Killing with Confetti

11

Most tourists visit Bath in summer. Unfortunately the air in high summer can be so humid that some vow never to return. The waspish poet Alexander Pope once described the city centre as a sulphurous pit and Hester Thrale, the diarist, likened it to a stew-pot. Even so, both were regular visitors.

Peter Diamond, the city’s senior detective, had put up with the place for so long that he scarcely noticed. He didn’t often remove his jacket, even when his staff were in short sleeves and using battery-operated fans. But on this sweltering July afternoon even he sensed it was harder to breathe down here in front of the abbey than in the rarefied air of Emersons Green where the CID had its office. He was supposed to be meeting his immediate boss, Assistant Chief Constable Georgina Dallymore, and he couldn’t understand why she hadn’t chosen to see him at the office. The likeliest explanation was that she was combining police business with a shopping trip.

Conspicuous in his dark suit and trilby among the lightly clad tourists taking selfies, he strolled about looking for a large woman in police uniform carrying several of those jumbo-sized bags that dress shops supply. She ought to have been obvious.

She surprised him. Her voice came from behind.

‘I hope you haven’t been waiting long, Peter.’

He turned and saw that for once she wasn’t in the black serge and silver trimmings, but a print dress. No shopping bags. And she wasn’t alone.

The man’s face was familiar.

‘You know Deputy Chief Constable Brace, of course.’

The DCC, no less. Knew him by sight and reputation. They’d passed each other often in the corridors of Concorde House and exchanged nods, smiles and the occasional word, so it wasn’t necessary to shake hands. George Brace outranked everyone in Avon and Somerset except the Chief Constable. Managing to be friendly and dignified as well, he was a high flyer originally from the Gloucestershire Police who, like Georgina, was rarely seen in civilian clothes. Today was the exception. Tall, fit-looking and probably still in his forties, he was wearing a peaked golf cap, pink shirt and slim-fit tartan trousers as if he was ready for a round of the course at Sham Castle.

‘I suggest we go inside, gentlemen,’ Georgina said. ‘Cooler and more quiet, one hopes.’

Being called a gentleman by Georgina ought to have been something to savour, but Diamond was under no illusion. The refinement was meant for DCC Brace.

The abbey was a strange place for a briefing, if that was what this was about. The great west door with its heraldic carvings is kept closed except for special occasions, so they entered through the smaller arched door on the left, Brace first removing his golf cap and Diamond his trilby. After the sunshine the interior seemed unnaturally dark until they emerged from the entrance passage and experienced the splendour of the building.

Cooler, for sure, and lighter inside than most great churches because of the vast windows stretching from end to end. The air was spiced with the pungent smells of limestone and hymnbooks. No service was in progress, but someone was repeatedly producing a single heavy bass note from the organ, as if an ocean liner were leaving harbour.

Georgina bestowed a queenly smile on the steward in the official blue gown. ‘We’re not visitors,’ she explained and swanned past the donations box. To the others, she said, ‘It’s all right. They know me in this place. I’m a regular worshipper — Matins every Sunday and sometimes Evensong as well.’

Diamond’s religion was rugby and real ale.

When Georgina reached the main aisle she faced the altar and made a deep genuflection, leaving no doubt that this was her second home. She turned to the others. ‘I suggest we head for the south transept. We won’t hear ourselves speak if we’re under the organ.’

A short way up the south aisle a tall silver-headed man in a black cassock headed towards them in a meaningful way. Georgina said in an aside to her two companions, ‘This is the head verger,’ and stepped ahead to greet him, but he veered to her left and gave her only a cursory nod as he passed by. Instead he stopped in front of Diamond and said, ‘What’s going on, Mr. Diamond? This isn’t your usual day.’

Profoundly wishing he’d been ignored, Diamond muttered, ‘I know.’

Georgina was glaring as if someone had broken wind.

‘Or am I mistaken?’ the verger said.

‘No,’ Diamond said. ‘My day is Friday. These are colleagues of mine. We’re looking to find some peace and quiet.’

