Hen asked, “Is it possible you put the receipt in your trouser pocket? Could it be somewhere in your flat?”
“I suppose.”
This wasn’t merely prolonging the search. Diamond twigged at once that Hen’s suggestion was a useful one. Without a search warrant, it would get them into Bellman’s living quarters higher up the hill.
He accepted it for the lifeline it appeared to be. He closed the garage and they walked the short distance to the house.
He rented the upper floor of a brick-built Victorian villa, with his own entrance up an ironwork staircase at the side. Considering he hadn’t been expecting visitors, it was tidy inside, as Diamond discovered when he began strolling through the rooms without invitation, saying benignly, “Have a good look for that receipt. Don’t mind me. I can find ways of passing the time.”
There were two computers, one in an office, the other in the living room. Any number of manuals with titles in IT jargon were lined up on shelves. He followed Bellman into the bedroom and watched him take several pairs of jeans from the wardrobe and sling them on the double bed, prior to searching the pockets.
“Did you furnish the place yourself?”
“It’s part-furnished. The newer stuff is mine.”
There wasn’t much newer stuff in the bedroom that Diamond could see. The pictures on the wall, faintly tinted engravings of sea scenes, looked as if they’d been there since the house was built. Perhaps he was referring to the clothes basket in the corner, a cheap buy from one of those Third World shops.
The search of the jeans’ pockets produced a crumpled five pound note and some paper tissues, but no receipt.
“I can’t think where else it’s going to be,” Bellman said with a troubled look.
“Wait a bit,” Diamond pulled him up short. “Not long ago you were doubting the existence of this poxy receipt. Now you make out it’s waiting to be found. Is your memory coming back, or what?”
“What happens if I can’t prove I was on the road that afternoon?”
“We go through it all again, asking more questions.”
“If you do,” Bellman said, “I want a solicitor. I came in today to make a statement as a witness, not to be accused of the crime.” He was getting more confident here, on his own territory.
“Show me some proof that you aren’t involved.”
“So I’m guilty, am I, unless I can prove I’m innocent?”
“In my book, you are, chummy. There isn’t anyone else.”
Hen looked in from one of the other rooms. She’d obviously been listening, and not liking the drift. “Peter, as the SIO on this case, I’m calling a halt for today.”
The eyebrows pricked up, but Diamond didn’t argue. She had the right. It was, officially, her case.
On the drive back to the police station, he spoke his mind to her. “My team went to a load of trouble bringing this piece of pond life to the surface. I don’t look forward to telling them I slung it back.”
“He’s still there,” Hen said. “It’s up to you and me to make the case.”
“Ten minutes more in the interview room and he’d have put his hand up to the crime.”
“That’s exactly what I objected to. Confessions don’t impress the CPS. We need proof. Chains of evidence. A case that stands up in court.”
“You’re asking for the moon,” he said. “You know as well as I do that the tide washed over the body. There’s no DNA. We’ve bust our guts making appeals for witnesses. It was hard enough finding Olga Smith. No one else is going to come forward now.”
“We’ve got Emma Tysoe’s tapes.”
“Right-and who do they incriminate? Ken bloody Bellman.”
“ ‘Incriminate’ is a bit strong,” she said. “She rejected him, yes, but she didn’t say anything about violent tendencies. As a profiler, she should have been able to tell if he was dangerous.”
“We placed him at the scene on the day of the murder. He admits he was there. Freely admits it.”
“Not at the time she was killed.”
“You want a smoking gun,” he said, at the end of his patience.
Hen said, “I’ll tell you what I want, Peter. I want to know what happened to her car, the Lotus he says was in the car park. Emma didn’t drive it out for sure, yet it wasn’t there at the end of the day when I arrived on the scene.”
She’d scored a point. He’d given very little thought to the missing car. “Stolen?”
“But who by?”
“Someone who knew she was dead.”
“And acquired the key, you mean?”
“There are ways of starting a car without a key.”
“Yes, but her bag was taken-the beachbag Olga Smith described, blue with a dolphin design. It’s more likely, isn’t it, that the person who drove away the car had picked up the bag and used her key?”
He weighed that, so deep in thought that he went through a light at the pedestrian crossing at the top of Manvers Street, fortunately without endangering anyone. “That is relevant,” he finally said. “Bellman couldn’t have pinched her car if he drove his own. Why hasn’t it turned up?”
“Not for want of searching,” Hen said. “Every patrol in Sussex has orders to find it.” She was quiet for a moment, thinking. “You know, there could be something in this. We’ve had cars taken from the beach car park before now. Nice cars usually, like this one. They’re driven around and abandoned somewhere on the peninsula.”
“Joyriders.”
“Right. Teenagers, we assumed. I’d like to nick them, but they’re clean away.”
“But they don’t murder the owners?”
“Well, not up to now.”
“This wasn’t a kid, Hen. You’re certain it wasn’t left in the car park that night?”
“Totally sure. I know the cars that were there.”
“How many?”
“Four. One of them belonged to the doctor, Shiena Wilkinson. That was a Range Rover. There was a Mitsubishi owned by another woman who came along in a rare old state when I was having it broken into.”
“She was on the beach?”
“In the car park, at a barbecue.”
“Unlikely to have pinched the Lotus, then. What about the others?”
“Another Mitsubishi and a Peugeot. The first was owned by a Portsmouth man. His name began with a ‘W’. I can’t bring it to mind. The other was traced to someone in London with an Asian name. Patel.”
“And they were abandoned?”
“Left overnight. The owners picked them up later.”
“Did you follow it up?”
“Oh, yes.” She remembered giving the job to George Flint, the complainer in her squad. “The Portsmouth guy-”
“Mr ‘W’?”
“It was West,” she hit on the name triumphantly. “He was called West. His story was that he ran out of fuel, so he got a lift home with a friend. He came back next day with a can of petrol and collected his car.”
“What about Patel?”
“Went for a sea trip with some friends, and they got back much later than they expected. Like West, he picked up his car the next day.”
“You see what I’m thinking?”
“I do,” she said. “If one of those two was a car thief, they could have driven away the Lotus during the afternoon and returned for their own car the following day.”
“A bit obvious, leaving their own vehicle overnight,” Diamond reflected. “A professional car thief wouldn’t be so stupid.”
“Maybe this was an opportunist crime,” Hen said. “They picked up her bag after she was dead.”
There was a flaw here, and Diamond was quick to pounce. “But they wouldn’t know which car the key fitted, unless they’d watched her drive in. Which brings us back to Bellman. He’s the only one who knew she owned a Lotus. Could he have nicked it after killing her and acquiring the bag?”
Hen was equally unimpressed. “And returned for his own car before the car park closed? I can’t think why he’d do it. If he’s the killer, it was jealousy, or passion, or frustrated pride, not a wish to own a smart car.”