The Secret Hangman

17

O rders from an assistant chief constable have to be obeyed. The incident room for the Delia Williamson murder had been stripped of computers and display boards and was restored to its former use as a briefing room. CID were back in their cramped quarters on the first floor. A new inquiry was under way into a ram raid in Combe Down in which two hundred state-ofthe-art mobile phones had been taken. Stock lists were being studied, witness statements filed. Just about everyone was involved.

Some less than others.

When Diamond walked past her desk, Ingeborg said, ‘Can you spare a minute, guv?’

‘Come into my office then.’

‘No. Could you pull up a chair?’

‘I beg your pardon.’ No one except Ingeborg had the face to speak to him like that.

‘I’d like to show you something.’

At the back of the room Keith Halliwell got a laugh by saying, ‘Know what I mean? Nudge, nudge. Say no more.’

Ignoring them, Diamond stood with arms folded looking over Ingeborg’s shoulder at the computer screen. He spurned the invitation to sit beside her.

She pressed some keys. ‘I thought I remembered something from a couple of years back, when I was stringing for the News of the World. So much has happened since then and I couldn’t pinpoint what I wanted, so I started putting words into a search engine and up came this website that collects statistics of suicides. Isn’t it fantastic?’

He gave it a glance. ‘You can get this stuff from the Stationery Office.’

‘But this has so much more. Look.’ She highlighted a section of the screen. ‘Name, age, method, location. Every case for every year this century. That’s about twenty-five thousand suicides. I don’t know who collects all this material, or why.’

‘Or if it’s accurate.’

‘Lighten up, guv. I found what I was looking for, and I’m bloody sure I wouldn’t have got it from the police computer.’

He didn’t like detective constables telling him to lighten up. ‘I haven’t got all day. What have you found?’

‘It may be just coincidence, but two years ago there was a double hanging here in Bath, wife and husband, separated by a couple of days. Their name was Twining, John and Christine Twining.’ She found the names on the screen and highlighted them.

Diamond’s annoyance evaporated at once. The flickering screen had all his attention.

Twining, Christine, 28, of Madras Villa, Hinton Charterhouse, Avon, on 26 July 2004, found hanging from a tree in Henrietta Park, Bath.

Twining, John Merson, 34, of Madras Villa, Hinton Charterhouse, Avon, on 28 July 2004, found hanging at Sham Castle, Claverton Down, Bath.

‘What do you make of it?’ Ingeborg asked.

He was making a whole new scenario out of it, yet trying to stay calm. Experience had taught him not to jump in with both feet. ‘Double suicides happen.’

‘Yes, but on our patch?’

‘Sadly, yes.’

‘Twice in two years?’

‘Our case isn’t quite the same, is it? Ours were unmarried and separated. Good spotting, even so,’ he said, letting a little of his enthusiasm show. ‘I must have read about this myself at the time. I can’t think why it slipped my mind.’

‘Two years ago your mind was on something else, guv.’

She didn’t need to say what. For at least a year after Steph’s murder he’d focused on that and nothing else: finding and charging the killer and seeing the judicial process through. ‘Like you say, could be coincidence, but the fact that they both seem to have hanged themselves within a couple of days is odd.’

‘And in the open, in public places.’

His pulse beat faster. He’d missed that. ‘Good point. Have you looked this up in the newspaper files?’

‘Not yet. I haven’t had a chance.’

‘Better do it.’

She turned and gave him the full beam of her wide blue eyes. ‘If you remember, I’m supposed to be comparing witness statements for the ram raid.’

‘Someone else can take that on. Anything you can dredge up on the Twinings. Find out who did the post-mortems and see if you can get hold of the reports. This is probably one huge red herring, but we can’t ignore it.’

He strolled back into his office, trying to look as cool as he’d sounded while his thoughts galloped ahead. What was going on here? Two double suicides in two years on his patch? A copycat effect? He couldn’t think why. The obvious assumption was that the two couples had something in common. Did they know each other? Had there been some kind of pact to take their own lives?

Impressionable people sometimes get drawn into oddball communities with a morbid sense of alienation from the world, like the Manson ‘family’ or the Jonestown community or the Waco crowd, falling under the influence of a dominant figure with a destructive urge. Things like that happened in California or Texas, places where screwy behaviour surprised no one. Was it conceivable that some cult such as this — with suicide as a laudable objective — was active in staid old Bath? He couldn’t discount it. Even Bathonians were capable of weird behaviour.

Georgina stepped into his office soon after, wanting to know what progress he’d made on the ram raid. She looked as if she already knew the answer, so he decided to surprise her.

‘Significant progress.’

He could have saved his breath.

‘Because it’s a shocking crime,’ she went on. ‘An incident like this alarms the public. Driving a vehicle into a shopfront is a violent act. Shops are vital to the local economy.’

‘I know, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I use them myself… when I get the time.’

She wasn’t listening. ‘In a way it’s an act of rape.’

He raised his eyebrows at that. What a pig-ignorant remark. If he’d come out with it she’d have jumped on him from a great height, and rightly. A ram raid was a ram raid and rape was another class of crime, more selfish, more cowardly and more despicable.

