Diamond Dust (8 page)

11

'H
ow did you . . . ?'

'Your door was open.'

'Bloody liar. You put your boot against it.'

'So it was open,' Diamond said.

He didn't usually force an entry when calling on a witness, but the rules change for winos. Warburton clearly wasn't in any shape to get up and greet a visitor. He was on the floor, his back propped against a greasy leather armchair on which the lurcher was curled up asleep, oblivious of Diamond's arrival. Maybe it, too, was pie-eyed. Empty cider bottles were scattered about the floor.

'You're that copper,' Warburton said through his alcoholic haze, as if Diamond needed reminding.

There was another chair, an upright one, with a plate on it with the dried remains of a meal of baked beans. Diamond chose to remain standing. He was trying to decide if the man was capable of coherent answers.
In
vino veritas
is a maxim reliable only up to a certain intake of the vino.

'What you want?' Warburton asked.

Diamond ignored him and walked through to the second room of this foul-smelling basement.

A mattress on the floor and an ex-army greatcoat slung across it, presumably for bedding. More empty bottles.

He stooped and looked under one side of the mattress. And then the other. Nothing except some dog-eared
pages
from a girlie magazine. He brushed his clothes in case of lice.

Back in the main room, watched by the still-supine tenant, he sifted through the few possessions. From a carton containing cans of dog food, baked beans and a stale loaf, he picked out a supermarket receipt.

'What's this? Thirty-eight pounds fifty-three? You had a good splurge on the twenty-third. In the money, were you?'

'Me social, wasn't it?'

'On a Tuesday? Come off it, Jimmy. This was the day you found the woman in the park. You nicked the cash from her bag, didn't you?'

'I never.'

'So what did you do with the bag?'

No answer.

'Where is it, Jimmy? No messing. This is a murder inquiry.'

Warburton blurted out in a panicky voice, 'I never killed her. I reported it, didn't I?'

'You did the right thing, there. And I've been asking myself why you bothered, Jimmy. So public-spirited that you felt compelled to raise the alarm? I don't see it.'

‘’S a fact.'

'Now that I have this . . .' Diamond held up the till receipt '. . . I'm starting to get the picture. You're not such a hero. I was asking myself how a down-and-out like you reacts when he comes across a body in a park. Does he get to a phone immediately and report it? Does he hell. He's on the lookout for goodies. You found the handbag.'

Warburton shook his head.

'It won't do, Jimmy,' Diamond told him. 'The date matches. You raised the alarm, yes, but there can only be one reason. Someone came along when you had your thieving hands in the bag. They saw you right beside the body, maybe even thought you'd fired the shots. You were forced to play the innocent, pretend you were just about to call the police. You stuffed the handbag under your coat and hightailed it to the car park and did the decent thing because they were breathing down your neck. Am I right?'

'Has she been onto you?'

Diamond pounced. 'She? It was a woman, then? Better unload, Jimmy.'

The man looked so sick that Diamond wasn't sure what he would unload.

'Tell me about her, this woman who spotted you.'

'Nothing to tell.'

'What was she like? Where did she come from? What did she say? Come on, man. Do I have to shake it out of you?'

'Dunno,' Warburton said. 'Came from nowhere. I looked up and she was there.'

'What age?'

He shrugged. 'Thirty. Thirty-five.'

'Wearing what?'

'Tracksuit. Blue. Dark blue.'

'A jogger?'

'Yeah. Could be.'

'So what colour was her hair?'

'Christ knows. She had one of them woolly hats.'

'Wearing trainers?'

'Didn't see.'

'How tall?'

'Average.'

'Brilliant. What happened?'

Warburton dragged his hand down the length of his face, pressing the pale flesh as if to squeeze out some memory. 'Asked what I was doing and I told her I found the stiff on the ground, which was true. She said we ought to tell someone, so I got up and legged it to the car park—'

'With the handbag under your clothes?'

'Don't want to talk about that.'

'Spill it out, Sonny Jim, or I'll have you for obstructing the police as well as withholding evidence and theft. Have you done any time?'

He didn't answer.

Diamond took a step closer. No one could look more threatening. 'What happened to that handbag? Is it here?'

'Chucked it, didn't I?' Warburton said.

At least he hadn't pinned the blame on the jogger.

'Where?'

'Dunno.'

Diamond took a handhold on Warburton's T-shirt just below the throat and screwed it into a knot.

'I could have stuffed it out of sight,' Warburton piped up.

'We know that. Where? The car park?' There were big collection bins at one end, for newspapers, bottles and cans. Maybe he'd got rid of it there.

