Peter Diamond - 09 - The Secret Hangman

by Peter Lovesey

  Then Ingeborg waved to Diamond from across the room. She’d taken details from a woman in Midford. ‘I think you should speak to this one, guv.’

  He took the phone. ‘Would you mind repeating what you just told my colleague?’

  The caller had the local accent and the slow delivery that sometimes goes with it. ‘Well, it’s about the poor soul who was found hanging in Bath, isn’t it? They just showed her picture on the television and I’m certain I know her. I’ve seen her often. She’s got a big house called Brookview Lodge, off the Midford Road, north of the village. She rides her horse around the lanes. That’s where I’ve seen her. Always nicely dressed in her riding things.’

  ‘Would you know her name?’

  ‘That’s it, my dear. I don’t. I’ve never spoken to her. But I don’t make mistakes about faces. She’s the poor lady they showed on the television, I promise you.’

  ‘Is she married?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that. She always rides out alone. The horse is chestnut, with a black mane. He’s big and handsome.’

  Another woman phoned in not long after. She, too, believed the victim was the horsewoman seen around Midford almost every day.

  Diamond called across to Ingeborg. ‘Get someone else to take over. You and I are going to check on a possible sighting.’

  Brookview Lodge took its name from Midford Brook, a misnomer for something more like a full-blown river that channels water into the Avon from its southern source in the Mendip hills. They approached by way of a narrow road through the north-facing Midford Woods where oak, beech and larch grow and nightingales were heard in recent memory. As the Ka descended, the tall-banked lane opened to a panorama of the Limpley Stoke Valley. Ingeborg spotted the sign for the lodge and swung right. A winding drive brought them to a handsome gabled building in well-weathered local stone. They drove onto a paved area at the front. A horse neighed from the outbuildings.

  ‘Poor thing could be hungry,’ Ingeborg said. ‘Shall I check?’

  ‘Later. We’re not the RSPCA. Let’s see if anyone’s in.’

  He got out and tried the doorbell. Lifted the letter-flap and saw mail inside. Tried the bell again. Walked round the side of the building. The flowerbeds were well maintained. At the rear was a large oval swimming pool. Recliners and small tables were set on the tiled surround, but there wasn’t a sense of anyone in residence today.

  He turned towards the conservatory extension that seemed to be used as an anteroom to the pool. Inside were towels on a clothes rack, more garden furniture, a rowing machine, a treadmill and a whirlpool.

  The door was unlocked. ‘I bet the inner door is locked,’ he said as they went in.

  He was right.

  ‘And I bet there’s an alarm system,’ Ingeborg said.

  ‘Let’s find out.’ He picked up a sandbox used to support a sunshade. It was good and heavy. He swung it at the door. The door stayed firm, but the alarm went off. ‘You’re right.’

  He tried again.

  Ingeborg said, ‘Guv, should we be doing this?’

  At the third attempt the box ripped through the bolt mechanism.

  He stepped inside, through a living room and across a large entrance hall. ‘Find the control panel and switch that bloody thing off.’

  The place had the feel of somewhere that hadn’t seen anyone for most of the week. He felt inside the wire basket containing the mail.

  The names on the envelopes told him what he’d feared. More than one person lived here. Martin and Jocelyn Steel. The man had letters from the Law Society and other legal organisations. Probably a solicitor.

  Ingeborg silenced the alarm and came from the back of the house to join him. He showed her the letters.

  ‘A man as well? That’s not what we wanted to find, guv.’

  ‘What’s through there?’

  ‘The kitchen, I think.’

  They went through. The smell was not nice. Ingeborg found two trout on the work surface wrapped in tinfoil. They reeked. ‘Their supper, I suppose. Look, there are potatoes waiting to boil in the saucepan.’

  ‘It doesn’t suggest to me that Jocelyn Steel was planning to hang herself.’

  A door from the laundry room connected to the double garage. Two cars were in there, the ‘his’ and ‘hers’ it seemed, a silver Porsche Cayenne Turbo and a red Mini Cooper.

