“Absent-minded?”
“I wouldn’t put it like that. There were areas of his life that he put to the back of his mind. He believed his late wife’s possessions were secure in the house, so he didn’t pay much attention to them.”
“Did it occur to you that they might really have gone missing?”
“Taken by some dishonest person? It crossed my mind, certainly.”
“Did you discuss the possibility with him?”
She sighed. “It wasn’t easy. I didn’t want to add to his anxieties. I suggested putting them into storage, but he said if he locked them away and never saw them again it would be like a betrayal of his wife.”
“I can understand that,” Diamond said. “My own wife died a few years ago and I’ve kept some of her things simply because I know how much she valued them. Forgive me for pressing you on this, but it could be significant. Had anything gone missing that he was able to describe?”
“No. On reflection I suspect the stealing was all in his imagination.”
Big mistake, Diamond thought, but he didn’t want to speak of what he’d found in Pellegrini’s workshop. “Did he ever mention visitors?”
“He had a retired friend called Cyril who came to the house about once a week and played some board game with him. They used to work together at a college in Salisbury.”
Cyril? This was new to Diamond. “Did he tell you Cyril’s surname?”
“No. I only remember because Cyril is not a name I’ve come across.”
“So they were both former teachers?”
“He preferred the term lecturer.”
“What was Cyril’s subject?”
“I couldn’t tell you. I’m not even sure what my own patient taught. They used the same staff room but they may have specialised in different things.”
“This was a long-term friendship, was it? Did Cyril’s visits continue after Mrs. Filiput died?”
“I’m sure they did. He looked forward to them.”
“I expect they helped to ease the depression.”
“Certainly they would have, if only briefly.”
“And how about Mrs. Stratford, the cleaner?” Diamond said. “Obviously you met her on the day she found him dead. Did you know her already?”
“We’d met two or three times at the house. In case you’re wondering about her honesty, I formed a good opinion of her. She was cheerful and a good worker. The house always looked immaculate. She sometimes went to the shops and collected prescriptions I gave him. I doubt very much whether she took advantage of him.”
“I wonder if anyone else did. He was interested in railways.”
“How does that come into it?”
“I’m thinking of visitors to the house, people who shared the interest.”
Dr. Mukherjee nodded. “That’s possible. I did notice various pieces of railway equipment in one of the rooms downstairs, signals and station signs and so on. Surely those are the things any railway friends would have stolen if they were so inclined. I don’t think he was worried about them disappearing.”
“He would have known exactly what was taken,” Diamond said.
“I’m sure you’re right.” She leaned back in her chair. “And now if we’ve covered everything, I do have patients to see.”
He hadn’t finished yet. “Were you also the doctor to Mrs. Filiput?”
She glanced down at her watch. “I was.”
“She died in November, 2013, six months before his death?”
“Indeed.”
“Of natural causes?”
“Not directly.”
He waited, intrigued, for her to explain.
“She had a fall,” Dr. Mukherjee said. “Balance becomes a problem as one gets older, so in a sense it was a natural cause, but a fall is a violent event, so I can’t describe it as natural. She was frail and she was taken to hospital, and she died there the same day. In her case, I didn’t sign the certificate.”
“Who called the ambulance?”
“Mr. Filiput, I believe. I only heard what had happened afterwards, so I’m not the best person to ask.”
“When you say ‘she had a fall,’ was it at home?”
“I believe so. I was told she fell downstairs and sustained a fractured skull.”
“How sad and what a shock for Mr. Filiput.”
“Yes, he came to me for tranquillisers. For a man over ninety there was a lot to cope with.”
“No family to help?”
“No children. And the old couple outlived any siblings they had. I believe after Mr. Filiput died his entire estate went to a railway museum.”
“So I heard. Do you notify social services in a case like this?”
“He didn’t want them. Most old people like to be as independent as they can. He had Mrs. Stratford to clean and do shopping and there were friends who kept an eye on him and brought in cooked meals.”
“He had it sorted, by the sound of things. I’m obliged to you, doctor,” he said, rising and preparing to leave.
“Incidentally . . .” Dr. Mukherjee said, and then paused as if she was having second thoughts.
“Yes?”
His hopes soared. He’d always envied the TV detective who got as far as the door on the point of leaving an interview and then thought of one more thing that brought the breakthrough revelation. In this case it wasn’t the detective who had thought of one more thing.
Dr. Mukherjee said, “Have you had a blood-pressure check lately?”
“Why?”
“I don’t wish to be personal but your skin colour isn’t too healthy and you’re carrying rather more weight than you should.”
He thought of his chips and beer lunch. “You’re perfectly right, doctor. I’ve been told before. Not enough rabbit food.”
10
Massimo Filiput had died in his sleep, according to Dr. Mukherjee, and his wife had fallen downstairs and died. Not the story Diamond had expected to hear. He grappled with the new information while taking a brisk, healthy, cholesterol-reducing walk round Queen Square. Neither death had been suspicious in the doctor’s eyes, but then the doctor wasn’t a detective.
