The Secret Hangman

42

S even in the evening and Bath was empty. Only later, when the pubs spilled out and the clubbers appeared would it look like a real city. Halliwell drove his boss at speed through the streets and reached George Street before the response car they’d asked for. But the back-up wasn’t needed. Monnington was no longer there. Tosi’s had no customers when they arrived. On a table at the far end a half-finished bottle of red stood between two oval dinner plates.

The substantial owner, Giuseppe Tosi, explained in his less-than-substantial English, ‘Mr Monnington? He go. Mobile, yes, brr, brr, and he go quick. See?’ He indicated the table.

‘Which way?’ Diamond asked.

‘Scusi?’

This would have tried a patient man and Diamond wasn’t that. He stabbed his forefinger left, towards Gay Street, and held out his hands, Italian fashion.

Tosi nodded emphatically.

Diamond tried again. ‘On foot?’

‘Foot?’

Diamond lifted his leg and tapped the sole of his shoe.

Tosi took this as an Englishman’s attempt to learn Italian. ‘Si. Piede. Like football, eh?’

‘So he walked away?’ Diamond said, wiggling his fingers.

‘No, no.’ Tosi could do sign language as well. He stretched his forefinger and thumb as wide as they would go. ‘The signora, she have the tacco a spillo.’

‘You’ve lost me.’

‘Stiletto shoes, capisce? Walk? No way.’

‘Are you saying there was a lady with him?’

Tosi frowned. ‘Lady?’

In desperation Diamond remembered the waiter who spoke passable English. ‘Is Luigi here?’ Before getting a response he said to Halliwell, ‘See if the waiter’s out back.’

Luigi was brought from the kitchen and confirmed that Monnington had been in with a woman guest. The couple had left in a hurry after receiving the call on the mobile. They’d got into a taxi ten minutes ago.

‘Did you see them go?’ Diamond asked.

‘Sure.’

‘Which taxi firm?’

‘Abbey Radio.’

Halliwell called Abbey and hung on while they put out a message. The driver confirmed from his cab that he’d picked up a couple in George Street and dropped them off at a private house on Widcombe Hill.

‘What number?’

‘He didn’t get the number. They told him when they got there.’

‘Oh, great.’

‘Opposite a bus-stop about halfway up. A big house with stone griffins on the gateposts.’

‘Stone what?’

‘It’s a mythical beast.’

‘Never mind.’ They got in and drove off.

‘It’ll be easier than looking for a house number,’ Diamond said, trying to be positive, and he was right. The gate with the griffins came up on their right. Even better, a car he recognised as Monnington’s black Mondeo was on the drive.

There were lights behind the curtains of the tall Victorian villa. Halliwell radioed their position and said they were going in. The back-up team was being informed, they were told.

A delay in answering made the two policemen uneasy. Then the door was opened by a dark-haired woman in a low-cut black dress with spaghetti straps.

Diamond held up his ID and asked to see Dalton Monnington.

She looked apprehensive, but invited them in.

In the large, luxurious living room, Monnington, shoeless and in shirtsleeves, with tie loosened, was lounging on a sofa watching a DVD of some Johnny Depp film. He reached for the remote and touched the mute button.

‘Kill it,’ Diamond said. ‘I want your total concentration.’

Monnington switched off and then made his protest. ‘You’re hounding me. It’s a bloody imposition.’

‘We questioned you once in your own home. That’s no imposition,’ Diamond said.

‘This is someone else’s home.’

‘And you disappeared to it double-quick when I called you at the restaurant. We could have spoken there.’

‘I’m entitled to a private life.’

‘Or two, or three?’ Diamond said.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Car keys, please.’

‘What?’

‘We need to search your car.’

‘Again? What is it with you? You’ve been over my car. There’s nothing in there but brochures.’ He sighed and put his hand in his pocket.

Diamond passed the keys to Halliwell and indicated with a tilt of the head that the search had high priority.

