Killing with Confetti

35

An all-units call was put out for the arrest of Joe Irving. Most units wouldn’t need the description and mugshot. The Baron of Bath was well enough known already.

‘He couldn’t have learned about the dawn raid,’ Diamond said. ‘We only made the decision last night.’

‘I expect he knew the net was closing in,’ Halliwell said.

‘How? He put on a good front when I saw him. This is out of character.’ He trusted his team. It was unlikely any of them had leaked the news. ‘Could he simply have spent the night at a friend’s house?’

‘He shouldn’t, under his probation order.’

‘Since when did that dickhead pay any attention to the law?’

Ingeborg, across the room, said, ‘Is the kitten gone?’

Halliwell said, ‘Are you talking about Irving?’

‘Oh, come on. Kitten, as in cat. Black and white, only a few weeks old. Big Joe is supposed to be taking care of it while his daughter is on her honeymoon.’

‘I didn’t see one.’

‘Did you look round? It’s a large house.’

‘We were looking for a bloody great gangster, not a kitten.’

‘If little Claude is there, Joe will be back. He wouldn’t dare lose it. His daughter Caroline is the only person in the world he’s scared of.’

‘Cats are curious,’ Diamond said. ‘It would have made itself known.’

‘If the kitten isn’t there, Joe really is on the run.’

‘You broke down the door, right? Maybe it made a bolt for freedom, too.’

‘Now you’ve got me really worried,’ Ingeborg said.

‘I can’t get worked up about a kitten,’ Halliwell said. ‘We boarded the place up before we left.’

‘That’s so cruel,’ Ingeborg said in a rare outburst. ‘If he’s in there, he’ll starve. If he’s out, he’ll be killed by a fox.’

Diamond wasn’t thinking about Claude’s survival. He was still trying to work out how Irving had got wind of their plan. The arrest team would have been briefed ahead of time and they’d include some uniformed men, but they’d understand the importance of security. Who else could have known apart from the dependable Halliwell?

With a stab of guilt, he recalled last evening’s phone conversation with Magda Lyle. He’d told her the arrest was coming soon. The leak — if it was such — had come from him.

Without a word to anyone, he went into his own office and phoned her.

‘After we spoke, did you have another go at Joe?’

‘I phoned him, yes. I’m not in Bath to enjoy the sights, you know. I came here to get the truth out of that serpent. I wanted it when I came and now I know he murdered Jack Peace, I want it even more.’

He was trying to contain his fury, as much with himself as Magda. ‘I wish you’d left him to us.’

‘Why? What’s happened?’

‘He’s gone missing.’

She was silent for a few seconds. Then the defiant note changed to self-reproach. ‘My big mouth.’

‘Did he admit anything?’

‘No.’

‘But you warned him he would be arrested?’

‘He was so damned pleased with himself, positively gloating, telling me I have no power over him anymore. I wanted to strike back at him. I’m sorry. That was unprofessional. I’m too closely involved to take a measured stance as you do. I won’t interfere again.’

‘We’ll find him,’ he said. ‘I doubt if he’s really on the run. It would dent his hard-man reputation. My reading of this is that it amused him to think of an early-morning police raid that came to nothing.’

He hadn’t needed to soften the blow, but he empathised with Magda. His own career had been peppered with impetuous outbursts. She remained a brave woman he respected. He thanked her for being so frank and ended the call.

He genuinely believed what he’d told her. Joe was playing games.

The plan of action now forming in his own brain was not a game.

He opened those emails from forensics Georgina had taken such comfort from. His boss would always give her backing to whatever caused the least upheaval. Nothing short of an earthquake would shake her conviction that Jack Peace had taken his own life.

Dr. Sealy and the coroner appeared to be of the same mind.

Was this one of those days when everything went belly up?

Point by point, he studied the findings from the lab. The scientists weren’t under any obligation to prove Jack had put a gun to his head. They presented the facts they found and left it to CID to interpret them.

All the pressure was on him to explain how those same facts pointed to homicide. His trump card until a few minutes ago had been the unlikely event of a right-handed man shooting himself in the left temple. Now Sealy, an expert, had said such a thing was possible.

A second opinion would help.

Somewhere he had a phone number for Jim Middleton, forensic pathologist now retired. Middleton had attended several of the homicides Diamond had investigated in his earlier years in Bath. In CID he was known as Motormouth, but his knowledge was unquestioned.

He found the number in a dog-eared address book in the bottom drawer of his desk. Good thing he threw nothing away except official bumf.

‘Peter, how are you?’ Jim’s familiar voice said and started a monologue of reminiscence it was impossible to stop for some minutes.

At length, Diamond staunched the flow with his query.

Middleton actually paused to think. ‘The site of election was the left temple, was it? Certainly that suggests a left-handed man, but it’s not an absolute rule, old friend. I came across three or four exceptions in my years in the job. Don’t ask me why it happens.’ Without pause for breath he supplied a theory. ‘None of us can get into the thoughts of a man who shoots himself, thank God. Could be nervousness pulling the trigger. He can’t will himself to do it straight off, so he changes over and tries with the less dominant hand. Does that make sense?’

‘Thanks, Jim,’ Diamond said, anything but thankful, and ended the call as soon as he could.

His trump card was unplayable.