The Last Detective

Chapter Six

If a soap-star had tO live anywhere, it might as well be Bath, that squeaky-clean city in the south-west. Ribbons of Georgian terraced houses undulate elegantly between seven green hills, diverting the eye from anything more unsightly. Stone-cleaning is second only to tourism as a local industry; the Yellow Pages list fifty-four firms. High-pressure water-jets have transformed old blackened buildings into gleaming backdrops for television plays of the sort the British are supposed to do best. With two thousand years of history, Bath chooses to ignore all but the Roman and the Georgian periods. Some people say that it's just a theme park, that if you want to see a real city you might as well drive the thirteen miles further west to Bristol. If you tried, as Peter Diamond did most mornings, you'd suffer the curse of a real city – its traffic. With the soap-star and the stone-cleaners, he was content to make his home in Bath.

His house on Wellsway was only twenty minutes' walk from here – south of the railway. Not the smartest end of town, but the best a senior detective could afford.

He almost waltzed across the car park and up the steps of Manvers Street Police Station. Already he had brushed aside the trifling embarrassment of his remarks about the people who had phoned in to say that the dead woman was a TV star. He didn't believe in fretting over past mistakes. Infinitely more was at stake than his own self-esteem. What mattered in a major inquiry was the ability of the man in charge to seize his opportunity when it came. Diamond was sure that the moment had arrived. His luck had changed now that he had turned his back on that pesky lake.

He was met by the desk sergeant, whom he knew well.

'Is he still here?'

The sergeant nodded and made a dumb-show of pointing towards a door.

Diamond scarcely lowered his voice. 'What line is he taking?'

'He's very concerned about his wife, sir.'

'He ought to be after three weeks.'

'He's been away from home a good deal, he says. He thought she was with friends.'

'And left it until now to go looking for her? What do you make of him?'

The sergeant vibrated his lips as if the question was all too much to cope with. 'He's not my idea of a professor, sir.'

'They don't all look like Einstein. Is he telling the truth about his wife? That's what I want to know.'

'I think he must be, else why would he come in here?'

Diamond answered with a look that said he could think of a dozen reasons. 'Does he know about the body in Chew Valley Lake?'

The sergeant nodded. 'Friends told him.'

'And what's a murdered wife between friends? Has he seen the picture we distributed?'

'He hasn't mentioned it.'

'Right. Don't stand there like a Christmas tree. There's plenty to do. I propose to set up the incident room here. We were on our way to Bristol, but this has changed everything. Get it organized, will you? And I need someone to take a statement.'

With the confident air of a man about to do the thing he enjoys best, he thrust open the door of the office where the professor who had lost his wife was waiting. 'My name is Diamond,' he announced, 'Detective Superintendent Diamond.'

It was immediately clear what the sergeant had meant. The man standing beside the window had the look not of a professor, but a sportsman. He might have just showered and changed after a five-setter at Wimbledon. Some padding in the shoulders of his black linen jacket clearly contributed to the effect, but he still didn't pass muster as an academic. He could not have been much over thirty. He wasn't wearing a tie, just a sky-blue cotton shirt sufficiently open to show a double gold chain across the chest. His thick, black hair was expensively cut and he had a Mexican style of moustache. Young men were running the money markets. Had they now taken over the universities? 'Gregory Jackman,' he introduced himself in a voice that was pure Yorkshire. 'Do you have any news of my wife?'

Diamond, in his customary fashion, declined to answer. 'You're a professor, I understand. Bath University?'

Jackman gave a nod.

'What's your subject?'

'English. Look, I'm here about my wife.'

A woman PC came in with a shorthand pad.

'You don't object if she takes notes?' Diamond enquired.

'No. Why should I?'

'Have a seat, then. Just for the record, I should tell you that you don't have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but what you say may be given in evidence. Now tell me about your wife.'

Jackman said, without moving towards a chair, 'I told them at the desk half an hour ago. They took the details.'

'Bear with me, professor,' Diamond said with painstaking courtesy. 'I'm in charge and I'd rather hear it from you than read it in the occurrence book. Her name, first.'

With a resigned air, Jackman planted himself on a chair and said, 'Geraldine Jackman, known to most people as Gerry Snoo. That's her stage name. She'll be thirty-four in a week or two if… God, I find this whole thing too appalling to contemplate.'

'Would you describe her, sir?'

'Do I have to? You must have seen her on television. The Milners. Right? If not, you must have seen the lager ad with the bulldog and the girl. That was Gerry. She did a few commercials after she left the BBC.'

There was a moment's hiatus. Diamond was studying his man's expression so keenly that he had to catch what he said by mentally playing it over again. 'Oh, I don't see much television. Let's assume I've never seen her. What colour hair does she have?'

