That photo said more than any e-fit would have done.
‘May we make a copy of this?’
No response.
Moved by what he’d just seen, he’d lowered the pitch of his voice. A second attempt got through.
‘What are you going to do with it?’ the old lady said, frowning. ‘I don’t want it getting into the newspapers.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m wearing an apron, that’s why.’
‘We’ll cut you out of it. We only want Nadia’s head and shoulders.’
‘I can’t think why.’
He wasn’t going to enlighten her at this juncture. ‘We’d like to find out what happened to her. Nobody has seen her since this was taken.’
‘I hope she’s all right. She was no trouble to me.’
They left after replacing the box under the bed and allowing the white cat to reclaim its prime position.
‘Top result, Paul,’ Diamond said, his heart still pumping at a higher rate. It was rare for him to show emotion to a colleague, but he closed a hand over Gilbert’s shoulder. ‘Full marks for this. Now let’s see if the photo jogs some memories.’
There is a stage in every lengthy investigation when the team needs palpable proof of progress. Personally, he’d stayed positive, though he was pretty sure there had been murmurings in the incident room about the lack of suspects. The circumstances had made this case an unusual one. Generally you know from the outset what has happened and why. Most of the team’s efforts up to now had been centred on understanding the basics, the nature of the crime. All of that was about to change.
He was humming to himself as he returned to the car.
Hard facts had emerged at last. In London he’d found a name for the skeleton victim and confirmed her nationality and her way of life. And now thanks to Mrs Jarvie he’d discovered the year and the month Nadia had come to Bath and gone missing. Better still, he had the photo in his pocket. He could show everyone what this tragic young woman had looked like in life. The headless skeleton had been reconstructed into a real person.
In this heightened mood, he let his thoughts race on from the facts to their interpretation. Nadia had tried to flee from the hell of prostitution at a time when violence had taken over. Murder was already being done. The vice barons would have thought nothing of ordering another killing. It looked increasingly as if she had been followed to Bath by some hit man and executed, most likely as a deterrent to any other working girl who had plans to escape. The decapitation after death seemed to signify a professional killing. Your average small-time murderer hasn’t the stomach for mutilation.
Thinking of small-time murderers, he was forced to admit that the latest developments rather undermined the theory that Nadia’s death and Rupert’s were connected. If Nadia’s was an organised crime ordered by professionals then Rupert’s had the hallmarks of a local affair, a casual killing. Did it matter any more? Probably not. Linking them had been convenient at the time, a way of making sure both enquiries were controlled from Bath. Georgina might complain when the cases were solved and the dust settled, but the world would have moved on.
He drove back to Manvers Street deciding on priorities. The first step was to get Nadia’s face onto posters, into papers and on television. He’d tell John Wigfull to drop everything he was doing and get the job done fast. After sixteen years was it too much to hope that someone in Bath remembered seeing the girl with her killer? She had left the cottage in Lower Swainswick on an afternoon early in August, 1993. Too long ago? Never underestimate the power of an image.
To his credit, Wigfull didn’t demur. He saw the sense in blitzing Bath (Diamond’s words) with the picture. It wasn’t the highest quality, he said unnecessarily, but fortunately his photographic expert enjoyed a challenge.
‘No touching up,’ Diamond warned him. ‘I don’t want any distortions.’
‘That doesn’t happen these days,’ Wigfull took pleasure in telling him. ‘You’re way behind on the technology.’
Next on the list of priorities was a call to Charing Cross Hospital. He was given the encouraging news that Keith was breathing normally now and had been allowed out of bed. There was no reason why he shouldn’t make a full recovery in a few weeks.
Then a call to Louis Voss. ‘I still need help,’ he said when he’d summarised what he’d learned from Mrs Jarvie. ‘Weren’t you working with the vice squad in 1993?’
‘I did six years of it,’ Louis said before introducing a cautionary note. ‘I know what you’re going to ask. You think Nadia was murdered to order and the order came from here. You want names. Sorry to disappoint, but you’re on a loser, matey. I won’t say the vice barons are faceless, but they make damned sure you can pin nothing on them.’
‘But you know who they are?’
‘It’s organised crime, Peter, big business. We don’t get near them. We never had the resources to hook a big fish. The trouble with prostitution is that there are no victims.’
‘Rubbish,’ Diamond said. ‘Thousands of women are trafficked. I’ve seen girls beaten up by ponces. If they’re not victims, who are?’
‘Okay, I could have put it better. Prostitution works through private transactions, like the drugs trade. Try going to court and you find the sellers and the users are equally unwilling to testify. For me, the vice squad was a reality check. I started out thinking we could make a difference. Some chance. There’s no pressure to act except from local residents who complain about kerb-crawlers, and they’re not the people with influence. Basically, we turned a blind eye to most of what was going on unless it got really ugly. Occasionally we put away a vicious ponce for a couple of years, and raised a cheer. For how long? Before the case came to court another brute was running the show. We never got near the head honchos.’
‘You’re saying I should let some hired assassin get away with murder on my patch?’
‘I’m saying if he was any good at his job you won’t find him. More frustrating still, you won’t get the guy who hired him.’
‘That’s as cynical as anything I’ve heard in the police.’
‘Cynical and true. But let me give you something else to chew on, country boy. I know how the sex industry works in London. At the time you’re speaking of, the Wall had come down and London was awash with classy foreign girls willing to turn tricks. Remember the old saying about no one being indispensable? Your Nadia will have been replaced overnight and forgotten. One little whore making a run for freedom was never worth pursuing to Bath and killing.’
Put like that, the argument was difficult to challenge. There had always been give and take with Louis. That was their way with each other. Deep down, Diamond had a strong respect for his old friend’s wisdom. He remembered hearing something similar from Vikki about the girls being treated as money-makers, like fruit machines, and getting replaced. ‘If you’re right, it means she came to Bath and in a matter of days met someone local who not only murdered her, but removed the head so that we wouldn’t identify her.’
‘So right,’ Louis said. ‘What was it Sherlock Holmes said about the smiling and beautiful countryside and its dreadful record of sin compared to London?’
‘Have you checked your emails today, boss?’ Ingeborg asked, breezing into Diamond’s office soon after he’d ended the call to Louis.