Beau Death

by Peter Lovesey

  “They call me Headmistress.”

  “Should I remember you? Were you in the Twerton place that got levelled?”

  “For a short while.”

  “Come too, then, Headmistress. Say in about twenty minutes. You’ll find us at one of the tables outside. I’m the big guy in the dark suit. Inge is the blonde in a beige jacket and black trousers.”

  “You’d better not serve us with a writ, mister.”

  “We’re not bailiffs, my love. What you’ll get served is a plate of delicious cooked food. I bet you don’t get much of that where you are.”

  When they’d left the crescent and were in Brock Street, he said, “The Green Bird is good. The table outside gives them a chance to look at us without feeling trapped. And if the other customers object to crusties, we’ll be in the fresh air.”

  “Why should anyone object?”

  “This isn’t Twerton. Unwashed people in striped woolly hats and dreadlocks may not be all that welcome.”

  “You have a mental picture already, do you?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “In the place they’re living they’ll have better showers and bathrooms than you and I do.”

  “But do they use them?”

  “We’ll find out,” she said coolly.

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  Ingeborg said, “If you really want to know, guv, you did.”

  “What was that?”

  “The only thing we know about these people is that they’re squatters. It doesn’t mean they stink. They’re probably forced into desperate measures.”

  “Okay. Point taken.”

  “And there’s another thing. I don’t wear beige. Beige is a turn-off.”

  “What colour’s your jacket, then?”

  “Tan.”

  “They’ll know what I mean.”

  “That’s beside the point. You tell anyone the woman with you is wearing beige and they’ll think boring.”

  Chastened, he did his ham-fisted best to make up for being so crass. “Whatever you are—and you can be a pain—you’re never boring, Inge. In future I’ll say tan.”

  The Green Bird café was only a short walk from the Royal Crescent, in a paved pedestrian-only street. The boards outside spoke of breakfast, lunch, cakes, tea and coffee. “Let’s get something on the table before they come,” he said after a look in the window. “Fancy some cake?”

  “Is this on expenses?”

  “It’s work, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll have the polenta cake and a coffee, then. Should we have a Plan B?”

  “Why?”

  “In case they don’t like the look of us. It works both ways.”

  She was right. He’d made crude assumptions about Tank and the Headmistress. The job sometimes drained him of humanity. More than most, he ought to have sympathy for the homeless, particularly the young unemployed. His own grandfather, once a prisoner-of-war forced to work on the Burma railway, had returned to civilian life in 1946, a pathetic shadow of the strong man he’d been. The bomb-damaged home his wife and children were in was due for demolition and they were forced to join the nationwide squatters’ movement. Tens of thousands of ex-servicemen and their families made desperate by the shortage of housing occupied army camps and any empty properties they could find. That generation of the Diamond family had moved into a block of so-called luxury flats in Kensington sharing rooms with others. Someone made the mistake of forcing the locks and all the occupiers were brought to court, but the judge took a lenient view and bound them over “to keep the peace”—an irony that didn’t escape the ex-servicemen who had spent six years fighting to restore the peace. Eventually the family were given a prefab. The fact that it was constructed of asbestos-cement sheeting was another story. They had survived.

  So Ingeborg was justified in reminding him that squatters were people driven to desperate measures. This lot had been turfed out of Twerton. It was immaterial that they’d ended up in the finest address in Bath. You went where you heard of a place that was empty and where there was a way in without forcing the locks.

  Two coffees and two slices of cake later, Ingeborg asked him, “Could that be them, do you think?”

  A couple with a black greyhound were staring into the window of an art gallery across the street. Both looked about forty and were dressed casually, but not scruffily. No dreadlocks and no striped woolly hat. The woman was about six inches taller than the man.

  “I doubt it,” Diamond said.

  “They’re not looking at the artwork. They’re studying our reflection.”

  “Can’t see why anyone would call him Tank.”

  “For a joke. Like some big men get called Shorty. She doesn’t look to me like a headmistress. Anyway, they’re deciding whether to come over.”

  The right decision was made.

  “Try not to show surprise at anything I say,” Diamond said without moving his lips.

  The couple arrived at the table and it was definitely the voice of Headmistress that said, “You must be Peter and Ingeborg.”

  Diamond was on his feet, hand outstretched, but Tank didn’t offer his. He didn’t look friendly either. “You told her you knew me. I’ve never seen either of you before.”

  “Didn’t I make it clear?” Diamond said. “I know of you. You lived in the place at Twerton that got demolished and now you’re at a much better address. Why don’t you join us and have something to eat? It’s a good menu.”

  “What do you want?” Tank said. “We don’t have any spare rooms.”

  He thought they were homeless.

  Diamond managed to keep a straight face by not looking at Ingeborg. In her fashionable tan jacket this would test her social conscience. “We’re not asking for rooms. It’s not about the Royal Crescent. We’re interested in the Twerton gaff and what happened there. I’ll pay good money.” Diamond felt in his back pocket and placed a twenty-pound note on the table.

