Upon a Dark Night (23 page)

She’d finished her breakfast and was on the point of going out when he came downstairs.

The sight of him still in his dressing-gown and slippers evoked a grim memory and her face creased in concern. ‘Peter, should you be telling me something? You haven’t resigned again?’

He smiled and reached for her hand. The two-year exile from the police had been a rough passage for them both. ‘No, love.’

‘And they haven’t…?’

‘Given me the old heave-ho? No. It’s just that I don’t have to go in first thing. I’m supposed to be down at the RUH.’

‘Oh?’ White-faced, she said, ‘Another appointment?’

‘A post-mortem.’

A moment of incomprehension, then, as the light dawned, ‘Oh.’

‘You know, Steph, it never occurred to me when we bought this place that it was just up the road from the hospital. When we lived on Wellsway I could say I’d been sitting in a line of traffic for ages and be believed. That little wrinkle isn’t much use now I live in Weston and can walk down to the mortuary in five minutes. If I want a reason for not showing up on time I’ve got to think of something smarter.’

‘And have you?’

‘I’m giving it my full attention.’

‘Do you really need to be there?’

‘Need? No. But it’s expected. This one is what we term a suspicious death. The pathologist points out anything worthy of note, and discusses it with CID. I’m supposed to take an active interest, or one of us on the case is.’

‘Isn’t there someone else, then? I mean, if you’re practically allergic, as we know you are…’

‘Not this time. I had a bit of a run-in with Julie last night.’

‘Oh, Pete!’

‘Can’t really ask her a favour. No, I’ll tough it out, but I don’t have to watch the whole performance, so long as I appear at some point with a good story.’ He rolled his eyes upwards, trying to conjure something up. ‘We could have a problem with the plumbing. Water all over the floor. Or the cat had kittens.’

‘A neutered male?’

‘Surprised us all. There’s no stopping Raffles.’

‘I’d think of something better if I were you.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as your wife, finally driven berserk, clobbering you with a rolling-pin. No one would find that hard to understand.’

Eventually he drove into the RUH about the time he judged the pathologist would be peeling off his rubber gloves. He parked in a space beside one of the police photographers, who had his window down and was smoking.

‘Taken your pictures, then?’ Diamond called out to him matily and got a nod. ‘Are they going to be long in there?’

‘Twenty minutes more, I reckon,’ came the heartening answer.

He made a slow performance of unwrapping an extra-strong peppermint. He thought he might listen to the latest news on Radio Bristol before getting out of the car, just (he told himself) to see if anything new had come up. Then they played a Beatles track and he had to listen to that.

Finally he got out and ambled towards the mortuary block just as the door opened and Jim Middleton, the senior histopathologist at the RUH, came out accompanied by - of all people - John Wigfull. Well, if Wigfull had represented the CID, so be it. He was welcome to attend as many autopsies as he wished.

Middleton, a Yorkshireman, still wearing his rubber apron, greeted Diamond with a mock salute. ‘Good to see you, Superintendent. Nice timing.’

‘Family crisis that I won’t go into,’ Diamond said in a well-rehearsed phrase. ‘Why do they always blow up at the most awkward times? I dare say John can fill me in, unless there’s something unexpected I should hear about at once.’

‘Unexpected?’ Middleton shook his head. ‘The only thing you won’t have been expecting is that we switched the running order. I’ve just examined Mr Wigfull’s farmer. All done. Your young woman is next, which is why I said your timing was nice. We’re on in ten minutes or so, after I’ve had some fresh air.’

No one needed the fresh air more than Diamond. His eyes glazed over. ‘I had a message that it was to be eight-thirty.’

‘I know, and we were ready to go, but we didn’t like to start without anyone from CID. Isn’t it fortunate that Chief-Inspector Wigfull phoned in to find out what time he would be needed for the farmer? “As soon as you can get here,” I told him.’

Wigfull didn’t actually smirk. He didn’t need to.

