The Finisher

17

“Can you remember her number?” Paloma asked Diamond.

“I don’t need to,” he said, all fingers and thumbs trying to unfix the safety pins. “I know what’s behind this.”

On the backs of their race numbers, all competitors were required to enter their names, addresses and the contact details for next of kin to be notified in an emergency. Anyone with an existing medical condition such as epilepsy, diabetes or heart problems was required to mark the front with a large black cross using a felt-tip pen.

Paloma suddenly said, “Hartley, no!”

Concentrating on what he was doing, Diamond had allowed the shirt to dangle too close to the small dog. It had sunk its teeth into the cotton and was trying to drag it away. There was a ripping sound.

“No, damn you,” Diamond shouted, clinging on. “Get off.”

“He’s tearing it apart,” Paloma said.

She grabbed Hartley and picked him up. Keith Halliwell had joined them and, between them all, they managed to prise the strong jaws apart and rescue what was left of the shirt.

Belinda Pye’s name, with the Spring Gardens Road address and Bella Kilbury’s details as next of kin, were marked on the reverse of the number in small, neat lettering.

This altered everything.

Diamond took out his phone and called the CID office. John Leaman was the senior man on duty. In a crisp exchange Diamond said what they’d found and asked for assistance: a search team of at least ten, crime scene tape, rakes, sieves, evidence bags and a sniffer dog because there was a chance of more of Belinda’s clothes being found.

“Where exactly are you, guv?” Leaman asked.

“Didn’t I just say?”

“Combe Down, but where on Combe Down?”

He’d never been good at giving directions. He called to Halliwell for help.

“I don’t know which field you ended up in,” Leaman was saying.

“Hang on.”

Paloma was using her phone to get a GPS reading.

He read out the coordinates. “And send any of the team who are there.” He pocketed his phone and told Paloma she’d better show them where Hartley had found the shirt.

“Do you want to tell your boss?”

“Not now. This is my call.”

Diamond went silent. Seeing the name in what was surely Belinda’s own handwriting and handling the shirt that she’d worn didn’t just confirm his gut fear that something had gone badly wrong. It brought him closer to the shy young woman so much in his thoughts.

“Should you be holding the shirt?” Paloma asked. “Don’t the forensic people do tests to see if they can find traces of the attacker?”

“Bit late to get fussed over that. They’ll find traces of us both. And Hartley.”

“I had to wrestle it from him twice over,” she said.

“Where did he find it?”

“Hidden under the hedge at the bottom of the field. It was screwed up into a small bundle, but he dragged it out and I saw what it was.”

Behind them, the drone show was over. Georgina was deep in discussion with Naomi and Noah about the immense potential of UAV-assisted policing. After all the hype, she would be mortified that a dog had found the piece of vital evidence. That revelation could wait.

With Hartley tugging at the leash, Diamond, Halliwell and Paloma started across the field towards the hedge.

His mouth pinched tight, Diamond gripped the rolled-up shirt in his fist and prepared himself mentally for what else they might find along the hedgerow. In his mind was an image of violent death.

Paloma tried to strike an optimistic note. “She may still be alive.”

Halliwell said, “You think so?”

“If she was trying to escape an attack, she would have come this way, heading for the village.”

“Without her shirt?”

“I don’t know what else she was wearing. It was a colder day than this when the race was held. I still put on several layers when I go for a run.”

“Why would she take it off, then?”

“You’re confusing me with all these questions.”

“Where would she be if she didn’t go home?”

“She’d knock on the door of the nearest house, I should think.”

“She won’t still be there three days later.”

“She’d call someone she knows and ask them to collect her.”

Halliwell’s voice showed he wasn’t convinced by any of this. “So you think she’s with a friend? Bella — the one whose name we have — doesn’t know where she is.”

“I’m trying to imagine what I would do.” She looked to Diamond for support and got none. He wasn’t listening. Emotionally he was back with the young woman he’d seen on Sunday running beside Pinto, transparently unhappy with the attention he was giving her and unable to do anything about it. Her fate was already decided and she didn’t know. Diamond had seen the tragedy coming and couldn’t do anything to stop it.

Paloma was trying to be more positive, but only Halliwell was hearing her words. “It could be a mistake to assume that she’s dead just because of the shirt. I couldn’t see any signs she was attacked. I know it’s red, but surely blood would show up in some way?”

“A darker stain.” Halliwell was nodding. At least they could agree on something.

“And if there was a struggle, you’d expect the shirt to get torn. The fabric looked intact before Hartley got his teeth into it.”

“It’s almost in pieces now.”

“That’s my fault, trying to tug it away from him. God knows what your forensics lot will think when they examine it.”

“They’ll be told about the dog,” Halliwell said.

