Down Among the Dead Men

7

Georgina’s reservation was at the Ship Hotel in North Street, Chichester. Elegant was the word for the building, in the Georgian style familiar to Bathonians.

Diamond and the driver lifted out the pink suitcases and other items and followed the boss inside. The receptionist greeted Georgina, asked for her name, checked the computer, looked up from the screen at the trio in front of her and said without blinking that the reservation appeared to be for one guest, and was that correct?

‘Is another room available?’ Georgina asked, and she didn’t blink either.

The receptionist said she would check.

Diamond said at once, ‘If it’s difficult I don’t mind staying somewhere else.’

‘That would not be convenient,’ Georgina said without a glance in his direction.

A room on the second floor was found and Diamond signed in and was given his key.

‘Which is it? I’ll need to know the number,’ Georgina said.

Their driver took this as the cue to leave them to it. He said if he wasn’t needed any longer, he’d return to Bath. He didn’t say what he would tell Bath about the goings-on in Chichester.

Not wishing for hotel food, Diamond went exploring that evening and found a pub serving burgers and chips. Chichester wasn’t a total write-off, he told Paloma on the phone after he’d eaten.

‘Chichester? That’s a relief. Not so far as you feared.’

‘A couple of hours by road. If I had my car, I’d be home by now, sleeping in my own bed tonight.’

‘Better not. She’ll think you’ve taken fright and deserted. Do you know any more about the job yet?’

‘Not really.’ He told her as much as he knew about Archie Hahn, the police college friend, and the request for Georgina’s assistance. ‘It could be just an excuse for them to get together again. She brought her golf clubs with her and enough clothes for a fashion show. He’s taken her to some fancy restaurant tonight.’

‘Weren’t you included?’

‘The bloke doesn’t even know I’m here.’

‘She wouldn’t have asked you to come if it was only about linking up with a former boyfriend. There’s got to be more to it.’

‘I should find out later. She wants to see me in her room when she gets back.’

‘What for? The woman’s insatiable.’

He let it pass. If Paloma had heard some of the stuff that had been said in the car she wouldn’t be joking. ‘Don’t you worry. I’ll keep my distance.’

His room had a view across the roofs to the cathedral spire, floodlit by night. After an hour or so of reality television he sat by the window looking at pigeons and waiting for the call from Georgina. He assumed it would come about ten.

He was still there at eleven. The pigeons were all roosting.

At eleven thirty he decided she’d forgotten. The reunion with her old college friend must have put everything else out of her mind. No point in waiting up indefinitely.

He was in the bathroom brushing his teeth when the call came at twenty to midnight. He let it ring. The ringing continued. He pictured Georgina, phone in hand, cursing him. He could lift the phone and cut the call, but she wouldn’t give up. She’d ring again. In time she would come knocking on his door.

This time he picked the thing up.

‘Peter?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s a little later than I intended. Archie wouldn’t tell me anything over dinner because it was too public, so we went for a drive to West Wittering and had a moonlit stroll along the beach. There was a lot to catch up on. Are you decent?’

‘Am I ever? Depends what you mean.’

‘Dressed.’

‘Not entirely.’

‘Slight change of plan, then. Don’t come to my room. We’re making a six-thirty start in the morning. Off to the Isle of Wight.’

‘What for?’

‘Tell you tomorrow, I’ll arrange for an early call for us both, but set your alarm as well, just in case. The sea air seems to have made me drowsy — or perhaps it was the wine. I’ll sleep like a baby.’

Bully for you, Diamond thought. Personally, he was now anything but drowsy. His brain was hyperactive, trying to find some reason for visiting the Isle of Wight. All he could bring to mind was a childhood trip to Carisbrooke Castle where a donkey on a treadmill turned the wheel that worked the well mechanism. There had to be more to the place than that. Forced to dredge deeper, he was reminded of a postcard from someone on holiday depicting the so-called wonders of the island: Needles you can’t thread; Ryde where you walk; Cowes you can’t milk; Newport you can’t bottle. And there was another wonder and annoyingly his brain wouldn’t supply it. Repeatedly he went over the names: the Needles, Ryde, Cowes and Newport. Mentally, he did tours of the island: Bembridge, Shanklin, Sandown, Ventnor and Yarmouth. Then he was back to Cowes and Ryde. Infuriating. Relax, man, it doesn’t matter, he told himself. But by now his brain was turning the treadmill like the bloody donkey.

