Diamond Dust (16 page)

'Did you ask him if he'd been in touch with her?' McGarvie said.

'He denies it, of course. Says the last time they spoke was two years ago when he found a photo of her parents and returned it.'

'And you think he's short of cash?'

'Either that, or he's on the run. He quit the Blyth Road flat at the end of February for a place no better than a tip.'

'The week of the murder?'

'Yes. And Westway Terrace looked a very temporary arrangement to me. He's moved on from there.'

'Where to?'

'Don't know. I haven't kept tabs.'

'We can ask the Met. Does Dixon-Bligh have form?'

'Not that I've heard of.'

'Does he strike you as capable of murder?'

He weighed the question, trying against all the odds to be impartial. 'He did the "I'm a reasonable man" bit. Said he'd put any bitterness behind him. Blamed himself and his affairs for the break-up. Called himself a selfish bastard. Said he was sorry about the way she died, but to turn up at the funeral would have been hypocrisy. I'm not the best person to ask, you understand, but listening to him, I had this feeling he was laying it on.'

Georgina said, 'He doth protest too much, methinks.'

Delving deep into the small cellar of quotes once laid down for his Eng. Lit. exam, Diamond said, 'Wasn't it the lady who protested too much?'

'Immaterial. I was making a general point.'

McGarvie, floundering, asked, 'Which lady?'

'Don't try me,' said Georgina sharply. 'Was he ever violent to her?'

'She never mentioned violence to me,' Diamond had to admit. 'She spoke very little about him.'

McGarvie, trying to recoup, thought fit to point out, 'As an ex-officer in the RAF, he'd have had weapons training.'

Georgina pulled a face. 'In the
catering
branch?'

'As part of his general training, ma'am. They all go through that. He may also have been issued with a handgun at some point in his career. A foreign posting in a war zone. Did he serve in the Gulf?'

'Couldn't tell you,' Diamond said.

'He's got to be interviewed as soon as possible,' Georgina decided. She asked McGarvie in an accusing tone, 'Why hasn't his name come up before this?'

There was some injured virtue in his answer. 'I was told he dropped out of her life a long time ago, and when he didn't attend the funeral . . .'

'It should have rung a warning bell, Curtis.'

* * *

Back in the office, still uncertain if it had been a wise move to put them onto Dixon-Bligh, Diamond listened to his voice-mail. The first voice up belonged to his old oppo, Louis Voss.

'Peter, I may have something for you. Could you call me back pronto?'

He closed the office door first. Then learned the hot news Louis had got from his computer, about a dismembered body found on the railway embankment near Woking. 'That's no big deal on its own,' Louis told him equably. 'Desperate people sometimes lie on railway tracks to kill themselves, but this doesn't sound like a suicide. This one has two bullet holes in the skull, and first indications are that it's a woman around forty.'

23

F
or once Diamond did the approved thing: phoned the CID Headquarters at Surrey and asked if he might visit the scene. Making his pitch to a cautious-sounding inspector, he explained he was 'involved' in a case of fatal shooting that might conceivably be linked to the Woking incident.

Needless to say, his own CID wouldn't have regarded this as the approved thing. For the time being he preferred not to have them involved. McGarvie would be better employed trying to trace Dixon-Bligh.

'You're quick off the mark, sir,' the cautious Surrey inspector said.

'It's the computer age, isn't it?' Diamond remarked as if he spent all his time in front of a screen.

After a pause and some murmured consultations at the end of the phone, the decision was made. 'If you think it's worth your while, come down. Bowers is our man at the scene. DCI Bobby Bowers. He and his lads will be there the rest of today and most of tomorrow as well.'

'Is he extra thorough, then?'

'It's the location.'

'By the railway?'

'Horribly overgrown and on a wicked gradient and the body's in several pieces from all I hear. Are you still up for it?'

'Of course.'

'I'll tell Bobby to expect you.'

He looked at a map of Surrey. Woking is south-west of London, a short way south of the M25 and within five miles of another motorway, the M3. Convenient both for commuting and dumping a body.

It is also a main railway station on the Portsmouth line to Waterloo.

During the drive he prepared himself mentally for his first visit to a murder scene since that February morning that remained as vivid in his memory as anything in his experience. He wasn't sure how he'd react. The sight of the corpse should not trouble him, he thought. He'd seen plenty in his time, and they were all different. This one was in pieces anyway, and while that prospect might turn many people's stomachs, he would find it more acceptable than a recognisable body. The acid test would come when he met the professionals at the scene. He wasn't sure if he was ready yet for black humour. It was going to take an effort to stay calm, let alone join in.

In an effort to loosen up he tried to recall the wording of a press release - probably apocryphal - he'd laughed at many years ago during his training. It was along the lines of: 'Portions of the victim's dismembered body were buried in seven different locations. She had not been interfered with.' This time, it didn't amuse him.

