Down Among the Dead Men

12

Hen Mallin had a flat in a modern block near the Hornet, only a short walk from where they were staying. She wasn’t the sort to be intimidated by senior officers, but she was likely to be keyed up. Difficult to predict how the session would go. At least she would be on home territory.

Stepping along a busy road that ran beside the ancient city wall, Diamond asked Georgina, ‘How’s your head this morning?’

‘Why?’

‘You weren’t feeling so good last night.’

‘I’m perfectly fit, thank you,’ she said with a firmness that closed that avenue. ‘I’ve decided it will be wise if you leave the questioning to me when we meet this woman.’

‘Suits me.’ He’d got the message. The skirmish over the photocopying had shaken the boss. She was nervous he would take over. And what a temptation it was to say she could do the whole shebang without him, but that would have been a cop-out. He needed to be there for Hen’s sake.

‘If I invite you to speak for any reason, I won’t mind if you address me as “ma’am” in this situation.’

‘Fine.’ But he had to stop his stomach muscles twitching with amusement.

She added, ‘I’m still agreeable to relaxing the modes of address when we’re off duty.’

‘Me, too.’ Relaxing the modes of address — an expression to savour. The old devilry made him add, ‘Is it Georgina, Georgie or George?’

She almost tripped over her own feet. ‘Is what?’

‘What you’d really like to be called.’

She turned to look at him, eyes the size of sunflowers. ‘I wasn’t insisting you use my first name. On reflection I think I prefer nothing at all. Your “ma’am” sometimes comes over as insincere. But there’s no need to go to the other extreme, absolutely no need.’

‘That’s OK, then.’

‘It cuts both ways. If you don’t like me using your first name from time to time, I won’t.’

‘You always have. It doesn’t bother me. I’d draw the line at Pete.’ And then the game became more serious as he remembered that Hen used to call him a variety of names from sport to sweetie and he’d found them all amusing. What on earth would she call him when he turned up at her front door after ten years? He didn’t want Georgina finding out they were old buddies. A strategy was needed here. ‘You did let this woman know we’re coming? Is she expecting two of us?’

‘I forget what I said. It doesn’t matter.’

‘You wouldn’t have mentioned me by name?’

‘Why should I? We’ll introduce ourselves when we get there.’

They had to go upstairs to the top of the three-storey red brick building and along an open passageway. And now the strategy came into play. Diamond made sure he was well to the rear when the door opened. Unseen by Georgina, he put a finger to his lips.

Hen must have seen the signal, but she still looked startled. Who wouldn’t? Her reaction could be passed off as nerves, he decided. The main thing was that she didn’t make it clear she knew him.

Georgina was going through the usual performance of introducing herself. ‘And this is my colleague, Detective Superintendent Diamond.’

The finger on the lips seemed to have worked. Hen had always been quick on the uptake. She nodded and asked them to come in.

Careworn, for sure. Easy to understand why she appeared more solemn than he’d ever seen her. Some silver hairs among the brown, but otherwise she appeared unaltered, small, stocky, with dark intelligent eyes. No obvious make-up. Black top and dark red pants.

Coffee was offered and declined. They were shown into a small, comfortably furnished living room smelling faintly of air freshener. Diamond chose a low armchair set back a little from Georgina. To his right was a bookcase filled with boxed CDs, all Poirot and Miss Marple, Hen’s means of escape. She’d had them as tapes when he’d last met her. The technology moves on, but old favourites are for ever.

Georgina continued to set out her stall. ‘You understand why we’re here, I’m sure. We came by invitation because we are sure to have a different perspective on what has happened than your colleagues in Sussex. We’ve studied the file on the Rigden murder, so we know the essential facts and now we’d like to hear from you.’

Hen answered in a flat, resigned voice Diamond hardly recognised. ‘I said it all before to Commander Hahn. I can’t think what else you expect me to say. I messed up and got caught out. If you’ve looked at the file you’ll know Joss — Jocelyn Green — is my niece and I should have pulled her in for questioning and didn’t.’

