Diamond Dust

22

Reading the Chronicle piece, Diamond was surprised how much the journalist had coaxed from him. He couldn't fault the quotes. She'd done her job well. Deprived of Steph's company for all this time, he'd been a soft touch for a bright woman journalist. The interview, over coffee in Sally Lunn's, hadn't seemed at all intrusive. He'd found her interest agreeable, almost therapeutic, having his brain exercised with a series of unthreatening questions, the sort Steph put to him when he was more under pressure than usual. Thank God he hadn't said what he really thought of McGarvie.

For obvious reasons he'd kept quiet about the cringe-making incident of the revolver the search party had dug up, and he was glad McGarvie had not mentioned it either. His feelings about that gun were complex. There was a basinful of guilt. He deeply regretted being so stupid as to hang on to the damned thing all those years. It pained him that Steph had found it and been so troubled that she buried it. He was sick to the stomach that her last communication to him – a beyond-the-grave message – had to be a kind of rebuke, for all its sensitive phrasing. But he had to be grateful she'd written the note and buried it with the gun. One last rescue act. She had removed a great burden of suspicion from his shoulders. Imagine McGarvie's fury, just when he felt he'd got the sensational evidence he needed, at finding the note that put Peter Diamond in the clear. The counter-theory about Diamond finding the gun and murdering Steph with it and then reburying it had been the sophistry of a desperate, disappointed man.

Among those theories listed in the newspaper there was no hint of the suspicion about Steph's former husband, Dixon-Bligh. He'd given away nothing on that front because it was a line of enquiry he was pursuing alone. He didn't want Steph's past life dissected by the press or the police unless it proved absolutely unavoidable. If Dixon-Bligh or anyone else had tried to blackmail her, he would root out the dusty old secrets himself – and he didn't expect they amounted to much.

One question the gently probing reporter hadn't put to him: was it bloody-mindedness that set him against McGarvie at every turn? Bloody-mindedness? It's not so simple as that, ma'am. It's force of circumstance. I'm under an embargo, you see, orders from above to leave the detective work to the murder squad. But don't you feel bitter about all the horseshit thrown at you by McGarvie, the false charges, the invasion of your privacy? I've got broad shoulders. I can take it. Or the abysmal lack of progress in the investigation? It's a brute of a case, my dear. But if I'm totally honest, if you were to tease the truth from me, I'd be forced to admit that, yes, there could be a tiny chip on these broad shoulders of mine: I hate the man.

In the next week, doggedly pursuing his own line of enquiry, he took another trip to London and looked up Dixon-Bligh – or tried to. There was a twist in the plot, and not a welcome one. The house in Westway Terrace was empty. The boxes and the few bits of furniture had gone from the front room. A neighbour said she hadn't seen the gent for weeks. The Post Office had no forwarding address. Dixon-Bligh had done another flit.

The trains on the Portsmouth line to Waterloo had run better than usual lately. The winter problems of frozen points and leaves on the line had meant a few delays and cancellations earlier in the year, but compared to previous years the service was improving. Whether the credit went to Mother Nature or the railway companies was much debated by the regular commuters. But as long as the wheels continued to roll along the tracks it was all good-humoured stuff.

Then one September morning when it was still too early for frosts or leaves, an 'incident' (unspecified, except it was 'up the line') brought everything to a prolonged halt. People don't like sitting in stationary trains for any length of time. For one thing they have places to go to, appointments to keep; and for another they feel unsafe.

There's that troublesome suspicion that the longer your train waits the more likely it is that another will come along behind and smash into it. There are signals to prevent such catastrophes, but signals have been known to fail.

In the 7.37 from Portsmouth, some people blocked out their nervous thoughts by turning to newspaper articles they would otherwise have skipped, about travel in the Greek Islands or training for the marathon. Others switched on their mobiles and rescheduled the morning. A few made eye contact with the passengers opposite and gave little tilts of the head that said you couldn't travel anywhere with confidence these days. This being Britain, not many words were exchanged at first, but after twenty minutes voices began to be heard.

'Where are we, exactly?'

'You talking to me?'

'I said where are we?'

'Almost at Woking, I reckon.'

'What do they mean – an "incident"?'

'Could be anything from a suicide to cows on the line.'

'I blame privatisation.'

'No, it goes back further than that. It all started going wrong about the time British Rail stopped calling us passengers. When I first heard myself being called a customer I knew they'd stopped trying to get us from A to B as their first aim. They were out to sell us things.'

'You mean the reason we're all sitting here is so they can empty the refreshment trolley?'

'Dead right'

One man in a pinstripe let down the window and looked out. 'There's another train pulled up ahead of us. Must be the 7.07.'

'My sainted aunt,' a reader of the Independent said. 'They won't let us move until that one's well clear.'

The pinstriped man turned from the window and reached for his hat and umbrella.

'Where the blazes are you going?' the Independent reader asked.

'Up the line. I can't afford to sit here all day. I'm going to board the 7.07. It's a more comfortable ride, anyway. Better than this old rolling stock.'