Driving at his usual sedate pace, he eventually spotted the signs for Woking and by four-fifteen was there. It looked no different from any other dormitory town as the rush hour got under way. He crawled the last stretch in the queue along the A324 with the patience of a Buddhist. What's one murdered corpse when twenty thousand of the living have to get home for a meal and
The
Bill
on television?

Surrey Police were well organised. Two caravans and several people-carriers were lined up in the street nearest to the scene. More promising than that, a mobile canteen was in place with some exhausted coppers in white overalls standing about drinking from cans. He parked as close as he could, introduced himself and accepted tea and a doughnut before moving on to a mobile caravan. He showed his ID to a uniformed sergeant and asked for DCI Bowers. The chief was down by the track.

The access was a short path through a public park where three little boys in the Manchester United strip were kicking a ball around. With just such little boys in mind, the railway embankment had been fenced off from the park, but the wire fence was rusty and holed in places. He could shake his head about young vandals, yet he remembered as a ten-year-old cutting holes in fences to trespass on his local stretch of track. The big dare was to leave pennies on the rails to see how the train wheels crushed them.

This July and August had been wetter than usual, producing a dense ground cover on the fenced-off side. The nettles and ferns were shoulder-high in places. From the top of the embankment Diamond parted some bracken and looked down on a sixty-metre stretch cordoned with crime-scene tape. Screens had been erected to shield the scene from passing trains. A team was at work stripping back the growth. Hot, backaching work. He'd done it in his time. You don't picture yourself scything a way through the jungle when you join the police. Sooner or later, it happens, and then you have to be grateful you're not excavating the council tip or up to your waist in stagnant water. That, too, can happen if you stay long enough in the lower ranks.

Someone pointed out the recommended way down to the trackside. It was a biggish detour, but the quick route would have been a steep slope straight through the search area. Surrey CID would not appreciate the big man from Bath sledging in on the seat of his pants. He did the right thing.

Which of the search party was DCI Bobby Bowers was not immediately obvious. Three young men were directing operations from a chart of the search area pinned to a trestle table, and to Diamond's eye they looked like schoolkids. He gave his name and had his hand shaken firmly. Close up, Bowers, in a black polo shirt and faded jeans, looked marginally older than the others.

'You're from . . . ?'

'Bath.' He explained - with some telescoping of the facts - that he'd learned about the body from the police computer, and it might possibly have links with an unsolved case seven months back in Bath.

'Hope you're right,' Bowers said. 'We need all the help going.'

'What have you got so far?'

'Only what the animals left us. A well-chewed torso and one leg found here.' He tapped a finger on the chart. 'Skull, with two bullet holes and exit wounds, here, farther down the slope. The other leg - or part of it - on the gravel beside the track. And miscellaneous bits scattered over a wide area. Putrefaction well set in. The lads are calling her Charlie.'

'Ah,' Diamond said without fully catching on.

'Charlie - cocaine - she gets up your nose,' Bowers filled in for him. 'The pathologist estimates six months to a year on a first look, but he'll give a better estimate when he's had the maggots analysed.'

'Definitely female?'

'Unless it's a bloke in tights and a C-cup.'

'Age?'

'Too soon to make an estimate.'

'I was told she was about forty.'

'That's our impression from the clothes.'

'Any possessions? Handbag?'

'Not yet. We're still picking up bits.'

'Rings?'

Bowers shook his head.

'How about the bullets?'

'You're joking, I hope.'

'I suppose she was shot somewhere else and brought here.'

Bowers sniffed and looked away, 'Yeah, we worked that out'

'Why wasn't the body noticed before today, with trains going by all day?'

'You didn't see the place before we started to clear it. You could hide the Red Army here and no one would know.'

'At this time of year, yes. What about six months ago?'

'The scrub would still have been dense enough to hide a stiff, no problem. There's years of growth. A railway embankment is a clever place to dispose of anything, when you think about it. Nobody much comes down here apart from railway workers.'

'So who discovered it?'

Bobby Bowers rolled his eyes. 'A prize nutter. All the trains are held up for some reason, stacked up waiting for a signal, so chummy decides to get out and board the one in front, the fast one he missed back at Guildford. He hasn't gone more than a few yards when he sees this half-chewed leg beside the track. Gets the screaming abdabs and climbs back on the train. But - mark this -he doesn't call nine-nine-nine till he gets to work. It's a crowded commuter train. You know what they're like these days with bloody mobiles going off every couple of minutes. Our wiseguy insists that the rest of the good citizens on the train told him not to call the fuzz right away because it was sure to mean another delay. That's your great British public. We finally got the shout at ten-twenty.'

'You've made some inroads, then.' Encouragement is always appreciated and Bobby Bowers sounded as if he needed some.

And sometimes it has to be underlined. 'It's no picnic,' Bowers said. 'My lads have a job to keep their footing. The pathologist said he wanted danger money.'

'What did he say about the dismembering?'

