Down Among the Dead Men

33

Diamond tried phoning once more. And had to stop himself from flinging down the phone and kicking it.

Dave Albison was still not taking calls. The recovery operation at sea must have been under way for three hours or more. No sense in thinking these guys on a gruesome mission would be using phones.

The waiting was hell to endure.

The shadows of early evening were spreading across the neglected garden as he left Holly Blue Cottage with Hen. He’d counted on hearing something by now.

‘Is it back to Chichester?’ Hen asked.

It was not. ‘I want to take a look next door. I’m curious about those voices you heard. Were they male or female?’

‘Both, I thought. Whoever it was has gone by now. It’s so quiet you can hear the snails saying their prayers.’

He gave her a look. ‘Where did that come from?’

‘My grandma. She had some quaint expressions. If you want to go trespassing I’ll collect the torch from my car.’ Which sounded like another of Grandma’s sayings.

Left alone, he assessed his fitness for the task. If he was ever going to crack this case, it would be tonight. The back of his head felt sore, but he was steadier on his feet now. And his brain was sharper than it had been all day. He needed to steel himself for horrible discoveries. Things said and things noticed were coming together and making sense, and none of it was good.

His phone buzzed. He tugged it out.

‘Yes?’

‘It took longer than we thought.’ Albison at last. ‘The wind got up. A real blast. The seagulls were flying backwards.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘Pagham.’

‘Well?’

‘We managed to bring two up. They’d be the most recent.’

He took a sharp, short breath. ‘And?’

‘Female, both of them. And both with bullet wounds. One is almost certainly the missing schoolgirl. She’s wearing the motorcycle jacket in the description, purple and black, with reflective panels.’

A stark, pitiless statement from a bearer of bad news who in fairness had no reason to feel pity.

Diamond had been hit by a wrecking ball. The last hope that Mel had somehow survived was dashed.

Cruel.

A huge lump came to his throat. He wanted to give vent to his sorrow, but this wasn’t the moment and Albison’s wouldn’t be a sympathetic ear. ‘And the other?’

‘Older. In her twenties. A redhead. Slim build. Silver ring on her right hand. Black leather jacket and trousers. The killer must have been so confident they would never be found that he left them in the clothes they had when they were shot.’

The second body was almost certainly Joss. The silver ring had been mentioned by her mother. The age, build and hair colour were right. Devastating for those troubled parents. And for Hen.

‘So the plan is to take them to the mortuary now and see how many more we can bring up tomorrow.’ Albison made it sound like baggage-handling. But who could blame him? On a job as horrific as this you have to find some way of insulating yourself from personal reactions that would overwhelm anyone else. ‘Do you want calls about all the others as we find them?’

The words hadn’t penetrated Diamond’s jangling brain.

‘The others,’ Albison repeated. ‘The bodies.’

Mentally, he put himself on autopilot. ‘DI Montacute will need to know. Best report to him as you go along. These are the two I wanted to know about.’

Mel and Joss. The two he least wanted to know about. The grieving, the long sleepless nights of self-doubt, lay ahead.

He pocketed the phone. Hen was already through the gate on her way back, jaunty and confident as she habitually was. In his present emotional state it wouldn’t be right to blurt out the bad news. He would find a way of telling her before the day was out.

‘How’s your head now?’ she asked him. ‘Jesus Christ, you’re looking groggy again. Don’t you think we should call it a day and get you back to the hotel?’

‘I’m better than I look.’ He was lying, but so what?

‘Men have been saying that to me all my adult life and it just ain’t true. What is it you expect to find here?’

He ignored the question. ‘Let’s get to it, Hen.’ Stepping out briskly to leave no doubt that he was fit again, he took the route around the cottage and along the well-trodden path towards the connecting door in the high brick wall. Tom must have come this way regularly to deliver supplies to Miss Gibbon. Where the grass grew sparsely in the shadow of the wall, it was wise to watch for the mushroom hazards. A repeat of yesterday’s slip-up wouldn’t be clever.

‘Did you make a meal of those mushrooms you collected?’ he asked.

