Peter Lovesey - Diamond Dust

Diamond glared. 'Such as?'

'I don't know. I'm guessing. What do middle-aged women get up to? Gambling?'

'Not Steph.'

'She didn't owe money to anyone?'

'Forget it. She wouldn't borrow a penny.'

'I suppose she didn't do drugs?'

'This is bloody offensive.'

'Would you mind if we searched her bedroom?'

'Christ – what for?'

'Peter, I haven't the faintest idea what might turn up, but it needs to be done.'

'Now?'

'It's as good a time as any.'

He stared out of the window. 'I'd tell you if there was anything.'

'But have you been through her things?'

Of course he hadn't. That would be a breach of trust. They'd always respected each other's privacy. He was damned sure Steph had nothing to hide from him.

Being brutally honest with himself, if he were investigating some other woman's murder, he'd insist on a proper search, just as McGarvie was doing. You don't rely on the husband to tell you everything.

'Come on, then.'

He led McGarvie upstairs.

Their bedroom was ready for inspection, the bed made, clothes put away, though that hadn't been his purpose when he tidied up the day before.

McGarvie started with the dressing table, removing the two drawers entirely and placing them on the bed. Steph's make-up, combs and brushes were in one, her bits of jewellery in the other. Apart from her wedding ring, which was on her finger when she died, she hadn't the desire to deck herself in what she called spangles and fandangles. Much of the stuff never saw the daylight and had been inherited from aunts and grandmothers. McGarvie opened every one of the little boxes and looked into the velvet bag containing the single string of pearls Diamond had bought her on their wedding day.

He asked which of the two chests was Steph's, and Diamond pointed to it. With the same thoroughness he pulled the top drawer completely out and felt among her underclothes, watched sullenly by Diamond. At the back of the second drawer was a shoebox full of letters. 'Do you know what these are?'

Diamond went over to look. When he saw his own handwriting on one of the envelopes he grabbed the box with both hands. 'You won't want this.'

'How do you know?'

'They're from me, ages ago.'

McGarvie held out his hands. 'Sorry, but there may be other letters, more recent ones. I've got to go through the box.'

'It's too bloody personal.' He didn't hand it back.

Wisely McGarvie chose to let him mull over that, and continued with the search. That second drawer had evidently been Steph's storage place for photos, invoices, vouchers, visiting cards and newspaper cuttings. It would take a team of detectives to follow up every lead. 'I'll have to take all this away… as well,' McGarvie said.

Diamond didn't commit himself. He doubted if there was a clue to the killer in there, but he didn't want to impede the investigation. 'Why don't you look in the wardrobe?'

McGarvie was thorough. Every pocket of each coat, each pair of slacks, was searched, but he found no more than a few pence and some tissues. He looked on top of the wardrobe and beneath it and pulled the bed across the floor to see if anything was underneath.

'Bathroom?'

The search moved on. Mike James joined in and they went through each of the rooms.

On the landing, McGarvie glanced upwards. 'What do you keep in the loft?'

'She never goes up there. Can't stand spiders.'

They took his word for it, which was something. He had some police property up there, including a gun and ammunition. In his present state he didn't care a toss about being compromised. He just didn't want anything to deflect from the hunt for Steph's killer.

They took the search downstairs and still found nothing of interest. McGarvie looked at his watch. He didn't need to say he was thinking about getting to the post mortem. 'Did she keep an address book?'

'Yes, but you can't take that away. I'm phoning people all the time.'

'I'll have it photocopied. You'll get it back inside two hours, I guarantee.'

Her whole life laid out, as if for inspection. With a sigh, he picked the book off the table by the phone.

McGarvie handed it to Mike James. 'That's your job. Get it copied and back to Mr Diamond directly.' To Diamond, he said, 'Is it okay if I take that drawer from the bedroom?'

With reluctance, he gave in.

'And the box of letters? Trust me. I'll examine everything myself. Nothing will be passed around.'

It was the best offer he would get. He knew the way things were done.

He descended into limbo – or grief – drifting through the days without any sense of what else was happening in the world. He kept strange hours, often sleeping in snatches through the day and sitting up most of the night. Nothing seemed to matter. When friends called he told them he was all right and didn't want help. He rarely answered the phone and didn't open letters or look at the newspaper or listen to music or the radio.

It was a call from the coroner's office that ended this hiatus. All the forensic tests had been completed and the coroner was ready to release Steph's body for disposal. They needed to know which undertaker was in charge of the funeral arrangements.

Shocked out of his zombie state, he remembered his conversation with Julie Hargreaves, about putting his energy into giving Steph the sort of send-off she would have wanted.

'What day is it?'

'Wednesday.'

'The date, I mean.'

'March the tenth.'

'March? More than two weeks had drifted by and he'd done nothing about it.

'I'll get back to you shortly.'

He snatched up the Yellow Pages and looked under Funeral Directors. The process took over. The same afternoon, clean-shaven and showered, wearing a suit, he went into Bath, from the undertaker's to the Abbey to the Francis Hotel, making decisions about black Daimlers and brass handles and orders of service and bridge rolls and chicken wings. He was functioning again.

Awkward and totally out of his element he followed the coffin into Bath Abbey and up the main aisle. An early plan to use one of the apsidal chapels had been abandoned when it became clear how many wished to attend the service. Three to four hundred were seated in the main Abbey Church. The story of the shooting had featured for days in the national press and on television and people who had known Steph from years back had made the journey. The police alone numbered over sixty, among them the Chief Constable and three of ACC rank, as well as most of Bath CID and about twenty old colleagues from his years in the Met. The biggest contingent was of friends Steph had made through her work in the charity shops, customers as well as staff. There was her 'family' of Brownies grown into adult women. Then there were former neighbours from the series of places he and Steph had occupied in London and Bath.

The small family group of Steph's sister Angela with her husband Mervyn and Peter Diamond's own sister Jean and her eccentric partner Reggie looked and felt humbled by the scale of the affection represented here. None of them had known of Steph's gift for making lasting friends of almost everyone she met. Diamond knew of it, but even he hadn't expected them to come in such numbers.

One of the few who hadn't bothered to respond was Edward Dixon-Bligh, Steph's first husband. If he was in the congregation, Diamond wouldn't know. He'd seen photos, but never met the man. In view of the unhappiness of that first marriage, his absence would trouble nobody.

Julie's advice to make a fitting occasion of this had been spot on, though in his heart of hearts Diamond wanted it over. He'd taken leave of Steph already, in those wrenching minutes kneeling beside her damaged body in the park. The service in the Abbey was for her, because she had been a believer, and for everyone else who loved her and had faith that she was going to a better place.