The Tooth Tattoo (32 page)

After exchanging a few words with the communications room he told Ingeborg, ‘No joy. Not even a sighting.’

‘What description did you give them?’ she asked.

‘Average height and build, wearing a hoodie, dark blue or black. Dark trousers and shoes.’

‘It’s not a lot, especially if he has the sense to take off the hood or tuck it out of sight.’

‘I suppose. What do you think his game is? Have we covered all the angles?’

‘All the obvious ones. Anything else would be stretching it.’

‘And you still think Mel is on the level?’

‘Don’t you?’ She gripped the wheel so hard that the steering shuddered.

In the CID room a surprise awaited them in the shape of a young blonde woman with plaited hair coiled on top of her head. In a houndstooth suit and white blouse, she was sitting on the edge of Keith Halliwell’s desk drinking coffee from the machine.

‘Guv, this is Dagmar,’ Halliwell said, as if Diamond should know all about Dagmar.

‘Right,’ Diamond said, with an enquiring glance towards Ingeborg, who amazed him by saying, ‘Dagmar? How did you manage this?’ She turned to Diamond and said, ‘Dagmar is my contact in the Vienna Police. I never expected to meet her in person.’

Dagmar eased herself off the desk, which involved a small jump. She was not much taller than the three-drawer filing cabinet. She formally extended a hand and addressed Diamond in a voice so deep that it more than compensated. ‘Pleased to meet you, Detective Superintendent. I am Detective Inspector Aschenberger of the Bundespolizei, Vienna District.’

‘We didn’t know they were sending anyone,’ Diamond said, impressed by the strength of her grip.

‘I flew in this morning.’

‘That was quick.’

‘But you are not my reason for coming.’

‘No?’ He scratched his chin, uncertain where this was leading.

‘I am here for a course in forensics at Bristol University, but I volunteered to make a special visit to Bath after we heard from you yesterday.’

Ingeborg said, ‘You’re a star,’

Diamond said, ‘So why are you here – apart from meeting Ingeborg?’

Dagmar stooped and picked her backpack off the floor and made a startling noise ripping open the Velcro flap. ‘As you know, most of the material you requested was sent electronically, but there is a piece of evidence that by law we must keep in the possession of our police service.’

‘The netsuke?’ He felt like picking Dagmar up and kissing her on both cheeks. He had become increasingly curious about the strange little ornament found with Emi Kojima’s body. ‘You brought it with you?’

‘I can allow you to examine it as long as I am present. This way, we observe the letter of the law.’

‘Understood.’

Dagmar produced from the backpack a transparent evidence bag and handed it across. It contained an object not much bigger than a table tennis ball, but less white. It was intricately carved.

‘May I take it out?’ Diamond asked.

‘No problem. Many people have handled it since it was found.’

‘Not many as clumsy as me, I bet.’ With care, he tipped the netsuke into his palm. It weighed very little. ‘Nice carving!’ He held it up with his left hand. Two figures, male and female in traditional costume, formed the upper portion, with hands joined around the rim, exquisitely detailed. The doomed lovers were finely worked by the sculptor, but only to waist level. The lower half of the piece had been left as a mainly flat surface representing fallen snow, giving the impression they were half submerged in a drift.

‘Do you know the story?’ Dagmar said.

‘The lovers who commit suicide by going into deep snow?’

‘Chubei and Umegawa. We learned about this when we consulted Japanese experts to find out whether the netsuke had some significance.’

‘As an emblem of suicide?’

‘Exactly.’ She brought her small hands together in a gesture of finality. ‘With their advice we reached the conclusion that the victim meant it to symbolise her choice of death.’

‘So we heard. And did the evidence back this up?’

She shrugged. ‘There were no obvious signs of … what do you say?’

‘Foul play?’

‘Yes. No foul play.’

Diamond didn’t relish challenging the Bundespolizei, Vienna District, interpretation, but it had to be done. ‘The body had been in the water for some time, right?’

‘Correct.’ Dagmar looked at him with all the respect she would show to a man who had arrived at her door to sell double-glazing.

‘So it was difficult to be certain?’

‘We don’t claim it is certain. These questions had to be decided by a jury and they could have been mistaken.’

‘They wouldn’t be the first. And who carried out the autopsy?’

‘A hospital doctor.’

‘Not a forensic pathologist?’

‘She was a qualified pathologist.’