‘Peace goes without saying in this place,’ the verger said, ‘but we’ll only get quiet when the tuner has finished. I’m sorry it’s so distracting.’

‘No problem,’ Diamond told him. ‘It’s needed doing for some time.’

‘Absolutely,’ Brace added. ‘You want the notes to be true.’

‘Indeed,’ Georgina said, but she sounded awfully depleted.

After the verger had left them, Diamond expected the inquisition and it started at once.

‘You’re a dark horse,’ Georgina said. ‘You didn’t tell me you worshipped here. I’ve never seen you.’

‘You wouldn’t on a Sunday, ma’am.’

‘Right. He said something about your usual day.’

‘Friday after work.’

‘He even knows your name.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve never thought of you as a church member.’

‘I wouldn’t want you to, ma’am. It has nothing to do with policing and we have more important matters to deal with than my boring habits. Shall we move on?’

For the present, the matter was shelved, but Georgina was unlikely to let it rest there.

They had the south transept to themselves apart from an old couple wearing headphones and gazing up at the stained-glass window known as the Jesse. The pictorial panels trace Christ’s descent from King David’s father, so there was plenty for them to take in.

‘This will do nicely over here, don’t you think?’ Georgina stepped across to a wall crowded with memorial tablets and turned to Brace. ‘Would you like me to explain what this is about, sir?’

The Deputy Chief Constable took a long look at the elderly tourists. They seemed to be engrossed. ‘Keep your voice down, then.’

‘I don’t think they’re listening.’ She stepped close to Diamond, uncomfortably close, pinning him against a relief of the Good Samaritan. ‘What you’re about to be told is strictly in confidence. No one else must hear of it, not even close colleagues. Understood?’

Georgina was carrying on as if she was bidding to be the next M in the Bond films.

‘DCC Brace—’ she started to say and was interrupted by Brace himself.

‘We can dispense with rank. It’s George.’

She blinked rapidly about five times. ‘If you say so, sir.’

‘George, Georgina and Peter, all right?’

Diamond nodded. It was all right with him.

Thrown by such familiarity, Georgina swallowed hard and mustered a smile. ‘By all means. You may not be aware, Peter, that, ’em, George has a son, a delightful young man called Ben and he’s getting married on September the eighth to a young lady by the name of Caroline. They’ve booked the abbey for the wedding.’

‘Nice.’ Diamond tried making eye contact with George, who seemed to have taken a sudden interest in the abbey’s famous fan vaulting.

‘There is a complication, however,’ Georgina went on. ‘Some time after the arrangements were set in train, George learned that although Caroline is a charming young woman living in a beautiful house in Camden Crescent, there are serious question marks about her father. Putting it bluntly, he’s known to us in another connection.’

‘That isn’t blunt,’ George Brace said. ‘He’s a gang leader with a record as long as your bloody arm.’

Even the tough-talking head of CID was surprised by that. He was at a loss as to what to say next.

‘You’ll know all about him,’ Brace added. ‘He’s Joe Irving.’

‘Really?’ Diamond’s toes curled at the name. ‘I thought Joe Irving was doing time.’

‘He is, but he’ll be out by August and he’s going to be here, walking his daughter up the aisle. Do you see the hole I’m in?’

‘I do, but...’ He didn’t complete the sentence.

‘You want to know how I got in this pickle? I was ambushed, Peter. Are you married?’

‘I was.’

‘You’ll understand, then. I’m a busy man, as you’ll appreciate, forced to leave the domestic stuff largely to my wife to take care of. I take an interest, of course I do. I knew my son was getting serious about this young woman — moved in with her, in point of fact. I first met her last November and decided she was just right for Ben. It was obvious they were well suited. When my wife said they were getting engaged and wanted to name the day, I gave them my full support.’

‘As you would,’ Georgina put in.

‘I’m happily married myself and I’ll do all I can to make sure Ben is as fortunate as I am. I didn’t ask about the girl’s people at that stage. They were obviously not short of money because they’d bought the Camden Crescent house for Caroline.’

‘The entire house,’ Georgina stressed in case Diamond didn’t know that most of them were divided into expensive flats.

