The Finisher

30

Messages were waiting when Diamond got back to his desk. His staff knew the best way to get his attention wasn’t by phone or online. Sticky yellow Post-it notes were arrayed across the top of his computer like Widow Twankey’s laundry. Some he glanced at and screwed up. When the sorting was done, three were left. Keith Halliwell had left one, so the big man limped over to his deputy’s desk.

“How was the Russian lady, guv?” Halliwell asked.

“On the large side. I can say that, because she’s larger than me. You wouldn’t want us both in your balloon. But I liked her, which is never a good sign. I always seem to get on well with the guilty party.”

“Capable of killing a man and throwing him down a mineshaft?”

“Without a doubt. And the same can be said for the husband, except he’s thinner than my wallet and fit as a butcher’s dog. He runs marathons, real ones. You wanted to see me, your note said.”

“It’s a follow-up on the autopsy from Dr. Sealy.”

“A postscript to the postmortem?” When Diamond played on words, it was a sign of positivity. “Helpful, I hope?”

Halliwell wasn’t saying yet. “He sent off the usual samples of tissues and body fluids for testing by the lab.”

“And the results are back already? I can’t believe this.”

“They aren’t. But you know what he’s like. He leaves nothing to chance. He keeps a second set of samples himself in case of disputes or something going missing at the lab. It’s a way of covering himself.”

“Typical Sealy.”

“It’s paid off this time, because he kept some of the hair he shaved off the back of the scalp to reveal the fracture.”

“What use is that?”

“He had an idea of what he might find. Under a microscope certain hairs were shown up as stained.”

Diamond smiled faintly. “Don’t tell me Pinto dyed his hair.”

“No. These were grass stains.”

“Grass?”

“When the head hit the ground it picked up traces from the turf. He analysed it under infrared and found cellulose and chlorophyll and all the main constituents in grass. He checked with the lab and grass staining was also present on the T-shirt. Do you see the point? The fatal fall must have been above ground. There’s no grass growing inside a stone quarry.”

“Smart,” Diamond said, but in a voice drained of admiration.

Halliwell joined the dots. “So now we know the fight, the incident, or whatever we call it, happened above ground.”

“And killed him?” There was a momentary hiatus while Diamond absorbed this. He pulled a disbelieving face. “I’ve hit my head many times playing rugby and I’m still here.”

Halliwell’s first thought was disrespectful. He rightly sensed that this wasn’t a moment for levity. “I guess it comes down to the force of the impact.”

“And we’re a hundred per cent sure there’s no chance he was bashed from behind, as we first thought?”

“Sealy says so. We can forget it.”

“But was he in a fight?”

“Apparently. Some kind of punch-up, because of the secondary injuries like the bruising on the face and hand.”

Halliwell was ahead of Diamond on the implications of all this and he seemed to be waiting for Diamond to reach the same bleak conclusion.

The big man looked as if he, too, was about to fall flat on his back.

Finally, he said, “We’ll never get a murder conviction from a fall. Manslaughter at best. What it boils down to is homicide, but not murder.”

Anticlimax had deflated Diamond like a punctured beachball. He gazed the length of the incident room at the team and the civilian staff beavering away at what they believed was a murder enquiry.

Eventually, he said, “I can’t face them yet, Keith. I’ll need to take this in properly.”

“We still have a duty to investigate, don’t we?”

He shrugged. “Can’t call it off now.” Shaking his head, he hobbled back to his own desk and sat hunched and inert, staring at the empty screen. Minutes passed before he picked off another of the Post-its. He read the words without fully taking them in. They were from Samantha Sharp, the DC he’d assigned to trawl through every official video of the race. She’d written: Sir, if you would like to see, I have footage of Pinto at the drinks station and the 10K point.

Her desk wasn’t far away. She was staring fixedly at her screen. Too fixedly. She knew her message had been seen. She just couldn’t know if it was one of those he’d screwed up and binned.

It was next to impossible to get enthused anymore, but he was here among his team and he had to act normally or come clean. For the present he wouldn’t say anything about downgrading the investigation. He’d break it to them at tomorrow morning’s briefing.

He crossed to where DC Sharp was scrolling through images from one of the fixed cameras. Mind-numbing work. She was the newest on the team, in her twenties, tall, with dark brown hair in a thick plait. She’d come with a recommendation from the inspector she’d worked for in traffic.

