Jake is a stupid, sadistic killer.'

'Still family,' Danny said in a low voice, without challenging the statement.

'What's happening to Janie, then?'

'Who?'

'His girlfriend. The woman who marked me.'

Danny shrugged. He appeared to have no interest in Janie. Or what she had done to Diamond.

Diamond reminded him, 'She was wanting to visit Jake. She said you and Des monopolised all the visits.'

'She'd better piss off back to London,' Danny said. 'She's nothing to Jake.'

'You haven't spoken to her since the trial?'

Danny shook his head.

'Is it possible Janie felt so strongly about the case that she fired the shots?'

'Don't ask me.'

'I'm trying to get your opinion, Danny. You said if the family was out for revenge you wouldn't target my wife. You'd go for me. Well, Janie isn't family. Is this a woman's way of setding the score? Does she have a gun?'

Danny turned to face him. 'You're boring me. Why don't you leave?'

'Maybe I should.'

He'd got as much or as little from this member of the Carpenter family as he was likely to. The trick in making home visits to known criminals is judging when to leave.