Upon a Dark Night (17 page)

‘And I’m not scheduled to be here, sir. I’m scheduled to be in my office having a nice cup of coffee and a chocolate biscuit. The best laid plans—’

‘You obviously know as little about filming as you do about
The Pickwick Papers
.’

‘Right, sir,’ said Diamond. ‘I’m wery much afeard you’re right.’ He lifted the barrier tape for Julie and they went inside.

At Diamond’s request, the uniformed sergeant at the door gave them a rundown of the use of the building. A couple called Allardyce had the top floor and the attic. The first and ground floors were tenanted by Guy Treadwell, ARIBA, Chartered Architect, and Emma Treadwell, FRICS, Chartered Surveyor (the card above their doorbell stated). The basement flat was vacant. The Allardyces and the Treadwells were on good terms, the sergeant said, and were at this minute together in the upper apartment.

Diamond took his time in the entrance hall, taking stock of the artwork displayed on the walls, a set of gilt-framed engravings of local buildings and a number of eighteenth-century county maps. Predictable for people in architecture, he reflected. You wouldn’t expect them to decorate their hall with Michael Jackson posters. Entrance halls were all about making the right impression. He nodded to Julie and moved on.

Litter from the party lay all over the staircase. After picking their way up two flights through beer-cans and cigarette-ends, they were admitted by Guy Treadwell. In case the card downstairs was not enough to establish his credentials, Treadwell wore a bow-tie, a black corduroy suit, half-glasses on a retaining-cord and a goatee beard - bizarre on a man not much over twenty-five.

‘The state of the whole house is disgusting, we know,’ this fashion plate said, ‘but your people gave us strict instructions to leave everything exactly as it is.’

‘Just the ticket,’ said Diamond with a glance around the Allardyces’ living-room. Just about every surface was crowded with mugs, glasses, cans, empty cigarette packs, half-eaten pizzas and soiled tissues. The pink carpet looked like the floor of an exhibition stand at the end of a busy Saturday. His eyes travelled upwards. ‘I like your ceiling.’

‘We’re not really in a mood for humour, officer,’ said Treadwell in a condescending tone meant to establish the pecking order.

When it came to pecking, Diamond had seen off better men than Guy Treadwell. ‘Who said anything about humour? That’s handsome plasterwork. What sort of leaves are they around the centre bit?’

‘In the first place it isn’t my ceiling, and in the second I’ve no idea.’

‘Let’s hear from someone who has, then. Your ceiling, is it?’ said Diamond, switching to the other young man in the room.

‘We’re the tenants, yes,’ came the answer, ‘but eighteenth-century plasterwork isn’t our thing.’

‘You don’t recognise the leaves either? I’m sure the ladies do.’

‘Acanthus, I believe,’ Julie Hargreaves unexpectedly said.

Surprised and impressed, Diamond held out his hands as if to gather the approval of the others. ‘If you want to know about your antique ceilings, ask a policewoman.’

Treadwell tried a second time to bring him to heel by pointing out that they were not introduced yet.

‘Detective Inspector Julie Hargreaves,’ said Diamond, ‘my ceiling consultant.’

Stiffly, Treadwell introduced his wife Emma and his neighbours the Allardyces. They had the jaded look of people badly missing their Sunday morning lie-in. Sally Allardyce, a tall, willowy black woman with glossy hair drawn back into a red velvet scrunch, offered coffee.

Diamond thanked her and said they’d had some.

Her husband William apologised because there was no sherry left in the house. It was a poor show considering he was employed in public relations, he said with a tired smile, but everything in bottles had gone. William Allardyce was white, about as white as a man can look whose heart is still pumping. He had a white T-shirt as well, with some lettering across the chest that was difficult to read. He was wearing an old-fashioned grey tracksuit, baggy at the waist and ankles, and the top was only partially unzipped. The letters IGHT were all that could be seen.

Guy Turnbull added, ‘They even drank our bloody cider-vinegar.’

‘It was a nightmare,’ said Emma Treadwell, large-eyed, pale and anxious. She must have showered recently, because she was still in a white bath-robe and flip-flops and her head was draped in a towel. ‘Three-quarters of the people were strangers to us.’

‘Including the woman who fell off the roof?’ asked Diamond.

‘Guy says we didn’t know her. I didn’t go out to look. I couldn’t bear to.’

‘Total stranger to me,’ said her husband.

