Peter Lovesey: Diamond Dust

She drew it away. 'Sorry, love.'

'My fault.' Mortified for being such a wimp, he said, 'Iodine's the stuff that hurts. They always used that when I was a kid. Wicked. Why, I couldn't tell you.'

Steph waited, swab in hand. She was still in her work clothes, a white jumper with a magnolia design on the front and a close-fitting black skirt. She moved closer again and rested her free hand on his shoulder. 'These are deep. She must be a vicious woman.'

'Just angry.'

'She's marked you with all four fingernails. Do you think I should take a photo?'

'Whatever for?'

'Evidence.'

He grinned. 'Like when someone runs into the car, you mean?' Patiently, he explained that he wouldn't be charging the woman, and why.

Steph, with her strong sense of right and wrong, didn't appreciate the explanation. 'She shouldn't get away with it.'

He was basking in her concern, even though it had to be cooled. 'She believed he was innocent. I expect he told her he was fitted up and she believed him.'

'That doesn't excuse it.'

'It means she acted out of genuine outrage, not just spite.'

Steph sighed. 'Well, the scratches are genuine enough. They're going to be on your face for some time. What are you going to tell people – that I did it?'

He smiled at the idea, and felt his cheek sting when the muscles stretched. 'Would you rather I said it was one of my many mistresses?'

'Do you want a scar on the other cheek? I could match them up, no problem.'

'Okay. I'll think of something better.'

'I could mask it with a concealer-stick if you like.'

'A what?'

'Make-up.'

'I don't think make-up would play too well at the nick.'

Later the same evening, after supper, the rich aroma of beef casserole lingered. Diamond, in his favourite armchair, warmed by the cat at full stretch across his lap, was thinking life was improving. Then Steph asked, 'What exactly did he do?'

'Who?'

'Jake Carpenter. All you've told me is that he's a well-known criminal.'

'And he is.'

'But you haven't said anything about the case.'

'True.' He made it obvious he didn't intend saying much.

'Is it as bad as that? You don't usually shield me from the facts.'

'I'm not shielding you, Steph. I wouldn't do that'

'The well-bred English gent sparing his delicate wife the gory details?'

'Cobblers. I just didn't think you wanted to know.'

'I do now.' Her eyes were on the scratches again.

He yawned, and stroked Raffles under the chin while considering where to begin. 'They're Bristol's Mafia – the Carpenters, Jake and his brothers Des and Danny. They live in luxury and make their money out of protection and pimping. They've all got form – done time inside. They're feared. Anyone standing up to them is dealt with, usually by one of their gorillas. But when we succeed in pinning things on any of the brothers they mysteriously get light sentences.'

'You mean the law is bought off?'

'So it appears. It may not be cash passing hands, but it happens. This time was different. A mandatory life sentence if he was convicted.'

'He'd murdered someone?'

'A call girl by the name of Maeve Smith. Irish. Seventeen years old. Pretty, dark-haired, and a big earner. Unwisely young Maeve tried to transfer to another pimp, so Jake made an example of her. Two of his thugs took her to a tattooist and had her breasts and buttocks personalised with his initials.'

'Beast.'

'That's tame for the Carpenters. Girls who step out of line sometimes have acid thrown in their faces. This one was still a top earner, so they left her face alone. After the tattooing he slept with her several times. I suppose he found it a turn-on seeing his initials on her.'

'How could she, after what he'd done?'

'I didn't say she agreed to it.'

Steph took in a sharp breath.

'In court, he claimed she was his girlfriend to support his case that he wouldn't want to hurt her. He failed to see that it gave him a stronger motive when she slipped the leash again.'

'Was that why she was killed?'

'Yes, he considered her his property. Her naked body was found in the Avon below the Suspension Bridge, but she was dead before she was thrown in the water. She'd been beaten about the face and head. Really beaten, I mean. The face was pulp, unrecognisable. The tattooed initials helped us link her to Carpenter, so the rat did himself no service when he ordered that punishment. And this time the forensic stuff led us straight to him. Traces of her blood and DNA material in his car boot and on one of his shoes.'

'No doubt about it, then?'

'Not a jot.'

Steph looked away, her face creased in sympathy for the young victim, and then her eyes turned back to Diamond. 'This other woman – the one who scratched you – must be deluding herself. If she was at the trial and heard the evidence, she knows he slept with the girl. And she knows he's a sadist. How can she defend a brute like that?'

'You tell me.'

'I'm saying, Peter – she's deluded. She's trying to convince herself you faked the evidence. She turned her anger on you.'

He spread his hands, and the cat jumped off his lap, surprised by the movement. 'Steph, I've no interest what her motives are.'

'Do you know who she is?'

'A minor player.' He stretched and stood up, wanting to talk of other things. 'Hasn't been around long.'

'I still think she shouldn't get away with this.'

He went over to her and touched her hair, letting a strand rest between finger and thumb. 'Leave it, eh?'

'Now you've told me about it-'

Gently but with decision he interrupted. 'There are more important things.'

'Like?'

'Like let's have an early night.'

She hesitated, needing first to shut out the horrors of his work, then laughed and flicked her hair free. 'Fancy your chances, Scarface?'

The taunt brought back the bittersweet agonies of nearly twenty years ago, being in love without being sure of her. They'd met in Hammersmith, when he was in uniform, doing a stint as community involvement officer, which meant lecturing groups on road safety and crime prevention. Much of it was with the very old or the very young. At that time Steph was not long out of her divorce and trying to forget it by being Brown Owl to a troop, or pack, or whatever it was called, of Brownies. Diamond turned up to do his talk and made a total balls of it because he couldn't take his eyes off Brown Owl. At the end he asked her out and she declined. Wouldn't even give him a phone number. So he put in an appearance next week with some leaflets he said he'd forgotten to hand out to the girls. Then made himself useful changing a fuse when the lights failed. Week after week, using flimsy excuses for being there, he let her know how committed he was. These days it might well be called harassment. By degrees, she softened. It was a curious, chaste courtship, with each move witnessed by small giggling girls in brown uniforms. The turning point was the summer camp, when he breezed in unexpectedly with Bradford and Bingley, two donkeys he'd borrowed from the Hammersmith desk sergeant, who'd set up a donkey sanctuary as a retirement venture. Bradford and Bingley gave rides for the next two days. From that moment the girls called Diamond the Donkey Man and convinced Steph he deserved to be an honorary member of the Brownies.

Brown Owl married the Donkey Man the following spring, and it was a strong, loving relationship still, thanks in no small part to Steph's calmness under stress. There had been desperately bad moments, like her miscarriage (she'd suffered three already with her first husband) and the hysterectomy that had followed. There were the plunges in Diamond's rollercoaster career: the board of inquiry, the resignation, the move to the poky basement flat in London, being sacked from Harrods, and the spell of unemployment. Steph had kept them going by being positive and finding a funny side to every experience.