And now, with Diamond shown up once as fallible, Keith Halliwell pitched in. ‘He could be wrong. She could have come for some other reason.’
‘Such as?’
‘Something she didn’t want to tell her father about.’
‘Go on.’
‘Looking up an ex-boyfriend.’
‘Japanese?’
‘British, American, Japanese – who knows? Someone she knew in Yokohama who is now working or studying in Bath. Mari has set her heart on reviving the relationship. But it turns out he’s living with someone else, may have a child as well. Mari is hurt and angry when she finds out.’
‘Straight out of Madame Butterfly,’ Leaman murmured, annoyed that someone had stolen his thunder.
Halliwell wasn’t being put off. ‘She threatens to tell the new partner about his past. They have a row, it gets violent and he kills her.’
‘Quite a theory,’ Diamond said.
‘You did ask.’
‘I’m grateful. And there could be some simple and obvious reason for coming to Bath that nobody has mentioned.’
‘What’s that?’
An interruption from Paul Gilbert saved him. ‘Guv, Mr. Hitomi will be texting the names in the next few minutes.’
‘Excellent. While we wait we can decide which of his pictures to release to the press.’
This didn’t take long. They chose three: a close-up of Mari in Hitomi’s house, a street picture with arms outstretched and the shot of her wearing the backpack looking over her shoulder at the camera.
The names of her friends came through soon afterwards: Taki Kihara and Mikio Nambu. Both were ex-pupils of Yokohama High School studying physics at Exeter University.
‘Exeter.’ Diamond turned to Ingeborg. ‘How long would it take you to drive there – a couple of hours?’
‘Probably less. Depends who’s sitting beside me.’
Smiles all round. Diamond’s dislike of high speeds was well known. Even he managed a twisted grin.
‘Tee it up with the physics department. We’ll go this afternoon.’ He continued doggedly with the briefing. ‘One thing Mr. Hitomi confirmed is that Mari was into classical music in a big way. We already knew there was Beethoven on the iPod. It now turns out that her mother in Yokohama is a violinist who studied to a high level at some music college in Tokyo.’
‘Kunitachi,’ Paul Gilbert said.
‘Someone give him a Kleenex.’
‘The Kunitachi College of Music. I made a note of it.’
Leaman took this as the cue to air more of his musical expertise. ‘Suzuki trained.’
The only Suzuki Diamond had heard of was a motorbike and he wasn’t being lured into admitting that. ‘We’ll take your word for it. The point is that Mari’s mother taught her to love music and she was keen enough to have miniature musical instruments fixed to her backpack. I’m thinking it’s possible she was here in Bath for some concert.’
‘But we don’t know when, so how can we tell?’ Halliwell said.
‘You want it on a plate. It’s a possibility, that’s all.’
‘The music festival is always at the end of May,’ Leaman said, ‘but there are concerts of one sort or another all year round.’
‘Ingeborg checked all the local music colleges for a missing Japanese student and came up with nothing,’ Halliwell said.
‘Get with it,’ Diamond said with an opportunity to score. ‘We’re not looking for a missing student now. Mari wasn’t living here. That wouldn’t stop her looking up some Japanese friend in a music college. The music may be a huge red herring, but it keeps swimming into view.’
Diamond and Ingeborg got on the road after an early lunch. The Exeter University physics department had set up a meeting with Mari’s two Japanese friends at 3.30 pm.
‘It’s a learning experience, this,’ he said after they were on the M5 and he’d asked Ingeborg to stay in the slow lane. He believed conversation made the journey go just as quickly as belting along at dangerous speeds. ‘Classical music and now physics. Quite a mental leap.’
‘Einstein managed it,’ Ingeborg said. ‘He was a keen violinist.’
‘You’re starting to sound like John Leaman now.’
‘In what way?’
‘Trotting out facts. I’m not complaining. John’s a useful guy on the team. He was right, saying we must investigate these Exeter friends. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. Am I losing my grip?’
