Peter Lovesey - Cop to Corpse

How feeble was that?

‘Clutching at straws?’ she said.

‘It’s a matter of being thorough. We owe it to Ossy and the others to look at every possibility.’ His words struck home with himself as he spoke them. This was pussyfooting and it wasn’t going to succeed. He had a duty to press her for more information, even if it pained her. ‘Do you happen to remember if he had any kind of warning that something bad was going to happen to him?’

Her eyes widened. ‘Why?’

After wavering too long between honesty and altruism, he was now forced to speak the truth. ‘Our man in Bath was carrying a note that could have been from the sniper himself.’

‘What did it say?’

No way out of this now. ‘Only two words — “You’re next.” ’

She gasped.

Diamond added at once, ‘We don’t know for sure if it refers to the shooting.’

‘How could it?’ Her eyes threatened panic at the possibility and Diamond wished he could have spared her this. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m certain Ossy would have told me if he was sent anything like that. Anyway, he was the first to be shot. He wouldn’t have been sent a note like that.’

‘Not those words.’

She was far from satisfied. ‘Did the other man, the one who was shot in Radstock, receive a note?’

‘If he did, it hasn’t been found. Like I said, we follow up every lead, however unpromising.’ He backtracked again, shamelessly. ‘One note out of three isn’t significant. Don’t let anything I’ve said undermine you. You’re doing brilliantly. Ossy would be proud.’

Hollow words.

He left soon after. He’d learned things he hadn’t expected, potentially crucial, but he felt only contempt for himself. Behind her brave stance, Juliet Hart had been rocked by what she’d just learnt, and he was responsible. He’d messed up big time with Emma Tasker and this hadn’t gone any better.

A widow too far?

Right. So right.

His phone went, offering him a choice of traffic offences: use the mobile while driving or stop and block a passing-point in the narrow Somerset lane. He pulled over. He’d met nothing for some way, so he reckoned this was the better option.

‘Yes?’

‘Diamond, where the fuck are you?’

‘Is that you, Jack?’ As if anyone else spoke to him like that.

‘I said — ’

‘Heard you. I’m on the way in.’ True. He was more than halfway back from Wells.

‘Do you know what time it is? I’ve been trying to reach you at Manvers Street. Some of us are at work this morning and we’ve struck gold.’

He yawned. He wasn’t in gold rush mode. ‘Tell me more.’

‘I can do better. Meet me in twenty minutes at Avoncliff railway station and I’ll show you.’

‘Can we make that forty?’

‘Are you still in your fucking pit?’

‘Would I tell you if I was? See you at twelve-thirty.’ He switched off.

Whatever Gull had discovered it would need to be good to outweigh this morning’s find. Ossy Hart and Stan Richmond both involved in folklore and with a prospect of film money in the offing. True, Ossy had by then retired from his role as the Sailor’s Horse, but the lure of thousands of dollars had revived his interest, even if he’d dismissed it as bullshit.

Big money brings its own temptations.

Next question: did Harry Tasker, boring old Harry who did nothing but pound the beat and go fishing according to his wife, get a sniff of the money? Did he have a passing interest in local customs that Emma had failed to mention?

And if any of this were true, why did all three get murdered?

Another session with Emma Tasker beckoned, and Diamond didn’t relish it. Good thing Stan Richmond hadn’t also left a widow to be interviewed. Be thankful for small mercies.

He looked in at the incident room and was told three times over that Jack Gull had been trying to reach him.

‘Don’t suppose he told you what it was about,’ he said to Ingeborg.

‘No, guv, except it was urgent.’

‘Always is with Jack. Makes him feel important.’

The tension from yesterday’s team meeting hadn’t all evaporated, but at least they were on speaking terms.

‘Did he ask where I was?’

‘We didn’t know,’ Keith Halliwell said, and it felt like a dig.

‘I was in Wells.’ He gave them the gist of what Juliet Hart had told him about the Minehead May Day ritual, adding only one comment. ‘And that, my friends, is how Martin Hart came to be known as Ossy.’

Usually the idea of one of the force up to something eccentric was sure to provoke some laughs. This morning’s response was a few bemused looks.

‘Does it make any difference?’ John Leaman asked in his habitual downbeat tone. ‘This all happened before he joined the police.’

‘The film offer was the new factor,’ Ingeborg said, sharp to the point as always. ‘And he was tempted, by the sound of things.’

Leaman was unmoved. ‘But it didn’t come to anything.’

She gave an impatient sigh. ‘It came up shortly before he was shot and it was big bucks. We all know about trying to survive on a police salary.’

‘Are you saying this led to him being murdered?’

She turned to Diamond. ‘Is that what you’re thinking, guv?’

After yesterday’s dust-up, Diamond wasn’t being drawn. ‘It’s a new angle, that’s all.’

Ingeborg wouldn’t leave it. ‘Okay, let’s talk about Stan Richmond. He was into folklore, too. He’d written articles. Do you think the film man went to him for advice?’

‘I simply don’t know.’

‘It’s worth checking if he ever wrote anything on the Minehead hobby horses.’

‘Could be.’

‘Shall I?’

‘If you want.’ He couldn’t have sounded more neutral. Secretly, he was pleased. ‘Has anything else come up that I should know about?’

‘On your desk, from personnel,’ Leaman said with a look laden with reproach. ‘About thirty pages of names … including all of ours.’

That explained the coolness. Yesterday evening he’d gone ahead and asked Headquarters for the printout. No one here would have printed it for him.

He opened the office door and glanced at his in-tray. The paperwork was spilling out of it. Most would be junk. Headquarters had a whole department called Communications and they justified their existence by making sure everyone was made to feel wanted on an hourly basis. They’d found out he didn’t bother much with emails, so they deluged him with paper. Georgina the ACC (who had probably arranged it) was always leaving him memos. As well as all of that, there were the usual letters the postman had brought, bunched and held in place with an elastic band. Another with no stamp and just Detective Diamond — PERSONAL on the envelope must have been delivered by hand. And there was the sheaf of A4 sheets listing all those names. Thanks to Jack Gull he didn’t have time to start on any of it.

Avoncliff station, Gull’s choice of meeting place, hardly deserved its name. It was that rare thing on the railways, a request stop on the main line between Southampton and Bristol. If you wanted to board a train you were instructed to put out your hand and wave at the driver. There were no train announcements, no display boards and no staff. But it had existed for over a century and the locals would make sure it continued.

One useful facility the station did have was a small car park and Gull was waiting there when Diamond drove in ten minutes late.

‘This had better be good,’ he said as he reached for the walking stick and heaved himself out. ‘The drive down was hairy.’

‘Sod that,’ Gull said. ‘Can you walk?’

‘Not a problem.’ He looked around. ‘Where to? Are you keeping me in suspense?’