Diamond Dust

by Peter Lovesey

  ‘Depending on the traffic’

  ‘We reckon she’d have got off at the Marlborough Lane stop to make her way up to the park.’

  ‘If she took the bus, yes.’

  ‘We’ve questioned each of the drivers on that route. Not one remembers a passenger of your wife’s description. Of course they don’t necessarily take note of every middle-aged woman who boards their bus.’

  ‘You could ask the passengers.’

  ‘The regulars? It’s being tried. Nothing so far.’

  Diamond remarked, ‘All this presupposes she went to the park of her own free will.’

  ‘You think otherwise?’

  ‘I don’t know any reason she would go there.’

  ‘By arrangement?’

  ‘Then she would have told me.’

  McGarvie commented tardy, ‘If she told you everything.’ He leaned forward, showing more of his bloodshot eyes than Diamond cared to see. ‘Before you take offence again, consider this. The whole thing is strange, you’ve got to admit. You tell us she was acting normally that morning, had no secrets from you, had no reason to visit the park, yet that’s where she was shot within two hours of your leaving for work.’

  ‘If I knew why, I’d have told you.’

  ‘At what stage were you told she’d been shot?’

  ‘Nobody told me. I found out for myself.’

  There was a pause while the horror of that moment was relived, and when McGarvie resumed again, there was less overt hostility. ‘Okay, to be accurate, you heard that a woman had been shot and you went to the park and recognised the victim as your wife?’

  ‘You know this. Do we have to go over it?’

  ‘DI Halliwell was competent to deal with the incident. What prompted you to go there?’

  Amazing. Even his attendance at the scene was viewed as suspicious. This experience on the receiving end, having to account for everything he had done, would change for ever his attitude to interviewing a suspect.

  ‘I said we hadn’t seen much action.’

  ‘Point taken. Spurred on by the prospect of something happening, you went to the scene. You saw who it was, and you ignored procedure at the scene of a crime and handled the victim-‘

  ‘She was my wife, for pity’s sake.’

  ‘We’re going to find blood on your clothes.’

  ‘How inconvenient.’ He’d taken enough. ‘bu know what really pisses me off about this farce? It’s not the personal smear, the assumption that I might have murdered her. It’s knowing the real killer is out there, and every minute that goes by his chance improves of getting away with this.’

  ‘This isn’t our only line of enquiry,’ McGarvie said. ‘I’ve got over a hundred men on the case.’

  ‘For how much longer? What happens when Headquarters ask for your budget report? They’ll cut the overtime. The whole thing will be scaled down.’

  Georgina said with determination, ‘I’ll deal with Headquarters.’ She asked McGarvie if he had any more questions and he said he was through and they stopped the tapes.

  ‘I’ve had it up to here with you lot,’ Diamond said. ‘I’m going home.’

  But he didn’t. Instead, he drove out to the crime scene, now abandoned by everyone, and restored to normal except for the wear on the turf of hundreds of police boots. The one place where the ground had not been trampled was a small oval of fresh grass where Steph’s body had lain. Someone had placed a bunch of flowers there. No message. He could have brought some himself, but he knew Steph would have been troubled by the idea of cut flowers without water. She wouldn’t willingly deprive anything of life.

  If he’d written a message, it would have been the one hackneyed word people always attach to flowers they leave at murder scenes. ‘Why?’

  He looked around him, taking in the setting. Previously he’d been aware of nothing except Steph lying dead on the ground. Now he saw a curved path lined with benches about every thirty yards. In spring, he remembered, the daffodils sprouted here and made a glorious display. The shoots were already visible. Lower down, the remains of the Victorian shrubbery, a long line of trees and bushes, hid the Charlotte Street Car Park from view. You wouldn’t believe all those cars were actually only a few paces away.

  Higher up the slope was the unprepossessing rear of the old bandstand with its domed roof. He walked up to it and around to the front.

  The facade was much more elegant than the back, being visible from the Crescent. He could imagine an audience seated here listening to one of the German bands that were so popular around the turn of the century. The shell-shaped design was more modern in concept than the weathered stonework suggested.