“You found him, then? Good spotting.”

“His kit stands out from the rest, sir,” she said, eager to make the right impression. “Hold on, I’ll pull up a chair for you. Then I’ll get the first sequence up.”

“The start? I don’t need to see that. Can I see the next one, whatever that is?”

“No problem. I’ve bookmarked his appearances.”

In no time at all her screen was filled with runners taking bottles from tables. “This is the first drinks station, Dundas Aqueduct. I’ll pause it when he appears. There.”

Eerily alive, more animated than anyone else on the screen, Pinto, in his polka-dot headband and yellow T-shirt, was in line at a table where there was some congestion. Immediately ahead of him was a woman Diamond recognised as Belinda Pye. She looked even more under strain than when he’d met her. Pinto seemed to be saying something, but of course there was no sound. Just as Belinda was reaching for a bottle, she turned her head sharply and looked over her shoulder.

“Did you see that?” Diamond said. “Play it again. I think he goosed her.”

“He what?”

DC Sharp didn’t know the term or didn’t approve of it, making Diamond feel he belonged to the generation that had condoned or ignored the whole range of inappropriate handling of women from hugging to coercive sex. He might deplore the action, but the word condemned him.

“Can you re-run it?”

Sharp played the few frames again and Belinda’s startled reaction was obvious.

“What did you call it, sir?”

“Groping. Didn’t I say that? She told me this happened a number of times in the starting pen and during the race.”

The film moved on and so did Belinda. She hadn’t waited to drink at the table, as most did. With the unopened bottle in her hand she got into her stride again. Pinto was the fresher and wouldn’t have any difficulty catching up. He grabbed two bottles, glanced up at the marshal behind the table, a short, swarthy man, and did a double take. They both appeared transfixed, as if the video had been paused, but others in the shot were moving.

“Odd,” Diamond said. “What’s going on there? The marshal didn’t give him lip for touching her, did he? Can we play it again?”

He watched the sequence closely. Nothing seemed to have been said by either man. If anything, panic was written on the marshal’s features, not reproach.

“They know each other.”

“Looks like it,” DC Sharp said.

“Now what’s happening?”

Pinto moved out of shot, and other runners replaced him. The marshal turned from the table as if about to reach for another stack of bottles and instead darted to the left and was lost to view. How frustrating it was that the camera was fixed and didn’t follow him.

“He’s off.”

“What was that about?”

“I’d love to know.”

As more runners came into shot, the table rapidly emptied of bottles and after a short delay when people were clustering there, another marshal stepped in with fresh supplies.

“Okay, you said you have footage of them going through ten K.”

The computer-wise DC Sharp soon had it ready to roll.

A camera sited on a narrow stretch between low walls gave a view of runners passing over the mat that by electronic wizardry took information from the chips attached to their shoes. A timing display along the foot of the picture was showing 56 minutes and rapidly changing seconds.

“Do you know where this is?” he asked. “I can see the remnants of railway sleepers.”

“Tucking Mill viaduct, not long before they entered the Combe Down tunnel.”

“Ten K is six miles, give or take?”

“A bit over.”

“Can you slow it up? I’ll never be able to pick him out.”

She said, “I know when he appears.”

“You did well to find this.”

“I had his time at ten K, so it was easy. He stands out anyway. Here we are. Belinda comes into the picture now and he’s only two-tenths behind her.” She changed to slow motion.

“I see him, the tosser.”

Belinda’s laboured running was apparent and Diamond remembered her telling him she’d gone faster than she planned because Pinto had been so close behind. At this stage the man was still moving easily.

“She got away from him by quitting the race soon after,” Diamond said. “She wasn’t going to risk the tunnel.”

“Good for her.”

“It wasn’t easy. She’s not used to dealing with predators like him.”

“Not many of us are, sir.”

“Yes, but she had an unusually sheltered upbringing, a one-parent family, I believe. Lived all her life with her mother and became her carer. Worked from home on a computer. No social life to speak of. When her mother died, Belinda made this effort to get sponsored and run for the heart charity and she was devastated at pulling out. We can look at all these runners and we have no idea of the stories behind them.”

“He’ll have had a story, too,” she said. “Where’s he from?”

