The Summons (15 page)

Chapter Thirteen

He kept Julie in suspense all the way back to Manvers Street. She was ninety-nine percent sure he wasn’t serious about transforming her into a crusty, but that one percent was amusing to work on. She might pass muster wearing a dread-lock wig, he suggested, and if the CID’s wardrobe didn’t run to combat trousers she could get away with black leggings with plenty of holes. He was sure that the RSPCA could supply her with a vicious-looking pooch; she definitely needed a dog. He strolled on stolidly, embroidering the tease all the way. But behind the poker face his mood was improving and it wasn’t that beer in the Roman Bar that had made the difference.

Julie wasn’t spared until they reached the nick. They were crossing the reception hall when Diamond spotted something behind the protective glass at the public enquiry point.

“I don’t believe this.” But he still marched over for a closer inspection.

Another of the woolen bees was positioned just behind the glass, goggling at him with its ridiculous eyes.

He rapped on the glass until the constable on duty came over.

“Who left this here?”

“What’s that, Mr. Diamond?”

“This bee.”

“That’s a bumblebee, sir.”

“I don’t care what it is. Who is responsible for it?”

The constable frowned.

Diamond had turned flamingo pink. “Whose idea of a joke is it? That’s all I’m asking.”

“It’s no joke, sir.”

“You’re telling me, laddie. When I find the perpetrator he won’t be laughing.”

There was a pause before the constable summoned the confidence to say, “Didn’t you get a bee of your own, Mr. Diamond?”

This polite enquiry went unanswered.

“Everyone should have got one this morning. It’s Operation Bumblebee.”

Diamond’s eyes resembled two dashes in a line of Morse code. Behind him, Julie Hargreaves lowered her face and squeezed her arms across her stomach in a desperate attempt to remain serious.

“You can have this bumblebee if you like, sir,” the hapless duty constable added to his list of offenses. “We’ve got a box of them back here. The poster comes with it.”

Something had to be done, and fast.

Without trusting herself to speak, Julie touched Diamond on the arm and drew his attention to a large poster that dominated the cluster of notices to his right. There was a cartoon figure of a bee in a police helmet and boots. The wording ran: SUPER BEE SAYS TO BEAT THE BURGLAR WE NEED YOUR HELP. BUZZ THE BEELINE FREE ON 0800 555 111.

He studied it in silence.

Eventually Julie managed to get out the words, “Public relations.”

The constable said, “If you don’t mind me saying so,
it
isn’t just PR, ma’am. Since we started Bumblebee last year, the break-ins have dropped dramatically. There are five men in the team, working with Sergeant Wood, the Bumblebee officer.”

“The what?” said Diamond.

“Every report of a break-in is fed through a central hive— that’s the computer, of course. Go upstairs and you can hear it humming.”

“God help us!” murmured Diamond.

“And then the villains
get
stung. Would you like a bee, Mr. Diamond?”

Diamond shook his head and allowed Julie to lead him away.

“Four years is a heck of a time,” Marcus Martin declared in the polished accent of a fee-paying school.

And a heck of a lot of women, thought Diamond. They had found Britt Strand’s last boyfriend in the paddocks behind his Elizabethan manor house, undoubtedly one of the few brick mansions in the whole county, its triple-gabled facade glowing bright orange in the afternoon sun and blood-red where the shadow of an oak fell across the wall. Marcus Martin was with a young woman who was mounted on a black mare, in a schooling ring surfaced with wood chippings and laid out with practice jumps. Immaculately kitted as the equestrienne was, in black velvet hunting cap, black coat, white stock and antelope-colored jodhpurs, she hadn’t succeeded in moving the horse and didn’t seem to be trying, thus giving the impression that the riding lesson wasn’t her main reason for being there. The way Martin helped her dismount with both hands around her thigh reinforced this impression. He unfastened the tack for her and sent her toward the stables with a push on her rump. She didn’t object.

“But you remember me, I expect?” said Diamond.

“Too well, my friend, too well.”

He introduced Julie, who was awarded the doubtful compliment of a lingering head-to-toe inspection.

Martin said with his eyes still on her, “It’s hard to credit.”

“What is?” Diamond asked.

