Peter Lovesey - The Secret Hangman

‘You think he’s keen to swing it on someone else?’

‘That was my reading.’

‘Monnington’s top of my list,’ Halliwell said. ‘I can see it happening: the businessman stuck in a hotel, looking for amusement. Goes for a meal, picks up a waitress, invites her back. Likes her enough to spend the next day with her. Something goes wrong between them and he gets in a strop, strangles her and hopes to fake the suicide and get away with it.’

‘Put like that, it’s possible. Have him checked out when we get back, Keith.’

‘How do you mean? See if he’s got form?’

‘And check the hotels.’ Diamond muttered something under his breath as another thought struck him. ‘But would a stranger to the town know where to string up the body?’

‘Maybe they took an evening walk in the park and he saw the swings and took his opportunity.’

‘With a length of plastic cord someone had conveniently left?’ Diamond said, sitting back and shaking his head. ‘I don’t think this was dreamed up at the scene, Keith. The killer planned it.’

‘And you’re backing Luigi?’

‘I’m saying he’s got to be taken seriously, along with the missing father of her children, Danny. And of course Ashley, the laid-back musician.’ He looked across at the rest of the almond croissant sitting on Halliwell’s plate. ‘Aren’t you going to eat your half?’

Out in the street again, he put his hand in his pocket and felt the hard edge of the book of matches. ‘Let’s cut through Shires Yard. I wouldn’t mind visiting the Hilton.’

The curious thing about working in a city is that you don’t get to see the hotels that visitors regard as a major part of the experience. Diamond wasn’t all that familiar with the Hilton. Built as the Beaumont Hotel in 1973, a low point in Bath’s architectural history, its blocklike exterior, with yellow stone cladding pretending to be the real local stone, led locals to describe it as a giant hunk of cheese.

To be fair, the management had done much to upgrade the interior. And Jenny the receptionist proved to be a star. ‘Does this count as helping you with your inquiries?’ she asked Diamond after he’d shown her his warrant card.

‘You’ll really help my inquiries if you can solve this puzzle,’ he said, handing her the book of matches. ‘It’s one of yours, right?’

‘Yes, they’re complimentary in the bar. What’s the puzzle?’

He asked her to open it.

‘Is it a trick?’ she said, as she unfastened it. Then she saw the number and smiled. ‘A room number?’

‘That’s what I was thinking,’ he said. ‘Do you have a 317?’

‘We do indeed.’

‘And would your computer tell us who has been staying in there over the last few days? It could be important,’ he added.

She got them a printout.

There were five names. The fourth was Dalton Monnington.

Diamond exchanged a look with Halliwell.

‘Would you have this one’s address?’

Jenny used the keyboard. Dalton Monnington was from Wimbledon. He’d stayed one night at the hotel and paid with a voucher from a travel agent.

‘You wouldn’t happen to remember him?’ Diamond said, and this was the moment when she proved herself a star.

She must have dealt with scores of guests, but she had perfect recall of this one. ‘Quiet, black hair and brown eyes, mid-twenties, average height, dark grey suit, white shirt and striped tie. He carried a biggish case, the kind reps have for their samples, and a sports bag for his clothes.’

‘You spoke to him?’

‘Twice about the parking. And later he asked for a city map and I gave him one.’

‘You didn’t register him?’

‘No, that was someone else.’

‘He stayed Tuesday night, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘And went out to eat? Well, we know he did. Would you remember what time he came in?’

‘No, I knocked off early. And you don’t see all the comings and goings from here, especially if guests don’t want to be seen.’

He showed her the picture of Delia. ‘Have you seen this woman at all?’

She glanced at it, then shook her head. ‘Sorry.’

‘You don’t have to be sorry, Jenny,’ he said, picking up the photo and the matches. ‘You cracked the puzzle.’

D C Paul Gilbert, the latest member of the murder squad, had transferred from headquarters a month ago. He was still in awe of Peter Diamond.

‘Tell him,’ Keith Halliwell said.

‘Should I? It’s only a suggestion.’

‘Save it for the briefing, then. Let him say his piece and then bring it up.’

And now the opportunity was imminent. It was Saturday morning and Diamond was holding forth to the team, dramatising the crime to get total attention. ‘He strangles her. We don’t know where. Possibly in a hotel or his home, wherever that is. Then he has to dispose of the body. He could dump it in the woods, bury it, dismember it. He does none of these things. He transports it to a public park and hangs it on a swing where everyone will see it. What kind of nutcase is this?’

He seemed to be waiting for an answer. The older hands said nothing.

DC Gilbert glanced towards Halliwell, but there was a shake of the head. This was not the moment.

It was Ingeborg who piped up with, ‘A publicity seeker?’

‘You mean with a stunt like that he’s sure to make the papers. You’re the expert.’

‘If he’d buried her, like you just said, nobody would hear about it.’

There was some amusement at this, but not from Diamond.

‘All right, let’s say he wants the world to know about his crime. What’s it about — his ego? Am I going to have to bring in one of these profilers?’ The way he said the last word showed what he thought of the science of offender profiling.

Halliwell said, ‘There’s got to be some reason for taking a risk like that, stringing her up in the park.’

From the back of the room DI John Leaman said, ‘He was trying to pass it off as suicide.’

‘We’ve been over that,’ Halliwell said. ‘Any fool knows a hanging leaves a different mark.’

‘Hold on,’ Leaman said. ‘Who are we dealing with here? Not you or me. Anyone in this room would think it a dumb idea, but this is a guy who just killed someone and is stuck with a body. He’s in deep trouble. He’s not trained in forensics. He’s not thinking straight. All he wants is to get rid of that body without being found out. Rigging up a suicide could have seemed like a brilliant plan.’

‘You’re saying he did this in the heat of the moment?’

‘Well, if killing someone isn’t a hot moment, I don’t know what is.’

More amusement all round.

Leaman didn’t smile, however. He was the most serious-minded member of the team.

Diamond said, ‘Fair point, John. You’re trying to see it from the killer’s point of view and so am I. If he could pass it off as a suicide, all his problems would disappear. The fake suicide theory stays on the table.’

Three days into the investigation, he was willing to consider anything. Now that the story had broken in the papers, he’d hoped for a better response, sightings of Delia Williamson with her killer. Of the twenty-two calls they’d taken, more than half could be dismissed straight away and the others were no help. Nobody had seen her on the night of the murder. A few women of her description had been seen in various towns up and down the country the day before she was killed and there were three callers who thought they’d spotted her in Bath. No one had seen her with anyone else.

‘What about the former boyfriend, Danny Geaves?’ he said. ‘He must have read the papers. Why hasn’t he surfaced?’

Ingeborg took this as criticism. ‘I’ve run every kind of check I can think of, guv. He hasn’t drawn his benefit for over a week.’