Diamond Dust

30

The lines on Joe Florida's face gave the lie to his dark hair. They were deeply etched around his eyes and mouth and no one would mistake them for laugh-lines. He was probably past fifty. And the striplight overhead lent that hair an unlikely reddish sheen. Seated opposite Curtis McGarvie and Keith Halliwell in an interview room at Shepherd's Bush Police Station, he was well aware of his rights. The clock was ticking. They could hold him without charge for twenty-four hours and it might be extended to thirty-six by an officer of superintendent rank or above for a 'serious arrestable offence', but he was entitled to eight uninterrupted hours of rest in the twenty-four. He'd already been in custody more than eight. There had been delays. His solicitor had not been in any hurry to get there. The police themselves were slow, hampered by being a hundred miles away from their incident room.

Curtis McGarvie had thought seriously about transporting the man to Bath, but that would have added hours, and the solicitor would have raised all kinds of objections. So they were doing it here.

McGarvie wasn't discouraged. He'd watched Florida's body language. The man was uneasy each time the questioning returned to the murder of Stephanie Diamond.

'Once more, what were you doing in Bath on Tuesday, February the twenty-third?'

'Get real, will you?'

'Answer the question.'

'It's a stupid question.'

'So where were you?'

'February was months back, for Chrissake.'

'Have you visited Bath this year?'

'For the tape,' Halliwell said, 'the witness is shaking his head.'

McGarvie tried another ploy. 'And if I said we have someone who saw you that morning?'

Joe Florida twitched.

The solicitor was quick to say, 'If you do have a witness, kindly inform us. If the question is hypothetical – as I strongly suspect it may be – I'm advising Mr Florida to ignore it'

McGarvie gave a shrug. 'It would save us all a good deal of time if Mr Florida stated where he was that morning.'

'He doesn't remember. I doubt if any of us could remember what we were doing on a precise date seven or eight months ago.'

'He does,' McGarvie said. 'It's obvious from his demeanour.'

And Florida twitched again.

She ordered Diamond to stand. Not easy when you're cuffed. Then she frisked him – expertly. She unlocked the sunroom door and prodded the small of his back. Inside, she pressed on the handcuffs and forced him to his knees.

'Face down again.'

He had no option.

The cuffs weren't the old-fashioned sort. They were steel wire loops that cut into the flesh, and they hurt. They hurt still more when she grabbed his right foot and bent the leg back and fastened it to the wrists.

'I'm going for the other one,' she said, and he realised she wasn't speaking to him. At the edge of his vision he could just make out a movement. A shoe, a trainer. He couldn't see who the wearer was.

A male voice said, 'Don't try anything.'

Some chance.

The woman was already gone. She knew about Stormy, too. The camera hadn't been for show.

He lay humiliated, in pain and confusion. It was bad enough being a loser, but to lose so pathetically was dire. The speed of the attack, its cold efficiency, had caught him off-guard. True, he wasn't in the prime of youth, but he'd always believed he'd give some account of himself in hand-to-hand combat. Joke. He'd raised one hand and been thrown and disabled by a woman half his size.

He still didn't understand why. The attack was overreaction considering all he'd done was stroll around the outside of the house.

All he'd done? Being brutally honest, that wasn't all.

He'd tried a door handle, and that had been ill-advised. If you act like a house-breaker, you lay yourself open to attack.

Even so.

It wasn't long before he heard the door open and her voice ordering someone to get down beside him. Apparently Stormy hadn't put up much of a fight either.

Stormy started to say, '\bu don't have to-' Whereupon he was dumped beside Diamond.

'She surprised me,' he told Diamond.

The big man was in too much discomfort to answer.

He heard her tell her colleague, 'I can handle this now.' To Diamond, she said, 'I'm going to release your leg. Don't get ideas. I'm armed.'

The relief was exquisite. His hands were still bound, but blood returning to the veins was bliss.

'On your feet, both of you. I'm prepared to use this gun.'

With difficulty, they obeyed, and a sorry sight they made. Stormy's nose was streaming blood and Diamond's face was heavily smeared with mud. And they were staring into the barrel of an automatic. She was using the two-hand grip recommended on all the weapons training courses.

'Who exactly are you?'

Diamond darted a glance at Stormy, trying to convey that the truth was the best option now. 'Police officers investigating a crime.'

She almost snorted at that.

