Diamond Dust

18

McGarvie was suspicious when Diamond asked for the return of Steph's letters and papers. 'Why do you need them?'

'They were my wife's property and they belong to me. You've had them nearly two months.'

'You won't let go, will you? You won't leave this to us?'

'It's a simple request'

'You can have them at the end of the week.' From McGarvie's tone it was clear he'd be going through every scrap of paper again in case there was something incriminating he had missed.

Diamond asked, 'What's the latest on the gun?'

'Still with forensics.'

'They're taking their time.'

'Does that bother you?' McGarvie said, his eyebrows arching. 'If you know you're in the clear, why do you keep asking?'

'Because all this concentration on me is bogging down the whole inquiry. You have a budget for overtime now, and it's being wasted. They'll scale you down soon.'

'You're not the only line of enquiry, Peter. The hitman theory is still a strong runner.'

'Well, obviously.'

'I'm glad we agree on something. The shooting looked professional. Two shots to the head.'

The image darted into Diamond's brain once more -and it hurt. He was getting better at hiding his grief. 'Who would have put out a contract?'

'Someone you sent down for a long stretch. It's not impossible to organise a murder from behind bars.'

'Like Jake Carpenter?'

'Or some other villain.'

'Apart from Carpenter, it's a long time since I tangled with a big-time crook.'

'We know that.'

'You'd have to go back to my service in the Met. The eighties.'

'Which we are doing.'

'Are you? I thought about this myself.'

McGarvie was quick to say, 'Would you care to share your thoughts?'

'Don't mind.' He knew they must have trawled through his career already. 'There was the Missendale case that got me into so much trouble.'

'The black boy?'

'Yes. Murder in the course of an armed robbery. A building society job. One of the customers tried to tackle the gunman and was shot in the head. Hedley Missendale was a known robber, and we pulled him in and he confessed. I wasn't the SIO – that was Jacob Blaize – but I did the main interview. Missendale was sent down for life, and then after two years someone else put up his hand and said he'd found Jesus and the murder was down to him.'

'Jesus?'

Diamond glared. 'No, this born-again Christian. He produced the gun to prove it. Missendale was pardoned and Blaize took early retirement and I was up before a board of inquiry. Well, you know. It's on my file.'

'You were cleared.'

'Officially, but there was stuff in the report about my methods. "His physical presence and forceful demeanour were bound to intimidate." What was I supposed to do? Buy him a box of chocolates?'

McGarvie wisely passed up the chance to comment on Diamond's demeanour. 'So do you think it could be Missendale getting back at you?'

He shook his head. 'Hedley had a few dodgy friends, but I don't see him or his chums harbouring a grudge all those years. They lived for the moment.'

'He's in Maidstone Prison,' McGarvie said. 'Been there two years for RWV.'

'Is that so? He seems to be in the clear, then.'

McGarvie turned to another of Diamond's cases. 'You were on the Brook Green shooting.'

'Headed it. That night was just like the OK Corral, except they were using Kalashnikovs. Three men died. Basically it was a skirmish in a drugs war. Two barons claiming the same patch. We collared Kenny Calhoun and two of his heavies. They all got life. Calhoun was in Brixton, the last I heard.'

'He died last year,' McGarvie said.

'Did he? Can't honestly say I'm sorry.'

'The other two?'

'Logan and Crampton. Thickos. Guys who wouldn't remember their own names, let alone mine.'

'This isn't much help. Can you think of any other villain you crossed?'

'I'm doing my best. There was a mean character called Joe Florida we nailed for a protection racket. He was American, I think. Scared the shit out of Asian shopkeepers. He got a twelve-stretch, which means he could be out now and back to his bad old ways. Yes. Joe Florida.'

'Was it personal, between you and him?'

'It seemed so at the time. I haven't heard of him for years.'

'Was he the sort who'd gun down your wife?'

'Hard to say. He'd have gunned me down, that's for certain.'

'Was he organised?'

'You mean did he run a gang? Sure.'

