Born in a Burial Gown (22 page)

‘Mathew.’

Fluke looked up from his notes, surprised. He honestly hadn’t expected Diamond to answer that. He decided to push it a bit further.

‘And who’s Mathew, Nathaniel?’

‘He’s my boyfriend.’ There was no trace of shame in his voice or any trace of defiance. He’d simply stated it as the truth.

‘How long have you been together?’

‘Look, Inspector. I really don’t see what my client’s personal life has to do with this,’ Diamond’s solicitor said.

Fluke didn’t answer him. He noted that Diamond was looking at him carefully.

‘Eight years.’

The solicitor put his hand on Diamond’s arm to stop him adding anything. He leant in to whisper something but before he could, Diamond spoke. ‘Get your hands off me.’

He delivered it quietly and without turning his head. The solicitor snatched his hand back as if he’d been burnt. He reddened but said nothing. He heard Towler snort. Fluke’s peripheral vision caught the solicitor’s florid face turn redder; embarrassed that he was being spoken to like that but too scared to protest. Fluke almost felt sorry for him. Almost. He chose to represent the family; he made a living from human misery just as surely as they did. Guilty by association. The solicitor reached into his suit and took out a silk handkerchief. He wiped the back of his neck and looked ahead, trying to avoid catching anyone’s eye.

‘What does Mathew do, Nathaniel?’ Fluke said, looking at the solicitor as he said it, as if daring him to say anything. Everyone knew who got the last lick of the lolly in that room.

‘He’s a photographer. He’s good. He did the photos in our house.’

Fluke nodded. ‘Yeah, I saw them.’

Diamond’s expressions had all been neutral but he was sure he was telling the truth. Fluke had watched his micro-expressions carefully and thought he’d recognize any changes that might indicate deception. He wanted to ask one more though. One that would ordinarily illicit an expression of anger, but if answered would be truthful.

‘Where do you buy your condoms, Nathaniel?’

The solicitor couldn’t help himself and exploded out of his chair. ‘That’s it, Inspector! This is outrageous. My client has been here two hours and so far no one has even told him—’

‘Shut the fuck up, fat man. You work for me. Speak when I tell you to speak.’ Delivered in the same flat tone. Diamond turned to face him. The solicitor sat back down and seemed to shrivel.

‘I don’t know why you called me if you’re not…’ He petered out under Diamond’s withering gaze.

‘Sorry about that, Inspector,’ Diamond said. ‘The Co-op on London Road.’

‘What’s that?’ Fluke said, nonplussed.

‘Our condoms. The ones we used last night were bought from the Co-op on London Road. We don’t always get them from there, obviously, but I assume you only want me to go back so far.’

Fluke had always felt that the real skill in interviewing was knowing when a plan wasn’t working. Diamond was far too calm, as calm as anyone Fluke had ever interviewed. His answers were all delivered as the truth, and he seemed to be hiding nothing. Fluke had been planning to ask him about drugs next, to see what he looked like when he was being deceptive but also to keep the real reason for his arrest hidden a bit longer. But he wasn’t convinced that Diamond wouldn’t see straight through that. He was getting the impression that Nathaniel Diamond was far more intelligent than anyone had realised. Fluke had been on the back foot since the interview started and that hadn’t happened for a long time.

He was still considering what to do next when Diamond took the matter into his own hands.

‘You have heterochromia, I see, Inspector.’

All doubt about Diamond’s intelligent left him instantly. Not even Leah Cooper had known the correct term for his different-coloured irises. She’d had to look it up and even then it took her three goes to pronounce to correctly. Towler called them his “fucking weird eyes” and that was about as polite as anyone got. Fluke couldn’t even spell his own condition, it was that rare.

A full minute passed before he answered. ‘Yes, I do,’ he said. He could feel Towler stirring. The big man was also getting uneasy.

Fluke didn’t know what to ask next and quickly evaluated where they were. He considered stopping the interview to regroup. By revealing his intelligence, Diamond had thrown him. It hadn’t been accidental either. He couldn’t have made it any clearer if he’d come in with an IQ certificate. Diamond was letting him know how intelligent he was for a reason, and as he’d successfully hidden it for so long, it was for something significant. There was something going on here that Fluke wasn’t yet aware of.