“Anyhow,” Paloma said, “in her situation, I’d run for it, try and get help.”

They were almost at the lowest point of the field and Diamond was still deep in his private hell, cursing himself — but for what? His impotence in the face of evil? The wind across the vast down was stiffer and a huge mass of purple cloud had blotted out the sun. In the valley to the south a few streetlights pinpointed villages like Southstoke and Midford that had been reduced to dark smears in the grey terrain. Somerset, his county, with its cheerful name, had the capacity to be as bleak as any place on earth in conditions like this.

Sensing the negativity in his thoughts, Paloma turned to him. “No one who saw Pinto running beside her could have done anything to prevent it.”

Diamond looked straight through her.

She didn’t give up. “Even someone who knew the man’s record. He’d served his time in prison and he was free to do as he wanted. The parole board must have made a judgement that he wasn’t dangerous.”

Halliwell took up the theme. “If anyone is responsible, they are.”

“That’s putting it strongly,” Paloma said.

“It’s the truth.”

“They get advice from experts, but the decision is always going to be subjective. You can never be certain how another human being will behave.”

The whole of the brown hedgerow was in their view, stretching across two hundred yards or more, an unusual sight in this area where drystone walls bordered most of the fields. Mainly a tangle of hawthorn and bramble with young trees sprouting higher in places, the thicket was starting to come into leaf.

Diamond snapped out of his brooding. Decisions needed to be made. “Where exactly was the shirt?”

Paloma pointed. “See where that gate is in the far corner? About thirty yards to the left.”

“You said it was hidden. What did you mean by that?”

“Hartley dug it out from under a lot of leaves. I don’t think it was visible.”

“We must look for more clothing. Keith, start at the far corner and work your way along. I’ll check the part where the shirt was.”

“How about me?” Paloma asked.

“Keep the pooch at a safe distance.”

“He’s the one who found the shirt.”

“We’ll get a trained sniffer dog.”

“Do you mind? That’s a real snub to Hartley.”

“He’ll have to live with it. If more of her things are scattered along there, I’d rather they weren’t chewed to bits — or worse.”

“Or worse? What’s worse?”

He looked away, in no mood for levity.

“Oh, I get you, spoilsport.” Paloma smiled, trying her best. “All right. Come on, Hartley. You can spray all the rest of the field as your territory.”

Diamond was already marching off to the place where the shirt had been found. He’d not go too close for fear of corrupting a crime scene, but he wanted to see if more items of clothing were scattered nearby. He’d rather know now than have them brought to his attention by the search team.

He saw at once that this job wouldn’t be measured in minutes. A hedge acts as a windbreak and collects all manner of lightweight material, mainly its own leaves, but also anything blown across the land: scraps of sheep wool, feathers and paper and plastic evidence of the human users of the field. The leaf mould provides a habitat for shrews, voles, mice and hedgehogs as well as millions of insects and invertebrates. The person who had stowed the shirt away had apparently rolled it up and tucked it into this ecosystem. If other items were to be found, the entire length of the hedge and the adjacent one needed to be raked.

That could wait. When the search team arrived, he’d spread them in all directions to look for a body.

Uncertain of what lay on the other side of the hedge, he stepped up to the gate and let himself into the next field. A surprised sheep raised its head, stared, then turned tail and ran towards the rest of the flock when he moved on for a better view.

From a distance, a resting sheep could be mistaken for a human figure dressed in white. He had to go closer to some to make sure they moved.

Sheep, all of them.

Part of his brain had heard most of what Paloma had been saying and he replayed it now and found it unconvincing. He couldn’t share her optimism about Belinda’s fate. There was no denying some of the clothing had been removed and hidden from view. Would she do that herself? His own scenario of a violent sexual attack was far more realistic. Factor in her disappearance and it was likely she had been killed and her body disposed of, but where? Pinto would have difficulty moving it far, and there was always the risk of local people witnessing him.

To get a better sight of the rest of the field, he moved to the centre, where he’d noticed a patch of ground that hadn’t been grazed. As well as a small crop of briars with some well-established blackthorn and hawthorn, there were large embedded pieces of limestone too massive for any farmer to remove. Now he understood why this island of thorns had been allowed to thrive in the centre of the field.

Some of the stone projected waist-high and would give a better view of the entire area. He heaved himself up on to one of the slabs.

And the view didn’t interest him any longer.

Hidden under brambles between the slabs of stone was an iron grille coated in rust. What he’d found was an old ventilation shaft.

He was reminded that Combe Down wasn’t just an unremarkable name for an unremarkable village. It was the source of Bath’s magnificence. Beneath him was a deep bed of Jurassic stone, the most valuable in Britain, used for the historic buildings of Bath and Bristol and throughout southern England as well as for parts of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.