The DCC was intent on telling the story. ‘It turns out that she has only the one parent, her father, and he’s absolutely set on giving her a wonderful white wedding. He’s the driving force behind all this and is insisting on paying the lot and no expense spared. They booked the abbey and the reception is going to be in the Roman Baths. The young couple got on with the arrangements, organised the dress, the cars, the catering, had the invitations printed and drew up the guest list. In my innocence I didn’t question any of it.’

‘Did your wife know Irving is a convict?’ Diamond asked.

‘Peter, you’ve put your finger on it. Mothers and sons. Ben told Leticia at an early stage but they didn’t tell me. She’s very protective of him, always was. He isn’t a bad lad, but he got into scrapes when he was growing up, as boys do, and I would only hear about the damage when it couldn’t be hidden from me and I had to foot the bill for a broken window, or removing graffiti, or some such. Leticia always softened the blow.’

Georgina said, ‘I can understand that.’

Brace went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘By the time I got to hear the truth about my son’s future father-in-law, the whole shebang was set in stone. I saw red, of course, hit the bloody roof.’

‘As anyone would,’ Georgina said, gazing at her superior as if he were a martyred saint.

He ignored her. ‘I told my wife and son what a scurvy trick they’d played on me. My own marriage was at risk, I was so mad. My marriage, my career, my son’s happiness. When I calmed down enough to take stock, I realised I was hamstrung. Couldn’t cancel the wedding without it backfiring. Everyone in my family would hate me, not to mention Caroline’s lot. And there were all the contractors who stood to lose money over it. Someone was sure to go public and we’d be sunk as soon as it was known Ben was already living with a criminal’s daughter in a house bought with ill-gotten gains. The damage was done. The end result would be the same as if they married, d’you see?’

Up to a point, Diamond thought, but why tell me? This didn’t bode well. Standing so close to the Good Samaritan, he was mentally with the priest and the Levite who walked by.

‘In the end,’ Brace said, ‘I decided the only option was to let the wedding go ahead as planned. It may still end in my resignation through no fault of my own, but I’ll have done the right thing by the young couple.’

Georgina fluttered her eyes. ‘Typically unselfish.’

‘Her family are investing serious money. They’ll want it to be a success. With goodwill on all sides, we can make a go of this.’

The ‘we’ was ominous. ‘Makes sense,’ Diamond said, beginning to sound like Georgina, he was so uneasy.

‘Have you met the guy?’ Brace asked.

Difficult to know which way to jump. Either was dangerous. Diamond chose to be truthful. ‘Joe Irving? Personally, no.’

‘Good. We thought not.’

Georgina lavished a told-you-so smile on Brace, who was far too wound up to notice.

‘You probably think I’m a mug, Peter.’

‘Not at all, George. I’d be the same.’

Endearingly, George Brace’s face took on the rosy hue of a prophet’s cloak in the Jesse window. ‘Good man, because I need you on side, batting for me. You’re used to plain clothes.’

‘None plainer,’ Georgina murmured.

‘And blending in with the crowd. No disrespect, but you look a bit more senior than the average CID fellow. Ideal for this.’

‘For what?’

‘It will all be unofficial, I have to say.’

‘What will?’

‘I want you there on the day as a guest of my family, making sure nothing goes wrong.’

Diamond couldn’t go on pretending he didn’t understand. He was done up like a kipper and he didn’t care for it one bit. ‘Are you expecting trouble, sir?’

Georgina said, ‘God forbid.’

‘George,’ Brace reminded him. ‘I told you it’s George.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Trouble?’ Brace looked up at the ceiling again as if the trouble were a fault in the structure and the whole south transept would crash down at any second. He said without shifting his upward gaze, ‘Having you on hand is a sensible precaution when I’ve got a crime baron across the aisle. He’ll have enemies for sure.’

‘Sid Felix, for one,’ Diamond said, thinking the way to play this was to show it was too fraught with danger to be left under his control. Felix was a gang leader almost as notorious in Bath as Irving, and a deadly rival for the pickings to be had from crime right across Somerset. The Felix gang had taken clear advantage from Joe’s recent absence from the scene.