  He checked the answerphone. Nine messages, the first on Sunday morning. Four from the same person, who called herself Mummy. By the fourth, she was getting frantic and said so. ‘Are you all right? I keep trying. You didn’t say you were going away or anything. Darling, please call me, however late you get in.’

  Diamond sighed. ‘Someone had better break it to Mummy.’ He would do it himself. He didn’t wish every unpleasant duty on his subordinates.

  Of the other calls, one was from someone called Agnes, who sounded like Jocelyn’s friend and addressed her as Joss. Two were from Dawn, a younger-sounding voice with the soft West Country accent. At the second try she said she was bothered about Prince and she wouldn’t mind getting him out and riding him.

  ‘The horse,’ Ingeborg said.

  ‘There was I thinking Prince Harry.’

  The other calls were from South-West Gas, to arrange a service of the central heating; and the library, because a book Mr Steel had ordered had come in.

  He used the phone to arrange with Leaman for a forensic team to come out. ‘I’m ninety-nine per cent sure we’ve found the right place. Is Keith back from the autopsy yet?’

  ‘He just got in.’

  ‘Tell him he’s needed here.’

  ‘Do you want me as well, guv?’ Leaman asked.

  ‘No. Someone has to keep taking the calls.’ To Ingeborg he said, ‘Let’s go upstairs.’

  She said, ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  ‘Ingeborg.’

  ‘Guv?’

  ‘I do the jokes.’

  The Steels shared a bedroom and it was clearly important in their lives, with a kingsize bed fitted into a wall unit with an array of soft toys, books, CDs and ornaments. A plasma TV and sound system were on the opposite wall. The white quilt on the bed was doubled back. There were wine glasses on the bedside tables, each with a tidemark of red wine.

  ‘Doesn’t look to me as if they were fighting,’ Diamond said.

  ‘Guv.’

  Ingeborg had found a framed wedding photo. Beyond doubt the bride was the woman found hanging in Royal Victoria Park.

  32

  The doorbell chimed.

  ‘Too soon to be Halliwell or forensics,’ Diamond said. From the bedroom window all he could see on the front drive was Ingeborg’s Ka. ‘See who it is.’

  He picked up the wedding picture and studied the groom, a tall, slim figure in a morning suit. It was helpful that Martin Steel was holding the grey topper, not wearing it. He hadn’t much hair on top, a distinct point of recognition, and there were silver streaks in the sideburns. Some years older than his bride, by the look of him. The thought crossed Diamond’s mind that this might even be Jocelyn’s father, but he dismissed it just as quickly; the place for that picture wasn’t in the bedroom.

  ‘Guv, would you mind coming down?’

  ‘On my way.’ First he removed the photo from its frame and slipped it into his pocket.

  Standing in the hall with Ingeborg was a girl of school age, probably not more than fourteen. She was in T-shirt and jeans. A stud in her nose and coloured stripes in her hair.

  ‘This is Dawn, the stable girl. She looks after the horse twice a day.’

  ‘Good for her.’ He smiled at the girl. ‘Better for the horse.’

  There wasn’t a flicker of amusement.

  ‘She saw my car and called to see who we are.’

  ‘Sensible,’ he said, thinking a word of praise was no bad thing. He hoped this wasn’t one of those sullen teenagers. ‘Well, young lady, I expect Ingeborg has told you we’re detectives. You work for Mr and Mrs Steel, then? Have you seen them
lately?’

  ‘Saturday,’ Dawn said. ‘Mrs Steel, not him. Her name is Joss, but I call her Mrs Steel.’ She had that youthful habit of ending statements on a rising note, making them sound like questions. Fair enough. She was communicating, giving the answers and volunteering information as well. Kids aren’t all bad.

  ‘Saturday? That’s three days ago.’

  ‘He’s all right, except he hates being locked up all day.’

  Diamond wondered for a moment if he’d got this case all wrong. Then the penny dropped. ‘You’re talking about the horse?’

  She nodded. ‘Three days is too much. He needs to get out.’

  ‘Between you and me, Dawn, we’re interested in the people.’

  ‘Why – has something happened to them?’

