Peter Diamond - 09 - The Secret Hangman

by Peter Lovesey

  ‘Appropriate,’ Diamond said to Halliwell. ‘That’s where the highwaymen used to operate, the top of Brassknocker Hill.’

  ‘Until they were collared and hanged in chains. Not much changes.’

  Did that sound a tad too smug? Diamond asked himself.

  These modern villains were using the more secluded route to Bath, much favoured by the locals, avoiding the busy A36 that looped round the city following the curve of the river. A winding climb over Claverton Down brought you to a long descent down Widcombe Hill. The railway station and the city centre lay ahead.

  ‘Approaching the T-junction at Claverton Down Road,’ Gilbert reported. He was good at this. Eager to impress, no doubt, but so were all the others and not many of them communicated so well.

  ‘What’s your money on?’ Diamond asked. ‘Another phone shop or something more ambitious?’

  ‘They’re after small stuff, that’s for sure,’ Halliwell said. ‘A jeweller’s, maybe.’

  ‘Turning right,’ Gilbert’s voice told them. ‘Still observing speed limits.’

  ‘Maybe the judge will take that into account,’ Halliwell murmured.

  ‘Passing the university campus. The road is straight here. I’m having to stay well back.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Halliwell told him. ‘The bug is working nicely. We can follow the route by radio if needed.’

  The white van and the Range Rover took another short cut, down Prior Park Road, avoiding Widcombe Hill. Local knowledge.

  ‘Crunch time coming shortly,’ Diamond said. ‘Why don’t you radio the others and tell them to have their engines running?’

  ‘I can do that, but let’s see which way they come in.’

  ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? Under the viaduct and over Churchill Bridge.’

  ‘But then what?’

  ‘Fair enough. We’ll see.’ He hated chasing around in cars, and waiting to chase around was worse.

  Paul Gilbert radioed that he was closing up on the Range Rover now. Then the unexpected happened. ‘Bloody hell. They’re not going into the centre. They’re heading up Wells Road.’

  ‘What’s up there?’ Halliwell said.

  This was the south-west route out of Bath. Diamond knew it well. He’d lived on Wellsway for a time and done the drive every day. The suspects were dodging the trap. ‘Doesn’t matter what’s up there. We’re down here and we’ve got to move. Did you hear that, driver?’

  He’d taken charge. Halliwell would have to make his protest later. He put out an instruction to the others to head the same way.

  ‘It’s mostly small shops,’ he said, answering Halliwell’s question as they accelerated to the end of Manvers Street and swung right in front of the railway station. ‘I can’t think of anything I’d want to rob.’

  ‘Do you think they spotted Gilbert tailing them?’

  ‘Must have.’ He was tight-lipped.

  ‘So do we want to chase them?’

  ‘We have to.’ He leaned forward to speak to the driver. ‘You’ve got a winker on your roof. Use it.’

  They passed through a red traffic light, crossed Churchill Bridge and rounded the elongated island that stands under the railway. A left turn and they were racing up Wells Road.

  ‘Report your position, Sierra One.’

  ‘Just passing Bear Flat,’ Gilbert answered.

  ‘Leaving the shops behind?’

  ‘Pretty well.’

  ‘Are they both in sight still?’

  ‘Yes. Turning left on Milton. Shall I follow?’

  Milton was one of several avenues named after poets. The developers had grand aspirations. When built around 1900, the area was known as Poets’ Corner. These days Shakespeare, Kipling, Milton and Longfellow were better known for bumper-to-bumper parking.

  ‘Yes. We reckon they spotted you anyway. Keep them in sight. Don’t do anything until the back-up arrives. We’re coming up Holloway, only three minutes behind you.’

  ‘Guv, they’ve stopped,’ Gilbert said. ‘Right in the middle of the road.’

  ‘Both vehicles?’

  ‘What do I do – nick them?’

  ‘No. See what happens.’

  ‘It’s very narrow where they are. Parked cars either side. Door’s opening. The guy’s got out. He’s left the Range Rover blocking the street and he’s running to the van. There’s no way I can get past. Oh Christ, they’re getting away.’