Could Ivor Pellegrini, having researched ingenious methods of murder, have found a way to kill them both? He’d have needed access to the house in Cavendish Crescent. As a friend and fellow railway enthusiast, it wasn’t impossible that he was a regular visitor there. Pushing an old lady downstairs didn’t seem all that clever, let alone perfect, but—if it was murder—it had worked. Olga Filiput’s collection of jewellery and antiques, including the Fortuny gowns, had been inherited by her distracted husband, a soft touch who had stopped breathing six months later, and the gowns had ended up in Pellegrini’s workshop.
Filiput’s death in his sleep had been less dramatic than a fall, but if there had been any wrongdoing, this one might well be styled the perfect murder.
Or was it natural?
One killing? Two? Or no crime at all?
Murder only made sense if Pellegrini had a compelling motive. The most obvious was personal gain. He’d acquired the gowns and hidden them away. He may well have stacked away other valuable items that had once belonged to Olga Filiput. But did he need to steal? Was it worth the risk? Probably not. He appeared to be comfortably off, no doubt on a good pension.
Think of a better motive, Diamond told himself, already on the lookout for a place to sit. The brisk walk round the square hadn’t been such a good idea. His calves were giving him hell. He found an empty bench near a group playing boules.
For some minutes he watched the players, evidently friends who did this regularly. Much noise and joking masked a strong competitive element. The dominant personalities were soon apparent: the deadly serious win-at-all-costs man with the tattoos and earrings, and the joker with the beanie hat who laughed off ev
ery throw but was secretly trying harder than anyone.
Could the killings—if killings they were—be down to a driven personality? Extraordinary things are done in the name of self-assertion. The dominant ego is capable of distorting and discarding personal feeling and basic human values. Pellegrini was a man in retirement who had spent his whole career solving problems and no doubt getting satisfaction and self-esteem from the achievement. Now cut off from all that, yet still capable, he needed a challenge. Then why not apply his skills and experience to devising a perfect theft, followed by a perfect murder?
Only in theory, of course.
Until an opportunity arrived to put theory to the test.
Once.
Or twice?
Or about five times?
Taken as problem-solving, plotting a murder could be treated like any other engineering project, constructing a turbine or a tunnel. He’d deal with it in the same detached way, assess the objective, do the research, devise a plan and derive personal satisfaction from pulling it off.
Not bad.
On a bookshelf at home Diamond had a small library of famous crimes and among them was the case of two young Americans from privileged backgrounds who in the 1920s murdered another youth for no more reason than self-aggrandisement. They made mistakes and were caught, but the idea of intelligent students killing just for kicks had shocked the nation. One had claimed they had done it just for the excitement of committing a perfect murder and getting away with it.
How many murders had been carried out by smarter operators who didn’t get caught?
In the case of Ivor Pellegrini, killing as self-expression made more sense than killing for profit. He’d know what he was doing was morally wrong and dangerous, but the compelling assignment would transcend morality. He’d immerse himself in the challenge. It was about achievement and a job well done. Those cremation pots lined up like trophies fitted the scenario.
Diamond gave himself five minutes more and then strolled back to the car.
The first person he saw in the CID room was Keith Halliwell.
“I’ve been trawling the newspapers, guv,” Keith told him. “Those three—the ones in the urns—all died within two years of each other.”
“Yes, but what of?”
Halliwell didn’t give an immediate answer and Diamond knew why. He wanted some credit for his research. “Two of them had short death notices in the Chronicle and the other, Jeremy Marshall-Tomkin, was given quite a write-up. He’d been a county councillor at one time and also played some rugby in his younger days. The interesting bit is that at one stage he edited the Great Western Railway Journal. It’s a quarterly magazine—still selling seventy-odd years after the company closed.”
“Who buys it then? They must have an elderly readership.”
“It’s nostalgia for the great days of steam.”
“Right,” he said, without really understanding the appeal.
“The point is that Marshall-Tomkin would definitely have been one of the GWR group,” Halliwell said.
Diamond came up with the required compliment. “You’ve done a fine job here, Keith.” And immediately added, “Can we get more on the other two?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Doing what?”
“There’s a website listing every issue of the magazine and all the articles and their authors.”
“These two wrote for the magazine?”
“No. But there are letters in each issue. I’m hoping their names crop up there.”
“Okay. And now will you answer my first question?”
“What was that?”
“What did they die of?”
“Can’t tell you that, I’m afraid.”
“What’s stopping you?” Diamond’s charitable phases never lasted long.
“There’s a standard wording they use in the paper. He or she passed away peacefully.”
“So what? It’s a cliché.”
“Or sadly or after a long illness or a short illness. That’s all you’re told in at least ninety percent of the notices. Marshall-Tomkin went peacefully, Edmund Seaton the same and Roger Carnforth after a short illness.”