There was no ducking it now. In a short time, Diamond stood numbly in attendance in the post-mortem room with a scenes of crime officer, two photographers and a number of medical students. First the photographs were taken as each item of Hildegarde Henkel’s clothing was removed. It was a slow process. A continuous record had to be provided.

Jim Middleton clearly regarded all this as wearisome and unconnected with his medical expertise, so he filled the gaps with conversation about the previous autopsy. ‘Poor old sod, lying dead that long. It’s a sad comment on our times that anyone can be left for up to a week and nobody knows or cares.’

He stepped forward and loosened the dead woman’s left shoe and removed it. The sock inside was as clean as the other. ‘Double bow, securely tied. Yes, he was far from fresh. An interesting suicide, though. I don’t think I’ve heard of a case where the gun is fired from under the chin. A shotgun, I mean. All the cases I’ve seen, they either put the muzzle against the forehead or in the mouth.’

‘Why is that?’ Diamond asked, happy to absent himself from what was going on under his nose.

‘Think about it. It’s bloody difficult firing a shotgun at yourself anyway. You’ve got to stretch your arm down the length of the barrel and work the trigger. I haven’t tried it and I hope I never will, but I imagine it just adds to the difficulty if you can’t see what you’re doing.’

Unnoticed by anyone else, Diamond mimed the action, jutting out his chin like Mussolini making a speech, and at the same time holding his right arm rigid in front of himself and making the trigger movement with his thumb. Middleton had made a telling point. The victim couldn’t possibly have seen his finger on the trigger without moving the muzzle into the mouth or against the front of his face. But would it really matter to someone about to kill himself? Wouldn’t he be content to grope for the trigger?

Middleton continued to find the farmer’s death more interesting than that of the woman in front of him. ‘It’s not unknown for shotgun suicides to take off their shoe and sock and press the trigger with their big toe. That didn’t happen in this case.’

The words were lost on Diamond. Mentally he was yet another remove from here, up the A46 and across the motorway at Gladstone’s farm. The scene in the cottage came back vividly. He pictured the position of the chair and the chalked outlines of the farmer’s feet. How he wished he had seen it before the body was taken away. He made a mental note to look at the photos, for he had thought of another problem with the suicide. He brooded on the matter for a long time, going over it repeatedly, pondering the way it was done. If you are about to blow your brains out, do you choose the most simple way? In that state of mind, are you capable of taking practical decisions?

Such was his concentration that he didn’t get much involved in the activity at the dissecting table.

When he emerged from the reverie, he heard Middleton saying, ‘…nothing inconsistent with a fall from a considerable height. Obviously we’ll see what Chepstow have to say about the samples, but them’s me findings for what they’re worth, ladies and gentlemen, and unless you have any questions I recommend an early lunch.’

The early lunch was part of the patter, a pay-off that the pathologist took a morbid pleasure in inflicting. Judging by the queasy looks around the table it would be a long time before his audience could face anything to eat.

Before returning to the nick, Diamond called at Avon Social Services at Lewis House in Manvers Street. Having heard about Imogen from Ada and Julie, he was intrigued to meet the lady. He knew most of the social workers. This one couldn’t have been long in the job.

She came out to reception specially and extended a slim hand with silver-painted nails. ‘Is it about poor Hilde Henkel? I heard the news from your Inspector Hargreaves.’ She seemed genuinely troubled, with worry lines extending across her pale features. ‘Why don’t you come through to my office?’

He followed her, wondering if the bouncy blonde curls and willowy figure could be in any degree responsible for Ada’s contempt.

‘Before we start,’ he said when they were seated, ‘how long have you been with Avon, Miss, em…?’

‘Starr.’ She went slightly pink. She must have taken some leg-pulling for that name in the past. ‘Just over a year actually.’

‘And before that?’

‘University. If you’re thinking I haven’t had much experience, you’re right. This is the first tragedy I’ve had among my clients.’

