Killing with Confetti

36

If Diamond was right, and Joe Irving hadn’t panicked and disappeared over the horizon, he would still be in Bath and it wouldn’t take much detective work to track the creep down. Go alone and unarmed, he had decided. The dawn raid had been a mistake.

He was confident where he would find him. He had driven out to Camden Crescent, where Caroline and Ben lived. Currently, of course, the newlyweds were honeymooning in the Bahamas, funded by Irving.

After one glance at the house, Diamond phoned the CID room and told Halliwell to call off the hunt. He’d spotted Claude the kitten sunning himself at a ground-floor window.

Fortune favours those who use their judgement.

‘Are you alone, guv?’ Halliwell asked. ‘Do you want back-up?’

‘No, thanks. I can handle Claude.’

‘It’s not Claude I’m thinking of.’

‘Trust me, Keith. I know what I’m doing.’

He left the phone in the car, marched up to the door, pressed the bell and heard chimes and the tread of a large man.

‘Found you.’

Irving raised an eyebrow.

‘A condition of your release is that you reside permanently at the address you supplied. That isn’t here.’

No answer.

‘Are we going to speak inside?’

A shrug and he was admitted to the gracious sitting room he’d last entered the day he’d walked up the hill with George Brace.

Claude jumped off the sill and scampered over.

A sitting room it was, well furnished with chairs, but the two remained standing, facing each other like gunfighters.

‘You lied to me about not knowing Jack Peace. You were on the same wing in Bream Prison for — how long? Six months? A year?’

‘Who the fuck are you talking about?’

‘The man found dead in the Roman Baths. I showed you his picture and you made out you’d never seen him before. Jack Peace got shafted for masterminding the riot in 2015.’

‘That was Warren.’

‘One and the same. Warren was his nickname.’

‘You’re confusing me,’ Irving said.

‘Don’t try that. You made a statement to the inquiry naming him. I’ve read the report. You said Warren was the ringleader and you were on the top landing minding your own business. Familiar?’

‘I forget.’

‘Warren, as you call him, had his sentence increased by three years on the perjured evidence of you and a few others. No wonder he was bitter. The poor sucker was stitched up.’

‘You been listening to that governor bitch,’ Irving said, spurred finally to say more than the minimum. ‘She don’t know nothing. She weren’t even there that morning.’

‘Two prison officers were. You and your mob attacked them and banged them up in a cell.’

‘With bags over their heads.’ Slyly he added, ‘I was told.’

‘You were told,’ Diamond said in a tone that exposed the claim for the lie it was.

‘They saw shit all.’

‘They’re willing to testify that you ran C wing.’ Diamond waded chest-deep into fantasy. The men had testified no such thing to the inquiry and he hadn’t sought them out. ‘And so are plenty of others who were serving at Bream.’

‘Too late now, ain’t it?’ Irving said, still unfazed.

‘The riot was all your doing, to set up your escape.’

‘Careful what you say, copper.’

‘I’m being careful,’ Diamond said. ‘I’m doing you the favour of saying it to you in private. I’m not wired up, in case you were wondering, and my phone is in the car outside.’ He opened his jacket wide. ‘You planned the whole thing with your friends outside. They kidnapped Miss Lyle and drove her to the prison and then it all backfired because she was brave enough to cause the crash.’

‘All done?’ Irving bent down and scooped up the kitten with one huge hand. ‘Are you going to leave me in peace now?’

‘I’ve barely started,’ Diamond said. ‘There’s the killing of Jack Peace.’

Keith Halliwell checked the time again. More than an hour had passed since that phone call from the boss. He was worried. He understood the reason Diamond had chosen to go unaccompanied to interview Irving. The two men were poles apart in the eyes of the law, but some sort of rapport had been forged between them during the weekend. Irving was more likely to open up without a third person being present. However, the CID protocol of only ever visiting suspects in pairs was founded on good sense. Aside from safety in numbers, the officer in support was a witness to everything that was said.

