The Secret Hangman

30

‘W here are the media?’ he asked Gledhill.

‘Who do you mean — the Chronicle?’

‘Radio, TV, press. They should be here by now.’

‘That’s up to them. Press relations aren’t my concern.’

Diamond turned to his ever-reliable second-in-command. ‘Keith, this has got to have publicity. We need to know the identity of this woman as soon as possible. Make some calls.’

Gledhill stopped being indifferent. ‘Is that necessary? I don’t want television crews tramping all over the scene. They’ll find us soon enough.’

‘Did you look at the left hand?’

‘Of the deceased? Not specially.’

‘There’s the mark of a ring there.’

‘A wedding ring?’

Diamond gave him a how-would-I-know look. ‘It’s just the mark, but it’s the third finger of the left hand. The chance is high that she was married. If this follows the pattern of the other hangings, the husband is due to die next, and soon. As of now I don’t have a clue who he is.’

Gledhill leaned closer, as if he hadn’t heard right. ‘Do you think somebody is murdering couples?’

‘I’d put it more strongly. I’d use the word “executing”.’

‘But why?’

‘If I knew that, we wouldn’t be here.’

The crime scene people improvised some screening as Diamond had suggested, using plastic sheeting draped over lengths of cord.

Bertram Sealy arrived and said with a stupid grin to Diamond that they couldn’t go on meeting like this. The usual banter between pathologists and police didn’t sit well, not when Sealy was making the quips.

‘Where’s the gorgeous Ingeborg this morning?’ Sealy went on. ‘I could do with her support on the steps.’

‘Get a life, Doctor.’

Gledhill produced another paper suit and Sealy went to work without assistance, speaking into his tape-recorder.

Halliwell was through to the BBC news room in Bristol.

‘Tell them I’m briefing the press as soon as they get here and it’s a big story,’ Diamond said. ‘The same to ITN and the papers.’

He stepped outside the plastic sheeting and was pleased to find that most of the onlookers had gone. He tried picturing what had happened, the killer arriving with his victim, by car almost certainly. If the MO was the same as before, she was dead already. The object was to arrange a fake hanging. Anyone would think she died on the end of a rope. Not so. She was on show, dangling there, because this was how the killer wanted it to appear.

In the small hours of the morning this part of the city, set back from Marlborough Lane, well north of the main artery, the Upper Bristol Road, would have been quiet. The killer had thought this through. He’d backed his vehicle right up to the arch on the broad pavement without fear of being seen. Even if the occasional car passed, he wasn’t conspicuous and the tyres hadn’t left a mark on the stone surface. He’d slung the end of his plastic washing-line over the crossbeam and made it secure. Did he stand on the roof of his vehicle to do it? If that were the case, did he have a van, or a four-by-four or a saloon? A man in the business of rigging up gallows would surely have worked out the most convenient transport.

Then came the more risky part of removing the corpse from the interior and tying the cord round the neck. He’d judged how high the noose had to be. He must have. It was calculated so that the body would swing. He’d positioned her on the roof, or the boot, or the bonnet, and then driven away and left her suspended.

This all required planning. It was likely he’d done a dummy run to assess the task. But why go to all that trouble? Why take the risk of discovery? Most murderers go to great lengths to conceal their victims. They don’t seek to display them.

Pondering these questions, Diamond returned inside the enclosure. Dr Sealy had stepped down — unaided — and was ready to report the preliminary findings.

‘A woman under forty, I’d say, but not much under. Slimly built, about five six in height. No shoes, otherwise dressed casually. Manicured hands and feet. Nothing in the state of the nails to indicate a struggle. The undersides of the feet are clean, suggesting she was transported here. No obvious wounds.’

‘Did you take the temperature?’ Diamond asked.

‘Nasally, yes. And before you ask, the temperature doesn’t tell us much. There are too many variables. My first impression is that she was dead before she was brought here. I’m assuming she was brought here. If this were suicide we’d have a chair or something at the scene, something she’d stepped off. It’s true that the pillars have a base with a ledge of sorts, but too low down to have supported the feet. The noose is interesting, tight round the neck and tied with a slip knot.’

‘Which we saw up at the viaduct,’ Diamond said.

‘Yes,’ Sealy said in the surprised tone of a schoolmaster getting the right answer out of the class idiot, ‘but I’m trying to consider this incident in isolation. As I say, a slip knot, so tight that it would probably have throttled her if she had been alive. Before she was suspended, I mean. Quite what it conceals, if anything, I won’t know until after autopsy.’

‘You’ll do that today?’

‘That’s my firm intention.’

‘I’d like more photos of the face, for recognition. Can we draw the hair aside?’

‘If the man with the clipboard allows.’

Gledhill nodded, and Diamond called for the photographer.

The victim’s eyes were closed, the mouth open a little, but not sagging. There’s a question of taste about showing the faces of murder victims in the press and on television. Some picture editors are reluctant to challenge old taboos. It was essential that this woman was recognised as soon as possible. If the ligature was cropped from the picture there was nothing repulsive in her appearance.

The photographer took about twenty shots with the hair drawn back from the face. ‘Good-looking woman… considering,’ he said.

‘Is that digital?’ Diamond asked. ‘Can we go on line with it immediately?’

‘As soon as you like. Do you want some with the eyes open?’

‘No.’ He’d seen what Delia Williamson’s eyes were like after being strangled. It wouldn’t assist recognition. ‘The press will be here shortly.’

‘You can pick out the shot you want. Scan through them now.’

They were not offensive. The best were taken at an angle, eliminating the skewed effect of the head against the cord. He chose two, full-face and half-profile.

Halliwell informed him that the first reporter had arrived. ‘Are you going to link this to the other hangings, guv?’

‘That’s the plan. Do you have a problem with it?’

‘They’ll go to town on it. A serial killer at large.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’

‘I was wondering if you need to clear it with headquarters, the ACC, or someone.’

‘I’m running this inquiry, Keith. Georgina wanted it shelved.

She’s more interested in protecting shop windows.’

‘Yes, but I thought I’d mention it.’

‘And you have. Where’s the best place to meet the press? Across the road by the other arch?’

Halliwell was right. Georgina would go ballistic when she saw on television that a serial hangman was at work in Bath and she hadn’t been informed. Press relations are a minefield for the police. Elaborate procedures are laid down. Every statement is supposed to be rubber-stamped.

Diamond didn’t give a toss. Another life was at stake and there wasn’t time for consultation. He wanted headlines tonight.

Bertram Sealy approached him again. ‘So who wants a front seat at the autopsy?’