Deirdre added, “I would need to consult the probation service offender manager before I could reveal the address and that would be at his discretion. They have strict guidelines.”
“I’ll save you the trouble,” he said. “I’ll get it from the police member now I know we’re represented on this quango.”
“Suit yourself.”
“When’s Pinto’s next appointment with you people?”
“This afternoon. But if you think we’re going to turn him over to you, you’ve got another think coming.”
The famous Diamond charm hadn’t worked its magic on Deirdre.
He checked the Other Half website and found a report of yesterday’s race, but only the top ten finishers in each category were listed. A complete result list would appear later, he learned. He phoned and asked if they could supply him with a list of all the runners who started. When they said it couldn’t be done because there was a huge amount to be sorted out on the day after a major half marathon, he was tempted to pull rank and say it was an urgent police matter, but good sense prevailed and he held off.
He’d already walked on eggs, pressurising Deirdre, and now he’d been on the point of doing the same with the race organisers. His hunch that Pinto had been up to no good had better be well-founded. If the high-ups got to hear he was using his rank to extract information about an ex-offender purely on his intense dislike of the man, he’d be in serious trouble.
Unrepentant, he used his rank to start another line of enquiry. He called Paul Gilbert in. “You remember Pinto, the ex-con I told you about, the guy we saw in the race?”
“Of course I do, guv.”
“He’s due to meet his probation officer this afternoon. You’ll be doing a recce outside their office at the Old Convent in Pulteney Road. Watch him go in and wait for him to come out. Then follow him back to wherever he lives. I need to know his address.”
As if she’d got wind of all this, Georgina Dallymore, the Assistant Chief Constable, presently stepped into his room wearing her fault-finding look as domineeringly as her silver-trimmed uniform.
“What are you doing?”
“Working, ma’am.”
“What on?”
“Borrowed time.”
“You’re not dying, are you?”
Did he detect a note of optimism? He gave her an answer that stretched the truth by a few hours. “I was negotiating the overtime allowance with Inspector Walker, of uniform. He owes me some. A lot of my detectives were on duty yesterday keeping an eye on the Other Half.”
She blinked, baffled. “Husbands and wives?”
He’d had a tough morning, but he enjoyed that. “Runners. Thousands of them in the half marathon.”
“That other half. I understand you now. And did it go smoothly?”
“Smoothly as these things can. Some of them looked anything but smooth at the finish.”
“I was at morning service in the choir.” She planted herself in the armchair in the corner, always an ominous move. “I don’t suppose you’ve had time to read the latest bulletin from ROCU.”
“As in ‘We will...’?”
“Be serious for once. The Regional Organised Crime Unit.”
Was he being victimised or did he have a persecution complex? “In that case, no, I haven’t.”
“They’re recommending the greater use of unmanned aerial vehicles.”
Flying saucers crossed his thoughts but he kept them to himself. “Now you’ve lost me altogether.”
“Drones, Peter.”
“Ah.”
“For surveillance. Wiltshire Police have won a special award from the Home Office for technical innovation. They have a team of five ready to attend incidents.”
“Five drones?”
“Pilots.”
“You just said they were unmanned.”
“The pilots control the drones from the ground.”
“Five policemen doing nothing but playing with drones? How can Wiltshire justify that when my team and I are doubling up on marathon duty?”
“They’re specials.”
“We all like to think we’re special, ma’am.”
“Special constables. Local enthusiasts recruited for their skills. All volunteers.”
“Something for nothing, then?”
“I wouldn’t put it so crudely. They get expenses.”
“Cheap at the price.”
“And that’s a cheap comment. I’m surprised you haven’t thought of this. It would be a boon to your activities, making searches of dangerous environments, looking for weapons, stolen property, fugitives on the run. Frankly I was disappointed to learn that Wiltshire are ahead of us. If an incident happened today, we’d have to enlist their help.”
“Good thing, too,” Diamond said, quick to see an opening. “We’re always being encouraged to share with other forces.”
Georgina wasn’t impressed. These days, she was taking every chance to buff up her reputation. There was still a vacancy for the job of Deputy Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset. She turned her head to gaze out of the window at the empty sky over the Avon portion of the empire. “I want a drone team of our own. We must embrace the new technology. We have vast areas of countryside to police. This is an essential aid.”
“The eye in the sky.”
“You’ve got it.”
“I haven’t yet.”
“See that you do, Peter. Make enquiries locally. Find the enthusiasts and recruit them. Reliable people, of course.”
“Where? The Drones Club?”
She frowned, uncertain if she was being sent up. “If one exists in Bath, yes.”
“I’m sure it must, ma’am.”
After she’d gone, he kicked the wastepaper bin and made another dent in it. Typical Georgina, wanting something for nothing. But on reflection he started to see that drones might be of use. They would have been helpful on Sunday, patrolling the Other Half when it was out in the country. He called out to DCI Halliwell. “Keith — I’ve got a job for you.”
14
“Would you believe it?”
“What’s that?” Sergeant Ingeborg Smith asked. She’d come into Diamond’s office late in the afternoon and found him staring fixedly at his computer screen, a rare occurrence.
“A waste of space I put away years ago.”
“In the headlines again?”
“Let’s hope not. I was sure I spotted him running in the Other Half on Sunday. Paul Gilbert and I waited ages at the finish just to be certain, but we missed him.”
“Perhaps he dropped out.”
“No. I’ve just downloaded the complete results and he finished after we gave up and left — in four thousand six hundred and twenty-seventh place. It’s here in front of me: Tony Pinto. He must have walked in, or crawled. Time four hours, twenty-three minutes, twenty-six seconds. So I wasn’t wrong.”
“Not much of an effort for a half marathon,” Ingeborg said. “I’d have given up well before then. Do you think he walked literally? It’s average walking pace, about three miles an hour.”
“He ran at least some of the way. He was going at a fair lick when he passed us.”
“I expect he broke down at some point and needed to recover.”
“Or was otherwise occupied. When we saw him he was chatting up a blonde in a red T-shirt.”
“What are you suggesting, guv?”
“I thought it was obvious.”
“They took time out for sex? Why not say it, then?”
“Because I’m an officer and a gentleman.”
“Ho ho ho.”
“Pinto was always a randy sonofabitch. The course is out in the country, over footpaths and through tunnels for much of the way. It wouldn’t be hard to find a secluded spot.”
“As long as it was consensual, I don’t see a problem with that.”
“When I saw them, it didn’t look consensual. She wasn’t enjoying his company. Hard to be certain when two people run past you, but he was doing all the talking and she was unimpressed.”