'That's down to the foxes. They're rampant around here. There's no sign she was hacked about by the killer.' He glanced along the embankment. 'Ay-up - somebody's found another bit.'

Conversation was suspended while they stepped along the side of the track to where one of the search party was waving. 'What have you got for me, Marty?'

'Two fingers, sir.'

'I know how you feel, but what have you got for me?'

Marty gave a tired grin. They clambered up the incline to examine his find: the brown bones of the fingers with enough skin still attached to link them at the base. They were well camouflaged against the dark soil. The searchers had to be eagle-eyed.

'You were asking about rings,' Bowers said. 'This will be the little finger and the ring finger of the left hand. We already found the right.'

'No joy, then.'

'None for us, anyway. The killer may have removed it, of course.'

'Or she may not have had a ring.'

Some sinewy material remained attached to the bones, and there were traces of varnish at the base of a fingernail, but there was no chance of finding the impression of a wedding ring.

Bowers thanked his man and had the find marked and called for a photographer.

Diamond asked about the skull. Was it still where they had found it?

'No, the doc decided to lift it. It's in one of our boxes waiting to be moved to the forensic lab. You can see it if you want.'

They trudged back to the centre of operations. He had the box opened and the skull grinned at him, or that was the effect. The bared teeth and the curve of the jawbone, picked clean by the joint efforts of foxes, magpies and larvae, seemed to pass on the message 'Don't count on me to give you any help'.

Trying to ignore that, he looked at the circular bullet holes on the right side, just above the ear cavity. No exact match with the pattern of Steph's shooting, but the firing of two shots at such close range did suggest a professional killing.

'Lift it out if you want,' Bowers offered. 'You might like to look at the hair. Some is still attached at the back.'

'No need,' Diamond told him. 'I don't know what I'm looking for. Dark, is it?'

'Tinted brown.'

He switched his interest to the teeth. 'One or two fillings, anyway. If you can find her dental records, you might get a name.'

'A handbag would be quicker,' Bowers said. 'Did you find one with yours?'

'Mine?'

'Your stiff.'

A pause.

Diamond made a huge effort to sound untroubled. 'Er - it was hidden, but yes.'

'So you knew pretty soon who she was?'

'Right.' He put the lid on the smiling skull before it

unsettled him more. 'What about those clothes you mentioned?'

'We found a few. Want to see?' Bowers turned to a stack of cardboard storage boxes. 'These would tell you she's over thirty even if the bones hadn't. More Country Casuals than Top Shop.' He opened a box and took out two transparent zip-bags, each containing a shoe that didn't look the latest in snazzy dressing, even to Diamond's untutored eye. 'Size seven, squat, narrow heel. No bimbo wears things like this.'

Bowers opened another box and lifted out the tattered remains of a green padded coat in some man-made fabric. 'Ripped to shreds by the foxes. The fact that she was wearing a thing like this means she was probably shot last winter, or the spring.'

'It also makes it likely the shooting happened outdoors,' Diamond said more for his own benefit than anyone else's.

'Agreed.'

'What was she wearing underneath?'

'Woollen stuff for warmth, a thick pink jumper, though not much has survived. Black woollen skirt. Very little left of it. Imitation leather belt. Black tights. And Marks and Spencer underwear, same as yours and mine, I dare say'

'Speak for yourself.'

There was a break in the dialogue while Bowers marked his chart with the latest find. The police work all seemed highly efficient except that each time a train went past one of the screens blew down and several of the search party had to shore it up again.

'What do you think?' Bowers asked, when the chart was updated. 'Any chance of a link between your stiff and mine?'

The force of that word struck home harder this time and it took some strength of will to let it pass. Bowers had no idea how close he was to being smeared all over his precious chart. 'It's a long way from Bath, of course,' Diamond succeeded in saying after a pause. 'The two shots to the head are the common factor, plus the sex and approximate age of the victims. Middle-aged women aren't killed this way. Mind, there are some differences in the m.o. Yours was hidden from view, mine left on the ground in a public park. She was found very soon after the shots were fired.'

'Who was she?'

'My wife, actually.'

Bobby Bowers gave a nod, then in a double take, a wide-eyed stare. 'Did you say . . . ?'

Diamond answered with formal precision, as if giving evidence, 'Her name was Stephanie. She went to the park to meet someone known as "T", according to her diary. She was gunned down in broad daylight'

'Christ, I read about this.' Bowers raked a hand distractedly through his hair. 'Bloody hell. Didn't connect you.'

'Well, you wouldn't. You'd expect someone else to be on the case, and he is.'

This drew a frown from the young DCI. There is only so much you can take in at a time, even when you're a fast-track superintendent in a polo shirt and jeans.

With a candour that actually surprised himself, Diamond explained, 'I'm here unofficially, acting on my own. Way out of line, I know, but I mean to find out why my wife was murdered, and who did it'

There was a forced interruption as a train went by.

Then, from Bowers: 'Have you found out anything of use?'

'Here? Not yet.'