Another One Goes Tonight

by Peter Lovesey

  There was still no help in sight. Grudgingly, Gerry waded towards the dormant whirlpool and took a position inside, with Diamond in his wake.

  “Don’t panic if it starts up,” Diamond said, when comfortable. “It’s on a timer.”

  “I know,” Gerry said. “I’m a regular.”

  “I heard. And you have it all to yourself, as befits a man of your status. You can afford luxuries now you’re top of the heap.”

  Something close to panic crept up Gerry’s spine.

  “What heap?”

  “Would you rather I said ‘the firm’? Or ‘the empire’? Bob Sabin called it his family, didn’t he?”

  Gerry felt like saying “no comment,” but that would have confirmed he had a major crime to hide. Instead, he kept his mouth closed.

  Diamond said, “Wasn’t that his name for it—family? We know the only family he truly had was his widow, Dilly, and in the end she didn’t get treated like family. I was told she got the Rottweilers and damn all else. I was talking to Larry Lincoln only the other day. Some people thought Larry was like a son to Bob, but he didn’t get much, either—just a few names of people who were late payers. You and Charlie Gaskin were the main beneficiaries, but you had power bases of your own. You were the obvious heirs.”

  The mention of Gaskin—and in the past tense—was alarming. Gerry dug deep to deflect attention. “Dilly wouldn’t have wanted to take over. I don’t know how many wives Bob got through. She was the latest, the one who outlived him.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She took off with her nice clothes and the bling. I don’t know where.”

  “Nothing untoward happened to her?”

  Gerry shook his head. “She’ll be all right. She didn’t stand in anyone’s way.”

  “I’ll lay out my cards, then.”

  Christ, here it comes, Gerry thought.

  “I’m interested in a certain Bulgarian woman.”

  “A woman?” This wasn’t in the script.

  “. . . who contributed to your income by selling her assets, her natural assets. Are you reading me?”

  “No.” Huge relief. Unless he was boxing clever, the policeman hadn’t come about the Gaskin killing. They didn’t know yet.

  “The name is Maria Mikhaylova.”

  Gerry’s mind was still on the buried corpse in East Twerton. “Say that again.”

  “I’d rather not try. You heard it and if you say you don’t remember, you’re a liar. She was on your payroll some considerable time. She arrived here in 2010 or soon after, blonde, thirtyish, average height and build.”

  “I know a thousand women like that,” Gerry said, growing in confidence. “You gotta do better than that.”

  “You ought to remember this one. She scarpered.”

  “When is this supposed to have happened?”

  “Eighteen months to two years ago. She changed her name and got another job, but you didn’t know at the time.”

  “How would I remember, then?”

  “You found out eventually when the payments stopped.”

  Gerry was willing to talk about Maria for the rest of the evening. “I’m a tycoon. I got more important stuff going on in my life than some girl going AWOL.”

  “The reason you remember Maria is you put out a contract on her only last month. You’re a tycoon. You make the big decisions. She was found dead in the river a mile downstream from Swineford. Does that ring a bell?”

  If it did, it was a warning bell. “Not really,” Gerry said.

  “Don’t give me that. It’s in all the papers—not her name—but the fact that her body was found in the Avon. Was she dead already or did she drown?”

  This could be trickier than it first appeared. Gerry went silent again, deciding how to react.

  Diamond had spread both arms along the rim of the whirlpool. “Off the record, Gerry. I’m not about to nick you for this one. I know it won’t stick.”

  So had this been shadow-boxing? Was Gaskin’s fate the charge that would stick?

  Gerry felt shaky again. He didn’t like this situation. He was ready to talk about Maria. He wanted to talk about her. “What if it was an accident?”

  “What indeed?”

  “She was fully clothed.”

  “So you do know about her.”

  “Not the way you’re telling it,” Gerry said.

  “Go on, then. I’m listening.”

  He started talking to save his own skin. “Maria from Bulgaria was known to me, yes. If she’s the person you’re on about, she was no trouble to anyone. She had a nice house south of the river in Oldfield Park. I happen to own some property out that way and she was one of my tenants. I’m not a hundred percent sure what line of work she was in—”

  “Come off it, Gerry. We both know what she did and who was running her. She absconded and you couldn’t allow that.”

  “Bollocks. She was living in the flat until the day she died.”

  Diamond blinked.

  “That isn’t possible,” he said. “She decamped a couple of years back, like I told you. She called herself Jessie and took a job as housekeeper near Salisbury, in Little Langford. I have DNA evidence to prove it. We traced her back to Bulgaria and they checked their records. She was working in Europe as a prostitute some years and then got over here as an illegal. All this is a matter of record.”

  “It’s news to me,” Gerry said. “I’m telling you Maria was living in the house I own at 22 Darwin Road and paying her rent.”

  “Until when?”

  “Until she fell in the river.”

  “No, no, no, no.” The policeman looked as if he was about to burst a blood vessel. “What are you suggesting here—she had a double life? She was based in Little Langford, housekeeping for an old man called Cyril Hardstaff, twenty-four-hour caring. I’ve spoken to people who knew her. I’ve seen the room she slept in.”