He swung his legs over the steep side of the slab he was on and slid down to the level of the grille, wanting to check if anyone had recently lifted it. He swore as the thorns scratched his legs, and when he got a foothold along the edge and crouched, he was pricked in his backside. For every action there is said to be a reaction and in this case it was painful.

The shaft gaped wide enough to dispose of a body, but the iron cover looked immovable, fixed in place like prison bars. Beneath it was a black void. He dropped a large stone and heard it hit the bottom. Maybe twenty to thirty feet in depth, he thought.

Nothing suggested the cover had recently been opened. You’d need a crowbar to move it. The surface rust was powdery and some fell through when he touched it.

He doubted whether anyone else had explored this relic of the mining industry in years.

Stone extraction had really taken off in the early eighteenth century, when Ralph Allen had started quarrying in earnest, having realised the potential of the vast deposits of oolitic limestone at Combe Down. Such had been the demand that more than forty quarries eventually joined the Ralph Allen workings and the ground beneath the village became honeycombed with shafts and tunnels, so intensively that no one could map them with total accuracy. Eventually this led to serious problems of subsidence because the workings were relatively shallow and the supporting columns had been shaved by locals wanting the stone for private use. A four-year infilling programme using foam concrete had been undertaken to stabilise the inhabited part of the village and completed in 2009. Outlying workings remained untreated and, in some cases, unlocated.

His legs and buttocks itched from the scratching and his hands looked as if they’d been steeped in henna, but he wasn’t discouraged as he hoisted himself back over the stones and prepared to rejoin the others. He’d learned something useful. The unique character of Combe Down meant any killer had opportunities of disposal all over the area. One ventilation shaft had proved negative. More needed to be examined.

The drone team had packed up and gone by the time he had toiled up the side of the first field. Two police vans were parked at one side and about twenty bobbies in uniform were being issued with rakes. The section of hedge where the shirt was found was already marked off with do-not-pass tape. A dog and its handler were checking the leaves at the far end.

“Hold on,” he said. “First things first. I want all the surrounding area checked for a body. Leave the rakes for later.”

While the sergeant in charge was dividing the men into smaller groups, Diamond found Halliwell. “Does Georgina know about this lot?”

A smile and a shake of the head. “She left with the others before the vans drove in. The young couple offered to show her around their workshop, or whatever it’s called.”

“They’re brother and sister,” he pointed out testily. “She’s out of it, then, off my back for a while. Did Paloma go, too?”

“A few minutes ago. The dog got excited when it saw the uniforms.”

“Noisy?”

“Worse than a pack of hounds.”

“I can imagine. Did you find anything?”

“Under the hedge? Nothing of interest.”

“Where’s the nearest house from here?”

“Beechwood Road or Summer Lane.”

“We should knock on doors.”

“In case anyone saw anything?”

“Or heard. That’s not a job for uniform. How many are coming from Concorde House?”

“I think Inge and Paul.”

“They’ll do.” He went back to check on arrangements with the sergeant in charge of the search team.

Two hours later, all the nearby fields and several small wooded areas had been walked by the searchers, but without any result. A lunch break was called and Diamond was approached by the same sergeant who, it soon became obvious, was angling for a move to CID.

“Mind if I make a suggestion, sir?”

“Fire away.”

“Speaking as a humble copper—”

“Spare me that. What’s on your mind?”

“Are you sure this is the place, sir?”

“What do you mean — am I sure? It’s where the shirt was found.”

“Yes, but I was wondering, if I may be so bold, if the attack happened somewhere else.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“You said the shirt still had the victim’s number on it and that’s why the perp rolled it up and buried it under some leaves.”

The perp, for pity’s sake. Diamond was tempted to tell this sycophantic creep he watched too much American TV. “No argument with that. Her name and address were written on the back.”

“So he’d be an idiot to stick it under a hedge at the crime scene. He’d move on somewhere else.”

“Fair point.” Annoyingly, it was bloody obvious. And by implication, Diamond was an idiot, too. “You’re telling me the rest of her clothes are on another part of the down?”

“I wouldn’t presume to tell you your job, sir.” He wasn’t just a groveller. He was so servile he could double up as a butler.

“You’re not the first. I agree with you. We should be searching the whole of Combe Down.”

“Between here and the old railway tunnel.”

“That’s still a lot of ground. Can you conjure up another box of bobbies?”

“Me, sir?” The sergeant smiled.

No prizes for guessing what the answer would be if he asked the chief inspector for reinforcements. Police resources were so stretched that the only way a full-scale search could happen was by going public and asking for civilian help. He wasn’t ready for that. “You’ve just condemned your mates to raking all the leaves on Combe Down.”

