The Last Detective

Chapter Eight

MATTHEW DIDRIKSON SAT EATING HIS second slice of chocolate fudge cake in Charlotte's Patisserie in the Colonnades. Facing him were Jackman and Diamond. They had sought out a table under an arch at the rear of the shop; even so, they looked conspicuous among the shoppers and business people refreshing themselves for the journey home. Diamond, in the crumpled check suit he habitually wore, was shoehorned into the space between the table edge and the upholstered seat that went halfway around; and Jackman, elegant in brown corduroy and a black shirt, could have been straight out of a colour magazine fashion feature. Matthew was wearing a white shirt, striped tie and navy pullover, having peeled off his school blazer at the first opportunity. Diamond had predicted that at this hour of the day they would find the boy somewhere in the Colonnades making a nuisance of himself on the escalators or in the lift, and he'd been right. It remained to be discovered what they would get in return for their bribe of unlimited cake.

'How's your head these days?' Diamond asked. 'No more blackouts, I hope?'

Clearly sensing that he had the high ground here, Matthew was in no hurry to respond. He glanced towards some schoolgirls at a table nearby, ran his fingers through his dark hair, and finally admitted, 'It's all right.'

'It's some time since we spoke. It was here, wasn't it? I was in disguise, if you remember.' When that got no reaction, Diamond added, 'I don't think Professor Jackman knows I played Santa, unless you mentioned it.'

Jackman said quickly, 'It's Greg. He calls me Greg.'

This earned a smirk from Matthew, a more positive response than Diamond had achieved so far, so Jackman took up the conversation. 'Mat and I haven't seen much of each other for a while, come to that. His mother wanted it that way after a misunderstanding and of course I respected her decision, but we had some good days out, didn't we, Mat?'

Matthew nodded.

The set-up was fast becoming ridiculous, two grown men trying to coax information from a schoolboy over afternoon tea. Diamond tried to sound less avuncular. 'Have you been to see your mother in the remand centre?'

A nod.

'This week?'

'Sunday.'

'How's she

'How's she bearing up?'

'All right.'

It was difficult to tell whether the brevity of the responses demonstrated unwillingness to answer or a wish to consume the cake without interruption.

'Mat, we're trying to help her,'Jackman said.

Diamond added, 'And it's up to you to help us.'

Matthew made no comment at all.

'I don't know if you understand how serious this is,' Diamond said gravely. 'Do they teach you anything about law at that school of yours? Your mother is being put on trial for murder, but she has a barrister to defend her and he must try to show that there is reasonable doubt. Follow me, Mat?'

The boy pushed aside the empty plate and wiped his lips. 'Yep.' He looked away from the table, over his shoulder.

'Another piece?'Jackman suggested.

'If I can have a Coke to wash it down.'

'Bring me some change, then.' He handed over a five-pound note.

While Matthew was at the self-service counter, Diamond said, 'Talk about sweeteners. Does this come out of Mrs Didrikson's defence fund?'

'Couldn't justify it on what we've heard so far,' said Jackman.

When the boy returned and put the plate of cake on the table, Diamond reached out and moved it deftly out of range. 'Now I want you to cast your mind back. Your mother told me about an incident she witnessed in front of Professor Jackman's house one day last summer. You were with her.'

Matthew was silent. His eyes were on the cake.

'There was some kind of dust-up between Mrs Jackman and a man.'

'Andy.'

'What did you say, son?'

'Andy. The man's name was Andy.'

'You've got a good memory, obviously. We'd like to find this Andy. You see, if he and Mrs Jackman were seen grappling with each other – as I understand they were – he has to be regarded as a possible suspect. Let's test that memory of yours and see exactly how much you can tell us about him.'

'What's the point?'

Diamond reined in his irritation. 'Son, we explained. Reasonable doubt.'

'I mean why ask me, when you can see him for yourself?'

'If we knew where to find him, we would. That's the point.'

'I know where.'

