The Secret Hangman

45

O nly now would Diamond admit to himself what pressure he’d been under. The relief was like the passing of a migraine attack, the moment it was safe to draw back the curtains. Jerry was in the clear. For a time common sense had been suspended. Suspicion had seeped through Diamond’s veins, creating pain and confusion. It hadn’t counted that Jerry had proved his good intentions day after day as a hospital volunteer, that he was a committed Christian who would baulk at breaking one of God’s clearest commandments. Bringing the young man in and exposing him as a criminal had become a real prospect. Paloma would have been devastated; the fragile relationship between them shattered.

He had just found out how much he valued that relationship.

Back at Manvers Street, he sought out Keith Halliwell and told him Jerry was not involved in the ram raid and explained why. ‘A church meeting, and I defy anyone to find a more wholesome alibi than that.’

‘At one in the morning?’

‘Young people are just waking up when you and I are ready for bed.’

‘Clubbers, maybe, but this was a church meeting, you say? What time did it start?’

‘Late. They went for a fish-and-chip supper first. I’ve seen the minutes and I know when it broke up.’

‘So it was minuted?’

‘All typed up nicely, praise the Lord, as they say.’

‘Gary Jackman lied to me, then. Scumbag,’ Halliwell said, angry he’d been strung along. ‘He’s messed up big time. We’ll nail him now.’

‘Later will do,’ Diamond said. ‘He’s a minnow. Where is he now? In the cells? Let him cool his heels for a bit.’

‘Guv, this is personal.’

‘I said leave it, Keith. Get your priorities right. Find out what’s going on at the hospital. If Harry Lang is able to talk, go up there and take a statement. The clever money’s on him.’

For all his strengths, Keith Halliwell sometimes got his focus wrong. He was capable of sorting out the ram raids now he was back on track.

But the bloody ram raids were a minor issue.

Diamond went looking for Leaman and found him in the incident room chatting earnestly with Ingeborg. ‘You’re back, guv,’ Leaman said, raising his voice for her benefit. Ingeborg hadn’t seen who had come in and could have said something she regretted. It was obvious they were discussing Diamond and he had a fair idea that it was about the bullying of a witness.

‘How’s Monnington?’

‘I left him with the doctor. He seemed to be recovering.’ Leaman signalled something problematic by clearing his throat. ‘He was complaining about the treatment.’

‘Oh? What did she do to him?’

Ingeborg stifled a giggle.

‘Not the doctor’s treatment,’ Leaman said.

A halo would not have looked out of place over Diamond’s head. ‘I barely touched him. There isn’t a mark on him.’

They knew better than to challenge him.

But Leaman had his own agenda. He said as if floating a theory, ‘No disrespect, guv, but do you think it would be an idea if I took over the questioning when we go back?’

Diamond could have erupted and almost did. Instead he reined back his annoyance, realising it would have confirmed that he was out of control. ‘And what would you ask him?’

‘Where he’s got Martin Steel.’

‘He’s stonewalling. You heard me try.’

‘Yes, but he has to understand he can’t bluff his way out of this. I can get through to him. I’m sure I can.’

‘With sweet reason?’

Leaman shrugged. ‘Something of the sort.’

‘Nice cop replaces nasty one, is that it?’

Now he turned crimson. ‘Nothing so crude as that.’

‘Give it to me straight, John. How will you handle this?’

In effect, he’d already conceded Leaman would take over the questioning. Something might be gained from sitting in as the observer.

Encouraged, Leaman said, ‘We’ve got a trump card now.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Like you suggested, I went to the evidence room and collected the plastic cord used to hang Jocelyn Steel. It’s identical to the pieces you found in Monnington’s car. Same colour, same diameter.’

The nasty cop felt a flutter of excitement.

‘Did you look at the ends to see if it was cut from the same piece?’

‘You can’t tell with the naked eye. That’s a job for forensics. But I’ve measured them, and what we have are two lengths of cord, one at twenty-two feet, the other twenty-eight foot three, just about right to haul a body over a beam. The cord used on Mrs Steel was just over twenty-three.’