‘They’re all tragedies in a sense, aren’t they?’ he said. ‘I know what you mean, though. I’m not a knocker of social workers and I don’t blame you for being inexperienced. Got to start somewhere. If it’s anything like the police, you’re new so you get lumbered with some of the hardest cases.’

She said, ‘I didn’t think of Hilde as a hard case. There are others I’d have thought more at risk.’

‘You have a file on her?’

She reddened again. ‘I can’t let you see it.’

‘But she’s dead now.’

‘The notes are personal to me.’

‘I don’t mind if you consult them and give me a summary. How many times have you met her?’

She went to the filing cabinet in the corner and withdrew a tabbed file.

‘You don’t keep your case-notes on computer, then?’ he commented.

She said, ‘These are people. I think they deserve the fullest confidentiality. I don’t trust computers.’

‘Miss Starr, I totally agree.’

She asked him to call her Imogen, as everyone else did. ‘You were asking how many meetings I had with Hilde. Six altogether. Do you know the story, how she got onto our list?’

He pretended he had not, so as to hear it directly from her.

‘This depression she had,’ he said when she had finished. ‘Didn’t you think it serious?’

She said, ‘Difficult to judge. I thought it came from her situation, being homeless in a foreign country and abandoned by her husband. Once she was in Harmer House she seemed to improve in spirits.’

‘Her life looked up, her present life?’

‘Well, she went out in the day and in the evenings sometimes. Mind you, she didn’t have money to spend. Precious little, anyway.’

‘Did she mention any people she met in Bath?’

‘Not to me.’

‘She didn’t know anyone in the Royal Crescent?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘On the night of the party someone saw her sitting on the balustrade, high up on the roof, dangling her legs. It sounds as if she was having a wild time.’

She digested this. ‘It’s difficult to picture. The people I see here are in a formal situation. It’s impossible to tell what they’re like in party mood.’

‘After a few drinks or drugs?’

‘That’s speculation, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m waiting for the blood test results. You didn’t ever notice a devil-may-care side to Hilde’s character?’

‘It may have been there, but I wasn’t likely to see it.’

He’d heard nothing from Imogen that Julie hadn’t already reported, but there was another matter he’d promised to raise. ‘While I’m here, I want to ask about another young woman at Harmer House, who was also one of yours - Rose, is it, or Rosamund?’

She shifted in her chair and he noticed that her hands came together and were clasped tight. ‘Rosamund Black. She’s no longer there. She lost her memory, but her people came for her. They took her back to West London a couple of weeks ago.’

‘Have you heard from her since?’

‘No, but I wouldn’t expect to.’

‘You have an address for her, though? We’d like to get in touch with her.’

Imogen got up and returned to the filing cabinet. Presently she said, ‘It’s Twelve Turpin Street, Hounslow.’

‘And the people who came for her? Where do they live?’

‘Somewhere near, I gathered. The mother is in Twickenham.’ She gave a sigh, chiding herself as she stared at the notes. ‘I didn’t get their address. Their name is Jenkins. The stepsister is Doreen Jenkins.’

‘How exactly did this lady, Doreen Jenkins, get to know about Rose?’

She closed her eyes in an effort to remember. Something else wasn’t in the notes. ‘She heard from someone, a friend of Rose’s, that Rose had gone to Bath on a weekend hotel break. When Rose didn’t make her regular phone call, the old mother got worried, and the following weekend the stepsister and her partner came to Bath to try and get in touch with her. They saw a piece in the paper about a woman who had lost her memory and recognised the picture as Rose.’

‘And was it a happy reunion?’

‘Rose didn’t seem to know her sister, if that’s what you’re asking, but her memory still wasn’t functioning. She went with them of her own free will.’

‘You satisfied her that they were definitely her family?’

‘They satisfied her. And they satisfied me as well. They had photos with them, of Rose, alone and with the mother. There wasn’t any doubt.’

‘I’m not suggesting there is.’