He put the light on and watched a documentary about the Titanic disaster. Made himself tea. Went to the bathroom. Tried to sleep again.

Seaview was somewhere on the island, but that wasn’t it. Seaview had a sea view. He was back on the treadmill.

At what hour of the morning he was spared and allowed to sleep he didn’t want to know. Ten minutes after, it seemed, came the wake-up call. He heaved himself out of bed, tottered to the shower, failed — as he always did in hotels — to master the controls, got a burst of cold water, and remembered.

Freshwater you can’t drink.

Two black coffees later he was downstairs, propped against the wall at the hotel entrance. Georgina appeared, spry and animated. It took a while for him to work out that she was in a black suit, the first time he could remember seeing her out of uniform. Apart from the silver buttons and insignia the look was the same.

‘Archie arranged for a car,’ she said, looking at her watch. ‘It should be here by now.’

‘Is he coming?’

‘Absolutely not. Get this into your head, Peter. We’re free agents, independent of his lot.’

‘But using one of his cars.’

‘It was either that or hiring one and I don’t believe in burdening the taxpayer.’

The blue and yellow livery of the Sussex police car was too much for Diamond’s tired eyes. He sank into the back seat, thankful he didn’t have to drive and hoping the caffeine would soon take effect. Georgina got in from the other side, planted the seat buckle in his lap and said, ‘I don’t want you falling asleep and crushing me.’

They started the drive to the Portsmouth car ferry.

‘You look queasy,’ Georgina told him before they’d gone far.

‘I’m all right.’

‘Something you ate last night? If so, a sea crossing isn’t going to help you. Personally, I had a wonderful meal.’

He hoped she would leave it at that.

She didn’t. ‘New season turbot and spring vegetables followed by baked Alaska, which comes as a dish for two.’

He thought for the first time that it was possible the Double Whopper burger he’d eaten may have had something to do with his sleepless night.

Georgina hadn’t finished. ‘Archie had the dressed Cornish crab and said it was excellent. Oh, and I forgot the starter. We both had the Burgundian snails. I don’t suppose you’re a snail person, but with the garlic herb butter they’re as good a mouthful as you could wish. Do you eat snails, Peter?’

‘Can we talk about what we’re doing today?’

‘By all means. We’re going to meet a guest of Her Majesty.’

‘A prisoner?’

‘We’re not visiting the island to make sandcastles.’

He should have remembered that Parkhurst and Albany were located there. For years they had been the ‘places of dispersal’ for dangerous convicts such as the Krays and the Yorkshire Ripper. A few years ago, the two prisons had been downgraded and treated as one, relabelled HM Prison Isle of Wight, a category B lock-up, which meant it housed prisoners ‘for whom maximum security is not thought to be necessary, but for whom escape needs to be made very difficult.’ Someone with a nice sense of irony thought that up.

‘Anyone I know?’

‘I doubt it,’ Georgina said.

‘Not someone I put away?’

‘No, he was from here on the coast, a lifer by the name of Stapleton.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘He claims he was wrongly convicted.’

‘Don’t they all?’

‘This one could be telling the truth, and the truth he has to tell has come as a shock to certain people.’

‘Your friend Archie?’

‘Archie has an executive role. He isn’t personally involved.’

‘What’s it all about, then?’

Georgina pumped herself up with one of those immense intakes of breath that meant she was about to say something that couldn’t be questioned. ‘If I were to tell you, it would only be hearsay. Better you learn the facts from the prisoner himself.’

‘Can’t wait.’