'Can't say.'

'Get up.'

'What?'

Warburton found himself hauled off the floor. 'You're going to have your memory jogged.'

The lurcher woke up and wagged its tail, uninterested that its master was being forced outside against his will. The chance of a walk was not to be missed. Except that it wasn't going to be a walk, simply because Warburton wasn't capable of staying upright that long.

In the car, the dog stood with its front paws on the back of Diamond's seat, licking him behind the ear. Warburton immediately fell asleep.

They drove up Charlotte Street and took the car park turn. Diamond stopped beside the bins. 'Recognise them?'

No answer.

He rammed an elbow into Warburton's ribs. 'Is that where you got rid of the handbag?'

'No.'

'You're certain?'

Charlotte Street Car Park is vast, the largest in Bath, with tiers of parking space separated by hedges. A hedge wasn't a bad place to get rid of an unwanted bag, but these had already been combed by McGarvie's search squad. Whilst Warburton lolled against the headrest with his eyes closed, Diamond toured the car park trying to picture the scene. He drove to one of the higher tiers nearest to the old shrubbery. Every parking slot was taken, so he just stopped between the rows, got out and dragged Warburton from the car. The dog jumped out as well.

'Now. Where exactly did you find the guy with the mobile phone?'

Warburton looked vaguely about him. He flapped a limp hand that seemed to take in the whole of the car park.

'Do you know who I'm talking about? You asked him to dial nine-nine-nine.'

'Could have been right here ... Or over there ... Or there.'

'Did you have the handbag with you?'

'What?'

'Under your coat - did you have the woman's bag under your coat?'

No response.

'Listen. I'm trying to get this straight. The jogger came along while you were beside the body going through the bag. She told you to get to a phone, and you made a show of looking for help. You came here, to the car park, and I think you had the bag with you.'

'I did - 's a fact.'

'Good. And we know you found the guy with the mobile and he got the number and you spoke to the operator and she put you through to the police and they asked for your name and told you to wait at the scene. Right?'

'Mm.'

"This was seen by the man who owned the mobile. Must have been. So I don't think you dumped the handbag here, with him watching. I think you took it back to the park.'

'Yeah.'

'So what did you do with it there?'

'Dunno.'

Diamond clenched his fist. The urge was strong. Somehow he suppressed it. Warburton was barely capable of standing upright without support. The fresh air seemed to be sobering him up a little. A poke in the guts wouldn't help. 'Okay. We're going to reconstruct the scene, do the walk, just like you did.' He opened the car and took out the pack containing the vehicle service record and documents. 'This will do for the handbag. Where did you have it? In your shirt? Under your arm?'

Warburton took the pack in his hands, eyed it in a puzzled way, and then looked to Diamond for guidance.

'We're pretending this is the handbag.'

'Ah.'

With an effort at co-operation, Warburton lifted the flap of his jacket and shoved the documents out of sight in the front of his jeans.

'Good. What next? You've called nine-nine-nine. Do you go back directly to the scene?'

'Yeah.'

'The guy with the mobile - what did he do?'

'Got in his motor and pissed off quick.'

So much for the great British public. In all probability Warburton would have quit the scene as well if he hadn't stupidly given his name to the operator.

'So you went back to wait by the body?'

'Yeah.'

'Still carrying the handbag?'

'Yeah.'

'Let's walk it through, then.'

The lurcher led the way up the path. After stumbling a little and being steadied, Warburton began to move rather better. Diamond was trying to think himself into this man's befuddled brain on the day of the shooting. There was this short period before the patrol car responded to the call. The jogger had moved on and the man with the mobile hadn't wanted to get involved. This, surely, was the opportunity to see what was in the handbag, remove any money, and then get rid of the bag before the police arrived. But where?

In the open area beside the bandstand a man was helping a child fly a kite, obviously unaware that someone had been murdered in this place. Victoria Park was back to normal. Life had moved on. Diamond had seen it happen before when murder scenes were reclaimed for everyday use, watched the families of victims unable to understand how the rest of the world could be so unfeeling.

They reached the spot where Steph had fallen. That sad bunch of flowers was still in place, yellow tulips spread wide, roses dropping their petals.

'Right. You came back here. You had a few minutes in hand. Was this when you helped yourself to the money?'

Warburton didn't answer.

'I'm giving you a chance. Tell me what you did with the bag and I may not charge you with theft.'

The last word sank in. Warburton looked about him as if coming out of a trance and then started walking to the left side of the bandstand where one of the Empress Josephine's vases stood. He reached under his shirt and tugged out the document wallet. 'Want me to chuck it in there?'