‘I did — and very tasty they were in a two-egg omelette.’

‘You said you’d be checking them for safety.’

‘Of course. Chucked out a couple of liberties. They’re really abundant in this garden.’

‘Liberties?’

‘Liberty caps. In my state of stress I don’t need that sort of trip, thank you.’

They’d reached the door. He turned to face her.

‘When you say “trip” you don’t mean slipping over like I did the other day.’

‘Correct, my innocent. “Trip” as in psychedelic experience. The liberty cap is the good old magic shroom beloved of hippies.’

Diamond said a simple, ‘Ha’ — but he might as well have said ‘Eureka!’ The mystery he’d been wrestling with for days was solved. Surrounding them on the shadowy ground were clusters of the delicate helmet-shaped fungi on long stalks.

Within his recent memory freshly picked hallucinogenic mushrooms had been openly on sale, although their psychoactive constituents were deemed class A drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act. The police had a thankless task deciding whether they had been ‘dried or altered by the hand of man’ and were therefore illegal. But in 2005 the act had been tightened to include fresh mushrooms of the liberty cap variety. In the eyes of the law they were as dangerous as heroin and cocaine.

Hen added, ‘Cutesy critters, aren’t they, with their pixie hats? Have you tried one? The trip is similar to LSD, but not so powerful.’

‘I hope you’re not serious. I’ve had enough head-blasting for one day,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be dark soon. If we don’t get a move on, we’ll see nothing.’

‘All right, all right. Only joking.’

They tore their thoughts away from dangerous drugs. Diamond opened the door to the grounds of Fortiman House.

And what a change of scene. Not a mushroom in sight and not a blade of grass more than a centimetre high.

A faintly purple October mist was settling over the lower levels, but the main features of the garden could still be made out: the house and outbuildings to the left and the striped lawns down to the lake. Nobody was in sight.

‘Something’s different,’ Hen said.

Diamond couldn’t think what she meant.

‘By the lake. What are they building down there?’

He looked where she was pointing and was able to make out a tall skeletal structure outlined against the silver water. Recognising it, he smiled. Good things happened, even on bad days. ‘That will have been the noise you heard. They were rebuilding the House of Usher. It’s not finished, but they’ve made a good start.’

‘Looks more like the House of Lobster,’ Hen said.

‘Yes, it’s basically lobster pots lashed together. Ella’s A level project. I suggested they moved it here from the school. The voices you heard must have been some of the girls with Tom.’

‘Good man, giving up his Sunday afternoon.’

Diamond was silent.

‘One mystery solved, then,’ Hen said.

‘Hm?’

She said in a tone that left no doubt he was acting in an absent-minded way, ‘We’ve worked out who the voices belonged to.’

‘I’m going down there.’

‘To the lobster pots? What for?’

‘Come with me and I’ll tell you as we go.’

‘They all say that, and I fall for it every time.’

They stepped out sharply towards the lake.

‘You reminded me earlier that you’re a countrywoman,’ Diamond told her. ‘Answer me this if you can. How do mushrooms travel?’

‘Is this a riddle? They go “Shroom, shroom” and cover the ground. Here’s one for you. Why does the mushroom get invited to all the parties?’

‘It was a serious question, Hen.’

‘What do you mean — how do they travel?’

‘Is it root systems spreading through the ground?’

‘It’s spores. Don’t you know that, dumbo? The mature mushroom reaches a stage when it ejects these tiny cells of almost no weight at all that are carried by the wind and reproduce somewhere else.’

‘Then they colonise a place?’

‘Like Holly Blue Cottage. Some spores must have been blown there in the first place.’

‘That’s the reason I asked. And if you’ve spent years cultivating a garden, you won’t be over-pleased when mushrooms start popping up all over it. This must have happened back in September, 2007, to Joe Rigden’s pride and joy. He wasn’t a happy man.’

‘They’re a natural phenomenon, Pete. You can’t control spores.’

‘I’m not sure about that. Magic mushrooms aren’t all that common, are they?’

‘No, but they grow naturally in this country.’