By the time they drove on to the car ferry, Diamond decided he’d need to be positive about the state of his stomach. This stretch of sea was Spithead, supposedly protected from strong winds and therefore a safe anchorage for the navy. Even so, the ferry passed close enough to a passing battleship to catch the slipstream and he felt his insides rebelling. Just as well he hadn’t eaten breakfast. It was a forty-minute crossing to Fishbourne.

Promenading along the deck with Georgina (their driver was leaning over the side having a smoke), he concentrated on the view, wishing the blue haze of the island would become more solid.

‘You’re not much of a sailor, then?’ Georgina said.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘You’ve gone a dreadful colour.’

And you’re revelling in it, he thought. She didn’t often catch him in a weakened state. This ‘terrific team’ of Dallymore and Diamond was already malfunctioning.

Back on dry land, he rallied physically and in spirit. A twenty-minute drive brought them to the gates of Parkhurst. Georgina told the officer on duty that they were expected and had documentation as well as IDs and this was confirmed, but they still had to submit to a pat-down search at the visitor centre. After a sniffer dog showed only passing interest in Diamond, they were escorted to a private interview room furnished with plastic chairs and a wooden table screwed to the floor. Notepads and pencils were provided.

‘This will be a voluntary statement,’ Georgina told Diamond. ‘He’s made it before and he’s been told we’re police officers following up on the facts.’

‘Which isn’t true in my case,’ Diamond said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I can’t follow up on facts I don’t know anything about.’

‘You don’t have to sound so tetchy, Peter. I’m not deliberately withholding information from you. Better you hear from the man himself than getting my second-hand version. Leave the questioning to me. Listen and make notes.’

The man brought in by a prison officer looked more like an advert for hearty eating than a deprived convict. He was at least a couple of sizes larger than Diamond. He grinned at his visitors and said, ‘Danny Stapleton, at your service.’ Turning to the warder, he said, ‘You can go. I’ll be safe. They look harmless.’

Georgina wasn’t amused. She said, ‘The officer stays.’

Stapleton spread his hands. ‘Your choice.’

‘Sit down, please.’ She introduced herself and Diamond. ‘We’re from Avon and Somerset police.’

‘Avon and...?’ The man gave another knowing smile. ‘I get it. The local fuzz are tainted. You’re not.’

‘Enough of that.’ Georgina took control. ‘Any more back-chat from you, and you’ll be straight back to your cell. I’m told you claim to be wrongly convicted.’

‘I’ve been claiming it ever since I was slung in here,’ Stapleton said. ‘I’m an innocent man. You want to hear?’

‘This is your opportunity. But understand this, Mr Stapleton. If any of what you say is false — any part of it — your credibility will be demolished and you won’t see us or anyone else again. So you’re not in court under oath, but you might as well be.’

‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Honest to God, this is what happened. Seven years ago, I’m living in LA. D’you know it?’

Georgina blinked, thrown by the reference.

‘Lil’Ampton, right?’

‘Oh.’

‘LA is what the locals call it. I call it run-down. Like most of these seaside towns, it’s seen better days. You’ve still got the funfair and the beach, but you’ve also got poverty and loads of names ending in the letter z. The time I’m talking about I was unemployed, on the social, like half the town. OK, I get a little extra where I can, and it isn’t declared. I’m a tealeaf, a good one, specialising in cars. I’m telling you this ’cause you’ll have looked at my record. Doesn’t mean I’m crap because I’ve done a few stretches in places like this, just a tad unlucky with alarms and cameras. Most times I get in, drive off and no one would guess. Never any violence. Until this stretch, my times inside amounted to less than three years, total. Do you understand me?’

‘Get to the point,’ Georgina said.

‘Right. Well, my strike rate was suffering a bit on account of all the microchip stuff in modern cars. They have these smart keys and alarms. You need to be a computer nerd to nick one.’

‘We know all this. What happened?’

‘I took delivery of a box of tricks that would hack me into one of these new cars. Didn’t get much luck at first. Then one evening I’m sitting on the terrace of my local, the old Steam Packet at the top of River Road, when a BMW 3 series draws up outside. Perfect for me to half-inch with my brand-new jammer and key programmer. A young guy gets out and walks off across the bridge and I do the business. In under five minutes I’m driving it away to get some new plates fitted.’