‘But why not?’

‘She’s family, that’s why. My brother Barry’s only daughter and a tearaway, you might say, but not a killer.’ She hesitated, as if expecting to be challenged. ‘The thing is, there was a falling-out over our father’s will and Barry and I haven’t spoken for almost twenty years. Daft, but that’s how we are. I talk to my two sisters. They’re older than me, incidentally, and thought I was crazy joining the police. Maybe I was, seeing how it all turned out. Anyway, I hear from my sisters what goes on in Barry’s family. He’s had trouble from Joss in spades. Do you need to hear this?’

‘Certainly.’

‘It’s a wretched tale. She was a brilliant child who should have gone to university. Marvellous with computers and found she could earn a small fortune as an IT consultant, so quit school at sixteen and set up her own business. Word soon got around that Joss could speed up a system or find shortcuts that meant major profits for people. She was hugely in demand, visiting businesses or private homes. It was her kick, her whole existence. Unfortunately, it all happened too suddenly. She wasn’t at all streetwise. The poor kid made a disastrous marriage to a city type when she was only nineteen that lasted about six weeks. This jackal got her into Class A drugs and messed up her head and her career and cost Barry a small fortune for the divorce. She was weaned off the drugs at more expense — one of those posh clinics — and took to drink instead. I suppose she’s an addictive personality. Amazingly she avoided getting arrested until she was twenty-two. Then she got into some stupid fight outside a club in Portsmouth with another drunk woman. She was nicked, had her DNA taken and when it was put on the national database it matched the female DNA from the BMW that featured in the Rigden murder.’

‘An enormous shock for you, I’m sure,’ Georgina said in a rare eruption of empathy.

Hen gave a nod. ‘Mind if I light up?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

She mimed using a cigarette. ‘I’m an addict, too. A family failing.’

Georgina paused for thought, then: ‘It’s your home. I don’t see that we can stop you.’

Hen reached for the packet on the display unit beside her.

‘Cigars?’ Georgina said in disbelief.

‘I don’t inhale.’

‘Everyone does, whether they’re smokers or not.’

‘Not what I meant.’ Hen used a lighter and got the thing going. ‘They last seven minutes. You said the news of Joss’s arrest must have come as a shock.’

‘I meant the DNA match.’

‘Like being hit by a wrecking ball. I went through all the phases you do. Shock, disbelief, denial. Because of the family rift I hadn’t seen her since she was a sweet little kid in a pink chiffon dress. She would have been eighteen when Rigden was murdered. I knew she went off the rails about that time, but nothing I’d heard from my sisters led me to believe she was involved in serious crime. My niece, my po-faced brother’s genius daughter, caught up in a murder? It was unthinkable.’

‘Did you tell anyone?’

‘She’s my own flesh and blood. You don’t, do you? It was fortunate in a way that by the time the DNA thing came up she’d married and no longer shared a surname with me. My team didn’t make the connection. But I still couldn’t win. If I pulled her in, it would seem to my brother I was doing it out of spite.’

‘Wasn’t she already under arrest for being drunk and disorderly?’

‘Portsmouth police kept both women in the cells to sober up and didn’t charge them. First time up, it would have been hard. She got the usual caution. But of course she’d been arrested so she was in the system. I kept telling myself the only explanation for the DNA must be that she’d travelled in the BMW before it was stolen.’

‘Was she a driver at the time?’

‘I didn’t really want to find out, but I made a computer check and she was, under her maiden name. She took the test as soon as she was old enough. A car was vital for her IT business. Yes, it’s not impossible she drove the thing.’

‘So she could have been the hooded driver allegedly seen by Danny Stapleton, the man now serving a prison sentence?’

A long pause. ‘That’s an unlikely scenario.’

‘Is there another?’

‘I just said it. She was in the car previously, for some unrelated reason.’

Georgina didn’t disguise her scorn. ‘A car owned by a man in his eighties? She was how old — eighteen? If you can think of a plausible explanation, I’d like to hear it. Did you interview the old man?’

