Skeleton Hill

19

The next morning was a low point. The Ukrainian Embassy phoned. They were unable to supply information on any of their nationals who may have gone missing in Britain since 1991. Halliwell’s mood swung back to almost suicidal. ‘We’ve hit the buffers again. I really believed we were getting somewhere yesterday,’ he told Diamond.

‘We were – and we did.’

‘And see where it led us.’

Diamond knew what it felt like to be moving on with optimism and then have a door slammed in your face. As team leader you took it personally – an experience new to Halliwell. Sympathy alone wouldn’t help.

‘There are no short cuts, Keith.’

‘I’m not asking for a short cut. I just want some movement. Bloody diplomats. Is it political, do you think? Don’t they want it made public that some of their people disappeared?’

‘It could be sheer numbers. You and I know about human trafficking from East Europe. It’s huge – an industry.’

‘You think trafficking is behind this?’

‘It accounts for a lot of missing people, young women in particular.’

‘Sex slaves?’

‘There’s also the black economy. East Europeans as a source of cheap labour, working long hours without work permits for cash in hand. You’ve seen it going on. Either way, no one in an embassy is going to have an accurate record of who is here, let alone who is missing.’

‘These are illegals you’re talking about?’

‘Some are for sure, using false travel documents or smuggled in. And some are lured here on false pretences. They come expecting jobs as waitresses or models and find their passports are taken away from them by gangmasters or pimps.’

Halliwell sighed. ‘For Christ’s sake, if we can’t go to the embassy for help on this, we’re screwed.’

‘No we’re not.’

‘You just said it’s a huge industry.’

‘And there’s always someone who knows. We have to get to the right person, that’s all.’

‘Oh yeah, and who’s that?’

‘I’ll think about it.’

The only exit line he could supply. He didn’t really have an answer.

He crossed the room to see Septimus, fully expecting another gripe, and instead got a more positive response. The Bristol team, he learned, had now got all the witness statements onto computer. They’d found the canteen and liked the all-day breakfast. They might even survive a few days in Bath.

‘I’m overjoyed to hear it,’ he said, ‘but I’m running a murder enquiry, not a holiday camp.’

‘Sure,’ Septimus said with the cool of an ocean breeze on a Caribbean beach. ‘We have an action plan.’

‘Which is…?’

‘Item One: we need to question the man who was with Rupert when they found the femur.’

‘Dave Barton? He was questioned already. We have a signed statement taken by Keith Halliwell.’

‘Yes.’ One word carrying such disapproval that Diamond hoped Halliwell hadn’t overheard it.

‘Are you thinking Barton is a suspect?’

‘He needs to answer some tough questions.’

‘Such as?’

‘Why didn’t he come forward when Rupert was reported missing?’

‘Keith asked him that. He doesn’t look at TV or read a paper.’ ‘So he claims.’

‘You don’t believe him? He did come forward finally.’

‘After it got serious.’

‘Well, he may have got alarmed when he heard about the murder, thinking he’d be an obvious suspect.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ Septimus said, and it was obvious he had another way. ‘Equally, if he did the killing himself, he might get away with it by telling us a pack of lies, presenting himself as the good guy who was friendly enough to share his beer.’

‘What do you think happened, then?’

Septimus tilted his head and gave Diamond a searching look. ‘Do you really want my theory?’

‘If it stands up.’

‘Seems to me all this had something to do with the bone they found. I’ve looked at Dave Barton’s statement. Suppose he switched roles.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘He claims he buried the beer and offered some to Rupert. Suppose the reverse happened and it was Rupert who hid the beer and quite by chance happened to choose the spot where the girl was buried. Barton was watching. He had a special interest in watching.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he killed the girl twenty years ago. He’s in his forties now. He’s old enough.’

The theory intrigued Diamond. ‘Murdered her and buried her there?’

‘And thought he’d got away with it. A desolate spot on the side of a hill where not many people go and no one does any digging. Then the Civil War society announces it’s going to commemorate the battle. Hundreds of people are coming to the part of Lansdown where the body is buried. I’ve seen the fallen tree. You can’t miss it. It’s an obvious point of defence, the kind of place where soldiers might dig a latrine or set up camp. Barton gets worried and decides he’d better join the regiment to keep an eye on things.’

‘I believe he’s been in it some years.’

‘Okay, he joined a while ago. It’s some years since the first murder. Am I still making sense?’

‘Enough to keep me interested.’

‘Then Rupert comes along, first to bury the beer and later collect it. He’s a generous guy and when he meets Dave Barton he offers him a drink. To Dave’s horror, Rupert finds the bone and decides it belonged to a Civil War victim and wants to exca-v ate the site. Dave persuades him to rebury it, but has his doubts whether Rupert will let it stay buried. He keeps watch and later the same evening he sees Rupert return to the site. He follows him and cracks him over the head, and leaves him for dead. But Rupert recovers enough to wander about Lansdown for days in a confused state.’

