Skeleton Hill

37

Without the flashlight, Paul Gilbert struggled to keep his footing while crossing the rubble. Up ahead, Diamond was oblivious to him, squeezing between the side of the trailer and the flints on the grotto wall.

‘This is what Rupert found,’ his voice carried back. ‘God knows how. Picking blackberries, maybe.’ He reached the back end where the door was. ‘A cheap little one-horse trailer, not the transport a top racehorse is used to. Do you carry a handkerchief?’

Gilbert edged along the wall and joined him. ‘Will tissues do?’

Diamond took what was offered and used it to avoid direct contact with his hand as he pulled open the door and shone the lamp inside.

Neither man spoke. The sight that confronted them demanded an interval of respect.

The remains lay along the left side of the trailer floor, pathetically like the proverbial bag of bones, recognisably equine, manifestly long dead, part skeleton, part leathery tissue. The legs, reduced mostly to bone, were bent under the torso and still covered to the knees in padded travel boots made from some artificial fabric. Anything left of the tail was entirely enclosed in a matching tail guard.

Diamond finally said, ‘No dignity in death, is there?’

‘Is it Hang-glider?’

‘Must be.’

‘Well preserved, considering.’

‘Partial mummification,’ Diamond said. ‘In conditions like this, cool and dry, it can happen, especially if there’s a through draught.’

‘So Rupert took the rug off a dead horse,’ Gilbert said, the distaste clear in his voice.

‘Shows how desperate he was. Give me a hand up. I’m going to check the head.’ Diamond climbed into the trailer, moved to the front and crouched down. ‘Not pretty, but more skin than bone,’ he informed Gilbert. ‘The bridle still fits snugly. Ah – and I see how it was done. The hole is precisely where it should be, front of the skull, just above midway between the ears and the eyes. They knew what they were doing.’

‘Destroying a champion,’ Gilbert said. ‘That’s what they were doing.’ He was in danger of getting emotional – not advisable in police work.

‘Don’t let it get to you, lad.’

‘I can’t see the logic in it.’

‘There’s a reason. There must be. Whether it rates as logic is another question.’ Diamond stood up and passed the light beam across the rest of the interior, looking for anything else that would yield information. ‘How the heck did they get the trailer in here?’ Automatically they’d slipped into speaking of more than one perpetrator. A set-up as complex as this was too much to have attempted alone.

‘You could drive an SUV across the field, no problem,’ Gilbert said without realising Diamond was steering him back to practicalities. ‘If the brambles and the barrier weren’t in the way, you could reverse the trailer part way down the stairs and then unhitch it and let it roll down. I’m assuming they killed the horse above ground?’

‘Seems likely.’

‘And after it was done they must have sealed the tunnel opening to cover up the crime.’

‘I doubt if anyone else did.’ He clambered out and joined Gilbert. ‘Let’s hope we haven’t buggered up the crime scene. I’ll have to call in Duckett and his layabouts. They made a picnic out of the human skeleton. I wonder what they’ll do with a dead horse.’

‘Do you want to wait for them?’ Gilbert said, despairing of his Saturday night out.

‘No.’

‘So we’re going back to the nick?’ His hopes revived.

‘I am. I’ll borrow your car, if you don’t mind.’

‘What about me?’

‘Sorry, Paul. I’m not waiting, but someone has to. Give me a call when Duckett shows up and I’ll send a car to pick you up. Shouldn’t take long.’ He took out the mobile, called Duckett and ruined his Saturday evening. ‘You heard me right the first time,’ he said. ‘A horse. But there’s a definite link to the two murders. Even if you don’t start work tonight, you’d better get there and seal the place. Don’t be long. My man is waiting for you.’ He ended the call and said with a smile, ‘Shame, I forgot to mention leather gloves.’

Buoyed up, he did more phoning. ‘I don’t care if you have to break your date, miss your dinner, turn your car round halfway up the motorway,’ he said into the phone. ‘Get to Manvers Street fast. There’s work to do.’

‘Who was that?’ Gilbert asked.

‘John Leaman, moaning as usual.’

He was less abrasive with Ingeborg and Septimus, but the message was essentially the same. Crunch time had come. ‘You wouldn’t want to be left out, would you?’ he said to Septimus.

If there was an answer, it wasn’t audible.

‘Are you going to inform the ACC?’ Gilbert asked.

‘Georgina?’ Diamond just laughed. ‘I’m off now. You did a fine job today, lad. Bangers and mash for supper when you get back to the nick.’

‘Thanks,’ Gilbert said bleakly. He added, as the big man turned away, ‘May I have the flashlight?’

‘Sorry, lad. I don’t fancy that graveyard in the dark.’

All the key members of the team were at Manvers Street to be briefed within twenty minutes of his return. He updated them fully and set out his plan of simultaneous arrests and house searches. ‘It isn’t just about question and answer, or even confessions. It’s an evidence-gathering operation. Let’s remember we’re building a case for the prosecution. We’ve done the groundwork. We know the perpetrators. They’re clever, manip-u lative and they may yet have more tricks to pull. Now let’s nail them.’