“Inspector
Hargreaves.”

“It wouldn’t be if you were evading arrest,” said Diamond in a tribute that almost made up for the teasing earlier. “No doubt you’ve heard that Mountjoy is on the run from Albany?”

Martin hadn’t heard and he couldn’t see how it affected him.

“It doesn’t,” said Diamond. “It affects me, though. I’m the fall guy who may have to speak to him. He claims he’s innocent, of course.”

“What does the wretched man want—a retrial?”

“He wouldn’t get that.”

Martin fed the mare a couple of sugar lumps and waved to a stable lad to take her back to her stall. Then he suggested they go inside the house, where they would be warmer.

“I’m trying to refresh my memory of the case,” Diamond told him as if the facts had all deserted him. For once he was being as amiable as the television detective Columbo, whose style of questioning he aspired to, but only rarely approached. “You’re the obvious man to ask about Britt.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Martin. “Our relationship was short and to the point. Weeks, rather than months.”

“You don’t mind talking about it?”

“Not in the least. But I don’t see what bearing it has.”

In the house, before a flickering log fire in a recessed stone fireplace almost as large as the office Diamond and Julie shared at the nick, Marcus Martin expanded on this. “I respected Britt. She was a class act. Extremely pretty and considerably brighter than I am. She was a damned fine horsewoman, too.” There was genuine admiration in his tone. “She rode regularly. They take their riding seriously in Sweden. Anyway, Britt was keen to do some jumping and someone at the stables offered to bring her out here. I have a show-jumping layout— not the one you saw, but a full course—the best for miles around. Perhaps you noticed it when you drove in. That’s how we met. After she had exercised my best stallion, and cooled off with a Perrier—she was TT, you know—she said she’d like to ring for a taxi. She didn’t possess a car. Naturally I offered to drive her home, and I did.” He paused and gave Julie a wink. “The next morning.”

“This was when—in September?”

“Around then. Maybe August. As I said, it was ages ago. The whole thing didn’t last more than three wild and steamy weeks. It was over at least a week before she was killed.”

“You told me at the time that you drifted apart,” recalled Diamond. “It’s hard to reconcile that with three wild and steamy weeks.”

“Did I? Then I suppose it was true. Yes, I’d been through my repertoire, so to speak. I wouldn’t say we were getting bored with each other by Week Three, but we only had one thing in common.”

“You mean the riding?”

He grinned. “She was about to start college, and I had a weekend trip to Belgium as reserve to the British show-jumping team and we didn’t fix another date. Simple as that. There was no argument, thank God, or I might have felt guilty later. After I got back from Brussels I started up with someone else.”

“The young lady who supplied your alibi.”

“Yes, indeed. She died, you know. Meningitis.”

“Your girlfriends don’t have much luck. You met this one at a party, if I remember, and went home with her.”

“To Walcot Street, yes. A frightful slum, but I scarcely had a chance to notice. She practically dragged me to her lair and ravished me. Repeatedly.”

Diamond took a sip of the sherry the young man had provided. He suspected that the sexual bragging was targeted at Julie. He didn’t remember it being so explicit four years ago. All this passion was something of a mystery to Diamond considering that Marcus Martin was a short, unprepossessing man with carroty hair trained in wisps across his balding scalp, but he’d never understood how the female libido worked. Maybe the riding had something to do with it. Or the big house in the country.

“Can we go back to Britt Strand? The affair was conducted here for the most part, was it?”

“Entirely. Her place was very unsuitable. The people downstairs—I’ve forgotten their name—”

“Billington.”

“Right. They wouldn’t have approved. Very straight-laced. Chapel, I believe. The old lady watched from downstairs like a Paris concierge.”

“You met them, then?”

“Several times. I used to call for Britt and drive her back in my Land Rover.”

“But you didn’t, em . . . ?”

“Not there. It was far more relaxed here at the manor.”

“The Billingtons went away for three weeks to Tenerife. Didn’t you visit there when the house was empty?”

He frowned, and tapped the arm of the chair thoughtfully with one finger. “Now that you mention it, there were a couple of occasions when I wasn’t given the beady eye from downstairs. I just assumed they were out for a short time. Britt didn’t mention their holiday. Presumably she preferred to come here.”