'In the vase?' The great stone amphora was large enough to take a dozen handbags. Surely the searchers had looked inside. Or was it possible they'd been so absorbed in their fingertip search of the shrubbery, lawns and car park that they'd omitted something so scream-ingly obvious?

'If you're wasting my time 'Not.'

Diamond stepped over the railing, pushed aside an overgrown rose bush and climbed on the plinth. Put an arm into the huge vase and groped around. Dead leaves, for sure. He felt for something more solid and brought out a rust-covered lager can and chucked it angrily aside. The lurcher chased it.

'There's no bag here, you berk.'

'Some bleeder took it, then.'

'Bullshit.' He climbed down, scratching his hand on the rose. 'Where is it, Warburton?'

'It was in there. I swear.'

'You don't even remember, you piss artist. Give me that.' He grabbed his car documents. 'Find your own way home. I've wasted enough time.' He turned and marched back to the car, angry and disappointed.

Driving home, he tried telling himself that it hadn't been totally fruidess. He was sure now that Warburton had taken the money. Probably the bag had been slung into the river, or a builder's skip. It might yet turn up.

The frustration was that he'd appeared to be succeeding where McGarvie had failed. The bag
could
have been lying inside that pesky vase.

He was halfway to Weston when he thought of the obvious. Talk about Warburton's bosky state: what kind of state was
he
in?

He did a fast, illegal U-turn, and drove back to the park.

The handbag was in the second vase.

12

C
urious as to what this fascinating object might be, Raffles arrived on the table with an agile leap whilst Diamond was performing a delicate operation with salad-servers and a chopstick.

'Get out of it.' He didn't want paw prints on Steph's handbag.

Raffles jumped down and went to look at the feeding dish instead.

Neither did he want more of his own fingerprints. He must have left some when he picked the bag out of the stone vase. Since then he'd been careful to handle only the strap. Forensics would bellyache about contaminated evidence. So he eased the sides open with the chopstick and started removing the contents with the salad-servers.

Plastic rain-hat.

Kleenex tissues, soggy and disintegrating. The damp had penetrated the bag.

Compact.

Oxfam ballpoint.

Lipstick (a devil to grip with the servers).

Purse, unzipped and empty except for a few small coins. But the credit cards were still in place in the side pocket. Warburton must have known no one would believe he possessed a credit card. He'd gone for the cash.

Keys.

Aspirin bottle.

Her little book of photos, of her parents, a group of her Brownies and Diamond himself, in uniform, the year they'd met. The pictures had suffered in the damp.

But where was the one thing he wanted to find?

He probed with the servers. Held the entire bag upside down on the end of the chopstick. A Malteser fell out and rolled across the floor. He watched Raffles hunt it down and flick it with a paw before discovering it was coated in chocolate. One item forensics would have to manage without.

They would get everything else. Presently he'd go into work and take quiet satisfaction in presenting McGarvie with the handbag and saying he'd found it at the scene. What was the figure they kept quoting - over a hundred officers involved in a fingertip search?

In truth, he knew how easy it was to miss something as obvious as the stone vases. Could have happened to anyone.

He poked with the chopstick at the objects on the table, trying to work out where Steph's diary was. Not in the house. She
always
had it with her. That little book was essential to the way she ran her life. Dates, times, important phone numbers and addresses. She didn't use it as some people use a diary, to write up a daily record of their lives. Recording the past was alien to her outlook. She was forward-looking. She scribbled in appointments, names, birthdays.

That diary was of no conceivable interest to anyone else.

So where was it?

He said, 'Stupid arse.'

The answer was as obvious as the stone vase in the park. In the lining inside the bag was a zip. She kept the diary in an inner pocket. Impatient now, he dropped the chopstick and used his finger and thumb to open the zip and feel inside.

Result.

The diary was dry and in near perfect condition. He turned to the date of the murder, Tuesday, February the twenty-third, and found an entry. Steph had written in her blue ballpoint:

T. 10 a.m. Viet. Pk, opp. bandstand

He frowned at the page, baffled, disbelieving, shocked. He'd been telling everyone it was most unlikely Steph had arranged to visit the park - because she hadn't said a word to him. But why hadn't she mentioned it? She was so open about her life. Always told him everything.

Didn't she?

All at once his hands shook.

He hesitated to check the rest of the diary. It would be an invasion of her privacy. Already he felt shabby for opening it. Then an inner voice told him the murder squad would pore over every page after he handed it in, and he was more entitled than they to know what was in the damned thing.