'If you look in the back pocket of my trousers, you'll find my warrant card,' he told her. 'I'm Detective Superintendent Diamond, and I work out of Bath.'

'DCI Weather,' Stormy chimed in. 'Mine's in my inside jacket pocket.'

She stepped forward, still holding the gun in her left hand, took the ID from Stormy's pocket and clearly decided it was genuine. 'This beats everything. What sort of police work is this, breaking into a private house?'

Playing it straight, Diamond explained that they'd gone to the cottage at Puttenham looking for Fiona Appleby, seeking information about her ex-partner, Edward Dixon-Bligh, who was wanted for questioning in connection with two murders.

' Murders?

'Right.'

'My God, you've got some explaining to do.'

'Do you want to hear about that, or shall I carry on telling you how we got here?'

'All right. You saw me go into the cottage and thought I was Fiona?'

'No. You're the one who collects the mail.'

'You knew this?'

'We found out.'

'Who from?'

'The neighbour.'

She clicked her tongue at her own carelessness.

Quick to follow up, Diamond asked, 'So do you know what's happened to Fiona?'

She ignored that. 'Let's get back to this peculiar mission of yours – how two senior detectives come all this way to interview a minor witness. A DCI and a super? What am I missing here?'

One thing was clear: this young woman was well-briefed on police procedure.

'Before I answer that, who do you work for?' Diamond asked.

'That's not for discussion. I asked you to explain yourselves.'

'You act as if you're on the side of law and order. Are you?'

She hesitated, then nodded.

'Okay,' Diamond went on. 'Did you read in the paper about the woman's body found recently beside the railway embankment near Woking?'

She had. 'The ex-policewoman?'

'Right. She was Dave's wife, Mrs Patricia Weather. My own wife was murdered in a public park in Bath last February.'

Plainly she was unprepared for this. She said nothing, but her eyes widened.

Diamond explained more, trying to sound reasonable. 'Before you ask, we're acting on our own initiative. Unofficial, in other words. We have a common cause, as husbands of the victims. The main inquiry is going its own way, and Dave and I are not involved. More to the point, we're not satisfied, so we're following an independent line.'

'I've heard of these cases, both of them,' she admitted, softening her tone. She actually lowered the gun a fraction. 'You're taking a lot on yourselves, aren't you – going out on a limb?'

'Yes. We're out of order. But that's the answer to your question – why two senior detectives are out here trying to see a minor witness.'

'And tailing me?'

'Right.'

She took time to absorb what she had heard. 'You obviously believe Dixon-Bligh is a serious suspect? On what evidence -just that he's lying low?'

Diamond explained that Dixon-Bligh had been Steph's first husband and how they were linking him to the diary entries.

'Why? What's his motive?'

'He's skint. It looks as if he was demanding money from Steph shortly before she was killed. I interviewed him in London not long after the murder. I found him unhelpful and hostile.'

She turned to Stormy. 'And is the same man linked in some way to your wife's death?'

'We're not certain,' Stormy had to admit. 'Like Peter said, we're helping each other.'

'Surely it's up to the SIO on the case to pursue these enquiries?'

'If he had, we wouldn't be here.'

She was shaking her head. 'All this is so bizarre that it might just be true. You can sit down, but I'm keeping the cuffs on you.' She waved them towards a couple of wicker armchairs.

'You asked if I have a link with the police, and I do,' she told them. 'I'm in SO10, the Witness Protection Unit. I have the rank of inspector. I 'm guarding Fiona Appleby.'

'She's alive, then?' Diamond said, encouraged.

'In the next room watching television.'

'For her protection?'

'Yes. This is a police house – a safe house.'

'Who are you protecting her from?'

'Dixon-Bligh?' Stormy suggested.

She didn't answer.

'I see the answer in your eyes,' Stormy pressed her. 'You can trust Peter and me, love. Dixon-Bligh is the enemy, isn't he?'

Diamond cringed at the endearment, but to his mystification, it worked. The doughty DO10 inspector gave Stormy a look that was almost a wink.

'And others.'

She was clearly reluctant to say more, though all the aggro had disappeared.

Whatever it was that was working for them, Stormy was going to milk it. 'Listen, love, what's your first name?'

She balked at that.

'Make one up, then.'

'Gina will do.'

'Gina – that's nice. And I'm Dave. He used to call me Stormy, but he's more respectful these days.' He grinned. 'Gina, there's an "all units" out on Dixon-Bligh. Did you know that? The Met have been looking for him for the past two weeks. If you know this bozo is dangerous, don't you think there might be a tie-in with the two murders?'

