The Last Detective

by Peter Lovesey

  Buckle became more serious, adjusting the knot of his tie and trying to make it seem a confident gesture.

  'I think you'll find that our returns are accurate.'

  'Do you keep a record, sir?'

  'Naturally.' He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a red ledger book. 'It's all in here. Every Realbrew vehicle is listed.'

  Diamond held out his hand for the book. His hopes were dashed the moment he opened it. The mileage was in monthly totals. As evidence, it was no help at all. He went through the formality of asking how the figures were supplied and heard about the mileage logs kept by each driver.

  'And when the logs come in, do you photocopy them?'

  'No. I don't believe in paperwork for its own sake.' Buckle made a pistol of his fingers and pressed them to his head in a mime of suicide. 'Now tell me it's obligatory.'

  Diamond opened a page of the ledger fully in front of him. 'The Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.6 Automatic Saloon.'

  'Which one? The company owns two. One is for my personal use and the other is driven by the company chauffeur.'

  'Two cars of the same model?'

  'Bought at the same time. It all went through the books quite properly and I keep my own log religiously. You're welcome to examine it if you wish.'

  'Yes, please. And the other .. .?'

  '... should be with the other vehicle which - unfortunately - is not on the premises at the present time. If you'll excuse me a moment..." He called someone on the intercom and asked them to fetch the log from his car.

  'The other vehicle, the one the chauffeur drives,' Diamond said. 'Is that the one being held by the police?'

  Buckle's eyes snapped into sharper focus. 'You're bloody well informed.'

  'It's public knowledge, sir. I can examine the log for that car at the police station - is that what you're telling me?'

  'Not really,' answered Buckle. 'I gather it's gone missing. The Old Bill were on to me about it. They wanted to know if the log was on the premises here. There was no reason why it should have been. The system is that the books are kept in the cars and checked at the end of each month. The job never takes more than a day.'

  'Your chauffeur's in trouble, I understand,' Diamond ventured.

  'To borrow a phrase of yours, it's public knowledge,' Buckle said smoothly.

  Equally smoothly, Diamond asked, 'Is she guilty?'

  'I should think so. She was in pretty deep with the dead woman's husband. Mind, I'm not faulting her as an employee. She was a good driver. Reliable.'

  Diamond felt a gut contempt for this man. He was finding it hard to subdue. 'She drove the one car, did she?'

  'Just the one. She never used mine, if that's what you're asking.'

  'It wouldn't have mattered if she did,' Diamond pointed out, 'seeing that they're both company cars.'

  'True. But mine is exclusively for my own use.'

  'And did you ever have reason to drive the chauffeur's car, sir?'

  'Never. I had my own. Look here, if there's any suspicion that I'm on the fiddle in some way, you'd better come out with it.'

  'I'm more interested in Mrs Didrikson,' Diamond candidly answered. 'You said she was reliable. Was she at work on the day of the murder?'

  'She took the day off, but I don't see what this has to do —'

  Diamond overrode the protest. 'And the next day? Was she at work the next day?'

  'She was late. When she got in about half past ten she looked to me as if she'd been up all night. I didn't go to town on her. With a chauffeur as dependable as Dana, you know there had to be a damned good reason. I've told all this to the police.'

  And Diamond could imagine what John Wigfull had made of it. Stanley Buckle was going to be a formidable witness for the prosecution, apparently believing the best of his chauffeur, while disclosing facts that were open to the worst interpretation.

  'Who exactly are you?'

  Diamond was saved from replying by a secretary who brought in a small black book. 'The log?' he said, holding out his hand. Thank you, my dear.'

  All the entries were in one hand, presumably Buckle's. The book was fully up to date and appeared to have been kept as meticulously as Buckle had claimed. The monthly totals tallied with the office ledger. On the critical day of 11 September two short journeys of nine miles were entered, and the same on 12 September.

  Diamond thanked Buckle, said he would delay him no longer and left. On the way out, he looked for Buckle's Mercedes in the car park. It was parked in the space reserved for the managing director. The mileage on the clock matched the latest figure in the book.

  His morning's work had come to nothing. The case against Dana Didrikson looked stronger still.

