Peter Lovesey - Skeleton Hill

‘Prostitution?’

‘Did you say streetwalking? I’m afraid it was something of the sort. As I was telling you, they sent her to London. I don’t know how long she was there before she ran away and made her way to Bath. Through God’s abundant mercy she found our church. We try and help lost souls.’

‘But she didn’t stay long.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

Gilbert did his shouting again.

‘No, she didn’t stay,’ she said. ‘She went off one afternoon and I didn’t see her again. To tell you the truth, it upset me. She could have told me if she was unhappy here. Sometimes I wonder if it was the cats that put her off. I don’t think she was comfortable with them.’

Diamond could sympathise, yet he managed a sweeping gesture that was meant to reassure. ‘Did she say where she was going?’

To his great relief, she seemed to tune into his voice, or he was pitching it at a better level. ‘I just told you I have no idea.’

‘While she was staying, did she ever speak of people she knew in Bath?’

‘Never.’

‘Did she bring anyone back to the house?’

‘Men, do you mean?’

‘Anyone at all.’

She shook her head. ‘She was no trouble at all while she was here. She was never late coming home, except for the day she left altogether.’

‘Which day was that?’

‘You want to know which day? You’re asking for the moon. How would I know one day from another after all these years?’

He glanced up at the sampler. ‘It must have been some time after your birthday on July 23rd.’

‘The beginning of August, then. Or thereabouts.’

‘You’ve no way of telling? You don’t keep a diary?’

‘A diary – with all the shopping and cooking and cleaning and gardening as well? When you have a house guest you don’t have time for anything else.’

He sensed that he probably was asking for the moon, so he got her back on track. ‘What did you do the night she left?’

She was still tuned in. ‘I went to bed at my usual time, thinking she’d soon be coming in. I slept upstairs in those days. I had the front room and hers was the back. She could have got in if she’d wanted. She knew I keep a spare front door key under the flowerpot beside the front door. In the morning I found the door of her room still open and the bed hadn’t been slept in.’

‘Were her things gone?’

‘What things? She didn’t have any things of her own. She used my towels, my face flannel, even my shampoo and soap. And her clothes were given by the church.’

‘Did you report it? Speak to Father Michael? Call the police?’

‘It’s a pity she didn’t find a little job. They say the devil finds work for idle hands. I do hope she didn’t go back to her old way of life.’

He had to repeat his question.

‘Report it? Not for some time. I thought she might come back, you see, and it would have seemed inhospitable if I’d reported her missing. In the end I think I told someone at the church, but by then she’d been gone a few weeks and no further action was taken. With people like that, who arrive out of the blue, you never know when you’re going to lose them again. Would you like to see a picture of her?’

A picture? Would he just?

‘There’s a wooden box under the bed.’ She turned to Gilbert. ‘See if you can reach it, young man. Pay no attention to anything else you might see there.’

Gilbert delved underneath and pulled out a dusty rosewood box inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The cat on Mrs Jarvie’s lap was forced to move.

‘Now would you hand me my magnifying glass from the bedside table?’ She opened the box. It was stuffed with letters and photos. ‘The picture I’m looking for should be here somewhere.’

This, Diamond reflected, gritting his teeth, could take some time. Cultivate patience, you hothead. To get an image of Nadia will be momentous.

She didn’t take long. ‘Here we are. This was snapped in the garden by my neighbour, Mrs Brixham, now gone to paradise like Father Michael, poor soul. That’s Nadia with me preparing runner beans for dinner. It was such a nice day we sat outside. She had a lovely smile.’ She handed the photo across.

Although the 6 x 4 colour print had faded, the focus was sharp enough to provide a clear image. It showed a slightly less decrepit Mrs Jarvie beside a young woman on a garden seat. They had kitchen knives in their hands and a saucepan between them.

For Diamond this was a moment to set the pulse racing, the chance to see the face of the young woman whose tragic history he’d been investigating. In the picture she appeared untroubled, no doubt relieved that she’d found this safe haven. She was giving a wide smile to the camera, holding up a bean in her left hand to show what the picture was about. Her hair was blonde and long enough to have been drawn back, gathered and held in place with combs. She was wearing little or no make-up. He noted that she was wearing the expected jeans and a T-shirt. Her face was East European in shape, a fraction too broad to be conventionally pretty, but the smile caught a moment of happiness that gave life to the fading image, a point of contact that moved Peter Diamond more than he’d expected. No doubt he was indulging in sentiment he would have ridiculed in anyone else, yet he felt Nadia’s personality lived on in the photo, a young, laughing woman putting her grim past behind her without knowing she had only a few days left.

That photo said more than any e-fit would have done.

‘May we make a copy of this?’

No response.

Moved by what he’d just seen, he’d lowered the pitch of his voice. A second attempt got through.

‘What are you going to do with it?’ the old lady said, frowning. ‘I don’t want it getting into the newspapers.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m wearing an apron, that’s why.’

‘We’ll cut you out of it. We only want Nadia’s head and shoulders.’

‘I can’t think why.’

He wasn’t going to enlighten her at this juncture. ‘We’d like to find out what happened to her. Nobody has seen her since this was taken.’

‘I hope she’s all right. She was no trouble to me.’

They left after replacing the box under the bed and allowing the white cat to reclaim its prime position.

‘Top result, Paul,’ Diamond said, his heart still pumping at a higher rate. It was rare for him to show emotion to a colleague, but he closed a hand over Gilbert’s shoulder. ‘Full marks for this. Now let’s see if the photo jogs some memories.’

There is a stage in every lengthy investigation when the team needs palpable proof of progress. Personally, he’d stayed positive, though he was pretty sure there had been murmurings in the incident room about the lack of suspects. The circumstances had made this case an unusual one. Generally you know from the outset what has happened and why. Most of the team’s efforts up to now had been centred on understanding the basics, the nature of the crime. All of that was about to change.

He was humming to himself as he returned to the car.

Hard facts had emerged at last. In London he’d found a name for the skeleton victim and confirmed her nationality and her way of life. And now thanks to Mrs Jarvie he’d discovered the year and the month Nadia had come to Bath and gone missing. Better still, he had the photo in his pocket. He could show everyone what this tragic young woman had looked like in life. The headless skeleton had been reconstructed into a real person.

In this heightened mood, he let his thoughts race on from the facts to their interpretation. Nadia had tried to flee from the hell of prostitution at a time when violence had taken over. Murder was already being done. The vice barons would have thought nothing of ordering another killing. It looked increasingly as if she had been followed to Bath by some hit man and executed, most likely as a deterrent to any other working girl who had plans to escape. The decapitation after death seemed to signify a professional killing. Your average small-time murderer hasn’t the stomach for mutilation.