by Mike Craven
For once, he wasn’t disturbed by nightmares.
It was still dark when Fluke’s alarm went off and he opened his eyes. In that halfway state – not asleep but not yet awake – he was able to remember the last thing he’d dreamt of. It had been the inventory. Something in his subconscious had been bothered by it. But as his mind cleared and he woke fully, so did any chance of remembering. It would come back; there was no point forcing it. He knew how his mind worked.
Fluke had no qualms about telling everyone they were working Saturday but felt that when he did, he should be in first. He debated whether to put on some fresh coffee but decided to have one when he got to work instead.
He got to Carleton Hall to find the incident room deserted. He put a fresh filter in the coffee machine and started it off. Towler was already in but had gone to find a newsagents in Penrith to buy some milk. As the machine hissed and gurgled, Fluke thought about what he wanted to achieve.
First, he needed to check with the custody suites that everyone apart from Nathaniel Diamond had been released. Fluke wanted another go at Nathaniel. Although he wasn’t a suspect in the rape, he knew something, plus his dad was now in the frame, He’d task the first DC to arrive, to go and get an additional twelve hours from the on-call magistrate to question Nathaniel. The advantage of asking in the early hours was that the magistrate would be woken at home and less likely to say no.
While Fluke waited for the coffee machine, he opened his file from the previous night. He stared at the list, willing that night’s thoughts to come back but there was nothing. Apart from the bed-wetting alarm, it was still a list of everyday items. He’d mention it at the morning briefing. He turned to the photo of the alarm. It was bothering him as well. He couldn’t help feeling there was something else on the list that made sense of it. The previous day, he’d thought she was running from someone and was having nightmares because of it. Now he wasn’t so sure.
There was also the question that Kay Edwards, the DC who had travelled with her to the SARC, had raised. If she was in hiding, why had she even been going out for a drink at all? Fluke had initially thought it had been a fair question but it had slipped his mind before he could seriously consider it. Put alongside his own unasked question of whether anyone that scared would report a rape, it took on greater significance. He had the feeling that Samantha still had secrets to be revealed.
Find out how the victim lived and you’ll find out how they died.
Fluke enjoyed those rare moments of solitude. Surrounded by the fruits of the investigation, he liked looking at things in isolation at home but in the incident room he could look at everything as a whole. It was his wide-angled lens. The board with photos of the two crime scenes was full. The previous day, photos of the different Diamonds had been staring back at him. That night, someone had replaced them with a single photo of Kenneth. It had been cut out from a newspaper article about a new business venture he was involved in. One other photograph was on the board: the cold, lifeless face of Samantha Farrar. It was up to Fluke to find out if the link between them had been the cause of her murder.
The coffee machine had quietened down and Fluke poured himself a large mug. As he drank it, he let his mind drift from one photo to the other, taking in all the pictorial evidence.
His peace was interrupted by another of his team coming in. Jo Skelton walked through the door. Surprised to see him, she was even more surprised to find that there was already a pot of fresh coffee. ‘There’s no milk yet, Jo. Matt’s gone for some.’
‘No organisation, you two,’ she said, pulling a carton from her bag.
She grabbed her ‘World’s Best Mum’ mug and filled it. She walked over and perched on the edge of the table, next to Fluke. ‘You get any kip, boss?’
‘Some. You?’
‘Not much, nasty one this. I let Tom sleep in. He can take the kids to football today. I may struggle to come in tomorrow, though.’
Fluke nodded. He knew Jo’s husband was in a band that played at weddings so he normally worked weekends. ‘No gig tonight?’
‘Nope bookings are down nearly thirty per cent. People just want discos and hog roasts these days. He’s enjoying the extra time with the kids, though. I’ve been thinking about everything we have, trying to make some links but I can’t get my head round it all yet. Can’t remember the last one we had that was this complicated.’
