Skeleton Hill

18

Changes had been made in the incident room. More work stations and computers were in place and one of the boards had been cleared of data and moved to the far end. But the big change was in Keith Halliwell. He had the face of a lottery winner and his team clearly shared the excitement. He came to meet Diamond, zigzagging between computers like a wing three-quarter making a run for the line. ‘Guv, it paid off,’ he said, and he was waving a transparent evidence bag. ‘Just like you said it might.’

‘What’s this – the zip?’ Diamond said, taking the bag to inspect it.

‘Back from the lab this morning. Have a look under the tab. You can move it now.’

Diamond held the bag and its contents under a strip light and saw the silver glint of some of the teeth of the zip. The cleaning had made an appreciable difference, but it had also shown up some damage. ‘Am I allowed to take it out?’

‘Better not,’ Halliwell said. ‘They said it’s corroded badly and could fall apart.’

He passed the bag back. He’d never been noted for delicate handling of anything. ‘Show me.’

Through the plastic, Halliwell manipulated the tiny tab on the slider to reveal the underside. ‘There. It’s been preserved quite well because it was folded down.’

Diamond squinted at the tiny metal surface. He could just about make out a symbol of some kind.

‘Try this,’ Halliwell said, handing him a magnifying glass that made him feel like Sherlock Holmes.

He put his face close to the lens and saw a better image. Maybe as a law and order man he was preconditioned, but the figure seemed to him like the upright and crosspiece of a gibbet:

‘What is it? A logo?’

‘I thought it was just a symbol at first. I’ve been on it all morning, talking to various experts. It’s Cyrillic, their equivalent of a capital G.’

‘Doesn’t look anything like a G.’ He knew he was being grouchy again, but some devil inside him had to challenge Halliwell’s boyish enthusiasm.

‘I’m sorry, but that’s Russian for you.’

‘Cyrillic – the Russian alphabet?’

‘Right.’ Halliwell sounded quite emotional over his findings. ‘We’ve made a huge leap forward. If the jeans came from Russia – or one of the old Soviet Union countries – there’s a good chance our young lady wasn’t from Britain at all.’

‘Unless we imported them.’

‘We’re talking about twenty-odd years ago, guv. The Cold War was still on. We weren’t doing business with Russia. When did the Berlin Wall come down?’

Ingeborg said, ‘November, 1989. Inside our time span. The boss is right. She could have bought them in Oxford Street.’

‘No chance,’ Halliwell said, so fired up that he wouldn’t be persuaded. ‘The wall came down and the borders were open and East Europeans flooded into the west. She’s a young Russian who ended up in Britain and got into bad company and was murdered. It’s not surprising she doesn’t feature on the missing persons index.’

‘Hold on, Keith,’ Diamond said. ‘This is all fascinating stuff, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Cheap Russian jeans with zips like this may well have retailed in our high street shops in the early nineties.’

Keith was unimpressed. ‘I hear what you’re saying, but…’ He dismissed the possibility with a shrug.

‘Let’s work with the facts we have. Have you found out for sure where these zips were manufactured?’

‘Give me a break, boss. I only heard about this at ten-fifteen this morning. Most of the time I was trying to work out if the logo meant anything.’

‘That’s the next step, then. There must be a list of Russian manufacturers out there.’

‘I’ll go on the internet.’

‘You can try. As it happens, I know someone with a good know-ledge of the fashion industry. She may be able to throw some light.’

‘Fine,’ Halliwell said without enthusiasm. ‘I’ll still see what Google brings up. Let’s use every resource we can. We may pin it down to a particular city.’

While this was being aired, Diamond had almost forgotten Septimus and his three colleagues from Bristol. They had stood in the background, getting their first view of the accommodation and not liking it. When he introduced them to his regular team and showed them their work stations they didn’t appear overjoyed. ‘Couldn’t we have a room to ourselves?’ Septimus asked.

‘That would defeat the whole purpose,’ Diamond said. ‘If you’re in another room you might as well be back in Bristol.’

The looks that passed between them said it all.

Leaving them to get over their discontent, Diamond picked up a phone and called Paloma and explained about the query over the zip. ‘I thought you might have the answer.’

‘Off the top of my head, no,’ she said, and there was a cool note in her voice that troubled him.

‘I’m sorry. Am I abusing our friendship?’

