Peter Diamond - 09 - The Secret Hangman

by Peter Lovesey

  The dead woman was hanging on white plastic cord from the centre crosspiece of the right-hand arch. Framed by the massive pillars she appeared child-like in size. She was clothed in a pink sweater and white jeans and was without shoes. Because of the twist of the head, forced outwards by the cord, her dark, almost black, hair, covered most of her face.

  ‘And you are . . . ?’

  Diamond found himself addressed by a man in a white paper suit.

  ‘Diamond, CID. Who are you?’

  ‘Diamond.’ He was writing the name on a clipboard. ‘Rank?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear? I asked you a question.’

  ‘Gledhill, scene manager.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m a detective superintendent.’

  Gledhill wrote it. ‘The SIO, I take it?’

  ‘You can take it, yes. And you’re a civilian?’

  ‘A professional crime scene investigator.’

  ‘Not one of us, then.’

  ‘Does that make any difference to you, superintendent?’

  ‘Just getting it clear in my mind.’ These jobs were often contracted out. Privatisation had become a feature of crime investigation. There were companies equipped to do all the forensic jobs, and presumably Georgina or someone from the nick had called in Gledhill’s lot at an early stage. ‘So what can you tell me?’

  ‘About the body?’

  ‘I wasn’t asking how you spent your holidays.’

  Gledhill didn’t know it, but this irritability had a lot to do with Diamond’s guilt about getting here late.

  ‘The call came in at six twenty this morning. She was spotted by the driver of a milk-float. A response car got here at six forty or thereabouts and I may as well tell you they contaminated the scene trying to see if she was still alive, which she plainly was not. We were contacted at seven twenty-five and our arrival was logged at eight ten, more than an hour ago. I assumed CID would be here before this.’

  It was like a reprimand and it struck home. Diamond counterpunched. ‘You can assume what you like, Sunny Jim. What have you done in all this time? Why isn’t the corpse screened off? She’s entitled to some respect.’

  ‘Our equipment isn’t geared to this sort of situation. You’d need screens three metres tall.’

  ‘Rig up some plastic sheeting. Tie a rope between that lamppost and the tree. You do have plastic sheeting?’

  ‘I believe so, but by the time we get it in place—’

  ‘It will be needed. Has anyone told you this is number five in a series of suspicious hangings in this area? Obviously not. You’re going to be here some time. Has the pathologist been called?’

  Gledhill nodded. ‘He’s on his way. And the forensic physician came by and certified death before you arrived.’

  ‘Who did you get?’

  ‘The pathologist? Dr Sealy.’

  ‘You’ve made my day. Is there anything to tell us the identity of the body?’

  ‘Too soon. There was nothing in her pockets. No note.’

  ‘You’ve searched the area for a bag, I expect?’

  ‘Without success. We thought her shoes might be recovered, but we haven’t found them.’

  Diamond relented a little. Gledhill and his team had not been entirely inactive. ‘Do you have a paper suit my size? I’d like a close look.’

  Kitted out, and with Halliwell in support, he approached using the access path Gledhill showed him. That body looked pathetically frail.

  The photographer had left a folding set of steps. Before mounting them Diamond examined the hands and feet. The toenails were painted and undamaged, the soles clean. She hadn’t walked here without shoes.

  The woman was suspended about a metre clear of the ground on the white cord or cable the thickness of a pencil, like the sort used for clothes-lines – similar to the cord found on the other bodies he’d seen. He looked up to where it was lashed to the stone crossbeam using the eye of a bowline knot. Then he mounted the steps and examined the ligature. He didn’t care to look at the face at this stage.

  The cord was tight around the neck, making a deep indentation. There would be no giveaway secondary mark.

  ‘What do you know?’ he said to himself. ‘It’s another slip knot.’

  30

  ‘Where are the media?’ he asked Gledhill.

  ‘Who do you mean – the Chronicle ?’

  ‘Radio, TV, press. They should be here by now.’

  ‘That’s up to them. Press relations aren’t my concern.’

