Peter Lovesey - The Secret Hangman

This time it was his turn to delay. He’d started this. Perhaps subconsciously he’d been pitching for a date, and this hadn’t been about Franz Muller’s hat but Peter Diamond’s suppressed desires.

He stared at her message for another minute before writing: Just checked my diary. I’d be delighted to come He hesitated. Now what? A full stop, or a ‘but’…? Go for it, he told himself, and pressed the full stop key.

T wo reports were on his desk next morning. The first, from the Wimbledon scene of crime people, had an immense amount of detail about hairs and fibres found in Dalton Monnington’s car, but nothing to connect the travelling salesman with Delia Williamson. He slapped it on the heap of papers waiting to be filed. Monnington was old news.

Dr Sealy’s report was just as predictable. A Post-it note was attached to the front. ‘Knowing you prefer it simple,’ the sarcastic little doctor had written, ‘the deceased died at the scene, of spinal damage caused by sudden suspension. It was like a judicial hanging except that the drop was longer, so the jerk of the rope was more than enough to dislocate the neck and cause instant death. There were no contrary indications.’

Not liking the assumption that he was ignorant, Diamond glanced through the detailed findings, but the pathological jargon only irritated him more. It was as if Sealy had dressed it up to demonstrate his superiority. The cervical spine was disrupted at the atlanto-occipital joint, rather than the more usual mid-cervical portion. Cleverclogs.

He showed the note to Halliwell.

‘That’s it, then, guv?’

‘You’d better stand down the team,’ he said. ‘The pressure to find the killer is off.’

‘But we still have to report to the coroner, don’t we?’

‘You and I do that.’

‘It won’t be easy,’ Halliwell said. ‘We know sod all about Geaves.’

‘We know he was a callous bastard who walked out on his partner and two little daughters and didn’t bother seeing them again.’

‘According to Corcoran.’

‘Well, yes. It’s all second-hand stuff. We know he ended up in Freshford and had the reputation of a loner. Liked to do the crossword in the pub and speak to no one.’

‘Anyone who appears in a pub can’t be all bad.’

‘I wouldn’t put money on that.’

Halliwell dropped a small photo on the desk. ‘This is what I was telling you about. The creature.’

‘Found in his room?’ He picked it up. He could just about make out the shape. There was no colour to speak of. It could have been a black and white print. Small gleaming eyes, caught perhaps by the camera flash. Large ears, pricked. Some kind of snout. ‘Horrible. What is it?’

‘Don’t ask me, guv.’

‘A bat?’

‘Now that’s a good thought.’

‘I do have them sometimes. Maybe he’s a bat expert. There’s a fancy name for it, I’m sure.’

‘Batman?’

He aimed an imaginary pistol at Halliwell’s head. ‘Did you try running a full trace on him?’

‘He hasn’t got form if that’s what you were thinking.’

‘No, I’m thinking we can find more stuff about his background, where they were living and what job he did. It’s all on record somewhere. Run a check on the man. Meantime I’ll go and see the girls’ grandma, Amanda Williamson. She’s the best hope.’

Not so. When he tried Amanda Williamson’s home number, her recorded voice announced, ‘I’m sorry but I’m not taking calls this week or next. You can leave a message after the tone.’ Shot yourself in the foot, Diamond, he thought.

Maybe she gave her temporary address to Corcoran. He called him and got another recording. Whoever invented the answer-phone should be made to listen to recorded messages for eternity.

He believed in seeing people face to face. He drove to Walcot Street and was about to press Corcoran’s doorbell when he became aware of a young woman at his side, small, dark and oriental. She could only be Marietta, the Filipino child-minder. Her arms were full of shopping, and as she struggled for a door key a French loaf slipped out of its paper wrapper.

Diamond held on at the second attempt, inches from the ground. Not bad for the world’s worst catcher, he told himself.

But in handing the loaf back he knocked it against his other elbow and snapped it.

‘Sorry.’

She seemed to forgive him without speaking.

He felt for his ID and showed it. ‘I came to see Mr Corcoran, but maybe you can help. I need to speak to Mrs Williamson — Amanda. I know she has the children and she’s gone to a different address.’

Marietta shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, sir, this is not possible.’

‘Little girls? Sharon? Sophie?’

She shook her head.

He put out his hand for the door key. ‘Let me do that.’

‘Sorry, sir. This is not possible. I cannot allow this.’

‘I must speak with Mr Corcoran,’ he said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘You go away, please, sir.’

‘Police,’ he said, taking her hand and guiding it into the lock.

She sighed as the door swung inwards.

The moment he stepped in he understood why he wasn’t welcome. Ashley Corcoran was on his back on the Afghan rug. He was naked and so was the large blonde riding him like a three-day eventer.

H e didn’t check the time, but he guessed it was about ten fifteen in the morning. He hadn’t imagined this kind of thing going on in Bath when other people were sitting at their desks or doing the shopping. And his arrival didn’t affect the performance. The bouncing blonde came to a resounding climax. Literally resounding. She repeated ‘yes’ seven times, as positive an endorsement as any lover could wish for.

After the last ‘yes’, Diamond looked away and discovered Marietta had disappeared with her shopping.

The blonde disconnected and stood up. She was built like a ship’s figurehead. She spotted Diamond and padded across the wood floor, slapping the fronts of her thighs. ‘It really gets you here,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t have a ciggy, by any chance?’

From the floor, Corcoran called out, ‘Who’s that? Who are you talking to?’

‘One of your muso friends, I guess,’ the blonde said.

Corcoran sat up. At the sight of Diamond, he put his hand over his crotch. ‘Who let you in?’

‘Does it matter?’ Diamond said, doing his best to emulate the blonde’s self-possession. ‘I tried phoning first.’

‘What do you want this time?’

‘To find Amanda.’

The blonde put her hands on her hips. ‘And who the fuck is Amanda?’

‘I take it she’s got Sharon and Sophie with her,’ Diamond said, trying to confine the conversation to Corcoran and himself.

‘A threesome?’ the blonde said in an outraged voice.

‘They’re little girls,’ Diamond said in an aside to calm her down.

‘That’s disgusting.’

‘Her grandchildren.’

‘I’ve heard enough,’ she said. ‘I’m off. Do you mind? You’re standing on my bra.’

She was right about that. He moved his foot. Her clothes were in a heap just inside the door. It seemed she’d stripped the moment she’d arrived. Whether she was here on a professional visit or out of friendship he didn’t ask. Whichever it was, Ashley Corcoran hadn’t wasted much time grieving for his former lover.

Diamond took a few steps towards him, allowing the blonde to get dressed out of his line of vision. ‘She must have told you where she was going.’

‘The noticeboard above the kettle.’

He crossed to the kitchen and found the address scribbled on the back of an envelope pinned to the board. Amanda had gone to friends in Bradford on Avon.