“Did she talk to you about the Billingtons at all?”

“Not much. She didn’t like them particularly, but the place was convenient. She was quite sure that they let themselves into her flat when she went out sometimes. Just to nose around. That isn’t unusual in lodgings, I understand. She also told me that the man fancied her a bit. She laughed it off. Most men fancied her a bit, if you ask me.”

Julie said, “How did he show it?”

“Gave her little presents when his wife was occupied elsewhere, on the phone, or in the bath. Chocolates, flowers from the garden, things women appreciate. Britt said he always made an excuse, said he didn’t care for chocolates, or he was trimming back the roses, or something.”

Diamond’s attention snapped into sharper focus. “Roses?”

“Or daffodils or sweet peas. I don’t know.”

“But you said roses.”

“It was the first flower that came to mind.”

“You know why I’m interested?”

“Of course I do, and that’s probably what made me mention roses. I wouldn’t attach any importance to it.”

“Can’t you remember what she told you?”

“After all this time? No.”

Diamond knew from experience the frustration of dealing with people whose memories were imprecise. At this distance in time the chance of learning anything new was depressingly slight. “Did you ever actually speak to Mr. Billington?”

“Only to pass the time of day.”

“Did Britt tell you anything else about him?”

“She reckoned he was glad to get out of the house. He was a sales rep, you know, greeting cards, rather vulgar, I believe, and I think he enjoyed a good laugh with some of the shop ladies he visited. Why are you so interested in old Billington?”

Diamond ignored that. “How do you know about the cards?”

“I saw him once doing his stuff in Frome. One of those newsagents in the pedestrian bit. The woman was practically wetting herself giggling at the cards he was trying to persuade her to take.”

“Let’s get back to Britt. Did she talk to you about her work at all?”

“The journalism? Very little. I was completely in the dark about all that stuff that came out at the trial. The Iraqi connection. She told me she was enrolling at the college when the term started and that was all. I didn’t even ask which course.”

“Did she mention Mountjoy in any connection?”

“None at all.”

“Have you met him?”

“Never, so far as I know.”

The same brick wall.

“During your visits to the house at Larkhall, the murder house, did you go up to her room?”

“Of course.”

“And did you ever take her flowers?”

Martin put up his hands in denial. “Hey, what are you suggesting? Oh, no.”

“Did you send any after the friendship cooled, perhaps as a goodwill gesture?”

“A
what?”

“Did you notice any in her flat?”

“Roses? No.”

“Did you send some to the funeral?”

“Certainly not.”

Martin made a point of looking at his watch.

It was Julie, unbidden, who picked up the questioning. “We believe she may have been preparing some kind of article about the crusties in Bath. Did she mention it to you at any stage?”

He frowned, looked into the fire and snapped his fingers. “As a matter of fact, she did. One afternoon we had tea in the Canary, that rather genteel cafe in Queen Street where they play taped classical music as you sip your Earl Grey. They insist on escorting you to your seat. We were favored. We were given a window seat downstairs. You can watch the people walking past. I was doing my best to amuse Britt by making up stories about them as if I knew them all. This one posed for Picasso and this one is a train-spotter, or an escaped nun, and so on. Very silly when I describe it now, but it seemed amusing at the time. Then this enormous man strolled by in an army greatcoat, obviously a crusty, and to my amazement Britt waved to him and tapped on the window. He stopped and stared. For a moment I thought she was going to invite him in and so did the manageress. I mean this guy wasn’t exactly teashop material. Dreadlocks, tattoos, earrings, hobnail boots. But Britt got up and went out to him, incidentally taking him half her toasted teacake. They were out there chatting for some time. The Canary clientele were absolutely riveted. He was an awesome sight.”

“Has to be G.B.,” Julie remarked to Diamond.

“Eventually he went on his way and she came back full of apologies. He was just a contact, she said, and I remember wondering how intimate a contact. I as good as asked her. You want to know the risks you’re taking, if you understand me. But Britt insisted that it was purely professional. She was collecting material for a story about the crusties, something that could turn out really sensational. She was keeping the big fellow sweet until she had all the facts.”