‘Oh yeah, and who’s that?’
‘I’ll think about it.’
The only exit line he could supply. He didn’t really have an answer.
He crossed the room to see Septimus, fully expecting another gripe, and instead got a more positive response. The Bristol team, he learned, had now got all the witness statements onto computer. They’d found the canteen and liked the all-day breakfast. They might even survive a few days in Bath.
‘I’m overjoyed to hear it,’ he said, ‘but I’m running a murder enquiry, not a holiday camp.’
‘Sure,’ Septimus said with the cool of an ocean breeze on a Caribbean beach. ‘We have an action plan.’
‘Which is…?’
‘Item One: we need to question the man who was with Rupert when they found the femur.’
‘Dave Barton? He was questioned already. We have a signed statement taken by Keith Halliwell.’
‘Yes.’ One word carrying such disapproval that Diamond hoped Halliwell hadn’t overheard it.
‘Are you thinking Barton is a suspect?’
‘He needs to answer some tough questions.’
‘Such as?’
‘Why didn’t he come forward when Rupert was reported missing?’
‘Keith asked him that. He doesn’t look at TV or read a paper.’ ‘So he claims.’
‘You don’t believe him? He did come forward finally.’
‘After it got serious.’
‘Well, he may have got alarmed when he heard about the murder, thinking he’d be an obvious suspect.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ Septimus said, and it was obvious he had another way. ‘Equally, if he did the killing himself, he might get away with it by telling us a pack of lies, presenting himself as the good guy who was friendly enough to share his beer.’
‘What do you think happened, then?’
Septimus tilted his head and gave Diamond a searching look. ‘Do you really want my theory?’
‘If it stands up.’
‘Seems to me all this had something to do with the bone they found. I’ve looked at Dave Barton’s statement. Suppose he switched roles.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘He claims he buried the beer and offered some to Rupert. Suppose the reverse happened and it was Rupert who hid the beer and quite by chance happened to choose the spot where the girl was buried. Barton was watching. He had a special interest in watching.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he killed the girl twenty years ago. He’s in his forties now. He’s old enough.’
The theory intrigued Diamond. ‘Murdered her and buried her there?’
‘And thought he’d got away with it. A desolate spot on the side of a hill where not many people go and no one does any digging. Then the Civil War society announces it’s going to commemorate the battle. Hundreds of people are coming to the part of Lansdown where the body is buried. I’ve seen the fallen tree. You can’t miss it. It’s an obvious point of defence, the kind of place where soldiers might dig a latrine or set up camp. Barton gets worried and decides he’d better join the regiment to keep an eye on things.’
‘I believe he’s been in it some years.’
‘Okay, he joined a while ago. It’s some years since the first murder. Am I still making sense?’
‘Enough to keep me interested.’
‘Then Rupert comes along, first to bury the beer and later collect it. He’s a generous guy and when he meets Dave Barton he offers him a drink. To Dave’s horror, Rupert finds the bone and decides it belonged to a Civil War victim and wants to exca-v ate the site. Dave persuades him to rebury it, but has his doubts whether Rupert will let it stay buried. He keeps watch and later the same evening he sees Rupert return to the site. He follows him and cracks him over the head, and leaves him for dead. But Rupert recovers enough to wander about Lansdown for days in a confused state.’
‘Until Dave Barton finds out and finishes him off?’ Diamond rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Could it be as simple as that?’
‘Can I bring him in again?’
‘I think you’d better.’
‘Do you want this to be another voluntary statement? No arrest?’ ‘That would be preferable.’
He wasn’t entirely sure that the theory held up, but it demonstrated that Septimus was a thinker. Dave Barton was in for a searching examination.
In the quiet of his office Diamond grappled with the problem of the Ukrainian woman. He’d never had much confidence that the embassy would name her. At the time she went missing her country had been in ferment, emerging from the restrictions of the old Soviet system. They’d probably had a delegation looking after their interests in Britain rather than a fully fledged embassy. All these years later they weren’t going to produce a list of missing persons.
There’s always someone who knows, he’d said to Halliwell.
Easily said.
Okay, the young woman had disappeared and nobody seemed to have noticed. His remark to Keith – that she may have been trafficked – had something going for it.
The Ukraine was notorious as a source of cheap labour and worse. Young people from the former Soviet bloc had started coming to the west in numbers after the wall came down and temporary work for cash had always been easy to get in Britain, with no questions asked about visas and work permits. Unscrupulous employers were only too pleased to cash in.
Some illegal immigrants undoubtedly were murdered and weren’t heard of again. If you don’t officially exist, there isn’t much of a hue and cry when you go missing.
He called Ingeborg to the office. ‘You were a journalist. You know the local scene as well as any of us. Is there a Ukrainian community in Bath?’
‘Not that I’ve heard of,’ she said.
‘Bristol?’
‘Possibly. They do band together in places and keep up the old customs and religion. Ukrainians have always had a strong sense of identity. There’s a national association, isn’t there? I know there are several thousand in Manchester and they organise events and meet socially.’
‘In London, too,’ he said, and he could speak from experience after his years in the Met. ‘I think the first to settle here in numbers were displaced soldiers after the second world war. The Ukraine has had various political upheavals since and each one saw more of them moving here. I think they have their own cathedral somewhere in London. But Bath…? I haven’t heard of it and neither have you, it seems.’
‘You’re trying to find someone who knew the dead woman?’ she said.
‘When she first came here, she would surely have looked for some of her fellow countrymen.’
‘Unless she was trafficked and had no choice,’ Ingeborg said.
He might have expected Ingeborg to think of this. As a socially aware young woman she was well informed about the trade in human beings and keen to see it stopped. ‘When did trafficking first become a problem?’
‘It started when perestroika came to the old Soviet Union and travel restrictions were eased.’
‘When Gorbachev was leader?’
‘The late eighties. Young people were looking for an escape and there were crooks only too pleased to take advantage.’
‘In Russia?’
‘And here.’
‘But we know from the logo on the zip that she came in the early nineties.’
Ingeborg nodded. ‘Yes and by then they were leaving their country in big numbers, women in particular. Life was hard there. Something like eighty per cent of the unemployed were women. They couldn’t earn much at home.’
‘So did she land up in Bristol?’
‘On the game? Who knows? Montpelier and St Paul’s have always had a reputation. You could talk to Septimus.’
‘And I will,’ he said, ‘but I’m still hopeful that she made contact with some Ukrainians here. Common sense tells me she came to London first and we know they have a big presence there. I’m going to call an old friend from the Met. He may throw some light.’
Louis Voss had retired from Fulham CID some time after Diamond left, but still worked in the same nick as a civilian.