  Chapter Seven

  THERE FOLLOWED A HIATUS OF three months during which Peter Diamond tried to persuade himself that he could do nothing more for Dana Didrikson, that it would be better for all concerned if he let the law take its course. His thinking came down to this: he expected her to be found guilty, and his knowledge of the case suggested that the verdict would be right. He didn't expect the trial to last long. It wouldn't surprise him if she changed her plea to guilty.

  She would serve probably a dozen years of the lite sentence and be released on licence. She was no danger to society. Most of the murderers he'd known had been like her - a group apart from other criminals . .. people driven by family pressures or their own obsession to commit one crime in their lives.

  And yet... .

  A vestige of unease lingered in his mind. Certain things about the case still challenged an explanation. The Jane Austen letters had not been found. No doubt the prosecution would suggest that Geraldine had destroyed them in an act of jealousy, and Dana Didrikson had killed her in a fit of outrage fired up by her infatuation with Jackman. Yet Geraldine had known that those letters were valuable. According to Jackman, she had been overdrawn three thousand pounds. Mightn't she have seen the letters as a way out of her financial mess?

  Maybe it was mistaken to assume that Geraldine would make that kind of calculation. According to Jackman she had been mentally unstable, if not actually unhinged.

  According to Jackman ... So many of the assumptions in the case depended on Jackman's statements. He had interpreted the fire in the summerhouse as an attempt on his life, a manifestation of Geraldine's paranoia. It was worth remembering that Jackman's field of expertise was English literature, not psychiatry.

  What other evidence had he provided of her mental illness? There were the persecution fantasies such as her belief that he was conspiring with her doctor. There was the time she had accused him of stealing the hand-mirror from her vanity set.

  The incident had appeared trivial when Jackman had described it, and still did. Other mirrors were in the house, and Geraldine had already taken possession of Jackman's shaving-mirror, yet she had got into a state because hers was missing.

  Hardly worth repeating. People - perfectly sane people - were forever getting into huffs with each other over things they foolishly mislaid.

  Diamond plumbed his memory for more significant evidence of Geraldine's instability, and recalled that some had been provided by Dana Didrikson herself. Dana had witnessed that curious scene in front of John Brydon House when Geraldine had wrestled with the blond man called Andy to try and prevent him leaving. And on another occasion, Dana had arrived home and been deluged with what she had termed a torrent of abuse from Geraldine, apparently unjustified.

  One night in April, six months since he'd quit the police, he was going over the incidents in his mind when the realization came to him that changed his understanding of the case. Ironically, something he had disregarded galvanized his thinking - the mirror Geraldine had lost.

  The next morning he phoned Jackman and asked to meet him at John Brydon House. There was no reluctance on Jackman's part. The voice, bleak in its greeting, abruptly changed when Diamond spoke. 'It's you - I thought you'd lost interest.' The words gushed from him with hope on tap again. 'I
tried reaching you several times.'

  Diamond knew. He'd avoided the calls.

  'This could take some time,' he said when he got to the house. 'I want to make a search.'

  Disappointment spread across Jackman's face. 'They already did. They pulled the place apart.'

  'I know. I'll start in the bedroom. Okay?'

  'If you're looking for those letters, forget it.'

  'I'll start in the bedroom.'

  Jackman's back was stiff with dissension as he led the way upstairs. Apparently he had built himself up to expect some blazing insight that would transform the case, not just one more search of his home.

  Diamond went straight to Geraldine's dressing room and found the switch for the frame of lights around the dressing table. The publicity photos on the walls gleamed. While Jackman watched him from the doorway, he opened the centre drawer and began examining the contents, sifting through the jars and tubes of face-creams, opening them, sniffing them, and, in the case of a box that turned out to contain talcum powder, dipping his finger in and tasting it. He took the drawer right out of its housing, placed it on the floor and explored the space. He repeated the exercise with the other drawers.

  Jackman asked, 'What are you hoping to find?'

  'Do you remember telling me about the fuss she made when her hand-mirror was missing?'

  'Yes - but it turned up later in the garden, of all places. Is that what you're looking for?'