She shook her head. 'There's no connection I know of.'

'Maybe we can put you right on that.'

Now Diamond chimed in. 'Hold on, Dave. Gina, you just told us Fiona Appleby is under special protection. What's special about her? I thought she was just someone who was living quietly in a Surrey village because her restaurant failed.'

'That's true. She's an innocent woman caught up in events outside her control.' She stopped speaking, as if reminded she was giving too much away.

Diamond tried gentle persuasion. If it worked for Stormy, why not for him? 'If you could see your way, there are things we'd dearly like to ask her.'

'No chance.'

'She has vital information.'

'Do it through official channels.'

'We're not official, Gina. We're very unofficial, as I just explained. But you want to stop Dixon-Bligh from harming anyone else and so do we. This is crying out for co-operation.'

'In your dreams.'

Diamond simply didn't have his companion's charm.

Stormy applied more of it. 'Gina, we have something to trade.'

The smile returned. 'Oh, yes?'

'Information no one else can give you. Think about it: this pain in the arse Dixon-Bligh was once married to Peter's wife. Peter can tell you all about his old haunts, the places he thinks of as safe, the contacts he has. Isn't that right, Peter?'

'Well-'

'Between us, we can find him, but we need to speak to Fiona.'

She looked tempted, then adamant. 'It can't be done.'

'It can, my dear, if she's only in the next room.'

'I don't have the authority.'

'You want an order from an officer of higher rank?'

She smiled faintly. 'Not you. Nor him.'

'Your guvnor.'

'How would you know who my guvnor is?' She was almost flirting with Stormy.

'Ways and means, darling, ways and means. What if your guvnor gets to hear that two old gits in a clapped-out Cortina followed you all the way from Puttenham to your safe house?'

A muscle flexed at the edge of her mouth.

Stormy said, 'You won't forget to report it, will you?'

She didn't answer.

'You don't have to, honey – so long as we keep our mouths shut. But if we boast about it to our friends, you can be sure the one person you don't want to hear the news will get it from the old bush telegraph.'

'You're not threatening me, I hope?'

'Far from it.' Diamond chipped in and raised the stakes still more. 'This is big-time for you. You caught us snooping and overpowered us. Under questioning we admitted we were senior police officers. Then you found we had significant information. Back of the net.'

Now the eyes were moving anxiously. 'You'd say that?'

'Sure – as a trade-off.' He turned to Stormy, who was nodding.

She thought in the silence. There seemed to be deeper impulses at work here, matters outside Diamond's power to persuade. Her voice shook a little as she said, 'All right. You can meet her if you wish, since you've gone to such lengths to find her.'

'Thanks.'

'Trussed up, as we are?' Stormy said, pushing the concessions as far as possible.

'I didn't say shake hands with her.'

'Gina, look at the state of us. We're a scary sight. Don't you think you should let us clean up first?'

A sigh. 'All right. There's a bathroom nearby. But don't get the idea I've caved in. I'm going to have to report all this.'

'We'll take our chances.'

'I'm the one who's taking chances.'

She had keys attached to her belt, and she unlocked the handcuffs and escorted them to the bathroom and watched them clean up.

'Straight through the hall.' Still far from comfortable with what they had talked her into, she made sure she didn't turn her back on them. She'd slipped the gun into a holster at her waist. She was well capable of dealing with any aggression. 'Last door.'

So it was Diamond who opened the door at the end and admitted them to a sitting room where a small woman in a black tracksuit was curled on a sofa watching TV. Fiona Appleby was in her forties probably, with hair streaked with silver. She picked up the remote and switched off the power.

'Everything's OK, Fiona,' Gina said at once, and then introduced them as police officers in a way suggesting they had just driven up and called at the front door. 'They're trying to trace your ex-partner, and they have a few questions for you.'

She had the worry-lines of a woman close to breakdown. She turned up her hands in appeal. 'But I already told you, I haven't seen him in months. I've no idea where he is.'

'Do you mind if we go over familiar ground?' Diamond gently asked. 'When did you first meet him?'

'That isn't familiar ground. Nobody's asked me yet.' She closed her eyes, remembering. 'It would have been ninety-five. December.'

'Where?'

