Another One Goes Tonight

by Peter Lovesey

  This receptionist was impervious to rapier wit from visitors. “The founders are all deceased.”

  “Miss Hill, then, if you would be so kind.”

  One law as rigidly enforced as any on the statute book is that solicitors keep you waiting. He’d thumbed through most of an out-of-date issue of The Bath Magazine before a large lady in a black suit invited him into a spacious office smelling of lavender furniture polish. How the world had changed since he’d last spoken to a solicitor. There wasn’t a dusty old book or an overflowing in-tray in sight. Just a bare desk and a flat-screen computer.

  “It’s about Massimo Filiput,” Diamond said after shaking a hand that was mainly rings and fingernails. “I believe he instructed you or one of your colleagues.”

  Hard to believe anyone would instruct Miss Hill. Nothing about her suggested she was the submissive type. Black hair forced into a tight scrunch. Eyes that missed nothing and lips he couldn’t imagine smiling if he’d presented her with a box of the finest chocolates and an armful of daffodils.

  “Do you know about client confidentiality?” she asked.

  “The client’s dead,” Diamond said.

  “I’m aware of that.”

  Still in motoring mode, he moved rapidly through the gears. “I can get copies of his will, his wife’s will, the documents pertaining to the sale of the house. I can check the names of the executors, the beneficiaries and the purchasers. But it all takes time, Miss Hill, and I don’t have much of that and neither do you, I’m sure, so let’s cut through the red tape, shall we, and do what we can to allay the suspicion?”

  She gave him a glare that would have sent a lesser man straight out of the door. “Suspicion of what?”

  “Difficult to say without seeing the paperwork. Any malpractice was out of your control, I hope and believe.”

  “Malpractice?”

  “For want of a better word.”

  Going by Miss Hill’s body language any other word in the dictionary would have been an improvement. “Have a care. I don’t take insinuations like that from the police or anyone else.”

  He took a more persuasive line.

  “Why don’t you go to your files for copies of the wills, and then I can give you chapter and verse? You’ll be giving nothing away. You obtained probate on both, so they’re public documents now.”

  “You used the word ‘malpractice.’ I must warn you that a term like that is actionable.”

  “Only if it turns out to be unfounded.”

  “You’d better explain yourself, superintendent.”

  “Not without the paperwork,” Diamond said and threw discretion out of the window. “If you want to turn this into a damaging police investigation involving the Crown Prosecution Service, I can leave now, but I hate to think of the aggro.”

  “This is highly irregular.”

  “I couldn’t put it better myself.”

  She picked up her phone and asked for copies of the wills.

  “Good call, Miss Hill,” Diamond said. “I’m sure you and I can sort this out between us.”

  She didn’t comment, preferring to punish her computer keyboard. Definitely more of a dominatrix than a submissive, Diamond decided. Finally, the receptionist arrived with two box files.

  “I drew up both wills myself,” Miss Hill told him as she opened the first box. “They were perfectly straightforward. Mrs. Filiput left everything to her husband in the event of her predeceasing him. And he made a similar will in her favour.”

  “Tidy.”

  “It’s common practice when a husband and a wife without family are making provision for their deaths.”

  “But she died first, so he inherited everything. Did that mean rewriting his will?”

  “No, each of them made their wishes clear for all eventualities.”

  “Your firm acted as executors for each of them?”

  “I thought I made that clear.”

  “So after Massimo Filiput died, you wound up the estate?”

  “Correct.”

  “You personally?”

  She hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Which must have meant drawing up an inventory of his possessions and selling the house in Cavendish Crescent?”

  She nodded. “It fell to me to do everything, even arranging the funeral. They had no family.”

  “And previously, when Olga Filiput died, did you also make an inventory of her possessions?”

  “That had to be done for probate purposes.”

  “Her clothes? In particular, I’m interested in three antique evening gowns owned by Mrs. Filiput.”

  “There were far too many items of clothing for me to remember them all.”

  “The dresses I’m speaking about were valuable items,” he said, “made by Fortuny about a century ago, and worth about ten thousand pounds each.”

  “I told you. I don’t recall them.”

  “Would you mind checking? This could be important.”

  She made a sound deep in her throat like a distant tsunami. Then she lifted a stack of documents from the filing box and selected one.

  Diamond watched and waited.

  “Yes,” she said. “Antique evening dresses by Fortuny of Venice.”

  “That’s the list of Olga’s possessions?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now would you check the documents for Massimo and tell me if the same dresses are included in the inventory of his possessions?”

  The tsunami sounded ten miles closer.

  She opened the second box and found the relevant list.

  She blinked, ran her finger twice down the list and finally looked up. “There’s nothing here about gowns.”

  Just as he expected.

  “He could have sold them, I suppose,” he said. “If so, it would show in his bank statements. Presumably you have those as well.”

  You could have made bricks from her silence and built the Great Wall of China in the time she took to move, but in the end she looked for the statements and found them. After a close inspection, shielding the figures with her free hand, she said, “There are no transactions here that aren’t accounted for.”

