Peter Lovesey - The Secret Hangman

‘Come on, Dalton, any half-decent salesman makes a relationship with his clients.’

His professional skills were in question and he was spurred into saying, ‘All I remember is that they fitted the profile of our customers. High-flyers, professional people, singles or couples, generally with no kids. They’re the ones most interested in spending money on leisure items for their homes.’

‘Did you ever come across a wealthy couple by the name of Twining, living out at Hinton Charterhouse?’

A shake of the head.

‘That’s in your area, isn’t it? We’re going back to 2004 now. It seems to me they were just the sort of people you would target.’

Monnington’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean — target?’

‘As potential customers. Like you say, well-heeled professional people living in a big house in the country.’

‘Never heard of them.’

‘They died the same way as Jocelyn Steel. And Delia Williamson and Danny Geaves. Strangled first, and then suspended as if they’d hanged themselves.’ Leaman let that sink in. He was handling this well. ‘The thing is, all these people were found in Bath. That’s one common factor. And another is this.’ He reached for the evidence bag and took out the coil of plastic cord. ‘White plastic cord used to string them up. Have a good look at it. This was used on Mrs Steel.’ He pushed it across the table. ‘For the tape, I’m now showing Mr Monnington the cord found attached to body five.’

Monnington swayed back in the chair.

‘Feel free to handle it,’ Leaman said. ‘It’s been forensically examined.’

Monnington made no move at all.

‘It’s identical to the two lengths of cord we found in your car.’

A look of panic passed across his features.

‘Same quality, colour, diameter. Even the length would be similar if we added the portion of cord we had to cut that was tight round the victim’s neck. About twenty-three feet, by my estimate. The lengths in your car’ — Leaman reached for the other evidence bags and slid them towards Monnington — ‘were twenty-two feet and twenty-eight foot three.’

The eyes still looked alarmed, but Monnington was making a huge effort to appear unaffected, deliberately ignoring the coils of plastic, fixing his gaze somewhere neutral between Leaman and Diamond.

Leaman persevered, determined to get a response. ‘It’s obvious they’re not tow-ropes. The plastic is strong enough to string up a corpse, but you couldn’t pull a car with it. It’s not long enough for a washing-line. Anyway, why would you want a washing-line in your car?’

Monnington remained silent.

Diamond stole a look at the clock. The cord was supposed to be the trump card and it was in danger of being ignored.

Leaman said, ‘If there’s an innocent explanation, you’d better tell us.’

After another uneasy pause, Monnington said, ‘Take them away from under my nose and I’ll tell you.’

The breakthrough? Diamond’s pulse beat faster.

Leaman leaned forward and scooped up the cords and bags and dropped them on the floor beside him. ‘Well?’

Monnington sniffed and said as if to a persistent child, ‘If you really want to know, I use them in my work.’

‘How?’

‘For demonstration purposes.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Leaman couldn’t have sounded more sceptical.

Monnington went on as if such details were too obvious to explain, ‘To mark out the shapes of the spa baths so that customers can visualise them. I lay them out in a circle, right? My company supplies two sizes of bath. One is seven feet in diameter, the other nine feet. If you do your maths, you’ll see that the twenty-two-foot cord is the circumference of the seven-foot bath. And the twenty-eight-foot-three cord is for the nine-foot bath. Twenty-two over seven is the approximate value of pi, the ratio between a diameter and a circumference.’

Leaman was drowning in a virtual jacuzzi.

Diamond took over. ‘Let’s get this right. You lay down the cord in the shape of a circle at the place where the bath will be installed?’

‘To show the client how much room it will take.’

‘And the cord is pre-cut to the two sizes?’

‘You could try it here, but you wouldn’t have room for a whirlpool, and why would you want one in an interview room?’

‘Take a wild guess,’ Diamond said.

Clive the computer expert was waiting when they emerged in their deflated state. Clive had better news, but it was short-lived. He’d cracked Monnington’s password and the files were accessible.

‘There’s masses of stuff about plumbing and water pressures and ceramic tiles.’

‘E-mails?’ Diamond said.

‘Not many. He’s a deleter.’

‘Is that bad?’

‘It doesn’t help you much.’

But the incident room was buzzing when he returned there with Leaman. A call had come in from Express Fit, a vehicle service centre on the Upper Bristol Road. The CAD room had received what they described as a garbled phone message about twenty minutes ago and the caller seemed to be in some distress.

‘He gave his name,’ Ingeborg said, ‘and the woman at the garage — she’s an office cleaner who picked up the phone — said it was very faint, but it sounded like Marcus Teal.’

‘Martin Steel?’

‘That’s what we’re thinking.’

‘He’s alive? What did he say?’

‘He kept repeating, “Help me.” She asked him to speak up and he couldn’t. She asked where he was and he said he didn’t know, except somewhere near Bath. She thought he said he was tied up and lying on the floor.’

‘This has got to be Steel. Has the call been traced?’

‘They’re trying. It’s not so simple.’

‘Why not? Did you tell them it’s life and death?’

‘It’s automated. Long-distance calls are logged, but local calls are not. They can’t retrieve them so easily. Something to do with the billing system. They’re doing all they can.’

‘Oh, great! Was there anything else he said? You got it all down?’

‘I spoke to the cleaner myself and went through it twice.’

‘Why would he call a garage?’

‘We’re thinking certain numbers were keyed into the phone and he managed to press the button that called Express Fit. If he’s tied up he may have touched the button with his foot.’

‘So we have a phone that is pre-set to call this garage. Could be private, or some office. We need a printout of all the Express Fit customers.’

‘I’ve asked for it. Someone is coming in specially. They’re closed, you see. He was lucky the cleaner picked up the phone.’

‘He needs more luck than that.’

He returned to his office and called Paloma on the mobile. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ll have to cancel tonight. Things are happening here.’

‘Good things?’ she said.

‘Not really. I can see myself spending the night here.’

‘Peter, that’s awful.’

‘Sorry.’

‘For you, I mean. You looked tired when I saw you. Couldn’t you call it a night and go back refreshed in the morning?’

‘No, there’s too much stuff going on.’

‘About those ram raids? It’s only property.’

‘No, the other thing.’

‘The hangings?’ She hesitated. ‘Has there been another one?’

‘Not yet, but there could be.’

‘Ghastly. What sort of monster…? Forgive me, I’m not helping. Listen, I know you’ll say it’s a silly thing to do, but before I go up to bed I’m going to leave my front-door key under the mat just in case you do sort everything out. You can let yourself in at any time.’

‘That’s not a wise thing to do.’

‘That’s the policeman talking, not the man I know.’

‘Both.’

‘It’s a deal, then. Promise?’