  “Have it your way,” Gerry said, trying to humour him. “We can’t be talking about the same bird.”

  For that he got a glare a judge might give the public gallery after an obscenity was uttered, followed by drop-jaw uncertainty, as if the gallery was empty. “You were collecting money from her all this time?”

  “Regular as clockwork.”

  “This is the woman in Darwin Road?”

  “Sofia Maria, I called her.”

  “Why was she killed, then?”

  “Obvious, ain’t it?” Gerry said. “She done it herself. Anyone else wanting to dispose of her wouldn’t choose the river.” Instantly, Gerry regretted what he’d just said. Talk of alternative disposal arrangements could easily turn to building sites.

  But Diamond was off on another tack. “Have you heard of Cyril Hardstaff?”

  “Not before you mentioned him.”

  “He was in hock to Bob Sabin. When Bob died, Eddie Woodburn was the main man, and Larry Lincoln took over as Cyril’s debt holder.”

  “That scumbag,” Gerry said. “Yeah, that figures. Lincoln was given some names to play with. Small potatoes, more trouble than they’re worth.”

  “Cyril was stealing jewellery to raise the cash. Does the name Max Filiput mean anything to you?”

  “No, mate.”

  “Ivor Pellegrini?”

  Gerry just shrugged.

  Diamond seemed to have exhausted all his options. He was like a suicide bomber who has got to paradise only to find they’ve run out of virgins. “I’ve got work to do. I don’t have time to sit in a pool with you.” He splashed out of the whirlpool and swam away.

  Gerry took a few long breaths, looked upwards and crossed himself.

  24

  “Diamond in the thermal spa?” Ingeborg said with saucer eyes. “Who told you this?”

  Keith Halliwell was certain of it. “Richard Palmer. He’
s an old mate of mine and I believe him.”

  “How does he know?”

  “The boss talked to him late yesterday. Richard is the SIO on the dead woman found in the river. He’s the one who contacted Interpol and found she was from Bulgaria.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, Richard had a theory that she was a sex worker.”

  “I heard about that from the boss. Load of rubbish, he reckons.”

  “But it turns out Richard is right.”

  “Get away. This is Jessie the housekeeper we’re talking about.”

  Halliwell shrugged. “He asked the Bulgarian police to do some more checking and she was definitely on the game at one time.”

  “No kidding?”

  “They’re certain. Her picture is a perfect match.”

  “Poor soul.”

  “She’d been moved about Europe and was known to the police in Turkey and Italy. Then they lost track of her and it seems she was trafficked to England.”

  “Is that certain?”

  “Well, we know she ended up in Little Langford, so it isn’t rocket science.”

  “And the assumption is that she worked here as a prostitute before becoming Cyril’s housekeeper? Wouldn’t that have come to light before now?”

  “She changed her name, didn’t she?”

  “Okay—I get that.”

  Halliwell nodded. “So the boss is digging like fury. And when he starts digging he can rip through concrete. He wanted to find out who could have been running her and Richard told him the main man, the biggest pimp locally, was Gerry Onslow—who is now Mr. Big after some carnage in the crime world.”

  “And they traced Onslow to the new baths?”

  “Apparently he can be found there late most evenings when it’s officially closed. It’s the one safe place to see him if you can get past his henchmen. That’s what Richard told me, anyway, and that’s what he told the boss—who went straight home to collect his swim shorts.”

  “Is he a swimmer?” Ingeborg’s face creased at the image this conjured up. “God, I’d love to have been a fly on the wall. And did he get a result?”

  “Don’t know. He hasn’t appeared yet.”

  Wedged into the last remaining slot in a long line of parked vehicles in Darwin Road, Oldfield Park, Diamond stared at the end-of-terrace house a little way up. How do you tell if the place is in use as a brothel? The closed blinds at all four windows might be a clue.

  He swallowed an ibuprofen. He was not at his best this morning. He’d spent most of the night trying to get his head round the maddening conundrum of Jessie the housekeeper. The science had established that she and Maria the Bulgarian were the same woman. There’s no arguing with DNA. Yet Gerry Onslow had insisted that right up to the time of her death Maria had been living as a prostitute at this address.

  The obvious inference was that Onslow was lying, but why? By admitting he owned the flat and virtually confessing he’d been living off her earnings for some time, he’d put himself at risk of prosecution. His whole demeanour had suggested running a brothel was small fry to a man of his status. He was clearly more concerned at covering up more heinous crimes.

  And if he’d killed her himself, or ordered her death, he would surely have been only too relieved to grab the alibi Diamond had offered—that she had been living in a small village in Wiltshire.

  Nothing added up.

  Better deal with the matter in hand.

  By now, Maria was two weeks dead. It was likely some other sex worker had been installed in the house. There’s no sentiment in the selling of flesh.

  Diamond left his car, marched over and pressed the bell on the blue front door. Double chimes sounded inside, but that was all he heard.

  He tried twice more.

  A voice close by said, “You’re too early in the day, my friend. She’ll be sleeping off yesterday’s business.”

  A bearded character in a flat cap and raincoat and holding a folded newspaper was speaking across the wall from next door.