  At either side, separate from the bandstand, two large stone vases with handles, chipped and stained, but evidently marble, were raised on plinths. Each was protected by a flat stone canopy mounted on pillars and surrounded by a low railing. Along the top of the stonework was an inscription stating that the vases were the gift of Napoleon to the Empress Josephine in 1805, something Diamond had never noticed until now. They were spoils of the Peninsular War, presented to the city by some Bath worthy. The overgrown bushes almost hid them from view, but he could make out the letter ‘J’ in an Imperial circlet of leaves. It was the kind of detail that fascinated Steph, and forgetting everything for a second, he looked forward to telling her what he had found and bringing her here to see it.

  Caught again. This wasn’t the first time. He supposed it was what psychologists referred to as denial.

  He moved back to the spot where Steph had been found. Why had the murderer chosen this location? For one thing, the park was reasonably quiet, even now, in the afternoon, and fairly well screened by trees. If it was right that she had been lured here, her killer could have remained hidden among the bushes, or behind the bandstand, until the last minute, and then approached her, keeping the gun concealed. Since there had been no evidence of a struggle, it was reasonable to assume the weapon had been held to her face and fired twice in a swift, professional action. Most gunmen knew you couldn’t be certain a single shot would kill, even at point-blank range. Apparently he (or she, though it was difficult to visualise a female assassin) had quit the scene by the short route to the car park – which was huge, with more than one exit. So that was the special appeal of this location: the certainty of getting away fast. All in all, a well-chosen place.

  The biggest problem must have been persuading Steph to come here.

  For the first time since the murder, he was functioning as a detective. Until now he had been too devastated to think straight. For that reason alone it was right that someone other than he should head the team. Moreover, the official line made sense: having the victim’s husband in charge would undermine any prosecution. Fine – so long as McGarvie was a competent, energetic standin. But after that farcical interrogation, Diamond’s confidence in the man was in tatters. The competence was flawed, the energy misdirected. There was a sense of desperation in what was going on.

  A single crow stalked the lawn, foraging for worms. The bleak look of this scene reinforced the lost opportunities.

  Steph deserved a good investigation.

  No sense in offering advice. Georgina and McGarvie wouldn’t listen to a man they were treating as a suspect. No, the only way to get results was to go solo. Throughout their marriage Steph had put up with his cack-handed attempts at all things practical: shelves that fell off the wall, doors that stuck in the winter and let in draughts in the summer, electrical wiring that blew the fuses. She had never directly benefited from the one skill he had: sleuthing. She was entitled to it now. He would find her killer, and to hell with the problems it raised.

  *

  His spirits improved. He was putting his career on the line and maybe his life. Bugger that, he thought. This is the right decision. I refuse to be sidelined. She’s my wife and no one can make me walk away from her.

  At home that evening he opened a can of lager and dug about in the freezer and cooked h
imself a satisfying meal of one of Steph’s beef casseroles with fresh potatoes and carrots. He watched a repeat of Fatuity Towers on TV and smiled for the first time in weeks.

  Towards midnight, he woke in the armchair and realised he’d dozed off. He’d been dreaming, an anxious, vivid dream of being shot in the leg by an invisible man with a gun. Of limping away and feeling more shots, and dripping blood. The shots fitted the film that was running on the box, some spaghetti western with Clint Eastwood. Clint looked in fine shape still. The film bullets had obviously missed.

  Diamond fingered his own leg.

  ‘Daft.’

  But it had got to him, that dream. He decided to fetch his handgun from the loft. In the coming days he might need to defend himself. He had no plans to use it, except as a deterrent. So he went upstairs, opened the hatch and let down the folding ladder. Switched on the loft light and of course the sodding thing flickered and went out.

  No matter. He knew where the shoebox was that contained the gun wrapped in a cloth with two rounds of ammunition. At the top of the steps he put his head and shoulders through the hatch, reached and found what he wanted at once.

  But there was no weight to the box. Nothing was inside. He took off the lid. Not even the cloth was in there.

  Impossible.

  He groped around the plasterboard where the box had been. Dust and cobwebs. Nothing else. No other box, no Smith & Wesson.38 wrapped in cloth.

