Killing with Confetti

30

If any more proof were needed that Joe had not been impoverished by his years in prison it was his Georgian house in Sion Hill Place. At a hundred and fifty metres above sea level, the highest point the eighteenth-century builders had risen to on the northern slopes, the location was the most secluded in Bath. The palace-fronted terrace of nine four-storey houses faced a lawn and long-established trees, copper beeches blending with the greener foliage. Most of the building was divided into apartments, but Joe had an entire house to himself. The upper floors afforded unmatched views of his empire.

Diamond stared and despaired. The war against crime was lost if felons like Irving could live like this. He turned to Ingeborg, who was his support for the visit, and shook his head. Nothing needed to be said.

A gleaming white front door. Boxwood in a tub at either side. Respectability objectified.

Joe didn’t come to the door. He appeared like the Pope at a window upstairs. But he wasn’t wearing vestments. He was in boxer shorts. And he didn’t say, ‘Buongiorno.’ He said, ‘Piss off.’

Diamond cupped his hands to be heard. ‘Better let us in, Joe. We have something to discuss.’

‘Like what?’

‘You won’t want me telling the whole of Sion Hill Place.’

‘I’m not bothered.’

‘Are the bridesmaids and their mothers still with you?’

Joe shook his head. ‘Left early.’

‘Because they weren’t mistaken, those little girls.’

After a moment’s reflection, Joe decided he didn’t wish to play this balcony scene after all. ‘Hang on.’

When he opened the front door he was in a black bathrobe and flip-flops. His joyless eyes looked more alert than at any time in the past twenty-four hours. ‘Are you saying there really was a stiff?’

‘Can we do this inside?’

Bringing him to the door had been a small victory, Diamond told himself. The man had cultivated this persona of indifference. The immediate aim was to keep him curious.

‘Gone, but not forgotten,’ Diamond said when Joe let them in.

‘What are you on about?’

‘Your overnight guests.’ The chandelier in the hall was festooned with streamers. Confetti was liberally scattered. Moving about involved crunching little items underfoot that turned out to be Love Hearts. To find a seat in the drawing room, they needed to clear the sofa of bath towels smelling of hairspray.

Oblivious to the bear garden his home had become, Joe had flopped into an armchair. The strains of the day before — or the pains of a hangover — or both — were etched in his face. ‘Who is it, then?’

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘The stiff.’

‘You disappoint me, Joe. Don’t you know?’

‘Why should I?’

‘He was coming after you with a handgun.’

Joe propped his feet on a low table and kicked some empty beer cans off to make room. ‘Why didn’t he use it, then?’

‘He did — on himself.’

‘What a berk.’

‘Fair comment, but we’re checking the evidence in case someone else pulled the trigger and fitted up the scene to look like suicide.’

‘One bullet?’

‘Only one, yes.’

‘To the head?’

Diamond nodded twice. These were reasonable assumptions by Joe, safe to confirm. Give the suspect a little information and he might volunteer the extra detail that nailed him. Or was Joe already bossing the interview, hammering home the points that made the case for suicide?

‘Hard to fake,’ he said.

‘Just about impossible with modern forensics,’ Diamond said. ‘Makes our job easier.’

Joe didn’t comment.

A movement at Diamond’s arm startled him. Claude the kitten had jumped onto the sofa and was looking for someone to play with. Diamond remembered Joe’s offer to care for Claude while the bride and groom were on their honeymoon.

With Claude licking the back of his hand, the head of CID tried to stay on message. ‘But the scientists won’t be hurried. In the meantime, we use up a lot of shoe leather talking to witnesses.’

‘I didn’t witness nothing,’ Joe was quick to say.

‘Okay. Did you kill him yourself?’

A twitch and a glare. The question had caught Joe off guard. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’

The kitten had pricked its ears at Joe’s reaction and dug its needle claws into Diamond’s thigh. He winced and lifted it clear. ‘I had to ask. I may ask again. Failing a confession, will you point us in the right direction if it turns out there was a second person involved?’

