“How do I know that?” he asked.
“For God’s sake, man. I’m investigating the murder. I’ve been here on and off for a couple of weeks.”
“I was on, you know,” he said.
“What?”
“The day when the woman was murdered. I was on duty, but I can’t tell you who did it. Can’t see a thing from here.”
She was hearing an echo of a voice she seemed to know, an odd way of spacing the words, with almost no intonation. Familiar, too, was the self-importance, as if it mattered whether he had been on duty. She looked at him sitting in his cabin, and didn’t recognise his brown eyes and black hair, brushed back and glossy. She normally had a good memory for faces.
“I’ll show you my ID, if you insist,” she said, reaching behind for her bag.
He did insist. He waited until she produced it, and only then pressed the gate mechanism.
“And what’s your name?” Hen asked, before driving through.
“I’m Garth. Don’t be too long, will you? We close at eight thirty.”
It came to her as she was cruising up the narrow road that runs alongside the beach. She did know the voice. She’d only ever spoken to him on the phone. Am I speaking to the person responsible for the murder?… Are you sure you’re in charge? He was the jobsworth who’d phoned in when Dr Shiena Wilkinson had turned up looking for her Range Rover. The reason she hadn’t seen him was that she’d sent Stella to deal with it.
She thought of Garth, the strip-cartoon muscleman who’d gone on for years in the Daily Mirror. Parents little realise what their son will grow up into when they give him the same name as a super-hero. Maybe trying to live up to the name turned him funny.
After parking on the turf near the beach café she found the gap between beach huts that led to the lifeguard lookout post, above where Emma Tysoe’s body had been found. You wouldn’t have known it was a murder scene now. Children were busy in the sand where the body was found, digging a system of waterways, their shadows long in the evening sun. The tidal action cleanses and renews. If the strangling had happened higher up, on the grass, the site would have been turned into a shrine, marked with flowers and wreaths.
Most of the day’s visitors had left. Nobody remained at the lifeguard platform at this stage of the day, so she stepped onto it herself to see how much they could observe from there. It was a simple wooden structure that needed repairing in places. A position well chosen for views of most of the beach. Yet they wouldn’t have been high enough to see over a windbreak to the person lying behind it.
She stepped off and moved down the shelf of stones to the sand, trying to picture the scene on the day of the murder. Emma Tysoe had spread out her towel and erected her windbreak a short way in front of the Smiths. The French family were to the right of the Smiths and three teenage girls to the left. At some stage of the morning, the man in the black T-shirt had come strolling along the sand and tried to engage Emma in conversation, even offered to join her. She’d given him his marching orders. This encounter-witnessed by Olga Smith-was the one possible lead they had apart from Emma’s own files. T-shirt man was still the best bet, deeply angered, perhaps, by the brush-off, and returning later to kill the woman who rejected him. It would be an extreme reaction, and a risky one to carry out, but rejection is a powerful motive.
Hen picked her way carefully over the children’s digging and out to a stretch of sand beyond the breakwaters, where she could walk freely. She lit one of her small cigars and let her thoughts turn to Peter Diamond. Up to now, he’d proved less of an ogre than she’d expected. He was brusque at times, but funny, too, and willing to listen. He wasn’t a misery-guts, like so many senior detectives. She couldn’t fault the way he’d conducted the case so far, keeping her informed of each development. Mind, he was a risk-taker. This plan of his to take over the protection of Anna Walpurgis could so easily go wrong. It gave him what he’d wanted all along, a legitimate reason to be involved. But what resources did he have in Bath, and what guarantee that a spirited woman wouldn’t upset everything? Hen could only hope he had a strategy. He’d talked of Walpurgis being “bait” to the Mariner. He’d set his heart on catching this killer, but at what cost?
One of the problems with all this concentration on the Mariner was that there was a big incentive to wrap up the Emma Tysoe case as fast as possible. Hen wasn’t going to allow Diamond to cut corners. The murder of Emma was a Bognor Regis case- hers. If Ken Bellman proved beyond doubt to be the killer, well and good. But if there were doubts, she wouldn’t let Diamond ride roughshod over them.
So she liked the man, enjoyed his company, admired his independent ways, yet couldn’t rest all of her confidence in him. The loss of his wife must have cast him adrift, even though he appeared strong. The shock was bound to have wounded him. She suspected he was hiding the pain.
She picked up a flat stone and skimmed it across the surface of the water, watching it bounce several times before meeting a wave and disappearing, a trick she’d tried many times before but never mastered. Typical, she thought, that I do it when no one is here to see. She continued her walk as far as the flagpole at East Head. If she walked any farther she’d be late getting back to her car, and she had no confidence Garth would let her out of the car park.
Georgina Dallymore, the Assistant Chief Constable, was on her guard that morning. It wasn’t like Peter Diamond to knock on her door and ask if she could spare a few minutes. He was the man who avoided her at all costs. He’d once nipped into the ladies’ room and locked himself in a cubicle when he spotted her approaching along a corridor.
She folded her arms and rotated her chair a little. “To what do we owe this, Peter?”
“I expect you noticed the furniture disappeared from the corridor, ma’am?”
“No,” she said with a faint flush of pink. “I hadn’t noticed. Do I have you to thank for that?”
“No problem.”
“It had to be sorted. It was a fire hazard.”
“You can enjoy your cruise now. When are you off?”
She relaxed a little. He was only there to get some credit for doing a good turn. “Tomorrow, actually.”
“All set, then?”
“Pretty well.”
As if it was mere politeness, he asked, “What’s happening to the cat? That handsome white Persian?”
“Sultan. You know about Sultan?”
Everyone who’d been in her office knew about Sultan. There was a photo on her desk of this mound of fur with fierce blue eyes and a snub nose.
“Sultan, yes,” Diamond said.
“He has to go into a cattery, unfortunately. He doesn’t care for it at all, but you can’t let them run your life.”
“Shame. Quite a change in his routine.” He paused. “I don’t suppose he’ll suffer.”
“Suffer?” A cloud of concern passed across Georgina’s face. “I should hope not. The place is well recommended, and very expensive.”
“He doesn’t know that. Has he been there before?”
“No, this will be the first time.”
“Poor old Sultan.” Diamond picked up the photo in its gilt frame. “I’ve got a cat myself, just a moggy, but a character. They hate their routine being messed about. Personally, I favour having a house sitter if I go away. They stay in your house and look after the place and feed the cat as well. It’s nicer for your pet and you can relax knowing someone is there.”
“Ideally, that sounds a good solution,” Georgina agreed.
“Bit of a holiday for the sitter as well. In a city like Bath, house sitting is no hardship. You’re convenient for everything in Bennett Street.”
Now she frowned. This was becoming a touch too personal. “How do you know where I live?”