  Tank eyed the money as indifferently as if he was playing poker.

  “Buy the dog some food,” Diamond said.

  With nice timing, the greyhound sniffed at his leg and he offered the back of his hand to a warm, wet tongue. Deciding they were friendly, the dog rested its long jaw on Diamond’s thigh and eyed him beguilingly.

  People and their pets. The squatters exchanged a look and sat down.

  “They do an all-day breakfast,” Diamond said.

  Headmistress said, “He’ll have one. A sandwich will do me. Coffee for both. I’ll go in and see what they have. Would you keep an eye on the dog? I don’t trust Tank.” She handed Diamond the greyhound’s lead.

  “Order a breakfast for me, too,” Diamond called after her. “We’re paying.”

  She asked Ingeborg, “How about you?”

  Ingeborg said she was okay with the cake she’d already got.

  “What do you want from us?” Tank asked for the second time. He looked even smaller when seated, olive-skinned, probably of mixed race, with a smooth, neat-featured face that gave nothing away.

  Diamond shrugged. “I told you already.”

  “What is it about Twerton?”

  “You must have heard about the skeleton.”

  “Nothing to do with us.”

  “You never looked in the loft all the time you were there?”

  “There was no way in. If there ever had been, someone must have sealed it and done a good job of rendering. You’re police, aren’t you?”

  Diamond didn’t deny it. “Dealing with a bigger matter than your squat. I was hoping you might help us identify the guy.”

  Tank stared back at Diamond with calculation. “He was dressed in old-fashioned clothes, wasn’t he?”

  “Not entirely. The underwear was modern.”

  “Has that been in the papers?”

&nb
sp; A nod.

  “We don’t read them. You’re not seriously suggesting we knew him?”

  “I’ll take you at your word, you didn’t. How long were you occupying the house?”

  “Two years and a bit.”

  “How many of you?”

  “People came and went, maybe fifteen or twenty in all that time. They found somewhere they liked better and moved on.”

  “Were you there from the beginning?”

  “I was, yes. The whole terrace was declared unfit for human habitation. There’s always a delay before the bulldozers move in. We were in the same day the previous tenant moved out.”

  “Did you know who it was?”

  “I didn’t meet him, if that’s what you’re asking. He was Polish or something. Letters arrived with names we couldn’t speak.”

  “No family?”

  “No kids. There was a woman and an old guy who slept downstairs. He could have been the father of one of them.”

  “Do you know how long they lived there?”

  “Couldn’t tell you.”

  Headmistress returned from placing the order. She’d brought a tray with coffees and a dog bowl filled with water. “We should come here more often.”

  Tank said to her, “Before you say anything else, these people are dicks.”

  “What the fuck . . . ?”

  “Avon and Somerset’s finest,” Diamond said, untroubled, “but as I keep saying we’re looking for information about the Twerton gaff. The Royal Crescent will be someone else’s problem.” He asked Ingeborg if she had a paper tissue. His trouser leg was damp where the dog had rested its muzzle. He mopped up and turned back to Tank. “The old guy you mentioned. Did you actually see him?”

  The ghost of a smile crossed Tank’s lips. “Are you thinking they left him behind in the loft?”

  “It’s worth asking.”

  “He died. There was a funeral. They carried him out in a box.”

  “You kept an eye on them, then?”

  “On the house, while we waited for them to move out. Getting a squat is all in the timing.”

  “Was anything left behind?”

  “What do you mean—curtains, carpets and fittings? We didn’t sign a contract.”

  “Any idea what the man did for a living?”

  “He was in the building trade. Had a rusty white van parked outside.”

  “Did the woman go out to work?”

  “Yes. Don’t know where, though.”

  Headmistress said, “School meals service. I used to see her in the kitchen at Oldfield Park when we collected the lunches for our kids.”

  “So you really are a headmistress?”

  She laughed. “Supply teacher. That’s just a name the others call me.”

  “You said you ‘used to’ see her.”

  “She left before he did. Probably made the money she wanted and went back to Warsaw or wherever. A lot of the East Europeans come here just for the wages. It’s big bucks compared to what they can earn back home.”

  “And you said the man was a builder.” Diamond was thinking about the expert job that had been done to seal off the loft. “Did he leave the country as well?”

  “Must have,” Tank said tight-lipped.

  “I don’t think so,” Headmistress said. “I see his van around still. I saw it in Manvers Street yesterday turning into the old police station. I reckon he’s found work there. The university took over the building and they’re having all sorts of work done on it.”

  Manvers Street.

  Diamond glanced at Ingeborg, who had raised an eyebrow.

  Their former workplace, much derided in its day but regarded now as a lost home-sweet-home. What a cruel twist of fate if a murder suspect was employed there knocking the guts out of the old place.

  “How do you know the van?” Diamond asked Headmistress.

  She was getting looks like guided missiles from Tank, but she wouldn’t be silenced. “By the rust marks. He’s bumped it a few times. There’s no writing on the side, if that’s what you’re asking. With a name as long as his, you’d need a van twice the size to get it all on.”