He rested a hand on Leaman’s shoulder. ‘OK, John. Give it your best.’

Monnington’s jaw dropped and his brown eyes opened wide when the two detectives returned to interview room one carrying evidence bags. What was he anticipating? Torture?

Leaman asked if he was feeling better. Monnington gave a shrug. Diamond checked the clock and spoke the preamble for the tape. Then nodded, and Leaman took over.

‘The reason we’re doing this is that a man’s life depends on it. No one has seen Martin Steel for three days. We think you can tell us where he is.’

The predictable shake of the head.

Leaman said in a measured voice, ‘The killing has to stop, Dalton. It’s over now. Time for you to think about your situation.’

He said, ‘I’ve thought. I want my solicitor.’

‘That can be arranged, and will. Cooperate now and we’ll all feel more agreeable.’

Silence.

‘I don’t think you appreciate how much we’ve got on you. Your laptop is being examined at this minute.’

This got the response. He sounded panicky. ‘You’d better not damage the files. I need them for business.’

‘You may not be in business much longer. We expect to find some names we recognise, like Martin and Jocelyn Steel.’

He tried to appear indifferent. ‘I don’t suppose they’re on file any more. I haven’t spoken to them for two years.’

‘But you got to know them quite well?’

‘I wouldn’t say so.’

‘Come on, Dalton, any half-decent salesman makes a relationship with his clients.’

His professional skills were in question and he was spurred into saying, ‘All I remember is that they fitted the profile of our customers. High-flyers, professional people, singles or couples, generally with no kids. They’re the ones most interested in spending money on leisure items for their homes.’

‘Did you ever come across a wealthy couple by the name of Twining, living out at Hinton Charterhouse?’

A shake of the head.

‘That’s in your area, isn’t it? We’re going back to 2004 now. It seems to me they were just the sort of people you would target.’

Monnington’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean — target?’

‘As potential customers. Like you say, well-heeled professional people living in a big house in the country.’

‘Never heard of them.’

‘They died the same way as Jocelyn Steel. And Delia Williamson and Danny Geaves. Strangled first, and then suspended as if they’d hanged themselves.’ Leaman let that sink in. He was handling this well. ‘The thing is, all these people were found in Bath. That’s one common factor. And another is this.’ He reached for the evidence bag and took out the coil of plastic cord. ‘White plastic cord used to string them up. Have a good look at it. This was used on Mrs Steel.’ He pushed it across the table. ‘For the tape, I’m now showing Mr Monnington the cord found attached to body five.’

Monnington swayed back in the chair.

‘Feel free to handle it,’ Leaman said. ‘It’s been forensically examined.’

Monnington made no move at all.

‘It’s identical to the two lengths of cord we found in your car.’

A look of panic passed across his features.

‘Same quality, colour, diameter. Even the length would be similar if we added the portion of cord we had to cut that was tight round the victim’s neck. About twenty-three feet, by my estimate. The lengths in your car’ — Leaman reached for the other evidence bags and slid them towards Monnington — ‘were twenty-two feet and twenty-eight foot three.’

The eyes still looked alarmed, but Monnington was making a huge effort to appear unaffected, deliberately ignoring the coils of plastic, fixing his gaze somewhere neutral between Leaman and Diamond.

Leaman persevered, determined to get a response. ‘It’s obvious they’re not tow-ropes. The plastic is strong enough to string up a corpse, but you couldn’t pull a car with it. It’s not long enough for a washing-line. Anyway, why would you want a washing-line in your car?’

Monnington remained silent.

Diamond stole a look at the clock. The cord was supposed to be the trump card and it was in danger of being ignored.

Leaman said, ‘If there’s an innocent explanation, you’d better tell us.’

After another uneasy pause, Monnington said, ‘Take them away from under my nose and I’ll tell you.’

The breakthrough? Diamond’s pulse beat faster.