Diamond took a sharp, impatient breath. “No help at all.”
Halliwell shrugged. “The newspaper isn’t going to say they were murdered, even if they were.”
It was a telling point. Diamond had to grin. “Is something wrong with us, looking for evil at every turn?”
“Somebody needs to, guv.”
“Thanks for that. Massimo Filiput is said to have died in his sleep, which would be what . . . ?”
“Peaceful.”
“Yes, peaceful. And we can’t exclude murder. A peaceful death of an old man means there wouldn’t be any call for an autopsy. If there was poison in his system it wouldn’t be found. The doctor had no reason to be suspicious.”
“Poison isn’t used much these days.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s easy to detect, isn’t it?” Halliwell said. “In the past, they used arsenic or cyanide or something similar and sometimes got away with it, but with all the science these days they wouldn’t. And, anyway, the classic poisons aren’t available any more as flypapers or what have you. You aren’t even allowed to buy two packs of aspirin at one time.”
“True, but there are drugs prescribed every day that could kill someone. The average house is stocked with pills and potions I’d think twice about taking, and that’s not to mention rat bait and weedkiller in the garden shed. The stuff is still out there.”
“But would it be a peaceful death?”
Diamond laughed. “Depends. Personally, I’d rather not swallow weedkiller, but some of the other things might do the job painlessly.”
Halliwell still looked unconvinced. “Do you mind if I ask something?”
“Go ahead. It’s your job.”
“You fought hard to save Pellegrini’s life. How will you feel if he turns out to have been a serial killer?”
Deep breath. No one was better than Halliwell at putting the boss on the spot.
“Not great.” He took a moment to frame a better answer. “Look at it this way, Keith. I found him and did what anyone would. No choice.” He shook his head. “It’s pulling me apart. My job as the senior detective is to step back from the detail and take a broad view. I want him to be blameless, but each day that passes brings more evidence. He may have carried out one murder or several or none at all. I can’t rule out anything. To ignore our suspicions would be dangerous, sloppy and wrong.”
“That’s tough.”
“I’d rather not say any more.”
“So what’s the strategy?”
“Same as always. Gather the evidence. Follow up every lead. Miss nothing.”
“Still off the record?”
“Has to be. We don’t have enough to trigger a full-scale enquiry. Georgina would do her nut if she knew I was taking so much of your time and Ingeborg’s. But she did tell me to stay in touch with the fallout of the crash.”
“She’s worried about the IPCC investigation.”
“You bet she is.”
“Are they setting one up?”
“It’s mandatory. This is classed as a death or serious-injury matter.”
“Has someone complained?”
“Not that I’m aware of. Georgina is bricking it that they’ll discover our guys were at fault.”
Mrs. Stratford, the cleaner to the Filiputs, was easy to trace through the electoral register, but difficult to pin down. Her neighbour in the terrace where she lived in Oldfield Park said she was out all day and often didn’t get home until after ten. It sounded as if she was a workaholic.
Diamond needed an insider’s account of the Filiput household. He couldn’t rely only on Dr. Mukherjee. Normally he w
ould have sent one of his DCs to catch up with the cleaner, but this wasn’t a normal enquiry. Truth to tell, he was finding an escape from his personal conflict by taking on the dogsbody jobs of the sort he’d done long ago as a probationer in the Met.
Late in the afternoon he cornered Mrs. Stratford in a printworks in Beacon Hill, off Lansdown Road. She was bending over a bin-bag, filling it with the screwed-up waste paper that littered the floor, and she was a surprise, not much over twenty, with the figure of a gymnast and thick copper-coloured hair tied back with a scarf. And she was speaking to herself, which wasn’t a good sign. Speaking, not singing. No headset. He couldn’t make out the words except that there seemed to be strong emotion in them, her shoulders flexing with the stress of whatever she was dealing with.
He made a noise deep in his throat and she straightened up and did an about turn as sharply as a sentry.
“Don’t you dare come any closer.”
“Sorry to startle you,” he said.
“I ought to kick you where it hurts most, creeping up on me like that.” They were angry, shaming eyes.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” he said.
“You shouldn’t be here. This is closed for business now.”
He introduced himself and without giving much away about his real suspicions let her know he was interested in the Filiputs.
She didn’t react the way most people do when a police officer speaks to them.
“You can take a running jump.”
He ignored this. “I was told you worked for them.”
“They’re entitled to their privacy.”
“They’re dead,” he said. He was about to add, “They don’t care any more,” but he stopped himself. This young woman had known the old couple and it seemed she still felt defensive towards them. To him they were only names. “Look, whatever you tell me stays private. I’m police, not press. I need information about their daily routine and I believe you know more than anyone else.”
“So?”
Still defiant. He had to reveal more.
“It’s possible someone was stealing from them—or at least from Mr. Filiput in the last months of his life.”
Another One Goes Tonight Page 15