‘I thought about doing it. Discovered he was dead. He went within a year of the murder.’

‘Did you speak to your niece? That was the obvious thing.’

She shook her head and said, tight-lipped, ‘I took the decision not to pursue the matter.’

The crux of Hen’s professional misconduct.

‘On what grounds?’

‘That there wasn’t enough evidence to justify reopening the case. Nothing to suggest a link between the victim — a jobbing gardener who was a model citizen by all accounts — and my niece, who was a troubled teenager, but with no violence.’

‘What do you mean — no violence? She was arrested for street-fighting.’

‘I’m speaking of when she was eighteen.’

‘But you didn’t know her at eighteen. You hadn’t seen her since she was a child.’ Georgina folded her arms as if she’d made a telling point.

‘I knew a lot about her. I was proud of her achievements. My sisters kept me informed. She’s a stunning redhead, and it’s natural. As I just told you, Joss was a success, with a business of her own, lively, a bit naïve, but not evil.’

‘Into drugs and alcohol.’

‘The alcohol came later. We’re talking about when she was still a teenager, before she married.’

‘Just drugs, then,’ Georgina said. ‘As you well know, drug-dependent people resort to criminality to pay for their habit.’

‘She had no police record at that time.’

‘You know she’s gone missing — just when we need to speak to her?’

‘I do.’ Hen’s mouth tightened.

‘She’s evading arrest,’ Georgina said.

‘That isn’t certain.’ More puffs at the cigarillo. ‘Listen, there’s more than one way of looking at this. If Joss hadn’t been my niece and I’d chosen to do nothing I don’t suppose anyone would have got excited about it. I admit I ought to have followed up on the DNA match, particularly as she was a family member. When there’s a personal link like that, there’s even more reason to investigate properly.’

‘We can agree on that,’ Georgina said. ‘You seem to be saying you disbelieved the new evidence regardless of who the suspect was.’

Hen drew in more smoke, thinking hard, then exhaled. ‘Difficult to say for sure. I took it damn seriously, knowing she was Joss. And yet...’

‘And yet what?’

‘Put it this way: the only testimony we have for the hooded driver came from Danny Stapleton, a proven liar, who was convicted as an accessory, and he didn’t once raise the possibility that this had been a woman. The judge and jury at his trial accepted the prosecution case that he was paid two thousand pounds by the killer to steal the car in Arundel and transport the body somewhere and dispose of it. Unless Danny was wrongly convicted, I can’t see where Joss or any other woman comes into it. So, yes, I chose to ignore the DNA as having no direct bearing on the case.’

‘We spoke to Stapleton in prison yesterday,’ Georgina said. ‘He maintains he’s innocent. He could have been out by now if he’d pleaded guilty and cooperated. If it turns out he was wrongly imprisoned, he may be planning to sue.’

Diamond had watched the to and fro of the interrogation. There was no question that Hen had been hit hard by this suspension. Ten years ago she would have given back as much as she took, and more. He wished he could find some way of letting her know that he still valued her, regardless of the issue.

She was drawing at the small cigar every few seconds and not much of it was left. Seven minutes would be an overestimate. She locked eyes with Georgina again. ‘I suppose it’s no use saying we were under extra pressure when the DNA report reached me?’

‘Why?’

‘All the missing people.’

‘I don’t follow you.’

‘Haven’t they told you? It’s an ongoing thing. We’ve had this problem for months, if not years. A series of disappearances that can’t be explained. You’re going to tell me every police service has its list of missing persons. All over the country thousands of cases are reported. Believe me, these are different. We isolated as many as eight cases in the past four years where the victims were almost certainly murdered and their bodies never found. It’s so prevalent in our part of Sussex that I asked my people to investigate and the scale of the problem became even more clear. I believe someone has set up a business disposing of bodies. There are hints in the criminal world that something like this is going on, but no one will say for sure.’

‘A rogue undertaker?’