‘And they could be cultivated.’

‘That would be illegal and very risky.’

‘Rigden, as a horticulturist, would have known what these were,’ Diamond said. ‘He found some growing in Mrs Shah’s garden. As a man of principle, clean-living and all the rest, he would have disapproved of them on moral grounds as well as finding them a bloody nuisance.’

Hen screwed up her nose in a way that said she wasn’t fully persuaded.

Diamond saw it and said, ‘Now think back to a man you and I both interviewed at different times — the Reverend Conybeare, not quite a buddy of Joe’s, but the nearest thing he had to a buddy. Do you recall what he said about the word “magic” being like a red rag to a bull when Joe was around?’

‘Go on,’ she said. ‘You’re starting to interest me.’

‘The vicar was an amateur magician, a member of the Magic Circle, but Joe insisted on calling him a conjurer because he had a thing about magic.’

‘And you think there’s a link with the magic mushrooms? Joe tasted them and got addicted?’

‘No. He wasn’t the sort. They were getting to him in a different way, making him mad because they were spreading over the garden. I found his old coat in the garden shed and in one of the pockets there were dried-up remains of some sort of fungus that I now believe to have been liberty caps.’

‘Why would he put them in his pocket?’

‘To keep them separate from other garden waste. He didn’t want them spreading.’

‘No offence, but this is all rather iffy, Pete. A few shrivelled bits from his pocket. You’d need to get them checked by a scientist.’

‘That may not be necessary.’

They’d entered the copse beside the lake. Ahead, at the limit of the solid ground, two columns of the House of Usher were in place and a third had been partly constructed. A stack of loose pots nearby showed that the work was only half done, but it was already possible to see how spectacular the completed house would look in the new setting. In this fading light it had an eerie look. If Diamond had read the story — which he had not — he would surely have recognised that ‘sense of insufferable gloom’ Edgar Allan Poe had noted.

‘Help me with this,’ he told Hen as he grasped one end of the incomplete column, four large creels fastened end to end with stout fishing cord.

Between them they lifted the pots as one object about eight feet long. For two people it wasn’t all that heavy, but it would be awkward to carry.

‘I can’t think what you have in mind, matey,’ she said. ‘It’s a good thing I’ve got a modicum of trust that you’re not completely barmy.’

With Diamond leading, they bore the thing back up the sloping lawn towards the dividing wall. There they stopped.

‘My little legs are going to be black and blue,’ Hen said.

‘You’ll survive.’

‘Are we nicking it, or what?’

‘That’s not the plan. Are you game to go on?’

‘How much further? Through the door in the wall?’

‘Past that by fifty yards — as far as the walled garden.’

‘The orchid collection? You’re not aiming to take it in there? It’s locked and alarmed. He doesn’t want his precious orchids contaminated.’

‘We’re going to use this as a ladder.’

‘To scale the wall?’

‘If possible.’

‘Better be, after all this effort.’

They hoisted the column and moved off again, staying close to the wall.

‘So why does the mushroom get invited to all the parties?’ Diamond asked, to keep her on side.

‘Because he’s a fun guy. Get it?’

‘If I stop to laugh, I might drop it.’

They reached the outside of the walled garden and took another brief rest. The short transition from daylight through dusk to night was almost over. They couldn’t see back as far as the lake.

‘Mind if I smoke?’ Hen said.

‘Be my guest.’

Her lighter flared. ‘What’s phase two of this crazy adventure?’

‘I’m going over the wall.’

‘Leaving the little woman to mind the lobster pots? I guessed as much. The world has moved on, Pete. We gals want a slice of the action. I can get over this wall as well as you, probably better.’

‘Oh, I don’t—’

She interrupted. ‘Yes, you do. In your state of health you need protecting more than the pots.’ She produced the torch and switched it on. ‘Let’s see if this is doable.’

They propped the column of pots against the wall. It was some feet short of the top, but it made a serviceable ladder, using the trap-holes as steps.