  'In the garden, was it? Maybe someone else used it.' He didn't enlarge on this. He replaced the drawers and turned to the wardrobe, running his hand along the shelf. He scooped out some silk scarves and a black straw hat. Then he knelt and began rummaging among the boots and shoes. 'Mirrors have many uses. It's just an idea I have.'

  But there was nothing in Geraldine's dressing room to support the idea, so he said, 'Do you mind if I make a search in yours?'

  Jackman shrugged.

  His room was as austere as a sauna after Geraldine's, the walls devoid of decoration, the chest-of-drawers functional, all the surfaces bare except for a newspaper and a couple of books of poetry. 'Do you want to open the drawers yourself?' Diamond asked. yourself?' Diamond 'Be my guest.'

  They contained nothing remarkable. Nor did the bathroom and the other rooms upstairs, for all the painstaking search. After two unprofitable hours, Diamond accepted the coffee Jackman offered. They sat in the kitchen and Jackman started angling again. 'I'm still not sure what you hope to find.'

  'Do you cook for yourself?' Diamond asked.

  'I wouldn't describe it as cooking. Without Marks and Spencer and the microwave I wouldn't survive.'

  This wasn't the time to embark on a debate about microwave cookery. Diamond feared that Stephanie hadn't yet mastered their new oven. Some of the meals that came up sizzling were cold by the time you got them into your mouth. There had been government warnings about food insufficiently cooked. In any other circumstances - across the bar of the Old Sedan Chair, for instance - he would have got into a helpful discussion now. However, his sleuthing took priority.

  'Was she much of a cook?'

  'Gerry? That's a laugh.'

  'Except for barbecue sauce, I take it?'

  Jackman looked unamused.

  'So what do you keep in those jars marked tarragon and oregano?'

  Tarragon and oregano. Just to impress her friends.'

  Diamond worked his way through the spice-rack, unscrewing the lids. The jars still had their seals. He tore each of them aside and sniffed the contents. 'When the police made their searches, they didn't bother with your kitchen, then?'

  'You bet they bothered. They stripped the cupboards bare.'

  'But they didn't look in these.'

  'You couldn't hide an antique letter in ajar that size.'

  'True.' He moved along the fitted units, opening the cupboard doors.

  'What do you want - sugar?'

  'No, thanks.' A large box of drinking-straws had taken his attention. 'Are you lemonade drinkers?'

  'What?'

  'The straws. A box of 500. Plenty have gone. I suppose you had them for the party.'

  'I didn't notice.'

  He replaced the box and took out a half-used packet of flour and set it on the kitchen table.

  'Going to bake me a cake?'Jackman morosely jested.

  Diamond was sniffing again. 'Do you have a spoon - a large one? Thanks.' He dipped deep into the flour, scooped up a spoonful and tipped it back, repeating the process several times. Then he returned the bag to the cupboard and took out an unopened one. It was folded at the top and fastened with a small piece of Sellotape.

  This time he felt some resistance when he dug the spoon into the flour. Encouraged, he said, 'I'll have that plastic bowl from the sink.'

  Jackman handed it to him without a word.

  He tipped the contents of the flour-bag into the bowl and immediately found what he had come for: three small polythene bags about the size of table-tennis balls containing a substance as white as the flour.

  He picked at the wire fastening around one and opened it. 'Do you mind turning on the light?'

  The powder inside glistened. It was definitely not flour, but crystalline in form.

  'Drugs?'whispered Jackman.

  Diamond wetted his finger, dipped it into the bag and tasted the substance. Bitter. He washed out his mouth at the sink. 'Cocaine - the champagne drug. Didn't you know your wife used it?'

  Jackman's expression switched rapidly from disbelief to shocked acceptance. It was the reaction Diamond would have expected. 'I see - the straws.'

  'Not only the straws,' Diamond told him. 'I don't know how familiar you are with cocaine use. The stuff has to be chopped into fine powder first. They use a razor blade and a mirror. Glass is an ideal surface. They form the powdered coke into a line and sniff it through a straw or a rolled banknote. Your wife didn't have many banknotes left.'

  'You mean she spent all her money on this?'

  'It isn't cheap.'