Joe yawned and tried to look nonchalant again. He wanted it known that suicide was the only possible cause of death.

‘And we do need to eliminate you from our enquiries.’

‘Me?’ Joe said in amazement as if he really were the Pope. ‘You was watching my back the whole fucking day.’

‘I wish it were as easy as that,’ Diamond said. ‘There were three to four hours when I wasn’t with you, between the end of the wedding and the start of the reception.’

‘I came back here.’

‘But you weren’t here long.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘My sources.’

‘Your sources,’ he said with a sneer. ‘My bloody nieces.’

‘I shared a table with them. One of them told me you were out most of the afternoon.’

‘That’s family for you,’ Joe said, unsurprised by the betrayal. He didn’t seem troubled that he’d been caught out. Literally caught out.

‘You won’t mind telling us where you went?’

He sidestepped the question. ‘What time is this jerk supposed to have topped himself?’

‘That’s just it. We don’t know yet. Most probably while you were out and about.’

‘Bollocks.’ He stamped on the suggestion with more force than a simple denial warranted.

‘Didn’t you call at the Roman Baths, then?’ Diamond asked. ‘It was a reasonable thing for the bride’s father to do, making sure the place was ready for the party.’

‘I did not.’

‘I know what you’re about to say, Joe. The place was open to the public until six, so the hitman couldn’t have been shot without someone seeing and raising the alarm. But there’s still a slot we can’t account for between the time the baths closed and seven-thirty, when the reception started.’

‘I got there five minutes early and no more.’

‘Where from? Where did you disappear to all afternoon?’

Joe looked down at his left hand and turned one of the gold rings on his fingers. ‘That’s private.’

‘Visiting a friend?’

No answer.

‘Or silencing an enemy? We’re going to think the worst if you don’t tell us.’

‘You ever made a wedding speech?’ Joe asked.

This time Diamond didn’t answer and neither did Ingeborg. The question sounded like a blatant evasion.

‘It ain’t easy, standing up in front of eighty people,’ Joe continued. ‘I was out practising, trying to get laughs from the bloody trees in Henrietta Park.’

So ridiculous that it might actually be true.

Best to take it seriously and probe.

‘Whatever you did, it worked,’ Diamond said to butter him up. ‘Yours was easily the best speech. How long were you there? Not the whole afternoon?’

‘No, mate. I moved on to Victoria Park.’

‘The trees there have a sharper sense of humour?’

Joe raised a warning finger. ‘Watch it.’

‘While you were out, did you meet anyone who can vouch for you being in the park?’

‘I got no need to lie about it.’

‘We need to double-check everything.’

‘I been banged up for five. People round here don’t know me no more.’

‘Okay, let’s see if you can help us identify the victim.’ Diamond nodded to Ingeborg, who took a photo of the dead man from her back pocket and handed it to Joe. A fine likeness, the features unmarked by the bullet.

He gave the picture a glance, shook his head and handed it back.

Diamond expected nothing else, but he said, ‘I’m disappointed. There aren’t that many local hitmen. I thought you knew them all.’

‘You thought wrong.’

‘Could he be a recent associate? Someone from Horfield nick?’

Silence.

‘Or from further back? Did you do time in other prisons?’

‘Why ask me when you’ve already looked at my bloody record?’

‘Because I’d rather hear it from you.’

‘I lose track.’

‘Before you arrived in Horfield where were you?’

‘I done the Scrubs for a month and before that I was at some hellhole in Gloucester called Bream.’

‘Bream. That’s a fish, isn’t it?’

‘It stank of fish and a whole lot more.’

Ingeborg was quick to say, ‘Wasn’t there a riot at Bream a few years back?’

‘Nothing I would call a riot,’ Joe said. ‘It was all over in one day.’

Full marks to Ingeborg for making the connection. Her former career in journalism had given her a keen memory for detail. Who needed search engines when she was around?

‘You were there? Is that why you were moved?’ Diamond said.

