“You remember. The house in—” He was about to say Duke Street when he was drowned out by a sound like Niagara Falls that he later decided must have been Jones taking a huge, shocked breath between his teeth.
“For the love of God,” Jones said. “You’ll undo months of patient work.”
“You want me to prove my identity.”
“In a word, yes.”
A “yes” was an achievement.
“What am I supposed to tell you — my mother’s maiden name or the name of my first pet?”
“I recognise your voice now and I’ve seen where you’re calling from. We can proceed. Have you progressed that investigation you spoke of?”
“Not a lot,” Diamond said. “Softly, softly, you said.”
“We’re on the same wavelength, then. This is better.”
“How about you? What’s the progress on your side?”
“That’s not up for discussion,” Jones said, “except...”
Diamond waited. He pictured Jones looking left and right to see if there was danger of being overheard.
“... after tomorrow you could be in a position to steam ahead.”
“Right.” The fact that Diamond and his team were at full steam already needn’t be disclosed. Jones liked to believe he inhabited a secret world, so he could remain in the dark. “Tomorrow, you say?”
“Did I? Slip of the tongue. Better if you forget this conversation.”
“That won’t be any hardship.” The call ended.
It didn’t take much detective work to divine the next move by ROCU: a dawn raid on Duke Street to make arrests and close down the modern-slavery scam. If his informant had been anyone else but Jones, he would have had questions to ask. What exactly was Pinto’s part in the operation? Had someone replaced him? Where were the men employed? What was their nationality? What would happen to them next? Who was pulling the strings?
With no more Post-its to deal with, he was forced to return to the depressing here and now. He’d announce to the team tomorrow that the case they had sweated over for days had been downgraded from murder to manslaughter. He’d be able to tell them at the same briefing that the slavery racket had been stopped and arrests made. Some consolation, anyway.
That evening he met Paloma for a meal in the Ram at Widcombe, a dog-friendly pub where Hartley the beagle could be taken, provided he was supplied with things to chew to distract him from shredding the table legs or their own shoes. Paloma had filled her handbag with rawhide knots.
She sensed even before they found a table that Diamond had taken a body blow.
“Are you in trouble with the top brass again?”
“I could be.”
Once seated in the lounge area, small and separated by a glass partition from the more generous-sized bar, and with drinks in front of them and the dog working his teeth on the treat, Paloma demanded to know more.
“What it comes down to is that I’ve wasted hundreds more man-hours for no result.”
He could rely on Paloma for a sympathetic hearing. She cared about his misfortunes and humiliations and usually had the wit and wisdom to put them in perspective. He explained about the autopsy report and the significance of the secondary fracture in the skull. “I’m not even sure the case will come to court if we get our man. The Crown Prosecution Service will almost certainly throw it out. They know a smart defence lawyer will treat it as manna from heaven.”
“Is it totally certain he was killed by falling backwards?”
“Dr. Sealy is the expert. We’ve got to believe him.”
Paloma held out her hands in appeal. “Does it matter? This Pinto guy was no great loss to the world. He’s dead now. Whoever was responsible may deserve to get away with it.”
He shook his head. “If we think like that, making value judgements on offenders, we’re playing God. My job is to catch the killer, not judge him.”
“But what if your killer turns out to have been a decent person who was driven to it by Pinto’s foul behaviour?”
“For example?”
“Belinda.”
“Oh, come on. She didn’t do it. She was exhausted. She couldn’t have pushed him over if he was a cardboard cut-out.”
“Does she have a father?”
“No.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Belinda? No.”
“In that case you’re looking for someone else with reason to pick a fight. The Russian woman? She’s strong enough to take him on.”
“Olga liked him. She couldn’t get enough of him. He was her personal trainer.”
“The husband, then. He can’t have been overjoyed that she fancied her trainer.”
“Konstantin?” He nodded. “You’re right. He’s in the frame, but I thought we were talking about decent people. He’s a bully.”
“All right. Any of the slave labourers, the men living in appalling conditions in that basement?”
“They’re prisoners. How could any of them have done it?”
“Desperation.”
“I said how, not why. They’re driven to work every morning and I don’t think work is up on Combe Down.”
“Where are they taken, then?”
“I’m expecting to find out in the very near future.” Taking a leaf from the Jones book of secrecy, he checked in all directions including the exposed beams above him to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “Keep this to yourself or I’ll certainly be out of a job. A raid on the Duke Street house is being planned.”
“So at least some good will come of your efforts. That’s reason to be cheerful, Peter.”
“It’s not my operation. It’s being handled by a regional crime team who specialise in people-smuggling.”
“Would they have known about Duke Street without you?”
“Probably not.”
“That’s a success you can chalk up, then.”
She was right. He wouldn’t chalk it up anywhere, but he’d know in his own mind that his information had helped uncover a disgusting misuse of wretched, exploited people.
The food was served — Cumberland sausages swimming in thick gravy with red fried onions and mash — and his spirits revived a little. “Thanks.”
“What for?” Paloma said.
“The moral support.”
“Ah.” She smiled. “For a moment I thought you were thanking me for the meal. I was going to say I didn’t know I was paying. Moral support comes cheaper than sausages and mash.”
They spoke of other things, mainly a TV period drama series she was having difficulty with as costume adviser. The award-winning director wanted to dress her actors in cage crinolines in the 1880s after the bustle had come in. For Paloma this was a resignation issue that could affect her professionally. Diamond felt her pain and talked like a politician about red lines. She seemed to appreciate his support. He reflected that points of principle don’t have to be matters of life and death. It’s all a question of scale.
After the plates were cleared and coffee was served, the talk turned back to his own disappointment.
“What will you do about your murder investigation?” Paloma asked.
“Basically, call it off,” he said. “My first obligation is to the team. I must let them know and I’m not looking forward to it.”
“A meeting?”
“Tomorrow morning. Then I must speak to Georgina. She wasn’t keen on this from the start. It’s got to be faced.”
“You’re a policeman. You can’t know about brain injuries any more than I can.”
“Tell that to Georgina when she looks at the overtime claim.”
“Was Pinto killed instantly by the fall?”
“I can’t answer that. Like you say, I’m a cop. But I doubt whether Sealy could tell you either.”
“Sometimes people go into a coma, don’t they? And die later?”
“You hear about them living on for years.”
“I’m talking about an interval of no more than a few minutes. I wonder how long it takes for a bleed on the brain to kill someone.”