Diamond Dust Page 6

  ‘Dagenham.’

  ‘But you don’t know Bristol very well, or you wouldn’t be holding a torch for the Carpenter brothers. Where did you meet Jake?’

  ‘Nightclub.’

  ‘Local?’

  ‘London.’

  ‘And he brought you here and set you up in a nice apartment in Clifton? Did you stop to think what the price tag is?’

  Her eyes blazed. ‘Sod off, will you?’

  ‘So it was pure romance,’ McGarvie said with heavy irony.

  ‘I’m not on the game. Never have been.’

  ‘Nor was Maeve Smith before she met Jake. Get real, Janie. He’s evil.’

  ‘Take a running jump.’

  McGarvie paused before shifting to another line of questioning. ‘Who were the people you were with outside the court?’

  ‘His mates.’

  ‘Family?’

  ‘Don’t ask me. We just stood together to make ourselves heard.’

  ‘You didn’t know them by name? They were mainly women.’

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘One of the women attacked Superintendent Diamond, the senior detective on the case.’

  She said vaguely, ‘Oh, yeah?’

  ‘Scratched his face and kicked him when he fell. That’s assault on a police officer.’

  ‘Serve him right.’

  ‘What?’

  The temper ignited. ‘He framed my boyfriend, got him sent down for life. What do you think I’m going to do? Cook him a fucking fruitcake?’

  ‘Are you admitting to the assault?’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘You know his wife has been murdered?’

  She switched to defence. ‘Oh, come on – you can’t pin that on me just because…’ In time, she managed to stop herself saying any more.

  ‘You appreciate how serious this is?’

  ‘I never… It’s a load of crap. Is that why you pulled me in? I wouldn’t do a thing like that to my worst enemy. I didn’t even know the woman. I don’t have a shooter. I never handled one in my life.’

  ‘Don’t get hysterical,’ McGarvie said. ‘Listen, Janie. No one is pinning anything on you. I may even take a lenient view of the assault on DS Diamond if you can put me on the trail of the killer. What have you heard?’

  ‘Now he wants to do a deal,’ she said as if to the unseen gallery. ‘I keep telling you, I know sod all about the murder of this lady.’

  ‘Was it a contract job? You could tell me that.’

  ‘Go to hell.’

  McGarvie tried different tacks, but either she was too afraid to speak, or she knew nothing. Presently he broke off the interview and came out, leaving Janie and the woman officer facing each other in silence.

  He came to the observation room. ‘Well?’

  ‘She’s the one with the sharp nails,’ Diamond confirmed. ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Mary-Jane Forsyth, apparently. Likes to be known as Janie. Twenty-six. No previous. Calls herself a beautician.’

  ‘And what’s your take on her?’

  ‘She’s small change in the Carpenter set-up. Doesn’t know much. But she’s been around enough to know I won’t press charges for the assault on you.’

  ‘You’re going to let her go?’

  ‘When I’m ready.’

  ‘If you like, I could try and get a reaction.’

  ‘Peter, you’re a glutton for punishment. Thanks, but no. I don’t want you involved, and you know why.’

  ‘Are you going back in?’

  ‘Yes, but you don’t have to stay and watch.’

  ‘Try and stop me.’

  When the tape was running again, McGarvie resumed with a fresh approach. ‘Did you visit Jake while he was on remand?’

  ‘Course I did,’ Janie said.

  ‘You’re still number one in his life?’

  ‘He’s always been kind to me.’

  ‘Have you been to see him in Horfield Prison, since the trial?’

  She shook her head. ‘They don’t get many visitors.’

  ‘But you’re his girl. He’d like to see you more than anyone else.’

  ‘I expect I’ll get a turn. His brothers want to go first and talk about business things. Family stuff.’

  ‘I bet they do. Did they warn you off, then?’

  ‘Celia – that’s his brother Danny’s wife – said I have to be patient and they’ll let me know.’

  ‘So you know that side of the family?’

  ‘I met them once. They came round to Jake’s place for a barbecue on one of them hot days in the summer.’

