Peter Lovesey - Skeleton Hill

Keith was unimpressed. ‘I hear what you’re saying, but…’ He dismissed the possibility with a shrug.

‘Let’s work with the facts we have. Have you found out for sure where these zips were manufactured?’

‘Give me a break, boss. I only heard about this at ten-fifteen this morning. Most of the time I was trying to work out if the logo meant anything.’

‘That’s the next step, then. There must be a list of Russian manufacturers out there.’

‘I’ll go on the internet.’

‘You can try. As it happens, I know someone with a good know-ledge of the fashion industry. She may be able to throw some light.’

‘Fine,’ Halliwell said without enthusiasm. ‘I’ll still see what Google brings up. Let’s use every resource we can. We may pin it down to a particular city.’

While this was being aired, Diamond had almost forgotten Septimus and his three colleagues from Bristol. They had stood in the background, getting their first view of the accommodation and not liking it. When he introduced them to his regular team and showed them their work stations they didn’t appear overjoyed. ‘Couldn’t we have a room to ourselves?’ Septimus asked.

‘That would defeat the whole purpose,’ Diamond said. ‘If you’re in another room you might as well be back in Bristol.’

The looks that passed between them said it all.

Leaving them to get over their discontent, Diamond picked up a phone and called Paloma and explained about the query over the zip. ‘I thought you might have the answer.’

‘Off the top of my head, no,’ she said, and there was a cool note in her voice that troubled him.

‘I’m sorry. Am I abusing our friendship?’

‘It’s becoming rather businesslike, that’s all. Let me think about this. I’ll get back to you shortly.’

Halliwell was manically tapping a keyboard.

‘Any joy?’ Diamond asked.

‘Not yet. I’m trying various things. You put in “zippers” or “zip fasteners” and you get so many hits it isn’t true. The language is a problem. Even if I knew how to put the letter in, I’d get Russian text coming up. It’s a pain!’

‘Keep your hair on.’

‘God Almighty.’ Halliwell clapped a hand to his head and swung round to face Diamond. ‘I forgot to tell you. The woman at the lab said they found a clipping of hair trapped under the tab.’

‘A hair? And no one noticed until now?’

‘It’s small. They’re doing tests on it.’

‘How small is “small”?’

‘A few millimetres, that’s all. She said it was dark brown or black and rather coarse.’

‘From the victim?’

‘How can anyone tell?’

‘Fair point. Why should one hair survive, when nothing else was found?’

`I suppose if it was tight under the tab it may have been protected. Hair is supposed to last a long time after a body rots away. Could it be from the killer, do you think?’

‘We don’t get luck like that,’ Diamond said.

‘It’s probably a pubic hair, being found with the zip fly,’ Halliwell said.

‘You said it was a clipping.’

‘Well, guv, I’m not an expert, but I believe women sometimes trim their bushes.’

‘And I was thinking she’d been to the hairdresser’s. You’re a man of the world, Keith.’

‘Let’s hope they get DNA from it. They can, you know, even when it doesn’t include the root.’

‘If it’s as small as you say I wouldn’t bet your house on it. We can only wait for the science, as always.’

Paloma rang back soon after and asked if he could get to Bennett Street in the next twenty minutes. Now she was sounding businesslike, but he was wise enough not to say so.

‘You’re a star. Any particular address?’

‘The Assembly Rooms, front entrance.’

‘We’re only identifying a zip,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t we do it somewhere less formal, like a pub or a teashop?’

He could hear the sigh down the phone. ‘It’s where the Museum of Costume is,’ she told him. ‘One of the glories of our city. Admit it, Peter – you’ve lived in Bath all this time and never set foot in the place.’

‘You win,’ he said. ‘See you shortly.’

As he was leaving the incident room he looked over Keith Halliwell’s shoulder. He’d stopped working the keyboard and was gazing forlornly at a list of websites. The internet hadn’t delivered yet.

Diamond murmured something encouraging, but that devil inside him was hoping Paloma had the answer.

‘We’re meeting my friend Marcia Martindale,’ Paloma said. ‘If she doesn’t know, nobody in Britain does.’

Disregarding the splendours of the Assembly Rooms where Jane Austen once took tea and found inspiration for Northanger Abbey , they went down into the basement and walked rapidly past the tall showcases of the museum (‘Promise me you’ll come back and see it properly, you philistine,’ Paloma told him) to the Fashion Research Centre, a book-lined room where Marcia was waiting. She was over eighty and wore a black hat with a crimson band and long feather. Under the wide brim was one of those pale faces that ought never to be shown the sun. The effect was increased by deep-set intelligent eyes magnified by dark-framed glasses.

‘The zip isn’t allowed to leave the police station, being evidence,’ Diamond said, ‘but I made a sketch of the symbol we found under the tab.’

‘The puller,’ Marcia corrected him. ‘We call that the puller. May I see?’

He put the piece of paper in front of her. After being corrected over the puller, he enjoyed airing his new linguistic knowledge. ‘It’s from the Cyrillic alphabet, their version of a G.’

‘I know,’ Marcia said. ‘I read Russian. Well, if what you say is true, it’s rather unusual to have the trademark on the underside, and that may be helpful in identifying the maker. I presume the fastener is metallic?’

‘Yes.’

She placed her hand on a book the size of a dictionary she had ready on the table. ‘The history of the zip is worthy of study. Elias Howe, the American who also invented the sewing machine, applied for a patent as early as 1851, but he didn’t go into production with his “Automatic Continuous Clothing Closure” and we had to wait until 1914 for anything that really worked efficiently to be developed and that was Gideon Sundback’s “Hookless Fastener Number Two”. Of course it transformed the world of fashion.’

Diamond didn’t need the history lesson, but contained his impatience and it was Paloma who gently asked the old lady if the book had anything on Russian zips of the nineteen-eighties.

‘I’m sure it does,’ she said, slowly lifting the cover. ‘This is the Burke’s Peerage of the zip fastener.’ She started turning the pages with an arthritic finger and launched into another lecture. ‘The word “zipper”, as it is still known in America, was used first in the nineteen-twenties for a brand of galoshes with a zip fastening. All sorts of theories exist as to why the word was coined, but I won’t bore you with them. I can see your interest in the subject is limited.’ Her finger stopped and she held open the page. ‘Here’s the section on manufacturers. We’ll just have to work our way through the letter “G”.’

‘Do they show the trademarks as well?’ Paloma asked.

‘Yes. Give me a moment.’

They watched while Marcia ran her finger slowly down the entries. But unfortunately the Burke’s Peerage of the zip fastener let her down. She got to the end of the “G”s without a result.

‘I’d better try again. It must be here. This is the standard work of reference.’

Paloma started to say, ‘If it was just a small company- ’

Marcia cut her off with, ‘It would still be here.’