Diamond Dust

2

'You'll tell me if it hurts, won't you?' Stephanie Diamond was dabbing her husband's scratched face with TCP. 'Is that painful?'

Without thinking, he started to shake his head, and felt the full pressure of the swab. 'Jee-eez!'

She drew it away. 'Sorry, love.'

'My fault.' Mortified for being such a wimp, he said, 'Iodine's the stuff that hurts. They always used that when I was a kid. Wicked. Why, I couldn't tell you.'

Steph waited, swab in hand. She was still in her work clothes, a white jumper with a magnolia design on the front and a close-fitting black skirt. She moved closer again and rested her free hand on his shoulder. 'These are deep. She must be a vicious woman.'

'Just angry.'

'She's marked you with all four fingernails. Do you think I should take a photo?'

'Whatever for?'

'Evidence.'

He grinned. 'Like when someone runs into the car, you mean?' Patiently, he explained that he wouldn't be charging the woman, and why.

Steph, with her strong sense of right and wrong, didn't appreciate the explanation. 'She shouldn't get away with it.'

He was basking in her concern, even though it had to be cooled. 'She believed he was innocent. I expect he told her he was fitted up and she believed him.'

'That doesn't excuse it.'

'It means she acted out of genuine outrage, not just spite.'

Steph sighed. 'Well, the scratches are genuine enough. They're going to be on your face for some time. What are you going to tell people – that I did it?'

He smiled at the idea, and felt his cheek sting when the muscles stretched. 'Would you rather I said it was one of my many mistresses?'

'Do you want a scar on the other cheek? I could match them up, no problem.'

'Okay. I'll think of something better.'

'I could mask it with a concealer-stick if you like.'

'A what?'

'Make-up.'

'I don't think make-up would play too well at the nick.'

Later the same evening, after supper, the rich aroma of beef casserole lingered. Diamond, in his favourite armchair, warmed by the cat at full stretch across his lap, was thinking life was improving. Then Steph asked, 'What exactly did he do?'

'Who?'

'Jake Carpenter. All you've told me is that he's a well-known criminal.'

'And he is.'

'But you haven't said anything about the case.'

'True.' He made it obvious he didn't intend saying much.

'Is it as bad as that? You don't usually shield me from the facts.'

'I'm not shielding you, Steph. I wouldn't do that'

'The well-bred English gent sparing his delicate wife the gory details?'

'Cobblers. I just didn't think you wanted to know.'

'I do now.' Her eyes were on the scratches again.

He yawned, and stroked Raffles under the chin while considering where to begin. 'They're Bristol's Mafia – the Carpenters, Jake and his brothers Des and Danny. They live in luxury and make their money out of protection and pimping. They've all got form – done time inside. They're feared. Anyone standing up to them is dealt with, usually by one of their gorillas. But when we succeed in pinning things on any of the brothers they mysteriously get light sentences.'

'You mean the law is bought off?'

'So it appears. It may not be cash passing hands, but it happens. This time was different. A mandatory life sentence if he was convicted.'

'He'd murdered someone?'

'A call girl by the name of Maeve Smith. Irish. Seventeen years old. Pretty, dark-haired, and a big earner. Unwisely young Maeve tried to transfer to another pimp, so Jake made an example of her. Two of his thugs took her to a tattooist and had her breasts and buttocks personalised with his initials.'

'Beast.'

'That's tame for the Carpenters. Girls who step out of line sometimes have acid thrown in their faces. This one was still a top earner, so they left her face alone. After the tattooing he slept with her several times. I suppose he found it a turn-on seeing his initials on her.'

'How could she, after what he'd done?'

'I didn't say she agreed to it.'

Steph took in a sharp breath.

'In court, he claimed she was his girlfriend to support his case that he wouldn't want to hurt her. He failed to see that it gave him a stronger motive when she slipped the leash again.'

'Was that why she was killed?'

'Yes, he considered her his property. Her naked body was found in the Avon below the Suspension Bridge, but she was dead before she was thrown in the water. She'd been beaten about the face and head. Really beaten, I mean. The face was pulp, unrecognisable. The tattooed initials helped us link her to Carpenter, so the rat did himself no service when he ordered that punishment. And this time the forensic stuff led us straight to him. Traces of her blood and DNA material in his car boot and on one of his shoes.'

'No doubt about it, then?'

'Not a jot.'

Steph looked away, her face creased in sympathy for the young victim, and then her eyes turned back to Diamond. 'This other woman – the one who scratched you – must be deluding herself. If she was at the trial and heard the evidence, she knows he slept with the girl. And she knows he's a sadist. How can she defend a brute like that?'

'You tell me.'

'I'm saying, Peter – she's deluded. She's trying to convince herself you faked the evidence. She turned her anger on you.'

He spread his hands, and the cat jumped off his lap, surprised by the movement. 'Steph, I've no interest what her motives are.'

'Do you know who she is?'

'A minor player.' He stretched and stood up, wanting to talk of other things. 'Hasn't been around long.'

'I still think she shouldn't get away with this.'