  ‘Got on all right?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Was Celia one of the crowd you were with outside the court?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And Des – the other brother?’

  ‘I don’t know him.’

  ‘What’s happening about your flat?’

  ‘It’s on a lease until next month. Jake paid six months upfront.’

  ‘Generous. What are your plans?’

  ‘I’ll have to go back to London, won’t I?’

  It ended on that downbeat note. McGarvie went through the motions of warning Janie to respect the law in future and told her she wasn’t going to be charged this time. If he’d entertained thoughts of using her, they were dashed. It was starkly clear she wouldn’t get her turn to visit Jake in prison. She was history so far as the Carpenters were concerned.

  Yet she was better off than Maeve Smith.

  And Stephanie Diamond.

  Diamond was summoned to the ACC’s office early in the afternoon. Clearly there had been discussions before he arrived. Georgina was holding court with McGarvie, Halliwell and two others of DCI level in attendance. An empty chair was positioned centrally.

  He had a sense straight away that he had walked into a trap. Georgina looked uncomfortable. No one looked at ease. ‘Peter,’ she began, meeting his eyes in a way that could only promise conflict, ‘I don’t have to tell you that the investigation into your wife’s murder has been running for almost a month. We’ve put all the resources we can into it. Curtis here has been working long hours, excessive hours, trying for the breakthrough.’

  ‘I know,’ Diamond said with caution. ‘I’ve no complaints.’

  ‘That’s good. Unfortunately, the results are disappointing. The obvious suspects, the Carpenter brothers, have very good alibis.’

  ‘Can’t fault them,’ McGarvie chimed in. ‘Everything checks.’

  Diamond said, ‘They hired someone.’

  Georgina didn’t challenge the statement. ‘The theory of the professional gunman? Obviously that’s high on the list.’

  ‘Top of it. Must be.’

  She let that pass. ‘The most likely way we’ll get a line on a hitman is through informants. We’re asking all the sources we know, and the Met are making soundings as well, because it’s more than likely – if it happened -someone was brought in from London. But so far, nothing has come up. Meanwhile, we must explore every other possibility.’

  He shrugged. Couldn’t argue with that.

  Georgina looked to McGarvie to pick up the baton.

  ‘Can’t ignore the stalker theory either,’ McGarvie said.

  ‘She wasn’t a pop star.’

  ‘Come on, Peter. Ordinary people get stalked. If you’re unlucky enough to grab the attention of some crazy, you get stalked, whoever you are.’

  ‘No one was stalking Steph.’

  ‘She may not have mentioned it.’

  ‘She’d have told me. I don’t buy this at all.’

  ‘But you’ll agree as a detective it has to be given an airing?’

  He leaned back in the chair. They seemed to want his endorsement. ‘Air it, then.’

  ‘All right. She worked in the charity shop. Any woman – anyone at all – who works in a shop is on display. A stalker knows where he can see her, and when. It’s the kind of shop anyone can step into and browse around without being asked what he wants. Som
etimes he can walk by and just look in the window. He fantasises that she’ll take an interest in him. Maybe he asks a question, or buys something. She was an outgoing woman, good at her job, pleasant to the customers. He takes it as a come-on.’

  ‘You don’t have to labour it,’ Diamond interrupted. ‘Why does he turn nasty?’

  ‘When this obsession is at its height, he finds out she’s happily married to you. In his eyes, that’s disloyalty. The love turns to hate. If he can’t have her, neither will you.’

  Diamond rolled his eyes upwards and let out a long sigh. McGarvie was right. It couldn’t be discounted. ‘Any other scenarios?’

  McGarvie nodded and said, ‘The mugging that goes wrong. Some drug-user desperate for cash points a gun at the first woman he sees in the park. She tells him to get lost and he pulls the trigger.’

  ‘If someone pointed a gun at Steph and asked for money, she’d have the sense to hand it over.’

  ‘Her bag was missing.’