  Diamond studied the map and told the driver, ‘There’s a street called Chaucer that crosses all the others. They’ll use that and double down Kipling or one of the others. If we pick the right one we can head them off.’

  ‘Which one, sir?’

  Shakespeare, Kipling or Longfellow? He’d never had time for fancy writers.

  ‘Kipling.’

  He radioed to the others to block the remaining avenues as soon as they arrived.

  Gilbert came on again, saying the van had disappeared fast and he couldn’t see which turn it had taken on Chaucer Avenue. ‘I’m stuck behind the Range Rover. There’s no way I can get round it. Oh my God – it’s on fire! He’s torched it.’

  This was turning into a nightmare. Diamond radioed for the fire service.

  The car swung at speed into Kipling Avenue. They could see at once that they’d boobed. Nothing else was moving. There were just parked cars stretching to infinity.

  Halliwell said, ‘Personally, I would have gone for Shakespeare.’

  ‘Sod off, Keith.’

  There was still an outside chance that one of the other vehicles would intercept the van. But did it happen? This wasn’t Diamond’s night.

  They waited ten minutes and drove round to Milton Avenue and watched the firemen dowse the flames. The Range Rover was exposed as a black, steaming wreck. The adjacent cars would be write-offs. ‘The end of Operation Fleece,’ he said.

  It wasn’t quite.

  While they were returning down Wellsway there was an all-units alert. ‘Break-in reported in Westgate Street. A four-by-four drove into the shopfront of Brackendale’s the jeweller’s. Repeat, Brackendale’s in Westgate Street. Two suspects have left the scene in another vehicle. No description yet.’

  ‘Suckered,’ Diamond said.

  25

  A select group assembled in Diamond’s office at eleven nextmorning. With little more than four hours’ sleep behindthem, they were a sorry bunch.

  ‘The good news is that Georgina is out all morning,’ Diamond told them. ‘A meeting at headquarters. The bad news is that she heard about the raid already. Wants me to phone her this afternoon with an explanation.’

  ‘Does she know about . . .’ Keith Halliwell shrank from speaking the words. They had a different resonance now.

  ‘Operation Fleece? I think not. But she will. There’s no concealing it from her.’

  Young DC Gilbert said, ‘At least we were doing something.’

  ‘Get real, son. We were shafted.’

  ‘Hung out to dry,’ Halliwell said.

  Diamond turned to look out of the window as if he wanted to be anywhere but here. ‘In all my years of service I can’t remember an op that was such a disaster. I take my share of the blame, of course.’

  ‘All of us fell for it,’ Halliwell said.

  ‘Yes, and Georgina will nail us to the wall. Are we agreed on what actually happened last night?’

  Halliwell was desperate to get in first. ‘We were led to believe these guys were teenagers.’

  ‘They are,’ Gilbert said, some colour rising in his gaunt face.

  ‘Amateurs, then. Kids starting out, wet behind the ears.’

  ‘I only had Jackman’s word. He misjudged them.’

  Diamond intervened. ‘Wait a bit, you two. There’s an assumption here that . . . What do they call themselves?’

  ‘Jacob and Romney.’

  ‘. . . that Jacob and Romney are the villains. Forget that. They were minor players. Their job was to set up the decoy, which they did. The Range Rover was never intended
to be used for a ram raid. It was to draw us off limits while the real heist went ahead in Westgate Street. We fell for an elaborate con. My first question is: was Jackman a party to it, or was he conned as well?’

  ‘Trust me, he’s up and up,’ Gilbert said. ‘He was dead nervous. I could see it.’

  ‘Nervous of what?’ Halliwell said. ‘He could have been nervous we would rumble him.’

  ‘Either way, he was taking big risks,’ Diamond said. He turned to Gilbert. ‘You know what you’re going to do? Follow up with this guy. Get heavy with him. Find out who he was dealing with. Did he meet the big boys? Who was paying him? How was it bankrolled? They won’t use him again. They won’t protect him, so he’s easy meat.’

  ‘I’ll get onto it,’ Gilbert said, starting to rise, hoping he could walk out of the door.

  Diamond pointed his finger to keep him in the hot seat.