  Diamond turned to his ever-reliable second-in-command. ‘Keith, this has got to have publicity. We need to know the identity of this woman as soon as possible. Make some calls.’

  Gledhill stopped being indifferent. ‘Is that necessary? I don’t want television crews tramping all over the scene. They’ll find us soon enough.’

  ‘Did you look at the left hand?’

  ‘Of the deceased? Not specially.’

  ‘There’s the mark of a ring there.’

  ‘A wedding ring?’

  Diamond gave him a how-would-I-know look. ‘It’s just the mark, but it’s the third finger of the left hand. The chance is high that she was married. If this follows the pattern of the other hangings, the husband is due to die next, and soon. As of now I don’t have a clue who he is.’

  Gledhill leaned closer, as if he hadn’t heard right. ‘Do you think somebody is murdering couples?’

  ‘I’d put it more strongly. I’d use the word “executing”.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘If I knew that, we wouldn’t be here.’

  The crime scene people improvised some screening as Diamond had suggested, using plastic sheeting draped over lengths of cord.

  Bertram Sealy arrived and said with a stupid grin to Diamond that they couldn’t go on meeting like this. The usual banter between pathologists and police didn’t sit well, not when Sealy was making the quips.

  ‘Where’s the gorgeous Ingeborg this morning?’ Sealy went on. ‘I could do with her support on the steps.’

  ‘Get a life, Doctor.’

  Gledhill produced another paper suit and Sealy went to work without assistance, speaking into his tape-recorder.

  Halliwell was through to the BBC news room in Bristol.

  ‘Tell them I’m briefing the press as soon as they get here and it’s a big story,’ Diamond said. ‘The same to ITN and the papers.’

  He stepped outside the plastic sheeting and was pleased to find that most of the onlookers had gone. He tried picturing what had happened, the killer arriving with his victim, by car almost certainly. If the MO was the same as before, she was dead already. The object was to arrange a fake hanging. Anyone would think she died on the end of a rope. Not so. She was on show, dangling there, because this was how the killer wanted it to appear.

  In the small hours of the morning this part of the city, set back from Marlborough Lane, well north of the main artery, the Upper Bristol Road, would have been quiet. The killer had thought this through. He’d backed his vehicle right up to the arch on the broad pavement without fear of being seen. Even if the occasional car passed, he wasn’t conspicuous and the tyres hadn’t left a mark on the stone surface. He’d slung the end of his plastic washing-line over the crossbeam and made it secure. Did he stand on the roof of his vehicle to do it? If that were the case, did he have a van, or a four-by-four or a saloon? A man in the business of rigging up gallows would surely have worked out the most convenient transport.

  Then came the more risky part of removing the corpse from the interior and tying the cord round the neck. He’d judged how high the noose had to be. He must have. It was calculated so that the body would swing. He’d positioned her on the roof, or the boot, or the bonnet, and then driven away and left her suspended.

  This all required planning. It was likely he’d done a dummy run to assess the task. But why go to all that trouble? Why take the risk of discovery? Most murderers go to great lengths to conceal their victims. They don’t se
ek to display them.

  Pondering these questions, Diamond returned inside the enclosure. Dr Sealy had stepped down – unaided – and was ready to report the preliminary findings.

  ‘A woman under forty, I’d say, but not much under. Slimly built, about five six in height. No shoes, otherwise dressed casually. Manicured hands and feet. Nothing in the state of the nails to indicate a struggle. The undersides of the feet are clean, suggesting she was transported here. No obvious wounds.’

  ‘Did you take the temperature?’ Diamond asked.

  ‘Nasally, yes. And before you ask, the temperature doesn’t tell us much. There are too many variables. My first impression is that she was dead before she was brought here. I’m assuming she was brought here. If this were suicide we’d have a chair or something at the scene, something she’d stepped off. It’s true that the pillars have a base with a ledge of sorts, but too low down to have supported the feet. The noose is interesting, tight round the neck and tied with a slip knot.’

  ‘Which we saw up at the viaduct,’ Diamond said.

