The Last Detective

In this sombre cast of mind, he resolved for his own protection to find out the truth about the Didrikson boy's condition. Back to Manvers Street, then, to collect the car and drive along the Upper Bristol Road.

He had no qualms about showing his police identity to the woman in reception at the Royal United Hospital. Matthew, she told him, had been moved out of Casualty into a general ward. There, the ward sister confirmed that the boy had been X-rayed and they were waiting for the results. He had not suffered any further symptoms of concussion since being admitted and, yes, he was well enough to receive a visitor. In fact, some people from his school had been in earlier.

She pointed out the room where Matthew was supposed to be, but Diamond didn't find him there. He tracked the boy to the day room, where he found him watching television, a cigarette drooping from his mouth, supplied, presumably, by the only other occupant of the room, an old man who had fallen asleep in his chair with an ashtray in his lap.

It wasn't Diamond's job to issue a health warning, so he asked without a hint of disfavour, 'How are you doing?'

'I might be going home this afternoon.' Matthew had the trick of speaking without removing the cigarette. His gaze didn't shift from the television screen. He was in a grey hospital dressing gown, slumped in a low, steelframed armchair, his slippered feet supported on a coffee table, hands clasped behind his head.

'You're obviously feeling better, then.'

'Mustn't grumble.'

'No more blackouts?'

Matthew swivelled his head enough to take in Diamond without otherwise altering his position. 'It's you. Did they send you to check up?'

'They can phone the sister if they want,' Diamond pointed out by way of denial. 'You must like this place.'

A wary look passed across the brown eyes. 'Come again?'

'It's the second visit this year, isn't it? You nearly drowned.'

'That was yonks ago,' the boy said scornfully. 'They didn't keep me in.'

'How's the swimming coming on?'

Matthew's eyes slid back to the television. 'I had to jack it in, didn't I? Mrs Jackman kicked up a stink about it. She's dead now, serves her bloody right.'

'Do you remember the day it happened?' As he spoke the question, he thought, this is crazy. Hardly two hours have passed since I chucked in the job, and here I am refusing to let go, hanging on to some chance remark by this bumptious kid in the hope of a new slant on the Jackman murder. Technically finished as a policeman, I can't let go. I'm continuing to function, like a headless chicken running around a yard.

'That was the day I went back to school,' answered Matthew.

'Monday, 11 September?' The question and answer routine – so much easier than small talk.

'Mm.'

'And your mother drove you there?'

'Yes.'

'Before you left, do you remember the phone ringing?'

'Yes. It was Greg, for my mother. You probably call him Professor Jackman,' he added with condescension.

'You don't recall what time he phoned?'

'Quite early. Well before eight. Ma was still in her nightie. She was hopping mad.'

'What about?'

'The phone call. She'd only just given Greg some really valuable letters some famous author wrote hundreds of years ago and they were missing. Greg thought some American guy had swiped them and he was going after him.'

'And your mother – what was her opinion?' Diamond asked.

'She was certain Mrs Jackman had them.'

'How do you know?'

'She was certain Mrs

'She told me when she was driving me to school.'

'What time was that?'

'Half-eight. We have to be there by quarter to.' He reached for the remote control and switched channels.

'Don't you like school?' reached for the remote control 'Don't you like school?'

'It's full of little kids. I have to wait till next year to take Common Entrance. Then I'll just move up to the main school.'

'If you pass.'

'No problem. I'm in the choir.'

Diamond had transferred to a grammar school at eleven and to his mind there was something wrong with a system that held back boys of Matthew's size and maturity. 'Do you mind being driven to school by your mother – a big lad like you?'

'It's better than walking.'

'You could take a bus.'

'I'd rather take a Mercedes.'

The remark confirmed how much emblems of status still mattered in school, any school. The boy's manner grated with Diamond, but he remembered his own adolescence well enough to understand the insecurity that lay behind it. Just as well, because the impulse to box the kid's ears – if only metaphorically – was strong, and a set-to would be disastrous. So with restraint – and curiosity unslaked – he concentrated on Matthew's memories of the day Geraldine Jackman had been killed. The choristers, he learned, had passed a dull morning in and around the Abbey vestry being issued with a clean set of robes; and in the afternoon the timetables and textbooks had been given out for the eight Common Entrance subjects.

'And was your mother there to meet you at the end of the day?'

'She never is. I get a lift with my friend's father as far as Lyncombe Hill. It's only an old Peugeot, but he's a schoolteacher, so what can you expect?'

'You're interested in cars, Matthew?'

'If you mean decent cars, yes.'

'Ever tried driving one?'

'Give me a break-even if I had, I wouldn't tell one of the fuzz.' The last word held more disdain for being spoken in the well-honed accent of a private education.

Diamond followed up the possibility he'd raised. The assumption behind it – that the boy had contrived to murder Geraldine Jackman himself, then transported her body to Chew Valley Lake and dumped her there -bordered on the absurd, but now that he had started, he might as well go on. 'Some kids of your age manage to learn without going on public roads. It isn't illegal. I've heard of schools that give driving lessons on the premises.'

'All we get is piano lessons,' Matthew said, making plain his discontent.

'Maybe your mother -'

'You're joking, of course.'

'She could take you somewhere quiet, like an empty beach or a deserted airfield.'

'She won't even let me ride the dodgems.'

It wasn't deception. It was the authentic protest of a frustrated child and the end of Diamond's short-lived speculation. He had to dismiss the notion of Matthew at the wheel of the Mercedes or any other vehicle.

'Anyway, as soon as I'm old enough I want to get a Honda MT5,' said Matthew.

'So you do fancy yourself as a driver?'

'It's a bike, you dingbat.'

'Watch it lad.' The reproof sprang unbidden, and Diamond added more jocularly, 'I might just mention cigarettes to sister on the way out.' Doggedly, he reverted to the original line of questioning. 'That evening we were talking about… you didn't actually say if your mother was at home when you got back from school.'

Matthew took a last drag on the cigarette and stubbed it out. 'She was there.'

'How did she appear?'

'What do you mean?'