Peter Lovesey - Diamond Dust

'I know how you feel.'

Diamond took a long sip of beer, willing Stormy to open up a little, and he did.

'They kept saying she'd come back, hinting all the time that we'd had a run-in – as if it was something unusual. We were always having dust-ups. We were one of those couples who scrap all the time and feel better for it. Doesn't mean we didn't love each other.' He looked down into his drink. 'When a grown woman goes missing, nobody takes it seriously, not for weeks. She's just another name on a list.'

'How did it happen?'

'Her leaving? Nothing happened. Everyone was hinting there must have been some great punch-up. There wasn't. I came home from work one evening and she wasn't there.'

'When was this?'

'A Monday in March. The twelfth.'

'Two weeks and a bit after Steph was killed.'

'Right. I actually read about your wife being shot, and I remembered you from the old days, and was really sorry. I didn't send a card or anything because I didn't think you'd remember me, and it's difficult to know what to write.'

Diamond gave a nod. 'What about when your wife went missing? Did it cross your mind what had happened to Steph?'

'No, I didn't connect them. I didn't think Patsy was dead. You don't. I hoped she'd walk through the door any minute. And I guess I didn't want to face up to the worst possible explanation. You think of everything else, loss of memory, an accident, a coma. Anything that lets you hope.'

There are different degrees of torture, Diamond thought. Steph's sudden violent death had seemed like the ultimate. Stormy's months of not knowing was another refinement, and he wasn't sure how he would have coped with it. 'It's very isolating. No one knows what to say to you. They shun you if they can.'

'Tell me about it.'

'And of course they don't want us to investigate. I don't know if you've been told this, but the argument goes that a smart defence lawyer would cry foul if you or I helped to arrest our wives' murderers.'

'So get lost. Yes,' Stormy said, 'I was told that.'

Encouraged, Diamond moved a stage on. 'Yet if you and I put our heads together we'd be more likely to get to the truth than anyone else. We know who we crossed swords with. They don't.'

Stormy's brown eyes met Diamond's, slipped away and then came back. 'You're right,' he said with sudden fervour. 'Together we could nail this jerk.'

Warming to the man, Diamond took him into his confidence, telling him about the case files Louis Voss had copied.

Stormy heard all this with awe. He'd only just grasped that unofficial action was possible. Diamond's bull-necked attitude must have come as a shock. But as soon as the Joe Florida inquiry was mentioned Stormy recalled being on the surveillance team. 'He was given a long term.'

'Twelve. He was out after seven.'

'Out?' Stormy was appalled. 'That beats everything. That toerag. Most professional crooks have something to be said for them. Florida was evil.'

'You met him personally?'

'Twice. I sat in on interviews.'

'Questioned him?'

'No, I was only a DC at the time. Blaizy was in charge. You do remember Jacob Blaize?'

Too well, Diamond thought bitterly. 'Retired to Spain, the last I heard.'

'For some reason, he wanted me as the back-up in those sessions. I didn't mind. Saw myself as the up-and-coming detective, hand-picked by the guvnor. I didn't know Blaizy couldn't stay in an interview room for more than ten minutes at a time.'

Diamond frowned, then grinned as the explanation surfaced. 'His prostate problem? I'd forgotten about that.'

'It meant I spent more time alone with Joe Florida than anyone would wish to.'

'Did he talk?'

'Did he hell. He was after cigarettes. He could see I was a smoker. I may have been wet behind the ears, but I knew you don't dish out fags for nothing. So I took a fair amount of flak from Joe Florida.'

'Did he threaten you?'

'Let's say I wouldn't have needed a vasectomy if he'd got to me first.'

'He made his living out of threats,' Diamond recalled. 'I took a few. And in the protection racket you're not a serious player unless you mean what you say.'

'Joe did. Two shops torched, was it?'

'And a child almost died. She was in the cot upstairs. They got her out in the nick of time.'

'I remember.'

'So you spent time alone with him?' Diamond said eagerly. 'I didn't know that. Was there anything more serious from him than bumming a fag?'

'Such as?'

'He didn't try and make a deal? What I'm driving at, Dave, is something big enough for him to hold a grudge all the time he was in jail.'

'And then murder my wife, just to get back at me? No, there was nothing that extreme. I can't think of anyone who would behave like that. Even a shitbag like Florida.'

Diamond nodded. 'I keep saying the same. It's not just evil. It's twisted. Insane.' He paused. 'Do you think prison blew his mind?'

'He wouldn't be the first.'

'I mean to find out. I'm going to find him. If he murdered Steph, I'll have him.'

'I'm with you all the way.'

The hackneyed phrase had never meant so much to Diamond.

'Another beer?'

When he returned to the table, he said to Stormy, 'I was telling you about those files.'

'Files?'

'From Louis Voss at Fulham.'

'Right. I'm with you.'

'One was the Brook Green shooting.'

'I remember that.'

'You do?'

'Only I wasn't on the team.'

Diamond blew gently at the froth on his beer. 'Okay. There are others. Let's shuffle the pack again. How about a teenager by the name of Wayne Beach?'

The name brought a glimmer to Stormy's eye. 'Remind me, will you?'

'A loner. Armed robbery. Taxi drivers.'

'Ah – that little prick. We ambushed him one night in Edith Road.'

This was better than Diamond had hoped. 'We? You were there? Tell me you were there.'

'I was. It was all very sudden. You were in charge, weren't you? You needed licensed shots and I was roped in, along with anyone else who happened to be there. I was behind a hedge in the garden opposite.'

'You didn't fire the shot?'

'No. That was another guy across the street. A sergeant. The name's gone now. But after Beach threw down his weapon I was one of the first to pin him. And I escorted him to the nick.'

'So he knows you?'

'I wouldn't think he remembers now.'

Privately, Diamond thought the opposite. Stormy's geranium-coloured skin had instantly triggered his own memory when he called at the house.

'He'd remember you better,' Stormy added.

'Maybe. I did the interviews and gave evidence. The thing about Wayne Beach is that he's a gun freak. He's done several stretches.'

'He'd be in his thirties now.'

'Thirty-four. Released from the Scrubs last December.'

'December? Shordy before…?'

'Right.'

'So we have an address?'

'Thanks to the Probation Service, yes. Some high-rise in Clapham. Are you game?'

Stormy raised both thumbs.

'He'll be armed,' Diamond cautioned. 'Do you have a shooter?'

'Sorry. Do you?'

'Not any more.' Diamond leaned back and rested his hands on his paunch as if that concealed a secret weapon. 'Just have to outsmart him.'

'We can do that,' Stormy said with confidence, raising his glass. 'Here's to us. Whatever it takes.'

'Whatever.' Diamond clinked his glass and drank deeply. He had an ally now.

The outsmarting of Wayne Beach needed neutral ground and the surprise element, they decided. It would court disaster to visit his flat. They sat in a CID Vauxhall opposite the graffiti-scarred building in Latchmere Road, Clapham, watching the residents come and go. Their man would emerge at some point to buy cigarettes or food, or place a bet, or pick up his social security. It went without saying that he hadn't gone into honest employment.