‘Until Dave Barton finds out and finishes him off?’ Diamond rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Could it be as simple as that?’

‘Can I bring him in again?’

‘I think you’d better.’

‘Do you want this to be another voluntary statement? No arrest?’ ‘That would be preferable.’

He wasn’t entirely sure that the theory held up, but it demonstrated that Septimus was a thinker. Dave Barton was in for a searching examination.

In the quiet of his office Diamond grappled with the problem of the Ukrainian woman. He’d never had much confidence that the embassy would name her. At the time she went missing her country had been in ferment, emerging from the restrictions of the old Soviet system. They’d probably had a delegation looking after their interests in Britain rather than a fully fledged embassy. All these years later they weren’t going to produce a list of missing persons.

There’s always someone who knows, he’d said to Halliwell.

Easily said.

Okay, the young woman had disappeared and nobody seemed to have noticed. His remark to Keith – that she may have been trafficked – had something going for it.

The Ukraine was notorious as a source of cheap labour and worse. Young people from the former Soviet bloc had started coming to the west in numbers after the wall came down and temporary work for cash had always been easy to get in Britain, with no questions asked about visas and work permits. Unscrupulous employers were only too pleased to cash in.

Some illegal immigrants undoubtedly were murdered and weren’t heard of again. If you don’t officially exist, there isn’t much of a hue and cry when you go missing.

He called Ingeborg to the office. ‘You were a journalist. You know the local scene as well as any of us. Is there a Ukrainian community in Bath?’

‘Not that I’ve heard of,’ she said.

‘Bristol?’

‘Possibly. They do band together in places and keep up the old customs and religion. Ukrainians have always had a strong sense of identity. There’s a national association, isn’t there? I know there are several thousand in Manchester and they organise events and meet socially.’

‘In London, too,’ he said, and he could speak from experience after his years in the Met. ‘I think the first to settle here in numbers were displaced soldiers after the second world war. The Ukraine has had various political upheavals since and each one saw more of them moving here. I think they have their own cathedral somewhere in London. But Bath…? I haven’t heard of it and neither have you, it seems.’

‘You’re trying to find someone who knew the dead woman?’ she said.

‘When she first came here, she would surely have looked for some of her fellow countrymen.’

‘Unless she was trafficked and had no choice,’ Ingeborg said.

He might have expected Ingeborg to think of this. As a socially aware young woman she was well informed about the trade in human beings and keen to see it stopped. ‘When did trafficking first become a problem?’

‘It started when perestroika came to the old Soviet Union and travel restrictions were eased.’

‘When Gorbachev was leader?’

‘The late eighties. Young people were looking for an escape and there were crooks only too pleased to take advantage.’

‘In Russia?’

‘And here.’

‘But we know from the logo on the zip that she came in the early nineties.’

Ingeborg nodded. ‘Yes and by then they were leaving their country in big numbers, women in particular. Life was hard there. Something like eighty per cent of the unemployed were women. They couldn’t earn much at home.’

‘So did she land up in Bristol?’

‘On the game? Who knows? Montpelier and St Paul’s have always had a reputation. You could talk to Septimus.’

‘And I will,’ he said, ‘but I’m still hopeful that she made contact with some Ukrainians here. Common sense tells me she came to London first and we know they have a big presence there. I’m going to call an old friend from the Met. He may throw some light.’

Louis Voss had retired from Fulham CID some time after Diamond left, but still worked in the same nick as a civilian.

‘Forgive my ignorance,’ Diamond said to him after they’d exchanged greetings and small talk about how their lives had moved on. ‘Would you know the part of London where most Ukrainians hang out?’

‘Holland Park,’ Louis said at once. ‘Didn’t you get to know it when you worked here?’

‘No mate, ’Olland Park was up the posh end,’ he said in his cod version of cockney. ‘I was stuck down the North End Road. Remember?’

‘It’s all around that part of town,’ Louis said, ‘restaurants, clubs, churches, the embassy. You could be forgiven for thinking you’re in Odessa. They even have a Ukrainian statue in Holland Park Avenue. Their patron saint, St Volodymyr. They’re well dug in.’

‘Holland Park,’ Diamond said, more to himself than Louis.

‘Why? Are you looking for a cheap plumber?’

‘Plumber?’

‘Lighten up, Peter.’

Diamond explained about the skeleton and the Ukrainian connection. ‘I can’t think why she ended up dead and buried in Bath. I’m hoping to tap into her movements before she got here and London seems the best place to start.’

‘You want me to put out some feelers?’

‘More than that. I want to meet people.’

‘Will any old Ivan do?’

‘Preferably one who knows what was happening about 1992.’

‘Can you drink seven straight vodkas?’

‘Never actually tried.’

‘There’s always a first time. I’ll see what I can set up for you. Whether any of them will talk to a Zummerzet plod I can’t say.’