'A Christmas party at one of the City Livery companies. Mercers' Hall, I think. I was in advertising at the time and hating it. Ted was doing the catering. He's a brilliant cook.' Launched into this, she spoke with intensity, recalling the details. 'The canapes were like nothing I'd seen before. Delicious and wonderful to look at. One little pastry concoction with duck pate and cranberry was such a gorgeous bite that I made up my mind to ask the caterer how it was done. I'm passionate about cooking. I went into the kitchen and of course Ted was charming and good-looking and promised to give me the recipe if I went out for a drink with him the next evening. I was flattered. I really hadn't thought it would lead to anything. And we clicked at once because I've always loved to cook and we spent the evening discussing all the television cooks we would shoot on sight and the cookbooks we'd throw into their coffins. He was terrific fun to be with. That was the start of our relationship.'

'You teamed up right away?'

'Not immediately. It was more gradual. We had this dream of starting our own restaurant. It was just lovers' talk at first, and yet we began to believe it. The green and white colour scheme and the two little bay trees in tubs outside the door. We talked about where it should be – somewhere just outside London in the southern commuter belt. And before the end of the year we were looking at shop premises. The place at Guildford came onto the market – to rent, that is. The flat upstairs went with it. I had some savings to equip the shop, and I can tell you we did it beautifully. The crockery, the table linen, candles – it was our dream realised. And we got in all the top restaurant guides.'

'We've seen one. They rated you.'

'So did the public. We were fully booked most evenings, and people came back. They drove in from miles around. It should have been a tremendous success.'

'So what went wrong?'

Fiona's expression switched suddenly to a penetrating frown. 'Well you know, don't you?'

'We'd rather hear it from you,' Diamond improvised.

'His habit.'

He gave a nod that was meant to be knowing, encouraging her to say more, while he reeled from the mental jolt she'd just given him.

'I didn't suspect anything when we first met,' she went on. 'He was nothing like my idea of an addict. Not that I knew the first thing about drugs. I was incredibly naive. Ted handled the accounts, banked the takings. I trusted him. I had no idea he'd run through my savings and was putting nothing back. The money was all going to drug-dealers. And all this time he looked perfectly healthy, cooked beautifully, treated me like a goddess.'

'What was he on?'

'H,' Gina murmured.

Diamond's face registered nothing of this bombshell. Inwardly he cursed his sluggish brain for failing to think of drugs. What else could have brought a successful, articulate man to the squalor of that terrace behind Paddington Station?

'But you know all about him,' Fiona said.

'Hearing it just as you tell it is so much more helpful,' he said with all the calm he could drag up from his plunging self-esteem. The case against Dixon-Bligh was red-hot now. He wanted to run through it in his head, item by item, but he had to listen. There could be more.

Fiona said, 'It came to the point where even I found out what was going on – that we had a huge overdraft and a mass of unpaid bills. It was heart-breaking. Such deceit. I found a syringe and needles hidden in a casserole dish high up in a cupboard in the kitchen. He was full of repentance. Drug-users are when they're found out. I was stupid enough to trust him and expect him to stop. We went on for a few weeks more and the bills just mounted up. He was still buying the stuff, still injecting. We closed the restaurant and I used the rest of my savings to clear some of our debts. Ted went off to live in London and I didn't want or expect to hear from him ever again.'

'But you did?'

'Earlier this year. He knocked on my door one afternoon. I suppose it wasn't difficult to track me down. Everyone knows I live in Puttenham. Can you believe he was asking for money again? Addicts have no shame at all. He wanted a thousand pounds. Said it would be a loan and he'd pay me back at ten per cent interest. I told him in no uncertain terms that I was disgusted he had the gall to come back to me wanting more of my money. He went on arguing, saying he now had a very good job at the Dorchester Hotel.'

'The Dorchester}'

'Assistant chef, or something. I didn't believe him, and then he fished in his pocket for some letter on headed notepaper confirming the appointment. I still said it made no difference and I didn't have money to lend him. But he's so crafty, nosing around the cottage, spotting nice bits of furniture he'd never seen before. He soon cottoned on to the fact that my father had died the December before last and I was the main beneficiary. Once he'd got the scent of the money, he said he'd take me into his confidence because he was on the verge of making so much that he'd soon be in a position to pay me back at twenty per cent if I wanted, and he'd still have so much left he'd never bother me again. I thought he was talking about the lottery or something and I treated it all with contempt, and I suppose that just fired him up. Next thing he was telling me about these Arabs he'd met.'

