Peter Lovesey - The Last Detective

This was underlined when Jackman went on to say, 'We first made love under the stars in Richmond Park. Didn't realize the gates closed at sundown. Had to climb over the wall to get out, and our energies were somewhat depleted by then.' He smiled faintly. 'We came to a more comfortable arrangement after that. She moved into my semi in Teddington. We married in September, a registry office do followed by a trip up the Thames in a pleasure steamer for two hundred and fifty.'

Diamond took mental stock of the number, troubled by it. Tracing the victim's friends, if it came to that, was going to require a large task force.

'Surprising, really,' Jackman remarked. 'The worlds of academe and showbiz got on famously. They strutted their stuff to a jazz quartet until well into the next day.'

'This was September, 1987, you said? So when did you move to Bath?' Diamond asked.

'Directly. My term was about to start. Gerry was still with the BBC. We had no idea that her days with The Milners were numbered. She rented a flat in Ealing to use when she was filming. As I mentioned to you, we were each committed to our careers, so we tied the knot less strongly than is traditional. We kept separate bank accounts. The house here is in my name; I'd already found it and set the legal wheels in motion before I met Gerry.'

'Did she approve your choice?'

The professor put a hand to his face and passed it across his mouth and down to the point of his chin as he considered the question. 'I think she liked it, yes. It's a little far from the centre, but she had the car.'

The Renault?'

'A Metro. She bought a new one. It's in the garage. Want to see it?'

'Later.' Now it was Diamond's turn to take stock. 'If her car is still in the garage, didn't that worry you when she went missing?'

'Not really. She often used taxis for getting about, particularly if she was likely to have a few drinks.'

'Was she a heavy drinker?'

'She could put it away, but I wouldn't say she drank to excess.'

Inside the house, John Wigfull, in the approved polythene oversocks, had been called upstairs by the scenes-of-crime officer to look at the main bedroom. They watched one of the forensic team, on his knees, collecting fibre samples on strips of adhesive tape.

Wigfull folded his arms and took in the essentials of the room. 'Twin beds, then.'

'Some people prefer them.'

'Would you – married to Gerry Snoo?'

A smile from the scenes-of-crime officer. 'I'm a simple scientist, John. No imagination at all.'

Both beds had been stripped to the mattress for forensic examination, enough to dispossess any bedroom of its character. It was a large, gracefully proportioned room decorated in a mushroom colour and pale green. There was a television set and video-recorder on a stand facing the beds. Two abstract paintings in the style of Mondrian enlivened the walls, yet to Wigfull's eye reinforced the feeling of hotel-like neutrality.

He got a strikingly different impression when he crossed the room and looked into one of the adjacent dressing rooms. It was a shrine to Gerry Snoo's television career. The walls were thick with silver-framed stills from The Milners, interspersed with press pictures of herself with celebrities at parties. Her dressing table had the mirror fringed with light bulbs that was supposed to be a feature of every star's dressing room, and the wall behind it was festooned with silver horseshoes, telemessages, greetings cards and sprigs of heather. Across the room was a folding screen entirely pasted over with press clippings. A system of shelving between the built-in wardrobe and the window was stacked with video-cassettes and paperbacks of The Milners.

'Missing the big time, would you say?' the scenes-of-crime officer called out.

'Looks remarkably like it.' Wigfull returned to the bedroom. 'Have you found much?'

'A few microscopic spots on the duvet that could be blood. May be significant, may be not. We'll see what the tests show. Plenty of prints on the surface of the dressing table, presumably her own. Hardly any elsewhere. I reckon the chest of drawers and the wardrobe have been wiped clean. Did he do it?'

'The husband, you mean?'

'Who else? Murder's generally in the family, isn't it?'

Wigfull gave a shrug.

The scenes-of-crime officer snapped shut the metal case containing his instruments. 'If he is guilty, I back your boss to nail him. I've seen the way Diamond works. It's cat and mouse with him. Playful for a bit. Then he pounces. If he doesn't bite their heads off he breaks their backbones.'

Wigfull said, 'Before it comes to that, I'd like to know the motive.'

'Obvious. They weren't sleeping in the same bed. She must have been getting it from someone else. Husband found out. Curtains for Candice.'

In the garden, Diamond was patiently unravelling the story of the marriage. 'You were telling me in the car about the blow it was when your wife was written out of the television serial. You seemed to imply that after the initial shock, she was quite positive in the way she faced up to it.'

'That's perfectly true,' Jackman answered. He was calmer now that the questions were more structured, more predictable. 'Of course she made her feelings plain to the director, but once she saw that it was a lost cause, she responded sensibly, I thought. She told me she meant to make up for the years she had missed.'

'What did she mean by that?'

'She had never been allowed the freedom girls in their teens are entitled to expect. At last she could break out -go on holidays, dance the night away, change her hairstyle, put on weight if she wanted and never answer another fan letter. I suppose it was the teenage rebellion ten years delayed.'

'Not the ideal start to a marriage,' ventured Diamond.

The answer came on a sharper note, as if Jackman knew what was behind the comment. 'We didn't view it that way. As I told you, we had agreed to leave enough space to be ourselves and pursue our interests independently. We didn't want the kind of arrangement where one partner tags along forever making sacrifices.'

'But the basis of your contract – your understanding, or whatever you called it – had altered,' Diamond pointed out. 'She no longer had a career.'

'So what? Just because Gerry was unemployed I didn't expect her to stay at home and darn my socks. She put her energies into building a social life for herself. She gave up the flat in Ealing, of course.'

'Difficult for a woman used to London, coming down here and not knowing anyone,' Diamond remarked, resolute in his belief that the marriage must have been fatally flawed.

'Not for Gerry. Word soon got round that she'd moved down here. The invitations came in thick and fast.'

'Did you get invited, too?'

'Quite often. I couldn't usually join her. I had a brand new department to set up, and that took up most of my time. I gradually got to know the crowd she spent her time with. We had the occasional party here.'

'People from Bath?'

'Bristol. All around, I gather.'

'You gather? You didn't get to know them that well, then? Weren't they your sort?'

Jackman gave him a cold stare. 'People don't have to be my sort, as you put it. Anyway, I didn't make a point of asking them where they lived. If you want their names and addresses, I dare say I can find her address book.'

'You mean you don't even know the names of your wife's friends?'

'I didn't say that. There were some people called Maltby. They were from Clevedon, I believe. Paula and John Hare. Liza somebody. A tall fellow by the name of Mike -I'm not sure where he lived.'

'Don't bother,' said Diamond. 'I'll go through the address book, as you suggest. Did your wife ever mention falling out with any of the friends she made?'

'Not that I recall.'