‘You don’t miss much, guv.’
‘I’m not sleeping all that well.’
‘Any reason?’
‘Bit of a crisis in my personal life.’ He stared at the back of his hand as if it didn’t belong to him. ‘You might as well know. I split up with Paloma.’
‘Really?’ She hesitated before saying with sympathy, ‘That’s tough.’
‘My fault. I came out with one stupid remark too many. Any woman who takes me on is asking for trouble.’
‘Would you like to make it up with her?’
‘Don’t know. We’re proud people, both. She gave me an earful.’
‘Pity if it’s only words that came between you.’
‘There’s more – my attitude. I can’t stop being the hard-nosed cop. She thinks I should lighten up when I’m off duty. I try. Obviously not enough.’
‘It goes with the job.’ Ingeborg said. ‘We’re never entirely off duty. We see something wrong and can’t ignore it.’
‘What started this? You mentioning Einstein, making me feel inferior.’
Ingeborg laughed. ‘I’m no Einstein myself. I failed physics and I can’t read music.’
‘Too bad. I was hoping you’d be discussing relativity with these undergraduates.’
‘And in Japanese?’
‘They must be reasonably fluent in English or they couldn’t study here.’
‘How do you want to deal with them – as a pair or singly?’
‘Definitely one by one. Joint interviews don’t work. There’s always one loudmouth who dominates and it’s sod’s law that the quiet one has all the information.’
‘And we’re treating them as suspects?’
‘We must. John Leaman could be right. They may have murdered her in Exeter and dumped the body in Bath as a blind.’
‘They’re supposed to be her friends.’
‘They’d need a motive, yes, like some bad blood we’ve yet to find out about.’
Even in the slow lane, they reached Exeter ahead of schedule. The university complex north-west of the city was easy to locate. Finding a place to leave the car was more of a problem. ‘There was a time when most students couldn’t afford a motor,’ Diamond said.
‘It’s now,’ Ingeborg said. ‘They just run up a bigger debt.’
At the physics department they were told that the professor was off the campus all day, so they were given his office to use as an interview room.
‘Chair of physics at Exeter will look good on my CV,’ Diamond said as he tried the seat. ‘Who’s first up?’
‘It seems to be decided,’ the department secretary said. ‘We asked them both to be here at the time you stated. Miss Kihara is waiting outside, but the man is late.’
‘The man?’
‘Mr. Nambu.’
‘Funny. I assumed they were both female, being friends of Mari. Not obvious from the names.’
‘Unless you’re Japanese,’ Ingeborg said.
‘Ask Miss Kihara to step in, will you?’
The student was small and nervous, with powerful glasses that magnified her eyes into a permanent startled look. Being interviewed in the professor’s office must have been daunting. She might have been more relaxed in the place Diamond had originally planned to use: the union bar.
‘May we call you Taki?’
‘Please do.’ At once it was clear there would be no problem over the language.
‘You knew Mari Hitomi, I believe, and you’ll have heard the sad news of her death.’
‘It’s incred
ible. A horrible shock.’
‘We spoke to her father and he understood she was planning to visit Exeter to see you and Mr. Nambu.’
‘That’s right. She called me after she arrived in London.’
‘Did she fix the visit?’
‘She didn’t put a date on it. She was going to text us nearer the time. I said she was welcome to stay a few days if she wanted. She could sleep at my place. So we left it flexible.’
‘And you didn’t receive the text?’
‘I wasn’t worried. It was a casual arrangement and when weeks went by I thought she must have made other plans. The next thing I heard was when her father phoned. He seemed to believe she’d been coming straight to Exeter. He was very upset when I told him she wasn’t with us.’
‘It seems she planned a visit to Bath without telling him. Do you know if she had friends there?’
‘Nobody I heard of. If they were friends from Yokohama, I’d know. We all keep in touch. There are three in Sheffield, two in Bangor, one in Cambridge.’