He had this gut-wrenching fear that his trust in Steph was about to unravel. Up to now he'd never had a doubt about her loyalty. Theirs had been an honest, blissful marriage. That had been one of the few certainties in his case-hardened life. Was it possible he'd been mistaken, that she had secrets she'd never discussed with him?

This looked horribly like one, this appointment in the park. Did 'T' stand for a name, someone she'd met, or - please, please - something totally different and innocent that happened in parks, like ... like what, for Christ's sake?

Tennis?

Outdoors, in February? Ridiculous.

T'ai Chi, then?

Why not? Steph was forever trying therapies, holistic this and alternative that. Didn't always speak of them, because she knew he dismissed all of it as baloney. It was not impossible she'd joined a group who exercised in the park.

Somehow, he couldn't picture it.

Briefly he was tempted to destroy the diary without looking at any more of it. If he'd been living an illusion, wasn't it preferable to hold onto precious memories, even though they might turn out to have been unfounded?

He dismissed that. The diary was pivotal evidence, whatever else was in it. The killer had to be caught, and this proved Steph had made an appointment to go to her place of execution. The chance that some casual mugger had killed her was now so unlikely that it could be discounted. She'd obviously been lured to her death. The murder squad had to be told.

So he started leafing through. It was a small diary with seven days spread over two pages, and Steph's entries were short. They took some interpreting. 'Ox' meant her stints at the Oxfam shop. They varied a bit from one week to the next, so she had to keep a record of them. She'd also scribbled in appointments with the doctor and dentist, family birthdays, dinner invitations and theatre bookings. He was looking for other things.

Disturbingly, he found them.

Monday 15 February
Ox 2-5 P out. Must call T.

With that, the T'ai Chi theory went down in flames.

Wednesday 17 February
Ox 10-1. Hair (Jan) 1.30.

Friday 19 February
P out. Call T tonight.

On the following Tuesday - Shrove Tuesday, the diary reminded him - she'd had her fatal meeting in the park with the person she called "T". These were crucial entries and he copied them into a notebook of his own.

It was deeply worrying, not to say hurtful. The first mention of 'T', on Monday the fifteenth, seemed to be linked with the note that he, 'P', was out. He remembered. It had been one of his regular, mind-numbing PCCG meetings with local residents' groups. Evidently on the Wednesday she'd had her hair done, which was usually a sure sign of some important occasion ahead. Another call to 'T' on Friday. And she'd said not a word about all this.

Hold on, he told himself, this is your wife Steph. Don't read too much into it. But the suspicion of a secret affair was planted. How could he interpret it as anything else?

For crying out hud, be realistic! Steph wasn't two-timing me.
I'd have picked up some signals. She was as loving as ever in
those last few days of her life, on our last night together. There's
another explanation. Has to be.

He went methodically through the eight weeks up to the date of her death and found no other mention of this 'T'. It was no use looking for last year's diary, because she always threw them away at the end of the year. His hands still shook as he replaced this one in its pocket of the handbag and closed the zip.

There was no sense of triumph in handing the bag to McGarvie. He simply walked into the incident room, passed it over and said where he'd found it.

'I thought those bloody great things were solid stone,' McGarvie said as if Diamond himself had conned him. 'I suppose you looked inside?'

He nodded. 'You'll find some of my prints on it. And Warburton's, no doubt. The purse is in there, minus the money. And her diary.'

'The diary.' The tired eyes widened.

'She had an appointment in the park the day she died.'

'Who with?'

'Someone she called “T”.’

McGarvie looked around the incident room. 'Did you hear that, everyone? This is the breakthrough.' He looked animated for the first time in a month. 'Any thoughts?'

Diamond shook his head. 'Like I said, she hadn't mentioned a thing.'

'Boyfriend?'

'Some boyfriend, if he put a bullet through her head.'

'Sorry. I've got to cover every angle. And you think Warburton took the cash?'

'I'm sure of it'

'And tossed the bag in the vase?'

'He told me he did. Took me to the place. There was only forty quid. If you're thinking of charging him, don't. He gave me his co-operation.'

'I'll handle this my way. I still want to speak to him. Look, I'm grateful you found this.'

'But . . .' Diamond said.

'You know what I'm going to say?'

'Save it. I'm not trying to take over. I'll keep my distance.'

'That's not good enough, Peter.'

'It's the best you'll get.'

Specially, he thought, when I'm ahead of you.

He turned right outside the police station and walked the length of Manvers Street and beyond, where it became Pierrepont Street. At the far end he turned left into North Parade Passage, and straight to Steph's hairdresser, called What a Snip.

