Peter Lovesey - The Last Detective

That's putting it strongly,' said Buckle. 'I do a bit of importing in addition to my work here.'

'Importing what?'

'Novelty goods, cheap toys – that sort of thing. I supply quite a number of toyshops and stationers with items from the Far East.'

'Japan?'

'Hong Kong and Taiwan principally.'

'You ship the goods over and distribute them?'

'Yes. It's concentrated in Bristol and Bath. I charge the Value Added Tax. It all goes through the books.'

'Is it a good living?'

'I get by.'

'I heard that you have a large house in Clifton.'

'So what? There's no law against it.'

With what he intended to appear as the air of an inspector, Diamond whipped a buff folder from the briefcase he was carrying. From it he produced the Guide to Value Added Tax that he had picked up that morning from the VAT office in Ham Gardens House. 'You've studied this, Mr Buckle?'

A wide, defiant grin. 'Next to Charles Dickens, it's my favourite reading. Have a seat.'

The seats – apart from Buckle's vast executive chair -were fashioned out of beer-kegs. Diamond lowered himself on to one, and found it inadequate. 'So you do your own returns?'

'Actually no, squire. I have an accountant. Want me to give him a call?'

'Not just now. I presume you keep tabs on the figures anyway.'

'Figures in which sense?' Buckle punctuated this with a wink.

The input tax. Mileage of all the vehicles in use by the company.'

Buckle became more serious, adjusting the knot of his tie and trying to make it seem a confident gesture.

'I think you'll find that our returns are accurate.'

'Do you keep a record, sir?'

'Naturally.' He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a red ledger book. 'It's all in here. Every Realbrew vehicle is listed.'

Diamond held out his hand for the book. His hopes were dashed the moment he opened it. The mileage was in monthly totals. As evidence, it was no help at all. He went through the formality of asking how the figures were supplied and heard about the mileage logs kept by each driver.

'And when the logs come in, do you photocopy them?'

'No. I don't believe in paperwork for its own sake.' Buckle made a pistol of his fingers and pressed them to his head in a mime of suicide. 'Now tell me it's obligatory.'

Diamond opened a page of the ledger fully in front of him. 'The Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.6 Automatic Saloon.'

'Which one? The company owns two. One is for my personal use and the other is driven by the company chauffeur.'

'Two cars of the same model?'

'Bought at the same time. It all went through the books quite properly and I keep my own log religiously. You're welcome to examine it if you wish.'

'Yes, please. And the other…?'

'… should be with the other vehicle which – unfortunately – is not on the premises at the present time. If you'll excuse me a moment…" He called someone on the intercom and asked them to fetch the log from his car.

'The other vehicle, the one the chauffeur drives,' Diamond said. 'Is that the one being held by the police?'

Buckle's eyes snapped into sharper focus. 'You're bloody well informed.'

'It's public knowledge, sir. I can examine the log for that car at the police station – is that what you're telling me?'

'Not really,' answered Buckle. 'I gather it's gone missing. The Old Bill were on to me about it. They wanted to know if the log was on the premises here. There was no reason why it should have been. The system is that the books are kept in the cars and checked at the end of each month. The job never takes more than a day.'

'Your chauffeur's in trouble, I understand,' Diamond ventured.

'To borrow a phrase of yours, it's public knowledge,' Buckle said smoothly.

Equally smoothly, Diamond asked, 'Is she guilty?'

'I should think so. She was in pretty deep with the dead woman's husband. Mind, I'm not faulting her as an employee. She was a good driver. Reliable.'

Diamond felt a gut contempt for this man. He was finding it hard to subdue. 'She drove the one car, did she?'

'Just the one. She never used mine, if that's what you're asking.'

'It wouldn't have mattered if she did,' Diamond pointed out, 'seeing that they're both company cars.'

'True. But mine is exclusively for my own use.'

'And did you ever have reason to drive the chauffeur's car, sir?'

'Never. I had my own. Look here, if there's any suspicion that I'm on the fiddle in some way, you'd better come out with it.'

'I'm more interested in Mrs Didrikson,' Diamond candidly answered. 'You said she was reliable. Was she at work on the day of the murder?'

'She took the day off, but I don't see what this has to do -'

Diamond overrode the protest. 'And the next day? Was she at work the next day?'

'She was late. When she got in about half past ten she looked to me as if she'd been up all night. I didn't go to town on her. With a chauffeur as dependable as Dana, you know there had to be a damned good reason. I've told all this to the police.'

And Diamond could imagine what John Wigfull had made of it. Stanley Buckle was going to be a formidable witness for the prosecution, apparently believing the best of his chauffeur, while disclosing facts that were open to the worst interpretation.

'Who exactly are you?'

Diamond was saved from replying by a secretary who brought in a small black book. 'The log?' he said, holding out his hand. Thank you, my dear.'

All the entries were in one hand, presumably Buckle's. The book was fully up to date and appeared to have been kept as meticulously as Buckle had claimed. The monthly totals tallied with the office ledger. On the critical day of 11 September two short journeys of nine miles were entered, and the same on 12 September.

Diamond thanked Buckle, said he would delay him no longer and left. On the way out, he looked for Buckle's Mercedes in the car park. It was parked in the space reserved for the managing director. The mileage on the clock matched the latest figure in the book.

His morning's work had come to nothing. The case against Dana Didrikson looked stronger still.

THERE FOLLOWED A HIATUS OF three months during which Peter Diamond tried to persuade himself that he could do nothing more for Dana Didrikson, that it would be better for all concerned if he let the law take its course. His thinking came down to this: he expected her to be found guilty, and his knowledge of the case suggested that the verdict would be right. He didn't expect the trial to last long. It wouldn't surprise him if she changed her plea to guilty.

She would serve probably a dozen years of the lite sentence and be released on licence. She was no danger to society. Most of the murderers he'd known had been like her – a group apart from other criminals… people driven by family pressures or their own obsession to commit one crime in their lives.

And yet…

A vestige of unease lingered in his mind. Certain things about the case still challenged an explanation. The Jane Austen letters had not been found. No doubt the prosecution would suggest that Geraldine had destroyed them in an act of jealousy, and Dana Didrikson had killed her in a fit of outrage fired up by her infatuation with Jackman. Yet Geraldine had known that those letters were valuable. According to Jackman, she had been overdrawn three thousand pounds. Mightn't she have seen the letters as a way out of her financial mess?

Maybe it was mistaken to assume that Geraldine would make that kind of calculation. According to Jackman she had been mentally unstable, if not actually unhinged.

According to Jackman… So many of the assumptions in the case depended on Jackman's statements. He had interpreted the fire in the summerhouse as an attempt on his life, a manifestation of Geraldine's paranoia. It was worth remembering that Jackman's field of expertise was English literature, not psychiatry.