Peter Lovesey - Upon A Dark Night

‘Yes.’

‘Where from?’

‘From our stock. Here. We keep some basic clothes for emergency use. I brought her in before we went to Harmer House and we found a shirt and some jeans. They weren’t new, but they were clean and in better condition than the ones she had.’

Tensely Julie asked, ‘And what happened to the old clothes?’

‘They were really no use to her.’

‘Did she take them with her?’

‘No, she discarded them. There was nothing left in the pockets, if that’s what you were thinking.’

‘What happened to them?’

Imogen lifted her shoulders in a dismissive way. ‘I suppose they were thrown out with the rubbish. Well, the shirt was, for sure. We may have kept the jeans. They were hanging open at the knee, but that’s fashionable, isn’t it? We don’t like to throw anything out that might come in useful.’

‘Where would they be if you kept them?’

‘The storeroom.’

‘Can we check?’

‘I don’t want to dash your hopes, if you’re hoping to find a hair on them, but they’ve probably been washed by now.’

Julie felt a flutter of despair.

‘We wait for a reasonable load and then someone takes them to the launderette.’

‘But I’d like you to check, please,’ Julie insisted.

In the storeroom she helped Imogen rummage through black plastic sacks of musty-smelling clothes.

‘Most of these haven’t been to the laundry.’

‘Yes, we’ve obviously been stockpiling.’

Eventually, Imogen looked into a bag and said, ‘This could be them.’

‘Careful,’ Julie warned. ‘Don’t lift them out.’

‘How can we tell if they’re hers if we don’t lift them out?’

‘Look at them in the sack. Spread it open. Keep your head back if you can. We don’t want to catch one of your hairs.’

Imogen found the rip in the knee she remembered.

Resisting the temptation to see if she’d really got lucky, Julie tied a knot in the top of the bag and carried it through the street to the police station.

She went in search of Jim Marsh.

Eventually, she arrived at the incident room at 10.20. The meeting was over and people were going about their business with a quiet sense of purpose, so each word of what followed was heard by most of the squad.

‘It looks nice,’ Diamond said in his heavy-handed way.

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘The do. Been to the hairdresser’s, have you?’

There was an awkward interval. Then Julie said, ‘Obviously I should have called earlier, but I didn’t think it would take so long.’

‘The highlighting?’

She’d had enough. ‘Will you listen? I don’t fix personal appointments in police time. As a matter of fact, the last time I was due to have my hair done, you put me on overtime, so I had to cancel. If you want to know where I was first thing this morning, it was on police business, on my own initiative. Is that allowed?’

‘All right, I’m out of order,’ he said without sounding as if he meant it. ‘Where were you?’

She told him about her last-ditch idea of tracking down Rose’s rejected clothes, and of locating the jeans in the storeroom.

His entire approach altered. ‘I hardly dare ask. Have you shown them to Marsh yet?’

‘That’s why I’m so late. He was still at home.’

‘I know. But did he find anything?’

‘He said it had to be examined in a controlled situation, or some such phrase.’

‘Here?’

‘In the SOCOs’ section, I think.’

He picked up a phone and pressed the internal number. He was through to Marsh directly.

‘You have? With what result?…Brilliant!…I know, I know, you don’t have to tell me that. Just rush it to the lab and see if we’re in business, will you?’ He put down the phone and smiled at Julie. ‘One dark hair, nine centimetres long. You may have cracked it this time, Julie.’

She didn’t trust herself to say anything.

Allardyce was surprised to be shown into Chief Inspector 265 Wigfull’s office. ‘I expected to speak to Superintendent Diamond. He’s the one I saw previously.’

‘Mr Diamond is on another case,’ said Wigfull in a lofty tone. ‘I’ve taken over the handling of the incident at your house.’

‘It’s just that we haven’t seen you there.’

‘It’s mainly paperwork at this stage. The on-site investigation is complete.’

‘What conclusion did you reach – or am I not supposed to ask?’

‘That will be up to the coroner. We simply present the evidence. You’ll be notified about the inquest in due course, sir. You’ll be called as a witness. As to this other matter, the damage to your car, we’ll investigate, of course, but-’

‘The tyre was slashed. It had to be reported.’

‘You’re absolutely right, sir, but if it’s any consolation, it may not have been personal,’ Wigfull said, confirming a melancholy truth. ‘Casual vandalism is quite common even in Bath, I’m sorry to say. If we had more officers to patrol the streets…’

‘If it wasn’t personal, why was my car picked out? None of the others were touched.’ He was genuinely puzzled and hurt..

‘You said it’s new. Sometimes that can be a provocation.’

Allardyce gave a shrug and a smile. ‘What are we supposed to do? Never drive a new car?’

Wigfull shifted in his chair. He was beginning to feel sympathy for this young man. ‘Why else should it have been picked out? You tell me, sir.’

‘I’ve no idea.’

This justified leading the witness a little. ‘I suppose it comes suspiciously soon after the publicity about the young woman’s death in your house.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Any vandalism is taken seriously, sir.’

Allardyce ignored the empty phrase. ‘I mean what does that poor woman’s death have to do with this?’

‘I don’t know. If they decided you were responsible in some way…’

‘Me?’

‘I’m trying to see it from their point of view.’

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘Some friend of the deceased.’ Even as he spoke, an uncomfortable idea was stirring at the back of Wigfull’s brain.

‘I don’t follow your thinking.’

‘But it’s well known that you weren’t to blame for what happened,’ Wigfull affirmed, not wanting to grapple with the dire thought now forming. ‘Your house was taken over by young people wanting a party. There was a tragic consequence. No fault of yours.’

‘If that’s the way you see it…’ said Allardyce, beginning to be swayed.

‘Besides,’ said Wigfull, ‘it wasn’t as if your car was parked outside your house. Anyone wanting to get at you personally would have to know which car it was and where you parked it last night.’

‘True.’

‘We’ll follow this up and let you know if we have a result, but my money is on some kid out of school who doesn’t know your vehicle from anyone else’s,’ he lied, to bring this to a close. He got up from his chair and showed Allardyce to the door. ‘Your neighbour – Mr Treadwell. Does he have a car?’

‘No. Wise man. He works in Bath and doesn’t need to travel so much.’

Alone in his office again, Wigfull sat brooding like a Thomas Hardy hero on the malign sport of the fates. Finally he sighed, pressed the intercom and spoke to the control room. ‘Send someone round to Harmer House, would you, and bring in Ada Shaftsbury. Yes, I repeat: Ada Shaftsbury.’

Somewhere east of Reading on the M4, Diamond said to Julie, ‘We’ve got some fences to repair, you and me.’

She didn’t speak, so he amended it.

‘I’ve got some fences to repair.’

They drove another half-mile in silence.

‘I said I was out of order, didn’t I? Meant it, too. You know me by now, Julie. Things start going wrong and I get stroppy. That’s all it was back there. Jim Marsh had just been on the line telling me his tests were negative.’