'Joe Florida. I'll see what the Met knows. Are you sure there's nobody closer to home, apart from the Carpenter family?'

There was – but for the present, Diamond preferred to deal with Edward Dixon-Bligh himself. The case against Steph's no-good ex-husband was tenuous, and he didn't want McGarvie rooting around for the evidence of blackmail. So he shook his head. 'I've been over and over.'

And on Wednesday evening at home he had a call from Louis Voss. 'I think we've traced your man. One of the two women in the ground-floor flat did some detective work of her own. She has a business in Walham Green selling weavings – wall hangings, curtains, throws, that kind of thing – and she lent him a few items to brighten up his flat. She does that, apparently, and it helps to get her work known. When he did his flit, he took off with all the choice items she'd lent him, and she went berserk.'

'She found him?'

'She told everyone who came into the shop. That's the way to get the word around. One of her customers saw him walking out of Paddington Station last Sunday afternoon and followed him. He's living in some crummy street at the back of the station, right under the Westway flyover. Seventeen Westway Terrace. You'll be glad to hear Sally has recovered all her wall hangings.'

'I'll be overjoyed if she left him in one piece.'

'Will you come up again?'

'Tomorrow. And thanks, Louis.'

Seedy as Blyth Road had looked with its peeling stucco, it was state of the art compared to Westway Terrace. A hundred years of coal dust from the trains was sealed with the mud and oil sprayed from the flyover. A sane person would not have ventured there without a protective suit.

The first mystery: how did the place come to be named after a flyover when it obviously pre-dated it by half a century or more? He could only assume it had been called something else in Victorian times and was given a change of name during the twentieth century. One possible explanation for a change of street name was that the address had become notorious because a murder had been committed there. He was willing to believe it.

No doorbells here. He knocked at number seventeen and got no answer. These were labourers' dwellings of the two-up, two-down sort. He tried peering through the window and made out a square table with a newspaper on it. Some cardboard boxes stacked against a wall. He felt certain Dixon-Bligh was not at home. What mattered was whether he had left altogether after being tracked there by Sally – or was it Mandy? – the angry weaver.

He tried the houses on either side, and still failed to rouse anyone. He thought he heard a faint sound from within the second place, but they weren't answering for sure. It was the kind of temporary home illegal immigrants are dumped in after a long, expensive journey in a container. They'd hardly want to come to the door.

A forced entry was an option he preferred not to take. Better, surely, not to alert the suspect. Within walking distance was the Grand Union Canal and the upmarket area of Little Venice, with its trees, pubs and cafes. Maybe Dixon-Bligh had found work there. He'd been in the catering trade. For Diamond, it was a good enough incentive to leave this depressing street and go looking.

He had not gone far when a cyclist turned the corner and pedalled towards him: the first sign of life. A man of around his own age, dressed in a blue suit and flat cap, riding along in that focused way cyclists have. Diamond didn't hail him, as he might have done. Westway Terrace was a cul-de-sac, so it was certain that the cyclist would stop at one of the houses and there was just a chance…

His hunch was right. The man came to a halt outside number seventeen and felt in his pocket for keys.

A change of luck was overdue.

'Mr Dixon-Bligh?'

The cyclist turned and stared. There was panic, or guilt, or both, in the look. His hands gripped the bike as if he was considering escape. He didn't say a word.

Diamond stepped purposefully towards him. 'I'm Peter Diamond, Steph's second husband.'

He watched it register. Diamond the policeman. Saw the eyes widen, the jaw gape. Any jury would have convicted on that reaction.

'Mind if I come in?' Diamond asked, with a huge effort to sound friendly and disarming. 'I'm up from Bath to see you.'

'What on earth for?'

'It'll be easier inside.'

Dixon-Bligh unlocked and wheeled the bike in first, leaning it against the wall just inside. Diamond stepped in after him and closed the door. The place smelt damp and the wallpaper was coated with mould.

'I tried to reach you on the phone. The number I had was obviously out of date. Are you on a mobile these days?'

Dixon-Bligh was not saying.

'You did know she was killed?'