Georgina must have seen his expression because she tried to justify what she’d said. ‘In an abstract sense, I mean. A rape of property. A shopfront violated. I want these people arrested and put away for a long time, Peter. Do you have descriptions?’

‘Not when I last checked. It happened at night.’

‘Nothing on video?’

‘No cameras.’

‘Suspects?’

‘More than enough.’

His phone buzzed.

‘Pick it up,’ Georgina said. ‘It may be for me.’

The switchboard operator said, ‘Personal for you, sir.’ And before he could deflect her he was listening to Paloma.

‘Peter, I hope you don’t mind me calling you at work, but this gorgeous basket of flowers just arrived. How did you know I adore the scent of freesias? And the message. So thoughtful. You really didn’t have to do this, but it’s made my day.’

His own day was disintegrating. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I’m in a meeting.’

‘Oh, trust me to pick the wrong moment!’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’

‘Can I call back?’

‘That would be nice.’

‘This afternoon?’

‘About two would be good.’ He put down the phone. ‘Sorry about that.’

Georgina couldn’t have heard every word, but she would have a fair idea that the caller was female. She said, ‘I hope you’re giving this top priority.’

‘What?’

She emitted a rasping sigh. ‘The ram raid.’

‘They’re working on it at this minute, ma’am.’

‘You say “they” as if you’re not personally involved.’

‘It’s all part of the ongoing work of the CID. I do have other things on my plate.’

‘Like those two hangings? I thought you’d have written your report and forgotten about them by now. You’re like a dog with a bone. What were you doing taking a vanload of policemen out to Bathford?’

‘We got a result — found the cave where Danny Geaves was holed up.’

‘And how does that assist us?’

‘Well, it’s, em — ’ he was flapping around like a drowning man and they both knew it ‘- a guide to his state of mind.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Peter, we know he was suicidal.’

He dug deep for some dignity. ‘If you remember, ma’am, on the day he died you woke me at six in the morning to go and investigate. I took it to mean the matter was important.’

‘Only because we can’t have bodies hanging from bridges.’

‘I understand now. Spoiling the scenery?’

‘There’s no need for sarcasm, Peter. The Geaves case was last week. We’ve moved on. I expect you to take a personal interest in the ram-raid inquiry. Is that understood?’

Ingeborg burst in a few minutes after. The excitement was in her eyes, her stance, her voice. ‘The Twinings, guv.’

‘Twinings?’ He was bruised by Georgina’s attack. A dog with a bone. Was that how she thought of her top detective?

‘The couple who hanged themselves.’

‘I wish they had another name,’ he said. ‘Makes me think of tea.’

‘Guv, this is serious.’

‘So am I. You can tell me downstairs.’

In the canteen, Ingeborg was on hot bricks. She started on about the case while they were in line at the self-service.

He muttered, ‘Wait till we get to the table.’ The canteen ladies were his friends, but they dispensed as much gossip as food and he didn’t want it getting back to Georgina that he was checking on yet another double suicide.

‘I’ve dug out the Bath Chronicle reports and it’s the same pattern,’ Ingeborg finally managed to tell him. ‘There was no suicide note. They didn’t do it together. The woman went first, and then the man, two days later. And this is the really interesting bit. In those two days, nobody saw John Twining. He wasn’t at home or at work. He disappeared off the radar — just like Danny Geaves.’

‘Have you looked at the autopsy reports?

‘Not yet. I’ve asked for them.’

‘Who did the autopsies? Not our friend Sealy?’

‘No, it was another name.’

‘Bring them in as soon as they arrive. What else do we know about this couple? Was there anything in the papers about the people they mixed with?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I’d be interested to know what sort of life they led. Were they part of any community?’

‘Religious, do you mean?’

‘Religious, hippy, drug-dependent. Get the drift? Some fringe group, alienated from society, that might have put them up to this.’

‘Were Delia and Danny part of some cult?’

‘That’s what I’m asking,’ he said. ‘It’s got to be considered. There’s a new dimension now, Inge, and it’s darker than I thought.’

On his return to the office after lunch he found an envelope on his desk. His name was on it.

‘This is all I need,’ he said to Leaman, who happened to look in.

‘What’s up?’

‘Georgina’s writing. Could be the old heave-ho.’

He was wrong. He found two theatre tickets inside. Georgina had attached a note saying, Hope you can use these. It’s one of my choir nights, unfortunately.

A peace offering, he decided, with a whole new perspective on his boss. She’d been well out of order earlier and no doubt regretted it now.

Leaman asked, ‘Something nice after all?’

‘How did you guess? Close the door as you go out.’ A smart idea had popped into his head. He looked up Paloma’s number and called her.

She answered at once.

‘Sorry about this morning,’ he said. ‘I had the dragon sitting in my office.’

‘The lady boss? I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have called on spec like that. Just wanted to thank you for-’

‘You did,’ he said. ‘Look, I know you like the cinema, so I guess that goes for the theatre as well. I’ve been given a couple of tickets for the Theatre Royal tomorrow night and I thought we might do another restaurant afterwards. My chance to treat you for a change.’

‘I’d really enjoy that,’ she said. ‘What’s on?’

‘Can’t say I know it,’ he said, ‘but it sounds appropriate. An Inspector Calls.’