  ‘Anyone could have picked that up, including the wino who found her.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  There was an awkward silence while McGarvie exchanged a look with Georgina. Neither seemed ready to go on. Finally Georgina cleared her throat.

  ‘We have to explore every avenue. Do we agree on that?’

  ‘Doesn’t need saying.’

  Still she hesitated over the real purpose of this meeting. ‘Well, in a straightforward case of murder, there are procedures we use almost without thinking.’ Another pause. ‘You don’t have to take this personally, Peter. The first person questioned is the spouse.’

  He gripped the arms of the chair and looked at each of the embarrassed faces. Now he knew what this pantomime had been about: easing him into the frame. ‘Isn’t that what’s going on now?’

  ‘I’m speaking of something more formal.’

  ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘We can’t make any assumptions,’ Georgina went on. ‘Of course it’s an imposition. You’re a trusted colleague. None of us seriously believes… In short, I’ve asked Curtis to conduct an interview with you.’

  ‘What do you think I’m hiding, for Christ’s sake?’ he demanded. ‘He’s been to my house, been over every room, taken things away. I’ve told you all I can.’

  ‘You’re one of us,’ McGarvie said without any conviction at all, fingering the knot of his tie, ‘and that’s the problem. I can’t put certain questions to you without giving offence.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I don’t propose to start here. This should be done in a structured way, in an interview room, on the record.’

  ‘An interview room? Give me strength.’

  ‘It may seem over-formal, but…’

  ‘You really do have your suspicions.’

  ‘An open mind.’

  To think he’d been impressed by McGarvie.

  Georgina tried her best to give it an ethical spin. ‘We owe this to Stephanie, you know, leaving absolutely nothing to chance. You wouldn’t want us to skimp. Why don’t I send for some coffee before we do anything else?’

  ‘I’d rather get on with it,’ Diamond muttered from deep in his gut.

  9

  In Interview Room C, in the same chair his attacker, Janie Forsyth, had occupied only an hour ago, Diamond listened in a dazed, disbelieving way to the familiar preamble to a taped interview with a suspect. Was told the identity of his interrogators, McGarvie and Georgina Dallymore, as though he had never met them. Was advised that he was attending voluntarily and was entitled to leave at will unless informed that he was under arrest.

  The world had gone mad.

  ‘For the record,’ McGarvie was saying, ‘I’d like to clarify your movements on the morning your wife was shot. You were at home first thing, I gather?’

  ‘Mm?’ He stared blankly.

  ‘What time did you leave the house?’

  ‘The day it happened? I told you already. Eight-fifteen.’

  ‘Can anyone confirm the time? Did you see a neighbour? The postman?’

  He shrugged. ‘I got into my car and backed it out and drove off.’

  ‘Leaving your wife at the house?’

  ‘You don’t have to make it sound like a crime.’

  ‘Do you sometimes give her a lift into town?’

  ‘Only if she wants one.’ With each response he was stilling the urge to tell them it was no business of theirs. Until now he hadn’t ever considered how closely he guarded his private life.

  ‘She didn’t want the lift on this occasion because it was her morning off. Right?’

  ‘Correct’

  ‘How was she dressed at the time you left?’

  ‘Is that important?’

  ‘Night-things? Day clothes?’

  ‘I see. The things she was found in, apart from the raincoat and scarf.’

  ‘So you drove here, to work?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Arriving at what time?’

  ‘Must have been before nine. I didn’t check exactly. Ten to?’

  ‘It takes you that long?’

  ‘The traffic is heavy that time of day.’

  ‘Which way did you enter the building?’

  ‘From the car park.’

  ‘Using the back stairs?’

  ‘Does it matter which stairs I used?’

  ‘Anyone see you arrive?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘You didn’t pass the time of day with anyone, in the car park, or coming upstairs?’

  ‘Don’t remember.’

  ‘Okay. Where did you go?’

  ‘My office.’

  ‘Without speaking to anyone at all?’

