Peter Lovesey - Diamond Dust

'With respect, ma'am,' Diamond interrupted, 'I don't need reminding about priorities and neither does he. We both knew this was on the cards.'

'Right, then.'

'But why did you call me in?'

'You have a moral right to hear it.'

'Thanks.' He hesitated. 'I thought you might invite me to take a fresh look at the evidence.'

Georgina's lips tightened. 'That is not my intention, Peter, and you know why.'

'Off the record?'

'You're not to get involved. If you have any suggestions, you can pass them on now, and we'll be glad to look at them, but they won't get you on the team.'

He gave a slight nod, acknowledging the small, significant shift in Georgina's position. No longer was she treating him with suspicion, whatever the lingering doubts McGarvie harboured. 'So what's the focus now? Have we ruled out the Carpenters?'

Georgina looked towards McGarvie, who seemed reluctant to divulge the time of day while Diamond listened, but finally conceded, 'Our sources in Bristol haven't come up with anything. The word is that if some sort of revenge killing was authorised, Stephanie Diamond wouldn't have been the target.'

Georgina said, 'You mean they'd have targeted Peter?'

'Or the judge, or someone on the jury. Mrs Diamond would be well down the list'

She said, 'That would hold true for any of the criminal fraternity seeking revenge for a conviction.'

'Yes,' McGarvie said, 'unless the killing of Mrs Diamond was seen as like for like.'

'Meaning?'

'Someone who was deprived of their partner – and blamed Peter for it – decided he should suffer the same way.'

'This is the theory that a woman is responsible?'

'Or a man whose wife was put away.'

Georgina swung towards Diamond. 'When did you last arrest a woman for murder?'

He cast his mind back. 'Before you took over, ma'am. Ninety-four. But there wasn't a man in her life.'

'So for all practical purposes we're looking at vengeful women,' Georgina said. 'What about the one who scratched Peter's face?'

'Janie Forsyth.'

'She was shouting about a stitch-up, wasn't she? And she was Jake Carpenter's girlfriend.'

'I've interviewed her twice,' McGarvie said. 'The big objection to Janie as a suspect is her behaviour after the trial. If you're planning a murder you don't draw attention to yourself by screaming in the street and assaulting a senior detective.'

'She was in an emotional state,' Georgina said as if that was the prerogative of her sex. 'She could have got a gun and shot Stephanie. Let's remember the shooting happened the very next morning.'

McGarvie said, 'Let's also remember where it happened. Mrs Diamond went to the park by arrangement. We're confident of that. The diary shows she was due to meet the person known as "T" at ten.'

'You're right, of course,' Georgina admitted at once. 'And she'd been in touch with "T" for some days.'

'Just over a week.'

'You now believe the diary is reliable evidence?'

McGarvie coloured a little and avoided looking at Diamond. 'We were cautious at first, but we now accept that the entries were written by Mrs Diamond. And if the first contact was at least ten days before the murder-'

'Remind us what it said.'

'"Must call T." That was on Monday the fifteenth of February. It suggests a prior contact.'

'All of which makes it unlikely that the Carpenter verdict was the motive for the shooting.'

'That's my interpretation, ma'am.'

'Mine, too,' Diamond said. 'Early on, before the diary was found, I was sure they were behind it. Shows how wrong you can be.'

'You have another theory.' Georgina spoke this as a statement. Whether she got it from intuition or the nuances of his tone, she spoke from confidence.

He wavered. He hadn't meant to bring Dixon-Bligh into this without more evidence, but the man was so elusive it was becoming clear back-up would be needed to stay on his trail. 'I don't know about a theory. Her first husband was called Edward Dixon-Bligh. I'm not certain of this, but she may have called him Ted.'

It was as if he'd just said the word 'walk' to a pair of dogs. They sat up, ears pricked, eyes agleam, and if they'd hung out their tongues and panted, they could not have looked more eager.

They continued to give him undivided attention while he told them everything – well, almost everything – he knew about Dixon-Bligh, and Steph's unhappy first marriage. The one thing he did not reveal was the thump he'd given the man the last time they'd met.

This new avenue of enquiry so intrigued them that nothing was said about Diamond defying the injunction to stay off the case. By now, Georgina and McGarvie knew they couldn't stop him doing his solo investigation.

'Did you ask him if he'd been in touch with her?' McGarvie said.

'He denies it, of course. Says the last time they spoke was two years ago when he found a photo of her parents and returned it.'

'And you think he's short of cash?'

'Either that, or he's on the run. He quit the Blyth Road flat at the end of February for a place no better than a tip.'

'The week of the murder?'

'Yes. And Westway Terrace looked a very temporary arrangement to me. He's moved on from there.'

'Where to?'

'Don't know. I haven't kept tabs.'

'We can ask the Met. Does Dixon-Bligh have form?'

'Not that I've heard of.'

'Does he strike you as capable of murder?'

He weighed the question, trying against all the odds to be impartial. 'He did the "I'm a reasonable man" bit. Said he'd put any bitterness behind him. Blamed himself and his affairs for the break-up. Called himself a selfish bastard. Said he was sorry about the way she died, but to turn up at the funeral would have been hypocrisy. I'm not the best person to ask, you understand, but listening to him, I had this feeling he was laying it on.'

Georgina said, 'He doth protest too much, methinks.'

Delving deep into the small cellar of quotes once laid down for his Eng. Lit. exam, Diamond said, 'Wasn't it the lady who protested too much?'

'Immaterial. I was making a general point.'

McGarvie, floundering, asked, 'Which lady?'

'Don't try me,' said Georgina sharply. 'Was he ever violent to her?'

'She never mentioned violence to me,' Diamond had to admit. 'She spoke very little about him.'

McGarvie, trying to recoup, thought fit to point out, 'As an ex-officer in the RAF, he'd have had weapons training.'

Georgina pulled a face. 'In the catering branch?'

'As part of his general training, ma'am. They all go through that. He may also have been issued with a handgun at some point in his career. A foreign posting in a war zone. Did he serve in the Gulf?'

'Couldn't tell you,' Diamond said.

'He's got to be interviewed as soon as possible,' Georgina decided. She asked McGarvie in an accusing tone, 'Why hasn't his name come up before this?'

There was some injured virtue in his answer. 'I was told he dropped out of her life a long time ago, and when he didn't attend the funeral…'

'It should have rung a warning bell, Curtis.'

Back in the office, still uncertain if it had been a wise move to put them onto Dixon-Bligh, Diamond listened to his voice-mail. The first voice up belonged to his old oppo, Louis Voss.

'Peter, I may have something for you. Could you call me back pronto?'

He closed the office door first. Then learned the hot news Louis had got from his computer, about a dismembered body found on the railway embankment near Woking. 'That's no big deal on its own,' Louis told him equably. 'Desperate people sometimes lie on railway tracks to kill themselves, but this doesn't sound like a suicide. This one has two bullet holes in the skull, and first indications are that it's a woman around forty.'