‘Same here. That inventory is bugging me,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘Can’t put my finger on it yet. There’s just something that isn’t quite right.’
Fluke had worked with Jo for long enough to know that she was what he called a ‘plodder’. He’d mentioned that to Chambers once, and he’d asked if he wanted her replaced. Fluke had had to explain that it wasn’t meant as an insult. His team worked best when there were hares and tortoises. He needed officers who could methodically plough through hours and hours of evidence, who wouldn’t get bored doing repetitive tasks, who wouldn’t miss things, who would take care to set up and maintain HOLMES. The ACPO Murder Manual stated that the office manager of an incident room should be either a Detective Sergeant or a Detective Inspector but Fluke chose Jo every time. She never complained and knew she was valued highly, fully accepting her role in the team. Police work was ninety-nine per cent perspiration and one per cent inspiration. A cliché, yes, but some clichés were clichés because they were true.
‘You’ll get there. How’s your health, boss? You’ve been looking pasty the last couple of days.’
Some officers had earned the right to ask questions like that and she was one of them.
‘I’m tired, Jo. Weary. Can’t seem to shake it off. Normally I can leave all this behind,’ he said, pointing at the evidence boards. ‘Not this one though. This one’s staying with me. There was nothing personal about it. Every murder I’ve ever worked has had anger at its core, whether it’s about money, sex or jealousy. At least there’s a spark of humanity. Not this one. This was cold. Someone probably rang a number or sent an email, and an emotionless sociopath came up, shot her and threw her in a hole. How’d you try and make sense of that?’
She blew on her drink. ‘We’ll get there, boss. We always do.’
They finished their coffees in silence as the incident room filled up.
Fluke appeared to be alone in his concerns over the list. No one else had given it a second thought, but as he sometimes made links that others couldn’t, he knew they would all look again. No one had any new thoughts on the numbers either. Not a dead end. Just dead. He was prepared to accept that they meant nothing, but there were too many random things in the investigation already. They were all potential leads.
The rest of the briefing was spent allocating tasks for the day, most of which were about the search for Kenneth Diamond. That was Towler’s specialty; running people to ground. If he was still in Cumbria, Towler would find him.
With Towler busy with the manhunt, Fluke took Vaughn with him to re-interview Nathaniel Diamond. He took his own car and Vaughn took the pool car. Fluke needed to be mobile. He wasn’t expecting anything to break early on and if he got time he’d decided, he’d go and see Leah, and check if she’d found someone to talk to about cosmetic surgery.
Fluke and Vaughn arrived at Durranhill within minutes of each other, and an hour later, they were sitting opposite Nathaniel Diamond. The custody sergeant told Fluke that, despite nearly twenty-four hours in a police cell, Diamond still looked calm. His only reaction had been when his solicitor was served the notice granting an additional twelve hours’ questioning time. Apparently, he’d looked at the camera and raised an eyebrow.
The previous day, Diamond had been in control. Fluke had detected deception when shown the picture of the victim but other than that he’d remained calm.
This time Fluke wasn’t leaving until he had something he could use.
Vaughn had asked if he should bring Diamond up from the cells, and Fluke was about to tell him ‘yes’ until he re
alised it would just be a continuation of the previous day. He needed something more, some sort of leverage. It was going to be a battle of intellectual heavyweights, and Fluke needed to land the knockout blow. Instead, he turned to Vaughn, ‘No, Al, I want to review yesterday’s interview first.’
For an hour, Fluke pored over the footage. He watched it with the sound and then without. Vaughn, a brilliant detective in his own right, looked over his shoulder but said nothing.
Fluke watched himself reveal the photo of Samantha to Diamond. There’d definitely been recognition. He watched from the beginning again. He saw himself enter. He saw himself open his folder.