‘Not a forensics expert. We had two autopsies done on our victim. The second revealed that she was strangled. A small bone in her throat fractured. Unless your pathologist was looking for it …’

Dagmar said, ‘Nothing like this was in the report of our autopsy. But even if there was damage to the throat and it wasn’t discovered, it is too late now. The body was returned to Japan for disposal.’

He didn’t press the point any more. He wanted to stay on speaking terms. ‘Did you discover where this netsuke came from? They’re collectors’ pieces, aren’t they?’

‘Usually they are, particularly if they are antique. They can be extremely valuable. We had this one valued by an expert and he said the workmanship was of high quality.’

‘Even I can see that,’ Diamond said holding the ivory piece up to the light. ‘It’s obviously handmade, not cast.’

‘That is true,’ Dagmar said, ‘but the value is not especially high. It’s not antique. There are craftsmen working with modern precision tools who make these as copies of ancient designs.’

‘Forgeries?’

‘If they are traded as antiques, yes. But if they are sold as what they are, modern artefacts, you can’t call them forgeries. They have some intrinsic value for the workmanship.’

Ingeborg came in on the conversation. ‘But if they’re ivory, they’re illegal. Ivory products have been banned since 1989, and rightly so, in my opinion.’

‘That is true and no right-minded person would argue with you,’ Dagmar said in a tone suggesting she was about to do exactly that. ‘True of elephant ivory. But this netsuke is not elephant ivory.’

‘What is it, then?’

‘Mammoth.’

‘Get away,’ Diamond said.

Dagmar continued in her solemn voice, ‘Don’t you know about this? The melting of the ice-cap has revealed large quantities of mammoth remains in the Russian tundra. The tusks are workable as ivory and can be traded within the law. They are not particularly valuable.’

‘Yet this thing I have in my hand is actually thousands of years more ancient than the netsuke that are so prized. That’s weird.’

‘Weird, but true. Mammoth ivory netsuke are increasingly being worked and traded, and not just by Japanese.’

An awed silence had descended. Visions of mammoths roaming the Siberian wastes half a million years ago were pretty remote from the CID room in Bath.

It took Paul Gilbert to bring everyone back to the twenty-first century. ‘So how does this affect the case?’

‘It doesn’t,’ Dagmar said. ‘The symbolism would still be just as valid if it was made from plastic.’

‘Where would she have got it from?’ Diamond asked for the second time.

‘In Vienna? From some private source. You don’t find these in good antique shops.’

Diamond said, ‘We may sound ungrateful, Dagmar, but we’re not. We’re looking at it from the perspective of another case.’

‘I know about this. Your Japanese woman.’ Even so, her lip curled slightly as she added, ‘But if I understand correctly there was no netsuke found with her.’

‘Yet there are other things in common.’

‘But your woman was strangled, you said.’

‘And we must decide if we agree with that jury of yours that Emi Kojima committed suicide.’ Back to confrontation, but it had to be said.

Dagmar shot him a withering look.

He refused to blink. ‘Just now you said there were no obvious signs of foul play. I noted your words. Might there have been something you wouldn’t classify as obvious?’

‘Have you read the autopsy report?’ Dagmar asked.

‘It only landed on my desk this morning.’

‘We provided a translation.’

‘Thank you. I haven’t got to it yet. Is there anything we should know about?’

Keith Halliwell said, ‘I’ve been through it. Some of the fingernails on both hands were broken. She had quite long nails.’

Dagmar said, ‘It all depends on your interpretation. This may have happened when the body was underwater, or being recovered.’

‘Or when she was fighting an attacker,’ Halliwell said.

Dagmar shrugged in a dismissive way.

‘You went to some trouble finding out about her background in Tokyo,’ Diamond said. ‘The drugs and the prostitution.’

‘That was all provided by the Japanese authorities.’

‘Before, or after, the autopsy?’

‘After. But we had it in time for the inquest.’

‘Did you discover why she came to Vienna? Was she selling herself there?’

‘We had no reports that she was.’

‘It’s hard to understand how a woman who used drugs and traded in sex managed to get herself to Europe.’

‘Maybe,’ Dagmar said, ‘but it happened.’

‘Perhaps there was trafficking going on.’

‘Quite possibly, giving her a reason to kill herself.’

‘Or be killed. Is there much of a Far East influence on organised crime in your city?’

‘There is some for sure, just like the mafia, into all kinds of illegal money-making. They are the yakuza, a network of Japanese gangs with international connections, increasingly in Europe.’

