The Secret Hangman

19

‘F or simplicity’s sake, if a certain person should come in,’ Diamond said, ‘we’re discussing the ram raid. Understood?’

It was Friday morning and he had called his senior detectives — Halliwell and Leaman — to his office. They knew who the ‘certain person’ was. They also knew the topic he was refusing to abandon.

‘This double hanging.’

‘The Twinings,’ Halliwell said.

‘You’ve been keeping up, then?’

‘Can’t say I know a lot.’ But his tone said plenty. It told Diamond he was piqued at being sidelined on the ram raid while Leaman seemed to be taking over as number two on the team ‘There isn’t a lot. Married couple found in Bath two years ago.

Made no big impact at the time. Ingeborg picked it up.’

‘She’s a bright kid.’

‘I know, but I don’t want to talk about Ingeborg. I want your thoughts on what appears to be going on. There’s enough in common with the deaths of Williamson and Geaves to persuade me that the incidents are related.’

‘Seems a possibility,’ Halliwell said with a shrug.

‘I’d put it stronger than that. In each case, the woman dies first, the man goes missing for a day or so and then his body is found. Each of these hangings was in the open, in a place people were sure to notice. Public parks, the railway viaduct and Sham Castle. Most people choosing to hang themselves do it at home or at work, not in a public place. No suicide notes were left. The ages of the victims were similar.’

‘And it happened on our patch,’ Leaman said.

Diamond gave him a sharp look, suspicious that he was being sarcastic. ‘I thought that was self-evident.’

‘But statistically significant,’ Leaman said. ‘If the Twinings had been found in South Shields, we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about them.’

‘True,’ he said without gratitude. ‘Let’s get to why we’re here. Do we agree that the post-mortem evidence on Delia Williamson points to murder?’

‘Are you thinking the Twining woman may have gone the same way?’ Halliwell said.

‘If she did, it’s less obvious.’ He picked up a file. ‘These are the autopsy reports on the Twinings. There’s no suggestion that Christine Twining was strangled first, no ligature mark other than the inverted ‘V’ pattern you get with a hanging.’

‘Who was the pathologist, guv?’

‘A Dr Shinwari. Anyone know him? I don’t.’

There was no response.

‘His report comes across as careful and thorough. I can’t believe he would have missed a double set of marks like those found on Delia Williamson.’

‘So we take it that Christine Twining died by hanging?’

‘That was Dr Shinwari’s conclusion.’

‘And the husband went the same way?’

‘Yes. And Dr Shinwari did both autopsies.’

Halliwell said in a mystified tone, ‘Where does this take us, guv? You’re leaving me behind.’

Diamond raised his palms, appealing for patience. He would explain if they would listen. ‘It’s easy to assume Christine Twining hanged herself. That’s what the coroner decided. But with hindsight — with the knowledge we have that Delia Williamson was murdered — we can make another hypothesis. We can ask ourselves the question you put a moment ago: was Christine Twining murdered, too?’

Now it was Leaman who was frowning. ‘The cases aren’t the same. You just said there weren’t any secondary marks.’

Diamond sighed. He was being sniped at from both sides.

‘Agreed. I’m not suggesting both women went the same way. We’ll come to that. I’m saying it’s worth investigating whether Christine’s wasn’t a voluntary hanging.’

Halliwell screwed up his face in distaste. ‘The husband strung her up? Nasty.’

It was as if Diamond himself had offended by imagining such a gruesome act. But he wasn’t going to retract. ‘We believe Danny Geaves killed Delia, so why shouldn’t John Twining have murdered Christine?’

‘There’s no evidence.’

‘Oh, come on. We’re working backwards here. I just listed all the circumstantial evidence linking the incidents.’

‘Yes, but…’ Leaman’s protest ended in a sigh. Diamond wasn’t doing enough to persuade his senior men.

‘Look at it this way. Twining did the thing as it was intended, hanged his wife and later hanged himself. Danny Geaves botched it. He planned to do the same, only Delia put up a fight. Instead of hanging her he was forced to strangle her. Then he faked the hanging.’

‘I’m not sure I follow you,’ Halliwell said. ‘You’re suggesting both women were murdered and the men committed suicide?’

‘That’s right. But John Twining was more efficient and the murder was passed off as suicide.’

‘It’s a whopping great assumption, guv. Is there anything in the autopsy report to back it up?’

‘There wouldn’t be.’

Halliwell shifted in his chair, unwilling to concede. ‘I was trained to understand murder in terms of motive, means and opportunity. What’s the motive here? You spoke to John Twining’s brother. Did he know of any problems between the couple?’

In his head Diamond played over the question and answer from that session in the George. He’d remarked that in the photo they’d seemed happy with one another. ‘I never saw a sign that they weren’t,’ was the reply.

‘Not really,’ he was forced to admit, ‘but he couldn’t understand why they were suicidal.’

‘They hadn’t separated, or anything?’

‘No. That’s a clear difference from Geaves and his partner. Delia had found a new man and it’s understandable if Danny harboured a grudge.’

‘I don’t want to be awkward,’ Halliwell said, ‘but I think you’ve got to find a motive before you cast John Twining as a wife-murderer.’

Diamond was silent, forced to recognise the truth of what Halliwell was saying. There was more work to be done.

Then Leaman said, ‘Even if your theory is right, why should Danny Geaves want to try the same thing two years later?’

‘That’s the next big question,’ Diamond said. ‘All right, fellows. You’ve given me plenty to think on.’

After they’d closed the door, he brooded on the matter. Halliwell and Leaman were good detectives and he hadn’t persuaded them. They were reluctant even to speculate.

He picked up the phone. ‘How do I get hold of a certain pathologist, Dr Manzoor Shinwari, who did the autopsies on a couple of suicides two years back?’

He was asked to wait. They would call him back.

When the call came, it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Dr Shinwari had returned to Pakistan eighteen months ago and there was no contact address.