Or so it appeared.
Detached from it all, Diamond was increasingly concerned.
He shaded his eyes from the glare and scanned the entire panorama.
Mistakenly he’d assumed she would be with her friend, but Estella was at the foot of the steps surrounded by members of the society and Paloma wasn’t among them. He trotted down the steps himself.
“Hi,” Estella said.
When he asked, she shook her head.
“She wouldn’t have left?”
She smiled at the possibility. “Better not. I’ll need a lift home if she has.”
“She was with you earlier.”
“When I was given the flowers, yes.”
“Was she at the presentation just now?”
“I didn’t notice, but I wasn’t looking for her. Is she still in the house, do you think?”
This was fast becoming one of those classic nightmares we have all experienced where you know of an imminent threat and need to warn people but can’t make them understand. Typically the brain conjures up a social occasion like this where the guests, zombie-like, are unresponsive, intent only on interacting among themselves. Try as you might to communicate, everyone behaves as if you don’t exist. You are the outsider.
He left Estella with her group and dashed up the steps to the house.
Inside the room where the presentation had taken place, Sir Edward Paris was still standing in front of his portrait, admiring it in conversation with the spindly clergyman.
From Diamond’s angle all that was visible of the hologram was the gloating screw-you gaze of Beau Nash—the one-time King of Bath materialising once again to mock him. At each low point Nash found a way to show his malign presence.
He wouldn’t allow it to mess with his brain.
“I’m looking for Paloma Kean.”
“Come again,” Ed said.
Diamond repeated the name and Ed said, “Can’t say I know her. Do you?” he asked the cleric.
A shake of the head.
The hologram was grinning.
Merciless.
“She was with Estella,” he told them, “but she isn’t now.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Blue dress and wearing a boater.”
“I never notice what women are wearing,” Ed said. “It all passes me by.”
“I can’t see her outside. Is anyone else in the house?”
“Only my wife. She went upstairs with someone.”
“Which way?”
“Hold on, matey. It’s Sally’s private apartment. I don’t go in there myself without knocking.”
But Diamond was already through the door and mounting two stairs at a time.
He came to a short corridor with several doors. Another of those stock nightmare situations. He couldn’t waste time. He thought voices were coming from behind one so he thrust it open.
Paloma was in there—but finding her was no comfort to Diamond, for she was held captive. The lady of the house, the charming Sally Paris, had grabbed her from behind, one hand around her chest and the other holding a pair of dressmaking scissors to her throat.
“Stand back, or she gets it.”
30
They were in a fully equipped dressmaker’s room with generous high windows for natural light; two sewing machines on tables; a long trestle table for cutting out; an adjustable tailor’s dummy; an ironing board and steam iron; a glass-fronted cabinet filled with reels of thread in many colours; an open cupboard stacked high with rolls of fabric and storage boxes filled with patterns; several shelves of books on fashion; and three moveable racks of garments on hangers.
As a professional in the rag trade Paloma must have been thrilled by the invitation to see inside this amazing workplace. It was all as tidy as a barrack room ready for inspection except that on the floor at Paloma’s feet was a large white hat she must have been admiring the instant before she was grabbed.
Diamond took in the scene at a glance, eagle-eyed for anything he might use to distract Sally Paris—but only if an opportunity came. Madness to try while the gleaming blades of the scissors were pressing into Paloma’s flesh and the slightest movement could penetrate her skin and kill her.
Sally’s eyes gaped wide. Behind them dangerous emotions spun like subatomic particles. In this state she was capable of anything.
Negotiate.
All he could think of doing right now was to take a small step back and make a calming movement with his hands, palms down as if he was warming them over a heater. This wasn’t a moment for heroics.
Paloma said, “Pete—”
“Shut it.” The scissors flashed as Sally’s grip tightened.
Paloma cried out in pain, winced and closed her eyes. The two women were backed into a corner against the bookshelves, Sally almost hidden behind Paloma, looking over her right shoulder.
Briefly he locked eyes with Paloma. “For God’s sake don’t try anything, Paloma. We can resolve this.”
Sally fixed Diamond with a glare that was more about him than her hostage. Her words were steeped in bitterness. “Damn you, I should have known you were on to me when you asked me about the wedding dress I made. ‘You don’t do it professionally any more,’ you said—the killer phrase. I thought I’d closed off that part of my life.”
She wanted dialogue and so did he.
“You did,” he said. “You closed off your past, no question.” The theory of negotiating with a hostage-taker starts with active listening, agreeing with everything, demonstrating empathy by picking up things they say and repeating them. Aim to achieve a rapport and treat their situation as a problem you both need to solve.
The theory—if you can hold your nerve enough to use it.
She asked him, “So where did I go wrong?”
“Go wrong? You didn’t. Do you want to know how I found out?” he said, latching on to her curiosity while trying to think what the hell he would say next. The object was to keep her talking, get her confidence. He knew it shouldn’t be rushed.