'You want to be careful.'

'It's safe enough. I know what I'm doing.' He opened the door and stepped down onto the gravel at the side of the track and started walking.

'There's always one, isn't there?' a woman in a suit said, looking up from Pride and Prejudice. 'If he gets knocked down we'll have another hour to wait.'

But not two minutes later, pinstripe was back and asking his companions to open up and help him back inside. 'You're not going to believe this,' he said when the door was closed again. 'There's a leg down there.'

'What's he beefing about now?' the Independent reader asked.

'I said someone's leg is down there, or part of it, from the knee down.' Pinstripe put his hand to his spotted silk tie and tightened it. 'Horrible.'

'Where?'

'Just a short way along, by the side of the track at the bottom of the embankment. You wouldn't spot it unless you were down there.'

'It'll be a dummy from a dress shop.'

'No, it's real. I could see the raw flesh. It must have been chewed by a fox or something.'

'Leave it out, will you?' a Sun reader said. 'You're making me puke.'

'Has anyone got a mobile I can use? We ought to tell the police.'

'Do us all a favour, mate,' the Sun reader said. 'Leave it till we get to Waterloo. If you call the Old Bill now, we'll be here till lunchtime.'

Not everybody chimed in, but no one objected. Three minutes later, the 7.07 resumed its journey to London, and in another three minutes the 7.37 was in motion, leaving the leg behind.

The senior officers were sitting in armchairs and there was a table in front of them with filter coffee and chocolate digestives, but nobody was comfortable.

'As you know, I managed to get full backing from Headquarters,' Georgina was saying. 'We're in the seventh month of this inquiry, and they've given it one hundred per cent support.'

'So have my team,' McGarvie said. 'They've put in hundreds of hours of unpaid overtime.'

'I know. They've been terrific. We can be proud of them.'

Diamond said, 'But you're going to scale it down.'

'The office manager has shown me the costings, Peter. It's impossible to keep it running at this pitch.'

'You told me budgets didn't exist in this case. You'd see it through, whatever.'

'That was in February.'

'And we're no further on. That's the truth.'

McGarvie took this as a personal attack. 'We're miles further on. We've got statements, forensic reports, video footage, we've recovered her bag, her diary and the bullets, we've interviewed over six hundred people.'

'For what? Nobody's in the frame.'

'Are you saying I've mishandled it?'

'I'm saying this isn't the time to shut up shop.'

'Gentlemen,' Georgina called them to order. 'I don't want this to get personal. We're all under stress, me included. Headquarters are the paymasters, and I have to listen to them. Curtis, you're going to have to manage with six officers and two civilians.'

McGarvie swayed like a boxer riding a punch.

Georgina went on in the sock-it-to-them style she had to use with these obstreperous characters, 'You'd better decide who you want to keep. Peter, it's no use looking at me like that. I know how you feel. This is no reflection of how strongly we care about your loss and how keen we are to bring this murderer to justice. The commitment is still there. We have to face realities. Policing is about-'

'With respect, ma'am,' Diamond interrupted, 'I don't need reminding about priorities and neither does he. We both knew this was on the cards.'

'Right, then.'

'But why did you call me in?'

'You have a moral right to hear it.'

'Thanks.' He hesitated. 'I thought you might invite me to take a fresh look at the evidence.'

Georgina's lips tightened. 'That is not my intention, Peter, and you know why.'

'Off the record?'

'You're not to get involved. If you have any suggestions, you can pass them on now, and we'll be glad to look at them, but they won't get you on the team.'

He gave a slight nod, acknowledging the small, significant shift in Georgina's position. No longer was she treating him with suspicion, whatever the lingering doubts McGarvie harboured. 'So what's the focus now? Have we ruled out the Carpenters?'

Georgina looked towards McGarvie, who seemed reluctant to divulge the time of day while Diamond listened, but finally conceded, 'Our sources in Bristol haven't come up with anything. The word is that if some sort of revenge killing was authorised, Stephanie Diamond wouldn't have been the target.'

Georgina said, 'You mean they'd have targeted Peter?'

'Or the judge, or someone on the jury. Mrs Diamond would be well down the list'

She said, 'That would hold true for any of the criminal fraternity seeking revenge for a conviction.'

'Yes,' McGarvie said, 'unless the killing of Mrs Diamond was seen as like for like.'

'Meaning?'

'Someone who was deprived of their partner – and blamed Peter for it – decided he should suffer the same way.'

'This is the theory that a woman is responsible?'

'Or a man whose wife was put away.'

Georgina swung towards Diamond. 'When did you last arrest a woman for murder?'

He cast his mind back. 'Before you took over, ma'am. Ninety-four. But there wasn't a man in her life.'

'So for all practical purposes we're looking at vengeful women,' Georgina said. 'What about the one who scratched Peter's face?'

'Janie Forsyth.'

'She was shouting about a stitch-up, wasn't she? And she was Jake Carpenter's girlfriend.'