‘Where?’

‘Chichester. Geezer I happened to know, who did up cars for people like me. I get well clear of LA and stop to give Stew a call, tell him I’m on the way, like. That’s all fixed and before moving off I open the glove compartment and — would you believe? — a load of money falls out. Used banknotes all over the floor. My lucky day, I’m thinking. I fill my pockets and drive on and almost get to Chichester when I hear this police car coming up behind me. Next thing I’m out of the car and being searched. They told me the Bimmer was stolen, which I knew, but they had no business to know.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘The timing. It was far too quick, barely half an hour since I drove off. The kid who just parked it couldn’t have known it was gone. Anyway, these cops found the money on me, two grand, I heard later. I was bricking it by then and I told them a porky, said I’d sold a boat in Littlehampton and was on my way to Chichester for a night out. It wasn’t true, OK? I admit it. I had to think of something to tell them. And then comes the bombshell. They open the boot and there’s this body inside in a garden sack with a hole through his head. I swear I knew nothing about it. How could I, when I’d nicked the car half an hour before? Next thing I’m a murder suspect, handcuffed and bundled off to spend the night in a cell. I’ve been banged up ever since.’

‘Your story wasn’t believed,’ Georgina said, more as a statement than a question.

‘It didn’t look good, me with all that money in my pockets. They said either I’d killed and robbed the dead man or I was paid the two grand to get rid of the body and was on my way to dump it somewhere when I was stopped. Nobody would listen. They found the tools I’d used, the jammer and the programmer, and said it was proof I’d nicked the car. Fair enough, but they were saying I’d nicked it the day before from a car park in Arundel. I swear I hadn’t been near Arundel.’

‘Couldn’t anyone give you an alibi? The staff at the Steam Packet?’

‘There was only the one barmaid on duty that night and she was Polish. By the time my lawyers got around to checking, she’d moved on and couldn’t be traced.’

‘Wasn’t anyone else drinking?’

‘None that I saw. I’ve had seven miserable years to think about this. The way I see it now, the car was already hot when I nicked it. That young guy was the killer. He was driving around with the stiff in the boot. He nicked the car in Arundel the day before. It was my bad luck to nick it from him.’

‘Why would he have left it outside the Steam Packet?’

‘The pub is right by the footbridge, isn’t it? He was going to wait till dark and then move the body onto the bridge and drop it in the river. It’s quiet there at nights. It is by day, come to that.’

‘He’d have to be strong.’

‘I told you he was young.’

‘Did you get a good look at him, then?’

‘It was how he was dressed, in one of them hoodie things the young tearaways wear — or they did do before I was banged up.’

‘Did you see his face?’

‘Not really. When he drove up I was looking at the car. And when he got out he had his back to me.’

‘Why would he have got out?’

‘To size up the situation. Work out the best place on the bridge to tip the body over.’

‘You’re suggesting he killed the victim in Arundel and stole a car to dispose of the body?’

‘It makes sense. He wouldn’t want to use his own car and get it loused up with DNA and all that stuff.’

‘He chose to drive to Littlehampton and dump the body in the river?’

‘Where the current would take it out to sea. The Arun is one of the fastest flowing rivers in Britain. Six knots. Did you know that? I’ve done my research.’

‘We do now we’ve heard it from you,’ Georgina said.

‘You don’t have to look at me like that. If I was the killer, I wouldn’t be driving to Chichester with the stiff, would I? I’d have tipped it in the river.’

‘We’ve only got your word you were driving there.’

‘No.’ He frowned. ‘You’ve got the word of the cops who stopped me.’

‘It doesn’t mean you were planning to go to Chichester. You could have been on your way to some isolated place where a body could be disposed of.’

‘That’s what they said in court, but it’s not true. I was on my way to Stew to get the plates changed.’

‘And then what? Drive on to your chosen place of disposal?’

‘Fucking hell.’ Danny Stapleton slapped his hand on the table between them. ‘I’m here to tell you what happened, not listen to your crap theories.’

