“No. It turns out he paid cash. They had his name wrong in the reservations book. I spent ages trying to trace somebody with the name of Cableman. On the phone he must have told them K. Bellman.”
“Easy mistake.” He smiled. “I can overlook it. Cableman wouldn’t be a bad name for a computer nerd, now I think about it. What else do we know?”
“He works for a city firm called Knowhow & Fix. Lives in digs in a house on Bathwick Hill, about halfway up on the left-hand side.”
“Bit of a climb. Does he have wheels?”
“I expect so. I couldn’t tell you for sure.”
“But you know why I asked?”
“Yes, guv. The drive to Wightview Sands.”
He nodded. “So have you spoken to him?”
Halliwell said, “We thought you’d want first crack at him.”
“You thought right.” He showed an upturned thumb to Ingeborg. “Nice work.”
She asked, “Can I bring him in, guv?”-and couldn’t conceal her eagerness.
She’d led with her chin, never a wise tactic with Diamond, but he restrained himself and shook his head. “Not yet. I promised DCI Mallin, our colleague from Bognor, that I’d give her the chance to come in on this. More important than that, I want the SP on this guy before we see him. Keith, see what you can get without alerting him or his employers. Do it discreetly. I don’t want him to know we’re onto him.”
“Now, guv?”
“No time like the present.”
He called Hen and told her the news. She offered to come right away, so he explained about getting some background first, and she agreed it was right to do the job properly. Until this morning, Ken had been just a name, his only known achievement the bedding of Emma Tysoe.
“Probably tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll keep you posted.”
“I wish I could report some success at this end,” Hen went on to say. “I was hoping my lot would have found Mr Laver by now, but he’s vanished into thin air.”
“That figures. They called him Rocket, you know.”
“Who?”
“The tennis player.”
“Give over, Peter. And to make matters worse, Emerson has not been seen on the beach for a couple of days as well. I’ve got visions of chasing Aussies in camper vans all over Europe. Let’s hope your Ken puts his hand up to the murder and saves me the trouble.”
If only it were so simple, Diamond thought. After he’d put the phone down, he said to Ingeborg, “Do you know much about IT?”
“Not a lot, guv.”
“What did they say it stands for?”
“Information technology.”
“It was on the tip of my tongue. Supposed to be the answer to everything, isn’t it? Taking over our lives?”
She said, “Look around you, guv. We depend on it.”
Keeping his eyes resolutely off the hardware on every side, he said, “ I can’t agree with that. They’re tools, nothing more. We always had office machinery. Typewriters. Dictaphones.”
A voice behind him murmured, “The abacus.”
“Did you say something, John?”
“Adding machines, guv.”
“Right. Just because they’re all contained in one machine it doesn’t mean we’re slaves to it.”
“I said we depend on it,” Ingeborg stressed, returning him to the point she’d made. “If this lot crashed, we’d be in trouble.”
“You’re right about that,” he conceded, and added jovially, “We might have to ask the Cableman to fix it. I wouldn’t want his job. It must be tedious, staring at screens all day. Then they go home and watch TV.”
“Sometimes they don’t leave home,” she said. “They work from their own PC.”
“I’m not surprised Emma Tysoe found this fellow boring. What can he know about the real world, sitting in front of his screen? How does he make friends, meet women?”
“There are chatlines.”
“That’s not meeting them.”
“I expect he makes an effort to get out. You’d have to.”
“We don’t know, do we?” he said.
“I could chat up his colleagues if you like,” she offered. “Face to face.”
“Not at this stage. We don’t want him finding out we’re interested. Let’s keep the chatting up in reserve.” He didn’t doubt Ingeborg’s ability there. “Why don’t you check him on the PNC? See if he’s got form.”
If she noted the irony of this suggestion, she had the good sense not to take it up with him.
Later in the morning he took a call from Jimmy Barneston. The shell-shocked Jimmy of yesterday sounded more in control. More deferential, too.
“I thought you’d like to know I slept on your advice and decided it made sense. I’ve called a press conference for this afternoon.”
“Good move. Take the initiative away from the killer.”
“I’m going to tell them just about everything except the third name on the Mariner’s list. You know who I mean?” Clearly he didn’t trust the phone, and he was probably right.
“I’m a detective. I can work it out,” Diamond said. “Speaking of that person, have you told her about Porter-I mean a well-known sports personality-being snatched?”
“Not yet. Oh, fuck, I’ll have to now, won’t I? Don’t want her hearing it first on the telly.”
“Have you moved her?”
“Er… yes. She’s in another-em-place.”
“A safe place?” Diamond spoke the words in a tone of dread.
“I, em…” The voice trailed off.
Diamond waited, and then said, “That’s not a good idea, Jimmy. Have you told her about my offer?”
“Not yet. She doesn’t know anything yet.”
“When you break the bad news about Porter being snatched you can tell her my offer is the good news.”
“All right.”
“You will mention it?”
“I’m still thinking it over.”
“Don’t spend too long thinking. You could regret it. I guess there’s nothing new on the Mariner? Did the house-to-house achieve anything?”
“No. And the treadmarks aren’t sharp enough to help. Forensics are looking at them, but they told me not to expect much. They tested the steering wheel for DNA and they reckon he wore gloves. He’s ultra-careful. We haven’t even found what type of gas he used.”
“Are both of the guards recovering?”
“They were sent home last night. I’ve spoken to them. They added nothing to what we know already.”
“You may get some help from the public after the media get to work on it.”
“I won’t hold my breath.” He asked how the search for Emma Tysoe’s killer was going and Diamond gave him the news about Ken Bellman. They agreed to keep in touch.
After putting the phone down, Diamond was fidgety. He sat back in his chair and fiddled with a stapler, shooting at least a dozen across the desk. Certain things were starting to go his way, but plenty could still go wrong, and probably would. His team was up to the challenge of Ken Bellman. If the man was guilty they’d have him, the mug who lost in love and kicked back. But the Mariner was in a different bracket. No passion there. He was a class act, a cerebral killer, calculating every move. If he came to Bath, he wouldn’t come blindly. He’d estimate the risks and minimise them. How would the likes of Keith and Ingeborg cope with a professional assassin?
Soon they had to be told. He had no hesitation pitting himself against a serial killer, but it was asking a lot of Ingeborg, little more than a rookie, and Keith, dependable as the days of the week, but not the brightest star in the firmament. John Leaman was quicker, but still inexperienced for a sergeant.
For a few indulgent moments he daydreamed about having Julie Hargreaves back on the team, Julie, the sidekick who’d taken one kick too many and asked for a transfer. She was an original thinker, as well as a check on his own lapses and excesses. He was still in touch, and she’d been a tower of strength after Steph was murdered. Still, she’d made her position clear about working with him ever again, and it was no use wanting the impossible. You play the cards you’re dealt with.