Leaman leaned forward and scooped up the cords and bags and dropped them on the floor beside him. ‘Well?’

Monnington sniffed and said as if to a persistent child, ‘If you really want to know, I use them in my work.’

‘How?’

‘For demonstration purposes.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Leaman couldn’t have sounded more sceptical.

Monnington went on as if such details were too obvious to explain, ‘To mark out the shapes of the spa baths so that customers can visualise them. I lay them out in a circle, right? My company supplies two sizes of bath. One is seven feet in diameter, the other nine feet. If you do your maths, you’ll see that the twenty-two-foot cord is the circumference of the seven-foot bath. And the twenty-eight-foot-three cord is for the nine-foot bath. Twenty-two over seven is the approximate value of pi, the ratio between a diameter and a circumference.’

Leaman was drowning in a virtual jacuzzi.

Diamond took over. ‘Let’s get this right. You lay down the cord in the shape of a circle at the place where the bath will be installed?’

‘To show the client how much room it will take.’

‘And the cord is pre-cut to the two sizes?’

‘You could try it here, but you wouldn’t have room for a whirlpool, and why would you want one in an interview room?’

‘Take a wild guess,’ Diamond said.

Clive the computer expert was waiting when they emerged in their deflated state. Clive had better news, but it was short-lived. He’d cracked Monnington’s password and the files were accessible.

‘There’s masses of stuff about plumbing and water pressures and ceramic tiles.’

‘E-mails?’ Diamond said.

‘Not many. He’s a deleter.’

‘Is that bad?’

‘It doesn’t help you much.’

But the incident room was buzzing when he returned there with Leaman. A call had come in from Express Fit, a vehicle service centre on the Upper Bristol Road. The CAD room had received what they described as a garbled phone message about twenty minutes ago and the caller seemed to be in some distress.

‘He gave his name,’ Ingeborg said, ‘and the woman at the garage — she’s an office cleaner who picked up the phone — said it was very faint, but it sounded like Marcus Teal.’

‘Martin Steel?’

‘That’s what we’re thinking.’

‘He’s alive? What did he say?’

‘He kept repeating, “Help me.” She asked him to speak up and he couldn’t. She asked where he was and he said he didn’t know, except somewhere near Bath. She thought he said he was tied up and lying on the floor.’

‘This has got to be Steel. Has the call been traced?’

‘They’re trying. It’s not so simple.’

‘Why not? Did you tell them it’s life and death?’

‘It’s automated. Long-distance calls are logged, but local calls are not. They can’t retrieve them so easily. Something to do with the billing system. They’re doing all they can.’

‘Oh, great! Was there anything else he said? You got it all down?’

‘I spoke to the cleaner myself and went through it twice.’

‘Why would he call a garage?’

‘We’re thinking certain numbers were keyed into the phone and he managed to press the button that called Express Fit. If he’s tied up he may have touched the button with his foot.’

‘So we have a phone that is pre-set to call this garage. Could be private, or some office. We need a printout of all the Express Fit customers.’

‘I’ve asked for it. Someone is coming in specially. They’re closed, you see. He was lucky the cleaner picked up the phone.’

‘He needs more luck than that.’

He returned to his office and called Paloma on the mobile. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ll have to cancel tonight. Things are happening here.’

‘Good things?’ she said.

‘Not really. I can see myself spending the night here.’

‘Peter, that’s awful.’

‘Sorry.’

‘For you, I mean. You looked tired when I saw you. Couldn’t you call it a night and go back refreshed in the morning?’

‘No, there’s too much stuff going on.’

‘About those ram raids? It’s only property.’

‘No, the other thing.’

‘The hangings?’ She hesitated. ‘Has there been another one?’

‘Not yet, but there could be.’

‘Ghastly. What sort of monster…? Forgive me, I’m not helping. Listen, I know you’ll say it’s a silly thing to do, but before I go up to bed I’m going to leave my front-door key under the mat just in case you do sort everything out. You can let yourself in at any time.’

