Peter Lovesey - Upon A Dark Night

He called Julie at home.

‘Can you get here fast? I’m about to nick the Treadwells. I want you on board.’

She didn’t take it in fully.

‘They’re the link to Rose.’ He went on to explain why in a few crisp sentences.

The dependable Julie said she would come directly.

What a wimp of a young man, Diamond thought. It was almost eleven when Guy Treadwell, in silk dressing-gown and slippers, opened the door and saw the outsize detective with Julie and two uniformed officers beside him. Treadwell’s hand went to his goatee beard and gripped it like an insecure child reaching for its mother.

‘What is this?’

‘Shall we discuss it inside?’

‘If it’s about the damage to the car, I think you want our neighbours, the Allardyces.’

‘No, Mr Treadwell, this concerns your wife. Is she at home?’

He stared. ‘You’d better come in.’

Diamond gestured to the two officers to wait in the hall. He and Julie followed Treadwell into the living-room.

‘Your wife,’ Diamond prompted him.

‘She isn’t here. I’m expecting her soon. She went out. Some meeting or other.’

Diamond turned immediately to Julie. ‘Tell the lads to move the cars away, or she’ll take fright and do a runner.’

Treadwell looked in danger of bursting blood vessels. ‘What on earth is going on?’

‘I have some questions for your wife, sir. And for you, too.’

‘About what?’

‘You might like to get some clothes on. I intend to do this at the police station. You’ll come voluntarily, won’t you?’

Horrified, Treadwell mouthed the words ‘police station’. ‘Are you seriously proposing to arrest us?’

‘Didn’t you hear? This will be voluntary on your part.’

‘We’ve done nothing unlawful.’

‘No problem, then. Shall we go upstairs? If you don’t mind, I’ll stay with you while you put your clothes on.’

Speechless, shaking his head, Treadwell led Diamond to the bathroom on the first floor where his day clothes were hanging behind the door. Diamond waited discreetly on the other side holding it open with his foot.

‘I don’t see the necessity of this,’ the voice in the bathroom started to protest more strongly. ‘Coming at night without warning. It’s like living in a fascist state.’

Diamond chose not to tangle with him over that. In a few minutes the young man came out fully attired. Some of his bluster had returned now that his bow-tie was back in place. ‘I can’t imagine what this pantomime is about, but I tell you, officer, you’re making a mistake you may regret. I need my glasses.’ With Diamond dogging him, he crossed the passage to the bedroom opposite, where a single bed and a single wardrobe made their own statement about the marriage. The half-glasses were on a chest of drawers. He looped the cord over his head and looked ready to play the professor in a college production of Pygmalion.

On the way downstairs Diamond asked him if his wife made a habit of coming in late.

He said defiantly, ‘There’s no law against it.’

‘That wasn’t what I asked.’

‘We’re grown-ups. I don’t insist that she’s home by ten.’

‘Was she out last night and the night before?’

‘There’s plenty to do in Bath. Emma belongs to things, she has friends, she doesn’t want to sit at home each evening watching television.’

‘So the answer is “Yes”?’

‘Haven’t I made that clear?’A direct answer seemed impossible to achieve.

They joined Julie in the living-room. While they waited for Emma, Diamond interested himself in the glass-fronted antique bookcase. Two shelves were filled with bound volumes of the Bath Archaeological Society Journal .

‘You’re seriously into all this, Mr Treadwell?’

‘The books? I got those for next to nothing at a sale. I don’t have the time to be serious.’

‘I remember someone telling me you’re a whizz at digging up relics.’

‘They were exaggerating.’

‘I’m sure. We were talking about this good luck you seem to be favoured with. If the truth were told, you have to know a bit about the site before you know where to dig. Isn’t that so?’

‘It helps.’

‘It’s like the cards. They call you lucky, but you have to know how to play the hand as well.’

‘That is certainly true.’

He was clearly reassured by Diamond’s change of tone. Then they heard the front door being opened. Treadwell grasped the arms of his chair, but Diamond put out a restraining hand. Instead, he gestured to Julie, who stepped into the hall to explain to Emma Treadwell why there would be no need to take her coat off.

Emma reacted more coolly than her husband had. ‘It’s a little late in the evening for all this, isn’t it?’

She was still composed in the interview room at the police station. She had spent the evening, she claimed, with a woman friend. No, she could not possibly divulge the friend’s name. The poor woman was going through a personal crisis. To pass on her name to the police would be like a betrayal, certain to undo any good she had been able to achieve.

Not bad, young Emma, Diamond thought, not bad at all.

And Julie was thinking that this was the most casual Emma had looked. The baggy sweater and jeans, and the fine, dark hair looking as if it could do with a brushing, supported the story. You don’t get dolled up to visit a distressed friend.

Diamond asked, ‘Is your friend in trouble with the police?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘We only want her to vouch for you.’

She raked some wayward hair from her face, smiled, and said, ‘What am I supposed to have done? Pinched the Crown Jewels?’

‘We just want it confirmed where you were.’

‘At this moment, her situation matters more to me than my own.’

‘You’ve spent a lot of time with her lately, haven’t you?’

Emma had no way of knowing how much her husband had already divulged. Guy Treadwell was seated in another room with a copy of the Bath Chronicle, some lukewarm coffee in a paper cup and only a bored constable for company. ‘It’s confidential,’ she insisted.

‘This woman: is she local?’

‘Look, I don’t want to be obstructive, but haven’t I already made clear why I can’t tell you anything about her?’

Reasonable as she appeared to be, she was rapidly sacrificing any rapport with Diamond. What Ada called the lah-de-dah voice grated on him. No doubt she could keep stonewalling ad infinitum. He changed tack. ‘You have an office in Gay Street?’

‘Yes.’

‘Above the agency that lets flats. Better Let, isn’t it?’

She nodded.

‘Obviously, you’re on good terms with the people in Better Let. Is there a business tie-in?’

‘Do you mean are we connected with them? No.’

‘You understand why I’m asking this?’

She said without even blinking, ‘No, I don’t.’

‘One of their flats, a furnished basement in St James’s Square, was used by two women a couple of weeks ago. An unofficial arrangement. The place is supposed to be vacant. The women must have acquired a set of keys. There was no break-in.’

The pause that followed didn’t appear to unnerve Emma Treadwell.

‘One of the women fitted your description,’ Diamond resumed. ‘The other is called Christine Gladstone, known to some people as Rose, or Rosamund Black. She was in the care of Avon Social Services until recently, suffering from some form of amnesia. Do you have any comment?’

She said as though the subject bored her, ‘I did see something in the local paper about a woman who lost her memory.’

‘She was seen in the company of this woman who’s a dead ringer for you. We have three independent witnesses. We can hold an identity parade in the morning if you insist on denying that it’s you.’