Peter Lovesey - Upon A Dark Night

‘All right,’ she said, still without betraying the least concern in her still, brown eyes. ‘Let’s do that. May I go home now?’

As neat a hand-off as he’d met, and he was an ex-rugby forward. ‘You don’t seem to realise how serious this is.’ He found himself falling back on intimidation. ‘It isn’t just a matter of illegally occupying a flat. Christine Gladstone is under suspicion of murder – the killing of an old man – her own father – at Tormarton a few weeks ago. If you’ve been harbouring her, this makes you an accessory.’ He watched for her reaction and it was negligible.

‘So?’

‘If there’s another explanation, now is not a bad time to give it.’

Her response was to look up at the ceiling.

He said, ‘I can arrest you and detain you here until we get that identification.’

‘That sounds like a threat.’

He paused, and then tossed in casually, ‘Did you get the fuses you were looking for in Rossiter’s?’

She blinked twice. For a fleeting moment her guard seemed to be down. Then she recovered. ‘What did you say?’

‘The fuses. You were seen in Rossiter’s yesterday afternoon asking for electric fuses. They don’t sell them.’

She managed to smile. ‘I know that.’

‘You don’t deny you were there?’

She gave Julie a glance as if to invite contempt for this man’s stupid questions. ‘It must have been someone else, mustn’t it?’

But he was certain he’d hit the mark. ‘You were seen there by Ada Shaftsbury, who was in the same hostel as Christine Gladstone. She recognised you as the woman who presented herself at Harmer House and claimed she was the sister. I really think you ought to consider your position. I can bring Ada in tomorrow morning.’

That look of indifference remained, so he heaped on everything he had.

‘I can bring in Miss Starr, Christine’s social worker. I can bring in the taxi-driver you hired – the one who waited for you and then drove you both to St James’s Square, to the vacant flat that Better Let had the keys for. St James’s Square – that’s just behind the Royal Crescent, isn’t it? Five minutes from where you live?’

Unperturbed, she rose from the chair. ‘Let me know what time you want me tomorrow, then.’

‘You can’t leave.’

‘Why not?’

‘We haven’t finished.’

Still in control, she said, ‘The hell with that. I’m not sitting here any longer, being put through the hoop about things that don’t concern me. I know my rights, Mr Diamond. I’d like to go home now.’

She managed to seem convincing, whatever she had done.

He said – and it sounded like a delaying tactic even to him: ‘We haven’t talked to your husband yet.’

‘That’s your business.’

‘You wouldn’t want to leave without him.’

‘And that’s mine.’

The flip response revealed more than she intended.

‘Working together, as you do, you must see a lot of each other.’

‘So?’

‘Puts a strain on your relationship, I reckon.’

She gave him a glare. ‘You’re getting personal, aren’t you?’

‘From what he was saying, you don’t share many evenings out.’

Nettled now, she said, ‘Oh, for pity’s sake. I’ve heard enough of this garbage.’ She moved to the door, but the constable on duty barred her way. ‘What is this? Tell this woman to let me pass.’

Diamond said in his most reasonable manner, ‘Emma, you may think this is over, but it’s hardly begun. I’m going to have more questions for you presently, after we’ve spoken to your husband.’

‘You can’t keep me here against my will.’

‘We can if we arrest you.’

‘That would be ridiculous.’

He gave her one of his looks. ‘And that’s exactly what I’m about to do. Emma Treadwell, you are under arrest on suspicion of being an accessory after the fact of murder.’ He turned to Julie and asked her to speak the new-fangled version of the caution he’d never had the inclination to learn. She had it off pat, even if she spoke it through gritted teeth. He supposed she felt put upon.

But outside the interview room, Julie had more than that to take up with him. ‘You won’t like this, but I’m going to say it. I don’t think we can justify holding her.’

‘Have a care,’ he warned. ‘This has been a long day.’

‘It’s a house of cards, isn’t it? The case against Rose isn’t proved yet, and now you’re pulling this woman in as an accessory.’

‘She’s obstructing us, Julie.’

‘All you’ve got is the fact that she works above the agency.’

‘She matches the descriptions of Jenkins: mid to late twenties, sturdy build, with dark, long hair, posh voice.’

She sighed and said, ‘I could find you five hundred women like that in Bath.’

‘Carry on in this vein, Julie, and I may take you up on that.

We may need an identity parade. She’ll go on ducking and weaving until someone fingers her.’

‘Who would do that? Ada?’

‘The husband is worth trying first. He’s brittle.’

‘But how much does he know?’

‘Let’s see.’

In the second interview room, Guy Treadwell had discarded the newspaper and shredded the coffee cup into strips. He told Diamond as he entered, ‘You’ve got a damned nerve keeping me here like this.’

‘Yes.’

‘You haven’t even told me what it’s about. I have some rights, I believe.’

‘Let’s talk about your business as an architect,’ Diamond said.

‘My practice,’ he amended it.

‘You’re in Gay Street, above Better Let.’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re a renting agency, am I right?’

Treadwell’s eyes widened. He said with a note of relief, ‘Are they the problem?’

‘Is there independent access to your office, or do you go through their premises to get to yours?’

‘We share a staircase, that’s all.’

‘I expect you know the people reasonably well?’

‘We’re on friendly terms.’

‘Friendly enough to go into their office for a chat sometimes, coffee and biscuits, catch up on the gossip or whatever?’

‘Very occasionally, if something of mutual interest crops up, I may go down and speak to the manager.’

So pompous. He was half Diamond’s age, yet he made the big man feel like a kid out of school. ‘Good. You can help me, then. You know the layout. What do they do with their keys – the keys to the flats they have to let?’

‘They hang them up in a glass-fronted case attached to the end wall.’

‘Does it have a lock?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘I suppose they wouldn’t need to keep it locked while the office is occupied,’ Diamond mused. ‘And your wife – is she on good terms with the Better Let people?’

‘Reasonably good.’

‘Nips down for a chat with the girls in the office?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘Emma is a Chartered Surveyor. She doesn’t fritter away her time with office girls.’

Diamond was forced to accept it, put like that. Trapped in his middle-aged perspective of the young, he’d lumped Mrs Treadwell with the legion of women from eighteen to thirty, forgetting that they had a hierarchy of their own. ‘Tell me something else,’ he started up again. ‘I came past your office building tonight. I noticed you have a security alarm.’

‘Of course.’

‘Sensible. I imagine that’s a shared facility.’

‘Yes.’

‘So how does it work? A control panel somewhere inside with a code number you enter if you want to override the system?’

Treadwell nodded.

‘Where’s the control panel housed? Not in the hall, I imagine?’

‘Inside the Better Let premises. I have a key to their office for access purposes.’