‘It’s becoming rather businesslike, that’s all. Let me think about this. I’ll get back to you shortly.’

Halliwell was manically tapping a keyboard.

‘Any joy?’ Diamond asked.

‘Not yet. I’m trying various things. You put in “zippers” or “zip fasteners” and you get so many hits it isn’t true. The language is a problem. Even if I knew how to put the letter in, I’d get Russian text coming up. It’s a pain!’

‘Keep your hair on.’

‘God Almighty.’ Halliwell clapped a hand to his head and swung round to face Diamond. ‘I forgot to tell you. The woman at the lab said they found a clipping of hair trapped under the tab.’

‘A hair? And no one noticed until now?’

‘It’s small. They’re doing tests on it.’

‘How small is “small”?’

‘A few millimetres, that’s all. She said it was dark brown or black and rather coarse.’

‘From the victim?’

‘How can anyone tell?’

‘Fair point. Why should one hair survive, when nothing else was found?’

`I suppose if it was tight under the tab it may have been protected. Hair is supposed to last a long time after a body rots away. Could it be from the killer, do you think?’

‘We don’t get luck like that,’ Diamond said.

‘It’s probably a pubic hair, being found with the zip fly,’ Halliwell said.

‘You said it was a clipping.’

‘Well, guv, I’m not an expert, but I believe women sometimes trim their bushes.’

‘And I was thinking she’d been to the hairdresser’s. You’re a man of the world, Keith.’

‘Let’s hope they get DNA from it. They can, you know, even when it doesn’t include the root.’

‘If it’s as small as you say I wouldn’t bet your house on it. We can only wait for the science, as always.’

Paloma rang back soon after and asked if he could get to Bennett Street in the next twenty minutes. Now she was sounding businesslike, but he was wise enough not to say so.

‘You’re a star. Any particular address?’

‘The Assembly Rooms, front entrance.’

‘We’re only identifying a zip,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t we do it somewhere less formal, like a pub or a teashop?’

He could hear the sigh down the phone. ‘It’s where the Museum of Costume is,’ she told him. ‘One of the glories of our city. Admit it, Peter – you’ve lived in Bath all this time and never set foot in the place.’

‘You win,’ he said. ‘See you shortly.’

As he was leaving the incident room he looked over Keith Halliwell’s shoulder. He’d stopped working the keyboard and was gazing forlornly at a list of websites. The internet hadn’t delivered yet.

Diamond murmured something encouraging, but that devil inside him was hoping Paloma had the answer.

‘We’re meeting my friend Marcia Martindale,’ Paloma said. ‘If she doesn’t know, nobody in Britain does.’

Disregarding the splendours of the Assembly Rooms where Jane Austen once took tea and found inspiration for Northanger Abbey, they went down into the basement and walked rapidly past the tall showcases of the museum (‘Promise me you’ll come back and see it properly, you philistine,’ Paloma told him) to the Fashion Research Centre, a book-lined room where Marcia was waiting. She was over eighty and wore a black hat with a crimson band and long feather. Under the wide brim was one of those pale faces that ought never to be shown the sun. The effect was increased by deep-set intelligent eyes magnified by dark-framed glasses.

‘The zip isn’t allowed to leave the police station, being evidence,’ Diamond said, ‘but I made a sketch of the symbol we found under the tab.’

‘The puller,’ Marcia corrected him. ‘We call that the puller. May I see?’

He put the piece of paper in front of her. After being corrected over the puller, he enjoyed airing his new linguistic knowledge. ‘It’s from the Cyrillic alphabet, their version of a G.’

‘I know,’ Marcia said. ‘I read Russian. Well, if what you say is true, it’s rather unusual to have the trademark on the underside, and that may be helpful in identifying the maker. I presume the fastener is metallic?’

‘Yes.’

She placed her hand on a book the size of a dictionary she had ready on the table. ‘The history of the zip is worthy of study. Elias Howe, the American who also invented the sewing machine, applied for a patent as early as 1851, but he didn’t go into production with his “Automatic Continuous Clothing Closure” and we had to wait until 1914 for anything that really worked efficiently to be developed and that was Gideon Sundback’s “Hookless Fastener Number Two”. Of course it transformed the world of fashion.’

Diamond didn’t need the history lesson, but contained his impatience and it was Paloma who gently asked the old lady if the book had anything on Russian zips of the nineteen-eighties.