'What?'

'I know where you can see Andy. I've seen him heaps of times.'

The entire seat creaked as Diamond braced. 'Where?'

'In the Baths.'

'The Roman Baths, do you mean?'

'Mm.'

He slid the cake back towards the boy. 'Tell me more.'

'I told you,' said Matthew. 'If you want to talk to Andy, that's where to look.'

'He works there?'

'Don't know.' Matthew stuffed some cake in his mouth. 'Listen, all I know is that I've seen him down there quite a few times.'

'What were you doing down there?'

'Nothing much.' The dismissive answer appeared to be all they would get. Then the boy's bravado triggered a statement that was the longest Diamond had ever heard from him. 'I go down after school. It's a spooky place. I like it. The kids in my form started this dare. You have to go right through the Baths without being caught by the security men. You walk into the souvenir shop in Stall Street, and when no one is looking you whizz down the stairs marked staff only – which is really the exit – and you're inside. You have to watch out for the security men, of course, but if you're smart you can walk right through the whole of the Baths and come out in the Pump Room. No one stops you there because it's the restaurant. I've done it zillions of times. It's a doddle.'

'And that's where you see Andy?'

Matthew nodded.

'Doing what?'

'Pointing at stuff and talking mostly.'

'He's a guide, then?'

'Sort of. He has these students with him.'

'Students?' said Jackman, reddening suddenly.

'Not every time. Sometimes he's alone.'

Diamond was far ahead, assessing the implications, but the process of question and answer had to be completed. 'So he may be a lecturer of some sort?'

'Don't know.'

Matthew added nothing else of significance. And little was said at that stage between the two men. If Andy, the presumed supplier of Geraldine's cocaine, had connections with the university, Jackman was going to face some questions himself.

When they got up to leave, Diamond invited Matthew to visit the Roman Baths with him after school on Monday, the next opportunity. 'Meet me here,' he suggested, adding craftily, 'and if you're early, there may be time for another slice of fudge cake. Then you can help me do some detective work. But I want one thing clear: we enter the Baths the regular way, through the front. I'm too visible to creep down the back stairs.'

Matthew grinned and went off to look for his friends.

Out in Stall Street, Jackman was burning to say something. 'Before you ask. there's no school of archaeology at the university.'

'History?'

Jackman was actually shaking his head when he clapped his hand to his forehead and said, 'Wait a minute. I'm wrong. A section started up this year. Just a handful of lecturers and first-years. I can't say I know any of them. That's the truth.' He paused^ 'I suppose you want me to make inquiries.'

'If you can manage it without alerting anyone,' Diamond, said. 'I want to surprise Andy.'

'Want some support?'

'There's no need. I'll let you know what happens, naturally.'

'Actually I'd quite like to be there,' Jackman offered with a self-conscious clearing of the throat. 'I haven't seen much of Mat in recent weeks. I like the kid.'

'That isn't the point of the exercise,' Diamond told him in the tone he'd once used to keep the murder squad in line. 'I'll be in touch.'

If the truth were told, he liked the kid, too, for all his rough edges.

Jackman phoned on Monday with news of a part-time lecturer attached to the University history section. He was called Anton Coventry, and was known as Andy. His specialism was the history of Roman architecture, and he was presently leading a study of the Roman Baths with a first-year group from the School of Architecture and Building Engineering. They met on Mondays and Thursdays at 4.30. By special arrangement they had the use of the Baths those days for an extra hour after the public had left, until 6.00. Jackman's inquiries had confirmed that Coventry had blond hair and dressed in a macho style. Moreover, he was a triathlon specialist.

'A what?'

'Triathlon. It's a sport, the ultimate in endurance, a kind of triple marathon, involving running, swimming and cycling.'

'Sounds to me like the ultimate in folly. Triathlon. When you mentioned it first, I thought maybe someone had invented the ideal sport for people like me, giving you credit for trying, and the hell with achievement.'