He phoned Ingeborg and asked how the doorstepping was going. She told him no one so far had seen or heard anything.

“That’s Summer Lane?”

“A good stretch of it.”

“When you finish, start at the bottom end of Beechwood Road.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No.”

He called Paloma and apologised for the way the morning had turned out.

“That’s all right,” she said. “Hartley got his walk, but he was threatening to take over by the end, so we beat a retreat.”

“You missed the drone.”

“It didn’t miss me. I was well and truly under its beady eye. It’s going to be a useful aid, I’m sure.”

“That’s a matter of debate. My money would be on Hartley or one of his four-footed friends.”

“Preferably a silent one.”

“That would help, yes.”

“Did you find anything else?” she asked.

“Nothing of Belinda’s, but the morning wasn’t wasted.” He told her about the ventilation shaft. “Someone must have mapped all the shafts on Combe Down. I’m going to check them personally — the likely ones, anyway.”

“How will you know if there’s a body down there?”

“The cover will have been disturbed. It should be obvious. The one I found is rusted in. Hasn’t been opened in years.”

“You’re confident you’ll find her?”

“I can’t give up.”

“Wouldn’t it be simpler to question Mr. Pinto and find out what happened?”

“Maybe after we identify his DNA on the shirt. It’s all about doing things in the right sequence. The case could go belly up if I flout the rules.”

“And have you told Georgina what’s going on?”

“She’ll know by now. She has her finger on the pulse, as she likes to say, even though I keep my wrists covered.”

Paloma laughed. “You have pulse points in other places, you know.”

“Like my groin? No, thanks.”

As it turned out, Georgina had already found a pulse and it felt like the jugular. She phoned him about 2 p.m. and said, “You’d better have a good explanation, Superintendent. I hear you’ve got twenty officers and a dog searching the fields. Why wasn’t I informed before I left?”

He was expecting this. “Couldn’t interrupt your business with the drone people, ma’am. I could see it had reached the delicate stage.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Haggling over fees.”

“I don’t haggle.”

“Pardon me.”

“We were having a civilised discussion.”

“Way above my head.”

“Don’t soft-soap me. I’m totally aware of what went on behind my back.”

In that case, he thought, give me an ear-bashing and leave me to get on with my job.

“You found a T-shirt belonging to this woman Belinda Pye.”

“The dog did.” He was tempted to add that this counted as a result, but Georgina wouldn’t appreciate having it pointed out. “Belinda was last seen alive in the company of Tony Pinto, a violent character recently released—”

“I know all about Pinto,” she butted in. “You had him put away twelve years ago for cutting a student’s face and now he’s out you think he’s turned to murder.”

“He’s missed his regular meeting with his probation officer. I phoned them this morning. He’ll have gone into hiding somewhere.”

“But you haven’t found a body yet.”

“It’s a big area. I believe Belinda left the half marathon before they entered the Combe Down tunnel. The crime scene may not be in the same field where her T-shirt was found.”

“You want to search the entire down? That’s going to take an army, not twenty bobbies and a dog.”

One of Diamond’s best talents was his ability to get inspiration when he most needed it. “There is a better way, ma’am.”

“Oh?”

“Using a drone.”

There was a satisfying silence from Georgina’s end. He pictured her face going through a series of expressions from denial to self-doubt to curiosity to compliance, each with a deeper flush of her cheeks, like a speeded-up sunset. She said, “Oh,” once again, this time with relish.

“Not the drone they demonstrated this morning,” Diamond said. “The fixed-wing job with more battery power, capable of staying in the air much longer. More efficient than people tramping the fields and far more economical.”

Georgina said, “Mm,” as if she’d just bitten into a chocolate.

“Naomi and Noah will be back like a shot for a real challenge,” Diamond pressed on. “They’ll welcome the chance to show it off, and if they make a find, you can bet your life your initiative will be held up as an example to every police force in the land.” He was tempted to add that she’d be a shoo-in for the vacant position of Deputy Chief Constable, but there was no need. Georgina was ahead of him.

“You may be right about this,” she said. “You’re still in my bad books, but it’s an opportunity and we’ll embrace it. Yes. I’ll call The Sky’s No Limit and tell them we have a major challenge for them.”

He phoned Ingeborg next.

“You can take a break from knocking on doors. Find me someone on Combe Down with expert knowledge of the old stone mine workings. I’m interested in shafts where a killer might dispose of a body.”

“I thought it was all infilled with concrete,” she said.

“That’s the main area where the housing is. The outlying parts are still riddled with tunnels. I found a shaft this morning, but the cover hadn’t been moved in years. There are sure to be more.”

“I’ll make enquiries, guv.”

“Don’t tell anyone why,” he said. “I’m out on a limb with this.”