Peter Lovesey - Skeleton Hill

‘But you know what I’m getting at? You put a lot of faith in this as an information tool but nothing has yet been devised that gets even close to word of mouth. We’re going to have to get out there and ask people questions.’

‘About something that happened twenty-odd years ago? Are memories that reliable?’

‘Nadia was different. How many Ukrainians have you and I met? I’m sure I’d remember.’

‘True.’

‘I have a description from Vikki. Average height. Blue eyes, widely spaced, straight nose, even teeth, good legs, straight, long hair that could have been any colour because she changed it often.’

‘Don’t get me wrong, guv,’ Ingeborg said, ‘but half my friends look like that. An e-fit might work better.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘It depends how good Vikki’s memory is and if she’s willing to do it.’

‘I promised to leave her alone in return for the information I’ve just given you.’

‘We’re not asking her to incriminate herself.’

‘I’ll ask Louis if he can fix it. Personally, I never had much faith in photofits and e-fits aren’t much better. They all look like extra-terrestrials to me.’

‘It’s something to show. The public respond to visual images.’

‘I’ll get it organised.’ He got back on track. ‘Any other reason she might have chosen Bath?’

‘She heard about it from one of the punters?’

He snapped his fingers. ‘Good thought, Inge. Here’s a scenario. The guy lives here and visits London on business. Likes to have sex when he’s away from home and gets to know Nadia. He’s rich and treats her kindly. She thinks if she can find him he may set her up, but it doesn’t play like that. He has a wife and a career and a respectable life here. When she traces him, he gets in a panic. He agrees to meet her late one night on Lansdown and kills her.’

‘Not bad,’ she said. ‘Difficult to prove. How would we ever find him?’

A voice behind said, ‘And where’s the connection with Operation Cavalier?’

He turned to find Septimus had crossed the room.

‘Rupert Hope,’ Septimus said, as if memories needed jogging.

Diamond was at his best when a little bluffing was necessary. He hadn’t forgotten how important it was to keep both strands of the enquiry linked if possible. ‘For businessman read lecturer. Rupert was around in the early nineties, wasn’t he?’

‘But making regular trips to London?’

‘Researches. The British Museum. The Imperial War Museum. The British Library.’

Septimus grinned. ‘Quick thinking.’

‘It’s only a theory. How’s your side of the investigation going?’ ‘We’ve been working on the days between the re-enactment and his death. We traced a few more witnesses, dog-walkers and car-booters. They all agreed he was acting strangely.’

‘From the blow on the head?’

‘It sounds like it. He could talk, but he had no idea who he was, or what to do, except he stole food when he was hungry. He slept rough and wandered about the down until his killer caught up with him and finished him off.’

‘You’re assuming both attacks came from the same individual?’ ‘It’s the most likely explanation. Similar injuries.’

‘And in each case the attacker didn’t leave the weapon lying about nearby. Is the search of the cemetery complete?’

‘All done. A few objects were picked up and sent for testing, but the result was negative. I think the killer was smart. He took the weapon away with him.’

‘We’re still talking about a blunt instrument, right?’

‘Something clean, that left no traces in the head wound. Heavy enough to split the skin and dent the skull, but not to cleave it. Yes, blunt is right.’

That evening Peter Diamond stood in shadow at one end of a disused aircraft hangar watching and hearing the clash of pikes as three pairs went through their movements. The ash-wood weapons, some sixteen feet in length, looked and sounded dangerous, even though the moves were being choreographed by an expert, an officer of the Sealed Knot. Knowing Ingeborg’s steely resolve to be at least as capable as any man, Diamond wasn’t surprised to see her wielding her pike with gusto. Like the others she was wearing casual clothes except for a metal helmet and leather gauntlet gloves.

‘We’ll try that again,’ the officer said. ‘First positions. Pikes at the advance.’

They stepped back, hoisted the cumbersome staves to waist height and rested them on their shoulders.

Diamond was thinking he wouldn’t have gone into battle armed only with one of those. Engrossed in all this, he failed to notice he was not alone.

‘Thinking about enlisting?’ The voice at his side made him jerk in surprise. The speaker was a woman with a silver ponytail. Her stylish black suede jacket and pale blue jeans projected self-confidence, as did the voice. Definitely not an interloper, as he was.

‘Hasn’t crossed my mind,’ he said.

‘It’s good for fitness.’ She seemed a fine advert herself, over seventy, he reckoned, yet with the figure of a woman thirty years younger. ‘You could do a lot worse.’

‘I do,’ he said, patting his pot belly. ‘All the time.’

She smiled.

He asked, ‘Am I in the way here?’

‘You’re welcome to watch. Is it the young lady who interests you?’

He couldn’t get away with anything here. ‘Not specially.’

‘These days the female recruits insist on doing everything,’ she said. ‘When I joined more than thirty years ago we delicate creatures didn’t think about joining in the fighting. We were angels of mercy, ministering to the dying and wounded. And if that sounds wimpish – is that the word? – it was actually rather bold, wearing low-cut frocks and leaning over fellows. That’s how I met my husband.’

‘Nice work.’

‘The modern generation want to wear armour and carry pikes for liberation’s sake. They don’t know the half of it.’

‘You’ve been a member how long?’

‘Still am. An active member, too, out on the battlefield. The neckline is more modest these days, but I’ll carry on as long as my knees allow me.’

‘You did say more than thirty years?’ People often exaggerate about spans of time. However, this sprightly lady might be a useful witness if she’d been a Sealed Knot member for that long.

‘I can tell you precisely when I joined. It got going in Bath in 1971 with a commemorative parade, as they called it, got up by Count Nicolai Tolstoy – handsome man – and his King’s Own Army, which was based in Sherborne. I saw them lined up, wonderfully gorgeous and magnificent, with their horses and banners, and vowed to join at the first opportunity. Next year we had a skirmish on the battlefield and I was part of it.’

‘Comforting the fallen?’

She laughed. ‘They seemed to appreciate it.’

At the end of the hangar another order was shouted. The soldiers lowered their pikes to the horizontal, all pointing to where Diamond and his companion were standing.

‘Advancing at point of pike,’ she told him. ‘It’s a fearsome sight in battle. Just imagine.’

‘It’s pretty scary from here. Are they about to charge us?’

‘I don’t think so. You’re not from Cromwell’s lot, are you?’

‘Not when I last checked.’

‘If you were, you’d be wishing you had your own pikestaff at least as long as theirs and fifty others with you. And even then, you’d probably not survive. The front men are usually impaled, but the others behind them still push. Dreadful for men and horses.’

‘You’re talking about the real thing. You don’t injure each other when you’re putting on one of your mock battles?’