The Secret Hangman

14

O ver the next week he plunged himself into his work. He and Halliwell tried to put together enough evidence to show beyond doubt that Danny Geaves had murdered Delia and then hanged himself. The one indisputable fact — that both the principals in the case were dead — made it an unappealing exercise, but it had to be gone through. The forensic reports had come in, and added little to what was already known. Nothing so helpful as a DNA sample had been found to link Geaves to the crime scene in the park.

‘If we knew where he spent the last week of his life we might find something,’ Diamond said.

‘A suicide note that tells all?’ Halliwell said. ‘You’re an optimist, guv.’

‘I was thinking of some trace of Delia. She was away from home on the Tuesday night and found dead on Thursday. If we could show she spent those two nights with Geaves, we’d be home and dry.’

‘Are you thinking they got together? Deep down, guv, I believe you’re a romantic.’

His thoughts strayed back to the secret garden. ‘Some chance.’

‘I thought they’d parted for good.’

‘People change. She wasn’t getting much attention from Ashley Corcoran. Maybe she heard from Danny and decided to see if there was still a spark in their relationship.’ He sketched the scenario. ‘She agrees to meet Danny thinking it might work out, but the magic isn’t there. On their second evening together she tells him she isn’t going back with him. He loses it and strangles her.’

‘I can believe that.’

‘Then there’s the unromantic theory,’ Diamond said. ‘He was planning to kill her from the start. Old wounds. He’d never forgiven her for leaving him the first time.’

‘What — and he has sex with her before he strangles her? That’s sick.’

‘He was sick. He was suicidal.’

‘Sometimes,’ Halliwell said from the depth of his experience, ‘it’s no bad thing to admit you’re not one hundred per cent sure.’

Diamond wasn’t having such defeatist talk. ‘Sometimes you have to make more of an effort. There’s going to be an inquest and the coroner will expect more than guesswork. We need to find Danny’s bolt hole. We appealed for help in tracking Delia’s movements. What have we done about Danny? Asked around in Freshford. That’s not enough. What if he was seen in Trowbridge, or Westbury, or Bath, even?’

‘Are you thinking of going on TV again?’

He shook his head. ‘We wouldn’t get air-time. Everyone else thinks the case is done and dusted.’

‘Especially the boss.’

‘Especially her, yes. You and I are supposed to paper over the cracks and tiptoe away.’

Halliwell gave him a speculative look. ‘And we’re not happy with that… are we?’

‘You know me, Keith. I have to find out what really happened, even if it turns out exactly as Georgina thinks.’

‘So what’s the next step?’

‘We make an appeal in the local papers: did anyone see Danny Geaves in the week leading up to his death?’

‘Smart move. Have we got a picture? I mean of when he was alive?’

‘I was given one by Amanda. We issue a press release saying we’re keen to trace his movements in the week before his death.’

‘I’ll see to it.’

‘No. We have a tame journalist in our ranks.’

‘Ingeborg?’

‘She knows how to make the front page.’

‘I wouldn’t mind seeing her on page three,’ Halliwell said.

‘I’d keep that to myself if I were you.’

The Bath Chronicle ran the piece next day on an inside page. The Danny Geaves story couldn’t compete with a sighting of Jane Austen’s ghost promenading along the Gravel Walk. But there was still a result. Two Chronicle readers called the police, positive they had spotted Danny in the village of Bathford in the days before his death.

The first was a woman who had seen a man of Danny’s description loitering, as she put it, near the school. She’d taken note of him because she was a parent and felt it was up to parents to be vigilant. The man hadn’t approached any children or she would have reported him, but he looked in need of a shave (a sure sign of decadence in Bathford), and was ‘unkempt’, apparently unlike any of the parents meeting their children. Her description of the man’s clothes matched those found on the body at the viaduct.

The second sighting was more promising still. Two days running a postman had noticed someone looking like Danny walking along Farleigh Rise, the road to Monkton Farleigh. Postmen are usually reliable witnesses. They know the locals. Anyone else stands out. This postman described the man as looking ‘up to no good’. When the post van stopped across the road the stranger had gone behind some bushes as if trying to avoid being spoken to. There was nothing there except scrub and trees, the postman said. It looked suspicious, but people sometimes go behind bushes for calls of nature, so he hadn’t followed. He’d decided simply to take note. When he’d seen the picture in the Chronicle he’d recognised the man for certain.

Armed with a stack of copies of the picture of Danny Geaves, Diamond drove out with Halliwell and a minibus loaded with uniformed officers. Bathford is built on a rise bounded by the confluence of Box Brook and the Avon to the north and Bathford Hill to the south. They parked above the village at the top end of Farleigh Rise and began a search on both sides for evidence of someone living rough. Flattened vegetation and the remains of a bonfire would be a good indicator.

Inside the first half-hour one of the search party found the ashes of a bonfire close to a hut.

‘We may have got lucky,’ Diamond said.

‘I don’t think so, guv,’ Halliwell said when they reached the place. ‘The burnt area is too big. This is a forester’s fire, used to burn unwanted timber.’

‘So how long were you in the boy scouts?’

‘There’d be signs of food in the embers.’ Untroubled by the sarcasm, Halliwell spread the ashes with his foot. Then he tested the padlock on the door of the hut. ‘It hasn’t been tampered with.’ He looked through the window at the side. ‘I can see a crosscut saw.’

