Peter Lovesey - Upon A Dark Night

He rallied his spirits for the press conference, held in a briefing room downstairs at Manvers Street. He needed to be sharp. His purpose in talking to the media was simply to step up the hunt for Rose. He didn’t intend to link her disappearance to any other crime. However, he was meeting a pack of journalists, and the modern generation of hacks were all too quick to make connections. Their first reaction would be that the head of the murder squad wouldn’t waste time on a missing woman unless he expected her to be found dead. From there, it was a short step to questioning him about other recent deaths: Daniel Gladstone and possibly Hildegarde Henkel. These same press people had reported the finding of the bodies. It was all too fresh in their memories.

He handled the session adeptly, keeping Rose steadily in the frame. It was obvious from the questions that Social Services would be in for some stick. They were used to being in the front line. Poor buggers, they came in for more criticism than any other organisation.

He was about to wrap up when the inevitable question came, from a young, angelic-featured woman with a ring through her right nostril. Nothing made him feel the generation-gap more than this craze for body piercing. ‘Would you comment on the possible connection with the death of the German woman, Hildegarde Henkel, at the Royal Crescent?’

He was ready. ‘I’d rather not. That case is being handled by another officer.’

‘Who is that, please?’

‘DCI Wigfull.’

‘But you were seen up at the Crescent at the weekend. You made more than one visit.’

‘That’s correct. I’m now on another case. If that’s all, ladies and gentlemen…’

She was persistent. ‘It may be another case, Mr Diamond, but you must have taken note that the missing woman Rose was staying in Harmer House at the same time as Ms Henkel.’

‘Yes.’

‘There were only three women staying in the hostel,’ she said evenly, watching for his reaction, ‘and one of them is missing and one is dead.’

‘I wouldn’t read too much into that if I were you. Harmer House is used as a temporary refuge for people in the care of Social Services. Some of them are sure to be unstable, or otherwise at risk.’

She had thought this through. ‘There was a superficial similarity between Rose and Hildegarde Henkel. Dark, short hair. Slim. Aged in their twenties. Is it true that there was speculation at the weekend that the body at the Royal Crescent was that of Rose?’

‘If there was,’ answered Diamond evenly, ‘it was unfounded. I don’t really see what you’re driving at.’

‘I thought it was obvious. You’ve made no announcement about the cause of Ms Henkel’s death.’

‘She fell off the roof.’ The slick answer tripped off his tongue, but even as he spoke it, he knew he shouldn’t have. Several voices chorused with questions.

‘I’m answering the lady,’ he said, and provoked some good-natured abuse from her professional colleagues.

She was not thrown in the least. ‘The fall is not in doubt, Mr Diamond. The question is whether she fell by accident or by design, and when I say by design I mean by her design or someone else’s. In other words, suicide or murder.’

He gave a shrug. ‘That’s for a coroner’s jury to decide.’

‘Come on,’ she chided him. ‘That’s a cop-out, if ever I heard one.’

This scored a laugh and cries of ‘cop-out’ from several of the press corps.

He wanted an out and he couldn’t find one without arousing universal suspicion that he hadn’t been honest with them.

She wasn’t going to leave it. she said, ‘If it was murder, have you considered the possibility that Ms Henkel was killed by mistake because she resembled Rose, the other woman, and they lived at the same address? If so, you must be extremely concerned, about the safety of Rose.’

The opening was there, and he took it. ‘Of course we’re concerned, regardless of this hypothesis of yours. That’s why I called this conference. We’re grateful for any information about Rose. The co-operation of all of you in publicising the case is appreciated.’ He nodded across the room, avoiding the wide blue eyes of his inquisitor, and then quit the room fast.

‘Who was she?’ he asked the press sergeant.

‘Ingeborg Smith. She’s a freelance, doing a piece on missing women for one of the colour supplements, she says.’

‘If she ever wants a job on the murder squad, she can have it.’

He sought out Julie, and found her in the incident room. ‘When you spoke to Ada yesterday, did she say anything about the press?’

‘She may have done. She did go on a bit.’

‘She went on a bit to a newshound who goes under the name of Ingeborg Smith, unless I’m mistaken.’

‘What about?’

‘The possibility that Hilde was killed in error by someone who confused her with Rose.’

Julie said, ‘It sounds like Ada talking, I agree.’ She picked up the phone-pad. ‘There’s a large package waiting for you in reception.’

‘That’ll be my two-box. I’ll leave it there for the present.’

‘Your what?’

‘Two-box.’

‘It sounds slightly indelicate.’

‘Wait till you see it in action. Has anything else of interest come in?’

She made the mistake of saying, ‘It’s early days.’

‘What?’ His face had changed.

‘I mean all this was only set up a couple of hours ago.’

‘All this?’ He flapped his arm in the general direction of the computers. ‘You think this is going to work some miracle? We’ve got a corpse that was rotting at the scene for a week and you tell me it’s early days. The only conceivable suspect has vanished without trace. Forensic have gone silent. Julie, a roomful of screens and phones isn’t going to trap an old man’s killer.’

‘It can help.’

He turned and looked at the blow-up of Rose’s face pinned to the corkboard. ‘What I need above all else is to get a hair of her head. One hair.’

Julie said nothing. They both knew that the best chance had gone when Rose’s room at the hostel was cleared for another inmate. Dunkley-Brown’s car had been a long shot that had missed.

He wouldn’t leave it. ‘Let’s go over her movements. She’s driven to the Hinton Clinic in the Bentley, but we know that’s a dead pigeon. The people at the Clinic put her to bed.’

‘Three weeks ago,’ said Julie. ‘They’ll have changed and laundered the bedding since then – or it’s not the kind of private hospital I’d want to stay in.’

‘Two dead pigeons. They send her to Harmer House, and that’s another one.’

‘Just a minute,’ said Julie. ‘How did she get there?’

‘To Harmer House? That social worker – Imogen – collected her.’

‘In a car?’

‘Well, they wouldn’t have sent a taxi. Funds are scarce.’ His brown eyes held hers for a moment. ‘Julie, I’m trying not to raise my hopes. I think we should contact Imogen right now.’

Imogen was not optimistic. ‘I don’t recall Rose combing her hair in the car, or anything. I doubt if you’ll find a hair.’

‘People are shedding hair all the time,’ Diamond informed her. ‘She wouldn’t have to comb it to leave one or two in your car.’

‘In that case, you’re up against it. I’ve given lifts to dozens of people since then. I’m always ferrying clients around the city.’

‘We’d still like to have the car examined.’

‘Suit yourself,’ she said. ‘How long does it take? I wouldn’t want to be without wheels.’

‘We’ll send a man now. Collecting the material doesn’t take long. It’s the work in the lab that takes the time.’

‘I don’t like to contemplate what he’ll find in my old Citroën. Some of my passengers – you should see the state of them.’