Fluke decided there was nothing to be gained by playing games anymore. Nathaniel Diamond may be the most intelligent criminal he’d ever sat opposite, he might even be a genius but there was one thing outside his control: micro-expressions don’t lie.

It was time to see if he was involved in Samantha’s murder.

It was time for the photo.

Fluke took it from the folder and placed it facedown on the table. He stared at Diamond. They knew what was coming. They knew the whole interview had been about this moment.

‘Have you seen this woman before, Nathaniel?’ Fluke said as he flipped over the photo. It was an 8" x 10" colour glossy of her head on the mortuary table. Diamond glanced down at it then back up at Fluke.

Fluke stared at him and saw what he’d been hoping for. Recognition.

A tiny change in his expression. It had only been there for a fraction of a second, but that was long enough for Fluke.

Diamond had seen her before.

Fluke smiled to himself. They were getting somewhere. The Diamond family were involved somehow.

‘Why would I have seen her before?’ he replied, calmly.

Even liars don’t like to lie. Before answering questions of any consequence the liar will at first try to avoid answering it at all. Replying with a question was a classic reaction.

With no warning, Towler shouted. ‘Answer the fucking question, dickhead!’ Diamond ignored him. His solicitor nearly fell off his chair. Fluke didn’t move a muscle. He’d been expecting it. He’d planned it.

‘No, I haven’t seen her before.’

There was no emotion in his answer but Diamond was no longer holding his gaze. He was looking slightly above his eye line. His micro-expressions were different. The difference between his truthful and deceptive indicators were bigger than Fluke would have expected in someone so intelligent, but as the psychologist had told him, people have very little control over them.

He was lying.

Fluke felt that it was the first time he’d actually gained anything from the interview. He was ahead and didn’t want Diamond to have an opportunity to claw back the advantage. Time to change the rules. Fluke had always believed that it was best to do what the criminal wasn’t expecting.

Fluke stood up and put everything back in his file.

‘Thank you, Mr Diamond. You’ve been very helpful.’

‘He can go?’ the solicitor asked, surprised. It was only the fourth thing he’d said.

Diamond was watching Fluke, the same small smile he’d had at the start of the interview was back. ‘Of course I can’t, you fat idiot. I’m a suspect in a murder investigation.’

‘You should listen to your client. I’m keeping hold of him for a while longer,’ Fluke said.

‘I won’t be paying for your services today, Mr Potting,’ Diamond said. ‘I don’t think you’ve been of any help. Would you agree?’

That got the solicitor’s attention. ‘My legal advice is only as good as the person listeni—’

Diamond interrupted him. ‘I asked if you agreed, fat man?’

For a moment, Fluke thought the solicitor was going to stand his ground.

But his face deflated in defeat. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said, quietly. Diamond was looking at Fluke throughout the whole interaction.

Towler and Fluke left the room.

Fluke had new things to consider. Diamond was highly intelligent. Even his solicitor was scared of him. He was used to command, that much was obvious. Serious command. When he spoke, he expected to be listened to. It had been like a game of ‘Simon Says’ with the solicitor. He also knew that Nathaniel Diamond was somehow involved with Samantha. Whether he was involved in her death was something he wasn’t ready to speculate on.

He rubbed his eyes.

He needed some rest. He needed to regroup.

***

They drove back to HQ, and Fluke slept on the couch in his office for a couple of hours. He woke, still feeling tired and with a headache. He checked his emails. There was the usual rubbish from HR, as well as some information on current live investigations: a street robbery in Ulverston, a social worker had been found with indecent images of children on his computer, and someone had been impersonating a police officer in various parts of the county. Nothing for FMIT to get involved in. He yawned and looked back at his couch.

Instead of going back to sleep, he got up and looked for Towler. He found him sleeping in a hard plastic chair in the incident room. Towler had the soldier’s knack of being able to fall asleep anywhere, and under any circumstances. The room was busy and noisy as Jo Skelton coordinated the updating of HOLMES 2 with the morning’s raids and the subsequent interviews taking place around the county. People were shouting for things: links to computer files, passwords, codes, but Towler slept through it all. Fluke envied him. He and sleep had an uneasy relationship. Towler and sleep were best friends.