‘I’m sure it does,’ she said, slowly lifting the cover. ‘This is the Burke’s Peerage of the zip fastener.’ She started turning the pages with an arthritic finger and launched into another lecture. ‘The word “zipper”, as it is still known in America, was used first in the nineteen-twenties for a brand of galoshes with a zip fastening. All sorts of theories exist as to why the word was coined, but I won’t bore you with them. I can see your interest in the subject is limited.’ Her finger stopped and she held open the page. ‘Here’s the section on manufacturers. We’ll just have to work our way through the letter “G”.’

‘Do they show the trademarks as well?’ Paloma asked.

‘Yes. Give me a moment.’

They watched while Marcia ran her finger slowly down the entries. But unfortunately the Burke’s Peerage of the zip fastener let her down. She got to the end of the “G”s without a result.

‘I’d better try again. It must be here. This is the standard work of reference.’

Paloma started to say, ‘If it was just a small company- ’

Marcia cut her off with, ‘It would still be here.’

But it was not. She reached the end of the list again.

‘Could we be mistaken about the symbol?’ Diamond asked. ‘We took it to be the Cyrillic “G”, but maybe it represents something else.’

‘Ah,’ she said, and snapped her fingers. ‘You’re cleverer than you look. We’ll go through “H”.’

Bemused, they waited for her to try again. Working right through the alphabet would take the rest of the afternoon and evening.

Then Marcia gave a little murmur of recognition.

‘Got it. “Honta”. Here’s the logo beside it with a note that it appears on the underside of the puller.’

‘So it wasn’t Cyrillic,’ Diamond said.

‘Oh, it is, but it isn’t Russian Cyrillic. It’s Ukrainian. They pronounce the symbol a different way, as an “H”, so it makes sense that it’s not listed with the “G”s. Listen to this: “Honta was founded in Kiev in 1991, in the new, independent Ukraine”.’

‘What a turn-up.’

Marcia was her buoyant self again. ‘What you have here is a little piece of history. The choice of logo is an expression of independence. It says Ivan Honta was a leader of peasant revolts in eighteenth century Ukraine. The date when the company was founded, 1991, was of course the year the Ukraine broke free from Russia. You’ll recall that the Hungarians and the Czechs were the first to break away and others followed later. Oh, and I see it was a short-lived company. “Honta supplied zips for the Ukrainian Brovary Jeans Company in 1991 and 1992, but ceased trading, as did Brovary, early in 1993 after Levi Strauss set up factories in the former Soviet Union and the Russian Gloria Jeans co-operative began undercutting prices.” That’s rather sad.’

‘Rather sad for them, but good news for me,’ Diamond said. ‘It narrows the field appreciably. Do we know if Brovary exported to Western Europe? I’m still wondering if the jeans could have been bought by an Englishwoman over here.’

‘I doubt it,’ Marcia said, ‘but we can check.’ The misshapen fingers started turning pages again. ‘Bratislava, Break Dancer, Bright Boy, Brighton Beach – some of these sound more like racehorses than jeans – Brooks Sisters. Nice sense of humour there. Here we are, Brovary. “Manufactured for the Ukrainian market 1991-3. Exports: n/a.” What’s that?’

‘Not applicable,’ Paloma said. ‘They didn’t export.’

Diamond rubbed his hands. ‘Marvellous. That’s all I need to know. Our skeleton is almost certainly Ukrainian. Isn’t it amazing how much you can learn from one rusty zip fly?’

‘What now?’ Paloma asked.

‘We get on to the Ukrainian Embassy in London and see if they have any reports of missing women from that period.’

‘What I meant was do you have time to take Marcia and me for a cream tea?’

Wrongfooted again. Paloma was right. You don’t treat friends like staff. Marcia had saved him hours of research. The least he could do was show gratitude. ‘What a nice idea. May I borrow your phone?’

‘Where’s yours?’ She’d bought him one as a present last year.

‘I always forget to have it with me. I’d like to call Ingeborg.’

‘To invite her to join us?’

He blushed. ‘Actually, to get this process under way.’

Thoughtfully, Paloma had already reserved a table in the Pump Room. She’d planned to take Marcia there whether Diamond joined them or not. The old lady showed her appreciation by putting away her share of the assorted sandwiches, two scones and three of the fancy pastries. ‘Aren’t you going to eat your second scone?’ she said to Paloma. ‘Perhaps Mr Diamond would like it?’

