Showstopper

9

“I haven’t been here for years,” Diamond said.

“It’s a godforsaken place.”

It was rainy with an east wind blowing when they drove to the airfield. The few derelict buildings remaining had the look of ancient ruins. The monolith that had once been a hi-tech control tower remained standing, skeletal and sad. Bath council bulldozers had done their damnedest in 1955 to make Charmy Down inhospitable for squatters and the weather had taken care of the rest. Most of the RAF buildings, the thirteen hangars, the field maintenance shops, the ammunition pens and the Nissen huts, had been levelled, but their footings still scarred the ground. The concrete runways and perimeter track remained if you could make them out under a coating of weed and scrub.

A short distance from the control tower a scene-of-crime unit was at work in thick mud, having taped off an area rutted with tyre tracks. Paul Gilbert had been quick to get them up here.

“To you and me, this looks like a dog’s dinner,” Diamond commented to Keith Halliwell as they watched the activity from behind the tape, “but to a SOCO it’s sheer joy, all those tread marks and shoeprints.”

The stooping SOCOs in their overalls looked as joyful as lobsters in the tank at a seafood restaurant.

“What do you expect them to find, guv?”

“A body would be good.”

“I don’t see any sign of one. Do you think he buried it? Did he have a spade?”

“I was joking. These lads are professionals. They would have found a recent grave as soon as they looked.” He turned for a wider view of the landscape. “If it really was murder, he must have disposed of his victim somewhere. What are those mounds the other side of the tower — the old air-raid shelters?”

Two moss-covered concrete domes projected above ground not far off. If, indeed, they were shelters, they would have underground rooms, a simple solution to a murderer’s problem. No digging necessary, which surely would have appealed to Will Legat.

“Let’s explore.”

They wandered over to inspect one and found the entrance barred by a metal grille, secured and padlocked. No way could Legat have got inside.

Diamond wasn’t giving up. “The pillboxes. He told us he spent a night inside one of them.”

The structures along the perimeter fence had been built as a line of defence against German parachutists. They were inward-facing, with slits for machine guns. Partly submerged, they had resisted the creep of nature for eighty years, stark grey excrescences that stuck up from the hillside.

The nearest was some way across the airfield. The two detectives weren’t dressed for a field trek. It had been dry and sunny when they’d left Concorde House. Now the rain was hitting them as if by design. They took the shortest route along the grassed-over main runway and soon their trouser legs were saturated below the knees.

Halliwell kept harping on about the practical difficulties. “How would he have moved the body this far if the murder took place where we think it did?”

“Must have used the pram. You’d be surprised how well those things were built. Well-sprung, too.”

“There’d be a trail of blood.”

“There wouldn’t. A body doesn’t keep bleeding after death.”

“Even if he left other traces of some sort, we’ll never find them in this big area without a fingertip search.”

“I’m not authorising that while Georgina’s breathing down my neck.”

The pillbox they inspected was six-sided and accessible from the rear, with steps down to a shallow underground room. Inside, they found a Y-shaped anti-ricochet wall along the centre and narrow horizontal embrasures where the troops could view the airfield and position their light machine guns.

“But no corpse,” Halliwell said after doing the circuit around the internal wall.

“Don’t let that get you down, Keith. There are plenty more of these.”

Halliwell wasn’t encouraged. “Shall we wait for the weather to improve?”

Diamond stared through the slot at the downpour outside. “Looks like it’s set to carry on all day. I don’t intend to spend the night here... like his nibs. What’s that?”

“What?”

“Keep your voice down. There’s someone out there.”

“Where?”

He’d spotted a figure wearing a dark windcheater with the hood up. When hoods came into fashion, crime investigation suffered a setback it still hadn’t recovered from.

“Over to the right, just out of sight. He must have gone inside the next pillbox.”

They couldn’t tell for sure. The squat buildings were sited so that each was out of the firing line of the next.

“We’ll wait for him to make a move.”

“What if he’s only a local out for a stroll?”

“No one is local here. It’s deserted.”

They waited. If nothing else, they were out of the rain, but their damp clothes clung coldly to their skin.

“I heard something,” Diamond muttered. “He’s on the move again. God, he’s right here.”

The hooded man passed so close to the slit they were looking through that all they could see of him were the lower part of the windcheater and the top half of a pair of waterproof trousers. He was rounding the front of their pillbox, about to come in.

The two detectives stood flat to the wall each side.

They heard the scrape of boots on the steps.

The instant he entered, each grabbed an arm. He went rigid and the hood slipped from his head.

“You?”

Their own man, Paul Gilbert.

Explanations were exchanged. On Gilbert’s side, he said as investigating officer he’d felt he had a duty to come to the site and see how the SOCOs were faring. They’d wanted to get on with their work, so he’d decided to walk the perimeter looking into each pillbox in case the body was hidden there. All he’d found was the skeleton of a sheep along the north side.

