“Paloma, I appreciate what you’re saying, but I’m not the best person to ask.”
“This is my point, Peter. You’ve been assuming he died instantly, but there’s a good chance he didn’t. His attacker didn’t call an ambulance and didn’t go for help. Pinto was moved and dropped into the mineshaft to get rid of the evidence, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Don’t you see what I’m getting at? You’ve made a big assumption that isn’t necessarily true. Think out of the box. If he wasn’t killed the moment his head hit the ground, it would have been obvious he was still breathing. The person who attacked him finished him off by dropping him down the mine. That’s premeditated and that’s murder, isn’t it?”
31
Diamond had set his alarm and was up before dawn. A rare event.
He didn’t waste time showering or shaving. A swish of tap water took the sleep from his eyes and a squirt of deodorant completed his grooming. Unshaven jowls were standard among the younger members of his team.
If he’d read the runes correctly (the runes being the hints from the ROCU man who called himself Jones), the wretched slaves living in the Duke Street basement were about to be liberated and he intended to be there when it happened, regardless of operational secrecy. So Raffles was fed earlier than usual and breakfast for Diamond was a banana eaten in the car on the drive in from Weston.
The Lower Bristol Road was blessedly clear. The only problem with such an early start was the dazzle from the rising sun.
His first thought was to use the pull-in at the top end of North Parade Road opposite Duke Street, but when he got near, it occurred to him that this was precisely where the transport for the working party was likely to park, so he motored past, did a U-turn and ended up with his nearside wheels on the pavement in nearby Pierrepont Street. A short way farther up, two police minibuses had done the same and he could see heads inside.
He’d read the runes right.
He sat at the wheel and tried not to doze off, wishing he was in radio contact to get a sense of what was planned. He should have got tough with Jones and insisted he had a right to be here as head of the murder enquiry. Would it have worked? Probably not. Jones, like God, worked in mysterious ways, and, like God, he issued commandments.
An hour later, nobody had moved. Clearly this raid wasn’t going to follow the usual pattern of a forced entry with a battering ram (“a five-pound door key”) when everyone in the house was asleep. The traffic increased, people walked by on their way to work and Diamond stroked his bristles and reflected that he could have fitted in that shave and shower or better still had another hour in bed.
And then everything happened.
Two squad cars came from nowhere and turned up North Parade Road.
One of the minibuses started up and headed in the same direction.
Diamond flung open the door, stepped out, remembered his stick just in time, made his way as best he could around the corner and tried to appear like one more nosy member of the public wanting to check the action.
Give ROCU their due: the operation was neatly planned. The stretch of North Parade Road from Pierrepont Street to the bridge was already taped off and guarded by armed officers. Traffic from both directions was halted and backing up. The pull-in Diamond had rashly thought of using was occupied by a silver transit van trapped between the two flashing police cars parked diagonally at front and rear. The minibus had halted laterally, preventing anything from entering the taped-off section. Armed officers were scrambling out and taking up positions either side of the terraces that fronted Duke Street.
In the centre of North Parade Road, a man was lying handcuffed with one officer holding him down and two others training their assault rifles on him.
The police guarding the scene were some of Bath’s authorised firearms officers. Diamond didn’t need to produce his warrant card to get past.
He approached the van and spoke to a constable he recognised.
“Are there people inside?”
“A lot, sir. Twenty or more crammed in, poor devils. They look done in already and they’re supposed to be working a twelve-hour day. We’ll be transferring them shortly to a minibus.”
“Foreign?”
“Trafficked.”
“Any idea where from?”
“Whichever language it is, I don’t recognise it.”
“Who’s the guy in cuffs?”
“The driver, British. Small fry, we think.”
“Is there a gangmaster?”
“If there is, we haven’t got him yet.”
“Was anyone with them when they walked out to the van?”
The constable shook his head. “It’s weird. They could have escaped, any of them, and they didn’t try.”
“That’s down to conditioning,” Diamond said. “Their brains work differently from yours and mine. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve been living in that house for days without a gangmaster.”
“I don’t get it.”
“They don’t need to be whipped into submission like slaves picking cotton. They believe working for a pittance at the waste-disposal place is better than being sent back to the hell they came from, so they go to work and return from work and eat and sleep and start the same cycle again.”
“I’d make a run for it.”
“You don’t know what it’s like where they came from.”
“That’s for sure.”
“How do you come to be involved in this? You’re not from ROCU.”
“They’re running the show, sir, but they used our armed response team. We were notified last night. Very hush-hush.”
“I can believe that. Is anyone left in the house where this lot were living?”
“I saw a team from Bristol go in. It’s a big operation. Simultaneous raids at several addresses.”
He stepped up Duke Street to the house and this time had to show his ID. “Are you from ROCU, sir?” the sergeant with the Heckler & Koch asked.
“Working with them.” A stretch of the truth, but forgivable, even if Jones might not agree. “Who’s inside?”
“The search team and one very large lady in a wheelchair. I can’t think how she fits into this.”
Diamond couldn’t think how Beattie fitted into anything. “She doesn’t know it, but she’s the respectable face of the scam, living in the first flat you come to. She’s sharp. She’ll make a key witness.”
“They’re taking her to headquarters. They’ve sent for a taxi with wheelchair access. I’m looking forward to seeing the driver’s face.”
“The small problem of getting her up the steps? Do they know they’ll need some kind of hoist?”
“Like a crane?”
“Be kind.” Diamond looked over the railings into the basement. “Will I get shot to bits if I go down there?”
“They finished their check for suspicious persons, sir. There was just the wheelchair woman. They’re waiting for the crime scene unit now. If you like, I can radio to say you’re coming down.”
“Please do.”
Steadier with his footwork than the last time, he picked his way down the steps and got the musty smell he recalled from the previous visit. Almost every bit of rubbish blown through an open-ended street in Georgian Bath ends up in basement wells. Mouldering paper and plastic anchored in dust and leaves was heaped up at either end. A few hardy weeds had sprouted from cracks in the stone. No one from this flat had cleaned up in months, even though there were three wheelie bins along one side.
After stepping through the open door he didn’t get far. Beattie was occupying most of the corridor. “Another one of them,” she said with distaste and then saw who it was and changed her tone. “Oh, it’s you. Did you arrange all this, smashing doors down and treating the place like it’s some cop show on the TV? I don’t know what the landlord’s going to say.”