‘The whole of our wing got ghosted after the fire.’

‘A riot and a fire?’

Joe grinned. ‘A riot without a fire don’t deserve to be called a riot.’

‘Did you have anything to do with it?’

‘Me?’ Joe shrilled in denial. He’d have you believe he was no more responsible than the prison chaplain. Fortunately it didn’t matter because there must have been an inquiry and they could check the report.

‘Was the riot squad called in?’

‘Everyone was except the Girl Guides.’

‘Was anyone badly hurt? Prison officers?’

He shrugged. ‘Collateral damage.’

Ingeborg was checking the internet on her phone. ‘That’s one way of putting it. Says here that two prison officers were beaten and taken hostage in a riot at HM Prison, Bream, Gloucestershire, in July 2015. And in a related incident, two men were killed in a car crash outside, after kidnapping the governor at home and forcing her to drive there. One died instantly and the other in hospital. The governor was driving the first of two cars at gunpoint and bravely caused the collision by braking at high speed. She was later awarded the OBE. Her own life-changing injuries forced her to retire from the prison service.’

‘The worst collateral damage, as you called it, occurred outside the prison?’ Diamond said to Joe.

‘So I heard, yeah.’

Ingeborg scrolled her phone. ‘The Ministry of Justice inquiry into the incident concluded that the kidnap was coordinated with the riot in an attempt to stage an escape by one or more of the inmates. That’s all it says here.’

‘And you had nothing to do with it?’ Diamond said to Joe.

‘You heard what she just read out,’ Joe said. ‘Did you hear my name?’

‘That’s only a summary. The fact that you were transferred to another prison begs the question.’

‘Weren’t you listening? We was all shipped out, the whole bang shoot.’

‘How much was added to your sentence?’

‘Not one day. You can bet your life they would have thrown the book at me if they could.’

‘Who was behind the riot, then?’

‘Why ask me? I was out of it.’

‘I expect you were questioned later by the inquiry team.’

‘They came out to Horfield and saw me and some others.’

‘There must have been a suspicion that you were the man all this was arranged for — the one the rioters wanted to spring.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Now come on, Joe. Don’t play the innocent. You’re the main man wherever you go.’

‘My bad luck, ain’t it?’

He was going to go on denying any part in the incident however long they questioned him. There was no specific evidence that the Bream riot had any connection with the body in the hypocaust. Diamond returned to the line of enquiry he’d originally meant to pursue. ‘I’m thinking your release from prison creates a problem for your old rival, Sid Felix.’

‘Him,’ Joe said with scorn.

‘I don’t need to tell you he took advantage while you were banged up. And now you’re a threat.’

‘To that toerag?’ He shook his head.

‘Don’t underestimate him, Joe. The reality is that the pecking order has changed. He runs Bristol and most of Bath now.’

‘Is that supposed to worry me?’

‘Your worries don’t concern us. We’re interested in what’s been worrying Sid Felix, and that’s you, fresh out of prison. He hears about your daughter’s wedding, a good chance to rub you out, and he sends a hitman.’

‘You think so?’

‘It’s one scenario. And you know as well as I do why I was watching your back.’

Joe wasn’t going to pass up this chance of sarcasm. His mean eyes gleamed like drops of molten solder. ‘And the hitman sees you and says Jesus Christ they sent Peter Diamond as a minder. I’m fucked. I’m shaking in my shoes. I’m so scared I’m going to turn the gun on myself.’

Diamond clenched his teeth. ‘Let me repeat the question I asked earlier. Did you shoot the guy in the hypocaust?’

This time, Joe wasn’t caught off guard. ‘Pathetic. Is that the best you can do?’

‘I’m not sure how you managed it, but we have ballistics experts checking that gun as we speak.’

‘On a Sunday morning? Pull the other one.’

‘There’s an autopsy to come. There are people checking the scene for your DNA.’ He moved Claude off his lap and let him take over the warm spot on the sofa. ‘I’ll be back with the evidence, Joe. I’m not a quitter.’