The Deputy Chief Constable blanched at the name. The muscles either side of his mouth tensed and he lowered his head to lock eyes with Diamond. ‘Do you know something I don’t?’

‘I know about the feuding that goes on. Every crook worthy of the name has heard Joe Irving is due for parole this year.’

‘But do you have inside information?’

Diamond shook his head. ‘I don’t keep tabs on the gang culture. That’s Zephyr’s job, isn’t it?’ Zephyr was the regional team responsible for monitoring organised crime in the West Country.

‘What made you pick on Felix, of all people?’

He shrugged. ‘Isn’t he the obvious one? He sprang to mind first.’

‘You’ve put your finger on it, Peter. The man is a real and present threat. You know what happened to John Howard?’

He’d be a poor detective if he didn’t know. Howard, a rising star in the Bristol crime scene, had specialised in ‘cuckooing,’ taking over the homes of vulnerable people in return for drugs. He had been gunned down in the street outside the Dolman Hall on a February night in 2017. His death had allowed the Felix gang to extend control of drugs and prostitution in the red-light district from St. P to Fishponds. ‘The Zephyr lads nabbed the hitman pretty fast, if I recall.’

‘But they didn’t get the top dog who put out the contract. The poor sap currently in jail for life is terrified of fingering Sid Felix. He wouldn’t survive another hour if he did.’

Georgina uttered another of her preachy comments. ‘That’s what our prisons have come to.’

‘But do you know the background to the shooting?’ Brace said. ‘Normally these big-name crooks stay hidden and well guarded. John Howard’s son is a boxer. That night at Dolman Hall he was due to fight in one of the supporting bouts. Naturally the proud father wanted to see his son in action. The hitman sussed this and was waiting at the entrance. He fired three shots as Howard stepped out of his car.’

‘Vicious,’ Georgina said.

‘Do you see where I’m coming from?’ Brace demanded of Diamond. ‘Family loyalty forces the victim into the open, a particular place at a prearranged time.’

‘Like here? Inside the abbey?’

Georgina gasped and said, ‘Perish the thought.’

Brace was grim-faced. ‘Or at the reception in the Roman Baths.’

The parallels were all too obvious: proud father steps out of the shadows and puts himself at risk of death for his son’s sake. But the remedy being suggested was out of order.

‘You want me to act as a bodyguard for Joe Irving?’ Diamond said in disbelief. ‘He’ll bring his own if he’s got any sense.’

A resigned sigh from Brace. ‘I daresay he will.’

‘And they’ll be armed,’ Diamond said.

Georgina said, ‘Keep your voice down, Peter.’

‘We can’t do body searches at the abbey door.’

‘Lord, no,’ Brace said. ‘I’m not suggesting that. A shoot-out is the worst possible scenario.’

‘If he brings bodyguards they won’t be using water-pistols. You need armed police, not me. Have you told Zephyr?’

There was a pained look from Brace.

Georgina clicked her tongue in disapproval.

‘They’d stand out a mile,’ Brace said. ‘It’s my son’s wedding, a family celebration. Whatever precautions we take must be discreet. This is why we’ve chosen you. Are you an AFO?’

His blind spot. Georgina came to the rescue. ‘Authorised Firearms Officer.’

Embarrassing. ‘Not my thing, guns. I did a course at one time. Don’t know how they passed me. I’m way out of date by now.’

‘Go for a refresher, Peter. There’s plenty of time.’ Brace made it sound like the offer of a drink.

Georgina said, ‘I’ll make sure he does.’ No question where her loyalties lay.

‘The Tri-Force Centre at Black Rock is a great day out,’ Brace said. ‘I’m a regular there. State-of-the-art facilities.’

Diamond was still looking for a get-out. ‘There must be others with firearms training.’

‘No use to me. I need you — a wise head to advise me exactly as you’re doing. Georgina tells me your experience is second to none.’ Brace placed his hand on Diamond’s shoulder and gripped him firmly. ‘Oh, yes, you must be there. I’m encouraged by everything I’ve heard from you.’