‘Me first,’ Hen said. Before Diamond had a chance to argue, she handed over the torch and started climbing, still with the small cigar between her lips. Reminding him of a koala scrambling up a eucalyptus, she reached the top with ease. ‘It’s going to be OK,’ she said. ‘There’s a shed this side and we can step on to the roof.’

He followed her up, but more ponderously. Supporting his less sure-footed ascent, the ramshackle structure rasped several times under his weight. He got one leg over the wall, hauled himself up and recovered his breath.

Hen was already standing on the felt-covered sloping roof she’d mentioned and she helped Diamond to join her. From its size, the building appeared to be some kind of office or packing shed. Three much larger long metal sheds without windows filled most of the space, running from end to end.

‘What now, action man?’

‘We come down to earth.’

‘And not before time.’

A stack of filled compost sacks lined most of the wall Diamond and Hen had climbed over — which was helpful, providing a cushioned landing.

‘Bigger than I expected,’ Hen said, when they were standing on a wide concrete path that ran the length of the nearest shed. ‘Looks like a business enterprise. I had the impression the orchids are just a hobby that pays well. If you can grow them successfully, that is. My efforts with the two or three I’ve been given over the years were disastrous. I kept them about two weeks before they gave up the ghost — and they were supposed to be hardy specimens anyone can grow.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ he said. ‘We may not be alone.’

‘It’s after dark. Who’s going to be here now?’

‘Let’s see if we can get inside.’

Using the torch-beam, they walked half the length of the shed before coming to a large sliding door. Something was written on it. ‘That’ll be about closing the door after you,’ Hen said. ‘They hate draughts. I do know that much.’

In fact when they shone the torch, the sign said: ENTRY ONLY BY AUTHORISED PERSONS. CONTROLLED HUMIDITY AND TEMPERATURE.

‘Same thing really,’ Hen said.

Without debate as to whether they were authorised persons, Diamond grasped the door handle and slid it open, triggering a rapid, high-pitched beeping.

‘Jesus, what’s that?’

‘Step inside fast.’ He pushed the door back and the sound stopped. ‘Just a reminder... I hope.’

Hen wasn’t listening. She stood in awe of what was revealed. For one thing, the interior was brilliantly lit, and for another there wasn’t an orchid in sight. Ranged as far as they could see were trays containing slender cream-coloured mushrooms in their thousands. Above the trays were strip lights and a spray system. Compared with the cool of the evening outside, — the warm, moist atmosphere felt tropical.

‘Did you ever see anything like this, countrywoman?’

‘Awesome. Enough to supply every ageing hippy in Europe.’

‘With the two other sheds, they’ll have the capacity to dry them or freeze them and I expect the one we climbed on to was the packing shed.’

‘The scale of it. You can’t call it a crime scene, Pete, it’s a crime spectacular — and in my manor. I didn’t dream such a place existed.’

‘Just to be certain, they are liberty caps?’

‘Every one a class A drug,’ Hen said. ‘Are you as drop-dead flabbergasted as I am? You don’t look it.’

‘I had my suspicions about the walled garden, but I wasn’t thinking of magic mushrooms until you mentioned them.’

‘I didn’t think past orchids. They can be grown under glass, but growing rooms like this are often preferred because you have complete control of the lighting and humidity.’

Diamond walked up one of the three aisles between the tables of trays and examined the crop. The spindly mushrooms were being grown in phases. The youngest were pale and sticky-looking, while the taller they got, the browner they had turned. The most mature were four inches tall and chestnut brown. They were dryer, too. The spraying must have been phased as well.

‘There’s huge investment here.’

‘And huge returns,’ Hen said, from a different aisle where she was getting her own perspective on the crop. ‘They’ll have cornered the market in the south of England.’

Diamond couldn’t disagree with that. ‘Before the law was strengthened, there was a flourishing mail order industry in fresh ones. You could buy them openly, even in my snobby city of Bath. All that stopped overnight.’

‘But how did it lead to murder, Pete?’

‘This is high risk.’

‘Can’t argue with that.’