And he saw what he’d missed the first five times.***
Chapter 26
Fluke stared at Nathaniel Diamond across the scuffed table and studied him. Really studied him. On the face of it, he was what he looked like. A thug. An intelligent thug yes, but a thug all the same. Yet, as Fluke looked closer things cleared. The tattoos were a little too well done. No prison ink there. Expensive black tribal sleeves on both arms. His tracksuit, before it had been removed, was also expensive, according to the young officer who had bagged it. They’d also taken an Omega watch from him and that wasn’t cheap. It also wasn’t garish like some of the more expensive watches could be.
After what Fluke had just witnessed in the footage, he no longer thought of Diamond as an intelligent thug. He thought of him as having a once-in-a-generation mind.
Fluke now suspected his image was completely cultivated. It suited him at that moment and, like a chameleon shedding its skin, he would swap it for another when the time was right. The more Fluke thought about it, the more he came to view Diamond as the head of a large business – an illegal business, but a business all the same. No business survived for long without a business plan and without a CEO. And the CEO had to look the part. On Wall Street, the bankers, moneymen and oil analysts wore their pinstriped suits. In Carlisle, the crime families wore tattoos, tracksuits and heavy jewellery. Occasionally, a dangerous dog was thrown in for good measure. It was still an image, however. Two extremes, but the principle was the same.
Brains wouldn’t have been enough in Diamond’s business, however. He would’ve had to spend some time establishing himself among some pretty rough competition, competition that would undoubtedly have included his own family. The fact that he was the younger brother but the head of the family, spoke volumes. Violence was just another business tool, to be used when needed but only then. As well as being highly intelligent, Nathaniel would be a genuinely frightening man to get on the wrong side of.
Fluke had met hard men all his working life. The Royal Marines recruited almost exclusively from that gene pool. Some were bullies, some weren’t. A few were psychopaths, and some were the nicest people you could ever wish to meet. During his time as a police officer, Fluke had met men who were arguably harder. Men who were psychotic. Men for whom violence was a daily occurrence.
What they all had in common, however, was that there was always someone harder round the corner. Someone younger and quicker coming up through the ranks. Someone just a little bit more mental. Just a little bit more fearless.
So violence would have got Nathaniel to the top, and his brains would have kept him there, but not indefinitely. The X-factor would be ruthlessness. That would be the trait that would keep him in charge and make the Diamonds a viable option for outside investment from the drug gangs of Liverpool, the type of gangs that were hunted by the National Crime Agency rather than CID.
A ruthless man could organise a murder if his business were threatened.
The previous day Diamond had been in control.
Today, it would be Fluke’s turn. At first, he’d thought he was imagining it. Part of him still didn’t think what he’d seen was possible. He’d had to watch it over and over again until he was sure.
Diamond held his eye as Fluke stared at him but it wasn’t a battle of wills. Just as Fluke was weighing him up, he got the sense Diamond was doing exactly the same to him.
Fluke broke the silence. ‘Just how clever are you, Nathaniel?’
Diamond said nothing.
‘You see, I think you’re a very clever man indeed. Far more intelligent than my colleagues in Carlisle have ever given you credit for. Far more than I’d given you credit for.’
Diamond stared at Fluke. There was something going on that Fluke was still unaware of, some context to the investigation that he was yet to see. Diamond could see it, Fluke was sure of that. Would he share it, though?
Time to take a risk.
‘When did you learn about the airline’s interview technique, Nathaniel?’
Still nothing. But Fluke sensed there was movement behind his eyes, as if the neurones in his brain had suddenly had to change direction.
‘You see very few people know about that technique, Nathaniel. It’s still being piloted. It’s still a university project for now. I’m the only person who uses it in Cumbria. I may be the only police officer in the country that uses it. But you knew what I was doing all along. So I have two options. You either knew about the technique or you were able to work it out as I was doing it. I think you worked it out, Nathaniel. You want to know how I know?’
Diamond raised his eyebrows slightly. He was curious. Fluke had grabbed his interest.