‘And you, sir?’ Diamond asked William Allardyce. ‘You went to look at the body as well, I gather. Had you ever seen her before?’

‘Only briefly.’

‘So you remember seeing her at the party?’ Julie asked.

Allardyce nodded. ‘We discussed that just before you came in. I’m the only one who remembers her. She was sitting on the stairs with a fellow in a leather jacket. Large, dark hair, drinking lager.’

‘Our lager,’ stressed his wife.

‘You mean the
fellow
was large, with dark hair?’ asked Diamond.

Allardyce took this as humour and smiled. ‘The man, yes.’

‘How large?’

‘They were seated, of course, but anyone could see from the width of his shoulders and the size of his hands that he was bigger, say, than any of us.’

‘Drinking lager, you say. Lager from a can?’

Treadwell said in his withering voice, ‘It wasn’t the kind of party where glasses were handed out. The blighters helped themselves.’

Allardyce was more forgiving. ‘Let’s face it, Guy. Most of those people were under the impression that we’d won a fortune and opened our house to them.’

‘Was the woman drinking, too?’ Diamond asked.

Allardyce answered, ‘I believe she had a can in her hand.’

‘And how was she dressed?’

‘A pink top and dark jeans. She had short brown hair. Large brown eyes. Full lips. One of those faces you had to notice.’

‘You did, obviously,’ said his wife with a sharp glance.

‘I’m trying to be helpful, Sally.’

‘Good-looking, you mean?’ said Diamond.

‘Attractive, certainly.’

‘Jewellery?’

‘Can’t remember any.’

‘Let’s come to the crunch,’ said Diamond insensitively, considering the nature of the incident. ‘When did you learn that someone was on the roof?’

Emma Treadwell spoke up. ‘Getting on for midnight. Eleven-thirty, at least. Someone who was leaving told me they’d looked up and seen a woman up there, sitting on the stonework, dangling her legs.’

‘They came back especially to tell you?’

‘Well, wouldn’t you? It was bloody dangerous,’ said Guy Treadwell.

Allardyce said, ‘Most of the people there were decent folk. If you saw someone taking a stupid risk, you’d want to do something about it.’

‘Who was it who told you?’ Diamond asked Emma.

‘A stranger. A man in his thirties, with a woman about the same age. He must have known I lived here because I was trying to protect my things, asking people to use the ashtrays I’d put out.’

‘He found you especially?’

‘Yes. I told Guy…’

Treadwell nodded. ‘And I spoke to William.’ He looked over his half-glasses at Allardyce.

Diamond said, ‘And you investigated and found nobody?’

The PR man blushed. ‘I went straight upstairs to check. The window was open—’

‘This is the attic window?’

‘Yes. But nobody was out there. I was too late. At the time, I had no idea, of course. I thought she must have come to her senses and gone downstairs. It didn’t enter my mind that she’d jumped.’

‘Did you step outside, onto the roof?’

‘I leaned out.’

‘But you didn’t step right out?’

‘No.’

‘Could you see enough from there?’

‘It was a dark night. A new moon, I think. But the street-lamp helps. I could see nobody was out there.’

Diamond thought about challenging this assumption and then decided there was more of value to be learned by moving on. ‘You viewed the body this morning?’ he asked Allardyce.

‘This morning, yes. What happened was that the paperboy found her first. He knocked on Guy’s door—’

‘Repeatedly, about seven-fifteen, when I was feeling like death myself,’ Treadwell pitched in, unwilling to have his part in these events reported second-hand. ‘When I got up to look and saw her lying there, it was obvious that she was past help. I called the police and then went up to tell William.’

‘I came down and we were together when your patrol car arrived,’ Allardyce completed it.

‘So you both saw the body?’

Treadwell answered for them, ‘We were asked by your people to go down the basement stairs and look. Not a pleasant duty when you’re totally unused to the sight of blood. We confirmed that we don’t know who the poor woman is.’

‘Other than my seeing her on the stairs with her friend the evening before,’ Allardyce added. ‘But as to her identity, we can’t help.’

Diamond nodded to register that he’d digested all of that. ‘We’d like to see how she got onto the roof. I expect our people have already been up there?’

‘I think half the police force have been up there,’ Allardyce said. ‘The access is from the attic room, which is above the room we sleep in. I’ll show you. You’ll have to excuse the chaos. We haven’t even had time to make our bed.’