Gina said quickly, 'I think you should stop there, Fiona.'

'Why?'

'They've heard enough.'

'But we haven't We need to hear it all,' Diamond said at once. 'We know what Dixon-Bligh is like, and we're keen to stop him ruining more people's lives.' He ignored the foul look he got from Gina and said, 'Together, we'll do it'

Fiona turned to Gina. 'You told me they were the police.'

'We are,' Stormy said.

'I can trust them, can't I? I'd like to tell it.'

Gina, outgunned, sighed and said nothing.

Fiona took up her thread again. 'Ted told me these Arabs made a deal with him. They'd offered him twenty thousand in return for inside information from the Dorchester. All he had to do was find out in advance when some prince from Kuwait was due to stay. Apparently it's all done secretly for security reasons. Nobody is supposed to know until they arrive, but of course certain people have to be told, and Ted knew who to ask. As simple as that, he said.'

'And he'd tip off the Arabs?'

'And get paid. He was ready to write me an IOU on the strength of it. He needed money now for his drugs.

He couldn't wait for this payday, as he called it.'

'Did you give him any?'

'No. I wouldn't be so daft. You know that old saying? He that deceives me once, shame fall him; if he deceives me twice, shame fall me.' Fiona Appleby obviously didn't think she'd put her life at risk to preserve her self-respect.

'However, I've got to say this in Ted's favour. He wasn't lying this time. There really was some underhand arrangement going on. Whether these mysterious Arabs would pay him all that money I had no idea, but he believed it.

He was going through with it, I'm positive.'

'How did you get rid of him?'

'By holding out.'

'Didn't he get violent?'

Diamond had struck a wrong note. Fiona stared at him with her large brown eyes. 'No. He's never laid a hand on me. He wouldn't.'

'Don't count on it,' he warned.

Gina murmured, 'We don't. Which is why she's here.'

'So there's more to this?'

'You can tell them,' Gina said. She was now resigned to everything being in the open.

Fiona had her hands across her stomach inside the tracksuit top. She curled her legs more tightly. 'After he'd gone, I thought about what he'd told me. All that money he was counting on. There had to be something criminal going on, and something very big. People don't pay vast sums without due cause. It troubled me. That night I couldn't sleep. All kinds of horrible ideas crept into my head. I thought of the Gulf War. It was never really resolved, was it? Suppose these Arabs he'd met were Iraqi agents planing to assassinate one of the Kuwaiti royal family? If that happened, and I knew in advance and did nothing about it, I'd have to live with the knowledge that I could have prevented a tragedy. Ted was hopelessly dependent. He wouldn't have a conscience. He didn't think past his next fix. It was up to me to do something about it. So I phoned the Foreign Office. And they took it seriously. They sent someone to see me the same day.'

Gina cut in. 'Fiona's information prevented a serious crime. Not an assassination attempt as it turned out, but a huge scam involving diamonds. Our people laid on a stake-out at very short notice and stopped the handover, but through a combination of problems the perpetrators got away.'

'Not much of a stake-out,' Stormy commented.

'These are international terrorists. They're highly organised.'

'Unlike you and me, Stormy,' Diamond said to take the heat out of the exchange. 'So who do they work for?'

'That's secure information.'

'In short, then, Fiona needs protection now, not just from Dixon-Bligh, but these Arab bandits as well. Do you know their names?'

'It's under investigation.'

'Meaning "no",' Stormy said.

'Do you know where Dixon-Bligh is?'

'He's in the process of being traced.'

'Another "no",' Stormy said, all too ready with the slick comment.

Diamond gave him a murderous glare. They didn't want to provoke Gina at this stage. 'Leave it out,' he said more for Gina's ears than Stormy's. 'We're as much in the dark as anyone else.'

'Sorry. I'm always shooting off at the mouth,' Stormy said, sounding genuine, and it was a pity his face wouldn't register a blush, because one was probably lurking there.

Diamond hesitated, uncertain if there was anything more of importance to be learned.

There was, and it came from the least likely source -Stormy.

'Peter, I can't clam up now. I've been listening to all this and getting more and more steamed up. My wife, my Patsy, worked with the District Drugs Unit for two or three years before she retired. It was part of her job to visit the drop-in centres in Hammersmith Road and Earls Court Road. She knew all the heroin-users in West London. That's the link, Peter. Dixon-Bligh was on her patch. She must have known him when he was living in Blyth Road, and I didn't think of it.'