  ‘Yes,’ Sealy said in the surprised tone of a schoolmaster getting the right answer out of the class idiot, ‘but I’m trying to consider this incident in isolation. As I say, a slip knot, so tight that it would probably have throttled her if she had been alive. Before she was suspended, I mean. Quite what it conceals, if anything, I won’t know until after autopsy.’

  ‘You’ll do that today?’

  ‘That’s my firm intention.’

  ‘I’d like more photos of the face, for recognition. Can we draw the hair aside?’

  ‘If the man with the clipboard allows.’

  Gledhill nodded, and Diamond called for the photographer.

  The victim’s eyes were closed, the mouth open a little, but not sagging. There’s a question of taste about showing the faces of murder victims in the press and on television. Some picture editors are reluctant to challenge old taboos. It was essential that this woman was recognised as soon as possible. If the ligature was cropped from the picture there was nothing repulsive in her appearance.

  The photographer took about twenty shots with the hair drawn back from the face. ‘Good-looking woman . . . considering,’ he said.

  ‘Is that digital?’ Diamond asked. ‘Can we go on line with it immediately?’

  ‘As soon as you like. Do you want some with the eyes open?’

  ‘No.’ He’d seen what Delia Williamson’s eyes were like after being strangled. It wouldn’t assist recognition. ‘The press will be here shortly.’

  ‘You can pick out the shot you want. Scan through them now.’

  They were not offensive. The best were taken at an angle, eliminating the skewed effect of the head against the cord. He chose two, full-face and half-profile.

  Halliwell informed him that the first reporter had arrived. ‘Are you going to link this to the other hangings, guv?’

  ‘That’s the plan. Do you have a problem with it?’

  ‘They’ll go to town on it. A serial killer at large.’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’

  ‘I was wondering if you need to clear it with headquarters, the ACC, or someone.’

  ‘I’m running this inquiry, Keith. Georgina wanted it shelved.

  She’s more interested in protecting shop windows.’

  ‘Yes, but I thought I’d mention it.’

  ‘And you have. Where’s the best place to meet the press? Across the road by the other arch?’

  Halliwell was right. Georgina would go ballistic when she saw on television that a serial hangman was at work in Bath and she hadn’t been informed. Press relations are a minefield for the police. Elaborate procedures are laid down. Every statement is supposed to be rubber-stamped.

  Diamond didn’t give a toss. Another life was at stake and there wasn’t time for consultation. He wanted headlines tonight.

  Bertram Sealy approached him again. ‘So who wants a front seat at the autopsy?’

  31

  The entire murder squad stayed late that evening in hope that someone would call and say they recognised the dead woman. The Bath Chronicle was on the streets by mid-afternoon and, as Diamond had predicted, the hanging in the park was the headline story. The regional TV news would go out at six.

  About four thirty, when nothing had come in except calls from attention seekers, Leaman said, ‘Could mean she isn’t local. The killer could have brought the body in from miles away.’

  ‘Thanks for that, John,’ Diamond said. ‘I can always rely on you to cheer us up.’

  ‘The others were local,’ Ingeborg said.

  ‘But is there a local connection?’ Leaman said. ‘We haven’t found one yet.’

  ‘Keep going,’ Diamond said. ‘I’m hurting.’

  ‘Anyway, the nationals will carry the picture tomorrow,’ Ingeborg said. ‘It’s big news.’

  Leaman said, ‘So if we don’t hear anything in the next hour, do we all go home and wait for tomorrow’s papers?’

  Next time, cleverclogs, Diamond thought, you can sit in on the autopsy instead of Keith Halliwell, who always does it. Some blood and guts might take the smile off your face.

  His personal phone buzzed, but it was only Georgina’s PA. The ACC wanted to see him as a matter of urgency.

  He said, ‘That’s all I need. Would you inform the ACC I’ve got a matter of urgency down here?’

  ‘I think she knows all about that, Mr Diamond.’

  ‘I’m for the high jump, am I?’

  ‘The pole vault, I would say.’

  ‘Better show my face, then?’

  ‘I strongly advise it.’