  “What happened, then?” Diamond asked. “Could he have given them away? You see the difficulty? Three valuable gowns willed to him by his wife and six months later they have disappeared.”

  “I hope you’re not suggesting we connived at a fraud.”

  “Not at all. I happen to know where they ended up. You’re not under suspicion, but someone else is.”

  “Who’s that?”

  He managed an apologetic look. “Can’t say for legal reasons.”

  She inhaled sharply.

  He was unmoved. “Is the death certificate in the box? May I see it?”

  She was unwilling to give him a sight of anything.

  “Anyone can get a copy from the General Register Office,” he said. “It’s not classified information.”

  The copy was reluctantly handed across.

  “‘Cardiac failure and coronary atheroma.’ Heart, then. Much to be expected when you get to ninety-odd.” He gave it back. “So what happened to the contents of the house after he died?”

  “Everything of value was put into an auction. It realised just under a hundred thousand pounds.”

  “Would that have been mainly his stuff, or his wife’s? Presumably she left some jewellery?”

  “Most of it was antique and must have belonged to her family. Their origins were Austro-Hungarian. There was also period furniture, paintings and books.”

  “So the auction takings formed part of the estate. After you’d added in the sale of the house and any stocks and shares, building society accounts and so on—and subtracted the taxman’s share, and of course your modest fees, how much was left?”

  “A litt
le over two and a half million.”

  “Not bad. And who were the lucky beneficiaries?”

  “There was only one. The National Railway Museum.”

  I was thinking today about the first two. I’m not stony-hearted but I’ve made it a rule never to mention names or dates in these occasional jottings. I’m not going to forget who I helped on their way. If I ever DO forget, it will be time to stop. No, I remember every one, some with more regret than others.

  There are times when I wish I could share my experience with someone else, but it can’t happen. If ever I’m feeling isolated, I can glance through these notes and take stock of myself and how I handled matters. It’s not as if I’m lonely. There’s this area of my life that is private, that’s all.

  9

  In Bath CID there was plenty to moan about since their Manvers Street base had been sold and they’d been moved to this temporary home in the Custody and Crime Investigation Centre in Keynsham. The large white block was surrounded by industrial buildings instead of the homely pubs and coffee shops of Bath. It was open plan, meaning there was no place to hide. And it was home to the custody team, who resented having to make room for visitors. But from time to time someone served up a happy pill, a piece of information that linked unexpectedly with another and opened a whole new line of enquiry.

  Diamond had got his new information, but happy he was not.

  The more he probed the conduct of Ivor Pellegrini, the more disturbing it appeared. Dark, alien elements kept bobbing to the surface, demanding attention. In a routine investigation Diamond would have given them an airing, examined them for what they were and formed an opinion, but this wasn’t routine. He had a personal stake in Pellegrini’s well-being. He’d invested so much of himself in the rescue that he couldn’t be neutral. They were roped together like climbers and nothing would allow him to sever the rope and move upwards. Detachment wasn’t an option.

  But the policeman in him knew this was morally wrong. The truth needed to come out. If he couldn’t be neutral himself, someone else must take on the job.

  He ought to go straight to the incident room and brief his small team. Difficult, with no incident room.

  Today he’d offered them a temporary escape from Keynsham: lunch in the city at the Grapes in Westgate Street. Chips, a sandwich and a beer. No expense spared. The building was said (on a beam above the bar) to date from as early as 1302. But to anyone who didn’t glance upwards or know the history already, the Grapes was no different inside from any other comfortable, unpretentious boozer.

  “Two and a half million to a railway museum?” Halliwell said. “What will they spend it on?”

  “Overhauling steam trains.”

  Ingeborg said, “I can think of more deserving causes.”

  “You’re missing the point,” Diamond said.

  “We’re not, guv,” Ingeborg said. “We get it—Pellegrini and Filiput, both train enthusiasts.”

  “Let’s move on, then. We can now make an informed guess how Pellegrini acquired the Fortuny gowns.”

  Halliwell spelt it out. “The two became friends. They visited each other’s houses. Filiput stupidly showed Pellegrini the Fortuny gowns and Pellegrini nicked them, meaning to sell them when he could find a buyer.”

  Ingeborg turned on him in disbelief. “Are you asking us to believe Filiput was so doddery he wouldn’t miss them?”

  “He’d turned ninety,” Halliwell said.

  “And still looked after himself. He wasn’t in a care home.”

  “We don’t know the state of his mind.”

  Trying to be just, Diamond said in Halliwell’s support, “A rich old man living alone is easy prey.”

  Ingeborg said, “We’ll have to take your word for that, won’t we?”

  Diamond gave her a sharp look, but didn’t follow it up.

  She went on, “Do you think he helped himself to other objects, as well as the gowns?”

  “More things could have been removed. I was told the jewellery didn’t amount to much after the old man died. Just silver. Nothing gold.”

  “Can’t we get a warrant and search Pellegrini’s house?” Halliwell said.