  Deeply worried, he collected a torch from downstairs and replaced the light bulb. Spent the next hour searching the whole of the loft, struggling with old suitcases, among unwanted rolls of wallpaper and discarded carpets. He tried to remember if anyone except himself had been up there. A plumber, to look at the cold storage tank? Electrician? TV aerial man?

  Not to his knowledge.

  What in Christ’s name was going on?

  10

  The two men talking in a London taxi knew only as much as the media had told them about the shooting of Stephanie Diamond, but after the shock wave of a killing there are ripples washing up on some unlikely shores.

  ‘It’s beautiful, Harry.’

  ‘It always is at the beginning,’ the voice of experience spoke. ‘I hate to disillusion you, old friend, but the beauty soon wears off. By the end it’s revolungly ugly.’

  ‘Not this time, I promise you.’

  ‘Would you care to take a bet on that?’ Harry Tattersall gazed out of the window at the traffic in Piccadilly. At forty-two, he’d seen many a pretty plan turn to dross. ‘Who else is in?’

  ‘That’s the beauty,’ Rhadi said. ‘We are a small, talented team. Five only.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  ‘I don’t work with failures.’

  ‘These are pros. bu’re going to be impressed.’

  ‘Where’s the meeting?’

  ‘This is a top job, Harry. Top job needs a top meeting place.’

  The cab wound its way around Trafalgar Square, under Admiralty Arch and up the Mall towards the Victoria Memorial. Tourists stood snapping the sentry at the gates of Buckingham Palace.

  ‘Not there?’ Harry said, only half joking. This was such a weird set-up, he was ready to believe anything.

  ‘No, not there.’

  They were driven up Constitution Hill to Hyde Park Corner and came to a halt outside one of the more exclusive hotels. A white-gloved hand opened the door.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ Rhadi said.

  ‘It takes more than one flunkey to impress me,’ Harry said. He had been to a good public school and liked everyone to know it.

  A doorman ushered them in and a black-suited young man wished them good afternoon in a way that asked to know their business.

  ‘We’re expected,’ Rhadi said with a princely air. ‘The Napoleon Suite.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  In the lift, Rhadi said, ‘What do you think? An improvement on the Scrubs?’

  ‘So long as it isn’t a short cut back to the Scrubs,’ Harry said. He’d done one six-month stretch in an otherwise unblemished fifteen-year career of confidence trickery, and he hadn’t cared for it one bit. ‘I’d better warn you, I’m not going to be bounced into anything.’

  ‘Lighten up, old friend.’

  Rhadi knocked and the door was opened by a Middle Eastern man.

  ‘What’s this – Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves?’ Harry said.

  He’d known Rhadi so many years that he never thought of him as an immigrant. Wasn’t even sure where he came from originally. Confronted now by two more Arabs in expensive suits, he felt outnumbered. Rhadi hadn’t said a word about the nationality of the personnel involved.

  ‘Is there a problem, Mr Tattersall?’ one of them asked, a near-midget with a set of teeth that wouldn’t have disgraced a camel.

  ‘I didn’t expect…’ Harry started to say, and let his voice trail away when he saw the second Arab’s hand slip inside his jacket.

  ‘This is Ibrahim,’ the teeth said, ‘and I am Zahir. You were not expecting to be involved in an international enterprise, I dare say.’

  ‘If it’s terrorism, I’m leaving.’

  Rhadi gave him a gende push in the back. ‘Go in, Harry. Forget about terrorism. This is big-time.’

  ‘It had better be,’ he muttered. ‘Where are you all from, anyway?’

  Zahir ignored the question. ‘bu want a drink? It’s against our religion, but there’s plenty here if you want something.’

  ‘I think I will.’ It wasn’t a mini-bar, either. This was a drinks cabinet, courtesy of the hotel. He poured himself a large single malt while he pondered that remark about religion. He didn’t think he’d been invited to a prayer meeting.

  Ibrahim had closed the door. Harry took stock. Zahir, the spokesman with the teeth, had to be Mr Big, though not in stature. Ibrahim, silent, built like a water buffalo, was the muscle. The fifth man apparently hadn’t turned up yet.

  ‘You were at King’s, Canterbury, I believe?’ Zahir said out of nowhere.