‘My reading of it is that some spores escaped. Next, Joe Rigden started noticing rogue mushrooms in Mrs Shah’s garden and decided to take it up with the people next door. He wasn’t the sort to turn a blind eye to law-breaking and he did some snooping. And when he learned the truth and took it up with his neighbours, he signed his own death warrant. I don’t know if there was panic or if it was a cold-blooded shooting, but Joe got taken out.’

‘And they arranged for Davy to dispose of the body?’

‘That was the plan.’

‘The plan that misfired. I can see how Davy came into the equation. He did his modelling here. Presumably his disposal business was known about. But how did Joss get involved?’

The subject of Joss’s fate had been coming like a train down the line and Diamond knew he couldn’t talk about her without breaking the dreadful news to Hen. ‘Probably it was like this. She was into drugs herself, right?’

‘At one stage, no question.’

‘Magic mushrooms?’

‘Among other substances, yes. She tried them all, my sister told me.’

‘Then if she was a customer of Fortiman House, some kind of deal was struck, such as a supply of liberty caps in exchange for driving a stolen car to Littlehampton. I doubt whether she knew what was in the boot. And she didn’t meet Davy, so his part in the operation was concealed.’

He was steeling himself to reveal that Joss was dead. But it wasn’t to be. A heavy trundling sound interrupted him. He swung around and saw the sliding door moving.

Hen had seen what was happening and ducked. That piercing electronic beep was sounding. All too clearly it was linked to an alarm system.

In different aisles, Diamond and Hen had taken cover under the tables bearing the trays of mushrooms. Clearly they were in danger of their lives. Any doubt about that was removed a moment later.

‘OK, I’m armed. I know you’re here,’ a male voice shouted, echoing through the long building. ‘You have five seconds to show yourself, or you get it.’

Not much scope for negotiation there.

Heart thumping, Diamond stayed out of sight and silent under the table and Hen did the same. He had a view of her hunkered between the trestles two aisles to his left. If the gunman came along either aisle they’d be easy targets. Any fool would know they’d taken cover.

What now? Wait here passively or do something? Diamond wasn’t the passive sort. The difference between survival and a bullet through the head was all in the timing. The obvious move was to create a distraction. But how, without getting shot?

The gunman had entered by the same door they had, so he wasn’t all that far away. After the chilling first threat, he’d gone silent. His feet weren’t making any sound, very likely because he was wearing trainers. Diamond held his breath and strained to listen for the softest footfall.

It came, a steady padding along the aisle he was in. He felt in his pocket for his mobile phone, the one solid object he had apart from his shoes. His heart thumped faster than the advancing footsteps. Get this right, Peter Diamond, or you’re history, and so is Hen Mallin.

The gunman slowed, as if he sensed someone nearby.

Diamond waited.

Two short steps closer and already he could see the feet and the faded blue jeans. They’d stopped again. The legs angled forward a little as if the gunman was stooping for a better look.

Diamond didn’t move a muscle.

The front shoe lifted at the heel and advanced almost to within touching distance.

Now.

Diamond slung his phone as far and as fast to his right as he could, aiming below the tables. It didn’t get far before it clattered against one of the metal trestles. It still should have been enough to create a diversion and draw fire.

But instead of loosing off a reaction shot, the gunman hesitated.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

After five agonising seconds came a blast of what sounded like rapid machine-gun fire.

A machine gun?

Diamond rolled into the aisle, grabbed the gunman’s legs and brought him down. Surprise is a weapon in itself.

At the same time a heavy object clattered against the ground and slid under the table.

A brief bout of wrestling, and Diamond grasped an arm and yanked it upwards behind the man’s back. He had him in an armlock.

He didn’t need to shout to Hen. She was already on her feet, dashing between the tables to snatch up the weapon.

A chainsaw.

What Diamond had taken to be machine-gun fire had been the saw on full throttle.

With his weight bearing down, he hadn’t much of a sense of who he’d captured, except that he was large and strong. There was something he hadn’t expected. Instead of the solid feel of back and shoulders, his chin was up against a padded surface that felt like wool. He pulled back for a better view.

A Rastafarian crocheted tam.

The chainsaw man was Manny, the cartoonist gardener.