The Finisher

29

Outside, Diamond fumed, more angry with himself than with Konstantin. His self-respect had taken a kicking. “Bastard. I should have fronted it out, got heavy with him.”

Gilbert didn’t comment, so Diamond asked himself the question.

“Why didn’t I? Because I was getting nowhere. She can’t talk freely with him standing over her.”

“What more could she have said?”

“I don’t know, Paul. I just don’t know. I needed to question her more closely.”

“About Pinto?”

“We weren’t there to talk about the weather.” He released a long, angry breath that ended in a groan. “I messed up, didn’t I, opening my big mouth about going the whole way? I was talking about the bloody race, not her sex life.”

“Easy to do.”

“What?”

“Slip of the tongue. It was on your mind already. It was on mine.”

“Whether she slept with Pinto?”

“She wouldn’t have told us if she had.”

“Why should she? It’s private to her if it happened but I suspect it didn’t. He was on a good thing, getting regular fees as her personal trainer. Olga may well have had thoughts about bedding him, but from everything I know of Pinto, he’s a one-night-stand man. What was that crude phrase you came out with when we were watching the race?”

“Love ’em and leave ’em?”

“That’s not what I remember.”

Gilbert grinned.

“But it’s true. That was his attitude to women. He wouldn’t have kept coming back three times a week. Olga was his meal ticket, not his mistress.”

They got into the waiting police car. “Where to, sir?” the driver asked.

“Larkhall. Bella Vista Drive.”

“Are you thinking the friend knows something?” Gilbert asked.

“I can’t tell until we’ve questioned her, can I? If they’re as close as Olga suggested, she knows stuff you and I don’t.”

“About Pinto?”

“More about Konstantin. From all we saw of him, he’s the controlling type. Some of what we heard was emotional abuse. I was uncomfortable with it, so God knows what Olga was feeling.”

“She isn’t totally submissive.”

“We can agree on that. I like her spirit, but he’s doing his best to break it.”

“He was pissed off that she’d hired a trainer.”

“Stood out a mile, didn’t it? He goes away on business and when he gets back the basement is stuffed with all the latest bodybuilding equipment and his wife is taking orders from a personal trainer.”

“Could it be worse than that? Could he suspect that Pinto actually made out with her?”

“Even if it didn’t happen? That would really get to Konstantin. Got to be faced. I can’t wait to hear from this friend of hers.”

The one good thing about Bella Vista Drive was the bella vista and there wasn’t much of that, a glimpse of green hills through a slot between blocks of hideous butter-yellow stone. The housing was typical of the so-called urban renewal of the 1960s, packing-case terracing on two floors that could have been designed by a child with a pencil and ruler. The contrast with the palatial façade of Olga’s street couldn’t have been more extreme.

A postman told them which eyesore was Maeve Kelly’s. Kids of school age were skateboarding in the street so there was a good chance school was out and she would be at home.

The young woman who answered the chimes was younger and prettier than any teacher Diamond could remember from his own schooldays. She confirmed that she was indeed Maeve Kelly.

The usual reassuring words about this being a routine enquiry got them inside.

Maeve’s home was a box, but she had gone to unusual lengths to make it different. She had turned the living room into a game reserve inhabited by hippos in every form except the living animals, in ceramic, wood, bronze, resin, wire, plastic, glass, wool and satin. One fine beast of leather was large enough for a child to sit astride and another on a crowded wall unit was nine-tenths submerged in what looked like water but was actually transparent plastic. There were paintings, photos and embroideries.

“Don’t ask,” Maeve said. “They’re a flaming nuisance. I was brought up in Zambia and I couldn’t resist the big one as a reminder of home when I saw it in Harrods. My friends and family got the idea I was a hippo freak and I was inundated, every birthday and Christmas. I don’t throw gifts away when people have taken the trouble to find them and this is the result. Have a seat if you can find one. Sling the stuffed toys on the floor.”

Diamond made for a hippo-print armchair. “I grew up with that Flanders and Swann song, ‘Mud, mud, glorious mud.’ Before your time.”

“I know it well. All too well. I can’t count the people who have sent me the YouTube clip.”

Paul Gilbert had settled into a rocking chair with hippo armrests. “Isn’t the hippo an endangered species?”

“Definitely if I have anything to do with it. How can I help you?”

Diamond launched into his prepared speech. “We just met your friend Olga, the Russian lady, and she told us how you rescued her when she was mugged.”

“‘Rescued’ is putting it far too strongly. If that’s what this is about, I’m no use to you as a witness. I came along too late to stop it happening. I was out for a run in Great Pulteney Street one evening and heard a cry for help and found Olga down some basement steps. Helped her home, that’s all.”

“And now she’s your friend for life.”

“She’s a sweetie. I think she’s lonely. Her husband’s away a lot of the time.”

“Not today. We met him.”