'Reddish-brown. Chestnut red, if you like.'

'You said auburn to the sergeant.'

'Auburn, then.' On a rising note that showed the strain he was under, Jackman responded, 'What are you trying to do – catch me out? I wasn't dragged in here for questioning, you know. I'm here because my wife is missing. I'm told she may be dead.'

'Who told you that?'

'Some people who know Gerry extremely well saw that picture you showed on television. They said it was exactly like her. They told me they got in touch with you.'

'Not me personally. We had a massive response to our appeal for information,' Diamond smoothly explained. 'It takes time to check. But now that you have come forward -'

'Look, I want to know, one way or the other,' Jackman cut in. Concern was etched vividly in his features, but so it would be at this stage of the game, whether he was innocent or not. 'You found a woman. Where is she now?'

'At Bristol City Mortuary. Let's not leap to conclusions. It may not be neccessary for you to go there if it turns out that your wife's appearance is unlike the woman we found.' Patiently Diamond elicited a description, feature by feature, of Mrs Jackman, and it corresponded closely with the details of the corpse. Encouragingly closely.

He went on to ask, 'When did you last see her?'

'On a Monday, three weeks ago.'

'That would have been 11 September?'

'Er, yes. I left early for London. She was still in bed. I told her when I expected to be back, and. then left to catch the 8.19 from Bath.'

'You had business in London?'

'I'm responsible for an exhibition about Jane Austen in Bath that opened that weekend. I had to see someone about a manuscript.'

Diamond had never read a book by Jane Austen. He found it difficult to identify with the detectives in TV whodunnits who quoted Shakespeare and wrote poetry in their spare time. Biography was his choice, preferably biography that included the words of the Yard in the tide.

'And this exhibition kept you away for three weeks?'

'No, no. I was back on the Wednesday.'

Diamond straightened up in the chair and shut out all thoughts of Jane Austen. 'Home again?'

'Yes.'

'Then you knew your wife was missing as early as Wednesday, 13 September?'

'Missing, no.' The professor reinforced the denial with a sideways sweep of the hand. 'She wasn't home, but that wasn't any cause for alarm. She often stays over with friends.'

'And doesn't tell you?'

'I'm not Gerry's keeper.'

The answer jarred.

'But you are her husband. Presumably you like to know where she is.'

'I don't insist upon it.' There was a period of silence before Professor Jackman thought it appropriate to explain, 'We live fairly independent lives. We are two people who need space to be ourselves. We married on that understanding. So when Gerry isn't around for a day or two I don't immediately call the police.'

'We're not talking about a day or two, sir.'

'I thought we were.'

'You've had three weeks to notify us,' Diamond pointed out. He wasn't impressed by the slick explanations. The man was clever with words, as you would expect of a professor of English, but he couldn't gloss over the fact that he was suspiciously late in reporting his wife's disappearance.

'I wasn't at home all that time.' said Jackman. 'I've been buzzing about getting things organized for the new session. London, Oxford, Reading. I'm on too many committees. I was in Paris for a couple of days. I've given most of the summer to setting up this exhibition, so I'm way behind on my work in the English Department.'

'What did you think your wife was doing meanwhile?'

'Visiting friends. She knows plenty of people in London and Bristol.'

'She doesn't work, then?'

'Resting, as they say.'

'Do they?'

'Unemployed actors.'

'Ah.' Diamond knew the expression well enough. If he had appeared vague it was the way his mind worked. He had been thinking of the words so often seen on tombstones. Only resting.

Jackman may have sensed something, because he went on to say precisely what he had meant. 'Gerry has been off the box for eighteen months. She did a couple of commercials after she left the BBC, but otherwise the television work dried up.'

'Why is that? Because everyone still thinks of her as Candice Milner?'

Jackman nodded. 'That's part of it, certainly. There's also the fact that she's untrained as an actress. She was still in school when they offered her the role.' Given the chance to take refuge in a narrative of less immediacy, he grasped it. 'The way she was discovered was every schoolgirl's dream. The director picked her out of the crowd at Wimbledon. He went to watch tennis and found himself watching Gerry instead. In appearance she was exactly the young girl character he had visualized for The Milners. Extremely beautiful. You know the corny scene in all those Hollywood musicals when the Fred Astaire character says, "Lady, I don't care who you are, I must have you for my show." It really happened to Gerry, at eighteen. They tailored the part to her personality, so she played herself and became a household name. The other side of the coin was that she found it difficult to take on any other role.'

'Did that depress her?'