‘It’s because I fucked it up, that’s why,’ he said. ‘You knew what I was doing. You knew I was asking control questions. You reacted to every question as I’d expected. As you had wanted to. You never lost control. Even the little burst of anger at your solicitor here was part of it.’
Diamond said nothing but Fluke knew he was right.
‘I had my control questions. Now I had to ask the question. The one question that it had all been for. But I fucked it up, didn’t I, Nathaniel?’
Diamond continued to stare. Just as Fluke was about to continue, he nodded slightly.
‘You were playing along. You were expecting the question, weren’t you? You were expecting the surprise, if you’ll forgive my oxymoron. You were watching me as carefully as I was watching you. I showed you the picture of my victim. That was my surprise. But it was no surprise was it, Nathaniel?’
‘No, Inspector, it wasn’t.’ The first words he’d said since the interview had started.
‘No, Nathaniel. Because when I went through the interview footage again, I noticed that when I took my papers out at the start of the interview, I had mistakenly left the photo of the victim in view for nearly two seconds.’
Fluke took the photo back out of the file and placed it on the table in front of him.
‘This one in fact. But you noticed. The footage shows you noticing. You hid your surprise well. I watched it five times before I spotted it, and I had to watch it another five times just to be sure.’
Fluke picked up the photo and studied it. It was the question that was going to break the case. Sometimes it wasn’t just about asking the right question, it was about asking the right question at the right time.
‘So my question, Nathaniel, is this. I have you on tape fully in control of your micro-expressions. I have you on tape letting me see what I was expecting to see on my control questions. I know you’d seen the photo before I showed it to you. I know you weren’t surprised by it and that you were expecting it. You could easily have cast suspicion away from your family.’ Fluke stared at him. Crunch time. ‘But you didn’t, Nathaniel. You feigned surprise. Subtle yes, but enough so I wouldn’t miss it. You made sure I’d know your family’s involved somehow. Nothing that will stand up in court but enough to keep me interested.’
Diamond was watching him carefully. There was a game being played here but only one of them knew the rules.
‘I want to know why, Nathaniel? I want to know why you want me investigating your family for murder?’
The room was silent apart from the sound of something dripping. There were no taps, radiators or pipes in interview rooms so Fluke assumed it was coming from some internal
plumbing in either the walls or the ceiling. He counted the drips and got to thirty before Diamond spoke.
‘Are you investigating my father for rape, Mr Fluke?’
Of all the responses he’d anticipated, that wasn’t in the top hundred. He had to be careful. ‘Why do you say that, Nathaniel?’
‘I hear things,’ Diamond said.
‘And what do you hear?’
‘I hear you have a dead girl. I hear she was raped. I hear you think whoever raped her, killed her…’ he said quietly, staring directly at Fluke. ‘Or arranged to have her killed, which is the same thing really.’
Fluke thought for a moment. ‘I hear that too.’ If they were being open with each other, he’d play along. For now. He paused for a moment. He had the feeling Diamond was trying to tell him something, something he wanted Fluke to work out. Something he wasn’t prepared to say on tape.
Fluke wondered if he wanted to snitch but immediately dismissed it. Being a snitch would end his business. None of the bigger gangs would deal with him. No, that wasn’t it.
Diamond was staring at him. He wanted Fluke to get the message. Needed him to understand the subtext. Fluke stared back but it wasn’t a pissing contest, just two people trying to communicate without speaking. Vaughn and the solicitor were in the room as well but Fluke knew that they were the only two that mattered.
‘You’re going to need to give me something, Nathaniel.’ Fluke felt rather than saw Vaughn turn to look at Fluke, not understanding what was happening but knowing not to interrupt. The solicitor didn’t understand either but was too scared to speak.
Fluke saw Diamond look down and think, saw him deciding what he could tell Fluke and what he couldn’t. He knew that the investigation was either going to stall completely or progress fast in the next few seconds.
Diamond looked up. ‘The girl. You need to look at her again.’