  ‘We’re trying to find out. They haven’t been seen by anybody for a couple of days.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s weird. She always tells me if they go away. Then I get to ride Prince. He needs riding every day. She hasn’t taken him out on the roads since Saturday. I can tell by the state of his hooves.’

  ‘Does anyone call at the house? A cleaner, perhaps?’

  ‘Lady in a van. Tidy House Services. It isn’t always the same lady. They come Thursday.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘The gardener, Ted. He does Wednesday.’

  ‘Is he local?’

  ‘Just up the lane, cottage with the gnome in the front fishing in the pond.’

  ‘Ted who?’

  ‘Hawkins. Something like that.’

  ‘No one else? No strangers – apart from us? This is important, Dawn. You may be our only witness.’

  She pulled a face at that. ‘You’ve got to be joking. I’m not a witness. I’m mucking out and grooming and feeding, aren’t I? I don’t stand about looking to see who calls.’

  ‘You’re certain you saw no one?’

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘Fair enough. There are no other regular visitors than you and the gardener, then?’

  She hesitated and fiddled with her hair. ‘Don’t know if I should be telling you this. Sometimes when I come Fridays there’s a posh car outside. Belongs to this bloke in his twenties. Quite a hunk, he is. He leaves about five.’

  ‘You don’t know who he is?’

  ‘I’ve never spoken to him.’

  ‘A friend of Mrs Steel’s, would you say?’

  She gave a coy smile.

  ‘But he only comes Fridays?’ Diamond said.

  ‘That’s when I see’d him.’

  ‘So he won’t have called yet this week. He’s not from the village?’

  ‘I’d know if he was, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  She sighed and drew her arms across her chest, worried that she might have put her job at risk, and Diamond knew he wasn’t going to get much of a description. ‘There’s nothing special.’

  ‘What colour’s his hair?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘If you’ve seen him, you must know.’

  ‘It’s too short to tell.’

  ‘A skinhead?’

  ‘Almost.’

  ‘Is he big, would you say?’

  ‘Not really, except for his shoulders. Look, I don’t know if I was meant to see him.’

  ‘What’s the car like?’

  ‘I told you, posh. I don’t know nothing about cars.’

  ‘Not a sports car?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Colour?’

  ‘Silver.’

  ‘Was he here last Friday?’

  ‘He was leaving as I come up the drive.’

  ‘So those are the callers,’ he summed up. ‘The cleaners, the gardener and the young guy in the silver car? They each have their special days, but you come twice a day all week?’

  ‘I don’t mind. He’s awesome.’

  ‘Who? Ah, you’re on about that horse again? And quite right, too. You’d better keep coming and see that he gets his exercise. You can get back to him now. Is there a paddock he can run around?’

  Dawn didn’t think much of Diamond’s ideas on horse management. ‘I wouldn’t let him out after being stabled so long. He’d get all excited. He could damage hisself.’

  ‘What’s to be done with him, then? It won’t get dark for another hour and a half. Take him for a ride.’

  ‘Cool.’ But still she hesitated. ‘Do you think she’ll mind? Mrs Steel, I mean.’

  ‘Take it from me,’ he said. ‘She won’t mind.’

  The forensic team arrived with Halliwell not far behind them. They came in a customised white van with Safeguard and Search written on the side.

  ‘Another civilian outfit,’ Diamond said to Ingeborg. ‘Everything is being privatised. One of these days you and I will have a little advert in the Yellow Pages. Mark my words.’

  But it soon emerged that the Safeguard and Search people were ex-police officers who knew their job. He gave them the background and they brought out their equipment and started checking for traces of recent visitors, starting with himself and Ingeborg. Shoes and fingers. He owned up to breaking in. The senior man said there were no indications of another break-in, so it had to be assumed that the abductor had a key, or was admitted by one of the victims.

  ‘In which case, he may have been known to them,’ Diamond said.

  ‘That can’t be discounted.’

  One early discovery was a noticeboard with some contact numbers and addresses, among them one poignantly listed as Mum. Joss Steel’s mother lived only ten minutes away, in a retirement home at Monkton Combe. People were occupied with their jobs in Brookview Lodge. Diamond could safely leave them for a short while.