'Not at first. Being in a twice-weekly soap is very demanding, you know – a treadmill of learning lines, rehearsing and recording. Plus opening church fetes on Saturdays and dodging the gossip writers. She wasn't altogether sorry when she was written out of the script.'

'And that was how long ago?'

'Getting on for two years now.'

'So how long had she been playing the part?'

'She started when she was eighteen and she must have been thirty-one when it came to an end. Poor Gerry. It came out of the blue. The first she heard of it was when they sent her a script in which the character of Candice stepped into a plane that was to crash over the Alps with no survivors. I can remember vividly how angry she was. She fought like a tigress to save her part, but ultimately the director got through to her that they couldn't any longer keep up the fiction that she was an ingenue. She turned her back on London.'

Jackman had related it with sympathy, yet there was a note of detachment in the account, as if he looked back with more regret than he presently felt. This didn't escape Peter Diamond, who had a sharp ear for evasion. The case might not be as complex as he had first supposed. He expected to crack it soon.

Rather than pussyfooting through more of the family history, Diamond took the drawing of the dead woman from his pocket, unfolded it and handed it across. This is the picture that went out on TV. What do you think?'

Jackman gave it a glance, took a deep breath as if to subdue his emotions and said, 'Looks awfully like Gerry to me.'

Within minutes they were sharing the back seat of a police car on the way to the City Mortuary.

'I ought to mention,' Diamond said, 'that the body we're going to look at has been under water for a couple of weeks. The artist's drawing was prettied up to go out on television.'

Thanks for the warning.'

'If there's some means of identifying her by a mark or a scar…'

'I don't know of any,'Jackman said quickly, then added, as if in an afterthought, 'What happens if it turns out to be someone else?'

Diamond made a good show of remaining impassive. 'Now that you've reported your wife's disappearance, it's an inquiry anyway, and we'd take it from there. Someone else would handle it.'

'It's just possible that I was mistaken.'

Diamond didn't trust himself to comment.

They arrived soon after 9 p.m. and it took some time to make the necessary arrangements. Mortuary staff had a different set of priorities from the police. At length the attendant arrived on a pushbike and unlocked the door.

Diamond didn't say a word. He was too interested in watching Jackman.

The body was brought out and the face uncovered.

'It goes without saying that I can rely on your co-operation.'

Diamond's utterance was the first he had made since leaving the mortuary. He deliberately put it as a statement rather than a question.

Professor Jackman was sitting forward in the back seat of the police car, one hand covering his eyes. Vaguely, he said,'What?'

Diamond repeated what he had said, word for word, like a schoolmaster being scrupulously fair.

Without looking up, Jackman answered, 'I'll do whatever I can to help.'

'Splendid.' Diamond waited while the car stopped at traffic lights and said nothing else until it moved off again. 'Tonight, I'll arrange for you to stay at the Beaufort, unless you prefer another hotel.'

This time the professor swung round to face him. 'A hotel isn't necessary. I don't mind going home. I'd prefer it, really I would.'

Diamond shook his head. 'Your house is off limits tonight, sir.'

'Why?'

'I want it examined first thing tomorrow – with your permission. Until then, it's sealed. I'm putting a man on guard tonight.'

'What do you mean – "examined"?'

'The forensic team. Scenes-of-crime officers. Fingerprints and all that jazz. You know?'

'Scenes-of-crime? You're not suggesting that Gerry was murdered under my own roof?'

'Professor, I'm not in the business of suggesting things,' said Diamond. 'I deal in facts. Fact number one: your wife is dead. Fact two: the last place she was seen alive was in your house. Where else am I going to start?'

After mentally wrestling with that piece of policeman's logic, Jackman said, 'I don't see what difference it makes if I spend one more night in the place considering that I've been there on and off ever since Gerry went missing.'

Diamond let it stand as a protest that didn't merit a response. Instead, he asked, 'When you came to report your wife's disappearance this evening, how did you travel?'

'I took the car.'

'So where is it now?'

'Still in the National Car Park beside the police station, I hope.'

'Have you got the keys?'

'Yes.'Jackman was frowning now.

'May I borrow them?'

'What on earth for? You're not impounding my car?'

A reassuring smile spread across Diamond's face. 'Impounding, no. It's just the boring old business of checking facts. We make a print of the tyres, that sort of thing. Then if we can find another set of tyre-prints – say in front of your house – we can eliminate your own vehicle from our inquiries.' He was pleased with that answer. It sounded eminently reasonable, and he hadn't given an inkling of his real purpose, to examine the boot of the car for traces of the corpse. When he had been handed the keys he asked casually, 'Are you planning to be at the university tomorrow?'

'If my house is being searched, I'm going to be there to see what goes on,'Jackman stated firmly.