Killing with Confetti

39

Magda Lyle and Georgina joined Diamond in his office next morning. Magda had brought her West Highland terrier, Blanche, who settled by her feet and went to sleep.

Diamond didn’t mind defending his handling of the case. He’d need to be convincing in his report to the Crown Prosecution Service.

‘I know the tasering and the arrest came as a shock to you, ma’am, and I’m sorry for the chaos at the end. The reconstruction was a poppy show, but something dramatic had to happen to force the issue. I had a marathon session yesterday afternoon with Joe Irving. Eventually I wore him down and he agreed to cooperate.’ He grinned, remembering. ‘He didn’t have much choice when I told him the charges we could bring for the false statements he made to the inquiry into the prison riot. The whole point of the reconstruction was to give the impression Irving had already admitted to murdering the gunman. George Brace could relax, believing he was in the clear — so the shock of being named at the end would be all the greater. When he reacted like the guilty man he was, we’d have him.’

‘And you did, spectacularly,’ Magda said.

‘I would never have agreed to such a trick,’ Georgina said. ‘A senior officer tasered like a common criminal...’

‘He might be uncommon, but he’s a criminal, ma’am.’

‘I can’t understand what drove him to this.’

‘Early on, when I was getting to know George Brace, he sat in the same chair you’re in now and told me how he rose through the ranks from when he first joined the police as a graduate. Ambition runs through his veins. Towering ambition. It’s his fix and it governs everything he does.’ He turned to Magda. ‘His wife, Leticia, told me he was jealous of your OBE.’

Magda shook her head. ‘That? I’d rather have my legs back.’

‘I can understand, but Brace wouldn’t. His reputation came before everything. So the prospect of his son marrying the daughter of a career criminal was a massive blow. You saw that, ma’am,’ he told Georgina.

‘Indeed. I sympathised.’

‘So did I at the beginning. There was no way he could come out of it without his status being damaged beyond repair. What neither of us realised at the time was that there was history with Joe Irving.’

‘Oh? In what way?’

‘I’ll come to that. Brace told me himself he got a name at headquarters for volunteering to serve on key committees.’

‘Nothing wrong with that,’ Georgina said.

Diamond opened the drawer of his desk and took out the report of the inquiry into the prison riot. ‘Miss Lyle kindly loaned me this and I read it more than once before I thought to look at the names of the people on the investigation team.’ He opened the page and handed it across.

Georgina studied it. ‘Well, I never. “The inquiry was conducted by the Gloucestershire Police and the chairman was Chief Superintendent G. Brace.”’

Magda said, ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘You were in hospital when the evidence was taken.’

‘Someone came to see me, but it wasn’t him.’

‘George Brace was in charge and wrote the thing.’

‘He wasn’t much good, then. It stinks.’

‘Yes, it was done in double-quick time and came to an entirely wrong conclusion, blaming an innocent man for masterminding the riot. Jack Peace was stitched up by Joe Irving and his henchmen on C wing.’

‘Why? What was the point?’

‘For Irving, the point was that he didn’t get blamed and have his sentence increased. For Brace, the findings marked up another triumph in his stellar career, a clear result, a named culprit and witnesses to back it. Just what everyone wants from an official enquiry but hardly ever gets. His reputation for efficiency soared and he landed the DCC job here. He admitted freely to me before I knew he was involved at Bream that he pushed the boundaries and took shortcuts. I remember his words: “You should be more like that, Peter, ambitious.”’

‘That’s appalling. Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure, and, more importantly, Joe Irving is sure and admitted it to me. Brace knew at the time of the inquiry that false evidence was being presented about the riot and chose not to question it. He was looking for a tidy result and Irving and his cohorts were happy to manufacture one. But their collusion had an unintended consequence. The main victim of all this, Jack Peace, came out of prison fixated on taking revenge on the corrupt police officer he blamed for his three extra years inside.’

‘He wasn’t out to kill Irving?’

‘Joe acted according to type. Brace was the shocker, the main architect of the injustice, and Peace believed he could shoot him and get away with it. The wedding presented an ideal opportunity. If the rainstorm hadn’t come when it did, he would have succeeded.’

‘Do you think the DCC knew he was under threat?’

‘Not at the start. I’m sure he’d dismissed Jack Peace from his thoughts after the report was written. But the wedding was a huge problem for a man who had risen to such a high position without a stain on his character.’

‘He made that very clear to us.’

‘What he didn’t make clear was that he and Joe Irving had met in prison when he was conducting the inquiry. Because of the collusion, they both had something on each other, but Brace faced far worse: the prospect of his meteoric career being shattered. Dismissal and shame if someone pulled the plug. And neither of them knew what Peace was planning. The first inkling of that came in the interval between the wedding and the reception when we found my officer Paul Gilbert tied up and attacked by a masked gunman armed with an assault rifle. Naturally I informed George. He was shaken to the core. The wedding service had passed without a hitch and now this. He kept saying, “Oh my God.”’

‘He guessed it was Peace?’

‘He did then. If the truth about the rigged inquiry came out, he’d be sunk for sure. He decided to act first. He was good with a gun. Told me himself he’d trained regularly at Black Rock.’

‘I remember.’

‘He had a weapon in case of trouble, a new Glock 17 from Black Rock with the laser sight that gives such an advantage. As someone involved in the wedding, he had no difficulty getting into the baths. He hunted the gunman down and put the spot on him. Jack Peace saw who it was and knew it was game over. But he didn’t know how desperate Brace was. He didn’t expect a uniformed officer to shoot him through the head. That’s why he made the mistake of allowing Brace to get close up. And it played out as you saw.’

Gentle snores from Blanche were the only sound in the room for several seconds.

Magda sighed and said, ‘I suppose bloody Irving will walk away without any further action being taken. The Ministry of Justice, bless their little cotton socks, will decide any new enquiry into the riot isn’t worth pursuing now Peace is dead.’

‘I’m not going to say you took the words out of my mouth,’ Diamond said. ‘My lips are sealed, aren’t they?’

‘What will happen to George Brace?’ Georgina asked.

‘That’s up to the Crown Prosecution Service. Don’t get up your hopes. Nobody was present in the hypocaust except those two. A clever defence lawyer has heaps to work with.’ Diamond took a deep, world-weary breath and sat back in his chair. ‘The one thing it’s safe to say is we’ll be needing a new Deputy Chief Constable.’

A lightbulb came on in Georgina’s head.

‘Oh!’ she said so loudly that the little dog woke up and barked.