'Trying, yes. I get it,' said Jackman without amusement. 'Coming back to Andy, I find it hard to square a passion for fitness with pushing drugs.'

'Nothing strange in that,' said Diamond, the pure-born cynic. 'Drugs are commonplace in sport.'

'I'd like to make it clear that I've never met the guy, so far as I'm aware,'Jackman stressed.

'Point taken.' Diamond grinned unkindly as he put down the phone.

On Monday afternoon, Matthew must have raced out of school or skipped a lesson, because he was waiting in the Colonnades by the entrance to the patisserie. Consequently there was ample time for the cake. Diamond, under instructions from his doctor to limit the calories, confined himself to a frugal black coffee, averting his eyes from the boy's plate as he issued instructions. 'Get this clear, Mat. Your purpose in being there is to satisfy yourself that the man in the Baths is the same one you saw having a set-to with Mrs Jackman in the drive of John Brydon House. If you made a mistake, or can't be sure, then you must have the guts to say so, right? But whatever happens, I want you to stay quiet while we get a look at him, and remain hidden after that.'

If proof of Mat's commitment were required, it came when he put down the cake half-eaten and suggested they started. Diamond told him there was plenty of time to clear his plate.

'I can't. I'm too excited,' Matthew admitted.

Diamond's self-control wavered. 'Pass it across, then.'

At 4.20 pm, they left the Colonnades, crossed Stall Street and entered the Baths. To reach the ticket office, it was necessary to pass through the Pump Room, the meeting-place of Georgian society that now serves as a restaurant. The tea-time ritual was fully in session, every chair occupied, the waitresses in their black waistcoats, white blouses and aprons trying zealously to keep up, and the trio at the near end lustily performing the Toreador music from Carmen. It was a relief to penetrate to the more serene atmosphere beyond.

Not many visitors were entering the Baths at this stage of the day. The woman in the ticket office warned them that the exhibition closed to the public at 5.00. Attendants would ask everyone to leave. Diamond gave a nod of understanding. As soon as they were out of earshot, Matthew, the veteran interloper, confided to Diamond that he knew hundreds of places to hide.

Diamond didn't care to admit that he'd never previously made the official tour of the Baths. Two terms of Latin in his youth had killed any interest in the Romans. Once he had attended a civic dinner in the Pump Room, preceded by cocktails beside the Great Bath; looking up to admire the lighting supplied by flaming torches attached to the columns, he had tripped on the uneven paving and spilt most of his drink down the dinner jacket he'd hired for the evening.

They came first to the remains of the temple of Sulis Minerva, picked out by discreetly sited lighting, so that the weathered limestone effigies of the gods glowed red-gold on the altar. The tourists down there were lingering to gaze, if not to read the guide-notes, but Matthew, striding through as if it were his home, said, 'You don't want to waste time here. Andy covered this bit a month ago. He's doing the Great Bath this week.'

They moved along a walkway and down several flights of stairs, taking a series of turns that confused Diamond's sense of direction until they passed a window that looked down on to an open-air bath. The surface of the water was bubbling. 'That's only the sacred spring,' Matthew mentioned dismissively, seeing Diamond hesitate. At a still lower level, they heard a steady rush of water and saw the arch where the overflow from the spring tipped out as a miniature waterfall.

Ahead was daylight and the Great Bath, its blue-green rectangle overhung with steam. After the spotlights in the tunnelled approaches, the sense of space and light could not fail to impress. The Bath itself was some seventy feet by thirty, with steps down to the water. Rows of columns on stone piers surrounded it, supporting a canopy for the flagstoned aisles where Romans once promenaded, watching the bathers. The stretch of water was open to the sky. Visitors stood in ones and twos along the aisles, staring up at the columns and the sculptured figures mounted above them. 'Most of it's Victorian,' Matthew informed Diamond. 'The Roman stuff barely comes up to your knees.' His education had profited from his trespassing in the Baths.

