Skeleton Hill

32

‘Not the evening you expected, was it?’ he said to Paloma as they walked to their cars.

‘I had my suspicions, if you remember,’ she said.

‘And you were right.’

She smiled. ‘I’m going to leave you with your horsey friends. You’ll do better on your own at this stage – unless you want me to call reinforcements.’

‘Send for the cavalry?’ He grinned. ‘I don’t think.’

They embraced and he promised to make it up to her.

In the car, he picked up his disregarded mobile phone and gazed at it in his palm. What was the hour now? If he knew which buttons to press, the thing could tell him. No doubt it could supply the latest cricket scores and the state of the pound against the dollar. All he used it for was to make the occasional phone call. Ingeborg was about to rue the day she had set up the menu for him and put her own number in the directory. Wherever she was, he reasoned, she should be capable of answering. Her evening training session would be well over.

‘Inge? It’s me – Diamond.’

‘I know, guv. You’re on my display.’

He had no desire to be on anyone’s display.

‘I can always tell who’s calling,’ she said.

‘Right, and it’s late.’

‘Must be important, I guess.’

He could hear a background buzz of voices and canned music. ‘Are you in company?’

‘Sure. Guess who I met at the drill.’

He didn’t have time for guessing games. ‘I was looking at that list of events on Lansdown, the one you compiled for Keith.’

‘Not only for him,’ she said. ‘It’s for everyone to use.’

‘Do you happen to remember working on July to August, 1993, the time we know for certain Nadia was in Bath?’

‘Now you’re asking. I just plodded through the years. At the time I didn’t know 1993 or any other year was important. I simply went through the Bath Chronicle jotting down anything I found.’

‘Mainly headlines?’

‘They were only meant to be a quick reference.’

‘Fine – like the re-enactment, which is on the list, both days, among lots of other stuff.’

‘Don’t ask me, guv. It’s a blur now.’ Her tone of voice told him she was having a good time and wanted to be shot of this call.

‘But I am asking. On one of the days, not long after the battle, you made a note that went “Hang-glider stolen”.’

‘Did I?’

She wasn’t usually this vague. He could picture her shrugging and smiling at her friends in the bar. ‘Are you listening, Inge? What I need to know – and it’s important – is if you meant a hang-glider as such, or the racehorse with the same name? At some point – and it could have been 1993 – a young stallion called Hang-glider belonging to Sir Colin Tipping was driven away and never seen again – like Shergar.’

‘Like what?’

‘Never mind.’ The kidnapping of Shergar must have happened before she was born. ‘A hang-glider or a horse?’

‘You’ve got me there,’ she said. ‘The horse that went missing made big news for some days, but offhand I couldn’t tell you its name or which year it was. I can check and call you back.’

‘There isn’t time. I’ll be with Tipping directly.’

‘Put it this way, guv. I have mental pictures of most of these incidents, but I can’t remember anyone nicking a hang-glider. I’m ninety per cent sure it must be the horse.’

‘I’ll go with that,’ he said.

He had to. Davina was getting into a sports car close by. The roar of her engine rattled the keys in Diamond’s car. He threw down the phone, started up and followed her the short distance up the road to the front of the club house.

‘I can’t say what state Fa will be in,’ she called as they both got out of their vehicles. ‘It’s my job to collect him so that he isn’t breathalysed. He used to collect me from parties when I was a kid, so I suppose I owe him this. Are you coming in?’

‘I’d rather see him apart from his friends when he comes out.’

‘Give me time to root him out, then.’

The notion of the golf club members being collected like kids after a party amused him, particularly when he saw two other women drive up and go inside. A couple of taxis were waiting as well.

Then a group of four emerged from the club house in loud conversation and he saw that Davina had accomplished her mission. Sir Colin looked reasonably steady on his feet. The others were Major Reggie Swithin and his wife, Agnes, the redoubtable woman Diamond had met at the pike drill. The noise was coming mainly from the major. ‘The night is young and I know of several excellent hostelries in the city,’ he was saying. ‘Where’s your spirit of adventure?’

‘You’ve had all the spirit you’re getting,’ his wife told him. ‘Come along, Reggie. Time to go home.’

There were more protests, but it became obvious that Agnes would get her way. She steered the major to their Land Rover, leaving Sir Colin and Davina in conversation near the entrance. Sir Colin looked across the car roofs to where Diamond was waiting. It didn’t take detective work to deduce what was being said.

Diamond went over. ‘Just happened to meet Davina in the Blathwayt,’ he said. ‘She mentioned she was driving you home and there was something I forgot to ask when we spoke before.’

‘My daughter’s hand in marriage?’ Sir Colin said, straight into his music hall routine. ‘So what are your prospects, young man?’

‘Fa, that’ll do,’ Davina said. ‘Mr Diamond doesn’t have time for fun and games.’

‘I don’t know about the “Mr”. He’s not what you take him for.’ ‘It’s all right. He told me he’s a policeman.’