Excellent in theory. But this wasn’t in the abstract. Across the room from him was Paloma with a lethal weapon to her throat and he was terrified of what might happen. Sally looked terrified, too, but terrified of him. “Put down the scissors,” he told her, “and I’ll tell you.”
“I’m not that stupid.”
The words burst out like machine-gun fire. He’d provoked her. As a negotiator he’d messed up already.
He could see Paloma’s rapid breathing. He could practically hear her heartbeats.
This was all too personal to manage by the book. He was going to wing it.
Sally wouldn’t have lured Paloma up here to attack her. She’d dropped her guard to share her interest in dressmaking. Both women must have felt relaxed until he came charging upstairs. Precisely what had been said between them he could not know. She was unlikely to know how important Paloma was in his life.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll tell you what made me suspect you, but you’d better understand those scissors could be pressing on an artery. You don’t want to take an innocent life.”
Her slaughterhouse stare didn’t change and neither did her grip.
“There were reasons for the other deaths,” he said. “There’s absolutely no reason to kill again.”
It didn’t seem to register.
“We dug up the garden at Twerton,” he told her with a huge effort to keep his words from provoking her, “and we found various things that confused us, but one small item that got me thinking—a triangle of chalk.”
Mistake. Far from taking the heat out of the revelation, the chalk came as a shock to her. She drew in her breath with such force that he thought she would stab the scissors into Paloma’s neck.
He waited, uncertain whether to go on.
After a pause h
e decided he couldn’t do anything but continue in as low key a delivery as possible. “Tailor’s chalk is often shaped like that, isn’t it? Made me think it must have belonged to someone who lived in the murder house at some stage. A tailor perhaps, or a seamstress. The tenant at the time we’re talking about, 1997, wasn’t a tailor. Harry Morgan drove taxis. But there was a woman called Sarah who lived with him and left suddenly after the killing and we didn’t know much about her. Could she have used the chalk in her job? I asked myself. And now you’re wondering how we discovered the woman in Twerton was you, the wife of a highly successful businessman.”
At least she was listening. She hadn’t denied a word of it.
“In any investigation it’s a process of collecting information and it happens that one important clue is lying on the floor in front of you.”
“Don’t move,” she warned him. “Don’t you dare move.”
“The hat,” he said. “The nice big hat that you wore to the meeting. Beautifully made. Your own handiwork, I’m sure. For a long time you kept your dressmaking a secret, for obvious reasons. Your new husband knew nothing about it at the beginning. He had to make do with a ready-to-wear costume run up in some sweatshop in the Far East—even though you could have made one for him. But years later, when you felt safer and confident enough to equip this room and enjoy the needlework again as a hobby, you made the hat for yourself and your sense of humour came into play.”
Her sense of humour was a memory now.
“You couldn’t resist topping off the bonnet with a Bath bun made of fabric. I’m no dressmaker, but I think I know what that little item was originally—a pincushion.”
She gave an impatient sigh that told him he was right.
“You came to the Beau Nash Society wearing a hat with a cloth Bath bun. Sarah the seamstress is Lady Sally the beautician. After all, the name Sally is a short form of Sarah.”
She said, “Is that a crime?”
“On its own, no. Together with all the other evidence stacking up it led me to speculate why the victim, the man who was finally reduced to a skeleton because his body was hidden in the loft for years and years, might have come to a humble house in Twerton.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” she said.
“Care to tell me?”
“No. I’ll hear your version.” The scissors were still poised at Paloma’s throat. Nothing he said was going to break Sally’s concentration.
He kept talking. “The man who died wasn’t a nice man at all. He was a con artist. He conned a rich old man out of some of his property, valuable items of furniture. More importantly, he took possession of an eighteenth-century costume the old man, Lord Deganwy, had worn because he was president of the Beau Nash Society. By then—I’m speaking of 1997—this con man known to most people as Sidney Harrod had so far insinuated himself into the society that he was being tipped as the next Beau. Lord Deganwy was suffering from dementia and it was inevitable they would need to find someone else. Harrod helped himself to the costume and wanted it altered so that he could wear it. He’d heard of a skilful seamstress in Twerton and he came to you. Am I making sense?”
She said nothing. Through all this he was trying not to look into Paloma’s terrified eyes. Her ordeal had to continue.
“I’m guessing now,” he told Sally, “and only you can say exactly what happened. There would have been more than one fitting. You and Sidney Harrod alone in that small terraced house. We know he had a reputation, fancied himself as a ladies’ man even though he was getting on in years. You were young and attractive and the job of measuring and touching him, getting close, got him sexually excited. Is that the truth?”
A tightening of her mouth told him it was. The revulsion lingered, a stain that couldn’t be removed.
“He made a pass at you, this grotesque old man, and you were shocked and tried to step away, but he grabbed or groped you and in panic you reached for your scissors in self-defence and thrust them towards his chest. We know they can be razor sharp. He put up his hand to defend himself and got cut to the bone in the process. But one more frenzied lunge from you got past, straight through his ribs. Fatal.”