He asked for Jan. She was with a client.

'If it's about an appointment,' the receptionist said with a dubious look at Diamond's bald patch, 'I can do it from the book.'

'You can show me the book. And you can tell Jan to break off and speak to the police.'

She went at once.

Steph's name was in the book for one-thirty on Wednesday, February the seventeenth.

'Does this tick beside her name mean she definitely came in?' he asked Jan when she appeared.

'She did. Mr Diamond, I can't tell you how shocked I was when I heard what happened,'Jan said. She was the senior stylist and manager, meaning she was all of twenty-one with the confidence of twice that, blond, elfin, with eyes that had seen everything and dealt with every kind of client. You wouldn't mess with Jan. Steph must have liked her.

'I want you to cast your mind back to that Wednesday. I'm sure she chatted as you were doing her hair.'

'A bit, yes.'

'Can you remember any of what was said?'

'That's asking. The weather, naturally. My holiday in Tenerife. The night before's television, I expect. And the kind of cut she wanted.'

'Did she say anything about the reason for the hairdo?'

'Not that I remember.'

'Try, please. She wasn't one for regular appointments, as you know. She only booked you when she had something coming up. Did she mention what it was?'

She shook her head. 'I would have remembered if she'd said anything. People often do, and I like to know about their lives. But I never ask if they don't want to say. I don't believe in being nosy.'

'Are you sure she didn't tell you something and ask you to keep it.to yourself? - because if she did, it's got to come out now. You don't have to spare my feelings, Jan. I need to find her killer before someone else is murdered.'

'And I'd tell you if there was anything to tell, but there isn't'

He believed her.

The phone was beeping and the cat mewing when he came through his front door. He ignored the phone, but Raffles got fed. Then he heated some baked beans, cut the stale end off a loaf and made toast, topped with tinned tomatoes and a fried egg that smelt fishy. Looked at the post without troubling to open anything. The solicitor, the bank, the funeral director. They could wait. In less than twenty minutes he was out again, driving to Bristol.

He called at two pubs in the old market area and asked for John Seville, an informer he'd known and used a few times. No snout is totally reliable, but Seville was better than most. The problem was that nobody had seen him since the Carpenter trial. Bernie Hescott, hunched over a Guinness in the Rummer, was definitely second best.

'Haven't clapped eyes on him in weeks. I wouldn't like to think what happened. He was too yappy for his own good, I reckon.'

'Maybe you can help.' Diamond showed the top edge of a twenty-pound note, and then let it slide back into his top pocket. 'You heard what happened to my wife?'

'It was in all the papers, wasn't it?' said Bernie, a twitchy, under-nourished ex-con in a Bristol Rovers shirt. 'Wouldn't wish that on anyone.'

'It was done by a pro.'

'You think so?'

'I was going to ask John Seville if he'd heard a whisper about a hitman.'

'Was you? Well, he's not around.'

Diamond fingered the note in his pocket. 'I could ask you, couldn't I?'

Bernie shrugged and took a sip.

'Who do the Carpenters use - their own men, or someone down from London?'

'What - for a contract?'

'Yes.'

'Job like that - I'm talking theory now - she was gunned down in broad daylight, I heard - job like that doesn't look like a local lad. There's no one I can think of in Bristol.'

Diamond took the folded banknote from his pocket and placed it on the table with his hand over it. 'I could show appreciation, Bernie, if you put out some feelers.'

'Bloody dangerous.'

'You can't help me, then?'

'It'll cost you.'

'This is personal. It's worth it' He took his hand off the banknote and revealed a crisp new fifty. He lifted it and the twenty was underneath. He returned the fifty to his pocket and slid the twenty across the table. 'I'll be in again Friday or Saturday.'

He drove up College Road to Clifton, looking for the house where Danny Carpenter lived. Back in the early nineteenth century when the city had been infested with cholera, the affluent Clifton residents instructed their servants to leave blankets and clothes halfway down the hill for the poor wretches in Bristol, and the place still has a determination not to be contaminated by the noxious life below Whiteladies Road. Danny's residence was on the Down, in one of the best positions in the city, with views along the Gorge to the Suspension Bridge. Old stone pillars at the entrance with griffins aloft gave promise of a gracious house. In fact, the original building at the end of the curved drive had been demolished at the time when architects went starry-eyed over steel and concrete. To Diamond's eye the replacement was an ugly pile of lemon-coloured, flat-roofed blocks. Even so, its location and scale represented money.