Peter Lovesey - Diamond Dust

To think he'd been impressed by McGarvie.

Georgina tried her best to give it an ethical spin. 'We owe this to Stephanie, you know, leaving absolutely nothing to chance. You wouldn't want us to skimp. Why don't I send for some coffee before we do anything else?'

'I'd rather get on with it,' Diamond muttered from deep in his gut.

In Interview Room C, in the same chair his attacker, Janie Forsyth, had occupied only an hour ago, Diamond listened in a dazed, disbelieving way to the familiar preamble to a taped interview with a suspect. Was told the identity of his interrogators, McGarvie and Georgina Dallymore, as though he had never met them. Was advised that he was attending voluntarily and was entitled to leave at will unless informed that he was under arrest.

The world had gone mad.

'For the record,' McGarvie was saying, 'I'd like to clarify your movements on the morning your wife was shot. You were at home first thing, I gather?'

'Mm?' He stared blankly.

'What time did you leave the house?'

'The day it happened? I told you already. Eight-fifteen.'

'Can anyone confirm the time? Did you see a neighbour? The postman?'

He shrugged. 'I got into my car and backed it out and drove off.'

'Leaving your wife at the house?'

'You don't have to make it sound like a crime.'

'Do you sometimes give her a lift into town?'

'Only if she wants one.' With each response he was stilling the urge to tell them it was no business of theirs. Until now he hadn't ever considered how closely he guarded his private life.

'She didn't want the lift on this occasion because it was her morning off. Right?'

'Correct'

'How was she dressed at the time you left?'

'Is that important?'

'Night-things? Day clothes?'

'I see. The things she was found in, apart from the raincoat and scarf.'

'So you drove here, to work?'

'Yes.'

'Arriving at what time?'

'Must have been before nine. I didn't check exactly. Ten to?'

'It takes you that long?'

'The traffic is heavy that time of day.'

'Which way did you enter the building?'

'From the car park.'

'Using the back stairs?'

'Does it matter which stairs I used?'

'Anyone see you arrive?'

'I've no idea.'

'You didn't pass the time of day with anyone, in the car park, or coming upstairs?'

'Don't remember.'

'Okay. Where did you go?'

'My office.'

'Without speaking to anyone at all?'

'You asked that already.'

'And then?'

'Took off all my clothes, stood on my head and recited The Charge of the Light Brigade. For the love of God. What does anyone do when he comes into his office in the morning? Opens the window, looks at the stuff on the desk, kicks the wastepaper basket. One day is like another, and I can't tell you what I did.'

'Perhaps you used the phone?'

'First thing? I doubt it.' Eyes closed, he made an effort to think back. 'At some point I was called by Helen, the ACC's PA, and asked upstairs.'

'We know that.'

'Then you don't need to ask. And you know what time it was.'

'Shortly after eleven. Were there any callers prior to that?'

'Not that I remember.'

'In short, you can't name anyone who can place you at work in your office between nine and eleven o'clock.'

'Someone could have come in. I don't recall.' He was in difficulty with this line of questioning. Everything prior to Steph's murder was very hazy indeed. It was almost like the after-effect of concussion, with the trauma blocking out everything. He hadn't expected to be questioned about it, and until now hadn't given a thought to what he had been doing.

'Two hours, alone in your office?'

'Things were quiet in CID. I was keeping my head down. If you show you're at a loose end in this place you get dumped on.' Having said this, he knew it wouldn't win any sympathy from Georgina, but it was the truth and he was too far gone to care. Georgina was tight-lipped.

McGarvie drew his right hand slowly across the table as though testing for dust and pressed his palms together, rubbing them lightly. He was ill at ease, and his next question showed why. 'Forgive me. I have to ask this. Was your marriage in good shape?'

Diamond heard the words, played them over in his head, and had an impulse to grab the man by the shirt and head-butt him. He'd asked the same insulting question when he came to the house. This was bloody incitement.

Then Georgina chose to come in with her smooth talk, learned in all those management courses for high-ranking officers. 'You appreciate that we need to know for sure. It is a legitimate question, Peter.'

Legitimate? It was a bastard question, and they knew it. 'I didn't have any reason to shoot my wife, if that's what you're asking.'

'No,' McGarvie said, 'that isn't what I asked.'

He pressed down on his legs to stop them shaking. The stress had to break out some way. 'Steph and I were happy together, happy as any couple can be. Is that what you want to hear?'

'Do you own a gun?'

Another crass question. He hesitated before answering, 'No.' It was the truth…just about. The Smith & Wesson revolver in his loft at home was police properly, acquired years ago when he worked in London.

'In the Met, you were listed as an authorised shot.'

'I let it lapse some years back.'

'The.38 that was used to shoot your wife could well have been a police weapon.'

He took a sharp, deep breath. 'What are you on about? I don't believe this.'

Sensing that it was time to draw back a little, McGarvie said, 'In the days leading up to the incident, did your wife mention any concerns, anything that might have suggested she was under stress?'

He'd been over this in his own mind many times. 'No. Nothing at all.'

'Was she at all secretive?'

'If you'd known her, you wouldn't ask that question.'

'Had there been any change in her routine?'

'Not that I noticed.'

'Had she received any threatening phone calls or letters?'

His patience was draining fast.

'For the tape,' McGarvie said, 'the subject just shook his head.' Then he tossed in another grenade. 'Did she have links with the criminal world?'

'What? Steph? Are you completely out of your mind?'

It wasn't the kind of response McGarvie wanted for his precious tape, but the gist was clear. He sniffed and moved on. 'Did she have a car of her own?'

'No. We shared it.'

'She could drive, then?'

'Oh, yes. But I was using it.'

'We need to establish how she travelled to the park. Would she have walked?'

'Could have, quite easily. It's scarcely a mile from where we live, but not too nice when the traffic is heavy on the Upper Bristol Road. It's more likely she caught a minibus. They pass the end of the street every fifteen minutes, so she generally took one if she was going into town.'

'She'd be at the park in a very short time.'

'Depending on the traffic'

'We reckon she'd have got off at the Marlborough Lane stop to make her way up to the park.'

'If she took the bus, yes.'

'We've questioned each of the drivers on that route. Not one remembers a passenger of your wife's description. Of course they don't necessarily take note of every middle-aged woman who boards their bus.'

'You could ask the passengers.'

'The regulars? It's being tried. Nothing so far.'

Diamond remarked, 'All this presupposes she went to the park of her own free will.'

'You think otherwise?'

'I don't know any reason she would go there.'

'By arrangement?'

'Then she would have told me.'

McGarvie commented tardy, 'If she told you everything.' He leaned forward, showing more of his bloodshot eyes than Diamond cared to see. 'Before you take offence again, consider this. The whole thing is strange, you've got to admit. You tell us she was acting normally that morning, had no secrets from you, had no reason to visit the park, yet that's where she was shot within two hours of your leaving for work.'