Peter Lovesey - Diamond Dust

Disturbingly, he found them.

Monday 15 February Ox 2-5 P out. Must call T.

With that, the T'ai Chi theory went down in flames.

Wednesday 17 February Ox 10-1. Hair (Jan) 1.30.

Friday 19 February P out. Call T tonight.

On the following Tuesday – Shrove Tuesday, the diary reminded him – she'd had her fatal meeting in the park with the person she called "T". These were crucial entries and he copied them into a notebook of his own.

It was deeply worrying, not to say hurtful. The first mention of 'T', on Monday the fifteenth, seemed to be linked with the note that he, 'P', was out. He remembered. It had been one of his regular, mind-numbing PCCG meetings with local residents' groups. Evidently on the Wednesday she'd had her hair done, which was usually a sure sign of some important occasion ahead. Another call to 'T' on Friday. And she'd said not a word about all this.

Hold on, he told himself, this is your wife Steph. Don't read too much into it. But the suspicion of a secret affair was planted. How could he interpret it as anything else?

For crying out hud, be realistic! Steph wasn't two-timing me. I'd have picked up some signals. She was as loving as ever in those last few days of her life, on our last night together. There's another explanation. Has to be.

He went methodically through the eight weeks up to the date of her death and found no other mention of this 'T'. It was no use looking for last year's diary, because she always threw them away at the end of the year. His hands still shook as he replaced this one in its pocket of the handbag and closed the zip.

There was no sense of triumph in handing the bag to McGarvie. He simply walked into the incident room, passed it over and said where he'd found it.

'I thought those bloody great things were solid stone,' McGarvie said as if Diamond himself had conned him. 'I suppose you looked inside?'

He nodded. 'You'll find some of my prints on it. And Warburton's, no doubt. The purse is in there, minus the money. And her diary.'

'The diary.' The tired eyes widened.

'She had an appointment in the park the day she died.'

'Who with?'

'Someone she called “T”.’

McGarvie looked around the incident room. 'Did you hear that, everyone? This is the breakthrough.' He looked animated for the first time in a month. 'Any thoughts?'

Diamond shook his head. 'Like I said, she hadn't mentioned a thing.'

'Boyfriend?'

'Some boyfriend, if he put a bullet through her head.'

'Sorry. I've got to cover every angle. And you think Warburton took the cash?'

'I'm sure of it'

'And tossed the bag in the vase?'

'He told me he did. Took me to the place. There was only forty quid. If you're thinking of charging him, don't. He gave me his co-operation.'

'I'll handle this my way. I still want to speak to him. Look, I'm grateful you found this.'

'But…' Diamond said.

'You know what I'm going to say?'

'Save it. I'm not trying to take over. I'll keep my distance.'

'That's not good enough, Peter.'

'It's the best you'll get.'

Specially, he thought, when I'm ahead of you.

He turned right outside the police station and walked the length of Manvers Street and beyond, where it became Pierrepont Street. At the far end he turned left into North Parade Passage, and straight to Steph's hairdresser, called What a Snip.

He asked for Jan. She was with a client.

'If it's about an appointment,' the receptionist said with a dubious look at Diamond's bald patch, 'I can do it from the book.'

'You can show me the book. And you can tell Jan to break off and speak to the police.'

She went at once.

Steph's name was in the book for one-thirty on Wednesday, February the seventeenth.

'Does this tick beside her name mean she definitely came in?' he asked Jan when she appeared.

'She did. Mr Diamond, I can't tell you how shocked I was when I heard what happened,'Jan said. She was the senior stylist and manager, meaning she was all of twenty-one with the confidence of twice that, blond, elfin, with eyes that had seen everything and dealt with every kind of client. You wouldn't mess with Jan. Steph must have liked her.

'I want you to cast your mind back to that Wednesday. I'm sure she chatted as you were doing her hair.'

'A bit, yes.'

'Can you remember any of what was said?'

'That's asking. The weather, naturally. My holiday in Tenerife. The night before's television, I expect. And the kind of cut she wanted.'

'Did she say anything about the reason for the hairdo?'

'Not that I remember.'

'Try, please. She wasn't one for regular appointments, as you know. She only booked you when she had something coming up. Did she mention what it was?'

She shook her head. 'I would have remembered if she'd said anything. People often do, and I like to know about their lives. But I never ask if they don't want to say. I don't believe in being nosy.'

'Are you sure she didn't tell you something and ask you to keep it.to yourself? – because if she did, it's got to come out now. You don't have to spare my feelings, Jan. I need to find her killer before someone else is murdered.'

'And I'd tell you if there was anything to tell, but there isn't'

He believed her.

The phone was beeping and the cat mewing when he came through his front door. He ignored the phone, but Raffles got fed. Then he heated some baked beans, cut the stale end off a loaf and made toast, topped with tinned tomatoes and a fried egg that smelt fishy. Looked at the post without troubling to open anything. The solicitor, the bank, the funeral director. They could wait. In less than twenty minutes he was out again, driving to Bristol.

He called at two pubs in the old market area and asked for John Seville, an informer he'd known and used a few times. No snout is totally reliable, but Seville was better than most. The problem was that nobody had seen him since the Carpenter trial. Bernie Hescott, hunched over a Guinness in the Rummer, was definitely second best.

'Haven't clapped eyes on him in weeks. I wouldn't like to think what happened. He was too yappy for his own good, I reckon.'

'Maybe you can help.' Diamond showed the top edge of a twenty-pound note, and then let it slide back into his top pocket. 'You heard what happened to my wife?'

'It was in all the papers, wasn't it?' said Bernie, a twitchy, under-nourished ex-con in a Bristol Rovers shirt. 'Wouldn't wish that on anyone.'

'It was done by a pro.'

'You think so?'

'I was going to ask John Seville if he'd heard a whisper about a hitman.'

'Was you? Well, he's not around.'

Diamond fingered the note in his pocket. 'I could ask you, couldn't I?'

Bernie shrugged and took a sip.

'Who do the Carpenters use – their own men, or someone down from London?'

'What – for a contract?'

'Yes.'

'Job like that – I'm talking theory now – she was gunned down in broad daylight, I heard – job like that doesn't look like a local lad. There's no one I can think of in Bristol.'

Diamond took the folded banknote from his pocket and placed it on the table with his hand over it. 'I could show appreciation, Bernie, if you put out some feelers.'

'Bloody dangerous.'

'You can't help me, then?'

'It'll cost you.'

'This is personal. It's worth it' He took his hand off the banknote and revealed a crisp new fifty. He lifted it and the twenty was underneath. He returned the fifty to his pocket and slid the twenty across the table. 'I'll be in again Friday or Saturday.'

He drove up College Road to Clifton, looking for the house where Danny Carpenter lived. Back in the early nineteenth century when the city had been infested with cholera, the affluent Clifton residents instructed their servants to leave blankets and clothes halfway down the hill for the poor wretches in Bristol, and the place still has a determination not to be contaminated by the noxious life below Whiteladies Road. Danny's residence was on the Down, in one of the best positions in the city, with views along the Gorge to the Suspension Bridge. Old stone pillars at the entrance with griffins aloft gave promise of a gracious house. In fact, the original building at the end of the curved drive had been demolished at the time when architects went starry-eyed over steel and concrete. To Diamond's eye the replacement was an ugly pile of lemon-coloured, flat-roofed blocks. Even so, its location and scale represented money.