The Last Detective

Diamond sighed, unwilling to believe that a man of intelligence had been taken in by an interrogator's ploy.

'How do I get through to you?'Jackman asked.

'That isn't the question,' Diamond said. 'The question is what do you want from me? And the answer is that I have nothing to offer except a drink.'

'You lived with the case for weeks. You did the groundwork. You must have come up with alternative theories, even if they were later set aside. That's how you can help – by suggesting avenues we haven't considered.' can help 'We?'

'Her defence. I told you I'm in touch with her solicitor.'

'Is that wise?' Diamond asked, intrigued, in spite of his determination to remain uninvolved. 'Surely the prosecution will be out to establish a relationship between you and Dana Didrikson. By actively taking up her case, you hand them a trump card.'

Jackman ran his hand through his hair and down the back of his neck, where it remained. 'I know. It's a dilemma. But I do care. I care passionately. Can I be frank with you? There's no relationship between Dana and me, not in the way it's generally understood. We haven't been to bed. We've never even talked in intimate terms. But over these difficult weeks I've come to regard her as someone… Oh, let's face it – I care about what happens to her. I want to get her out of this mess. And you're perfectly right. My involvement can only damage her now. God, I sound like something out of a third-rate Victorian novel.'

Diamond felt the creeping unease that any man feels when another bares his soul. Up to now he'd thought of Jackman as the flinty academic, urbane and self-possessed.

Nor had the soul-baring finished. 'And Dana has shown quite touching faith in me.'

'In what way?'

'Ask yourself why she didn't call the police on the day she found Gerry's body. She came to the house and found her lying dead in bed. Anyone would have assumed that I'd murdered my wife, wouldn't they?'

Diamond answered with a neutral twitch of the lips.

Speaking in the partisan tone of a smitten man, Jackman went on, 'She's incredibly good to me. Even after the body was found in the lake, she didn't come forward. When you went to interview her, she made a run for it. All very suspicious in the eyes of the law. But I'm certain she did it to protect me. She didn't want to be instrumental in getting me charged with murder.'

'How did you know she made a run for it?'

'From her solicitor. He's got the police file with all the statements.'

'In that case,' said Diamond, 'you're more up to date than I am. How much has she admitted?'

'Only that she went to the house and found the body.'

'She's sticking to that?'

'Of course.'

There was an assumption in that 'of course'. Diamond was expected to concur in Dana Didrikson's innocence. However, he remained unconvinced. Once or twice before he'd heard such rationalizing from men in love. Or guilty men.

'Has the solicitor discussed the forensic evidence with you?'

Jackman sighed and spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. 'It couldn't be worse. They've established that her car was used to transport the body. Particles of skin tissue and some body hairs were found in the boot. The scientists proved by DNA analysis that they came from my wife.'

To say that it couldn't be worse was no exaggeration. The case was buttoned up now.

Out of charity for the man's state of mind, Diamond softened his conclusion. 'I understand your concern, Professor. These days you can't buck the scientists. There was a time when forensic evidence gave rise to different interpretations. Each side had its own set of experts. But with genetic fingerprinting, it's cut and dried. Faced with evidence like that, I'd have charged Mrs Didrikson with murder myself.' Bloody ironic, he thought as he said it. Peter Diamond conceding infallibility to the men in white coats.

'Surely there's room for doubt,' said Jackman. 'What if someone else used the car?'

'You mean she lent it to the murderer? You'd have to ask her. She said nothing about it when I interviewed her.'

'But would she? At that stage you didn't know the car had been used to move Gerry's body.'

'Her lawyers will have to ask her, then. I wouldn't place too much hope on it.'

Silence dropped between them as divisively as if the grille over the bar had been lowered.

Jackman hesitated, locked in thoughts of his own, staring down into the brandy glass and rotating the dregs of his drink. Finally, he said, 'That inspector who took over from you.'

'John Wigfull? Chief Inspector now.'

'Yes. Don't get me wrong, Mr Diamond, but one hears a lot in the press about wrongful convictions. From my observations of the man, he's highly ambitious. He seemed almost fanatically -'

Diamond cut in sharply, 'Don't say it, Professor. I'm not stabbing former colleagues in the back.'

'I'm trying to account for the inexplicable.'

'Obviously. Drink up, will you? I have some tables to clear.'

An hour after getting to bed dog-tired, he was still actively engrossed with what he had heard from Jackman. Stupid. He had no desire to get involved again. Any assistance he gave the defence would be taken as sour grapes, an embittered attempt to get back at John Wigfull.

From all he had heard, the case against Dana Didrikson was unassailable now that the forensic team had linked her car to the crime. Jackman's doting support would only strengthen the prosecution's hand. The motive couldn't be spelt out more clearly if Jackman had chartered a plane and flown over the city trailing a banner with the words 'Dana loves Greg'.

Yet he'd always felt that there was another dimension to the murder. Loose ends dangled tantalizingly. That strange business of the fire, and the question whether Geraldine Jackman had really meant to kill her husband. Was she paranoid, as Jackman had asserted more than once?

Then there was the extraordinary scene Dana Didrikson and Matthew had witnessed in the drive of John Brydon House, when Geraldine had fought with the man she called Andy, apparently to stop him from leaving. Was Andy her lover, wanting out?

And why hadn't the Jane Austen letters turned up?

He must have fallen into a shallow sleep for a time, because when he woke, it was still only 1.55 by the clock, and he was repeating question and response in the kind of maddening litany that troubled sleep induces: 'Who have I overlooked? Louis Junker, Stanley Buckle, Roger Plato, Andy somebody, Molly Abershaw…'

He sat up and thought, why am I bothering?

Nobody else does, except Jackman.

Wigfull is sleeping the contented sleep of a man who has wrapped up a case.

Maybe I'll sit up a little longer and think.

Chapter Six

HE PHONED JACKMAN AT THE university the next morning – disregarding his own judgement that it was unwise to get involved. The slender possibility that Dana Didrikson was innocent of murder impelled him to pass on an idea that had come to him in the small hours. 'Look, I've remembered something that could possibly have a bearing on the case. I'm passing it on to you because I believe it might bring out the truth, but I don't want you mentioning my name to the lawyers, or anyone else, do you understand?'

'What is it?'

Jackman was too eager for Diamond's peace of mind.

'You guarantee to keep me out of it?'

'Absolutely.'

'It concerns Mrs Didrikson's car.'

'Go on.'

'You said the forensic tests established that your wife's body had been placed in the boot of the Mercedes, right? The assumption is that Mrs Didrikson drove with it to the lake. When I interviewed her some days ago, she told me she had to keep a log of every journey.'

'A log?' Jackman picked out the word and repeated it without yet understanding its significance.

'It was a company car. The mileage showing on the gauge had to be written in the book each time, even for private trips. Get hold of that log, and you can find out what use she made of the car on Monday, 11 September and the days immediately after. If someone else used the car to transport the body from Widcombe to Chew Valley Lake, that's a round trip of thirty miles. It must show up in the figures.'