  Jackman was tugging abstractedly at the side of his face. 'Jesus Christ. How could I have failed to see it?'

  'Too engrossed in your job. From what you told me about your marriage - your worlds hardly overlapped, I think you said - you weren't best placed to make sense of what was happening. It's taken me a hell of a time to work it out, and I'm supposed to be a detective, or was.'

  'Her odd behaviour - was that totally due to cocaine?'

  'I don't know about totally. I think it's safe to say she wasn't mad. My understanding of the drug is that after the well-being wears off, the user - I'm speaking of heavy users - can be prey to all kinds of fears and anxieties. They think people are against them. Paranoid delusions leading to violent behaviour are well-known symptoms.'

  'I'm surprised her bloody doctor didn't get on to this. So when she tried to kill me she must have been high with cocaine.'

  'She'd probably been snorting it at the party.'

  'Is this what they call crack?'

  'No, crack is cocaine dissolved in warm water and heated with an alkali, like baking powder. It comes in the form of flakes or crystals. Try that and you have an immediate compulsive addiction. A physical addiction. This isn't crack.'

  'But it is addictive?'

  'Psychologically, yes. It can take some time. I would guess from the size of your wife's overdraft that she was hooked.'

  Jackman was silent for a moment, piecing together the logic of what had seemed incomprehensible at the time. 'I'd like to find the bastard who supplied her.'

  'So would I,' said Diamond. 'And fast.'

  'You think it has some bearing on her death? You do, don't you?' He smacked his hand on the table. 'My God, it could change everything!'

  Diamond was way ahead of him. There was an incident that took place on the drive in front of this house last summer, witnessed by Mrs Didrikson and her son. It was a Saturday morning. I think you were out at the time. You were very busy with that exhibition. The two of them -Dana and Matthew -
were in the road hoping to catch a glimpse of you. Mat had seen you on television and recognized you as the guy who rescued him from the weir. Instead, they saw a man come out of the house -clean-shaven, strongly built, with straw-coloured hair. Blue shirt, white jeans and trainers. Oh, and he had a gold chain around his neck. Know anyone like that?'

  'Nobody springs to mind.'

  'He had a maroon-coloured Volvo. His name was Andy.'

  'Andy? The only Andy I know is fat and sixty. What happened?'

  'He walked out towards the car and your wife came running after him, wearing a dressing gown. Her feet were bare, but she was in too much of a state to bother. She didn't want him to leave. She was asking him to come back in. She called him Andy and said something like, "Do you expect me to go on my knees and beg?" She had quite a wrestling match with him before he shoved her away and drove off.'

  'Dana saw all this?'

  'Yes, and reasonably enough she took it to be a lovers' tiff. She steered Mat away in some embarrassment. Now that we know about the cocaine, I'm tempted to see the incident in a different light.'

  'This Andy was her supplier?'

  Diamond gave a nod. 'That's my assumption. Probably he was holding out for a higher price. More than your wife was willing to pay at that time.'

  'We've got to find him.'

  'That isn't easy. If I were still in the police, I'd bring in the drugs squad. They're better placed to find him. We ought to report this, anyway.'

  Some reluctance may have escaped in Diamond's voice, because Jackman immediately said, 'We're in a different ball-game here. This isn't just about our civic duty. Dana faces a life sentence, and that Inspector Wigfull's reputation is on the line. He's handed the prosecution a neat case of murder with an eternal triangle motive and evidence to back it. He doesn't want it complicated with a drugs connection.'

  'He couldn't stop it.'

  'Yes, but he can soft-pedal. I think we should follow this up ourselves. It's the first scrap of hope for the defence. Let's not chuck it to the opposition right away.'

  Diamond was uneasy. As a senior policeman, he would have come down hard on anyone who failed to report a drugs find, however small. Yet he'd also known as a senior policeman how murder inquiries worked. New evidence wasn't greeted as good news when the file had already been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service. Jackman's remark about soft-pedalling was persuasive. And the earlier cock-up over the car-log still troubled him. By drawing attention to its disappearance they had undoubtedly handed the prosecution a trump card. Why not hold this one back to play when the time was right?