‘I know a little about them,’ Ingeborg said. ‘They’re rooted in tradition and go back a long way, but it comes down to the usual rackets like drugs, loan-sharking, gambling, protection and prostitution. They had a stake in a large swathe of Japanese industry, but the authorities have cracked down hard in recent years and they’re starting to make inroads elsewhere. This poor young woman could have been part of the process.’

Diamond sensed the discussion slipping away from the investigation. ‘There’s a point you may not be aware of,’ he said to Dagmar. ‘Both of these victims had a grounding in classical music. Emi was trained to a high level in a Tokyo violin school. And Mari’s mother was also a product of one of those schools and Mari inherited the passion for it. I don’t think she performed, but she spent all her pocket money on concerts. We believe she came to Bath specially to hear a string quartet called the Staccati. She had them as a screensaver on her phone.’

‘Three of them,’ Ingeborg was quick to correct him. ‘The fourth is a late addition.’

‘True,’ he said, ‘but all four were in Vienna in 2008 when Emi ended up in the canal.’

‘Not Mel,’ Ingeborg insisted, her face flushing.

‘He happened to be there with the London Symphony Orchestra,’ Diamond informed her. ‘I don’t think you heard
him telling me in Sydney Gardens. You were keeping tabs on the stalker at the time.’

Now Ingeborg went white. ‘I didn’t know this. You didn’t tell me.’

‘Probably just coincidence,’ he said to pacify her. There was a bigger issue here than Ingeborg’s cosying up to Mel.

Dagmar asked, ‘Have you interrogated these people?’

‘ “Interrogated” is putting it too strongly. We’re talking to them. We have it confirmed by one of them that Mari Hitomi attended the first concert they gave. She wasn’t seen alive after that.’ He let that sink in before saying, ‘Now do you understand our interest in what happened in Vienna?’

She said tersely, ‘We are not aware of any link between this quartet and the death of Emi Kojima.’

Diamond lifted the netsuke high. ‘I’m thinking this could be it.’

I
f Diamond had thought of catching up on some paper work (unlikely) or making peace with Ingeborg (more likely) or going for a pie and chips (the best bet), none of it happened. As soon as Dagmar hoisted her backpack and left, there was a call from downstairs to say a gentleman had arrived and wanted to see him urgently.

A gentleman? That endangered species was not often sighted in Manvers Street nick.

Douglas Christmas was waiting in the front hall. The pinstripe suit, MCC tie and dolphin smile would without question have impressed any desk sergeant, as would the voice like a BBC newsreader from seventy years ago. ‘Remarkably decent of you to see me at short notice,’ Douglas told Diamond. ‘The car’s outside, being guarded by one of your obliging chaps.’

‘I wasn’t planning a drive.’

‘But you’ll change your mind if I treat you to a strawberry tart and a proper cup of tea, served in a pot. There’s a charming place up the street.’

Now that food was mentioned, Diamond’s stomach groaned. He hadn’t had a bite since breakfast.

Douglas knew he was onto a winner. ‘If you prefer, there are gateaux to die for. Don’t you agree with me that tea in the afternoon is the highest expression of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? And I do have that small matter to raise with you.’

The red Aston Martin convertible was illegally parked in the street at the front of the police station. A uniformed constable was in the act of directing a bus around it. How
Douglas had negotiated this was a mystery. Diamond made a mental note never to underestimate the man.

‘Hop in,’ Douglas said.

‘If the place you have in mind is Patisserie Valerie, it isn’t worth taking the car,’ Diamond said. ‘It’s a five-minute walk.’

‘I’m not much of a walker, old boy.’

‘There’s nowhere to park in the High Street.’

‘What do I do with the jalopy, then?’

‘I can tell you one thing. I’m not being party to a parking offence.’

‘Look the other way, then.’ Douglas solved the problem by slipping a banknote into the top pocket of the officer doing duty for him.

In the teashop, Diamond studied the menu. He was a newcomer here, but he’d heard Paloma sing its praises more than once. He asked the waitress if the breakfast was still available. She said in the nicest way that it was too late in the day, whereupon his go-getting companion switched on the heat of his charm. First Douglas asked the waitress her name. He then introduced himself and said he was a regular at the Soho branch in Old Compton Street, which had been opened by Madame Valerie herself as a replacement for her Frith Street shop bombed during the war. He said his guest, Mr. Diamond, was a food expert who had come specially to sample the quality of the service. Sadly – he continued without pause – the lovely Madame Valerie had long since baked her last croissant but he was confident she was with them in spirit, delighted that all these years later this splendid shop bearing her name existed in Bath and that a waitress called Jeannie was willing to speak to the chef about a special request from a VIP customer.