‘Policeman, be blowed. He’s the genie of the golf course. You never know when he’s going to appear, but instead of granting your wishes he asks questions.’

‘Fa, that’s his job.’

‘Don’t I know it? He put me through the third degree the other day and ruined my chance of a decent round. Well, superintendent, what did you forget to ask?’

‘You told me about the horse that went missing.’

‘Hang-glider. Don’t remind me. I get tearful.’

‘Was that in August, 1993?’

‘You’re asking me for details like that at this end of the evening? Really, I can’t recall.’

Davina said, ‘It was definitely 1993, the year you met the Queen at Ascot, her fortieth since the Coronation.’

‘You’re right. He’d just won the Prince of Wales’s Stakes. What a win that was.’

‘Tragically his last,’ Davina said to Diamond. ‘His trainer noticed a slight limp in the near foreleg and felt some heat below the knee. Ultrasound revealed an injury to the tendon and Fa had to retire him, just when he was ready to take on the world. We were all devastated. Which was when Sheikh Abdul made his offer. Talk about genies. We thought Fa’s magic moment had come, but it wasn’t to be.’

‘May I ask what the offer amounted to?’

‘It’s on public record,’ she said. ‘Half a million up front and fifty per cent of the stud fees. He was expected to cover more than a hundred mares in a season at a stud fee of fifty thou a time.’

‘So the money would continue to flow in?’

‘For as long as the horse did the business,’ Tipping said. ‘I reckon he was good for five to ten years. Compared to that, the insurance payout was a pittance, under a hundred thou, and I had to wait three years and get my solicitor onto them before they paid up.’

‘I suppose they needed to be sure he was dead,’ Diamond said.

‘No, that wasn’t the issue.’

‘What was he insured against?’

‘Accident, foul play or death. The claim was foul play. Bloody obvious when the horse had vanished.’

Diamond came to the point. ‘The reason I asked about the date is that 1993 appears to have been the year that the young woman whose murder I’m investigating was buried on Lansdown. There was a horse hair found with her skeleton and it’s just possible it came from your horse.’

‘Good Lord! What makes you think that?’

‘I said it’s a possibility. Did you employ a girl to groom the horse?’

‘Personally, no. You’d have to ask my trainer, Percy McDart, at Lambourn. He looked after all that. He’s still in business there.’

‘Lambourn? Is that where the horse was stabled?’ This was not what he wanted to hear. He knew of Lambourn, one of the centres of racehorse training, at least forty miles off, the other side of Swindon. ‘I was thinking Hang-glider was trained locally.’

‘Well, you’d be wrong. Any half-decent horse is kept at Lambourn, Highclere or Newmarket.’

‘I’ll contact McDart. We’d like to check Hang-glider’s DNA.’

‘How can you do that when he’s not been seen since 1993?’ Davina asked. ‘They didn’t keep DNA records then.’

‘If anything was kept as a souvenir – let’s say a saddle, or a rug – we might get hairs or skin particles, from it. Do you possess anything like that, Sir Colin?’

Tipping shook his head. ‘All I have are photographs and race-cards and a fat file of correspondence from the damned insurance company. You’re welcome to see those any time.’

‘And some silver cups in the trophy cabinet,’ Davina said. ‘You still have those, Fa.’

‘That’s true, but they won’t help the police. They get polished regularly.’

‘His rug?’ Diamond tried again.

‘I collected cheques and trophies, not horse rugs. You’ll have to ask McDart.’

‘And did you ever hear from the people who stole the horse?’ ‘Not a word. They didn’t demand a ransom and they couldn’t race him. I believe I told you my theory.’

‘That he was secretly put to stud?’

Davina said, ‘I don’t believe that one.’

‘He’d have produced damned good foals,’ her father said.

‘Not necessarily. There are no guarantees in horse-breeding. Many great stallions and mares have produced only moderate offspring. You know the saying: breed the best to the best and hope for the best.’

‘Sheikh Abdul thought he was a good investment and so did the blighters who took him.’

‘But if the matings were done secretly the foals would have no pedigree.’

‘Doesn’t matter. When you know something and other people don’t, there’s money to be made.’

‘Not enough,’ she said.

‘What’s your theory, then, Miss Wisenheimer?’ Tipping asked.

‘I’ve never said this to you before, Fa, but if you really want to know, I think it was done from personal spite. Someone heard you were about to cash in and they chose that moment to bring you down.’

He looked quite shaken. ‘I’m not one to make enemies. I’ve always treated people decently in business and in everyday life.’

‘You don’t know the effect you have on others. Ask Mr Diamond.’

For one awkward moment Diamond thought he was being invited to say what a boring old fart the man was, but Davina went on to say, ‘Isn’t jealousy one of the main motives for crime?’

‘It’s one to consider, yes,’ Diamond said. ‘If you’re right, what do you think happened to the horse?’

She gave him a glance that made him wish he hadn’t asked. ‘I’d rather not say. He was my father’s pride and joy.’