  ‘Should we nick the two lads?’ John Leaman said. He could afford to make suggestions. He’d played no part in the planning, and he was only in attendance through seniority.

  ‘They’ll have hightailed it by now.’ Everything about Halliwell, his voice, body language, face, showed how hard he’d taken this.

  ‘Put out an all-units. One of them is supposed to have form, isn’t he?’

  ‘That may have been a false lead,’ Leaman said. ‘Jacob is a fairly common name.’

  ‘Get a description from Jackman, then. If you find these two, you’re halfway to nailing the top men.’

  ‘What do we have from the Range Rover?’ Diamond asked. ‘Prints? DNA?’

  ‘The fire got too much of a grip.’

  ‘All right. What do we have from Westgate Street? Any witnesses?’

  Halliwell spread his hands. ‘You know what the city centre is like on a Sunday night.’

  ‘They must have left traces of some sort.’

  ‘The crime scene guys haven’t found much. These people knew their business. Gloves, masks, head covers of some kind.’

  ‘What was the car?’ Diamond said, and for one uncomfortable moment he remembered he was supposed to be on the trail of a stolen blue Nissan Pathfinder.

  ‘Toyota Landcruiser,’ Halliwell said. ‘Taken the same evening from the Manvers Street car park.’

  For a moment he breathed easy. It didn’t last. ‘Right next to the nick? God help us, am I going to have to break that to Georgina?’

  ‘She may heard from someone else, guv. The owner is Pippa Peel-Bailey.’

  The name meant nothing. ‘Should I have heard of her?’

  ‘The daughter of Councillor Peel-Bailey, who is on the Police Authority.’

  He took it all in and then said, ‘Oh goody. That saves me a phone call.’

  The tension eased. There were smiles. He decided to leave it there, making clear only that Keith Halliwell remained in charge of the ram-raid investigation. But after the others had left the room, Halliwell lingered. It was obvious he had something else to get off his chest. He closed the door first.

  ‘Appreciate your support, guv,’ he said. ‘I screwed up big time.’

  ‘We all did,’ Diamond said. ‘I feel bad, too.’

  ‘Something I didn’t mention.’ Halliwell felt for his tie and loosened it. He let out a nervous breath.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’m a countryman.’

  The small hairs rose on the back of Diamond’s neck. The word ‘countryman’ has its own dread coinage in the police. Operation Countryman back in 1980 lifted the lid on police corruption in London. The supergrass whose evidence triggered the inquiry claimed that the entire Robbery Squad was bent: one third took money, one third favours and one third looked the other way.

  Halliwell must have cottoned on to his boss’s reaction, because he added at once, ‘When I say I’m a countryman, I mean I was raised on a farm. I was a farmer’s boy.’

  For one anxious second Diamond wondered if his deputy was about to cry on his shoulder.

  ‘Should have known,’ Halliwell said. ‘Just didn’t think.’

  ‘Didn’t think what? You’re not making sense, Keith.’

  ‘The words ram raid. I took it for what it is – ramming a shopfront.’

  ‘And . . . ?’

  ‘A ram is also a male sheep.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I only thought of it during the meeting when you made that remark about what they called themselves. Bit embarrassing, so I didn’t mention it in front of the others. Jacob and Romney are breeds of sheep.’

  Ingeborg brought in a packet and put it on his desk.

  ‘What’s this, then?’

  His name was on the label in large letters.

  She shrugged. ‘Don’t know, guv.’

  At least it wasn’t large enough to be another cake.

  ‘It’s already been opened. You must know what’s in there.’

  ‘That’s security. They checked it and sent me up with it.’

  ‘As long as no one’s sending me up.’ He unwrapped the loose end. ‘It doesn’t weigh much.’

  It was a brand-new mobile phone. ‘Someone’s feeling generous,’ he said in a throwaway tone, knowing for certain who had sent it. ‘I guess I’ll have to find out how to use the thing.’

  ‘Can I see?’ Ingeborg fingered the controls. ‘It’s ready to go. Someone has charged it up already and put in an SIM card.’

  ‘Is that good?’

  ‘It makes life easier.’