He and Septimus drove to a street of detached houses on the side of Lansdown Road opposite the Royal High School. The lights were on inside and security lights beamed down outside, yet there was a delay before the sound of unbolting relieved the tension a little. The door opened a few inches on a safety chain and Major Swithin’s voice said, ‘Yes?’

They were admitted and shown into a large sitting room smelling faintly of cigars. Brown leather armchairs, standard lamps and gilt-framed prints of hunting scenes. It put Diamond in mind of a club room.

In a knitted cardigan, cords and carpet slippers, the major looked and sounded out of sorts. ‘What do you want with me?’

‘Actually, we want your wife.’

‘Agnes? What does she have to do with it?’

‘We’re about to find out. We’ll speak to her alone, if you don’t mind.’

‘I most certainly do. I object, in fact.’

‘In that case, we’ll arrest you now and put you in the car outside.’

‘On what grounds?’

Septimus, quick as one of those hounds in the pictures, said, ‘Wilfully obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty under section eighty-nine of the Police Act, 1996.’

The major gave a nervous twitch. ‘You’re not planning to arrest Agnes?’

‘I was referring to you, sir.’

‘Yes, but if you need to see her alone…’ He did an about-turn, literally and figuratively. ‘Damn it, I’ll fetch her.’

Diamond exchanged a high five with Septimus.

Agnes Swithin came in, frowning. She had a towel round her head and was wearing a pink dressing-gown. ‘I was washing my hair,’ she said in an accusing way as if they’d deliberately picked this inconvenient time.

Diamond turned to Septimus and asked him to speak the words of the official caution to Mrs Swithin.

‘What on earth…?’ she said, and was silenced by the officialese.

Diamond took over again. ‘We’ve spoken before about your part in the recent re-enactment of the Battle of Lansdown-’

‘I did nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘You were an angel of mercy, you told me. Was that right?’

She opened her mouth to confirm it, stopped herself and sighed. ‘Strictly speaking, the term may not be historically accurate. The regiment prefer “camp follower”, but that has vulgar connotations I don’t care for.’

‘Whatever you call yourself, you go out on the field of battle and pretend to be dressing their wounds and looking after them?’

‘That’s what women have done for centuries in warfare, picking up the pieces, ministering to the wounded and dying. We also search for our menfolk among the slain.’ Agnes Swithin was over the first shock of policemen invading her home, and starting to give back as good as she was getting.

‘Right, and to carry out all these duties you need supplies.’

‘Of course.’

‘Which you carry in a shoulder bag?’

‘A knapsack, or a snapsack, to use the authentic term.’

‘And it doesn’t get inspected by the officers, so you can carry some modern items as well as rolls of bandage?’

‘I suppose that’s true.’

‘Did you have a mobile phone with you?’

She shrugged. ‘Doesn’t everyone these days?’

‘So the answer is yes. Did you also have your binoculars?’

An impatient sigh. ‘To save us time, I also carried my purse, make-up, comb, glasses, deodorant, camera and certain pills I take for a medical condition. Is there anything else you want to know?’ ‘Did you confirm the binoculars?’

‘The re-enactment is a spectacle. One likes to enjoy it.’

‘That’s a yes?’

‘It is.’

‘We’ve come to the nub of this,’ Diamond said. ‘After the fighting moved up the field, did you see two of the cavaliers going the other way, down the slope?’

‘There was a lot going on. I don’t recall everything.’

‘Men on your own side acting like deserters? They must have caught your attention.’

‘At the time, possibly.’

‘Anyway, they stopped by the fallen oak tree, an important landmark to the Lansdown Society because of its rare lichen.’

‘I’m not a member of the society.’

‘But your husband is. And you keep the major informed of everything you see through those strong binoculars of yours. I’m suggesting you watched the two men acting oddly, burrowing in the earth, and you decided the Lansdown Society should be informed immediately. Your phone company keeps a record of the calls, you know.’

She caught her breath. ‘You’ve been checking my phone calls? That’s outrageous. Anyway, we could have been talking about anything.’

‘If you don’t want your actions to be misinterpreted, Mrs Swithin, I suggest you stop this stonewalling and give me the truth. One of those men was beaten over the head and later murdered.’

She’d gone as white as the towel on her head. ‘I didn’t witness that. What are you trying to pin on me?’

‘Tell me exactly what did happen.’

‘I didn’t see any violence. Just as you said, I saw what was going on by the fallen tree and phoned Reggie.’

‘Where was he at the time?’

‘The golf club.’

‘With Sir Colin Tipping?’

‘You’ll have to ask him.’

Diamond nodded to Septimus, who stepped to the door and jerked it open. Predictably, the major was there, eavesdropping. ‘Step inside, major,’ Diamond said, ‘and let’s hear it from you.’