The Last Detective

'And what happened when you did broach the litde matter of the fire?'

'She denied it, naturally. Said I must have dreamed the bit about her coming into the summerhouse. She insisted that I must have dropped a lighted cigar and set light to the place myself – which you can bet is the story she would have put about if she'd succeeded in killing me. There's no chance that it was true,'Jackman said quickly, as if sensing that he'd given them an opening. 'In the first place, she definitely drugged me.'

'Let's say that someone drugged you,' said Diamond.

Jackman was quick to scotch that amendment. 'Listen, Geraldine had the drug in her possession. She had the sauce put aside for me. She insisted on collecting it herself. She poured it all over the food. Within a short time of eating it, I was three parts slewed. She'd put the cigars and the spirits ready beside the camp-bed in the summerhouse. It was all set up. And I'm certain it wasn't a dream when I saw her there because I noticed what she was wearing. She was still wearing that black tracksuit when she came back the next day.'

'You mentioned that already. You've been over this many times in your mind, haven't you?'

Jackman nodded. 'And the conclusion is irresistible.'

'All right, Professor,' said Diamond cheerfully, as if he accepted every word of the story. 'Why do you think it happened?'

'Why did she try to kill me?'

'Yes.'

Jackman lodged his face ruminatively against his hand. 'I put it down to her mental state. As I explained, some time before that evening she was showing symptoms of paranoia. She imagined I was plotting her downfall, or something. It was illusory, a fantasy, but plainly very real to her. I didn't appreciate how serious her mental state had become – until that night.'

'Did she have any history of disturbance?'

'Only what I've described. I'm no psychiatrist.'

'Paranoia,' Diamond repeated, and with a gleam of mischief looked across at the constable taking notes. 'Do you want the professor to spell that?'

The PC shook her head.

Diamond swung back to Jackman. 'And how about you? Did you feel persecuted?'

Jackman tensed and drew back from the desk. 'What?'

'Persecuted or threatened, at least. I should think you were entitled to feel like that after what happened.'

'I wouldn't describe it in those terms.'

'Would you care to describe it in your own terms then?'

The professor hesitated, and when he spoke it was with reluctance, as if he were being drawn into alien territory. 'Naturally there was a loss of trust on my part. I had to be on my guard in future.'

'You thought you could look after yourself?'

'She wasn't going to rush at me with an axe, or something. At least, that's the way I saw it. A lot of planning had gone into the summerhouse incident, mainly to ensure that the killing would be passed off as an accident. She didn't want to be caught. If she plotted another attempt on my life, I thought I was capable of picking up the signals before it got really dangerous.'

'Brave man,' commented Diamond, without actually meaning it.

Jackman leaned forward to solicit more understanding. 'When you've lived with a person, married them, shared their joys and disappointments, you've got to believe you have some influence, some hope of making sense to them. Okay, the magic had gone from our marriage, but we didn't have to destroy each other.'

There was a silence. Neither Diamond nor Wigfull would say one word to deflect him from what sounded like the beginning of a confession.

Jackman appeared to see the expectation in their eyes, because he said, 'I'll put that another way. I was willing to take my share of responsibility for what had happened. We'd made mistakes in our marriage. I'd alienated Gerry by failing to reach out to her mentally. The best thing I could do was try and remove the suspicions she harboured.'

'Give her the benefit of the doubt?'

'There was no doubt,' said Jackman flatly. 'She tried to kill me and failed. The fact that I knew for certain was my safeguard.'

Someone tapped on the door and opened it. Diamond wheeled around in his chair, ready to raise hell. He couldn't abide interruptions when he was interviewing a witness. But the intruder was the police doctor, accompanied by a constable carrying a kidney-shaped steel bowl containing a syringe and other items. 'Ah,' said Diamond, reconciled. He turned back to address Jackman, whose face was a study in disbelief and alarm, 'I asked the doctor to step in. We'd like to take a sample of your blood for the forensic lab. It's a routine procedure. I take it we can rely on your co-operation?'

'Just a blood sample?'

Diamond grinned unkindly. 'What did you expect – a truth drug?'

Chapter Two

WHILE THE TWO DETECTIVES STOOD outside, Wigfull took the opportunity to ask, 'What's next?' His superior wasn't much of a communicator.

'This.' Diamond picked up a book and held it at the level of his shoulder as if he were about to swear an oath in court, except that the book had a laminated cover of pink elephants. 'Geraldine's address book.'

'You want to go through the names?'

Diamond confirmed it with a grin. 'With the help of our friend in there, of course. Let's give him some rope, John.'

'And see if he hangs himself?'

'You're out of date, chum.'

Wigfull nodded. Diamond's views on the death penalty were well known. He firmly believed Britain's decline as a world power could be traced back to 1964, the year of abolition. This wasn't the moment to get him on that old hobbyhorse. 'How will he give himself away?'

'By pointing the finger at someone else.'

'To sidetrack us, do you mean?'

'Assist us,' Diamond said, affecting a pained look. 'We don't want to make any premature assumptions about our professor, do we? He is co-operating to the best of his ability. You're a devious bastard.'

'You're a sarcastic one,' said Wigfull.

Diamond beamed.

When they returned to the interview room, they found Jackman buttoning his cuff, looking less self-assured than he had previously appeared. 'Why did you want my blood?' he asked at once.

'You make me sound like a vampire,' said Diamond. 'I told you. It's standard procedure these days. Have you heard of genetic fingerprinting?'

'Yes, but what does it have to do with me?'

'There were traces of blood on the quilt of your wife's bed.'

'I didn't notice any.'

'They weren't very obvious.'

After a pause that was open to several interpretations, Jackman asked, 'Was she attacked in bed, then?'

'That's impossible to say yet. We don't even know if the blood was her own. There may be a perfectly innocent explanation if she scratched herself accidentally, as we all do from time to time. Or it may be significant. Either way, we won't know this side of next week. The forensic science lab isn't noted for quick results. And if your sample happens to match the bloodstains, I'm sure there's an innocent explanation. We can talk about it now if you want.'

Jackman shook his head. 'We'd be wasting our time.'

'As you wish.' Diamond dropped the address book on the table and they began the process of going through names. Whether anyone's address book is an indication of character is debatable, but Geraldine Jackman's was chaotic. For the few full names and addresses that appeared under each letter, many more were entered under forenames alone, often with no address listed, only a phone number. Some were circled or heavily underlined and many were scored through. Additional jottings had been added on most pages, times of trains, appointments, bank balances and densely-patterned doodles strung across the entries like an illustrated guide to cobwebs. A detective of the school of Sherlock Holmes would surely have deduced enough from those elaborate pages to convict the murderer and state exactly how the crime had been committed and when. Diamond's more workaday method was to observe Jackman's demeanour and listen to his comments as together the three men attempted to compile a list of Geraldine's friends.