His depiction of the scene made such an impact on her that a sound more sob than threat came from her throat when he described the moment of death.
“Call it self-defence, unintentional, an involuntary act,” he said. “Any decent lawyer would argue it wasn’t murder. But you were there with a dead man, appalled at what you’d done. I can scarcely imagine the horrors you suffered in the hours that followed, the discussion you had with your partner Harry when he came home. You didn’t report the death to the police for sure.”
Her eyes slid upwards. She couldn’t change anything now.
He persevered. “I get the feeling Harry came up with the plan to hide the body. Carried it up to the loft just as it was, in the Beau Nash costume, sat it in a chair and left it there to rot. Then he sealed the hatch and did some plasterwork, rendered the ceiling to make it appear there had never been access. You moved out. I can’t say I blame you. Harry must have had nerves of steel to remain there another three years.”
“He was a man in a million,” she volunteered and if it didn’t amount to a full confession, or even confirmation of everything Diamond had just said, it still told him plenty.
He continued to probe. “But Harry had a secret of his own, didn’t he? When did you learn he already had a son by another woman?”
She said evenly, “Before I moved in with him. It was never a secret. He was always straight with me.”
“About the year 2000, Harry moved out of Twerton and went to live in Larkhall. Two years later the mother of his child died of cancer and Harry offered his boy, Perry, a home. It didn’t concern you because you and Harry had already gone your separate ways. You met someone else. Your life changed out of all recognition when you married Ed Paris.”
“Why don’t you tell me something I don’t know?”
“I will in a minute. Perry was a bright lad, a born organiser, really going places. But of course he had a flaw. The cocaine. He spent nearly all his money funding his habit. It’s never-ending.”
“So . . . ?” Defiant, she still wasn’t willing to admit anything.
“So when the demolition squad broke open the Twerton house and revealed the skeleton, Perry saw his opportunity. He knew his father had lived in that house with you and that you took in work as a seamstress and left suddenly in 1997. Exactly how much Harry had told him about the killing, I can’t say. He may have referred to it obliquely as a bad time, a secret he preferred to forget. Or, being a man in a million, he may have felt he owed it to his son to tell him everything. Perry was smart enough to make the connection when the skeleton was discovered and all over the media. He knew what a catastrophe this was for you and he decided to cash in. Money for drugs in return for his silence.”
Sally’s expression underwent a total change. There was resignation in her look and her eyes had turned glossy with tears.
“He was an opportunist, but he met a better one in you,” Diamond continued. “You found out what he did for a living and his role in the world fireworks competition. You possessed a revolver. I’m guessing here, but I expect you were in such a state of terror after what happened in Twerton that Harry Morgan obtained it for you to keep as self-protection. What is certain is that on the final night of the fireworks you shot Perry dead, knowing the gun blasts would be masked by all the bangers going off.”
“You can’t prove any of this,” she said, but without conviction.
“Sorry to disillusion you, but I can. A moment ago you asked me to tell you something you don’t know and this is it. A party of police officers is in the valley below your infinity pool and they found a gun that was obviously thrown into the wild part where nobody normally goes. Our ballistics people won’t have any difficulty proving it was the Smi
th and Wesson revolver used in the murder.”
The immediate reaction was a sound of despair, a strange primal moan from deep in Sally’s chest. The scissors in her right hand twisted and gleamed and for one hideous moment Diamond thought she would plunge them into Paloma’s flesh, but she loosened her grip and let them fall and clatter on the tiled floor.
Paloma wrestled herself free and took a step towards Diamond just as he moved to help her. She swayed, turned deathly white and collapsed into his arms.
Sally spotted her opportunity. She darted left and was out of the door and down the stairs.
31
Any first-aider will tell you that the correct procedure when someone faints in your arms from stress is to lower them gently to the floor and, after making sure they can breathe freely, raise their legs above the level of the heart to restore the flow of blood to the brain. Diamond knew the drill. He also knew he wouldn’t be leaving Paloma’s side. He was on his knees supporting her ankles.
Never mind that Sally had escaped. Let her go. He’d catch up with her eventually. For the present he was needed here.
The colour still hadn’t returned to Paloma’s face when her eyes opened after a matter of seconds. A fainting episode is usually over quickly, but the recovery can’t be rushed.
She managed to say, “Where . . . ?”
“It’s okay,” he told her. “Keep still. You fainted.”
“I never faint.”
“I promise you, you did. What you went through was mind-blowing.”
“I’ve gone cold, and yet I’m sweating.”
“That’s normal.”
“It’s coming back to me now.” She raised her head off the floor. “Where is she?”
“Relax. She’s gone.”
She needed to make sense of the experience by describing it to him. “I scarcely know the woman. We were talking, she and I, and she was charming. She asked what I do and I told her about my business and she offered to show me her needlework room. We were here, speaking normally, looking at the hat she’d made, and we heard footsteps running up the stairs—”
Beau Death Page 36