“I’ve met him, too.” There was a look that Konstantin might not have found flattering. “I can’t help you find her attacker. He drove off before I arrived on the scene.”

The mugging was of small interest right now, but Diamond didn’t mind her thinking it mattered. “You were out running, you said.”

“If you can call it that. Training, for the Other Half. You must have heard of it.”

“We have.”

“Trying to get fit. I’m not a serious runner.”

“Did you run in the race? How did you get on?”

“I made it to the finish, which was all I needed to do. I owed it to my sponsors to finish, and that was a big incentive.”

“Have you run it before?”

“God, no. It was my one and only. I got into it by accident, quite literally. It started with a Toby jug. I seem to be fated to be given presents I don’t want. One of my work colleagues — I’m a teacher, did I say? — gave me this Toby jug.”

“In the shape of a hippo?”

“Jesus, no.” She laughed at that. “An old-fashioned Toby with the three-cornered hat. You know? To be fair to him I don’t think it was meant for me. He was, like, giving it to the BHF in return for the baseball cap.”

“You’re losing me,” Diamond said.

Gilbert said, “British Heart Foundation, guv.”

“The baseball cap?”

“I’m telling it wrong,” Maeve said. “My aunt supports the BHF in a big way and sent me this spanking new red cap with the logo and I don’t wear them, so I took it to school and gave it to Trevor, who’s losing his hair, and instead of being grateful he seemed to take it as an insult, as if I was mocking his baldness. I’ve never seen him wearing it. Fair enough, we all make mistakes. And yet he felt he had to do something in return. I don’t know if I was supposed to be grateful. I can tell you I wasn’t. He told me the jug was some sort of family hand-me-down he’d inherited and didn’t need anymore.”

“He was being honest.”

“He’s like that, tells it to you straight. Well, I was stuck with this thing that was meant for a good cause, and I couldn’t dump it, so I got on my bike and set off for the nearest BHF shop and on the way — wouldn’t you know it? — the bag split and Toby ended up in pieces on the road. The worst part is that I found out later the damn thing had been antique, really, really valuable. To cut the story short, I felt so bad about doing the BHF out of a big payday that I got myself sponsored and ran for them in the Other Half.”

“Good on you.”

“Taught me a lesson, didn’t it?”

“Did Trevor know about this?”

“The running? Yes, he helped me prepare. He takes the kids for games, so he’s well up on fitness, knows a lot about training and stuff, but he still doesn’t know the reason why I took it up. I dread having to tell a porky if he ever asks me about the sodding jug. When he heard I’d signed up for the race he gave me some tips, quite useful.”

“He obviously likes you,” Diamond said.

“Trevor?” She pulled her arms across her front as if she felt a sudden chill. “You could be right. He hasn’t asked me out or anything, but he looks out for me.”

“How?”

“In school, he seems to time his visits to the staffroom to fit with mine. If any of the others say anything critical, even joking, he comes to my defence. I ought to be pleased, but I’m capable of standing up for myself. He’s well-meaning and helps me with my training, so I can’t tell him to piss off. A short time ago he moved into an upstairs flat across the street and I can’t help thinking he chose it because I’m here and he can keep a fatherly eye on me.”

“Fatherly?”

“It’s not romantic for sure. I’m not his type at all. He wants someone serious-minded like himself, not a wacky woman with a house full of hippos.”

“He knows about the hippos, then?”

“The whole school knows about them. We have a tradition that at the end of each school year, the leavers club together and buy their teacher a present. Guess what mine is, year after year without fail. Everyone in the staffroom falls about laughing.”

Diamond was warming to this young woman. There are people in this world — and he was one — who are fated to provide amusement for their friends and colleagues and can’t understand why.

“So you taught yourself how to run seriously?”

“Me and Trev both. Most of it’s obvious. Anyone can do it if they’re motivated, can’t they?”

“You don’t have a personal trainer, other than Trevor?”

She smiled. “On a teacher’s salary? That’s a joke.”

“Have you met Olga’s trainer, Tony Pinto?”

She tensed at the name. “Sure. He’s often at the house.”

“You know he’s dead?”

“I saw on social media yesterday. Big shock.”

So it was common knowledge already. The Combe Down grapevine had fruited.

Maeve said, “I haven’t mentioned it to Olga. She’ll be devastated.”

“She knows now,” Diamond said. “She hadn’t heard until we told her.”

“Is that why you’re here?” She formed a word with her lips and no sound came out. At the second try, she asked, “Was Tony murdered?”

“He was found at the bottom of a mineshaft. He didn’t get there by accident.”

A gasp. “Who would do that? He was... fun to be with.”

“Women liked him, that’s for sure.”

“Well.” She blinked several times before a burst of words followed. “He knew how to make you feel special and not just in the obvious way through flattery. He could do it with a look and the tone of his voice and he had a great sense of humour, which makes a difference.”

“Sounds like you got to know him.”

Her cheeks flushed. “Only through Olga.”