‘That’s not a wise thing to do.’

‘That’s the policeman talking, not the man I know.’

‘Both.’

‘It’s a deal, then. Promise?’

‘Paloma, I can’t promise anything.’

But if he needed an extra incentive to finish the job he had one now.

*

Paloma was right. He was dog tired. He wished she hadn’t said it, because he felt more woolly-minded than ever. His brain was trying to pick up on something said during the questioning of Monnington, some detail that had been passed by. The harder he tried to grasp whatever it was, the more it eluded him.

‘I want to listen to the tape of that interview,’ he said to Leaman.

‘Rubbing my nose in it, guv?’

‘Not at all.’

‘I really thought we’d got him. I couldn’t see any other explanation for those bloody lengths of plastic.’

‘Nor me.’

‘He’s right,’ Leaman said. ‘I’ve done the sums now. The two cords from his car make circles just the size he says. And the laptop hasn’t given us a single name we know. It’s a lost cause. Shouldn’t we let him go?’

‘Fetch the tape. I want to hear it.’

In the incident room a few minutes later they ran the interview. Leaman, Ingeborg and Paul Gilbert huddled with Diamond over the machine. They were alert for Monnington’s responses, but Diamond had a curious feeling it was something Leaman had said that was significant.

After a couple of minutes, he said, ‘Stop it. Now play that sentence again.’

‘That was me, not Monnington,’ Leaman said.

‘Play it.’

Leaman’s voice came over: The thing is, all these people were found in Bath. That’s one common factor.

He nodded. ‘Common factor. That’s the cue. Now go back a bit further, to where Monnington was telling us about the kinds of people he targeted as customers.’

Leaman pressed the rewind. Now it was Monnington’s voice: All I remember is that they fitted the profile of our customers. High-flyers, professional people, singles or couples, generally with no kids.

Diamond snapped his fingers. ‘Stop there.’ The adrenalin rush was starting and his brain was making connections. ‘He’s talking about the Steels, right? Equally, he could have been talking about the Twinings.’

‘Except he claims not to have heard of the Twinings,’ Leaman said.

‘That’s not the point. Forget Monnington for a moment. Think of our victims and the common factor.’

‘But they weren’t all his customers.’ Leaman’s logical mind couldn’t follow Diamond’s free association of ideas.

‘I said forget him. It’s what he said. Professional people, singles or couples, generally with no kids.’

Next Ingeborg sounded sceptical. ‘That may be true of the Steels and the Twinings, but Delia Williamson wasn’t a high-flyer. She was working as a waitress.’

‘Maybe,’ Paul Gilbert said, ‘but don’t forget she lived with that muso in a big house in Walcot.’

‘He wasn’t the one who was killed,’ Ingeborg pointed out. ‘It was Danny Geaves, her ex, and he can’t be described as a professional. What’s more, she had two kids by him, so that doesn’t fit the profile either.’

Diamond nodded. ‘Two little girls.’ But he wasn’t shaken. His thoughts were slotting into place. ‘I’m trying to remember stuff. I need to look at some witness statements. Can we get them up on the computer?’

‘No problem,’ Leaman said, ever ready to showcase his efficiency. ‘Who, in particular?’

‘Let’s start with that skiving teacher you and I met in the George.’

‘Harold Twining? He’s on file for sure. I logged everything he said.’

‘Find the bit about children — the children they didn’t have.’

Leaman used the mouse to bring up the report he’d written. ‘He mentioned it several times. Here’s what he told us, the exact words: No kids, no ties, not even a budgie to look after.’

‘I remember him saying that.’

‘Then he comments on what the coroner said. He said if they’d had children, or even a dependent relative, they might have felt their lives had more purpose. Then you asked if they wanted a child and couldn’t have one and he said — these were his actual words — Another misguided theory. She had a baby stopped a year after they married. They slipped up.’

‘Right. Christine Twining had an abortion.’ Diamond’s gaze shifted swiftly from the screen to his team. ‘And so did Jocelyn Steel. Now who told us that?’