  “You’re the neighbour?” Diamond said.

  “For my sins, yes. Didn’t know I was next door to a knocking-shop when I first moved in. I soon found out. But they don’t bother me. Live and let live, I say. My advice to you is tie a knot in it, at least until after lunch.”

  “I’m not here for that,” Diamond said. “I’m a police officer.”

  “Yeah, and I’m the Bishop of Bath and Wells,” the man said with a chuckle. “You can be honest with me. Man of the world, I am.”

  “Do you ever speak to your neighbours?”

  “I have done, yes. My cat Pussy went missing once. I had to go and ask. There was a slight misunderstanding over what I was calling about, but once we were over that, she was normal as you like. She’d been feeding the little varmint for weeks.”

  “Did you get her name?”

  “She didn’t give it. Wouldn’t have meant much to me, I expect, being foreign.”

  “She’s a foreigner?”

  “Most of them are these days, aren’t they? They come over the Channel and take our jobs. I blame the government.”

  Not a helpful route to go down. “How do you know she’s foreign?”

  “The way she talks, bleeding obvious.”

  From an inner pocket Diamond took out the picture of Maria from the police website. “Is this her?”

  The neighbour put on his glasses to scrutinise it. “This is the one who feeds my cat, no question. She’s not there right now. I reckon they need holidays more than the rest of us, but Pussy is pissed off about it.”

  Diamond’s headache had suddenly got a whole lot worse. He hadn’t truly believed until this moment, and it made no sense.

  “There’s another one been there some time,” the man went on. “Redhead with tattooed arms. I haven’t spoken to her.”

  “This one”—Diamond jabbed the picture with his forefinger—“was definitely living here until recently, was she?”

  “Two, maybe three weeks. I’m having to buy extra cat food.”

  “Does she own a car?”

  “I never saw her in one.”

  “How long do you reckon she’s been your neighbour?”

  “She was installed before I moved in two years ago.”

  “And does she spend most of her time in the house?”

  “She needs to. Blokes are calling all week long. I have to mark off my parking space with cones. It’s not illegal, is it?”

  “Reserving a parking space?”

  “No. Paying for some how’s-your-father.”

  “Depends,” Diamond said. He pressed the bell again.

  “She won’t answer,” the man said. “This time of day they’re out to the world.”

  It dawned on Diamond that he no longer needed to speak to the other tenant. He’d learned enough from the neighbour. Just as Gerry Onslow had claimed, Maria the Bulgarian had been selling her services as a prostitute here in Oldfield Park all the time Jessie the housekeeper was supposed to be thirty miles away in Little Langford.

  Crazy.

  He pocketed the picture, nodded to the man and returned, muttering, to his car.

  Back in Keynsham, he phoned the hospital to get the latest on Pellegrini’s condition.

  The sister who sounded like a station announcer came on the line. “Mr. Pellegrini had a very good night and is progressing well, so well that he is being moved from Critical Care to a general ward on the same floor. He started eating solids last night and had a good breakfast this morning. His brain function seems to be returning, although his short-term memory is uneven. He was seen by the doctor an hour ago and it was decided to allow visits from designated persons once he is installed in Bradford Ward.”

  “What does that mean—‘designated persons’?” Diamond asked her.

  �
��Close family.”

  “He’s got no family. His wife died some time ago.”

  “Particular friends. People he’ll recognise. Visits from close family and friends are part of the healing process.”

  “I need to see him urgently. I’m Detective Superintendent Diamond.”

  “I know who you are, Mr. Diamond,” she said as if it was distasteful.

  “And . . . ?”

  “I don’t think it’s appropriate. Does he know you?”

  “We haven’t spoken, if that’s what you’re asking, but I got closer to him than most people ever will. I gave him CPR at the scene of the accident and visited him several times when he was unconscious.”

  “I doubt if that qualifies. He’s not ready to answer questions. I’ve already had to put some people off.”

  “Really? Who do you mean?”

  “Trying to pull rank. It doesn’t wash with me, saying they’re a public body and calling themselves watchdogs.”

  Dragham and Stretch. They’d been quick off the mark.

  “Going over the accident that put him here would be far too distressing,” the sister went on. “We’ll see how he copes with the visitors he knows.”

  “Visitors he knows?” Diamond said in alarm. “Who are they? I told you, he’s alone in the world.”

  “You’re mistaken there. Two old friends from his railway society have asked to come and he’s happy to see them. These are people he’ll respond to.”

  She could only mean Jake and Simon Pool, the amiable gay couple who lived in the signal box. They were the only other members of his GWR society left alive. Decent of them to visit. But were they putting themselves in danger? It was hard to see how. Together, they ought to be safe from Pellegrini in his weakened state.

  He thought about telling the sister her precious patient was a serial killer, but decided it wouldn’t sway her. They can take high moral stands, these health professionals.

  He told her he would phone later. “I’m not pestering you for no good reason, sister. There are matters crying out for attention.”

  “There will be no crying out in Bradford Ward,” she said. “Don’t call before tomorrow.”

  Sod that, he thought. What time are you going off duty? But all he said was, “I’ll bear that in mind.”