The Secret Hangman pd-9

by Peter Lovesey

  Leaman was drowning in a virtual jacuzzi.

  Diamond took over. ‘Let’s get this right. You lay down the cord in the shape of a circle at the place where the bath will be installed?’

  ‘To show the client how much room it will take.’

  ‘And the cord is pre-cut to the two sizes?’

  ‘You could try it here, but you wouldn’t have room for a whirlpool, and why would you want one in an interview room?’

  ‘Take a wild guess,’ Diamond said.

  Clive the computer expert was waiting when they emerged in their deflated state. Clive had better news, but it was short-lived. He’d cracked Monnington’s password and the files were accessible.

  ‘There’s masses of stuff about plumbing and water pressures and ceramic tiles.’

  ‘E-mails?’ Diamond said.

  ‘Not many. He’s a deleter.’

  ‘Is that bad?’

  ‘It doesn’t help you much.’

  But the incident room was buzzing when he returned there with Leaman. A call had come in from Express Fit, a vehicle service centre on the Upper Bristol Road. The CAD room had received what they described as a garbled phone message about twenty minutes ago and the caller seemed to be in some distress.

  ‘He gave his name,’ Ingeborg said, ‘and the woman at the garage — she’s an office cleaner who picked up the phone — said it was very faint, but it sounded like Marcus Teal.’

  ‘Martin Steel?’

  ‘That’s what we’re thinking.’

  ‘He’s alive? What did he say?’

  ‘He kept repeating, “Help me.” She asked him to speak up and he couldn’t. She asked where he was and he said he didn’t know, except somewhere near Bath. She thought he said he was tied up and lying on the floor.’

  ‘This has got to be Steel. Has the call been traced?’

  ‘They’re trying. It’s not so simple.’

  ‘Why not? Did you tell them it’s life and death?’

  ‘It’s automated. Long-distance calls are logged, but local calls are not. They can’t retrieve them so easily. Something to do with the billing system. They’re doing all they can.’

  ‘Oh, great! Was there anything else he said? You got it all down?’

  ‘I spoke to the cleaner myself and went through it twice.’

  ‘Why would he call a garage?’

  ‘We’re thinking certain numbers were keyed into the phone and he managed to press the button that called Express Fit. If he’s tied up he may have touched the button with his foot.’

  ‘So we have a phone that is pre-set to call this garage. Could be private, or some office. We need a printout of all the Express Fit customers.’

  ‘I’ve asked for it. Someone is coming in specially. They’re closed, you see. He was lucky the cleaner picked up the phone.’

  ‘He needs more luck than that.’

  He returned to his office and called Paloma on the mobile. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ll have to cancel tonight. Things are happening here.’

  ‘Good things?’ she said.

  ‘Not really. I can see myself spending the night here.’

  ‘Peter, that’s awful.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘For you, I mean. You looked tired when I saw you. Couldn’t you call it a night and go back refreshed in the morning?’

  ‘No, there’s too much stuff going on.’

  ‘About those ram raids? It’s only property.’

  ‘No, the other thing.’

  ‘The hangings?’ She hesitated. ‘Has there been another one?’

  ‘Not yet, but there could be.’

  ‘Ghastly. What sort of monster…? Forgive me, I’m not helping. Listen, I know you’ll say it’s a silly thing to do, but before I go up to bed I’m going to leave my front-door key under the mat just in case you do sort everything out. You can let yourself in at any time.’

  ‘That’s not a wise thing to do.’

  ‘That’s the policeman talking, not the man I know.’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘It’s a deal, then. Promise?’

  ‘Paloma, I can’t promise anything.’

  But if he needed an extra incentive to finish the job he had one now.

  *

  Paloma was right. He was dog tired. He wished she hadn’t said it, because he felt more woolly-minded than ever. His brain was trying to pick up on something said during the questioning of Monnington, some detail that had been passed by. The harder he tried to grasp whatever it was, the more it eluded him.

  ‘I want to listen to the tape of that interview,’ he said to Leaman.

