The Last Detective

Chapter Nine

THE DAMAGE TO THE VEHICLES was slight, no more than a flaking of paint from the Mercedes and a small dent in the nearside wing of the Mini. But it was enough to provide a pretext. Having established that neither driver was injured, Wigfull solemnly took particulars from the old man – a retired doctor – who owned the Mini, while Diamond opened the door of the Mercedes, introduced himself and asked the woman inside to hand him the key.

'Thank you. Now would you move across to the other seat?'

She obeyed, her hands trembling as she put them out to support herself.

'Sure you're all right?'

'Yes.'

He lowered himself towards the driver's seat, then realized just in time that he wouldn't fit. The level of the seat had been raised by two squares of foam rubber, leaving so little space below the steering wheel that it would have courted disaster to squeeze the already suffering portion of his anatomy under there. 'I'll have to move these.'

She shrugged her consent and he managed the manoeuvre at the second try.

'You're Mrs Dana Didrikson?'

'Yes.' Her face had turned the colour of skimmed milk, accentuated by the brown hair that framed it. A neat, finely-shaped mouth and dark, intelligent eyes that now had a hunted look. Without it, Diamond might have guessed that she was a teacher or a social worker.

Capable of murder? he asked himself as he said aloud, 'Would you care to tell me how this happened?'

'I was driving too fast. It wasn't his fault. I thought I'd stopped in time.'

'Why the hurry?'

She let out a sigh that said this was playing games because they both knew the reason. 'I was trying to escape.'

Simple cause and effect. Naturally she'd hurried because she was trying to escape. From her deadpan manner, she might have been talking about the weather.

Diamond couldn't match her composure. He quivered. The adrenalin coursed through him. The breakthrough was happening. All those miserable hours by the lake, in the caravan, on the phone to Merlin, at case conferences, watching the pesky computer screens, teasing out information from the professor – were about to be rewarded.

His throat had gone dry. He dredged up the one word that mattered. 'Escape?'

'Out of the back of the house. Didn't you see me?'

'We saw you.'

'Well, then.' More words, apparently, were superfluous.

Not wishing to say one syllable that might discourage her candour, he kept to practicalities. 'Your car was parked at the back, I take it?'

She nodded. 'I got in and drove too fast. What's going to happen to me?'

'We're going to require a statement. Would you wait here, please?' He hauled himself out of the seat and approached Wigfull, who was still going through the motions of questioning the elderly Mini driver. 'Reverse the Mercedes, John. She's willing to cough the lot, I think.'

The old man said at once, 'If she's admitting responsibility, I'd like it noted.'

'Thank you for drawing it to our attention, sir,' said Diamond. 'An officer will come and see you in due course.' He returned to the Mercedes and got into the back seat, behind Dana Didrikson. 'Back to the house,' he told Wigfull when he got in.

At the top of the hill, he transferred to his own car and drove the short distance, and somehow his soreness was less disabling now. Wigfull followed in the Mercedes and they parked both cars in front of the Didrikson house.

The door stood open as they had left it. Sensing that a second escape bid was unlikely, Diamond allowed Mrs Didrikson to go in first. She called out a name.

'If that's your son you're calling,' said Diamond, 'he went out through the front as we came in.'

She said, 'He had no reason to run off.' More loudly, she called, 'Mat, are you there?'

Wigfull explained, 'He attempted to stop us from entering, ma'am. We could do him for obstruction and assault. He caught Mr Diamond well and truly.'

She said with contempt, 'He's just a schoolboy.'

Diamond signalled to Wigfull not to pursue the matter, a fine instance of altruism in the line of duty. 'We'll be wanting to interview you at some length, Mrs Didrikson.'

'Here?'

'Down at Manvers Street. It's late already. You might wish to put a few things in an overnight bag.'

'You want me to come to the police station? Can't you talk to me here?'

'That won't be possible.'

'What about Mat? I can't leave him alone all night. He's only twelve, you know.'

Diamond assured her that the boy would be taken care of in her absence. The Abbey Choir School had a house for boarders in Lansdown Road. While Mrs Didrikson, accompanied by Diamond, went upstairs to pack her bag, Wigfull spent some time on the phone arranging for a patrol to find the boy and drive him to the school to spend the night there.

Dana Didrikson's bedroom revealed little about the character of its owner, unless it was that she was tidy-minded and self-effacing. Emulsioned walls in the magnolia shade so popular with decorators. Fitted shelves, wardrobes and a double bed. Free-standing dressing table. A wall-to-wall carpet in a neutral stone colour. And matching curtains. No pictures, photos, books, stuffed animals or discarded clothes. Perhaps the reason why it so resembled a hotel room was that Mrs Didrikson's work as a chauffeur allowed her little time for anything but sleeping there.

She took a bag from the top shelf of the wardrobe and put in a few things. 'Now may I pack a bag for Matthew?'

Diamond gave his consent. He could hear Wigfull still on the phone downstairs.

They had to go up another flight to the boy's room, which had a more lived-in look. Cardboard birds and bats, made from modelling kits, were strung from the ceiling. Pop posters adorned the walls and socks and record-sleeves were scattered about the floor. An unfinished chess game stood on the top of a desk. Decidedly more lived-in, not least because its occupant was lying on the bed behind the door.

'Mat – I thought you were out,' his mother said. 'I called out and you didn't answer.'

He was on his stomach leafing through a comic, only his dark hair visible. He didn't look up. dark hair visible. He didn't 'Mat – do you hear me?'

Still without turning to look at her, the boy said, 'They're the fuzz. They knocked me over and forced their way in. I asked them for a warrant, but they took no notice.'

'Knockedyoa over?'

Diamond explained, 'I pushed him aside when he aimed a kick at me.'

'Against the wall,' Matthew stated vehemently. 'You bashed my head against the wall and knocked me over.

What do you want, anyway?'

'Your mother is going to give us some help with a matter we're investigating,' Diamond said, expressing it more sensitively than he thought the kid's attitude deserved. This looked a prime example of a boy in want of a father's authority and playing hell with his hapless mother. He went out to the landing and called downstairs, 'John, the kid's up here. He was here all the time.'

Back in the boy's bedroom, Mrs Didrikson was explaining to her son why it would be necessary for him to spend a night at school. Matthew made an unsuccessful appeal to be allowed to remain alone in the house, then turned his back on everyone and went back to his comic. His mother packed a bag for him, watched indulgently by Diamond, who felt a stirring of pity for the kid, in spite of everything. One night as a boarder was likely to be an underestimate.