  He told Leaman where he was going. ‘But I’m not doing fifteen rounds with Georgina. Give me ten minutes, max, and then call her office and say it’s all happening and you need me, right?

  Don’t let me down.’

  On the way upstairs he rehearsed his explanation. He would say – and it was true – that time was running out. He needed to identify the latest victim and his only chance had been to break the story without delay. He would add – and it was less true – that he’d fully intended to report what was happening at the first opportunity.

  Georgina didn’t give him the chance. She’d rehearsed her piece, too, and came at him with all guns blazing. He’d heard most of it after previous insubordinations, so he fixed his gaze on the wall behind her and thought about other things. Finally the tirade stopped. Georgina said, ‘Have you been listening? Have you heard one word of what I was saying?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘You have this bumptious look on your face as if your mind is on higher things. Why don’t you look me in the eye when I’m talking to you? What is it you find so riveting on the wall behind me?’

  ‘The picture of Her Majesty the Queen, ma’am.’

  The phone went. It needed to be Leaman.

  She snatched it up. ‘What is it?’

  He waited.

  Georgina eyed him like a caged lioness. ‘You’d better return to your team. They seem to think there’s been a development.’

  The only development was that DC Gilbert had arrived with a tray of tea.

  ‘I can do with that,’ Diamond said.

  ‘No chance of cake, guv?’ Leaman said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We were thinking the ACC might have baked you another chocolate cake.’

  ‘Another? That wasn’t from upstairs. Get real, John.’

  ‘Did you ever find out who sent it?’

  ‘Not Georgina.’

  ‘She’s a cracking good cook, whoever she is.’

  Ingeborg said, ‘Leave it, John.’ She’d seen the danger signals. Leaman had touched a raw nerve. Paloma’s cake wasn’t the delicious memory for Diamond that it was for everyone else. Maybe he should have been flattered that she had gone to so much trouble to get him interested, but it unsettled him instead. He’d been happier thinking he’d made the main moves in their coming together. It shou
ldn’t matter. He still fancied her like mad. She was witty and intelligent and she seemed to think he was good in bed, which any man likes to be told. Go with the flow, he told himself. At your age you don’t expect to have women running after you.

  A call from the mortuary jerked him back to the world of work. Keith Halliwell was reporting on the autopsy. ‘Dr Sealy reckons she was strangled with a ligature, the same as Delia Williamson. It wasn’t so obvious this time, and the slip knot masked it, but the signs are there, he says.’

  ‘She was dead when she was strung up? The same MO?’

  ‘He’s sure of it.’

  ‘Did she put up a fight?’

  ‘There were no indications. Maybe he got her drunk, or drugged. The blood tests will take a while.’

  ‘Anything else I should know about?’

  ‘She was sexually experienced, but you’d expect that at her age.’

  ‘Which was what?’

  ‘Round about forty. She’d had a pregnancy at some stage. She also had an appendix scar.’

  ‘Good man. How’s your stomach?’

  ‘Fine.’ He added with a hint that ‘fine’ didn’t mean he did this duty willingly, ‘This wasn’t my first time.’

  Diamond was unrepentant. ‘See you shortly, then.’

  ‘There was one other thing,’ Halliwell said. ‘It was rather peculiar. Dr Sealy noticed some particles that fell out of her hair. He said they were grains of sugar.’

  ‘What – household sugar?’

  ‘Yes. He was so sure of it that he tasted one.’

  ‘Rather him than me. Why would she have sugar in her hair? Some kind of shampoo?’

  ‘He doesn’t think so. Sugar would dissolve, wouldn’t it? His theory is that there may have been some spilt in the vehicle used to move the body and her head came into contact with it.’

  ‘So we’re looking for a Tate and Lyle driver?’

  ‘My feeling is that we could waste time on this, guv.’

  ‘You’re probably right. This is going to be a long evening anyway.’

  The phones took over. Local television had just screened the picture of the dead woman and given the police number. The first few calls were duds. One of the hazards of releasing a picture is that you hear from people who want to be helpful and aren’t. They convince themselves it’s someone they saw yesterday, or once knew.