  ‘Rubbing my nose in it, guv?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I really thought we’d got him. I couldn’t see any other explanation for those bloody lengths of plastic.’

  ‘Nor me.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Leaman said. ‘I’ve done the sums now. The two cords from his car make circles just the size he says. And the laptop hasn’t given us a single name we know. It’s a lost cause. Shouldn’t we let him go?’

  ‘Fetch the tape. I want to hear it.’

  In the incident room a few minutes later they ran the interview. Leaman, Ingeborg and Paul Gilbert huddled with Diamond over the machine. They were alert for Monnington’s responses, but Diamond had a curious feeling it was something Leaman had said that was significant.

  After a couple of minutes, he said, ‘Stop it. Now play that sentence again.’

  ‘That was me, not Monnington,’ Leaman said.

  ‘Play it.’

  Leaman’s voice came over: The thing is, all these people were found in Bath. That’s one common factor.

  He nodded. ‘Common factor. That’s the cue. Now go back a bit further, to where Monnington was telling us about the kinds of people he targeted as customers.’

  Leaman pressed the rewind. Now it was Monnington’s voice: All I remember is that they fitted the profile of our customers. High-flyers, professional people, singles or couples, generally with no kids.

  Diamond snapped his fingers. ‘Stop there.’ The adrenalin rush was starting and his brain was making connections. ‘He’s talking about the Steels, right? Equally, he could have been talking about the Twinings.’

  ‘Except he claims not to have heard of the Twinings,’ Leaman said.

  ‘That’s not the point. Forget Monnington for a moment. Think of our victims and the common factor.’

  ‘But they weren’t all his customers.’ Leaman’s logical mind couldn’t follow Diamond’s free association of ideas.

  ‘I said forget him. It’s what he said. Professional people, singles or couples, generally with no kids.’

  Next Ingeborg sounded sceptical. ‘That may be true of the Steels and the Twinings, but Delia Williamson wasn’t a high-flyer. She was working as a waitress.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Paul Gilbert said, ‘but don’t forget she lived with that muso in a big house in Walcot.’

  ‘He wasn’t the one who was killed,’ Ingeborg pointed out. ‘It was Danny Geaves, her ex, and he can’t be described as a professional. What’s more, she had two kids by him, so that doesn’t fit the profile either.’

  Diamond nodded. ‘Two little girls.’ But he wasn’t shaken. His thoughts were slotting into place. ‘I’m trying to remember stuff. I need to look at some witness statements. Can we get them up on the computer?’

  ‘No problem,’ Leaman said, ever ready to showcase his efficiency. ‘Who, in particular?’

  ‘Let’s start with that skiving teacher you and I met in the George.’

  ‘Harold Twining? He’s on file for sure. I logged everything he said.’

  ‘Find the bit about children — the children they didn’t have.’

  Leaman used the mouse to bring up the report he’d written. ‘He mentioned it several times. Here’s what he told us, the exact words: No kids, no ties, not even a budgie to look after.’

  ‘I remember him saying that.’

  ‘Then he comments on wha
t the coroner said. He said if they’d had children, or even a dependent relative, they might have felt their lives had more purpose. Then you asked if they wanted a child and couldn’t have one and he said — these were his actual words — Another misguided theory. She had a baby stopped a year after they married. They slipped up.’

  ‘Right. Christine Twining had an abortion.’ Diamond’s gaze shifted swiftly from the screen to his team. ‘And so did Jocelyn Steel. Now who told us that?’

  Paul Gilbert said at once, ‘The friend, Agnes Tidmarsh. I took down the witness statement. May I?’ He brought up another document on the screen and scanned rapidly to the sentence: ‘… a couple of years before they moved down here she had a termination. She was in that high-pressure government job and it wasn’t the right time. Neither of them was ready for a family then. She kept it quiet from everyone, including her mother.’

  ‘That’s two couples out of three,’ Diamond said. ‘Now, am I dreaming this, or did Amanda Williamson tell us her daughter had an abortion at some stage? Bring up the file.’