Diamond wasn't there for the architecture. A group of young people had gathered at the far end. Their style of dress and their absorption in conversation, rather than the surroundings, confirmed them as students. The lecturer had not appeared yet.

For the moment, Diamond had no need to get close to the students. Around the sides of the Bath, under the canopy, were a series of recesses where miscellaneous bits of masonry were displayed on stone plinths. Most were too low or too narrow to be useful to someone of Diamond's size, but at the centre of the south side was a larger bay that housed an assortment of broken pilasters and columns. It looked possible to get behind it without attracting attention.

He and Matthew strolled casually around the pool until they were level with the bay. After glancing around, he touched Matthew's arm and steered him behind the plinth. They didn't even need to crouch.

Visitors continued to drift by for the next ten minutes, and then two of the security staff came through, evidently to warn any lingerers that the exhibition was about to close. Mercifully, although they passed quite close to the plinth, they didn't look behind it.

By degrees the surrounds of the Bath emptied except for the history class and its hidden observers. The daylight was starting to fade. High above the Great Bath, the figures of the Roman emperors appeared more dramatic against the sky.

'You okay, son?' Diamond enquired.

Matthew nodded.

A moment later, footsteps clattered on the flagstones quite close to them, steps too brisk for a sightseer, even a belated one trying to get round. And it wasn't one of the attendants.

'It's him,' Matthew whispered. 'Definitely.'

Andy Coventry passed within a few feet of them on his way around the perimeter to his students – his head and torso visible from their vantage-point, the shoulders so broad and well-muscled that the black teeshirt he was wearing seemed like a second skin. The striking feature was the bleached mass of hair swept back from the forehead over the skull in the style of some sports idol of the 1950s.

Diamond said, when it was safe to speak, 'Let's watch for a bit.'

There was some lively barracking from the students when Coventry approached them. He was probably ten minutes late. He opened a sports-bag and took out what presently proved to be a number of steel measuring-rules and handed them round. His voice was audible only in snatches across the water, but it was clear that he was issuing instructions, setting the class some kind of project. He knelt beside one of the original Roman piers supporting a column and measured its length and height. There was some discussion about the additonal masonry used to reinforce the structure that had once supported a timber roof. The students had produced clipboards and were recording the information. Coventry started assigning them in pairs to the six main piers along the north side of the bath.

In a few minutes, all of the students were busy, measuring and taking notes. Satisfied, apparently, that they were usefully occupied, Coventry picked up his bag and strolled away from the class towards one of the exits at the west end.

Diamond put a restraining hand on Matthew's shoulder. This was going to require the stealth of a professional. He left the boy, stepped back into the shadows and crept off in the direction Andy had taken. Conscious of his size, he moved with a lightness of step more appropriate to a much slimmer man.

A suspicion had dawned in Diamond's brain even before Andy had appeared with the sports-bag. The next few minutes, he sensed, would be crucial to the investigation he had started all those weeks ago and was pursuing to its climax.

The need to remain unnoticed was essential, and so was the need to see what Andy Coventry was up to. It meant venturing into a complex of warm and cold baths at the west end of the Great Bath – with a high risk of discovery now that no visitors were left. He passed through the open door. Making use of every feature of the building that offered the possibility of cover, he approached the circular cold plunge bath known as the frigidarium and stared around its perimeter for a sighting of his man. The subdued lighting was a mixed blessing.

He seemed to have lost the trail already. The walkway system lined with plexiglass sides began again in this section. All he could see as he peered over the handrail opposite was the site of another bath, practically empty of water. Obliged to move on into a section still more in shadow, he found himself looking down on a sunken area where columns of copper-coloured bricks stood in ranks like the Terracotta Army discovered in China. He knew what it was from postcards he had seen: an early form of central heating. The columns had once supported a floor, enabling hot air from a charcoal-burning flue to circulate in the cavity. Above, in their Turkish bath, Romans had once sat and sweated and been oiled, scraped and massaged. The hypocaust, as it was labelled, was one of the most notable features of the Baths, mainly because of its function, and also for the strange, unforgettable spectacle of more than a hundred of these knee-high columns, filling the floor space in symmetrical formation, no less impressive for being worn and damaged, A chromatic mix of copper and ochres that time had rendered into what could easily have passed for a masterpiece of modern art.

