Peter Lovesey: Skeleton Hill

‘It’s a matter of record that Rupert Hope was hit from behind and killed in the cemetery near the tower. He’d found an under-rug last seen strapped to the racehorse Hang-glider’s back. We’ve done the tests. This afternoon we went into the grotto and found the remains of the horse. Are you listening, Sir Colin?’

A nod. All the fight had gone out of him.

‘I’ve interviewed your daughter and discussed how it was done. You couldn’t have managed it alone. Each of you brought your professional skills to the job. In your case, it was knowing the existence of the grotto. You’re a chartered surveyor dealing in major civic works. DI Ward, would you take over?’

Septimus was ready. ‘In January, 1991, a section of the Lansdown Road collapsed near Beckford’s tower, due to subsidence. A survey of the immediate area was commissioned.’ He took from his pocket the printout he’d shown Diamond and passed it across the table. ‘From the council planning department website. You’ll see that C. Tipping and Associates carried out the survey. You identified nineteenth century excavations as the cause, an exploratory dig for the grotto. The tunnel itself was a short way off and you located that as well. Two years later, this knowledge would come in useful. Disposing of a dead racehorse can be a problem.’

‘That was your contribution,’ Diamond said. ‘Davina supplied the veterinary skills, obtained a horse-trailer and drove it to the races the night Hang-glider was paraded there. You knew McDart would be in the owners’ and trainers’ bar until late. You saw that the stable lad had returned from the horsebox. You went there, broke in and transferred the horse to the trailer. But there was an unforeseen problem in the shape of Nadia, a young woman waiting by the trailer in hope of getting a job with McDart. She would have ruined the scam. She had to be disposed of, and quickly. Correct me if I’m wrong. You held her and Davina killed her with the bolt gun and you bundled the body into the back seat of the Land Rover before driving off with the horse.’

‘No comment,’ Tipping said.

‘We insist on an adjournment,’ his solicitor said.

‘No,’ Tipping said in an abrupt change of tactics. ‘Let’s nail this now for the bullshit it is.’

‘I’m advising you not to say any more.’

‘They can’t stitch us up like this. There’s no motive, for Christ’s sake. Why would I go to all this trouble to destroy my own horse when I was on the brink of the biggest deal of my life? I lost a fortune when that horse was stolen.’

Diamond refused to be sidetracked. He was telling it his way. ‘With the horse in the trailer and the dead woman in the Land Rover you drove to the grotto, right into the field and up to the entrance. Davina used the stun gun on the horse and you reversed the trailer to the steps and let it roll inside and out of sight. That was enough for one evening. The next night, working together, you buried Nadia’s body in a place you knew, the hole left by the fallen oak’s root system, first removing the victim’s head. Why? Because the bolt-hole in the skull would have revealed the form of death and led us to suspect a slaughterman or a vet. I expect your daughter carried out that necessary task and also disposed of the head. Murder is gruesome, however clinically it is done.’

‘You’ve missed the point,’ Tipping said. ‘We had no motive.’

‘The motive in both cases is the same. These unfortunate people strayed into your danger zone. The only thing you had against them was that they would give you away. With the help of the Lansdown Society you kept watch on the burial site and you were compelled to act when Rupert returned there. He survived one clubbing and had to be given another. The attempt to dress up his killing as accidental was pretty inept. I suppose you hoped we’d think he’d died in a brawl. I won’t pretend it was easy to track you down. Casual killings of strangers are the hardest of all to investigate.’

‘Have you finished?’ Tipping said. For all the revelations, he’d recovered some of that air of infallibity. ‘We’ll award you A+ for invention and B for effort, but I’m afraid you fail on the argument. You could have saved us all a lot of time if you’d addressed the simple fact I raised just now. I had no reason to kill my horse. Quite the reverse. He was going to make me very rich indeed.’

‘You’re talking about your motive for killing the horse?’

‘The penny drops. Yes, Mr Diamond. We’re on tenterhooks to hear your theory on that.’

Diamond locked eyes with him. ‘I’m not giving you that satisfaction.’

‘So this great hypothesis comes tumbling down.’

‘No. It’s as safe as any house you ever surveyed. Charge him with murder, Septimus.’

Diamond’s offer of supper in the canteen was interpreted by all but himself as free drinks in the Sports Bar of the Royal, the hotel at the east end of Manvers Street. He had little choice but to join the party and start a tab. Someone bent on mischief – probably John Leaman – got busy on the phone and in the next half-hour familiar faces kept appearing through the door, civilian staff, wives and partners. Paloma arrived – proof that their private life was an open secret – and there was a huge cheer when Keith Halliwell, pale, but smiling broadly, walked in with his wife.

Even Georgina had joined the party and was drinking lemonade with John Wigfull.

Diamond told Paloma, ‘This started with an offer of bangers and mash to one deserving case. I’ll need to take out an extra mortgage.’

‘It’s no bad thing to let them feel appreciated,’ she said.

‘They get that all the time from me.’

And for that evening, you might have believed him. There was a moment when the din was hushed and Leaman raised his glass and said. ‘To the guv’nor.’

‘The guv’nor.’

Ingeborg shouted, ‘Speech.’

With reluctance he hauled himself upright. ‘Apart from thanking you for a job well done, I don’t know what to say.’

Georgina said, ‘I’ll tell you what. We watched and listened through the glass and there isn’t any doubt that those two are guilty of murder, but you didn’t answer the question about the racehorse. Why, in the name of sanity, did they kill it?’

‘For the insurance,’ he said. ‘It was insured for a hundred grand.’

‘But that’s a fraction of what was on offer.’

‘From the sheikh? Didn’t you work that out?’

‘Come on, guv. Spill it,’ Ingeborg said.

He took a long look around the room. No one seemed to have got it. ‘Even a billionaire sheikh isn’t going to buy a horse for stud without proof of fertility. The agreement required an independent guarantee that Hang-glider was up to the job. The trainer’s regular vet wasn’t eligible, so Tipping asked his daughter’s firm to do the necessary and when Davina had the sample tested she discovered to her horror that the sperm count was negative. The horse was sterile. The deal was scuppered and they hadn’t insured against infertility. The insurance they had was for illness, foul play or mortality. They were left with a horse that couldn’t race and couldn’t breed. Between them they decided on the fake kidnapping to activate the foul play option. A hundred grand was better than nothing.’

John Leaman said, ‘How many years’ salary is that?’

‘But Tipping had paid out much more, and he felt entitled to some return. All he had was a pensioned-off horse requiring feed and care for the next twenty years.’

‘Can we prove this?’ Georgina asked him.

‘Davina destroyed all record of it, as you’d expect. Fortunately, she wasn’t the only one with a copy of the report. There aren’t many labs in our part of the world that offer equine sperm analysis. The second one I checked was able to confirm a test it conducted in July, 1993, for DTS Animal Care, Davina’s company. The horse wasn’t named, but the result was notable: a negative count.’