He nodded. It had been in all the papers and on radio and television, so he could hardly have failed to find out.

Diamond added, 'I tried to let you know about the funeral. She had a good one, in the Abbey. Lots of people came.'

The funeral didn't interest Dixon-Bligh. 'What do you want from me?' he succeeded in saying. He still hadn't taken off the hat.

'A cup of coffee wouldn't come amiss. Didn't get one on the train. Can't stand those paper cups.'

Glad, it seemed, of any opportunity to mark time while he marshalled his thoughts, Dixon-Bligh stepped through to the kitchen, and Diamond made sure he was close behind. There wasn't much in there, considering this was a professional caterer's kitchen. A packet of cornflakes and a cut loaf. One mug. Dixon-Bligh looked around for another and took one out of a box, still wrapped in newspaper from the house-move.

'You don't have many visitors, then?' Diamond remarked. 'I'm having to get used to being a loner myself.

Can't say I'm much good at it.'

No matey response to that.

'Is this where you keep the milk?' He opened the small fridge to the right of the door and took out a packet of semi-skimmed and checked the sell-by date. It was just about drinkable. 'I expect you get a main meal at work, like me. You do work?'

Dixon-Bligh nodded and picked up the kettle and filled it. The old-fashioned gas ring had to be lit with a match. Then he took off his cap and hung it on the door, accepting the obligation to say something. Now that the words came, they were fluent and articulate. 'I'm sorry about the way she died, truly sorry. Thought about coming to the funeral, and decided against it. The point is, there was a residue of bitterness after we parted. The marriage had been a mistake. I'm sure Stephanie must have told you. Harsh things were said, deeply wounding on both sides. I'm ashamed, looking back. I gather she was happier with you.'

'It worked,' Diamond said, not trusting himself to say more.

The man was pouring on the oil now he was over the first shock. 'I decided turning up at the funeral would have been hypocritical. I should have let you know, written a note or sent a card at the very least. I have this tendency to turn my back on things I can't handle.' He took a packet of teabags from an otherwise empty cupboard. 'I expect her family came to the funeral. Her sister… the name has gone.'

'Angela. Yes, she was there.'

'Didn't approve of me.'

'Me, neither,' Diamond said to encourage confidences. 'She thinks my job contributed in some way to Steph's murder. She could be right.'

'Really? I hadn't thought of that.'

'Do you have any idea who would have wanted her killed?'

'None whatsoever. She didn't have enemies. She wasn't that kind of person, as you know.'

This comparing of notes by the two men Steph had married was taking out some of the tension. Dixon-Bligh may not have dropped his guard yet, but he was willing to respond to questions.

Diamond said, 'I was going to ask if you remember anyone who took against her, with or without cause.'

'From that far back, you mean? It's a long shot, isn't it?'

'You were in the Air Force when she met you, I believe.'

'True, and there were some weird characters around then, but Steph didn't come across them. We weren't housed in married quarters. We had a flat in the city, and she didn't see much of the other officers. Even on mess nights, when some of the wives attended, Steph stayed at home because I was always on duty supervising the catering staff. Wouldn't have been much of a night out for her.'

'Where was this?'

'Hereford. Not a bad posting.'

'Hereford, right,' Diamond said placidly, making immense efforts to suppress his gut feeling that the man had murdered Steph. 'She spoke of it quite often, and I didn't link it up with the RAF. I thought she'd lived there at some earlier stage of her life. She liked it there. She more than once mentioned the view of the Black Mountains from the kitchen window.'

'Typical.'

'What's that?'

'Steph remembering the view. You could see it on a fine day, but most of the time it rained.'

'She was an optimist. And how about you? Did you like Hereford?'

'Unreservedly. Great pubs, good cider, terrific steaks.'

Diamond's eyes widened. 'Was Steph eating steak in those days?'

Dixon-Bligh grinned faintly. 'No, that was a personal memory.' The water had come to the boil, and he tossed a teabag into each cup and poured some in.

Judging that the preliminaries were at an end, Diamond sat at the table and asked, 'Do you mind talking about what went wrong in your marriage?'