‘I’m defeated,’ he said.

‘In that case…’ She reached for it.

‘More cream?’ he said.

‘I’d better not,’ she said. ‘My nephew is taking me for a fish meal at Loch Fyne tonight. Good thing we don’t wear corsets any more. Now that’s a fascinating topic. Would you like to hear about the history of the corset?’

When Diamond eventually got back to Manvers Street, Ingeborg had contacted the embassy. They’d promised to look at their records and call back. ‘Knowing how embassies work, we’ll have to put it in writing as well,’ she said, ‘and that’s what I’ve been doing. The woman I spoke to sounded as if she’d like to help, but wasn’t all that confident. With all the upheaval going on in 1991, I wonder if they kept track of missing people.’

‘What do embassies exist for, if isn’t it helping their citizens in trouble?’ he said.

‘I’m saying it must have been a chaotic time.’

‘Her family would surely make enquiries if they didn’t hear from her.’

‘It was nearly twenty years ago, guv.’

He shook his head and turned away. ‘I keep hearing that from everyone.’

Keith Halliwell looked up as Diamond approached his desk. ‘Ukrainian, then? Your friend had the answer.’

‘Some of the answer. We’ve discovered where the jeans came from and now we need to find out if the woman wearing them came from the same place.’

‘It looks certain, doesn’t it?’

‘Nothing is ever certain in this game, Keith.’

‘They were made for the home market. That’s what you told Inge.’

‘That’s true, but I can think of ways someone from outside the Ukraine could get hold of a pair.’

‘Okay, we can’t be a hundred per cent on this, but I reckon ninety-five, ninety six. As SIO, I say we should go with this.’

‘Leaving the door slightly open.’

‘As you wish.’ Halliwell played an imaginary piano scale on the edge of the desk. ‘You said nothing is certain. There’s one thing we can be a hundred per cent sure of. This murder couldn’t have happened prior to 1991, when the Honta zip company started up.’

‘I can’t argue with that.’

‘The time frame Lofty Peake gave us was 1984 to 1999. We knocked three years off that by working out when the tree was blown down and now we’ve knocked off another four.’ The start of a smile formed. ‘This is where my events chart comes into its own.’

‘Yes?’ Diamond said, suppressing a yawn.

‘Yes. Inge listed every mention of Lansdown in the Bath Chronicle from 1987 to 1999. Now we can erase a whole lot of it.’

‘She won’t thank you.’

‘We’re homing in, guv. 1991 to 1993 looks the best bet.’

‘What sort of events are these?’

‘Take a look.’

The chart had been converted from a visual aid into a computer file that Halliwell opened on his screen.

‘This is 1991.’

Diamond peered over Halliwell’s shoulder and could only marvel at Ingeborg’s staying powers. ‘Let’s cut to the chase and look at 1993.’

‘All action, then. Does it go on like this?’

Halliwell took him at his word and brought up February.

‘Skip it. I was being ironic.’

‘Some would call it sarcastic.’

‘Well, I don’t need to look at your chart to tell you something of interest to me that happened in1993 and that was the 450th anniversary of the Battle of Lansdown. July fifth.’

‘Yes, but they did the re-enactment over two days at the beginning of August.’

‘Why was that?’

‘Not sure. Bank holiday?’

‘Wrong. August bank holidays come at the end of the month.’ ‘I don’t know, then. Anything else I can tell you?’

‘Did anyone have her head blown off?’

‘In the re-enactment? Give me a break. According to the Chronicle it all took place without a hitch in nice weather in front of a big crowd.’

‘Nice weather, big crowd.’ Diamond rolled his eyes. ‘Did that actually make the paper?’

‘It’s a local paper. They did a picture feature.’

He yawned at the thought and moved on mentally. ‘Another thing about 1993. The Lansdown Society was formed that year. Did Inge find a report of that?’

Halliwell frowned. ‘I don’t remember seeing it.’

‘I’m not surprised. They’re a cagy lot. Don’t go in for press releases.’

‘Are you trying to tell me my events chart is a waste of time?’ He put a hand on Halliwell’s shoulder. ‘Keith, you’re so right about me. I can be a pain. But I say this in complete sincerity.

You’re in charge of the skeleton enquiry. Be your own man and run it your way.’