  Gilbert returned to the list of files. ‘Williamson, Amanda? I don’t see it here, guv.’

  ‘Where the hell is it, then?’

  ‘Is the name exactly right?’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘Well, who would have typed up the statement?’ Leaman asked.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Diamond said, his patience snapping. ‘I can’t remember every bloody thing. Who was with me that morning in Bradford on Avon?’

  Nobody spoke.

  He thought hard, gave a deep sigh, and said, ‘I was alone.’ As the full catastrophe dawned on him, he said, ‘Oh, buggery.’

  Furious with himself, he sank his face into his hands and muttered more obscenities.

  The rest of them were silent. Nobody knew what to say.

  He struggled to recall the interview, but so much had happened since. He could picture the scene, seated on the bench in Amanda Williamson’s small garden overlooking the town, but the words she’d spoken eluded him. He could visualise it all with ease: the church spire, the cars crossing the old town bridge with its quaint lock-up, the landscape stretching right across to Westbury. Then another detail came back to him: the tape-recorder on the bench between them.

  He’d taped the conversation.

  ‘Wait.’ He got up and went to his office. The recorder was there on his desk half buried under all the other clutter. He brought the thing back in triumph and declared that he’d meant to ask one of them to transcribe the interview. In a moment they were listening to Amanda Williamson’s voice. He fast-forwarded and picked up his own voice asking, So what went wrong? Why did they split up?

  Amanda answered, Who can tell what goes wrong in a relationship except the people involved? I made a point of not interfering.

  He fast-forwarded a little, and she was saying, She went through a bad patch, needed lifting emotionally, and Danny didn’t see it, or was too busy to notice. He was doing all the caring for the girls.

  He switched off. ‘What does that mean — “a bad patch”?’

  ‘Depression, obviously,’ Ingeborg said. ‘Can we hear some more? Does she say what caused it?’

  ‘That’s as much as I got,’ he was forced to admit.

  ‘It’s not what you said, guv. Amanda doesn’t mention her daughter having an abortion.’

  He refused to be downed. ‘But it crossed my mind at the time. I could sense she was holding back. Do we have her phone number?’

  ‘It’s here on file with all the other contact numbers,’ Gilbert said. ‘Do you want me to call her?’

  In a moment they were listening to the amplified voice of Amanda speaking live. ‘What is it? Do you have some news for me?’

  ‘I may have soon,’ Diamond said. ‘First I need your help. When we met, you spoke of your daughter going through a bad patch in her marriage. You didn’t specify what it was and I didn’t ask.’

  The voice altered, becoming taut and defensive. ‘That was a private matter. If it had any bearing on what happened to her I would have told you.’

  ‘You’d better tell me now, ma’am. It’s crucial to the case.’

  ‘I don’t see how.’

  ‘For pity’s sake,’ he said. ‘You may think you’re protecting her reputation, but I’m trying to stop her killer from murdering someone else tonight. Why was she depressed?’

  There was a silence. Then: ‘She got pregnant again, disorganised as usual, poor darling. Stopped taking the pill for some days and wondered why she was putting on weight. It was a shock when she found out. She’d had a difficult time when Sophie was born and she didn’t want to go through all that again.’

  ‘And Danny wanted the child?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t like that. He supported her. So did her GP. He arranged for her to have the abortion at the Royal United.’

  ‘That’s all I need to know.’ He looked round at his team.

  They had found the common factor.

  46

  E arly in the Diamonds’ marriage, Steph had been diagnosed with something the medics called RSM, Recurrent Spontaneous Miscarriage. She had lost four babies altogether. That word ‘lost’ is a euphemism that tries to downplay the grief, but can’t. He’d been amazed how she had found the courage to try again after each bereavement. She had wanted children with increasing desperation, and so had he, and her gynaecologist had said there was ‘no physiological limitation’, but after the fourth, the expert changed his opinion. She was given a hysterectomy.

