Peter Lovesey: Cop to Corpse

‘Yesterday, after your visit. You insisted on speaking to him alone and I don’t know what was said. That was against the law.’

‘Don’t lecture me on the law, Mr. Nuttall. He wasn’t under arrest or in detention. I made that clear to you. Let’s cool off a bit and see what can be done. Did you speak to him after I left your house?’

‘What do you take me for? I’m his father. I’m responsible for him. Of course I bloody did.’

‘And did you accuse him of anything?’

‘Everything under the sun.’

‘Really?’

‘I wanted to know why you lot came calling. Isn’t that the duty of a father? If he’d been caught drinking, or doing drugs, or making a nuisance of himself, I needed to know.’

A new slant on Soldier Nuttall: the responsible parent.

‘Did he admit to anything?’ Diamond asked.

‘If he did, would I blab it to a cop? I’m not simple.’

‘Let’s put it another way, then. How did he seem to take it?’

‘Take what?’

‘Being questioned by his father. I need to know what frame of mind he was in. If he’s run away from home, is it because you frightened him?’

‘Him? He’s a bloody teenager, spoiling for a fight.’

‘That wasn’t the way I saw him, cowering on the back seat of your car.’

‘I loosed the dog, didn’t I? You’d be cowering if one of them brutes was trying to rip your throat out. Royston was brought up tough. He can take a bollocking from me.’

‘Then I don’t see what the problem is.’

‘He’s a missing child, that’s the problem.’

‘Big child.’

‘Under eighteen.’

‘It’s not unusual for a kid his age to take umbrage at something and go off on his own for a night, or a couple of nights.’

‘I want him found. That’s your job.’

‘One of my jobs. Now that you’ve reported it, I’ll get the word out. Did he take his motorbike?’

‘That’s gone, yes.’

‘Does he have money?’

‘Plenty.’

‘He wouldn’t be armed, would he?’

A suspicious glare. ‘What with?’

‘I was told you possess a number of licensed weapons, and I mean real ones that fire. Have you checked them today? If any are missing, you must certainly let me know.’

The mention of weapons seemed to take all of the steam out of Nuttall. It was suddenly as if he wanted to be out of there and taking Diamond’s advice. ‘You’ll tell me right away if you see anything of him?’

‘Certainly.’

‘He may look like a man, but he’s just a kid really.’

‘We’ve both been that age,’ Diamond said as if he was a headmaster being merciful to an anxious parent. ‘Leave it to us, Mr. Nuttall.’

Left alone in the interview room, he asked himself why this bizarre scene had taken place. Why was a little Hitler like Nuttall demanding help from the police? It was obvious he wasn’t really troubled over Royston’s welfare. His own welfare was under threat. But he was unwilling to disclose the reason. First he had believed Royston was in custody. A serious issue, then, a criminal matter, else why did he assume that the boy was being held? Was he alarmed by what his offspring would disclose?

Learning that Royston wasn’t being held should have come as good news to Nuttall and obviously didn’t. He wanted him rounded up, and quickly. It seemed the lad was a loose cannon, capable of doing real damage. Did it go back to what had been said between father and son? By his own admission Nuttall had laid into Royston and accused him of everything under the sun. One of the charges must have stuck. Under interrogation or at liberty, the errant teenager was a direct threat to his father’s well-defended reputation.

But in what way?

He returned upstairs. The statements from yesterday, every word transcribed from Ingeborg’s hidden tape-recorder, were threatening to slip from the top of the tower of paper rising from his in-tray. He plucked them off and read Royston’s answers again and delved lower in the stack and found the report Paul Gilbert had written of the night touring Harry Tasker’s beat — Moles, the Porter, the Bell, Walcot Street and Club XL. The find of the night had been Anderson Jakes, the man who had put them onto Royston.

Then it became clear.

After reading precisely what Anderson Jakes had told Paul and Ingeborg, Diamond worked out how, where, when and why the boy would be found.

But he was in no mood for self-congratulation. There was an urgent need to revisit the crime scene.

He stepped out of his office. The incident room had gone quiet. Jack Gull, he learned, was trying to get hold of an interpreter who spoke Persian. Ingeborg, still preoccupied with the blog, was putting markers on a map of the city. Polehampton had gone to have a word with the custody sergeant. John Leaman and Keith Halliwell were together at the window, looking down into the street.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked them.

‘Come and see.’

He joined them in time to see Polehampton heading purposefully up Manvers Street towards the station. ‘Where’s he off to?’

‘The pub on the corner, the Royal, for another quick one. He needs it every two hours. It’s the strain of working with Gull.’

At any other time, he might have been amused. Today, he had too much on his mind. ‘I’m slipping out for a while myself. I need to go back to the crime scene as a matter of urgency.’

Paloma wouldn’t approve after the trouble she’d taken to protect him from being shot, but this had to be done. The streets of Bath were thronged as midday approached and he reasoned it would be crazy for anyone to loose off a round of ammunition. No potential killer could have anticipated him leaving the police station at this moment. Mingling with the shoppers and the tourists, he took the most direct route around Orange Grove, and along the High Street past the Guildhall and the Podium, all well-populated places at this hour, then left at St. Michael’s and up the steep rise of Broad Street and right at the top towards Bladud Buildings and the Paragon.

It was difficult to conceive of anyone planning the shooting of Harry Tasker without prior knowledge of the layout of the Paragon. The terrace of twenty-one houses as elegant as any corporation-built property in Britain stood in a gentle curve that followed the road’s contour rather than being designed as a crescent. All were similar in style, difficult to tell apart except for a few with window boxes on the first floor sills. From the front there was no sense that you were on the edge of a precipitous slope with vaulted basements overlooking Walcot Street.

He was angry with himself for taking so long to tumble to the obvious. All the pressure of pursuing the man in the woods had stopped him thinking straight. Finally, he’d worked it out. Whoever murdered Harry must have visited the Paragon house before. They had to know the set-up.

The residents had some explaining to do.

He eyed the bell-push panel and the handwritten names: S.Willis, MA, Mr. amp; Mrs. D. Murphy and Sherry Meredith. The fourth bell, for the unoccupied basement, had no name against it. After a moment’s thought, he pressed the third. Sherry Meredith worked in the cosmetics department in Jolly’s, only a short walk away, and it was just possible she came home in her lunch break.

‘Hi, who is it?’ said the shrill voice on the entryphone.

He smiled. His guardian angel was doing the biz today. ‘Peter Diamond, Detective Superintendent.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t buy anything at the door.’ The line disconnected. She couldn’t have been listening properly.

He tried again, twice. He’d kick the door in, if necessary.

At the third attempt, she came on again and said, ‘Please go away.’