‘All right. You made your point.’

The searchers fanned out again and moved on. After another hour Diamond left the party and returned to the minibus. He asked the driver if the tea was brewing.

‘What tea, sir?’

‘Are you telling me you don’t carry an urn? I’ve got sixteen men and women gasping for a cuppa.’

‘It wasn’t mentioned, sir. I’m the driver, not-’

Diamond held up a menacing finger. ‘What are you about to say? You’re not the teaboy? I’m sorry, sunshine, but I just promoted you. You’d better motor back to Bath and get something organised. I wouldn’t say no to some cheese and pickle sandwiches while you’re at it.’

The searchers wouldn’t be getting their tea for a while, but they deserved a break, so he returned to them and ordered one.

Someone asked if there was a toilet in Bathford.

‘Five or six hundred at a guess,’ Diamond said, ‘but if you think I’m going to knock on someone’s door and ask if sixteen coppers can use the bathroom, you’re mistaken. What do we use?’

One of the sixteen said, ‘Our initiative, sir.’

‘I couldn’t put it better myself. Well away from the bit we’ve been searching, right?’

It was a good thing he’d ordered the tea. Morale ebbed at a worrying rate after the search resumed. Several were complaining that this could go on for days without anything turning up. Then someone stepped in a wasps’ nest and three people were stung. The first-aid kit was in the minibus somewhere on the road to Bath.

‘Try rubbing it with a dock leaf,’ Diamond said.

‘That’s for stinging nettles,’ Halliwell said.

‘You’re not much support.’

‘Where’s the bloody driver when we need him?’

The eventual return of the minibus was greeted with ironic cheers.

‘I’m worried, guv,’ Halliwell said when everyone had tea. ‘They were almost mutinous.’

‘I was thinking the same.’ He announced to them all that he was calling a halt, and got a cheer of his own. ‘It’ll be dark in another hour. We’re back tomorrow morning.’

There were groans.

‘Doing house-to-house.’

If there is one thing policemen like less than searching fields, it is knocking on doors.

DI John Leaman had been holding the CID fort while Diamond and Halliwell were out. He was well capable of directing operations. The main responsibility was to take any more calls that came in as a result of the piece in the Chronicle. The phone kept buzzing, but most calls that came through had nothing to do with Danny Geaves. Leaman started to suspect that the switchboard operator was routinely diverting every outside call to CID. In the middle of the afternoon someone with a voice that oozed elegance asked to speak to the ‘senior officer’.

‘At your service,’ Leaman said.

‘Forgive me, but are you the chief constable?’

‘Chief constable? No, sir. You’re through to CID.’

‘You don’t mind if I enquire what rank you hold?’

‘Only detective inspector, I’m afraid.’

‘Don’t apologise,’ said the caller. ‘This couldn’t be better. Detective Inspector…?’

‘Leaman.’

‘Well, inspector, this could be your lucky day. My name is Charles Fetherington-Steel and I’m publicity director for the Theatre Royal. As you probably know, next week sees the opening of our main summer production, An Inspector Calls, the J. B. Priestley play that has been revived with such spectacular success.’

‘I wouldn’t know about that.’

‘But you will shortly. That’s my job, publicity. You see, we’ve had this rather special idea of inviting a real police inspector to the press night — with a partner of his choice, of course — and getting his impressions of the play. We’ll take a couple of photos with some of the cast, and then the local paper will do a follow-up piece.’

‘Before you go any further,’ Leaman said, ‘that’s not my thing at all. You’ve been put through to the wrong person. Hold on while I get you reconnected.’

‘But you’re a real inspector and you sound ideal.’

‘You’re mistaken, sir. We don’t do PR work in CID. You want our press office by the sound of things. Hold the line, please.’ He pressed the button for the operator and said, ‘Someone’s got their switches in a twist. All the flaming outside calls are coming straight to us. Some luvvie from the Theatre Royal just got through. You’d better sort yourself out, and fast.’

The female voice that responded said, ‘I don’t think you know who you’re addressing.’

‘Tell me, then.’

‘Dallymore.’

Georgina, the ACC. Leaman held the phone away from his mouth and said, ‘Oh my sainted aunt.’ Then he spoke into it again. ‘Sorry, ma’am. Crossed line.’

‘You made that very clear,’ Georgina said. ‘I’m through to CID, aren’t I? You’re DI Leaman, are you not?’

Nailed.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘I want to speak to your superior. Put Superintendent Diamond on.’

‘Ma’am, the Theatre Royal is on an outside line.’

She said, ‘I don’t want the theatre. Where’s Diamond?’

‘He’s out, ma’am, on a job.’

‘Out where?’

‘Bathford.’

‘Does this have anything to do with a vanload of uniformed officers being driven away from here this morning?’

‘Quite possibly, ma’am.’

‘So that’s why I can’t get hold of anyone. This is too much.’

Then Leaman heard another voice. The theatre man was back on the line. ‘There you are. I seem to have been talking to myself for the past two minutes. Who is this?’

‘ACC Dallymore.’

‘How charming. Assisi as in St Francis of? Well, my dear, this could be your lucky day.’

Leaman gently replaced the receiver.