He went over to her and touched her hair, letting a strand rest between finger and thumb. 'Leave it, eh?'

'Now you've told me about it-'

Gently but with decision he interrupted. 'There are more important things.'

'Like?'

'Like let's have an early night.'

She hesitated, needing first to shut out the horrors of his work, then laughed and flicked her hair free. 'Fancy your chances, Scarface?'

The taunt brought back the bittersweet agonies of nearly twenty years ago, being in love without being sure of her. They'd met in Hammersmith, when he was in uniform, doing a stint as community involvement officer, which meant lecturing groups on road safety and crime prevention. Much of it was with the very old or the very young. At that time Steph was not long out of her divorce and trying to forget it by being Brown Owl to a troop, or pack, or whatever it was called, of Brownies. Diamond turned up to do his talk and made a total balls of it because he couldn't take his eyes off Brown Owl. At the end he asked her out and she declined. Wouldn't even give him a phone number. So he put in an appearance next week with some leaflets he said he'd forgotten to hand out to the girls. Then made himself useful changing a fuse when the lights failed. Week after week, using flimsy excuses for being there, he let her know how committed he was. These days it might well be called harassment. By degrees, she softened. It was a curious, chaste courtship, with each move witnessed by small giggling girls in brown uniforms. The turning point was the summer camp, when he breezed in unexpectedly with Bradford and Bingley, two donkeys he'd borrowed from the Hammersmith desk sergeant, who'd set up a donkey sanctuary as a retirement venture. Bradford and Bingley gave rides for the next two days. From that moment the girls called Diamond the Donkey Man and convinced Steph he deserved to be an honorary member of the Brownies.

Brown Owl married the Donkey Man the following spring, and it was a strong, loving relationship still, thanks in no small part to Steph's calmness under stress. There had been desperately bad moments, like her miscarriage (she'd suffered three already with her first husband) and the hysterectomy that had followed. There were the plunges in Diamond's rollercoaster career: the board of inquiry, the resignation, the move to the poky basement flat in London, being sacked from Harrods, and the spell of unemployment. Steph had kept them going by being positive and finding a funny side to every experience.

But rollercoasters have their upsides, and the police had needed him back. He returned to his old job as murder man in Bath CID. Since then, life had been kinder – their own house in Weston, a playful cat called Raffles, good neighbours and a Chinese takeaway at the end of the street.

Upstairs, he poured two glasses of Rioja before getting into bed. Steph had been to Spain twenty-five years ago as a student and always remembered the wine. She would cheerfully have migrated to Spain or France. No chance hitched to a man like Diamond, with GB plates welded to his soul.

'When did you get this?' she asked. The Diamonds didn't have wine in store. When they bought a bottle, it was for immediate consumption.

'On the way back from Bristol.'

'Nice surprise.'

'Mm.'

'There's the difference between you and me,' she said. 'I don't mind surprises.'

'You're saying I do?'

'You hate them. That's why you're such a good detective. You take out the surprise element by thinking ahead, every angle.'

'I wish it were true.'

'Of course it's true.'

'Yeah? How many times have I needed your help to second-guess a suspect? More than I can count.' He held up his glass.

'Is this to anything special? Another villain off the streets?'

'No, this is to my pretty, wise and understanding wife. Cheers, Steph.'

Accepting a compliment is one of the hardest things to handle. She could have made some flippant response, but she didn't. Coming from her Peter, the awkward little speech was as near as he got to a love poem. She felt for his hand and held it, and they sipped their wine.

'Speaking of surprises,' she said presently, 'certain of your old colleagues know you're reaching a landmark this year.'

'My fiftieth?' He stared at her in alarm. 'How the hell did they find out?'

'You had your picture in the papers last summer when there was all the hoo-ha about the body in the vault.'

'Oh, and the bloody press always give your age. "Peter Diamond, forty-nine." It doesn't take a genius to work out I'll be half a hundred this year.' His eyes read her face. 'They're not planning anything?'

'It was being whispered about. They asked me, and I did my best to cool it. I said you wouldn't appreciate a surprise party one bit.'

'Dead right. Who was this?'

'I'm not at liberty to say.'

'They've dropped the idea, I hope.'

'I think so, but we may need to think of something ourselves.'

'Like being away for the week?'

'Good thinking. I like it' Steph smiled. 'You're way ahead of me. What do you have in mind – a cruise?'

He vibrated his lips. 'I can't think of anything worse.'

'A surprise party is worse.'

'Christ, yes.'

'Oh, come on. They only thought of it because they're fond of you, in spite of the hard times you gave them. They want to show you some affection.'

'Who are these misguided people?'

'I promised not to say.'

'They should know I get all the affection I want from you.'

'Hint, hint?' She put aside her wineglass and turned to kiss him.

Still troubled by the thought of opening a door on a roomful of smiling faces, he curled his arm around her and returned the kiss in a perfunctory way. She wriggled closer and the second kiss was warmer and they got horizontal in the same movement.

'Well, now,' Steph said as he pressed against her. 'You're quite a surprise party yourself.'