“Prison. A fifteen-stretch for using a knife on another young woman. Waste no sympathy on Tony Pinto.”

She nodded. “I’ve yet to find him at the other points where cameras are placed. He seems to have slowed right up or taken a rest because his finishing time is really slow. Do you think he went off course to look for Belinda?”

“Can’t say for certain. Keep at it and we may get some answers.”

He reached for his stick, braced his good leg and picked his way back to his own desk.

The final Post-it note simply read: Call Mr. Jones.

He’d left it until last to give him time to remember who Mr. Jones might be. He’d known a few Joneses in his time. This one hadn’t bothered to leave a contact number. There were surely some in Bath Police, but he couldn’t think of any in Concorde House. The wording was more of a command than a request. There wasn’t a high-up in Concorde House or headquarters called Jones.

The penny dropped. Mr. Mysterious from ROCU.

Somewhere in the Himalayan range of paper spread across the desk was the business card with Jones’s personal number. Much burrowing in the foothills caused minor avalanches and didn’t uncover anything. He rolled his chair away and tried to see what had fallen on the floor. Then he remembered using one corner of the card to scratch an itch on the back of his neck. Perfect for the job. Where had he put the damn thing after that?

Somewhere handy.

Got it. Under the mouse mat.

“Mr. Jones? Diamond from Bath.”

“Oh?”

“You asked me to call.”

“But how can I be sure it’s you?” The opening move in the silly game of secrecy.

“You remember. The house in—” He was about to say Duke Street when he was drowned out by a sound like Niagara Falls that he later decided must have been Jones taking a huge, shocked breath between his teeth.

“For the love of God,” Jones said. “You’ll undo months of patient work.”

“You want me to prove my identity.”

“In a word, yes.”

A “yes” was an achievement.

“What am I supposed to tell you — my mother’s maiden name or the name of my first pet?”

“I recognise your voice now and I’ve seen where you’re calling from. We can proceed. Have you progressed that investigation you spoke of?”

“Not a lot,” Diamond said. “Softly, softly, you said.”

“We’re on the same wavelength, then. This is better.”

“How about you? What’s the progress on your side?”

“That’s not up for discussion,” Jones said, “except...”

Diamond waited. He pictured Jones looking left and right to see if there was danger of being overheard.

“... after tomorrow you could be in a position to steam ahead.”

“Right.” The fact that Diamond and his team were at full steam already needn’t be disclosed. Jones liked to believe he inhabited a secret world, so he could remain in the dark. “Tomorrow, you say?”

“Did I? Slip of the tongue. Better if you forget this conversation.”

“That won’t be any hardship.” The call ended.

It didn’t take much detective work to divine the next move by ROCU: a dawn raid on Duke Street to make arrests and close down the modern-slavery scam. If his informant had been anyone else but Jones, he would have had questions to ask. What exactly was Pinto’s part in the operation? Had someone replaced him? Where were the men employed? What was their nationality? What would happen to them next? Who was pulling the strings?

With no more Post-its to deal with, he was forced to return to the depressing here and now. He’d announce to the team tomorrow that the case they had sweated over for days had been downgraded from murder to manslaughter. He’d be able to tell them at the same briefing that the slavery racket had been stopped and arrests made. Some consolation, anyway.

That evening he met Paloma for a meal in the Ram at Widcombe, a dog-friendly pub where Hartley the beagle could be taken, provided he was supplied with things to chew to distract him from shredding the table legs or their own shoes. Paloma had filled her handbag with rawhide knots.

She sensed even before they found a table that Diamond had taken a body blow.

“Are you in trouble with the top brass again?”

“I could be.”

Once seated in the lounge area, small and separated by a glass partition from the more generous-sized bar, and with drinks in front of them and the dog working his teeth on the treat, Paloma demanded to know more.

“What it comes down to is that I’ve wasted hundreds more man-hours for no result.”

He could rely on Paloma for a sympathetic hearing. She cared about his misfortunes and humiliations and usually had the wit and wisdom to put them in perspective. He explained about the autopsy report and the significance of the secondary fracture in the skull. “I’m not even sure the case will come to court if we get our man. The Crown Prosecution Service will almost certainly throw it out. They know a smart defence lawyer will treat it as manna from heaven.”