‘Do you visit any of them yourself?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s too far on a bike. That’s my transport.’
‘You don’t drive?’
‘No.’
If this was true – and it was an instant response, spoken without sign of evasion – one crucial question was settled. She hadn’t driven to Bath with a body in the back. ‘You’ve known Mari a long time?’
‘We went through school together in Yokohama.’
‘What was she like?’
‘Very good company. She was open and truthful. Laughed a lot. I was looking forward to seeing her again.’
‘We need to get a picture of her as a personality, likes and dislikes, that kind of thing.’
‘There was the music, of course,’ Taki said. ‘She was passionate about that. Serious music. She didn’t have time for modern pop.’
‘When you say passionate …?’
‘I mean it. She’d travel to concerts in other cities. Her bedroom was full of posters of famous musicians, just like some girls go crazy over rock stars. She had a really top-class sound system and hundreds of CDs. Music was her main thing when we were going through school.’
‘Did she play an instrument?’
‘I never heard that she did. Her mother was a professional violinist and maybe that put Mari off, thinking she could never live up to that standard. She could read music, I know that. She’d buy the score and follow it.’
‘She studied maths, her father told me.’
‘Sure, in Yokohama University. There’s some kind of link between music and maths, isn’t there?’
‘Do you know if she had boyfriends?’
‘I expect so. I haven’t seen her for some time.’
‘At school, I mean.’
‘We all went out with boys. Mari was no exception.’
‘Was Mikio a particular friend?’
‘Of Mari’s?’ She blushed a little. ‘You mean Mikio at this university? They were seeing each other at one time. You’d better ask him.’
‘Are you and he …?’ Diamond asked, picking up on the blush.
‘Absolutely not.’ Her voice shook a little. ‘Just because we went through school together it doesn’t mean a thing. We happen to be studying in the same department in the same university, that’s all.’
The charged quality in her response alerted Diamond. ‘Is something the matter between you?’
‘This has nothing to do with Mari.’
‘But …?’
‘We don’t get on now.’
‘Is that why he wasn’t sitting outside when we arrived? To avoid you?’
‘It could be.’
‘Have you spoken to him at all about Mari’s death?’
‘We don’t speak.’
‘But after her father phoned and was so distressed, didn’t you ask Mikio if he’d heard from her?’
‘No.’ She was increasingly tight-lipped. And this interview had started so well.
‘It’s as serious as that, the rift between you? What’s behind it, Taki?’
She dipped her head.
Diamond, at a loss, glanced to his left for assistance.
Ingeborg said to Taki in little more than a whisper, ‘We need to know. It may seem personal to you, Taki, but we don’t ask questions without a good reason.’
Without looking up, she said, ‘My trouble with him has nothing to do with Mari.’
‘You don’t know,’ Ingeborg said. ‘It could be important. Did he try it on with you?’
After another long pause, Taki lifted her head and faced them, her eyes red-lidded and tearful. ‘At the end of the summer term, he got me drunk. He wasn’t dating me, or anything. We were with other students in a pub in the town and everyone was drinking. He kept filling my glass with cider. When I got up to go I was unsteady. I’ve never been drunk before. I couldn’t stand up properly. Everyone except me seemed to think it was funny. Mikio said he’d take me back to my lodgings. He had to hold me up. I remember him at the house helping me upstairs. After that, it’s a blank.’
‘Do you think he took advantage?’
‘I woke up at some time in the night feeling ill. I was alone in my bed and my head was hurting. I managed to get to the bathroom and threw up. Then I realised I was naked.’ She twisted her fingers in an agitated way. ‘I have no memory of undressing.’
‘He stripped you,’ Ingeborg said, making it more of a statement than a question. She was always alert to abuse of any sort.
‘What else can I think?’
‘Were you bruised? Sore? Do you think he raped you?’