‘There were people in here while the party was on?’ Diamond asked in the bedroom, a vast high-ceilinged room with pale blue drapes on the wall above a kingsize bed.

‘They were everywhere. You can’t imagine how crowded it was. When we finally came to bed, there were beer-cans scattered about the room. We pushed them to the edges, as you see. I don’t like to contemplate what else we’ll find when we begin to clear up properly.’

‘But you won’t do that until I give the word,’ said Diamond.

‘Save your breath. We’ve had our instructions.’ Allardyce escorted them across the room to the door leading to the attic. He offered to show them up.

Diamond said there was no need. He and Julie went up the stairs to what must once have been a servant’s room. Now it was a junk room largely taken up with packing-cases and luggage. The window was open and it took no great effort for Diamond to shift his bulk across the sill and stand outside.

‘Fabulous view,’ said Julie as she joined him.

‘That isn’t why we’re here.’

‘But it is terrific, you must admit.’

He gave a nod without actually facing the view. ‘Where did you learn about eighteenth-century plasterwork?’

‘I didn’t. We’ve got an acanthus in our garden.’ She leaned over the balustrade. Quite far over. ‘It is a fair drop.’

‘I wouldn’t do that, Julie.’

She drew herself back and gave a faint smile with a suggestion of mockery. ‘Do you have a fear of heights, Mr Diamond?’

‘No, no. Not at all.’

‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘I said I’m all right. I only spoke because …’

‘Yes?’

‘Your skirt’s undone.’

‘Oh, hell.’ Blushing deeply she felt for the zip and pulled the tab over a small white V of exposed underwear.

Diamond was tempted to make some remark about the view, but for once he behaved impeccably. ‘The woman was seen sitting here on the ledge, apparently. It doesn’t suggest she was forced over.’

‘She could have been pushed.’

‘True. But she’d got herself into a dangerous position. The odds are that she meant to jump.’

‘Or fly.’

He let that sink in. ‘You’re thinking drugs?’

‘It was a party.’

‘We’ll see what the blood shows.’

‘The other possibility is that she fell by mistake,’ said Julie. ‘She could have been sitting here to show off, made braver by a few drinks, and then lost her balance. Easy to do.’

They returned to the living-room where the shocked tenants sat in silence.

‘How much did you win?’ Diamond asked no one in particular.

‘Win?’ said Sally Allardyce.

‘The lottery.’

‘We don’t know yet,’ said Treadwell. ‘It won’t be much. The mob who descended on us seemed to think we’d won the jackpot.’

‘Four numbers should get you something over fifty pounds,’ said Diamond. ‘Maybe as much as a hundred. Enough to get your carpets cleaned.’

‘Not enough to pay for the food and drink we were robbed of last night. Where did we go wrong?’

Treadwell’s wife reminded him, ‘Our problems are nothing beside the tragedy of the young woman’s death.’

Treadwell grasped how insensitive his remark had been. ‘What a fatal chain of circumstances. If we hadn’t shouted about our winnings in a public bar, she’d still be alive.’

‘We were all looking out for the numbers on the TV,’ said Sally. ‘We couldn’t have kept quiet, Guy.’

‘Who picked the numbers?’ Diamond asked.

‘Guy,’ said Sally. ‘We all have faith in Guy. He’s one of those amazing people who win things all the time.’

‘That’s an exaggeration,’ Treadwell pointed out.

‘Have you won the lottery before, then?’

‘It was our first time as a syndicate.’

‘First time winners. You should do it again.’

‘No way,’ said Emma.

Diamond adopted a sagelike expression and commented, ‘“He who can predict winning numbers has no need to let off crackers.”’

‘What are you on about?’ said Treadwell.

‘I was quoting from Kai Lung.’

The relevance of the saying - if relevant it was - escaped them all.

‘So how does this lucky streak manifest itself, Mr Treadwell?’

There was a huff of impatience from the lucky man.

Sally said, ‘Own up, Guy. There was that inheritance that came out of the blue. Five grand from a cousin in the Channel Islands you hadn’t even met. And that Sunday paper that featured you as the architect of the nineties. A big spread in the colour supplement.’

‘That wasn’t luck,’ said Treadwell.

Emma chimed in, ‘The lucky bit was that you went to the same Cambridge college as the editor.’

He snapped back, ‘So are you inferring it wasn’t in the paper on merit?’

‘Of course not. We’re saying you’re a winner, and you are. You go on your digs and you’re the only one who finds anything all weekend.’