Paul Gilbert said at once, ‘The friend, Agnes Tidmarsh. I took down the witness statement. May I?’ He brought up another document on the screen and scanned rapidly to the sentence: ‘… a couple of years before they moved down here she had a termination. She was in that high-pressure government job and it wasn’t the right time. Neither of them was ready for a family then. She kept it quiet from everyone, including her mother.’

‘That’s two couples out of three,’ Diamond said. ‘Now, am I dreaming this, or did Amanda Williamson tell us her daughter had an abortion at some stage? Bring up the file.’

Gilbert returned to the list of files. ‘Williamson, Amanda? I don’t see it here, guv.’

‘Where the hell is it, then?’

‘Is the name exactly right?’

‘Of course it is.’

‘Well, who would have typed up the statement?’ Leaman asked.

‘Don’t know,’ Diamond said, his patience snapping. ‘I can’t remember every bloody thing. Who was with me that morning in Bradford on Avon?’

Nobody spoke.

He thought hard, gave a deep sigh, and said, ‘I was alone.’ As the full catastrophe dawned on him, he said, ‘Oh, buggery.’

Furious with himself, he sank his face into his hands and muttered more obscenities.

The rest of them were silent. Nobody knew what to say.

He struggled to recall the interview, but so much had happened since. He could picture the scene, seated on the bench in Amanda Williamson’s small garden overlooking the town, but the words she’d spoken eluded him. He could visualise it all with ease: the church spire, the cars crossing the old town bridge with its quaint lock-up, the landscape stretching right across to Westbury. Then another detail came back to him: the tape-recorder on the bench between them.

He’d taped the conversation.

‘Wait.’ He got up and went to his office. The recorder was there on his desk half buried under all the other clutter. He brought the thing back in triumph and declared that he’d meant to ask one of them to transcribe the interview. In a moment they were listening to Amanda Williamson’s voice. He fast-forwarded and picked up his own voice asking, So what went wrong? Why did they split up?

Amanda answered, Who can tell what goes wrong in a relationship except the people involved? I made a point of not interfering.

He fast-forwarded a little, and she was saying, She went through a bad patch, needed lifting emotionally, and Danny didn’t see it, or was too busy to notice. He was doing all the caring for the girls.

He switched off. ‘What does that mean — “a bad patch”?’

‘Depression, obviously,’ Ingeborg said. ‘Can we hear some more? Does she say what caused it?’

‘That’s as much as I got,’ he was forced to admit.

‘It’s not what you said, guv. Amanda doesn’t mention her daughter having an abortion.’

He refused to be downed. ‘But it crossed my mind at the time. I could sense she was holding back. Do we have her phone number?’

‘It’s here on file with all the other contact numbers,’ Gilbert said. ‘Do you want me to call her?’

In a moment they were listening to the amplified voice of Amanda speaking live. ‘What is it? Do you have some news for me?’

‘I may have soon,’ Diamond said. ‘First I need your help. When we met, you spoke of your daughter going through a bad patch in her marriage. You didn’t specify what it was and I didn’t ask.’

The voice altered, becoming taut and defensive. ‘That was a private matter. If it had any bearing on what happened to her I would have told you.’

‘You’d better tell me now, ma’am. It’s crucial to the case.’

‘I don’t see how.’

‘For pity’s sake,’ he said. ‘You may think you’re protecting her reputation, but I’m trying to stop her killer from murdering someone else tonight. Why was she depressed?’

There was a silence. Then: ‘She got pregnant again, disorganised as usual, poor darling. Stopped taking the pill for some days and wondered why she was putting on weight. It was a shock when she found out. She’d had a difficult time when Sophie was born and she didn’t want to go through all that again.’

‘And Danny wanted the child?’

‘No, it wasn’t like that. He supported her. So did her GP. He arranged for her to have the abortion at the Royal United.’

‘That’s all I need to know.’ He looked round at his team.

They had found the common factor.