  “You wouldn’t remember the name?”

  “You’re joking. It began with a W and ended with a Z with about fifty letters in between.”

  “She’s making this up,” Tank said.

  “Slight exaggeration,” Headmistress said. “It was more like fifteen. And his first name was easy to remember. Jerzy.”

  Tank turned towards her accusingly. “How do you know that?”

  “It was on the letters that came for him. Jerzy, kind of warm and cuddly, I thought.” She gave him a mocking smile.

  Diamond said, “I’m thinking you knew these people better than you’ve made out. Was there an arrangement when you took it over as a squat? Did you get a copy made of the front-door key?”

  She was about to respond when Tank gave her such a nudge that she slopped coffee over the twenty-pound note still on the table. She picked it up, shook it and handed it to Tank.

  “Shouldn’t have asked,” Diamond said. “I’m not the least bit interested in how you got in, believe me. Whatever you did is history now.”

  Ingeborg said, “I think the food is arriving.”

  “And when we’ve eaten,” Diamond said, “we’ll walk the dog. I’d like you to come with me to Manvers Street and see if Jerzy is there.”

  13

  It was a well-fed but far from friendly party that progressed down the sloping streets towards the former police station. Diamond, at Tank’s side, was remarking on changes to the city scenery he’d noticed over the years he’d served there, but the squatter didn’t join in. To him new buildings were opportunities. A short way behind, Ingeborg and Headmistress were in debate about the rubbish problem in the streets. Only the dog was at ease, loping ahead with the light-footed agility of the breed.

  Billboards had been erected around the decommissioned police station.

  “It wasn’t a bad old place,” Diamond said with an upsurge of nostalgia. “Do you know how much Bath University paid for this prime site? A mere seven million. I hope they’re not demolishing it entirely.”

  “Why?” Headmistress asked.

  “It was twenty years of my life.”

  “Move on,” she said.

  “We have. We moved on to Emersons Green and I flog thirteen miles along boring roads each time I drive there.”

  Ingeborg cut short the rant by asking the others, “Where did you see Jerzy’s van go in?”

  “The site entrance up ahead.”

  “Let’s check.”

  No one was on the gate but there was a sign about unauthorised persons and hard hats that the quartet ignored. Headmistress did take the precaution of using the braking mechanism on the dog lead to put the greyhound on a shorter leash.

  Two large skips loaded with rubble stood as objects of reproach in front of the old police station.

  “Even the asphalt has gone from the forecourt,” Diamond said in a hurt voice.

  “Contractors’ parking up ahead,” Ingeborg said. “Is that where the van might be?”

  A row of vehicles included two silver vans, but no white ones with rust marks and dents. A man was sitting inside the cab of a small truck, so Diamond asked him if a Polish guy called Jerzy was on site.

  “What’s his trade?”

  “Some kind of builder. Drives an old white van.”

  “Never heard of no Jerzys here.”

  Ingeborg said, “You might know him as Yurek.”

  “Yurek? Why didn’t you say? A sparky called Yurek is round the south side working on the lift. He was when I last looked, anyway.”

  They were already moving on when the man called after them, “Are you lot supposed to be on site?”

 
They ignored him.

  “Where did that come from?” Diamond asked Ingeborg.

  “Yurek? It’s a nickname for people called Jerzy.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Friend of a friend.”

  “I thought you said Yorick.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “The skull in the gravedigger scene.”

  She smiled. “What is it with you and skulls, guv?”

  Headmistress added, “You should get out more.”

  The staircase Diamond had used daily for twenty years had gone and was replaced by an external lift shaft. He gave it the sort of look a polar bear gives a snowmobile. “They wouldn’t want the students getting tired climbing all those stairs.”

  One side of the shaft was open. Two men in hard hats and overalls were at work on the looped cables below the lift car.

  “We’re looking for Yurek,” Diamond called out.

  One of them turned his head. “What for?”

  “Are you Yurek?”

  “I’m busy right now, mate.” A trace of East Europe came through.

  “We’re police.”

  “All of you?”

  “Two of us. Step outside and I’ll tell you what it’s about. You’re not in trouble.”

  “I will be if we don’t finish job tonight.” He said something to the other man and emerged from the space. “Make it quick, mate.”

  Diamond showed his ID.

  Yurek, or Jerzy, was a slight man in his fifties with flecks of grey in his eyebrows. The eyes were blue, deep-set and intelligent. He looked at Tank and said, “Twerton, three years ago, right?”

  Tank nodded.

  Diamond and Ingeborg needed to speak privately to Jerzy. Tank and Headmistress took the dog to look at the other side of the building.

  “I know what this is about,” Jerzy said. “Saw it on news. Skeleton in loft. Same fucking house.”

  “We’re trying to trace all the previous tenants,” Diamond said. “You were there until it was condemned and the council took over.”

  “Whole sodding terrace condemned. Nothing wrong with it. Someone saw chance to turn profit. Walls would have stood for years. I was forced out.”