“It crossed my mind, I have to say. Order a copy of her death certificate just in case, would you, Inge.” He took a long sip of his beer, wanting to keep the talk from getting over-heated. “We haven’t even discussed the method he might have used. He’s a clever man, a trained engineer. It will be methodical and well worked-out.”
“He’s done his research, we know that,” Halliwell said.
“Poison?” Ingeborg said.
“Hard to say,” Diamond said.
“Impossible to say after the victims have been cremated,” Halliwell said.
“Trixie wasn’t,” Ingeborg said. “She’s buried somewhere local.”
“We can’t even get a search warrant, so we’re not going to get an exhumation order,” Halliwell said.
“I may be mistaken over Trixie,” Diamond said. “She doesn’t fit the pattern for several reasons. The way forward is to find out all we can about these railway enthusiasts, the ones who ended up in the urns I saw. Then there’s Filiput. And, of course, Pellegrini himself.”
“We know where he is and we know he’s not going anywhere,” Ingeborg said. “Is there any chance he’ll recover?”
“The medics won’t say.”
“Won’t—or can’t?”
“To me, he looks a lost cause, but I’m no doctor.”
“Shall I dig into his past?” Ingeborg said.
“You’re volunteering?”
“I’m fascinated to know how it happened, a guy with a good, analytical brain, successful career, long marriage, who appears to have no empathy whatsoever. He can form friendships and think nothing of killing his so-called friends.”
“That’s a psychopath for you,” Halliwell said.
“Come off it, Keith. That’s a meaningless word,” she said with scorn. “Any psychologist will tell you it doesn’t describe a condition. It may sound scientific but it’s no more than a label that says, in effect, these are cold-blooded killers we don’t understand.”
Halliwell looked blitzed. “I only chipped in to back up what you were saying.”
Ingeborg eased up on him. “Sorry. I blew a fuse. Over-excitement. But I intend to find out more about this one.”
“And you must,” Diamond said. Such commitment had to be encouraged.
She raised a thumb.
“While you’re at it,” he added, “see if you can make sense of what Pellegrini was saying about the rabbits. I doubt if he has a sense of humour or even much of an imagination. There may be something we’ve missed.”
“Remind me, then,” she said. “They were hopping a mile a night and heading towards Bath, right?”
“And he knew where to find them because he could hear them digging their holes. Sounds like fantasy but I’m not certain it was.”
“What can I do?” Halliwell asked.
The rivalry between these two was paying dividends. Both wanted a piece of the action.
Encouraged, Diamond asked Halliwell to find out everything he could on the three men named on the urns.
“And what will you be doing, guv?” Ingeborg asked.
“Looking for a railway enthusiast who isn’t dead or in a coma.”
Not so simple as it sounded.
He discovered that the electronic revolution had transformed the model-train business. All the local shops had closed or gone over to computer games. There was one in Corsham still trading but only through the Internet. Yet the newsagents’ shelves were stacked with titles like Rail Express, Steam News, The Railway Magazine, Heritage Railway, Steam Railway and Old Glory.
Where do you look for a railway enthusiast?
The railway.
Bath Spa station is at the bottom of Manvers Street. Another engineer, the renowned Isambard Kingdom Brunel, sited it there in 1840 at the edge of the city rather than cutting through the centre. His grand design based on a twenty-arch castellated viaduct in the Tudor style made a strong impression, but the interior was plain. The modern revamped ticket hall retains Brunel’s supporting structure in a twenty-first-century context with open areas where partitions had been when Diamond first came to Bath. He liked it.
“I’m not here for a ticket,” he explained at one of the desks.
“You want to know about trains,” the booking clerk said in a voice that had handled the same enquiry a thousand times before.
“People, actually.”
“Sorry, my friend. I’m doing a job here. I don’t have time to gossip.”
“Police,” Diamond said, showing his card. “Is there anything like a railway appreciation society in Bath?”
“Never heard of one.”
“Railway enthusiasts, then.”
“Are there any? You tell me. All I get is railway bellyachers. It’s the electrification causing cancellations. They don’t understand their journey to London’s going to take twenty minutes less when it goes ahead next year. A little bit of hardship now is all they care about.”
“This isn’t what I want to know,” Diamond said.
“There you go, then. You’re no different from the rest of them, slagging me off. You’d better try tourist information, under the subway on the other side.”
Wondering if this had been such a good idea, Diamond took the short walk to the office on the other side. Would tourist information be any better?
The young woman he approached was clearly dedicated to helping every enquirer, but when she heard what it was about, a trapped expression spread over her features. Personally, she said, she hadn’t come across any train enthusiasts, but she would ask her colleague Trudy.
Trudy, rather more senior, looked Diamond up and down as if he might be a sex pest. “What exactly is it you want, sir?”
He went through it again and identified himself as a police officer.
She consulted her computer and turned the screen for him to see.
“Is this what you mean?”