  “No chance,” Ingeborg said.

  Diamond agreed. “The only evidence I have that he’s up to no good was obtained by deception. I was out of order. No magistrate would issue a warrant.”

  Ingeborg added, “And even if you got inside you’d have no way of telling which items were stolen—if any.”

  “You found out who the gowns belonged to,” Halliwell said.

  “I was fortunate there,” Diamond said. “I had expert help.”

  “How can we nail this guy, then?”

  The force of the question pained Diamond. He was torn apart by professional duty and the strength of his bond to the man he’d rescued from the brink of death.

  “I’m not over-worried about more stolen items.”

  Ingeborg nodded. “Well said, guv. With the owners both dead, anything you recover will only benefit the railway museum.”

  “So what are you worried about?” Halliwell pressed him.

  They both looked at Diamond.

  “The deaths of all these elderly people.”

  If he’d thrown his beer in their faces they wouldn’t have been more shocked.

  His tortured thoughts had progressed from puzzlement to fact-checking to suspicion of theft and now suspicion of murder, and it was still based more on hunch than solid evidence. He hated bringing it up but the possibility needed airing.

  “You’re thinking their deaths weren’t natural?” Halliwell said after some seconds.

  The printouts of the online forum on methods of murder were still in Diamond’s pocket. He divided the pages and passed them across the table.

  “Found in the desk drawer in Pellegrini’s workshop.”

  His two colleagues didn’t take long to read what was there.

  Halliwell was the first to comment and seemed to speak for both of them. “There’s enough here to get him a life stretch.”

  “That’s over-egging it. This stuff doesn’t make him a killer, but you have to wonder.”

  “What’s yours about?” Ingeborg asked Halliwell. “These are from a forum on the perfect murder.”

  “Much the same. Methods used in crime stories.”

  “Let me see.” She caught her breath several times as she glanced through the text. “What do you make of it, guv?”

  “I keep seeing those cremation urns lined up on a shelf in his workshop . . . like trophies.”

  “With three names on,” Ingeborg said, eyes widening with the horror of what had been suggested. “And Filiput makes four. We may be dealing with a serial killer here.”

  Diamond had kept his suspicions bottled up for too long. He was relieved to share them with the team at last. They understood how slender the evidence was, but they also trusted him and he could rely on them. He had a suspicion the old man in intensive care could be a murderer and that was enough for Halliwell and Ingeborg. They’d work their socks off for a result. What was more, they would be discreet. The rest of CID wouldn’t hear a word before it became necessary.

  “I’m getting angry,” Ingeborg said. “This is hideous.”

  “Hideously clever,” Halliwell said, “knocking off old people who aren’t expected to live much longer anyway.”

  “Why would he do it?” Ingeborg said. “What’s his motive?”

  “Greed,” Halliwell said. “He gets to know other anoraks like himself, rich ones, and starts nicking their stuff. They’re old guys, mostly. When they find out what’s going on, he totals them.”

  “How do you know that? You’re guessing.”

  “None of us are sure of anything yet, except he’s a thief.”

  “And we’re not a hundred percent sure of that,” Diamo
nd said.

  “I’m putting up a theory, that’s all,” Halliwell said.

  “Go on, then. What does he steal from the others?” Ingeborg asked.

  “Railway memorabilia, mainly. You have to understand what serious collectors are like. It’s a mania. There’s a massive trade in bits of old trains, name-plates, steam whistles, uniforms, flags, signals, badges, firemen’s shovels.”

  “Oh, come on. Shovels?”

  “I mean it, Inge. You won’t get a rusty old shovel for under sixty quid. A name-plate will cost you twenty grand at auction.”

  “Are you into this stuff yourself, Keith?” Diamond asked in some surprise.

  He reddened. “I’ve got a brother who drives his wife round the bend with it. You should see their house.”

  “All this is rather persuasive,” Ingeborg said. “I’ll give you that. But it doesn’t explain the really weird part, keeping those urns on a shelf in his workshop.”

  “That’s a power thing,” Halliwell said, unstoppable now he’d started. “He’s proud of his killing. Some psychopaths like to keep souvenirs of their victims and gloat over them. Possessions, items of clothing, even body hair in one case I read about. He can sit in his workshop and look at those urns and remind himself three men he knew are reduced to ashes because of him.”

  “I thought we’d agreed he scatters the ashes on the railway track.”

  “He does. There’s no conflict. A group of saddos agree among themselves that after they die they want to become a part of the railway they idolise. Whoever survives will perform this last service for his old friends. Of course, they don’t realise Pellegrini isn’t just scattering the ashes. He’s created a production line.”

  “And he keeps the urns as mementos,” Ingeborg said, grimacing.

  “Like I said, he enjoys being in control. But if anyone sees them and asks what they’re doing in his workshop, he can say it’s his way of remembering old buddies.”

  She turned to Diamond. “Are we helping, guv?”

  “I think there’s more.”

  “More victims?”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  She looked as if she was trying to whistle. “His wife, Trixie?”