‘And get your shoes on,’ he told Monnington. ‘We’re taking you in for questioning.’

Monnington’s woman friend watched in mute amazement as her date was escorted to the police car that had just arrived on her drive. Diamond remained with her, leaving the two uniformed officers to take the suspect in. There was a job to do, and it required the lady’s cooperation. She was Charlotte Brown, she said nervously when asked, known to everyone as Lottie. She’d met Dalton Monnington only last month when he’d asked to sit at her table at a busy time in the Retro Cafe in York Street. They’d clicked at once. This was their second evening together — or should have been.

‘I hardly know him at all,’ she said, and then realised how this could be taken and added, ‘It’s not what it sounds like. I don’t sit in cafes looking for men.’

‘You can relax, Lottie,’ Diamond said. ‘He’s the suspect, not you. We don’t know for sure, but between you and me, you may have had a lucky escape. Where was he staying?’

She reddened. ‘Isn’t that obvious?’

Halliwell returned from outside, eyes gleaming. ‘You’d better come and look at this, guv.’

‘Hang on a bit. When did he arrive?’ Diamond asked Lottie Brown. ‘Today?’

‘This afternoon, about four thirty. He called me this morning and said he was visiting Bath and I offered to, em, put him up.’ She was a serial blusher.

‘So did he have an overnight bag?’

More embarrassment. ‘It’s upstairs.’

‘Mind if I look?’

‘I suppose.’

Halliwell was practically jumping up and down in his eagerness to tell Diamond what he’d found. On the way upstairs he said in a low tone, ‘I think we’ve nailed him.’

Monnington’s leather holdall was on a chair in Lottie Brown’s bedroom. Inside Diamond found a laptop among the clothes. He handed it to Halliwell. ‘I want our whizz-kid Clive to look at this.’

Lottie was getting uneasy. ‘Don’t you need a search warrant, or something?’

‘No, my dear. It’s your house and you invited us in. You’re not going to make our job more difficult, are you? Is that the door to the en-suite?’ He opened it and looked in. ‘He’s made use of it already, I see.’ A battery-powered razor was on the shelf over the hand basin. ‘Unless this is yours?’

‘No, that’s Dalton’s.’

‘And the washbag?’ He passed it to Halliwell.

‘That’s his, too. I don’t think you should help yourself to his things.’

‘He won’t need them here tonight. Let’s go downstairs again.’

In the living room, he asked if anything about Monnington had struck her as strange.

She was still unwilling to concede much. ‘I suppose I was surprised when we had to leave the restaurant in such a hurry.’

‘Did he say why?’

‘It was something to do with the phone call. Someone was being a nuisance, he said, and we’d better not stay.’

‘That was me,’ Diamond said. ‘The ultimate pain in the butt. Before he got the call was he acting normally?’

‘I thought so. He was being nice.’ Her look suggested that present company could take lessons from Monnington.

‘Did he talk about himself at all? His work?’

‘He told me all about that the first time. He’s a sales rep and he comes through Bath every month. What do they call those things? Jacuzzis. He said he could get me one at a knockdown price if I wanted, but he wasn’t pushing or anything.’

‘To sum up, then, there was nothing to cause you any concern in what he was saying?’

She shook her head. ‘What’s he supposed to have done?’

Out on the drive, Halliwell opened the boot of the Mondeo with the air of a conjurer producing the rabbit. ‘How about that?’

Diamond was prepared for something special, but nothing so special as this. His heart thumped against his ribcage.

‘The same, isn’t it?’ Halliwell asked.

After a long hesitation he found words. ‘Looks like it to me.’

‘What do you reckon? Twenty-five feet?’

‘Thirty, more like.’

‘Enough, anyway.’

They were looking at two lengths of white plastic cord, loosely coiled. The last time they’d seen anything like that, it was tight round Jocelyn Steel’s neck and she was hanging from it.