A rising note in the response told him that whatever bad bit of news he was about to hear wasn’t necessarily bad news for Leaman. The man couldn’t wait to pass it on. He was positively smug. “Let’s hear it, then.”
“A call came in just now from a Mrs. Hector.”
He knew the name. He had to dredge deep in his memory. Still couldn’t grasp it. His life experiences were mapped in his brain as pre- and post-anaesthetic and Mrs. Hector was pre-. Registered there, but hazy.
“Belinda Pye’s landlady,” Leaman reminded him.
“Got you. She remembers something?”
“No.” Leaman was enjoying this. “Are you sitting down?”
“I’ve got no choice. Spit it out, man.”
“Mrs. Hector says Belinda is alive and well. She returned to her room this morning.”
23
Chew on that, Leaman might have added, if Diamond hadn’t blasted him with a fusillade of questions, none of which he answered.
“How’s that possible?... What did she say?... Where has she been?... What happened to her?... Does she have any idea of the trouble she’s caused?”
“That’s all Mrs. Hector said.”
“You didn’t fucking ask?”
“I didn’t take the call myself. It was made to the One Stop Shop down in Bath.”
“I’ve got thirty people searching for her body.”
“I know.”
Even a man with the limited social skills of John Leaman understood that this was not a moment to brag that he’d warned about anaesthetics and wrong conclusions.
In imminent danger of bursting a blood vessel, Diamond spoke his anxieties aloud. “Until I’ve seen her, spoken to her... No, it’s got to be true. It can’t be a hoax. I’ve messed up big time. Better deal with this right away. I’ll be back as soon as I can. We all will. Do me a favour, John, and say nothing to anyone until I get there.”
Having ended the call, with thoughts of disciplinary hearings bombarding his brain, he tried to devise some form of words that would break the news gently to Keith Halliwell and the team.
There was no ducking it.
But before he made the call, the phone went again and this time it was Halliwell and the gloom had gone from his voice. “Better news, guv. We’ve moved on to a place the locals know as Shepherd’s Field and this is the real deal at last, definitely a shaft and clear signs that the undergrowth is disturbed and the iron cover was moved recently. Ingeborg is sending a picture. Have you got a pen? I’ll give you the map reference.”
“Keith.”
“We can’t claim any credit for finding it,” Halliwell motored on. He’d missed the note of caution in Diamond’s voice. “The shaft was known about already. But the turf at one side has been disturbed, so we’re quite excited, here. You’ll see in the picture. Hold on. Ingeborg wants to speak to you.”
“No, stay on the line. There’s something I must—”
Diamond’s mea culpa was drowned by Ingeborg’s excited voice. “Have you looked at the pictures, guv?”
“Before you say any more—”
“Don’t worry. We’re treating it as a crime scene, marking it with do-not-enter tape. Keith has already sent for a SOCO team. If they drive to the end of Beechwood Road they’ll be reasonably near. Shepherd’s Field, it’s called.”
“For fuck’s sake, listen to me, Inge.”
She went silent. He’d never sworn at her before. Never.
“Belinda is alive. She turned up out of the blue today and is back in her bedsit in Spring Gardens Road.”
“What?”
“Somewhere along the line I made an almighty miscalculation. Can I speak to Keith again?”
He couldn’t hear the exchange of words before Halliwell came on. His ears were ringing. He was still punch-drunk from the blow he’d been given by Leaman. Paloma, the medics and his own team had all warned him about the tricks anaesthetics play on the brain and still, stupid arse, he’d insisted he was right.
Belinda’s corpse had been an illusion.
“Is this true, guv?”
“I’m sorry, but it is.” He repeated the little he’d learned from the call. “Obviously I screwed up and I’ll take what’s coming to me, but I’m going to have to ask you to tell everyone the search is over and why. Thank Stanley and his friends and get all the police back to normal duties as soon as possible. I don’t know who you spoke to about the SOCO call-out, but cancel that as well.”
“Okay, guv.” Halliwell muttered something inaudible. Then, “Ingeborg wants another word.”
“Put her on.”
Her voice was sympathetic now. “Guv, think of it this way. Belinda is safe and that’s brilliant news, something to rejoice over. You did the right thing, pulling out all the stops to try and find her.”
“That’s a way of looking at it, Inge. Thanks.”
“What will you do now?”
“Keep my head down.”
“That won’t work for long.”
“I know. I’ll travel back with you lot and then get someone to drive me out to Spring Gardens Road. I want to hear Belinda’s story before the sky falls in.”
He chose to be driven back to Concorde House in the same search and rescue van he’d used as his temporary headquarters. The ride wasn’t comfortable, but he didn’t want the palaver of moving to the people-carrier on crutches, struggling up the steps to sit among a bunch of complaining bobbies. Instead he propped his back against some first-aid packs and slipped his injured foot into a space between two rolled-up stretchers. The van hadn’t gone far over the bumpy field when he regretted the absence of springs underneath him. The bundle of used police tape fell from a shelf and spread over his thighs as if to remind him what a fiasco this search had been. He let it lie there.
Back in Emersons Green, he disentangled himself and prepared to move again. He wouldn’t risk going inside the building and meeting Georgina. With difficulty, he transferred to the passenger seat of Ingeborg’s small car. Not much was said on the drive into Bath. She enquired about his foot and he lied and said he’d forgotten he had one. But when they reached Belinda’s digs, he needed the strong arm of the law — Ingeborg’s — to help him get vertical.
“Shall I come in with you?” she offered when she’d handed him the crutches.
“Good suggestion. Stop me strangling her.”
Little Mrs. Hector had seen them coming and had the front door open, in contrast to their reception last time. She was back in her apron and slippers as if they were her uniform. “What’s happened to you, poor lamb?” she asked.
He glanced at Ingeborg to see if she was in difficulty, but the remark had been directed at him. He hadn’t been called a lamb in forty years.
“Long story,” he said.
“You look dreadful.”
“That’s what all the girls say, and they can’t get enough of me. Is she inside?”
“She hasn’t left her room since she arrived, except to go to the bathroom. I hope you didn’t mind me phoning in. You asked me to tell you if she was back.”
“Public-spirited of you, ma’am.”
“She’s never going to tell you herself, so it was up to me.”
“Did she say anything?”
“When?”
“When she came in.”
“We didn’t speak.”
“Why was that?”
“I was in bed, petrified. You told me she was dead.”
He felt the chill of Ingeborg’s disapproval. “I don’t remember using those words. I said we were concerned for her, that’s all.”
“When a policeman comes knocking on my door, what else am I to think?”
“So she arrived first thing today and let herself in?”
“She has her own key. She went straight up to the room.”
“You haven’t even seen her?”