“Massimo seems to have been the last of the Filiputs in Bath,” Ingeborg told Diamond when he checked with her again. “I drew a blank. I suppose there was no one left to arrange for a death notice.”
“The Internet failed us?” he said.
“On the other hand he may have left instructions that he didn’t want his funeral announced. Some house-breaker could have seen the notice and raided the home in Cavendish Crescent on the day of the funeral. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened.”
Tempted to have another dig at Ingeborg about the limitations of the Internet, he spared her and moved on. “Find one of those websites that lists properties that were sold in the last two or three years.”
Easy.
Most of the crescent was divided into four-bedroom flats that sold for anything up to £750,000. The only sale of a complete house that fitted the time-slot was at £2.3 million. Ingeborg found the agent who had handled the sale, called them and learned that the Filiput property had been sold by Fathom and Peake, a firm of solicitors.
“We’re motoring now,” Diamond said. “I mean, I’m motoring now, back to Bath.”
The lawyers’ office was in Henry Street, close to the former home of CID. The receptionist asked what the enquiry was and Diamond flashed his ID and said he needed to see the solicitor who had dealt with the late Massimo Filiput’s affairs.
“I’m not permitted to disclose client information,” she said.
“Ma’am, I’m not asking you to disclose anything. Just press the right buzzer and I’ll turn my back if you want.”
“It’s not as straightforward as that.”
“It never is in these places,” he said. “Okay, let’s try another approach. Who’s the most senior person in the building?”
“That would be Miss Hill.”
“Not Mr. Peake? I was hoping to go right to the top.”
This receptionist was impervious to rapier wit from visitors. “The founders are all deceased.”
“Miss Hill, then, if you would be so kind.”
One law as rigidly enforced as any on the statute book is that solicitors keep you waiting. He’d thumbed through most of an out-of-date issue of The Bath Magazine before a large lady in a black suit invited him into a spacious office smelling of lavender furniture polish. How the world had changed since he’d last spoken to a solicitor. There wasn’t a dusty old book or an overflowing in-tray in sight. Just a bare desk and a flat-screen computer.
“It’s about Massimo Filiput,” Diamond said after shaking a hand that was mainly rings and fingernails. “I believe he instructed you or one of your colleagues.”
Hard to believe anyone would instruct Miss Hill. Nothing about her suggested she was the submissive type. Black hair forced into a tight scrunch. Eyes that missed nothing and lips he couldn’t imagine smiling if he’d presented her with a box of the finest chocolates and an armful of daffodils.
“Do you know about client confidentiality?” she asked.
“The client’s dead,” Diamond said.
“I’m aware of that.”
Still in motoring mode, he moved rapidly through the gears. “I can get copies of his will, his wife’s will, the documents pertaining to the sale of the house. I can check the names of the executors, the beneficiaries and the purchasers. But it all takes time, Miss Hill, and I don’t have much of that and neither do you, I’m sure, so let’s cut through the red tape, shall we, and do what we can to allay the suspicion?”
She gave him a glare that would have sent a lesser man straight out of the door. “Suspicion of what?”
“Difficult to say without seeing the paperwork. Any malpractice was out of your control, I hope and believe.”
“Malpractice?”
“For want of a better word.”
Going by Miss Hill’s body language any other word in the dictionary would have been an improvement. “Have a care. I don’t take insinuations like that from the police or anyone else.”
He took a more persuasive line.
“Why don’t you go to your files for copies of the wills, and then I can give you chapter and verse? You’ll be giving nothing away. You obtained probate on both, so they’re public documents now.”
“You used the word ‘malpractice.’ I must warn you that a term like that is actionable.”
“Only if it turns out to be unfounded.”
“You’d better explain yourself, superintendent.”
“Not without the paperwork,” Diamond said and threw discretion out of the window. “If you want to turn this into a damaging police investigation involving the Crown Prosecution Service, I can leave now, but I hate to think of the aggro.”
“This is highly irregular.”
“I couldn’t put it better myself.”
She picked up her phone and asked for copies of the wills.
“Good call, Miss Hill,” Diamond said. “I’m sure you and I can sort this out between us.”
She didn’t comment, preferring to punish her computer keyboard. Definitely more of a dominatrix than a submissive, Diamond decided. Finally, the receptionist arrived with two box files.
“I drew up both wills myself,” Miss Hill told him as she opened the first box. “They were perfectly straightforward. Mrs. Filiput left everything to her husband in the event of her predeceasing him. And he made a similar will in her favour.”
“Tidy.”
“It’s common practice when a husband and a wife without family are making provision for their deaths.”
“But she died first, so he inherited everything. Did that mean rewriting his will?”
“No, each of them made their wishes clear for all eventualities.”
“Your firm acted as executors for each of them?”
“I thought I made that clear.”
“So after Massimo Filiput died, you wound up the estate?”
“Correct.”
“You personally?”
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“Which must have meant drawing up an inventory of his possessions and selling the house in Cavendish Crescent?”
She nodded. “It fell to me to do everything, even arranging the funeral. They had no family.”
“And previously, when Olga Filiput died, did you also make an inventory of her possessions?”
“That had to be done for probate purposes.”
“Her clothes? In particular, I’m interested in three antique evening gowns owned by Mrs. Filiput.”
“There were far too many items of clothing for me to remember them all.”
“The dresses I’m speaking about were valuable items,” he said, “made by Fortuny about a century ago, and worth about ten thousand pounds each.”
“I told you. I don’t recall them.”
“Would you mind checking? This could be important.”
She made a sound deep in her throat like a distant tsunami. Then she lifted a stack of documents from the filing box and selected one.
Diamond watched and waited.
“Yes,” she said. “Antique evening dresses by Fortuny of Venice.”
“That’s the list of Olga’s possessions?”
“Yes.”
“Now would you check the documents for Massimo and tell me if the same dresses are included in the inventory of his possessions?”
The tsunami sounded ten miles closer.
She opened the second box and found the relevant list.
She blinked, ran her finger twice down the list and finally looked up. “There’s nothing here about gowns.”
Just as he expected.
“He could have sold them, I suppose,” he said. “If so, it would show in his bank statements. Presumably you have those as well.”
You could have made bricks from her silence and built the Great Wall of China in the time she took to move, but in the end she looked for the statements and found them. After a close inspection, shielding the figures with her free hand, she said, “There are no transactions here that aren’t accounted for.”