Peter Lovesey - The Secret Hangman

‘No comment.’

‘Did you work with someone else? Are you trying to protect anyone?’

Silence.

‘What do I have to do to get the truth? Will your partner Angie help us? You must have some regard for her, because she survived. We can pick her up and bring her here, but it’s a two-hour drive.’

He shook his head again.

‘Don’t worry, she knows all about you and your playing around. I’ve spoken to her. I keep telling you, it’s common knowledge what you are. You’re finished. If you’ve got a shred of decency you’ll tell me where to find Martin Steel. That’s all I’m asking at this point. Tell me, and we’ll give you a break. You want some sleep tonight? You can get it.’

Monnington sighed and looked up at the clock.

Diamond made a grab for his hair and shoved his face hard against the table.

He yelped, more in shock than pain.

Leaman said, ‘Guv, don’t do this.’

Diamond jerked the face upwards. ‘I haven’t marked him.’ With his free hand he slapped Monnington sharply on both cheeks. ‘This is pit-a-pat. I haven’t started. Stand up.’

Monnington obeyed. He’d gone dead white, but red patches were forming on his cheeks.

‘Has anyone ever roughed you up?’ Diamond said, staring. ‘I mean really given you a workover?’ Without moving his eyes he said to Leaman. ‘Leave us alone for a bit.’

Leaman said, ‘Guv, I can’t do that.’

‘It’s an order.’

‘I think he might be ready to talk.’

In fact, Monnington was opening and closing his mouth without giving voice to anything at all. Then he fell back onto the chair and started making a series of animal-like sounds.

‘That’s all I bloody need. Hyperventilating,’ Diamond said. ‘Get him sorted.’ He marched out of the room.

He met Ingeborg coming fast downstairs.

‘Guv.’

‘Out of my way.’

She grabbed his arm. ‘Guv, I was coming for you. DI Halliwell needs you.’

He’d sacrificed Halliwell for the ram raid. The bloody ram raid. ‘He can get stuffed.’

‘He says it’s personal.’

‘Does he want out? Is that what it is? You can tell him I want out as well, but it ain’t going to happen.’ He brushed her arm aside and marched on, he didn’t know where. He needed to cool the fire raging inside his head.

She wasn’t giving up. She shouted after him, ‘He sticks up for you whatever anyone says and you treat him like shit.’

He stopped and turned. ‘Would you care to repeat that?’

She was white and shaking. ‘No, but I meant every word. People who toe the line get nowhere with you.’

‘You could find yourself in front of a disciplinary board.’

‘All right, but will you speak to Keith? I’ve never seen him so serious.’

If Ingeborg was risking her career, something was badly wrong.

‘Where is he?’

He found Halliwell in interview room two sitting across the table from a skinny young man with a shaved head. Gary Jackman was wearing a scuffed leather jacket flecked with paint. His hands were oil-stained. There was smouldering resentment in his brown eyes.

‘I’ll come out,’ Halliwell said.

‘This had better be good.’

Out in the corridor, Halliwell was twitchy. He waited for a uniformed sergeant to get out of earshot. ‘Something came up in here, guv. He’s saying he was double-crossed by the gang, which is why our stake-out came to grief.’

‘Well, he would. He gave us crap information. If this is all you’ve brought me here for-’

‘No, listen,’ Halliwell cut in. ‘You recall that he runs this vehicle repair shop and does up stolen cars? He’s insisting the gang didn’t use the vehicles he’d worked on, except for the decoy. He says the getaway car they used for the raid in Westgate Street was a blue Nissan Pathfinder and the owner is the brains behind the raids, planned the whole thing and torched his own car up at Lansdown the same night.’

Diamond’s shoulders twitched in a reflex action. How could this be true?

H e recalled the heart-to-heart he’d had with Halliwell — blurting out his feelings about Paloma — on the drive back from the Ballance Street flat. My big mouth, he thought. This silly story about the ram raid could have been dealt with routinely, Jerry interviewed and cleared without anyone finding out who was dating his mother. Instead Halliwell feels in honour bound to tell me about it and I’m in honour bound for Paloma’s sake to deal with it myself. What will that do for our relationship?

Halliwell was backtracking fast. ‘Guv, I don’t believe Jackman. He’s giving us this bullshit to shift the blame.’

‘How does he know about the burned-out Pathfinder?’

‘He’s in the car-repair business. Spare parts. They can spot a dead one like vultures.’

‘Why would he make this up?’

‘He’s between a rock and hard place. He’s going to get hammered by the ram-raiders if he gives evidence against them, yet he owes us something for the fiasco the other night.’

‘So he fingers Jerry Kean, who has sod all to do with it? If that’s so, he’s an idiot. We check it out and find he’s lying. He’s worse off than before.’

‘Do you want to talk to him?’

‘Jackman? No, I don’t.’

‘Do we follow this up, or not? ‘ Diamond sighed, weighing the options. Absurd as the allegation was, it would have to be investigated. He looked at the time. ‘Leave this with me. I’ll get the truth of it.’

‘But you’re wanted here. The hangings.’

‘I said I’ll do it.’ He walked away, leaving Halliwell staring after him.

Time was bearing down, but the questioning of Dalton Monnington had come to a temporary halt. How long did it take to get over a hyperventilation attack? Twenty minutes? Half an hour? Or longer?

The other main suspect, Harry Lang, was still semiconscious.

If there was a right time to see Jerry Kean, it was now. He took out his new mobile and called the only number in the directory.

Paloma’s voice lifted his spirits, for all the awkwardness he felt. ‘Hello.’

‘This is Peter.’

‘Peter? How nice.’

He was tempted to say not nice, not nice at all. Instead he asked if she knew where Jerry was.

‘Right here with me.’

That simplified matters. ‘In your home?’

‘Sainsbury’s, as it happens, late-night shopping. Where it all started, really. Do you want to speak to him?’

‘I’d rather see him in person. It’s sort of… delicate.’

‘Where are you? Still at work? You’re overdoing it.’

‘You caught me on a bad day.’

‘You’d better speak to Jerry. I’m handing this across.’

Jerry’s voice asked what the problem was.

‘It’s to do with your stolen Pathfinder. I need to clarify a couple of things with you.’

‘How can I help?’ Jerry said in such a civil tone that Diamond was tempted to deal with the matter over the phone.

But when the call ended, Jerry would be annoyed he’d come under suspicion. He’d sound off to Paloma and she’d be hurt, as any parent would. Better, surely, to deal with it face to face. ‘What are your plans for the next twenty minutes?’

‘Back home to unload the shopping.’

‘Paloma’s?’

‘Mine first. Her car is at my place.’

‘I’ll see you there? It won’t take long. Where exactly do you live?’

He told Leaman he would be out of the building for the next half-hour. ‘Time out for all concerned,’ he said with a weary smile that left Leaman in no doubt that his boss was as much in need of a break as the hyperventilating suspect.

*

Jerry’s flat was in Cavendish Mansions, a converted hotel in Laura Place, just across Pulteney Bridge. No doubt Paloma’s money helped him live at a smart address, just as she subsidised his cars. This young man had no need to get involved in criminality, Diamond told himself. The ram-raid charge just didn’t stick.