“You’ve been right round?”

“There are two or three more to go, guv.”

Diamond was touched by Gilbert’s devotion to the task. Some tact was wanted here. “You’re doing a fine job. And you had the sense to dress for the weather, which is more than we did. We’re not taking over. It’s still your case, but you can’t do everything alone.”

“That’s for sure. Is the tramp in custody?”

“We had to let him go, but we’re keeping tabs on him. He likes the cells at Keynsham and he’ll be back there tonight. We took a DNA sample and sent it to the lab.”

“You don’t think he’ll do a runner?”

“No, he’ll stick around Bath as long as he can. We thought he’d left earlier, but it was a false alarm.”

“Is he playing games with us?”

“You mean is he a killer? I’m not sure. He was in the right place at the right time, but the motive is uncertain. Jean Sharp is looking through his record to see if there’s any history between the two men.”

“She’ll need to go through the rigger’s record as well. All Gripmasters could tell me is that Jake Nicol was new on their books. He came from London with good references and the riggers’ certificate, whatever that is.”

Halliwell spoke. “I doubt whether Will Legat roams as far as London. I got the impression he prefers the open countryside.”

“In his former life he worked in the city,” Gilbert said. “He told me he had a business of his own that went bust after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. I don’t think he was joking.”

“Useful,” Diamond said. “It joins some dots. I kept wondering about his background.”

“But if we can’t find a body, we won’t have much of a case. It must be up here somewhere. He didn’t have the means to move it far.”

“The pram,” Halliwell reminded him.

“I meant far away from the airfield,” Gilbert said. “I haven’t explored all of it yet, but I’ve done the obvious places. Can we bring some bobbies up here and carry out a bigger search?”

Diamond thought of Georgina and shook his head. “Sorry. The way forward is to get tougher with Legat, give him a real grilling and find out if there’s any history with Jake Nicol. I don’t believe he’d murder a man just to rob him of his belt.”

“I’m with you there, guv. And even if he did, he’d be an idiot to start wearing it straight after, knowing it was bloodstained. He’d hide it somewhere until the fuss died down. Maybe come back for it next year.”

“It’s up to you as IO,” Diamond told Gilbert. “Do you want another go at him tomorrow morning, or would you rather one of us had a try?”

“With me in attendance? Sounds good. He might act differently with you across the desk.”

“And we’ll get forensics to test the pram for blood residue.”

The evidence was stacking up. More results came in from the lab late in the afternoon, more than enough to blast holes in Legat’s story when he faced a formal interview.

“Where will you do it, guv?” Paul Gilbert asked.

“His residence. He seems to have found one at Keynsham.”

By evening, the seriousness of what he had done caught up with Diamond. Georgina was sure to hear about the van called out to Claverton Down, the scene of crime unit at work on the airfield and the tramp and his dog in the custody cell. She’d be livid. He’d ignored her instruction to drop all interest in the jinx story, go into virtual lockdown and get the team applying for refresher courses. If his future as a police officer had looked doubtful then, it was in free fall now.

Paloma was out tonight, giving a talk at the Museum of Costume. Afterwards, the committee members would take her for a drink and supper and she wouldn’t get back until late. But it wasn’t being alone that got to him. It was the throbbing open wound of impending retirement. Stupidly, he’d behaved as if it wasn’t there.

Georgina had not been joking. She didn’t do humour. She wanted him out. No doubt she was under instructions from headquarters to let him go, or whatever euphemism they used. She wouldn’t have protested that he was her top detective and had been for the whole of her time as Assistant Chief Constable. She wouldn’t have trumpeted his successes. She only ever took note of his so-called failings — ignoring the budget, running up expense claims, failure to delegate, poor record-keeping, incompetence with technology, unwillingness to involve her in decision-making and open contempt for modern policing. Only the year before, she had tried to ambush him by setting up an official reprimand from the Chief Constable for running up unauthorised overtime, only for it to collapse around her ears when Diamond had appeared on crutches and wearing a surgical boot, the result of an accident underground sustained in the course of duty.

He felt pressure against his right leg.

Raffles.

He leaned down, curled a hand under the furry chest and lifted his veteran cat up to the seat of the sofa. The arthritic legs couldn’t manage the leap these days and Paloma wouldn’t welcome scuffed leather from repeated attempts to climb up.

Raffles sniffed the seat, made a slow circle and lowered himself into a resting position, making sure his back pressed against Diamond’s thigh, the feline way of showing support. Cats can sense troubled emotion in their owners, Diamond was sure. He needed comforting and his pet, Steph’s pet, was making an effort to supply it.

“Thanks, old friend. Retirement wouldn’t bother you one bit. You’re the master of it.”

Raffles purred — or was it snoring?