  ‘You mean there’s no escape?’

  ‘Do you want a quick lesson?’

  She went through it with him. His fingers were like bananas trying to use the keys.

  ‘It’s a fab little phone,’ Ingeborg said. ‘See, it’s got a vibrating function.’

  His face was a study in mystification.

  ‘When you’re in a meeting and a call comes in, it doesn’t have to ring. You feel the movement in your pocket.’

  ‘And have a coronary.’

  Ingeborg didn’t comment. She was scrolling up and down. ‘Hello, there’s a name already in your phone book.’

  His priority remained the murder of Delia Williamson. Ram raids are regrettable, but a lost life can’t be recovered. Leaving Halliwell to deal with the aftermath of last night, he drove out to Bradford on Avon.

  Amanda Williamson was at the door of the weaver’s cottage on the hill when Diamond appeared along Tory, as the little path was known. She had empty eyes and a tired stance. Anyone would after days of caring for two newly orphaned children. She told him she was about to go down into the town for some shopping. Her two granddaughters were inside in the care of her friend Meg, the young woman Diamond had met briefly on his last visit.

  He offered to go with her and she must have known it wasn’t from the goodness of his heart, but she didn’t seem dismayed, especially when he said he was better than a pack-mule at carrying bags. ‘It looks a stiff climb,’ he said. ‘I bet you feel it, coming up.’

  ‘Don’t I just.’

  He asked how the girls were adjusting and heard that they seemed to be internalising the grief. They weren’t saying much. It was no bad thing that they were living in a place new to them, and Amanda was glad she’d taken his advice and dodged the press.

  She asked how he was doing and he surprised himself by confiding that he’d met someone and been on a date for the first time since his wife had died.

  ‘Good for you,’ she said, then added, ‘It was good, I take it?’

  He gave a shy smile.

  ‘Good for her, too, then. Will you see her again?’

  ‘It’s kind of understood.’

  ‘Lovely. There’s too much grief in the world. I like to hear about anyone who makes another person happy. I’ve had my moments, too, and that’s what they’ve been – moments – but no worse for that.’ She giggled a little at some private memory. ‘And how are you doing professionally?’

  She wanted to know how the investigation was going. Too late, it clicked with him that this was what she’d meant
the first time.

  ‘Not enough progress in that department,’ he said. ‘More questions than answers.’

  ‘And you have some for me?’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’d like to know more about your daughter and Danny. I didn’t ask you about their beliefs.’

  Her gaze moved swiftly to him, checking his meaning, and then ahead to the spire of Holy Trinity. ‘Like religious beliefs?’

  ‘It’s one theory among many. People sometimes get too wrapped up in certain stuff that isn’t good for their sanity.’

  ‘The black arts?’

  ‘Or some such. Cults.’

  She gave it thought as they picked their way down the steps known as the Rope Walk. ‘I think I would have known if Delia had got into anything like that,’ she said finally. ‘She was never morbid. Too excitable, if truth be told.’

  ‘And Danny?’

  ‘He was more guarded certainly, a bit strange, even, thinking of the bats, but I wouldn’t say it was unhealthy. The natural world was what he’d studied for years. He cared about living things. I remember an incident once. We were driving along one of those lanes near Holt and a small bird flew out of the hedge and hit the car. He stopped and got out and went back to make sure it wasn’t suffering, as he said. I think he put it out of its misery. I didn’t watch. How many of us would do that?’

  They completed the descent to the centre of the small town. Her thoughts had turned to shopping. ‘I need something from the butcher’s and I always get my greengroceries in the Shambles. Is my pack-mule capable of carrying five pounds of potatoes?’

  ‘Sure is steep,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we water the old beast?’

  They picked the Dandy Lion in Market Street, a comfortable, shadowy, low-beamed place that hadn’t decided whether it was coffee shop, pub or restaurant. She had tea and he ordered a strong black coffee.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t need to. The whole of last night is written on your face,’ she said. ‘I could probably get by with three pounds of potatoes.’

  ‘I’ll be fine. I suppose your daughter never worked here?’

  ‘All her waiting jobs were in Bath.’