If Diamond's thoughts had really taken on aesthetic overtones (which is doubtful), they must have been galvanized by the sight of Andy Coventry crouching down on the floor among the columns at the far end.

Diamond froze, undecided whether to go down there. Coventry hadn't looked up; he was absorbed in whatever he was doing.

The right course, Diamond decided, was to watch and wait. He backed away, out of Coventry's sight, up a flight of stairs that led to the toilets.

There was an interval of two or three minutes when nothing happened; then the scrunch of shoes on the gritty under-floor of the hypocaust, followed by the sound of Coventry hoisting himself back on to the walkway; and brisk steps as he returned to the Great Bath.

Peter Diamond was down the steps and over the barrier before the drumming of the footsteps had ceased. With agility born of urgency, he sidestepped between the columns until he came to the place where he had seen Coventry. As he had anticipated, there was a cavity near one of the vents to the flue. He knelt, put his hand inside and touched something most unlike a Roman relic. It was soft, smooth and light in weight.

He lifted it out – a plastic bag containing a white, glittering substance.

In appearance it was identical to the cocaine he had found in the bag of flour in Jackman's kitchen. He felt inside the cavity again and located similar bags, stacks of them, too many to remove now.

As a hiding place for drugs, the hypocaust had advantages. Unlike much of the site, it was dry. The cavity was masked by one of the brick columns, and nobody had reason to look there, because this section of the Baths had been comprehensively excavated. The public were kept well back behind the plexiglass. Yet it was neutral ground that Andy Coventry could visit twice-weekly without fear of being seen. Whether collecting or depositing, he could carry the stuff in and out of the building in his sports-bag. And who in his right mind in the Avon and Somerset Drugs Squad would suggest the Roman Baths for a bust?

Diamond stood up. The immediate problem was what to do about it. He was entitled to make a citizen's arrest. But was that the wisest course of action? Ideally he wanted to question the man about the murder. Drug-dealing was dangerous and despicable and Coventry would take the rap for it, but not immediately.

Then the lights went out.

This part of the building had no windows. It was pitch-black. Diamond reached out to steady himself. He didn't want to blunder into those columns of bricks and lose his balance. His first thought was that the lights had been routinely switched off now that the place was officially closed.

His second thought was more alarming, prompted by a sound somewhere ahead like the scuffing of a shoe on limestone grit. Of course it might simply have been a fragment of stone dislodged by some natural means. He doubted that. Suppose Coventry had returned and spotted him at the hiding place. Suppose he had deliberately cut the lights.

It wasn't wise to remain where he was.

There was no question of finding a way through the hypocaust. He would have to edge along the back wall like a spider trapped in a sink. Tentatively he slid his hand along the surface, put out a foot and shifted his weight sideways. He paused, listened, heard nothing, and repeated the move, this time finding one of the columns in his way. Still with his palms flat to the wall, he edged around the obstruction, intent on putting as much distance as possible between himself and the cavity where the drugs were hidden.

By this means he negotiated three more columns. He was feeling his way around a fourth when he heard a scrunch from the far side. No doubt about it: someone had climbed down from the walkway and let himself on to the gritty surface of the underfloor.

A voice, definitely Coventry's, called out, 'I know you're there, fatso.'

Diamond made no response. Remaining still and silent was the best way to limit the damage.

Coventry was on the move. The steps were quick and even. Either he was willing to risk skinning his knees on the columns of the hypocaust, or he knew the layout perfectly.

It was a test of nerve. Diamond waited, tense and poised to defend himself.