“But enough to be impressed?”

She made an effort to sound more controlled. “I’m sure it was a technique he’d used with other girls. You kind of knew it and still felt good inside because he was giving you his full-on attention.”

“He had a reputation as a ladies’ man.” Listening to Maeve going on about that fuckwit’s seduction routine was hard to stomach, even though the man was dead and dissected. “Do you know whether Olga slept with him?”

All the goodwill drained away and Maeve’s voice became metallic. “That’s a question for her, not me.”

“I would have asked her, but Konstantin was present.”

“What has this got to do with you or your investigation?” She sounded like the schoolteacher she was and Diamond was supposed to feel like a ten-year-old. Instead, he was weighing the significance of the way she’d spoken about Pinto.

“It could have provided a motive for murder.”

She absorbed that. “You’re not serious. You don’t think Konstantin...?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

“It’s our job to explore every angle.”

Maeve shook her head. “Well, you’re wrong.”

“You know for sure?”

“She would have told me.” She frowned, questioning herself. “I feel sure she would have told me.”

Feeling sure wasn’t knowing for sure.

“They were on edge with each other when we were there, as if trust had broken down. Is that usual?”

“It is, now you mention it. He can be really sharp with her and she seems to take it as normal, but she laughs about him when he isn’t there. She manages him well in her own way. I guess it’s a price you pay if you marry a hard-headed business type. Wouldn’t do for me.”

“Has she ever spoken of violence?”

“You mean beatings? Not to me, she hasn’t. If he hit her, she’s strong enough to hit back, and she would. What’s going on there is coercive control, which I suppose gets him results in his working life, so he brings it home as well. I would find it intolerable, but Olga doesn’t. Women have found ways of coping with men like that since the beginning of time. Some never do, unfortunately.”

“He disapproved of her efforts to get fit.”

“He can’t have it all ways. He tells her she’s fat and when she tries to do something about it, thinking it will please him, he’s like, what are you playing at, you stupid cow?”

“She seems to have worked hard at the slimming.”

“Really hard. She was too heavy to run far, so she took up walking and was out on a fitness walk the evening she was mugged. That didn’t stop her. Instead of using the streets she found a circuit in Henrietta Park, close to where they live, and did laps. I can’t walk at that pace for long.”

“She must have got fit to have walked the Other Half.”

“Yes, she kept quiet about that until after it was over, in case she failed, I suppose. I didn’t even know she’d entered. You’ve got to admire her spirit.”

“You said she’d hit back if Konstantin attacked her.”

“I’m sure of that. She’s got the upper body strength. I’ve seen her working out with weights. I wouldn’t pick a fight with Olga.”

“Strong enough to take out a pint-size guy like Pinto?”

“Pint size?” She didn’t like the description.

“Compared to her.”

She reached for a felt hippo and for a moment Diamond thought she would throw it at him. Instead, she kneaded it like bread. “Oh, come on. What are you suggesting? She liked Tony. She fancied him.”

He followed up with a combination that would have floored anyone. “And if he didn’t come across?” Before she had a chance to deal with the jab, he hit her with the uppercut. “And she discovered he’d screwed one of her trusted friends?”

Her look of panic said it all before she spoke. She was open-mouthed. “How do you know that?”

He hadn’t for certain, not until this moment. He’d inferred it from her answers, dangled the bait and she’d swallowed the hook. “Your reaction when we spoke of him just now. You don’t have to look so guilty, Maeve. Your sex life is your own and I’m sure he made you feel special.”

The stuffed animal in her grip would burst at the seams any second. “It was a one-off. A couple of drinks in a bar on Wellsway supposedly to talk about my running and he’d pre-booked a room. I had no idea he wanted me.” She shook her head, remembering. “The thrill of finding out was overpowering. I wouldn’t have hurt Olga for all the world.”

“I believe you.”

She dropped the hippo and ran her fingers through her hair. “Does she know? Who would have told her? Tony himself? How cruel is that?”

“If he did,” Diamond said, wanting to calm her now that he knew, “he paid for it with his life. But this is only me speculating. All angles, as I said just now.”

“When was he killed?”

“After he finished the race. He was still wearing the kit.”

“But the finish is far too public for anyone to kill a man. Where was the body found?”

“Combe Down.”

“The race goes past there, but where they finished is two miles north of there, easily. Did he go back for some reason?”

“It seems so.”

“And was murdered somewhere near the mineshaft?”

“That’s our supposition, unless the body was driven there.”

“Could Olga manage that? I guess she could. But how would she know about a mineshaft on Combe Down?”

“She’d just walked the course,” he said. “She may have gone there previously to practise. How far is it from Sydney Place? Two miles, you said?”

“Will you question her again?”

“That’s likely.”

“You won’t tell her I did it with Tony?” she said, and then added with a stricken sigh, “I suppose I can’t stop you. What an idiot I was.”