‘We thought of that, of course, but it’s unlikely. The official process of burial and cremation has too many safeguards written into it. This is organised crime. And the point of telling you is that it preoccupied me at the time the DNA details reached me. We’d had another peculiar case that same week. An obvious crime committed against someone who then disappeared. I was sure he was murdered and the trail was still hot. The last thing I needed was the news that Joss was in serious trouble.’

‘In short, you’re pleading pressure of work?’

Hen’s lips tightened. ‘I’m telling you how it was, not excusing myself.’

Georgina puffed herself up for one of her pious outpourings. ‘We’ve all worked under extreme pressure, DCI Mallin. It’s part of our job as police officers.’

Hen didn’t bother to answer.

‘You took no action. You didn’t even get in touch with Jocelyn.’

‘I said.’

‘A few quiet words to see what it amounted to?’

The relentless censure was getting to Hen. She crushed the cigar butt into an ashtray. ‘For Christ’s sake, I don’t go in for quiet words. It was all or nothing and I did nothing.’

‘You didn’t tip off your brother?’

‘I told you how things are between us. He’s so heavy-handed he would have turned a small coincidence into world war three.’

Georgina was quickly on to that. ‘A small coincidence? How can you dismiss it so lightly — your niece linked to a murder?’

‘Maybe because I’m dealing in murder on a regular basis. And this was little more than speculation.’

‘It’s nothing of the sort. There’s a warrant out for her now. She must have heard about the DNA match and made herself scarce.’

‘Is that any surprise?’ Hen said. ‘Most of Sussex seems to know I’m being hung out to dry. Joss will have heard.’

‘It isn’t in the papers, is it?’

‘Might as well be. The police service leaks like a sieve.’

‘There’s no need to be cynical.’

‘It’s well known.’

This was descending into a slanging match. Hen still had some spirit and Georgina was wading in as if she sensed blood. ‘I won’t take that sort of talk from any officer. We’re trusted by the public to enforce the law and be worthy of that trust. If we can’t take pride in the way we conduct ourselves, we lose all respect.’

‘I don’t know about pride,’ Hen said. ‘I’m content to do the job as well as I can, but I don’t kid myself there’s glory in it. There’s more shit than respect.’

‘Please!’

‘I said at the beginning I messed up. You’ve got your views about policing. I’ve got mine. What else do you want to hear from me?’

‘I haven’t heard a single “ma’am”,’ Georgina said. ‘That would be a start.’

Diamond’s flesh prickled.

Hen rose to it, as he knew she would. ‘God help us. Is that what you mean by respect? There was I thinking you were a fellow human being come to listen to my grubby little story when the truth is that you only came to hear me call you ma’am, and I missed all those opportunities. Well, I can put that right, ma’am, ma’am, ma’am, ma’am—’

‘Hen!’

She stopped.

Diamond couldn’t let her destroy herself in front of him. ‘Get a grip.’

She seemed to have frozen, her mouth half open, eyes red-lidded.

‘This isn’t helping you or us,’ he said. ‘You asked what we want to hear from you and I’ll tell you. We need to know how you acted at each stage and why: the Rigden murder investigation, the arrest and trial of Danny Stapleton, and the DNA report that brought Joss into the reckoning. We want to understand each decision you took and test it against the evidence.’ He kept his eyes locked with Hen’s. If Georgina objected to him interrupting, she could take it up later.

Hen said, ‘Flipped my lid. Pressure.’ She breathed in, clutched her hands and faced Georgina. ‘If you looked at my personal file, I’m sure you’ll have seen that. A hothead. Sorry for what I said. Truly... ma’am.’

Georgina was a beached whale. She, too, had lost it, but in another sense. Diamond was in charge now. He’d switched direction, offered Hen the chance to talk about something other than the mess she was in.

And it worked. She became the professional again, in control of her emotions, but speaking exclusively to him. ‘The problem is that we couldn’t find a motive. Rigden had no enemies.’

He nodded. ‘We read the file.’