‘If he did, it wasn’t obvious. I was too drunk to know. It’s so humiliating. I can’t believe I encouraged him, but even that is possible. You’d think I would have some memory of it, only I don’t.’
‘He could have added something to your drink.’
‘I’ve thought about that. I simply don’t know.’
‘It happens. If it was just drink, you’d probably have some recollection. Is there any talk of guys here using the date-rape drug?’
‘I haven’t heard it mentioned.’
‘As you say, you could be mistaken,’ Ingeborg said, appearing to sense that her outrage was adding to Taki’s distress. ‘Maybe you undressed yourself. Where were your clothes?’
‘On a chair.’
‘That doesn’t sound like a man intent on rape.’
Taki made a small movement with her shoulders that suggested she’d like to be persuaded, but wasn’t. ‘I didn’t see him again until the new term started and then I was too embarrassed to speak to him. In fact, we haven’t spoken since. What makes it worse is that some of the others who were with us in the pub still treat it as a joke.’
‘How does he react when they tease you?’
‘He doesn’t say anything.’
‘Does he have a reputation for sleeping around?’
‘No. I’ve heard nothing like that.’
Diamond joined in again. ‘Back in Japan, before you came here, what did the girls think of him?’
‘Nothing special. He was just another guy.’
‘Did you ever go out with him?’
‘I don’t think he was interested in me.’
‘But you said he was interested in Mari.’
‘I said they dated a few times. I doubt if it ever got serious.’
‘When she spoke to you on the phone about coming to Exeter, did she speak about seeing Mikio as well?’
She gave a nod. ‘It was kind of awkward. She asked if I saw him and I said yes because I do in lectures and she said it would be good for the three of us to meet and would I like to tell him she was coming. I didn’t want to tell her what happened with Mikio, so I said a better idea was to wait until she arrived and maybe we could fix something then.’
‘What did she say to that?’
‘She misunderstood me. I must have sounded really cool about her plan, because she jumped to the idea I w
as dating him and didn’t want her to come between us. I insisted that wasn’t the case, but I don’t know if she believed me.’
‘So how did you leave the arrangement?’
‘Like I said, we’d keep it loose. She was going to let me know by text when she was coming.’
‘Is it possible she called Mikio herself?’
‘I don’t know.’ Taki frowned. Then her eyes became huge behind the glasses as if an appalling scenario was surfacing in her brain. ‘I guess it’s possible.’
‘Did she have his mobile number?’
‘We all had contact numbers.’
‘We’ll ask him,’ Diamond said. ‘If you didn’t tell him Mari was coming, how else would he have known?’
She still looked deeply troubled. ‘What I said to you just now – about what happened to me last term – doesn’t have to go any further, does it? I’m not accusing him.’
Ingeborg said, ‘That’s not up for investigation and even if it was, proving anything happened would be impossible so long after.’
‘You won’t mention it when you interview him?’
Diamond had let the exchange between the two women run on for long enough. Sympathy could only go so far. ‘Mari was murdered. Nothing is off limits.’
Ingeborg softened the statement by adding, ‘If it comes up, we’ll be as discreet as possible.’
After Taki had left the room, Diamond said, ‘What did I tell you about the quiet ones?’
‘How do we know she’s the quiet one?’ Ingeborg said.
‘We’ll get his story presently. Did you believe her?’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘She was quick to tell us she doesn’t drive and doesn’t speak to the guy. We came here to find out if they combined to murder Mari. Everything this one said absolved her from any part in a possible crime. She told us in effect that if Mikio killed Mari and drove her to Bath, he acted alone.’
Ingeborg’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you saying she made all this up?’
‘I’m saying she’s well and truly stitched up her old school buddy Mikio. Could be true, though. If he’s a date rape specialist it’s not impossible he drugged Mari and things didn’t go to plan. Some of these drugs like ketamine are potentially lethal. He could have given her too much and had a body to dispose of.’
The Tooth Tattoo Page 14