Peter Lovesey - Diamond Dust

The cockiness of that 'old chum' got to Diamond. He went for the kill.

'She called you Ted, I expect?'

'Hardly ever. I was Ed to her.'

'Easy to say now.'

'But true.' Dixon-Bligh widened his eyes. 'Why? Is this important?'

'The diary entries speak of somebody called “T”.'

'And you thought…' He flushed deeply. 'Christ, I nearly walked into that, didn't I? No, she didn't call me Ted. Ever. You ought to know that. She must have spoken about me. Did she ever refer to me as anything but Ed?'

'She rarely mentioned you, and then it was always Edward. Never Ed.'

'Never Ted either, I'll bet.'

'I've been looking at witness statements. Various men were seen in the vicinity.'

'Matching me? I don't think so.'

The frontal attack hadn't succeeded. He made a tactical switch. 'Any idea who this "T" could be?'

'I'd have to think. It's not going to be someone from our Air Force days, surely. No, I'm at a loss.'

'When were you last in touch with her?'

'Must be at least two years ago, some photos of her parents I found among my things. I was running a restaurant, then, living in Guildford. I phoned Stephanie to ask if she wanted them sent on.'

'And that was the last time?'

'Absolutely.'

'Sure you didn't ask her for money?'

Dixon-Bligh shot him a hostile look. 'That's insulting.'

'True. Answer the question.'

'I didn't ask her for anything.'

'Maybe you demanded it.'

'Get lost.'

'You're skint. This place is a comedown from Blyth Road and you owe two months' rent there.'

'They'll get their money. That was a flat, and bloody noisy. This is a house.'

'It's a tip.'

'It's temporary – until I find something better.'

'Not the sort of place I'd expect to find an ex-RAF officer living in. What's the attraction? Are you working now? Something just a bike ride away?'

Dixon-Bligh said, 'What does this have to do with Stephanie's death?'

'Everything. If you're on the skids, and don't like to admit it, you could be lying about not asking her for cash. It's more than likely she was being blackmailed.'

'Blackmailed? What about?'

'Something in her past. Something you're well placed to know about.'

Dixon-Bligh sneered. 'You must have a lower opinion of her than I thought, you filthy-minded git.'

Weeks of bottled-up anger went into the punch Diamond swung at the man. The table tipped up and the chair crashed over. His fist struck the side of Dixon-Bligh's jaw and keeled him against his cardboard boxes with a crunch that must have shattered any breakable contents.

He was out cold, blood oozing from one side of his mouth.

Satisfying as it was, the blow had solved nothing. The encounter was over. Nothing useful had come of it.

Diamond walked out and slammed the door.

At the end of the week, he went to see McGarvie again.

'My wife's letters.'

'Ah.'

'You said you'd return them.'

'I did. And they're here.' McGarvie took some keys from his pocket.

What kind of man keeps his desk locked all day? Diamond thought. It doesn't demonstrate much trust in the rest of the team.

Steph's shoebox of old letters was pushed across the desk to him, together with a polythene bag filled with the invoices and assorted papers the search party had taken from her drawer.

'I expect you want me to sign for these.'

'If you please.' The sarcasm fell flat. McGarvie actually had a chitty ready. 'And there's something else.' He delved into the drawer again.

'What's that?'

Diamond was handed another polythene bag containing a single brown envelope. He was amazed to see his name on it, just the word Peter – amazed because it was written in Steph's hand.

'You can open it.'

'Seeing that it's addressed to me, I should think so.'

'I mean it's safe to handle.'

What did McGarvie think it was, then – a letter bomb? Steph taking revenge on her killer husband from beyond the grave?

'We've carried out the necessary tests.'

'Tests? What for?'

'Prints. Handwriting.'

'I mean why?'

'You haven't seen this letter before?'

Diamond frowned. 'Is that a trick question? No, I haven't. Was it with the others?'

'We found it in the biscuit tin.'

His heart pumped faster. 'What – the one the gun was buried in?'

'That's the only biscuit tin we've got.'

So Steph had written him a message. 'You didn't tell me,' he said, outraged. 'Why wasn't I told?'

'You'd better read it.'

Diamond unzipped the wrapper, took out the envelope and found a single sheet inside. In Steph's tidy handwriting was written:

My dear Peter,

Just in case you find this before I have the pluck to tell you, I had to brave it out with the spiders in the loft to look for my old violin, which I'd promised to give to the shop since I haven't played it for years – and I found the gun. It was a great shock, Pete. You know my feelings about guns. I left it there for a week, telling myself I would talk to you about it, and I kept putting it off not wanting to cause an upset while you were so stretched on this dreadful Carpenter case.

I know you '11 insist the gun was there for some good reason, but the knowledge that a weapon that could kill someone is in our home has been preying on my nerves. Please try to understand. Rather than creating a scene and making us both feel guilty I decided to bury it and tell you when you 're not under so much strain.

Your loving

Steph

He read it twice before asking McGarvie, 'Why wasn't I told about this?'

'My decision.'

'I know that.'

'It could have been a forgery.'

'Who would have forged a letter like this?' His stomach lurched as the realisation struck him. 'Me? You think I might have written it?'

McGarvie gave a prim tug at his tie. 'Quite possibly, as a diversionary tactic. I decided to have it tested for prints. And have a graphologist look at it. You'll be relieved to know it's genuine. And we found no trace of your prints.'

'What do you mean: I'll be "relieved to know"? I've never seen this before in my life.'

'Noted.'

'You could still have informed me when you found it' 'Yes.'

'But you chose not to. Why?'

'If you had forged the note, you'd be puzzled as to why we hadn't produced it'

'Nice,' he said as the deviousness struck home. 'You thought you could trap me into saying something about it when I wasn't supposed to know it existed. Well, thanks for the vote of confidence.'

'My priority is to get to the truth, Peter, not pander to your feelings. You know as well as I do that in major crimes it's standard practice to keep back certain information.'

He took a long, deep breath, trying to tell himself to stay cool this time. In McGarvie's shoes, would he have played it the same way? He couldn't be certain. The one sure thing was that the suspicion was real. It riled him that his so-called colleagues treated him as the major suspect. By now he should expect nothing else. He needed to put aside his anger and deal with the new evidence. And it was good news. It put him back on side, didn't it?

'If the note is genuine, then you know I didn't use the gun.'

'How do you work that out?'

He spread his hands to emphasise the obvious. 'Well, if Steph buried the gun herself, I couldn't have shot her with it.'

McGarvie shook his head. 'It's not so simple. She could have told you she'd buried it. She had every intention of telling you, just as she says in the note. It's possible she told you on the day the Carpenter trial ended.'

'Well, she didn't.'

'Then I ask myself how you reacted,' McGarvie ploughed on, ignoring Diamond's denial. 'You'd certainly have dug the gun up. You may have had a blazing row about it, just as she feared. It could have been the reason she was murdered. No, hear me out. If you shot her yourself, you had a neat get-out. Bury the gun again, with the note as your alibi.'