‘You know, then. Everyone in the village liked him. We tried hard to find someone who would say a word against him. No one would.’

‘To me,’ Diamond said, ‘this doesn’t look like a village murder. The gunshot and the disposal in a stolen car is a professional at work.’

‘That’s how I saw it. But the idea that everyone’s favourite gardener had any link with organised crime was beyond belief. We searched the house minutely, went through his papers, his address book, everything. Didn’t even find an unwashed dish. He lived frugally, but cleanly. No one else had entered the cottage in weeks. He wasn’t murdered there, that’s for sure.’

This was more like old times, the two of them trading theories. ‘And you got nothing useful from Danny Stapleton?’

‘He claimed he’d never heard of Rigden.’

‘He would, wouldn’t he? But Danny is a professional car thief. He knew the local villains, obviously.’

Hen shrugged. ‘So did we. Never got a sniff of a connection, from Danny or our usual informants.’

‘The body in the car: was it clothed?’

‘Same clothes he wore for his garden work. Sweatshirt and jeans. Socks, but no shoes. I expect you saw the autopsy report. Apart from the head wound, which was gross, no other marks of any significance. Nothing under the fingernails except garden dirt. He didn’t fight for his life.’

Diamond turned in his chair. ‘Anything you wanted to ask, ma’am?’

The tide was still out for Georgina. ‘You carry on.’

He told Hen, ‘You seem to have covered every angle except one.’

‘What’s that?’

‘What we’re here about.’

‘Joss?’

‘She may know something. We need to track her down. We’ve got to.’

‘I understand.’

‘Is her mother about?’

‘Died when Joss was twelve. Brain tumour. It explains a lot about what happened after.’

‘Did your brother find another partner?’

She gave a nod. ‘Cherry. I’ve never met her. From what I hear, she’s the quiet sort, a carbon copy of Jane, the first wife. Fits in with whatever Barry decides. He likes his women submissive.’

‘Is he local?’

‘Midhurst, a half-hour’s drive away. You want their phone number? There’s a Rolodex on the bookcase beside you. Look under Mallin.’

He made a note of it. Also under Mallin he found a card inscribed My Mobile, followed by the number, which he took down, unseen by Georgina. ‘And if this turns out to be a wild goose chase, we’ll be back to some of the people you interviewed.’

‘Rather you than me,’ she said. ‘The folk round here who employ gardeners think they’re God’s gift, most of them.’

‘I’m sparing no one, Hen. It may seem like a cold case, but there are high stakes here: a lifer who may be innocent and a damn good detective whose career is on the line.’

They left soon after. Georgina muttered something to Hen about hearing from them in due course and Diamond winked.

Hen widened her eyes a fraction.

On the walk back, Georgina said nothing until they’d gone more than halfway to the hotel. Finally she spoke. ‘I suppose I ought to thank you, Peter.’

‘What for?’

‘Taking over when it all became too heated. She’s a difficult woman. I don’t have a shred of sympathy with her.’

‘She lost her rag. She was out of order.’

‘I’m glad you agree. You called her “Hen” more than once, I noticed, almost as if you knew her.’

‘Relaxed the mode of address, that’s all. Sometimes it gets results.’

She gave him a sharp look.

‘At the end,’ she said, ‘you called her a damn good detective. That’s more than I would have done.’

‘She was in a state,’ he said.

‘So was I, by then.’

‘But no one needs to say you’re a damn good detective.’

She tilted her head and gave a sniff of satisfaction.

He moved smoothly on. ‘So you didn’t mind me picking up the baton? I hope I didn’t say anything you weren’t about to say.’

‘I was coming round to asking questions about the Rigden murder just as you did, but her offensive outburst put me off my stroke.’ She looked away, across the street. ‘All in all, you covered for me rather well.’

‘Thanks. I’m concerned about the niece.’

‘Avoiding arrest, you mean?’

‘It could be worse.’

‘In what way?’

‘I didn’t say anything to DI Mallin when she was talking about the glut of missing persons almost certainly murdered. Joss is missing.’