And there it was—the Bath Railway Society, founded in 1957 and clearly still active, with a colour photo of some forty members. Towards the back was a familiar face: definitely Ivor Pellegrini.
His pulse raced as if he’d won the lottery.
“Does it say where they meet?”
She used the mouse and showed him another page. “St. Mary’s church hall in Darlington Street.”
“Bottom of Bathwick Hill,” he said. “I know that.” Only a short walk from Pellegrini’s house in Henrietta Road.
“Once a month, on the first Thursday.”
“Is there someone I can contact—a secretary?”
Trudy clicked and found a name and a number and made a note for him.
“And one more thing: would you print me a copy of the team picture?”
“It won’t be as sharp as it is on the screen,” she said as she went through the process. Across the room, a printer hummed.
She handed him a sheet of paper. He could still pick out Pellegrini with ease.
“Trudy, you’ve made my day,” he said. “I could hug you.”
She gave him that look again.
He called on a Captain Jarrow in North Parade Road, said it was about the railway society and explained that he wasn’t a potential member, but a police officer.
He wasn’t invited in. This would be a doorstep interview.
“Before you say another word, police officer, I’ll make four pertinent points,” Captain Jarrow said with the voice of a man well used to addressing inferiors. “One, we’re a properly constituted, law-abiding society; two, we keep proper minutes and accounts; three, we pay in advance for the hire of the hall; and four, we always leave it as tidy as when we arrived.” Whether this gentleman was an army captain or from the navy, he had the military mind-set.
“And before you say another word yourself,” Diamond said, “I have no interest whatsoever in the way
you run your club. I need only to know about somebody who I believe is one of your members. He happens to have a keen interest in trains. Ivor Pellegrini.”
“Say that again.”
“Pellegrini.”
“Foreigner, is he?”
“Originally, maybe. He lives in Henrietta Road, not far from where you meet, and he’s a retired engineer. He’s a bit eccentric. Wears a deerstalker and rides a tricycle.”
“A railway buff?”
“Definitely. He has a collection of items from the steam-train days.”
“And his name is Pellegrini? Not one of ours.”
He couldn’t have put it more clearly, and his words carried conviction.
Diamond took the group photo from his pocket to satisfy himself he wasn’t mistaken. “He’s on your website.”
Captain Jarrow gave it a glance. “At least two years out of date. I’m not responsible. I don’t do the computer jiggery-pokery. People seem to regard everything they see on a small screen as gospel, but it isn’t, and there’s the proof. If the police are getting their intelligence from the Internet these days, God help us all.”
“So is he a former member? This gentleman here, second row from the back. Don’t you have any memory of him?”
His mouth tightened in defiance. “There are certain individuals I’ve erased from my memory. I’m mortified to discover anyone should assume they belong to our society.”
“Was there a falling-out, then?”
“I’d rather not discuss it, if you don’t mind.”
“But I do mind. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important. And I don’t believe you’d want to be accused of withholding information.”
Captain Jarrow’s curiosity undermined him. “Is Pellegrini up to no good, then? I’ve long suspected he had mafia connections.”
In Bath? This was one scenario that hadn’t occurred to Diamond. “He was critically injured in a road accident.”
The only sound for some time was the traffic in North Parade Road.
The captain seemed to decide he’d overstepped the mark. “I wish you’d told me earlier. When you gave his name and said you wanted information on him, I thought straight away he was wanted for some crime or other. Yes, I knew the man. He and certain of his friends were critical of the way we run the society. It was too all-embracing for them. They wanted to specialise. When it became clear that most of us were happy with the way we do things, they decided to defect.”
“When you say specialise . . .”
“Limiting their interest to the GWR.”
He didn’t press for more information. He didn’t want to get into the debate that had caused the schism.
“Let me try some other names on you. Were any of these people in the breakaway group as well? Edmund Seaton, Roger Carnforth or Jeremy Marshall-Tomkin?”
Captain Jarrow nodded. He’d lost some of his assertiveness. “All three.”
“Did you know they’re all dead?”
“I read somewhere that Seaton and Carnforth had passed over. Marshall-Tomkin went as well, did he? Is this what you’re investigating? Is someone targeting railway enthusiasts? I’d better warn my members to watch out.”
“I’ve no knowledge how they died. They’re simply names that came up.”
“Not in our society, they don’t. Not any more.”
“So they formed their own society, did they?”
“Absolutely not. No properly constituted society, anyway, with rules and a committee. I believe they meet in each other’s homes. Not the same thing at all.”
“One other name I’d like to try on you is Massimo Filiput.”
“I don’t recollect him. Bit of a mouthful. Sounds like another of the Cosa Nostra. Was he involved in the accident?”
“No, and he’s dead, like the others I mentioned. He was over ninety when he went. Lived in Cavendish Crescent.”
There was a pause for thought.