Coventry was heading for the place where the drugs were hidden. He must have moved right along one of the aisles between the columns, because he didn't falter. Only when he reached the wall did he stop.

There was a short silence. Then Coventry spoke up again. 'All right, you bastard, let's see where you are.' With that, a cigarette-lighter flamed.

He held it at arm's length and moved it in a wide arc, casting long shadows across the floor of the hypocaust. Inevitably, the flame picked out Diamond.

The triathlon was Coventry's sport, but he could certainly have made a success of all-in wrestling. He came at Diamond as if he'd just rebounded off the ropes. The lighter went out – too late to be of help to Diamond, who stepped back to avert the force of the charge, and fell. A brick column that had endured for two thousand years was flattened under his bulk. On a reflex learned in rugby scrums, he brought his knees and arms to his chest and swung his body hard to the right. He felt a searing pain in his side as he was crushed against the debris. One of his ribs had snapped. Using the leverage of his thighs, he succeeded in forcing the man aside and followed it up with a jab with the elbow that made contact with yielding flesh.

The pain in his side was severe. In a hand-to-hand fight, he wasn't going to last long. He groped in the darkness and made contact with another of the columns. Blessedly, it took the strain. He hauled himself on to his haunches. Then something hard hit his head.

Coventry must have picked up a brick and swung it wildly. The full force would have brained Peter Diamond. Instead, it scraped down the side of his skull, raking the skin just behind his right ear, and sank into the muscle tissue of his shoulder. He staggered, held on to the column, and lurched forward. His shoulder went numb.

Andy Coventry meant to kill him.

He was upright and moving between the columns with no idea which direction he was taking, except that it had to be away from his assailant. The darkness was absolute. Heightened by the deprivation, his other senses gave him a vivid animal awareness. The dank, dead smell of the stones filled his nostrils. The chill ripped through his flesh. The crunch of his steps resounded from the roof and walls. This was the blind rush of the hunted. He didn't care if he transformed the hypocaust into a heap of rubble, so long as he survived. Taking huge, audible gasps, he stumbled through the black void, hands outstretched.

And stopped.

His hands were flat against a smooth surface which had to be the plexiglass side of the walkway. Reaching up, he found it impossible to make contact with the rail, so he worked his way to the left until a stone obstruction stopped him. The wall again. Behind him, he could hear the crunch of Coventry's steps.

He reached up with his right hand to see if there was any chance of scaling the wall, and got an agonizing reminder of the injury to his rib. Using the left hand instead, he discovered a ledge about three feet above the ground. He got his knees up to the level and hauled himself higher. A second step now presented itself. Laboriously, he scrambled up, made contact with the plexiglass again and then – mercifully – the rail of the walkway. He got his legs over and felt the flat rubber surface under his feet. Now he could discern a faint gray light. Daylight. He staggered towards it, conscious that Coventry must reach the walkway at any moment.

The Great Bath was ahead. There, common sense argued, he would be safe from further attack. Coventry could hardly carry on the fight in front of his students.

Diamond assessed his injuries as he moved. The rib was the most disabling, and there was also blood trickling down his scalp from the head-wound. He could feel its warmth on the side of his neck. The blood was conspicuous. When he reached the Great Bath, he didn't want the students crowding around him asking questions. Somehow he must hold himself together and convince anyone who was watching that he was walking normally. That the blood, if they noticed it, was some sort of blemish, a strawberry mark on the skin. Then he needed only to get to one of the doors leading to an exit.

He would have to leave Matthew to find his own way out. Thank God the boy was familiar with the place. He was smart enough to escape.

But Diamond was not. Within a few yards of the entrance to the Great Bath, he was surprised by a sudden movement to his right. He turned. Enough daylight had penetrated the place to show him Andy Coventry coming at him with a spade, a heavy-duty, long-handled spade of the sort used by builders. There was no escape this time. Wielded like a sledgehammer, it was about to cleave Peter Diamond's skull.