'I don't mind,' he answered evenly. 'We went into it blindly, that was what was wrong. We were attracted to each other, very considerate when we were going out together, full of plans. After we married, after the nuptial bliss, I relaxed – or relapsed – and became the selfish bastard I am. To Stephanie, this came as a shock. Service life makes heavy demands anyway. A career officer is expected to spend time in the mess and she couldn't understand why I was out so often.' With a sigh, he said, 'If you want the absolute truth, I had affairs. My duties in the catering branch meant I had more women around me than men, and – well, you know how it is – there are always those who are game for some fun.'

'Did she find out?'

'Not for a while. She had her suspicions, I'm certain. Even so, our sex life was normal. I'm a twice-a-day man, or was, given the opportunity. I think if we'd had the child she wanted, we might still be married, regardless of my playing around. She was so keen to get pregnant'

'I know.'

'The miscarriages did for us. She was weak and weepy and I couldn't handle that at all. I played away more blatantly than before. She found out and angry things were said and we split. Simple as that.'

'Had you spoken since the divorce?'

'Only when necessary. Some couples stay friendly, I know. In our case, it was impossible.'

'You say "when necessary". Did you get in touch in the weeks before her death?'

'No.' A fiat denial without a glimmer of guilt. This was not what Diamond had come to hear.

'You're certain? Her diary mentions phone calls and meetings with someone.'

'Not me, old chum.'

The cockiness of that 'old chum' got to Diamond. He went for the kill.

'She called you Ted, I expect?'

'Hardly ever. I was Ed to her.'

'Easy to say now.'

'But true.' Dixon-Bligh widened his eyes. 'Why? Is this important?'

'The diary entries speak of somebody called “T”.'

'And you thought…' He flushed deeply. 'Christ, I nearly walked into that, didn't I? No, she didn't call me Ted. Ever. You ought to know that. She must have spoken about me. Did she ever refer to me as anything but Ed?'

'She rarely mentioned you, and then it was always Edward. Never Ed.'

'Never Ted either, I'll bet.'

'I've been looking at witness statements. Various men were seen in the vicinity.'

'Matching me? I don't think so.'

The frontal attack hadn't succeeded. He made a tactical switch. 'Any idea who this "T" could be?'

'I'd have to think. It's not going to be someone from our Air Force days, surely. No, I'm at a loss.'

'When were you last in touch with her?'

'Must be at least two years ago, some photos of her parents I found among my things. I was running a restaurant, then, living in Guildford. I phoned Stephanie to ask if she wanted them sent on.'

'And that was the last time?'

'Absolutely.'

'Sure you didn't ask her for money?'

Dixon-Bligh shot him a hostile look. 'That's insulting.'

'True. Answer the question.'

'I didn't ask her for anything.'

'Maybe you demanded it.'

'Get lost.'

'You're skint. This place is a comedown from Blyth Road and you owe two months' rent there.'

'They'll get their money. That was a flat, and bloody noisy. This is a house.'

'It's a tip.'

'It's temporary – until I find something better.'

'Not the sort of place I'd expect to find an ex-RAF officer living in. What's the attraction? Are you working now? Something just a bike ride away?'

Dixon-Bligh said, 'What does this have to do with Stephanie's death?'

'Everything. If you're on the skids, and don't like to admit it, you could be lying about not asking her for cash. It's more than likely she was being blackmailed.'

'Blackmailed? What about?'

'Something in her past. Something you're well placed to know about.'

Dixon-Bligh sneered. 'You must have a lower opinion of her than I thought, you filthy-minded git.'

Weeks of bottled-up anger went into the punch Diamond swung at the man. The table tipped up and the chair crashed over. His fist struck the side of Dixon-Bligh's jaw and keeled him against his cardboard boxes with a crunch that must have shattered any breakable contents.

He was out cold, blood oozing from one side of his mouth.

Satisfying as it was, the blow had solved nothing. The encounter was over. Nothing useful had come of it.

Diamond walked out and slammed the door.