'I've interviewed her twice,' McGarvie said. 'The big objection to Janie as a suspect is her behaviour after the trial. If you're planning a murder you don't draw attention to yourself by screaming in the street and assaulting a senior detective.'

'She was in an emotional state,' Georgina said as if that was the prerogative of her sex. 'She could have got a gun and shot Stephanie. Let's remember the shooting happened the very next morning.'

McGarvie said, 'Let's also remember where it happened. Mrs Diamond went to the park by arrangement. We're confident of that. The diary shows she was due to meet the person known as "T" at ten.'

'You're right, of course,' Georgina admitted at once. 'And she'd been in touch with "T" for some days.'

'Just over a week.'

'You now believe the diary is reliable evidence?'

McGarvie coloured a little and avoided looking at Diamond. 'We were cautious at first, but we now accept that the entries were written by Mrs Diamond. And if the first contact was at least ten days before the murder-'

'Remind us what it said.'

'"Must call T." That was on Monday the fifteenth of February. It suggests a prior contact.'

'All of which makes it unlikely that the Carpenter verdict was the motive for the shooting.'

'That's my interpretation, ma'am.'

'Mine, too,' Diamond said. 'Early on, before the diary was found, I was sure they were behind it. Shows how wrong you can be.'

'You have another theory.' Georgina spoke this as a statement. Whether she got it from intuition or the nuances of his tone, she spoke from confidence.

He wavered. He hadn't meant to bring Dixon-Bligh into this without more evidence, but the man was so elusive it was becoming clear back-up would be needed to stay on his trail. 'I don't know about a theory. Her first husband was called Edward Dixon-Bligh. I'm not certain of this, but she may have called him Ted.'

It was as if he'd just said the word 'walk' to a pair of dogs. They sat up, ears pricked, eyes agleam, and if they'd hung out their tongues and panted, they could not have looked more eager.

They continued to give him undivided attention while he told them everything – well, almost everything – he knew about Dixon-Bligh, and Steph's unhappy first marriage. The one thing he did not reveal was the thump he'd given the man the last time they'd met.

This new avenue of enquiry so intrigued them that nothing was said about Diamond defying the injunction to stay off the case. By now, Georgina and McGarvie knew they couldn't stop him doing his solo investigation.

'Did you ask him if he'd been in touch with her?' McGarvie said.

'He denies it, of course. Says the last time they spoke was two years ago when he found a photo of her parents and returned it.'

'And you think he's short of cash?'

'Either that, or he's on the run. He quit the Blyth Road flat at the end of February for a place no better than a tip.'

'The week of the murder?'

'Yes. And Westway Terrace looked a very temporary arrangement to me. He's moved on from there.'

'Where to?'

'Don't know. I haven't kept tabs.'

'We can ask the Met. Does Dixon-Bligh have form?'

'Not that I've heard of.'

'Does he strike you as capable of murder?'

He weighed the question, trying against all the odds to be impartial. 'He did the "I'm a reasonable man" bit. Said he'd put any bitterness behind him. Blamed himself and his affairs for the break-up. Called himself a selfish bastard. Said he was sorry about the way she died, but to turn up at the funeral would have been hypocrisy. I'm not the best person to ask, you understand, but listening to him, I had this feeling he was laying it on.'

Georgina said, 'He doth protest too much, methinks.'

Delving deep into the small cellar of quotes once laid down for his Eng. Lit. exam, Diamond said, 'Wasn't it the lady who protested too much?'

'Immaterial. I was making a general point.'

McGarvie, floundering, asked, 'Which lady?'

'Don't try me,' said Georgina sharply. 'Was he ever violent to her?'

'She never mentioned violence to me,' Diamond had to admit. 'She spoke very little about him.'

McGarvie, trying to recoup, thought fit to point out, 'As an ex-officer in the RAF, he'd have had weapons training.'

Georgina pulled a face. 'In the catering branch?'

'As part of his general training, ma'am. They all go through that. He may also have been issued with a handgun at some point in his career. A foreign posting in a war zone. Did he serve in the Gulf?'

'Couldn't tell you,' Diamond said.

'He's got to be interviewed as soon as possible,' Georgina decided. She asked McGarvie in an accusing tone, 'Why hasn't his name come up before this?'

There was some injured virtue in his answer. 'I was told he dropped out of her life a long time ago, and when he didn't attend the funeral…'

'It should have rung a warning bell, Curtis.'

Back in the office, still uncertain if it had been a wise move to put them onto Dixon-Bligh, Diamond listened to his voice-mail. The first voice up belonged to his old oppo, Louis Voss.

'Peter, I may have something for you. Could you call me back pronto?'

He closed the office door first. Then learned the hot news Louis had got from his computer, about a dismembered body found on the railway embankment near Woking. 'That's no big deal on its own,' Louis told him equably. 'Desperate people sometimes lie on railway tracks to kill themselves, but this doesn't sound like a suicide. This one has two bullet holes in the skull, and first indications are that it's a woman around forty.'