Peter Lovesey: Skeleton Hill

‘I’ll need the strength, then.’

‘If you like I’ll spread the word among the girls that you passed your medical.’

His romantic prospects were fair game. The kitchen girls knew about his friendship with Paloma Kean. What they didn’t know was how much he missed his murdered wife Steph.

He paid, picked up his cutlery and looked for a table, always a tricky decision. If he joined other people, they would be lower ranks and uncomfortable in the presence of a superintendent, but an empty table left him vulnerable to Georgina, the Assistant Chief Constable. Many a burger and chips had been ruined by Georgina arriving with her salad and some sharp questions about the way he was running his department.

A face from the past looked up from a newspaper, not a face to be recalled with much affection, yet not easy to ignore. A Lord Kitchener moustache flecked with silver. Brown, unforgiving eyes. The man had once been Head of CID Operations.

‘John Wigfull, for all that’s wonderful. I thought you’d long since left the madhouse and gone back to Sheffield, or wherever it is.’ Diamond placed his tray on the table.

Chief Inspector Wigfull had been given extended sick leave three or four years ago after receiving a head injury and being left for dead in a cornfield near Stowford. He’d spent almost a week unconscious in Bath’s Royal United Hospital.

Wigfull didn’t move. There was no handshake, let alone a hug. They’d never been that friendly.

‘They brought me back as a civilian,’ he said.

‘You were always good at paperwork,’ Diamond said, and it wasn’t meant as an insult. No one had ever come near to Wigfull in filing and form-filling. ‘What will you be doing?’

‘I’m the new media relations manager.’

‘Are you, indeed? I should have realised when I saw you reading the Sun .’ He popped a chip into his mouth. ‘So I can look forward to you keeping the press boys off my back.’

‘That’s not the idea at all,’ Wigfull said. ‘In the modern police we encourage openness.’ He’d always had this talent for making Diamond feel he was one of a dying breed.

‘You feed them stories, do you? We’ve had some juicy ones since you were here.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Like the crossbow killer we called the Mariner. And the Secret Hangman. You could have made something of those.’

‘I don’t “make something”, as you put it. I communicate facts.’

‘Too right you do’

‘In the past we haven’t maximised our use of the media,’ Wigfull said, and the phrase could have come straight from his job interview. ‘It’s a two-way process. There’s potential for information-gathering from the public.’

‘Like the old Wanted posters?’

Wigfull looked puzzled, then pained. ‘We’re more sophisticated.’

‘ Crimewatch ?’

‘We’re in the twenty-first century. My brief is to make the police more approachable.’

‘You wouldn’t be thinking of giving out my phone number?’

‘Not at all, but I may at some point arrange for you to be interviewed by a magazine or newspaper.’

‘You’re joking. What about?’

‘About you – as a human being. They’ll do a full page profile.’

Diamond frowned. ‘You can stuff that.’

‘You are a member of the human race.’

‘Yes, and I value my privacy.’

‘Don’t look so worried, Peter. You’re not top of my list. Not even halfway up, in fact.’

A putdown calculated to injure Diamond’s pride, and it succeeded. ‘What’s the matter with me? Okay, you don’t have to answer that question.’

‘The interviews are only one of many innovations I’m making.’

Diamond lifted the top from the burger and and poured on some ketchup. He wished he’d sat with someone else.

‘I’m feeding titbits to the media as well,’ Wigfull added. ‘Human interest stories like the missing cavalier.’ He spoke the last two words in a throwaway tone, as if Diamond should have known all about it.

‘What’s that – an oil painting?’

‘Please.’

‘A dog, then?’

‘Dog?’

‘Cavalier King Charles spaniel.’

‘It’s what I said – a missing cavalier. You won’t have heard of this because it hasn’t come to CID. There’s no crime that we know of… yet.’

‘But it could come to pass?’

‘When I release the facts to the press there’s a chance they’ll take up the case and someone will know something.’

‘Go on, then.’

‘Two weekends ago they re-enacted the Civil War Battle of Lansdown.’

‘Missed it.’

‘You would, when all you think about is rugby and old films. The real thing was in 1643 and they had a major muster three hundred and fifty years on, in 1993.’

‘A what?’

‘A muster. That’s the term they use. It made a very colourful spectacle, I’m told. There are societies like the Sealed Knot who take it very seriously.’

‘Pathetic,’ Diamond said. ‘Cut to the chase.’

‘As I was trying to tell you, they had another muster this year. One of them fell in the battle and hasn’t been heard of since.’

‘Killed?’

‘If he had been, you’d have heard about it. There would have been a real corpse when the fighting came to an end and they all got up and marched away. No, this man doesn’t seem to have been injured.’

‘You just said he fell in the battle.’

‘It’s all pretence. They lie down for a while and then get up and join in again. Somehow this one went missing. No one reported it at the time, but two days later his car was found in the racecourse car park. His armour, the authentic costume, was in the boot.’

‘Pity.’

‘Why?’

‘It spoils your story, doesn’t it? You’re not looking for a missing person in a big hat with a feather.’

‘He was an infantryman. They wore helmets.’

‘Doesn’t matter, does it, if his stuff was in the car? You say his motor was found, so you must have checked with Swansea for his name.’

‘Yes, we know who he is. Rupert Hope, a history lecturer at Bristol University. They have no idea where he is.’

‘Family?’

‘Parents living in Australia. They haven’t heard from him since the incident. Neither have any of his university colleagues.’

‘Another missing person. I expect he’ll turn up.’

‘But why would he abandon his car?’

‘Any number of reasons,’ Diamond said. ‘Has anyone tried it, to see if it starts?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘If the car was giving trouble, he may have got a lift with someone else.’

‘That doesn’t explain why he disappeared.’

‘You asked me why he left the car there.’

‘He’s been gone twelve days.’

‘Try this for size, then. After the battle, they all get together for a few drinks. What’s the pub up there? The Blathwayt. Your cavalier gets stonkered and in no state to drive. One of his mates offers to drive him home, but on the way back to Bristol they have an accident.’

‘We’d have heard.’

‘Hold on. His friend the driver is killed, but your man gets out and walks away. He’s hit his head, lost his memory. Nobody knows there was a passenger.’

‘So where is he now?’ Wigfull said with scorn.

‘In the funny farm. Check for the guy with delusions that he’s a cavalier.’

Wigfull took him seriously, as usual. ‘We don’t have time for that. After all, he’s only a missing person, not a suspect on the run. But if the press take up the story, they might make something of it.’

Diamond smiled. ‘John, they’d make something of that little patch of shaving foam under your tash.’

The satisfaction of watching Wigfull check with a finger brightened Diamond’s day.