The Last Detective

'And that was all she said about the row with Jackman, that she'd had a spot of bother and wanted to get away from him to clear the air?'

'Yes. She didn't sound unduly distressed, according to the Platos.'

'Did she phone anyone else after that? What did we get from the other interviews last night?' Croxley, asked in his west of Ireland accent.

'Sweet Fanny Adams,' said Diamond in the less lilting sound of South London.

'So the call to the Platos was the last evidence that she was alive?'

'The last we have.' Diamond spread his hands, inviting contributions.

An uneasy silence. If brains were storming, the lightning was slow to strike.

He scanned the faces. 'In that case, gentlemen, in the absence of anything more brilliant, it looks as if we're forced to fall back on the Diamond method of investigation – good, old-fashioned doorstepping. Get your lads out to Widcombe, Halliwell. I want reports on everything and everybody seen in the vicinity of John Brydon House on Monday, 11 September. Check the neighbours, the milkman, the newspaper boy, the postman. Got it?'

'Sir.'

'Well, what are you waiting for?'

Halliwell left the meeting fast, no doubt with a sense of relief.

'And now what else?' Diamond demanded of the rest of his team.

'I could be out of order here, sir,' Dalton guardedly prefaced what he was about to suggest, 'but I think it's worth finding out how Valerie Plato spent the rest of that day. Rightly or wrongly, she seems to have been suspicious of Gerry Snoo's intentions, this famous television star making a pitch for her husband. The call could have made her pretty desperate when she heard Gerry openly asking to move in with them.'

Diamond turned to Wigfull. 'He thinks the Plato woman is a suspect. What do you say to that?'

The theory earned a grudging nod. 'It's not impossible. She's the quiet type, reasonable-looking, but not what you'd call glamorous. She may have panicked in a fit of jealousy, I suppose.'

'Does she have an alibi?' Dalton asked.

'Does she have a car?' said Diamond.

'A car, yes. A Volvo. Being in the property business, they're quite well off. He drives a Rover. As for the alibi, they were both at home until about one, and then Roger left to do a valuation. Valerie went shopping in the afternoon.'

'No alibi,' said Dalton.

'Hold on,' said Wigfull. 'If she went shopping, presumably people in the shops will have noticed her.'

'And if she went to a supermarket?'

'She may have kept the till receipt.'

Dalton shrugged and withdrew from the discussion.

'How was she when you spoke to her?' Diamond asked Wigfull. 'Did she appear nervous?'

'Not particularly. Reserved.'

'And the husband?'

'He was more jumpy, but then he would be, with his wife at his side, thinking he was lying about the relationship.'

'Did you get the impression that they'd had a row about it?'

'I'd put money on it.'

'And yet you seem to be playing them down as possible suspects.'

'Yes, sir. But you might want to talk to them yourself.'

'Thank you for that advice, John,' Diamond said with sarcasm. He leaned back in the chair and rested his palms on his stomach, as if to measure the span. 'Gentlemen, I don't mind telling you I am not exactly blown away by your – um – input.'

Doggedly, Wigfull defended his corner. 'I believe the Platos told me the truth, sir. It's worth pointing out that their statement fits in with Professor Jackman's '

'Go on.'

'It supports what Jackman told us about the Jane Austen letters that went missing. If Geraldine did take them, as he suggests, she wouldn't have wanted to face him on his return from Paris. So it's not surprising that she started phoning around for some place to lay up for a while '

'A bolt-hole.'

'Well, yes.'

'Jackman's term, not mine,' Diamond explained. 'He told me last night that she wasn't short of bolt-holes. That's the reason he gives for taking so long to report her disappearance. He assumed she was still alive until he heard about the body in the lake.'

Dalton remarked, 'The sixty-four thousand dollar question is what happened after the Platos gave Mrs Jackman the brush-off. None of the other friends appears to have heard from her.'

'Unless one of them is lying,' said Croxley.

Diamond screwed his face into a look that overlaid curiosity with a glare. 'What is that supposed to mean?'

'Well, sir, that the next person she called on the phone was her murderer. Someone who offered her sanctuary and then killed her.'

'What for?'

Croxley seemed unable to supply a plausible motive, so the irrepressible Halliwell suggested, 'For the Jane Austen letters. She must have taken them with her.'

'Killed her for a couple of letters?'

'They were worth a bit.'

'Over ten thousand, by Jackman's estimate,' Diamond admitted. 'But these people Geraldine was keeping company with weren't complete idiots. They would know the dangers involved in trying to sell letters as rare as these. I don't buy it.'

'Even so,' Wigfull quietly put in, 'it might be sensible to alert the dealers in antique letters. There can't be so many.'

He was rewarded with a glacial stare from Diamond and the terse instruction, 'Action it, then.'

'If it were me, I'd take them to America,' said Dalton. 'Get a better price.'

Diamond was shaking his head. 'I'm not convinced that the letters provide a credible motive. I'm not even totally convinced of their existence.'

'You think the professor is lying about them?'

'He was evasive.'

'About where they came from?'

'Yes.'

Dalton shrugged. 'So let's put the heat on him.'

Diamond flapped his hand dismissively. 'Too late for that.'

'There is another way of checking whether these letters exist at all,' Croxley was emboldened to say, 'and that's by getting a statement from the American, Dr Junker. Isn't he supposed to have examined them?'

'Junker.' Diamond snapped his fingers. 'Yes – I'd written him off, thinking he was still touring in Europe. He should be back in America by now. We'll try and raise him. Which university does he teach in?'

'Pittsburgh,' answered Wigfull.

'We'll call him at once.'

'I wouldn't, sir,' said Wigfull.

'Now what's the problem?'

He'd taken out a pocket calculator. 'The problem is that now is 5.10 a.m. over there.'

Chapter Seven

DIAMOND'S CALL TO DR LOUIS Junker was connected shortly after 3 p.m. He was using an amplifying phone so that Wigfull and Dalton, who had joined him in the office, could hear the responses.

'Who is this?' the voice from Pittsburgh asked.

'Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond, from Bath, in England. You won't know my name, sir.'

'That is correct.'

'I'm enquiring into the death of Mrs Geraldine Jackman, of" Brydon House in Bath.'

There was an understandable pause. The three detectives waited.

'Mrs Jackman – she's dead?'

'Sadly, yes.'

'Greg Jackman's wife? Dead?'

'Her body was recovered from a reservoir. It appears that she was murdered.'

'Murdered?' The voice climbed an octave. 'You can't possibly mean this.'

'She was last seen alive on Monday, 11 September. I understand that you were a guest of Professor Jackman at Brydon House at about that time.'

'September 11? Let me collect my thoughts a moment, will you? No, I left for Paris on the previous day… Now listen, Mr, em…'

'Diamond.'

'Mr Diamond. I know nothing about this, nothing. It's a total shock to me.'

Diamond boomed reassurance down the transatlantic cable. 'Dr Junker, there's no suggestion that you are implicated in Mrs Jackman's death. I am simply hoping that you can help me to piece together the events of that weekend. Do you mind?'