The prison officer grabbed Danny’s arms and forced him against the chair.

‘OK, OK,’ the prisoner said.

‘Do you want him cuffed, ma’am, or shall we end it there?’

Georgina had lost the thread. It was a long time since she’d interviewed a hostile suspect, so Diamond took over, flapped his hand at the warder and said, ‘Let’s get back to the facts. You were arrested that night and taken to where — Chichester police station?’

Released from the restraint, Danny picked up his story as if nothing had happened. ‘They questioned me for hours, wouldn’t believe what I was saying. Fair play, I’d made some of it up, about the money. It was in my pockets. My prints were all over it. I had to say something, didn’t I? I made up the stuff about the car and where I was headed that night. But after I’d had the night to think it over, I came clean. I told them exactly what I’ve been telling you.’

‘Which you can’t prove.’

‘Don’t I know it? They called me a killer and all sorts. I didn’t even know who the bloody victim was. That’s how innocent I was.’

‘You found out later.’

‘They’re not generous with their information, your lot.’

‘So who was he?’

‘For crying out loud, are you telling me you don’t know and you’re my best hope of getting out of here? I give up.’

Georgina started speaking again, more to Diamond than Danny. ‘He was Joe Rigden, a self-employed gardener from near Slindon, one of the local villages. Shot through the head.’

‘I’ve never owned a gun,’ Danny said at once. ‘Never heard of Rigden before they told me his name. Never met him.’

Georgina added more details she must have got from her old college friend. ‘Rigden lived alone in an isolated cottage. He had a van and took jobs over quite a wide area, visiting people about twice a month. Because his garden visits were irregular, governed by the weather, it was a couple of weeks before he was reported missing.’

‘Living in a one-bedroom flat I didn’t even have a windowbox, let alone a garden,’ Danny said.

‘You weren’t charged with first degree murder,’ Georgina said. ‘There wasn’t the evidence to convict you of that.’

‘No, but they kept on at me for days, telling me I was in the frame.’

‘Of course you were, and rightly so. You were the only suspect. You were found with the body. And you told the police a pack of lies.’

‘Only when I thought I was being done for nicking the car. When it got serious next morning I told them everything I knew, but I wasn’t believed. They decided they’d got their man. Talk about the third degree. It was brainwashing. I was having nightmares, dreaming I did it. I still get them. I’m psychologically damaged. When I get out of here I’m going to sue you lot.’

‘Come on,’ Georgina said. ‘There were strong grounds for believing you did it. You were convicted of being an accessory.’

‘A mandatory life stretch with a minimum of ten years before they even consider me for release. That’s not funny.’

‘The judge took the view that if you didn’t carry out the murder yourself, you must have known who did it and were guilty of obstructing justice as well.’

‘The judge was an arsehole.’

‘Statements like that won’t help your cause one bit. Do you know the identity of the murderer?’

‘How could I?’

‘Are you afraid of what might happen when you get out?’

‘Bollocks.’

‘I can easily terminate this, Mr Stapleton. You don’t seem to realise you’re ruining your chances. I was told you’re well behaved, doing your best to get remission. It doesn’t sound like it.’ Georgina, fully restored, in headmistress mode — and for once Peter Diamond wasn’t on the receiving end.

‘I’m stressed,’ Danny said. ‘I shouldn’t be here. They never went after the young guy. He was the killer and he’s still at liberty.’

‘Yes, you’re under stress. Prison does that to people. Every inmate has a grievance. A lot of what you hear has no basis in reality.’

He leaned forward, gripping the table. ‘There’s more, isn’t there? What’s all this interest all of a sudden? Something’s happened. Someone’s been talking. I was left to rot until a week ago. Now I’m getting pulled out of my cell every other day to talk to coppers.’

‘We’ll end it there,’ Georgina said. ‘Your case is under review, Mr Stapleton. Be grateful for that. If anything of importance emerges, you will certainly be informed. Meanwhile, if you think of any detail of the case that wasn’t aired in court, let the governor know, and we’ll get to hear of it.’