Fluke shook him gently by the shoulder and he woke instantly, immediately alert. Fluke was reminded just how close Towler had become to being one of the top soldiers in the world. Fluke asked him to go and get the core team together for a quick update.

Jo Skelton, Alan Vaughn and Towler crowded round the table in Fluke’s office.

‘So, what do we know?’ he asked, starting them off.

‘Nathaniel Diamond was involved,’ Towler said.

‘Nope,’ Fluke said.

Fluke remembered once discussing with a probation officer about whether the rehabilitation of criminals was really possible. The PO had told him part of his job was equipping offenders with reasoning and consequential thinking skills. Skills most people already had. The programme facilitators would start with a scenario, before asking the group certain questions. They would then ask whether each answer was a fact, guess or opinion. Fluke had never thought about things that way before but knew several detectives who could have benefitted from separating facts from guesses.

‘We know he’s seen her before. I’m happy enough after the interview to call that a fact. That he was involved is a guess. What else do we know?’ he said.

Skelton got up and drew a table with three rows on his whiteboard. She entered what they’d discussed up to then.

‘Who raped her?’ Fluke asked. ‘Do we wait for the DNA results to come in or do we keep looking and interviewing?’

Vaughn was first to speak. ‘Most of the family are in custody. We’ve questioned and released those who aren’t blood-related and taken DNA from the rest. We’ve identified three family members we didn’t know about and there were four who weren’t in. There’s something to be said for hanging on until the results come in.’

‘There is,’ agreed Fluke. ‘But we aren’t after a rapist, we’re after a killer, so we need to keep investigating. We also have the problem of how many blood relatives there are that we don’t know about. Plus there could be any number of illegitimate children that we have no way of identifying? Theories, anyone?’

Fluke liked to hear others thinking out loud. It helped him poke holes in his own ideas. Sometimes, he’d hear things that made him revise. Sometimes he’d hear things so stupid it made him think common sense should be reclassified as a superpower.

Towler gave his version of what happened, and it was remarkably close to what Fluke was thinking.

‘I think one of the Diamonds raped the victim, boss. Used roofies, and thought he’d got clean away. Word gets out that she’s reported it. The Diamonds don’t like that and want her silenced. They don’t know if they’re being watched though, the drugs squad must be parked outside their houses every night. So they bring in outside help from Manchester or Liverpool, probably Liverpool given their links with the drugs trade. Then they sit back and work on their alibis.’

‘Anyone got anything to add to that?’ Fluke asked.

There was silence. Intelligent minds went to work on pulling the theory apart. No one could, it fit the known facts.

‘No one? Okay, let me add something then. The family is big. After that interview with Nathaniel, I think they’re bigger and better than we thought. They’re not on a par with the gangs from the north-east, Manchester or Liverpool, but they’re big for Carlisle. They’re probably the biggest crime family in Cumbria, truth be told. And I would be very surprised if young Nathaniel isn’t their number one. It’s been a long time since I interviewed someone that bright. Other than some slight surprise when I showed him the photo, he was in total control for the whole interview. His brief’s terrified of him.’

Fluke looked at them all in turn. Towler and Vaughn were looking into space, concentrating. Skelton was nodding. Psychology 101. Men nod their heads to show they agree, women nod their heads to show they’re listening. He clearly hadn’t convinced them of anything yet.

He continued. ‘Even so, hiring a professional to kill someone is a big move, and it’s not cheap. So, either the rapist is important to the family – a close relative, someone they care enough about to spend money on protecting – or, it’s about protecting someone who’s a key figure in the business. Their supplier in Liverpool protecting their investment, and sending someone up to fix their problem.’

There were nods from round the table.

‘I’m thinking it’s someone who isn’t expendable. Someone who the suppliers thought was worth protecting as well,’ Vaughn said. ‘I doubt they’d send a cleaner just because Uncle Bob’s in trouble again. Not unless Uncle Bob makes the trains run on time.’

‘There’s still Nathaniel’s dad,’ Skelton said.