Why wasn’t Diamond answering his phone? He ought to be out of Camden Crescent by now. An hour for an interview was excessive. He always came quickly to the point.

‘Maybe he’s gone for a drink,’ Ingeborg said. ‘He’s had a pig of a morning.’

‘He doesn’t drink alone.’

‘A late breakfast, then. Comfort eating. He knows the best places in town for a fry-up.’

‘I don’t know how you can be so flip. Joe Irving is evil and dangerous.’

‘He’s no fool. He’s got more sense than to injure a cop.’

‘We can’t even tell for certain if Irving was inside. He could have left the kitten there with someone else in charge. His henchmen wouldn’t think twice about putting in the boot.’

‘In his daughter’s house? I can’t see it.’

Halliwell was still uneasy, chewing obsessively on his thumbnail.

‘If you’re so concerned,’ Ingeborg said, ‘you could check whether his car is still outside the house.’

‘Good thinking.’ Halliwell was on his feet, car key in hand, in need of immediate action.

‘And if it’s gone,’ Ingeborg called out to him before the door swung shut, ‘my theory of the late breakfast comes into play.’ She found Halliwell’s concern for the boss endearing and also amusing. Some men of that generation were like old hens over each other’s safety.

Not long after Halliwell had left, John Leaman came in looking as if Miss World had asked him for a date. ‘Where’s the guv’nor?’

‘Camden Crescent when we last heard from him.’

‘And Keith?’

‘Gone looking for him.’

‘I need to speak to one of them. I’ve been talking to my snout, the guy with tabs on the Swindon arms smuggler.’

‘Something new came up?’

‘The boss will like this. Jack Peace was supplied with two weapons, the AK-63 and the Glock 17.’

‘John, he knows this already,’ Ingeborg said. ‘We recovered both of them.’

‘No, we didn’t,’ Halliwell said. ‘The Glock found in the hypocaust was generation five, the latest model, remember? The guy in Swindon swears that the handgun he supplied to Peace was gen three, first issued in 1998.’

She thought about that for a couple of seconds. ‘Is he reliable?’

‘My snout? Sure.’

‘The Swindon guy.’

‘Absolutely. You see what it means?’ Leaman said, more animated than she’d ever seen him. ‘The gun found beside the body wasn’t the one he was carrying. It was brought in by his killer. He can’t have committed suicide. There’s no argument anymore. It was murder.’

‘Smart work.’

‘Can we call him?’

She shook her head. ‘We’ve been trying. He’s on voicemail.’

‘Who’s he with?’

She told him and he said, ‘Bloody hell.’

Diamond’s car was still parked in front of Camden Crescent, a full hour and a half since he’d gone in.

Halliwell was more troubled than ever, faced with a real dilemma. Knock on the door and interrupt a crucial interrogation and get the full force of Diamond’s fury. Do nothing and miss a chance to save the boss’s life — if it wasn’t already too late.

He wasn’t armed. Another option was to ask for armed assistance and storm the place — with the same risk of fouling up a delicate operation.

Undecided, he got out of the car and walked slowly towards the house and past it.

Not a movement was visible through the casement windows of the front room.

He took a few more tormented steps, turned and tried for a second look, hoping to God that this time it would be different and he’d see a sign of life as he walked past.

And God delivered.

Just when Halliwell drew level with the house, the front door opened and Joe Irving emerged, hands behind his back. Then — praise the Lord — Diamond stepped out as well. He was carrying what appeared to be a box-shaped canvas bag. He closed the door behind him, turned and noticed Halliwell rooted to the spot a few yards from him.

‘Ah, Keith,’ Diamond said as if he’d been expecting nothing less than one of his team to be waiting outside the door. ‘You can carry this.’

He handed over the bag, now revealed as a pet carrier. Through the mesh window, Claude the kitten was visible, sitting serenely.

And it was now apparent that Joe Irving was handcuffed.