“I’m sure somebody from Cavendish Crescent came to some of the meetings a couple of years ago, but I thought he introduced himself as Max, not the name you said. He was getting on in years, as you indicated. We’re none of us spring chickens, but I’d put Max at ninety, easily. Good brain, even so.”
“He wasn’t a member for long?”
“Two or three meetings. That was the extent of it. I’m trying to remember him. He wore a suit, a rather beautiful grey pinstripe, and a fine silk tie. It made him stand out from the rest of us because we come more casually dressed.”
“That’s obvious from the group photo.”
“You’ll understand what I’m saying, then. Yes, if appearance counts for anything, Max had done rather well for himself.”
“He left two and a half million to the National Railway Museum,” Diamond said.
“Really? What an extravagant gesture.”
“It was his entire estate.”
“Admirable. Shows commitment to the railway cause.”
“Yes, for someone as keen as that, I’d have thought your society would be a natural home. I wonder why he stopped coming.”
“I can tell you, if we’re talking about the same man. His wife died.”
“That checks,” Diamond said.
“He had all kinds of family matters to attend to after that. Couldn’t find the time to attend meetings. He let us know. Max was a decent sort. I hope you’re not about to tell me he went over to Pellegrini’s lot.”
“It’s possible. I’ve reason to think they visited each other’s houses.”
“That’s too bad. I must say I had my suspicions he had more than a passing interest in the GWR.”
“Excuse me. GWR? You mentioned it before.” Diamond was hopeless with initials.
“God’s Wonderful Railway.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“The Great Western, in fact, but it had several affectionate names. The Great Way Round was another. It served the whole of the West Country and ran right through here until the whole kit and caboodle was nationalised by the socialists in 1948. Anyway, I know Max was interested, but I wasn’t sure how far it had gone.”
“And you weren’t involved?”
“I’m more catholic in my interests. Don’t confine myself to a single company. And I wasn’t going in with that lot. But then I don’t live in a grand house in Cavendish Crescent, or a villa in Henrietta Road, come to that.”
“You think only rich men joined their club?”
“Like-minded is a better way of putting it. Definitely isn’t open to all, like the BRS.”
“BRS?”
“Bath Railway Society. Keep up, officer.”
Diamond had got about as much as he was likely to get from Captain Jarrow. In railway parlance, he’d hit the buffers.
The physician who had signed Massimo Filiput’s death certificate was still in practice in St. James’s Square. She was a crucial witness who had to be visited in person.
Dr. Mukherjee, small in stature but substantial in personality, was in no way fazed by a senior policeman calling. “He died in his sleep,” she told Diamond. “I was called in about eight-thirty in the morning by his cleaner—” she consulted her notes on the computer—“a Mrs. Stratford. And I confirmed that life was extinct.”
“On the certificate you wrote cardiac failure and—” he stumbled over the words—“coronary atheroma.”
“Narrowing of the arteries. His cholesterol level was being monitored. He’d been prescribed statins for some years.”
“A routine death, then?”
“A not unusual death at that age.”
“No postmortem?”
“There was no call for one. He died from natural causes. He was aware of his condition and so was I.”
“The cleaner found him dead in bed?”
“That is correct. Sh
e has a key and let herself into the house. Normally he was downstairs when she arrived. On this occasion he was not and the house was silent, so she went upstairs to check. She called me at once.” She put her head round the computer. “Why are you interested? Is there a problem over Mr. Filiput’s death?”
“Not that I know of, doctor. I wanted to check the circumstances with you, that’s all. How long had he been your patient?”
She consulted her screen again. “Since 2009, when I started the practice.”
“You saw him on a regular basis?”
“I’m not one of a panel of doctors. Being in private practice, I can limit the number of patients I take on and I make sure I know them personally. I knew Mr. Filiput better than most. He insisted on telling me about his anxieties.”
“And was he mentally sound?”
“His brain was working well for a man of his age, if that’s what you mean. He suffered some depression after the death of his wife.”
“I can sympathise. Did you discuss his worries with him?”
“I did.”
“What did they amount to, if that’s not breaking a confidence?”
“He felt he was losing his grip, he told me. There were valuable objects in the house and some of them seemed to have gone missing.”
“Really?” Diamond sat forward. “Did he name anything?”
“This was the difficulty. There were numerous items belonging to his late wife, so many he felt he couldn’t keep track of them all. She had a collection of valuable jewellery and antiques.”
“Yet he knew certain things were gone?”
“He believed they were gone. It isn’t quite the same thing.”
“You suspect otherwise?”
“People adjusting to some big event in their lives such as the loss of a spouse are liable to feel they can’t cope. It’s part of the process of bereavement.”
“Did he suspect someone in particular of stealing them?”
“He didn’t put it as strongly as that. Stealing was never mentioned. He spoke of the matter as if he’d put them somewhere and forgotten where.”
“Yet you said his brain was sound. Was the short-term memory going?”
“Hardly at all. For a man of his age he was sharp enough. His concentration was the problem, I believe.”
Another One Goes Tonight Page 14