“Is it totally certain he was killed by falling backwards?”

“Dr. Sealy is the expert. We’ve got to believe him.”

Paloma held out her hands in appeal. “Does it matter? This Pinto guy was no great loss to the world. He’s dead now. Whoever was responsible may deserve to get away with it.”

He shook his head. “If we think like that, making value judgements on offenders, we’re playing God. My job is to catch the killer, not judge him.”

“But what if your killer turns out to have been a decent person who was driven to it by Pinto’s foul behaviour?”

“For example?”

“Belinda.”

“Oh, come on. She didn’t do it. She was exhausted. She couldn’t have pushed him over if he was a cardboard cut-out.”

“Does she have a father?”

“No.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Belinda? No.”

“In that case you’re looking for someone else with reason to pick a fight. The Russian woman? She’s strong enough to take him on.”

“Olga liked him. She couldn’t get enough of him. He was her personal trainer.”

“The husband, then. He can’t have been overjoyed that she fancied her trainer.”

“Konstantin?” He nodded. “You’re right. He’s in the frame, but I thought we were talking about decent people. He’s a bully.”

“All right. Any of the slave labourers, the men living in appalling conditions in that basement?”

“They’re prisoners. How could any of them have done it?”

“Desperation.”

“I said how, not why. They’re driven to work every morning and I don’t think work is up on Combe Down.”

“Where are they taken, then?”

“I’m expecting to find out in the very near future.” Taking a leaf from the Jones book of secrecy, he checked in all directions including the exposed beams above him to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “Keep this to yourself or I’ll certainly be out of a job. A raid on the Duke Street house is being planned.”

“So at least some good will come of your efforts. That’s reason to be cheerful, Peter.”

“It’s not my operation. It’s being handled by a regional crime team who specialise in people-smuggling.”

“Would they have known about Duke Street without you?”

“Probably not.”

“That’s a success you can chalk up, then.”

She was right. He wouldn’t chalk it up anywhere, but he’d know in his own mind that his information had helped uncover a disgusting misuse of wretched, exploited people.

The food was served — Cumberland sausages swimming in thick gravy with red fried onions and mash — and his spirits revived a little. “Thanks.”

“What for?” Paloma said.

“The moral support.”

“Ah.” She smiled. “For a moment I thought you were thanking me for the meal. I was going to say I didn’t know I was paying. Moral support comes cheaper than sausages and mash.”

They spoke of other things, mainly a TV period drama series she was having difficulty with as costume adviser. The award-winning director wanted to dress her actors in cage crinolines in the 1880s after the bustle had come in. For Paloma this was a resignation issue that could affect her professionally. Diamond felt her pain and talked like a politician about red lines. She seemed to appreciate his support. He reflected that points of principle don’t have to be matters of life and death. It’s all a question of scale.

After the plates were cleared and coffee was served, the talk turned back to his own disappointment.

“What will you do about your murder investigation?” Paloma asked.

“Basically, call it off,” he said. “My first obligation is to the team. I must let them know and I’m not looking forward to it.”

“A meeting?”

“Tomorrow morning. Then I must speak to Georgina. She wasn’t keen on this from the start. It’s got to be faced.”

“You’re a policeman. You can’t know about brain injuries any more than I can.”

“Tell that to Georgina when she looks at the overtime claim.”

“Was Pinto killed instantly by the fall?”

“I can’t answer that. Like you say, I’m a cop. But I doubt whether Sealy could tell you either.”

“Sometimes people go into a coma, don’t they? And die later?”

“You hear about them living on for years.”

“I’m talking about an interval of no more than a few minutes. I wonder how long it takes for a bleed on the brain to kill someone.”

“Paloma, I appreciate what you’re saying, but I’m not the best person to ask.”

“This is my point, Peter. You’ve been assuming he died instantly, but there’s a good chance he didn’t. His attacker didn’t call an ambulance and didn’t go for help. Pinto was moved and dropped into the mineshaft to get rid of the evidence, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Don’t you see what I’m getting at? You’ve made a big assumption that isn’t necessarily true. Think out of the box. If he wasn’t killed the moment his head hit the ground, it would have been obvious he was still breathing. The person who attacked him finished him off by dropping him down the mine. That’s premeditated and that’s murder, isn’t it?”