She couldn’t stop herself rolling her eyes and saying, “Tough.”
“But you knew he wasn’t the sort to give up. Left to himself, he’d decrypt it, so you needed to eliminate him. I don’t know how many attempts you made. At least three to my knowledge.”
“Prove it,” she said. She was getting involved in the narrative, keen to discover how much she’d got away with.
“First, let’s discuss your method. You talk about it in the diary being beautifully simple, but you don’t describe the process in detail-I suppose because you were writing for yourself and you knew damn well how it was done. You make them drowsy first with some tranquilliser administered in food and then you smother them with a pillow. How am I doing?”
The hazel eyes slid upwards in reproach. “You really think I’m about to tell you?”
“No need. Our forensic people will analyse the cake crumbs on the plate beside his bed. I’ve got to admire those culinary skills. The date-and-walnut cake he had with him on his tricycle ride the evening of the collision must have been one of yours. I know it wasn’t meant to cause a fatal accident, but it did. He was supposed to eat the cake at home and drift into a state where you could easily kill him when you called later. Silly man, he went out and took the cake with him and stopped to eat it somewhere along the route. He was riding unsteadily all over the road when the police car hit him.”
“You can’t blame me for that,” she said.
“I don’t. I’m sure you went to the house the same night expecting to finish him off and found he wasn’t in.”
He could tell from her look that he’d told it right.
“But it didn’t stop you trying again. You didn’t know he was in hospital the morning you arrived with the quiche and ran into me with Mrs. Halliday, the home help. You made your retreat at the first opportunity, taking the doctored quiche with you. I’m glad now, but I would have cheerfully shared a slice at the time. Date-and-walnut cake, a quiche Lorraine and what was today’s offering?”
“Chocolate sponge.”
“Of course. The hospital told me. You don’t give up easily.”
“He could have died naturally, from the accident,” she said.
“Yes, and saved you a job. What a bummer when he started coming out of the coma. Still, you got here at the first opportunity ready to finish him off.”
“Is he…?”
“No.” He paused, looking keenly for the reaction. “They revived him. He’ll live.”
She closed her eyes, doing her best to ride the blow. One more death wouldn’t have troubled her, but Pellegrini fit enough to make a statement would.
“A hospital isn’t the ideal place to kill anyone,” Diamond said. “They’re rather good at reviving people.”
Beside him, Ingeborg smiled.
The suspect didn’t.
“Your method has much to commend it. No marks are ever found on the victim unless he puts up a fight-and of course your victims are far too relaxed to resist. Any pathologist will tell you the smothering of someone who doesn’t fight back is just about impossible to diagnose after death. Pellegrini is a fortunate man, twice rescued from the brink.”
“I wouldn’t have picked him,” she said.
A strange choice of words. He had to think what she meant.
Her meaning was clear when she added, “He became a threat.”
“By getting suspicious of you?”
“I was forced to take risks.”
“Softening him up by posing as the good Christian lady?”
“He wasn’t in my plans. I knew the others better and had more control.”
Diamond was pleased to have this on tape. She’d virtually admitted her guilt. He wanted more. “When you say ‘the others,’ how many were there?”
A slow smile played over her lips. “You tell me.”
“From reading the journal, I’d say you’ve been doing this a long time. You don’t get to be the wife of a crime baron without staking out a position of influence.”
“How do you know that?” she said, the amusement gone in the blink of an eye.
“That you had another identity as Dilly Sabin? I worked it out.”
Ingeborg almost spluttered over the coffee she was sipping. Diamond was way ahead of her.
He explained. “How else would you have got to know Cyril? He was up to his ears in debt to Bob Sabin, but he’d obviously found some source of money because he was making repayments. I may be wrong, but my reading of your relationship with Bob is that it was past its sell-by date. He made clear that you wouldn’t inherit the proverbial brass farthing-and you didn’t. When things go sour with a man as ruthless as that, something has to be done. Did you feed him cake or something more fitting for a crime baron? Bombe surprise, perhaps? Toad-in-the-hole? Anyhow, Bob went peacefully, same as the others.”
Beside him, Ingeborg took another sharp breath. She was learning so many things she hadn’t grasped until now. If she’d ever needed reminding of the sharp brain of her sometimes infuriating boss she had a prime example here.
His eyes hadn’t wavered from the suspect. “There was definitely some sympathy for you in the criminal world. To quote Larry Lincoln, you were given the double-shuffle.”
Jessie, or Elspeth, or Dilly, gave a shrug.
“But you had your own plan as usual. After killing Bob, you’d clear off to the country as housekeeper to Cyril Hardstaff. He was quite a charmer anyway, easy to get on with, and your salary was guaranteed by his late wife’s trust fund. More importantly, Cyril had an Aladdin’s cave somewhere. Didn’t take you long to track that to Cavendish Crescent and Max Filiput. You drove your new boss there for the Scrabble sessions and had a good look round while the two old gents were arguing over seven-letter words. It made a change from Little Langford, I imagine. Life must have been boring there.”
“Deadly,” she agreed.
“You made the best of it and then things went belly-up again. Max wasn’t as gaga as you’d first thought. He’d started to notice things were disappearing from the house. He got himself into quite a state about it.”
She actually nodded at that.
Diamond added, “Do you know, for some time we thought Pellegrini was the thief? He had three valuable Fortuny gowns, worth a small fortune, hidden in his workshop. How wrong we were. It only dawned on me recently that Max must have asked Pellegrini to take care of them for him. He feared they, too, would be stolen.”
“He needn’t have bothered,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Impossible to fence. No use to me.”
“Max didn’t know that. As I was saying, he was getting jumpy about the thefts. He suspected one of the railway club must be the thief and he confided his suspicions to Cyril, who was worried and told you. This was alarming. It was obvious the finger would soon be pointing at you and Cyril if something wasn’t done to silence Max. Another murder became necessary.”
She sniffed and looked away, as if the whole process was wearying her.
“The set-up made things easy for you,” Diamond went on. “I’m tempted to say a piece of cake. You often made tea for the two old men during the Scrabble afternoons. Simple to see that Max got some tranquilliser. And even simpler to return later and finish him off. The key to the house was kept behind a drainpipe near the front door.”
“You don’t miss much, do you?” she said and it wasn’t clear if it was meant as sarcasm or a compliment.
“So you let yourself in, go upstairs, do the business and leave. The cleaner, Mrs. Stratford, discovers the body next morning. From all appearances, it’s a peaceful death, just like your other victims. Old man at home in his own bed with no sign of violence. Dr. Mukherjee takes a look, certifies life is extinct and puts it down to heart failure and narrowing of the arteries. No need for an autopsy.”