  Later, in the room overlooking the pool, the murder squad touched base. After looking around for somewhere to sit, Diamond touched his own base on a gym machine looking like a futuristic throne. ‘Is this thing safe, would you say? It’s not going to launch me into outer space?’

  Ingeborg said, ‘It’s for exercising the abs. You’re in no danger.’

  She and Halliwell, both lightweights, sat on chairs from the poolside.

  Diamond said, ‘These are the facts. There’s no sign anywhere of a struggle. It’s obvious they weren’t held here for any time. That half-prepared meal in the kitchen shows they were interrupted late afternoon, early evening. The stable girl saw Jocelyn Steel on Saturday and the phone messages start Sunday, so we can assume this happened late Saturday. The killer calls and someone admits him.’

  ‘Someone known to them,’ Halliwell said.

  ‘Unless he points a firearm. They did as they were told.’

  ‘They could have gone willingly if they trusted him,’ Ingeborg said. ‘He may not have needed a weapon.’

  ‘I doubt that. They were preparing a meal. They stop everything and go off with him. I sense some compulsion here.’

  ‘You’re assuming both of them were present,’ Halliwell said. ‘He could have taken them separately.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, if the man – what’s his name?’

  ‘Martin Steel.’

  ‘If he was doing something outside, say, in the garden. It’s Saturday. He’s at home, catching up on jobs. He gets taken first, tied up presumably, and taken to the getaway vehicle. Then our killer walks into the house and attends to the woman.’

  Ingeborg said, ‘What do you mean – rapes her?’

  Diamond shook his head. ‘There’s no evidence any of these were sex crimes.’

  ‘What I meant,’ Halliwell said, ‘is that he takes her to his vehicle – car, van or whatever – and drives off with the pair of them trussed up.’

  ‘That would make it easier for our suspect to cope,’ Diamond said. ‘Could he have planned it like that, knowing the man would be outside?’

  ‘Doubtful.’

  ‘If the motive isn’t sex,’ Ingeborg said, ‘why is he doing this? There’s no profit in kidnapping unless you demand a ransom, and he doesn’t. He just murders them.
It’s like some perverted power game.’

  ‘It’s no game,’ Diamond said.

  ‘He’s taking big risks,’ Halliwell said. ‘Does he want to get caught? Deep down, I mean.’

  Diamond rolled his eyes. He’d never had much truck with psychology. ‘There’s a pattern to all this, I’ll give you that. It has to be done in a certain way that involves hanging them up, even if they’re dead already. They must be left hanging – and in a place where people can see them.’

  ‘Sick.’

  ‘We agree on that, but where does it take us, Keith? What’s behind this?’

  Halliwell dug deep for an explanation. He pursed his lips and half closed his eyes. Then a look of revulsion passed across his face. ‘No, that’s too horrible.’

  ‘Go on,’ Ingeborg said.

  ‘I was thinking if it wasn’t one killer at all. If there was some secret society and the way to join it is to murder a couple and hang them up like that.’

  ‘That’s a bit extreme,’ Ingeborg said.

  ‘So is hanging people,’ Diamond said. ‘We’re in extreme territory here. I’m listening to any suggestions.’

  Ingeborg said, ‘Let me get this straight. Keith is saying it isn’t one killer. It’s three. Every time a couple is murdered it’s someone else earning his pass to this secret society. Come off it, guys. There aren’t that many crazy, evil killers in the whole of Britain, let alone Bath.’

  ‘It only takes one dominant figure,’ Halliwell said. ‘He sets the agenda and influences his disciples. How about Charles Manson, that Californian hippie who had the so-called family and sent them out in squads to kill? His people were women as well as men. It’s happened before and it could happen here.’

  ‘That’s not what you were saying just now,’ Ingeborg said. ‘You were talking about initiation rites.’ She liked precision, did Ingeborg.

  Halliwell wriggled a little under her scrutiny. ‘No two cases are the same. The point is that suggestible people can be brainwashed into doing horrible things.’

  Diamond said, ‘If you’re right, forensics are wasting their time trying to compare DNA and fingerprints. They’ll get a different set at each scene.’