  ‘Is my old school important?’

  ‘That’s true, then? Straight up, as they say?’

  ‘Anyone can check the register.’

  ‘Did you row?’

  ‘No. I was a cricketer. Opened the batting.’ Harry refrained from revealing that he opened for the third eleven and ended the season with an average of nine.

  ‘In that case,’ Zahir said, ‘we wouldn’t have met. I coxed the first eight. Eton.’

  With the pecking order established, Zahir invited Harry to take a seat. ‘Rhadi tells us you’re the smoothest con artist in London.’

  ‘Rhadi isn’t bad at it himself,’ Harry commented.

  ‘You once took one of the big merchant banks for a cool fifty thousand?’

  ‘Three banks together,’ Harry said. ‘It was a matter of persuading them it was a notional adjustment.’

  ‘And none of them understood what was going on?’

  ‘They still don’t’

  ‘Rhadi also tells us you might not be averse to another payday.’

  ‘That depends.’

  ‘Naturally. Have you ever dealt in diamonds?’

  ‘Diamonds?’ He twitched and frowned. ‘I’m not a diamond man.’

  ‘Don’t look so alarmed,’ Zahir said. ‘No one is asking you to do anything outside your experience.’

  ‘So what’s the scam?’

  Zahir hesitated. ‘This is more than a scam. We’re not talking thousands, Mr Tattersall, but hundreds of thousands. We can all retire on the proceeds. But you’ll understand that I need your total commitment before I unfold the plan.’

  ‘Before? That’s asking a lot. I don’t know you. Rhadi is an old friend, but the rest of you…’

  ‘Well, it’s a good thing some of us aren’t familiar to you. You wouldn’t want to be getting into bed with a bunch of well-known criminals, would you?’ He flashed the enormous teeth.

  ‘You’ve got a point there.’

 
‘Let’s see if we can resolve this. What if you were guaranteed a hundred thousand pounds?’

  ‘A hundred grand? What are you snatching – the Crown Jewels?’

  ‘Better. These are uncut stones. Some of the finest gem-crystals in the world.’

  Harry was silent for a while, still cautious. ‘It sounds wonderful, but why have you come to me? What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘What you’re best at doing, Mr Tattersall. Conning people.’

  ‘Ah, but I know damn all about the diamond industry. I need to understand what I’m talking about.’

  ‘No you don’t.’

  ‘Sorry, my friend,’ Harry insisted. ‘That isn’t the way I work. I absolutely refuse to wing it.’

  ‘You’re not listening, Mr Tattersall. Your part in this project doesn’t involve the diamonds. You don’t need to talk about them. In fact, you are expressly forbidden to mention them. You will be a go-between. We require someone who is English, not Arabian, a true-blue English gendeman.’

  ‘That I can do.’

  ‘So you’re on the team?’

  ‘Hold on,’ Harry said. ‘First I want to know the job – and who else you’ve signed up for this.’

  ‘You know Rhadi, and you’ve just met Ibrahim and me.’

  ‘I was told there are five.’

  ‘Who told you?’ Zahir’s eyes flicked to Rhadi. ‘The fifth man must remain anonymous for the time being.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s the key to everything.’

  ‘The peterman?’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Safe-breaker. The fellow who liberates the rocks.’

  Zahir’s face was a study in distaste. ‘We’re not proposing to break into a safe, Mr Tattersall.’

  ‘How else are you going to lay hands on them?’

  Rhadi broke into the dialogue in some excitement. ‘This is the beauty, Harry.’

  Zahir said, ‘We’re having the diamonds delivered to us.’

  ‘Delivered? Who by?’

  ‘The owners. The top dealer in Hatton Garden, the home of the London diamond trade.’

  ‘How do you arrange that?’

  Zahir exchanged more looks with Rhadi and Ibrahim. ‘This is what will happen. Rhadi will go to Hatton Garden and inform the dealer that a prince of the Kuwaiti Royal Family has come to London to buy rough diamonds and is staving at the Dorchester Hotel. In Hatton Garden they know that the Kuwaitis are rich beyond dreams. They will arrange to take their best stones to his suite for inspection.’