  So it was difficult to feel neutral about abortion. The result is the same — a pregnancy that fails — but there is a gulf between those who miscarry, the ‘have nots’, and those who seek abortions, the ‘haves’ who would rather be ‘have nots’. In their low moments he and Steph envied friends with children, and resented those who confided that they had ‘slipped up’ and gone for abortions.

  He didn’t see it as a debate between the pro-choice and pro-life camps. He couldn’t side with either. Personal experience had convinced him that each case had to be judged on merit. In his job he’d seen abused and mentally handicapped women unable to cope with pregnancy and he would have argued strongly for their right to a termination. This was a profoundly complex issue.

  Ingeborg was the first to react. Any intelligent woman would question what had been suggested. ‘Let me get this right, guv. Are you saying these couples were killed because they had abortions?’

  ‘Could have been.’

  She fixed him with her wide blue eyes and her words came with the force of someone who has thought through the issues. ‘But it’s not logical. The people who oppose abortion are pro life. That’s their argument, that a foetus is a living human being and we have no right to kill it. They’re not going to murder anyone.’

  Of all the team it was Leaman who rallied to Diamond’s defence. ‘They can and they do,’ he said in his blunt style. ‘There was a case in America a couple of years ago. A Presbyterian minister shot and killed a doctor who performed abortions.’

  ‘A minister?’

  ‘He’s the best known example, but there have been others. I don’t know how they square it with the sixth commandment.’

  Ingeborg stared at him for a moment, frowning, thinking. Then her expression changed and her hand went to her mouth. ‘You’re right. I remember. He killed twice. It was in Florida and he was executed for it. I can’t believe this is happening here.’

  ‘These are emotive issues,’ Diamond said. ‘The logic can get pushed to one side.’

  Paul Gilbert spoke up. ‘I may be out of order here, but couldn’t these abortions be a coincidence?’

  This struck a more harmonious note with Ingeborg. ‘I agree, Paul. If you look hard enough — and God knows we have — you’re going to find something the victims have in common. That’s light years from proving it was the reason they were killed.’

  Diamond was trying to keep this from getting heated. ‘OK. Let’s see what we’ve got. T
hree couples. Three abortions. So far as we know, not one was medically essential. They made a choice. The Twinings because they didn’t want their careers interrupted. Delia and Danny because they had two kids already and she’d had a difficult time with the second one. The Steels for the career reason again; they weren’t yet ready to start a family.’

  ‘How on earth could the killer have been aware of any of this?’ Ingeborg said.

  ‘He’d need to know each of them extremely well,’ Gilbert said.

  ‘Or their gynaecologist,’ Leaman said.

  Ingeborg shook her head. ‘Medical ethics.’

  ‘A rogue nurse, then? An anaesthetist?’

  ‘They aren’t told the patients’ history.’

  ‘A medical secretary?’ Leaman said. ‘That stuff is written up in the records.’

  Ingeborg digested that and nodded. ‘I suppose you could be right about that.’

  ‘Staying with what we know for certain,’ Diamond said, ‘the victims are taken from their homes to some secret location and kept there. The woman is strangled and taken by night to some city park and strung up to make it look like a hanging.’

  ‘Execution?’ Leaman said. ‘A life for a life?’

  ‘Maybe. A couple of nights later, the man is hanged. In Danny’s case, it was literally a hanging.’

  ‘Why wait?’ Leaman said. ‘Why doesn’t he string them up together?’

  ‘Logistics,’ Paul Gilbert said. ‘A double hanging would be almost impossible for one man to carry out.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Diamond said. ‘The transportation, rigging up the gallows. Too much.’

  ‘So he does it in stages.’

  ‘Yes, and taking big risks. The majority of murderers hide their crime by disposing of the body. He could bury his victims or dump them on a refuse tip. Instead he has the weird idea of displaying them. At great risk. Why?’

  ‘To make some kind of point?’ Gilbert said.

  ‘That’s how it looks to me. The bodies are left hanging as if an old-fashioned judicial execution has taken place.’