Peter Lovesey - Diamond Dust

After a couple of hours with no result they were thinking about food themselves. They'd seen a number of dodgy-looking people enter or leave the building, but that was not remarkable. It was a run-down, fifties-built tower block, a place of last resort that probably housed more lowlife than Wayne Beach.

Towards four, when the butcher up the street started clearing his window, Diamond left Stormy in the car and went over to see if there was a pork pie left. He was lucky.

'You know, I'm thinking of Plan B,' he told Stormy while they ate.

'What's that?'

'Ask the neighbours.'

'Risky. He could hear.'

'He could be somewhere else.'

It was decided Diamond would go alone. After ten flights of stairs breathing heavily and not enjoying what he breathed, he emerged on Beach's landing. He'd passed no one.

According to their information, Wayne Beach occupied the sixth flat along, number fifty-six. There was a reggae beat coming from fifty-five.

'Hain't seen him, man,' the tenant said when Diamond asked after his neighbour.

'It's okay, I'm a friend.'

'Still hain't seen him in ages. Nobody in there. If you asking me, him Scapa Flow.'

Diamond risked a look through the window of fifty-six. The place certainly looked unlived-in. A free paper had been crammed in the letter box. He pulled it out, held the flap open and peered through. A heap of junk mail was inside.

'Man, he won't be back,' was the opinion of Diamond's informant, and in the circumstances he was probably right.

'Was he ever here?'

'Place is empty since Christmas. One time I hear someone unlocking, walk in, walk out. Picking up his letters, I guess.'

Stormy insisted on driving Diamond across London to Paddington Station. 'We won't let it get to us, Peter,' he said. 'We're still ahead of the game.'

'Not for long,' Diamond said. 'McGarvie's no fool, and neither is Bowers. You can bet they spent today going through those old files, reaching the same conclusions we have. My worry is that they'll go in like the tank corps and the killer will see them coming a mile off.'

'Looks as if Wayne Beach already has.'

'He's using the place as a cover. As far as the social services are concerned, he's trapped in that slum, living from hand to mouth. No doubt he's got a nice pad somewhere else.'

'And a nice income as a hitman.'

'Could be.'

'So we wasted our bloody time.'

Briefly it seemed Stormy might be going cool on cooperation, but this proved false.

'There was something you said earlier, about us putting our heads together and finding the truth before anyone else. I was impressed.'

'You want to keep trying?'

'Definitely.'

If Diamond had believed in fate, he might have been awed by what happened to him that evening. Exhausted after so much waiting with no result, he fell asleep on the seven-thirty from Paddington and was out to the world when it stopped at Bath Spa. He ended up at Bristol Temple Meads Station some time after nine-thirty. Not for the first time. Only now there was no one at home to phone any more. Rather than cross the bridge and wait for a train, he made the best of his situation and took a taxi to the Rummer.

Bernie Hescott, his well-paid, worse than useless snout, was not in the public bar. 'Haven't seen him all week, squire,' the barman told Diamond.

'Doesn't surprise me. I'll have a pint, just the same.'

'Bitter?'

A fair expression of his state of mind. He settled down with the drink and let ten minutes go by. The place was warm and the music just about bearable.

Then fate gave an emphatic pull on the strings, for in walked the informer he should have used in preference to Bernie. John Seville caught Diamond's startled eye, turned and left the bar at once. He went after him.

'Can't help you,' Seville said while Diamond tried to keep pace with him, striding through one of the paved alleyways behind the Exchange.

'You don't even know what I want.'

'Jesus Christ, the whole world heard what happened, and I know sweet fuck all about it.'

Diamond grabbed his arm and shoved him against a shuttered shop front. 'John, if this is your way of raising the stakes, save your breath. I'll pay top dollar.'

'I'm not haggling, Mr Diamond. I got nothing for you. Nothing.'

'What are you scared of? The Carpenters? Forget them. They're in the clear for once. This wasn't local. This has a London connection. You do know what I'm talking about?'

'Your wife. What can I say? I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But I know nothing.'

'Someone, some hitman, gunned her down in a public park in broad daylight. He'd done his homework, John. Picked his spot. Got away fast. Did you hear of anyone – a Londoner, maybe, a professional, who was holed up here six, seven months ago?'

'In Bristol?'

'Bristol or Bath, but he's more likely to have used here as his base. Bristol is bigger, easier to get lost in. What have you got for me, John?'

'I keep telling you-'

Diamond jammed a thumb under Seville's chin, forcing his jaws together with a crunch. 'I'm not messing. I want a result. I can pay fifty, or I can beat it out of you, or I can tell my chums at Bristol Central to make your life impossible. Which is it to be?'

'You just cut my tongue.'

'Too bad.' He relaxed his hold.

Seville wiped blood from the edge of his mouth and stared at his fingers. He darted looks to either side. No one was about. 'You said fifty?'

'This had better be kosher.'

'Take it or leave it, this is all I have. There's an ex-con living in clover in a smart house on Sion Hill, near the Suspension Bridge. Been around most of this year. Makes trips to London sometimes. The word is that if you want to buy a shooter, that's where you go. But don't bring me into it, for Christ's sake.'

'A local?'

'No, not from round here.'

'I'll need his name.'

'Beach. The name is Beach.'

John Seville got his fifty pounds.

Ever since the diamond heist went wrong, Harry Tattersall had dreaded hearing from his old friend Rhadi. He expected a witch-hunt. The deviser of the plot, that sinister little man Zahir, wasn't going to let the whole thing rest. Much as Harry hoped that the Arab philosophy might be to offer a thousand blessings to Allah for a lucky escape, he knew in his gut that it was not to be. Zahir would want to know who had shafted them.

Never mind that Harry was blameless, having acted like a hero and saved everyone from arrest. His Houdini stunt at the Dorchester wasn't going to work in his favour. With their devious minds the Arabs would think he'd been allowed to walk away. It wasn't true, of course. He'd been as horrified as anyone when things came to grief. He hadn't grassed, and he didn't know who had.

The first days after, he'd stayed out of sight, fearing Special Branch or one of the security services would come in pursuit. He hadn't gone to Ireland, as planned, in case that part of the operation had been blabbed. He'd stayed with a friend in Tunbridge Wells. As the weeks passed, he'd returned to London, deciding he was safe from the authorities. The real threat was from his fellow-conspirators. He'd heard disturbing stories of Arab retribution: thieves having their hands severed and adulterers being stoned. He didn't care to discover what happened to informers.

The call eventually came one Monday evening.

'I'm so glad you're in,' his friend Rhadi said, as if he was selling insurance. 'We need to talk.'

'Only you and me?' Harry said, more in hope than expectation.

'No. All of us. The team.' And it was obvious from Rhadi's voice that he wasn't alone. 'We wish to compare notes on our, em, disappointment. A de-brief, as they say.'

'A de-brief,' Harry repeated, thinking it sounded like the prelude to castration.