Peter Lovesey - Skeleton Hill

She frowned and went cherry red. ‘How do you know this?’

‘Like you, I’m finding out as I go along. But I can see where you’re going with this. Our young woman may have died in the battle.’

‘Yes, and what a blow it would have been to the whole event – to events like this all over the country. A real fatality, and a woman at that. Would it be it so surprising if she was dragged out of sight and buried?’

‘Now you’re stretching it, Inge,’ he said. ‘Asking me to believe the Knot connived at the illegal disposal of a body to save their reputation.’

‘It needn’t have been official,’ she said. ‘Probably wasn’t. A couple of people could have moved the corpse unknown to the organisers.’

‘All right. Let’s pursue this for a moment. You’re suggesting she was killed during the battle. How? By accident?’

‘That’s only one scenario.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘There’s a more sinister one, isn’t there? One of the soldiers had murder in mind from the beginning.’

‘A premeditated killing. It’s a possibility. How many took part?’ ‘The paper said two and a half thousand.’

‘As many as that? Inge, you’re depressing me.’

‘But not so many are women and there’s a better chance of them being remembered, particularly if one was from the Ukraine.’ He’d become so involved in her version of the battle that he’d pushed the victim’s nationality to the back of his mind. ‘Now there’s a thing. What in the name of sanity would a Ukrainian woman be doing in an English Civil War re-enactment?’

‘Exactly.’

She made him think again. He played his own words back to himself.

‘If she was there, someone will know,’ Ingeborg said, spreading her hands as if she’d just solved the riddle of the sphinx.

It was a whopping assumption, but he was intrigued. ‘So?’

‘So Septimus had his brilliant thought.’ She waited for him to react. She wasn’t going to say another word until he asked.

‘And what’s that?’

‘Why don’t I enlist in the Sealed Knot and see what I can find out?’

‘Crazy.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re a policewoman, that’s why.’

‘They’ve all got jobs. They do it in the evenings and at weekends. It’s a free country. I can join if I want.’

‘The first thing they’ll ask is what your day job is and you’re sunk.’

‘All right, I can say I’m a journalist, like I was.’

‘That won’t relax anybody.’

‘I’ll go undercover, then.’

She was not to be dissuaded. She really wanted to do this.

‘What do you hope to achieve?’

‘Finding people who remember 1993, women in particular. When we’re in a small minority, we get to know each other. If there’s anything to be learned about the murder victim, I’ll root it out.’

‘I’m sure you’re capable,’ he said. ‘But there’s a downside, isn’t there? Someone murdered Rupert Hope, presumably because he was a threat. You’re going down the same route and you’ll be in real danger.’

‘I’ll watch my back.’

‘Not good enough. We can do this the regular way, letting them know who we are and taking statements. You’ll still be involved, I promise you.’

She shook her head. ‘My way is best. Catch them off guard.’

That was true, but he didn’t want her to take the risk.

She said, ‘Guv, if I was a man, you wouldn’t hesitate. What happened to equality?’

It was a telling point. Sometimes he treated her as the daughter he’d never had. He’d never fully accepted that she should face the same risks as everyone else. He was happy to make use of her insights into the female psyche, her intelligence and her journalistic experience, but he still didn’t want her in the front line.

‘I know you mean well,’ she said, ‘but if I’m going to have a career in CID I have to do it all.’

He said, ‘Actually, Inge, this is more than I’d ask anyone to do.’

She was tight-lipped.

‘But since you volunteered,’ he went on, ‘I won’t stop you. Just as long as you realise the danger.’

Through the one-way glass of Interview Room 1, he watched Septimus and one of his Bristol DCs pitching in to Dave Barton. The Bradford on Avon blacksmith seemed to be holding up well at this stage. He’d asked to bring a friend with him and she turned out to be a razor-sharp solicitor, Miss Tower, well known to Manvers Street. She was quick to intervene.

‘My client answered these questions before, when he was interviewed by Mr Halliwell. You have the signed statement.’

‘And I’ve studied it,’ Septimus said. ‘But you must understand that DI Halliwell is enquiring into the death of an unknown woman twenty years ago. My investigation is different, the recent killing of Rupert Hope. I need to explore areas not covered in the previous interview.’

‘You just asked about Mr Barton’s job, which you know already, and which has no conceivable relevance to either enquiry.’

On the other side of the glass, Diamond said, ‘Except we’re looking for the murder weapon and a blacksmith’s tool kit has to be of interest.’

‘All right, Dave. Let’s concentrate on the hobby, the Civil War thing,’ Septimus said. ‘How long have you been doing it?’

Miss Tower was quick to say, ‘Not relevant.’

Septimus said, ‘I want to find out if he’d met Rupert at any of the meetings.’

‘Then ask him.’

Dave, a strong, smiling man with a beer gut, said, ‘The answer is no. He was a Bristol guy. They have their own branch.’

‘He told you he came from Bristol?’

‘I found out since. From the university, wasn’t he?’

‘That’s right. Didn’t he mention it at the time?’

‘Said he was a historian. The Sealed Knot asked him to give a talk at the lecture day and he thought he’d like to join a muster and find out what we do. He went on a lot about the real battle. He seemed to know his stuff.’

‘Are you well up on history, Dave?’

‘Me? No, I don’t do it for that. I like the action, the fighting.’

‘Careful,’ Miss Tower advised him.

‘I meant the dressing up and all that,’ Dave added.

‘You’re a pikeman?’ Septimus said.

‘Not always.’

‘For this battle you were. And so was Rupert?’

‘Foot soldiers really. The lowest form of life.’

‘The pikes are long, aren’t they? About five metres? What did you do with your pikes when you went for the lager?’

‘Left them on the ground where we was supposed to have died. We picked them up later.’

‘And you moved down the hill to where you’d hidden the beer? Did anyone see you going?’

‘Could have.’

‘Other pikemen?’

‘Not the living ones. The action had moved on by then. There were some dead and wounded lying about. When you’re on the ground it’s hard to see much. And there was a few women looking after roundheads, giving them water. Camp followers, they’re called.’

Diamond grinned. Whatever happened to angels of mercy? A pity Ingeborg wasn’t here.

‘Could they have seen you?’ Septimus asked.

‘I suppose.’

‘Were they close enough to have a view of you and Rupert digging out the beer?’

‘They’d need twenty-twenty vision. I’d say they were more than fifty yards off.’

‘So they wouldn’t have spotted you actually finding the bone? That was a strange find, wasn’t it?’

Miss Tower said to Dave, ‘You don’t need to answer that. You’re not here to give an opinion.’

But Dave seemed to decide he was on safe ground. ‘I was shocked. First I thought it was from some animal. I put it down fast when I guessed it could be human. Nasty. We buried it again.’