  ‘You asked that already.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Took off all my clothes, stood on my head and recited The Charge of the Light Brigade. For the love of God. What does anyone do when he comes into his office in the morning? Opens the window, looks at the stuff on the desk, kicks the wastepaper basket. One day is like another, and I can’t tell you what I did.’

  ‘Perhaps you used the phone?’

  ‘First thing? I doubt it.’ Eyes closed, he made an effort to think back. ‘At some point I was called by Helen, the ACC’s PA, and asked upstairs.’

  ‘We know that.’

  ‘Then you don’t need to ask. And you know what time it was.’

  ‘Shortly after eleven. Were there any callers prior to that?’

  ‘Not that I remember.’

  ‘In short, you can’t name anyone who can place you at work in your office between nine and eleven o’clock.’

  ‘Someone could have come in. I don’t recall.’ He was in difficulty with this line of questioning. Everything prior to Steph’s murder was very hazy indeed. It was almost like the after-effect of concussion, with the trauma blocking out everything. He hadn’t expected to be questioned about it, and until now hadn’t given a thought to what he had been doing.

  ‘Two hours, alone in your office?’

  ‘Things were quiet in CID. I was keeping my head down. If you show you’re at a loose end in this place you get dumped on.’ Having said this, he knew it wouldn’t win any sympathy from Georgina, but it was the truth and he was too far gone to care. Georgina was tight-lipped.

  McGarvie drew his right hand slowly across the table as though testing for dust and pressed his palms together, rubbing them lightly. He was ill at ease, and his next question showed why. ‘Forgive me. I have to ask this. Was your marriage in good shape?’

  Diamond heard the words, played them over in his head, and had an impulse to grab the man by the shirt and head-butt him. He’d asked the same insulting question when he came to the house. This was bloody incitement.

  Then Georgina chose to come in with her smooth talk, learned in all those management courses for high-ranking officers. ‘You appreciate that we need to know for sure. It is a legitimate question, Peter.’

  Legitimate? It was a bastard question, and they knew
it. ‘I didn’t have any reason to shoot my wife, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  ‘No,’ McGarvie said, ‘that isn’t what I asked.’

  He pressed down on his legs to stop them shaking. The stress had to break out some way. ‘Steph and I were happy together, happy as any couple can be. Is that what you want to hear?’

  ‘Do you own a gun?’

  Another crass question. He hesitated before answering, ‘No.’ It was the truth…just about. The Smith & Wesson revolver in his loft at home was police properly, acquired years ago when he worked in London.

  ‘In the Met, you were listed as an authorised shot.’

  ‘I let it lapse some years back.’

  ‘The.38 that was used to shoot your wife could well have been a police weapon.’

  He took a sharp, deep breath. ‘What are you on about? I don’t believe this.’

  Sensing that it was time to draw back a little, McGarvie said, ‘In the days leading up to the incident, did your wife mention any concerns, anything that might have suggested she was under stress?’

  He’d been over this in his own mind many times. ‘No. Nothing at all.’

  ‘Was she at all secretive?’

  ‘If you’d known her, you wouldn’t ask that question.’

  ‘Had there been any change in her routine?’

  ‘Not that I noticed.’

  ‘Had she received any threatening phone calls or letters?’

  His patience was draining fast.

  ‘For the tape,’ McGarvie said, ‘the subject just shook his head.’ Then he tossed in another grenade. ‘Did she have links with the criminal world?’

  ‘What? Steph? Are you completely out of your mind?’

  It wasn’t the kind of response McGarvie wanted for his precious tape, but the gist was clear. He sniffed and moved on. ‘Did she have a car of her own?’

  ‘No. We shared it.’

  ‘She could drive, then?’

  ‘Oh, yes. But I was using it.’

  ‘We need to establish how she travelled to the park. Would she have walked?’

  ‘Could have, quite easily. It’s scarcely a mile from where we live, but not too nice when the traffic is heavy on the Upper Bristol Road. It’s more likely she caught a minibus. They pass the end of the street every fifteen minutes, so she generally took one if she was going into town.’

  ‘She’d be at the park in a very short time.’