She declined.
“You said you saw red at finding him drunk,” he recapped.
Her face tensed. “I disapprove of drink.”
“Was he in work?”
She shook her head. “He was one of those printers laid off from Regency Press a year ago.”
“Was he still unemployed?”
“Yes.”
“Depressed?”
“Certainly not.”
“It must have been difficult managing after he lost his job,” Diamond said, giving her the chance to say something in favour of her dead husband.
“Not at all. He got good redundancy terms. And I’m earning as well.”
“I meant perhaps he was drowning his sorrows?”
“What sorrows?”
“This afternoon bout was exceptional?”
“Very.”
“Which was what upset you?”
She gave a nod. “It’s against my religion.”
Diamond treated the statement as if she were one of those earnest people in suits who knock on doors and ask whether you agree that God’s message has relevance in today’s world. He ignored it. “You’re a nurse, Mrs Noble, and I imagine you’re trained to spot the symptoms of heavy drinking, so I don’t want you to be insulted by this question. What made you decide that your husband was drunk?”
“The state of him. He was slumped in a chair, his eyes were glazed, he couldn’t put two words together. And the brandy bottle was on the table in front of him. The brandy he was given as a leaving present. He promised me he’d got rid of it.”
“Didn’t he like brandy?”
“It’s of the devil.”
“Had he drunk from the bottle?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
“Had he ever used drugs in any form?”
She frowned. “Alcohol is a drug.”
“You know what I mean, Mrs Noble.”
“And I’ve seen plenty of drug-users,” she riposted. “I know what to look for.”
“No question of drugs?”
“No question.”
“Did he look for another position after the printing came to a stop?”
“There wasn’t much point. All the local firms were laying people off.”
“So how did he spend the days?”
“Don’t ask me. Walks in the park. Television. Have you ever been out of work?”
He nodded. “And my wife couldn’t find a job either.”
“Then you ought to know.”
“Unemployment hits people in different ways. I’m trying to understand how it affected your husband.”
“You’re not,” she said bluntly. “You’re trying to find out if I murdered him. That’s your job.”
Diamond didn’t deny it.
“It wasn’t deliberate.” She raised her chin defiantly. “I wouldn’t dream of killing him. Glenn and I were married eleven years. We had fights. Of course we had fights, with my temper. That’s my personal demon — my temper. I threw things. Mostly I missed. He could duck when he was sober.” Her lips twitched into a sad smile. “We always made up. Some of the best times we had were making up after a fight.”
Trish Noble’s candour was touching. Diamond sympathised with her. There was little more he could achieve. “We’ll need a statement, Mrs Noble, a written one, I mean. Then you can go. Do you have someone you can stay with? Family, a friend?”
“Can’t I go home?”
“Our people are going to be in the house for some time. You’d be better off somewhere else.”
She told him she had a sister in Trowbridge. Diamond offered to make the call, but Trish Noble said she’d rather break the news herself.
2
To most of the staff at Manvers Street Police Station this room on the top floor was known as the eagle’s nest. John Farr-Jones, the Chief Constable, greeted Diamond, who had arrived for a meeting of the high fliers. “You’re looking fit, Peter.”
“I used the lift.”
“What’s it like to be back in harness?”
The big detective gave him a pained look and said, “I gave up wearing harness when I was two years old.” He took his place in a leather armchair and nodded to a chief inspector he scarcely knew.
The wholesale changes of personnel in the couple of years he had been away had to be symptomatic of something.
“Mr Diamond’s problem is that we haven’t had a juicy murder since he was reinstated,” Farr-Jones told the rest of the room. Since it was thanks to Farr-Jones’s recommendation that Diamond had got his job back, he may have felt entitled to rib the man a little. But really the recommendation had been little more than a rubber stamp. In October 1994, a dire emergency had poleaxed Avon and Somerset Constabulary. The daughter of the Assistant Chief Constable had been taken hostage and her captor had insisted on dealing only with Diamond. The old rogue elephant, boisterous as ever, was now back among the herd.
“What about this teapot killing?” Farr-Jones persisted. “Can’t you get anything out of that?”
There were smiles all round.
John Wigfull unwisely joked, “A teabag?” There was a history of bad feeling between Wigfull and Diamond. Many a time Diamond had seriously contemplated grabbing the two ends of Wigfull’s ridiculously overgrown moustache and seeing if he could knot them under his chin. Now that Diamond was back, Wigfull had been ousted as head of the murder squad and handed a less glamorous portfolio as head of CID operations. He would use every chance to point to Diamond’s failings.
Tom Ray, the Chief Constable’s staff officer, hadn’t heard about the teapot killing, so Diamond, wholly against his inclination, was obliged to give a summary of the incident.
When he had finished, it was rather like being in a staff college seminar. Someone had to suggest how the law should deal with it.
“Manslaughter?” Ray ventured, more in politeness than anything else.
“No chance,” growled Diamond.
Wigfull, who knew Butterworth’s Police Law like some people know the Bible, seized the moment to shine. “Hold on. As I remember, there are four elements necessary to secure a manslaughter conviction. First, there must be an unlawful act. That’s beyond doubt.”
“Assault with a teapot,” contributed Ray.
“Right. A half-full teapot. Second, the act has to be dangerous, in that any sober and reasonable person would recognize it could do harm.”
“Clocking a fellow with a teapot is dangerous,” Ray agreed, filling a role as chorus to Wigfull.
“Third, the act must be a cause of the death.”
“Well, he didn’t die of old age.”
“And finally, it must be intentional. There’s no question she meant to strike him.”
“No question,” Ray echoed him.
Diamond said flatly, “It was a sudden death.”
“We can’t argue with that, Peter,” said Wigfull, and got a laugh.
“I’m reporting it to the coroner. It’s going in as an occurrence report.”
Wigfull said, “I think you should do a process report to the CPS.”
“Bollocks.”
“It would be up to them whether to prosecute,” Wigfull pointed out.
Diamond’s patience was short at the best of times and it was even shorter when he was on shaky ground. He stabbed a finger at Wigfull. “Don’t you lecture me on the CPS. I refuse to dump on this woman. She’s a nurse, for pity’s sake. She walked all the way here from Twerton and reported what she’d done. If the coroner wants to refer it, so be it. He won’t have my support.”
Ray asked, “Have you been out to Twerton yourself?”
“I haven’t had a chance, have I?” said Diamond. “I’m attending a meeting, in case anyone hadn’t noticed. Julie is out there.”
“Inspector Hargreaves?” said Farr-Jones. “Is that wise? She isn’t so experienced as some of your other people.”