Peter Lovesey - The Last Detective

'Her odd behaviour – was that totally due to cocaine?'

'I don't know about totally. I think it's safe to say she wasn't mad. My understanding of the drug is that after the well-being wears off, the user – I'm speaking of heavy users – can be prey to all kinds of fears and anxieties. They think people are against them. Paranoid delusions leading to violent behaviour are well-known symptoms.'

'I'm surprised her bloody doctor didn't get on to this. So when she tried to kill me she must have been high with cocaine.'

'She'd probably been snorting it at the party.'

'Is this what they call crack?'

'No, crack is cocaine dissolved in warm water and heated with an alkali, like baking powder. It comes in the form of flakes or crystals. Try that and you have an immediate compulsive addiction. A physical addiction. This isn't crack.'

'But it is addictive?'

'Psychologically, yes. It can take some time. I would guess from the size of your wife's overdraft that she was hooked.'

Jackman was silent for a moment, piecing together the logic of what had seemed incomprehensible at the time. 'I'd like to find the bastard who supplied her.'

'So would I,' said Diamond. 'And fast.'

'You think it has some bearing on her death? You do, don't you?' He smacked his hand on the table. 'My God, it could change everything!'

Diamond was way ahead of him. There was an incident that took place on the drive in front of this house last summer, witnessed by Mrs Didrikson and her son. It was a Saturday morning. I think you were out at the time. You were very busy with that exhibition. The two of them -Dana and Matthew – were in the road hoping to catch a glimpse of you. Mat had seen you on television and recognized you as the guy who rescued him from the weir. Instead, they saw a man come out of the house -clean-shaven, strongly built, with straw-coloured hair. Blue shirt, white jeans and trainers. Oh, and he had a gold chain around his neck. Know anyone like that?'

'Nobody springs to mind.'

'He had a maroon-coloured Volvo. His name was Andy.'

'Andy? The only Andy I know is fat and sixty. What happened?'

'He walked out towards the car and your wife came running after him, wearing a dressing gown. Her feet were bare, but she was in too much of a state to bother. She didn't want him to leave. She was asking him to come back in. She called him Andy and said something like, "Do you expect me to go on my knees and beg?" She had quite a wrestling match with him before he shoved her away and drove off.'

'Dana saw all this?'

'Yes, and reasonably enough she took it to be a lovers' tiff. She steered Mat away in some embarrassment. Now that we know about the cocaine, I'm tempted to see the incident in a different light.'

'This Andy was her supplier?'

Diamond gave a nod. 'That's my assumption. Probably he was holding out for a higher price. More than your wife was willing to pay at that time.'

'We've got to find him.'

'That isn't easy. If I were still in the police, I'd bring in the drugs squad. They're better placed to find him. We ought to report this, anyway.'

Some reluctance may have escaped in Diamond's voice, because Jackman immediately said, 'We're in a different ball-game here. This isn't just about our civic duty. Dana faces a life sentence, and that Inspector Wigfull's reputation is on the line. He's handed the prosecution a neat case of murder with an eternal triangle motive and evidence to back it. He doesn't want it complicated with a drugs connection.'

'He couldn't stop it.'

'Yes, but he can soft-pedal. I think we should follow this up ourselves. It's the first scrap of hope for the defence. Let's not chuck it to the opposition right away.'

Diamond was uneasy. As a senior policeman, he would have come down hard on anyone who failed to report a drugs find, however small. Yet he'd also known as a senior policeman how murder inquiries worked. New evidence wasn't greeted as good news when the file had already been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service. Jackman's remark about soft-pedalling was persuasive. And the earlier cock-up over the car-log still troubled him. By drawing attention to its disappearance they had undoubtedly handed the prosecution a trump card. Why not hold this one back to play when the time was right?

Following it up for themselves, as Jackman had suggested, would be fraught with difficulties, but thanks to a well-trained memory, Diamond had one possible lead. 'Cast your mind back a few months. Do you recall going through your wife's address book with me? I'm pretty sure one of the names we didn't pin down was Andy.'

'You're right! It didn't mean anything to me.'

'There was no address, just a phone number. If we could get that number…'

'Right on!' Then Jackman's expression altered. 'But the address book must be still in the hands of the police.'

'The defence solicitor could ask to examine it. They can't refuse. It's a reasonable request, and he doesn't have to say what he's looking for.'

'I'll call Siddons right away.'

It was easy – too easy for Diamond's cynical mind, which warned him that nothing you really want comes without hassle. Siddons the solicitor went straight to Bath Central and saw John Wigfull. The address book was produced for him. Within an hour of asking for it, Jackman had Andy's phone number.

The snag came when they tried it. An Asian voice answered. The Bristol number was an Indian restaurant in the St Paul's district of the city. They didn't know anyone called Andy. It gradually emerged that the restaurant had opened in January, having taken over empty premises that had been boarded up for a couple of months. Before that, it had been a gents' hairdressers.

Diamond succeeded in contacting the estate agent who had handled the transfer of the property. The man wasn't too pleased to be asked about Andy. He'd had to deal with a number of inquiries from a variety of callers. The barber's name had not been Andy. He had been Mario, and he had died in the flu epidemic just before Christmas. The estate agent gathered that Mario the barber had made a secondary income by taking messages for scores of dubious people who called into the shop from time to time.

Diamond put down the phone and told Jackman, 'It's a dead end.'

MATTHEW DIDRIKSON SAT EATING HIS second slice of chocolate fudge cake in Charlotte's Patisserie in the Colonnades. Facing him were Jackman and Diamond. They had sought out a table under an arch at the rear of the shop; even so, they looked conspicuous among the shoppers and business people refreshing themselves for the journey home. Diamond, in the crumpled check suit he habitually wore, was shoehorned into the space between the table edge and the upholstered seat that went halfway around; and Jackman, elegant in brown corduroy and a black shirt, could have been straight out of a colour magazine fashion feature. Matthew was wearing a white shirt, striped tie and navy pullover, having peeled off his school blazer at the first opportunity. Diamond had predicted that at this hour of the day they would find the boy somewhere in the Colonnades making a nuisance of himself on the escalators or in the lift, and he'd been right. It remained to be discovered what they would get in return for their bribe of unlimited cake.

'How's your head these days?' Diamond asked. 'No more blackouts, I hope?'

Clearly sensing that he had the high ground here, Matthew was in no hurry to respond. He glanced towards some schoolgirls at a table nearby, ran his fingers through his dark hair, and finally admitted, 'It's all right.'

'It's some time since we spoke. It was here, wasn't it? I was in disguise, if you remember.' When that got no reaction, Diamond added, 'I don't think Professor Jackman knows I played Santa, unless you mentioned it.'