Ingeborg stifled a giggle.
‘Not the doctor’s treatment,’ Leaman said.
A halo would not have looked out of place over Diamond’s head. ‘I barely touched him. There isn’t a mark on him.’
They knew better than to challenge him.
But Leaman had his own agenda. He said as if floating a theory, ‘No disrespect, guv, but do you think it would be an idea if I took over the questioning when we go back?’
Diamond could have erupted and almost did. Instead he reined back his annoyance, realising it would have confirmed that he was out of control. ‘And what would you ask him?’
‘Where he’s got Martin Steel.’
‘He’s stonewalling. You heard me try.’
‘Yes, but he has to understand he can’t bluff his way out of this. I can get through to him. I’m sure I can.’
‘With sweet reason?’
Leaman shrugged. ‘Something of the sort.’
‘Nice cop replaces nasty one, is that it?’
Now he turned crimson. ‘Nothing so crude as that.’
‘Give it to me straight, John. How will you handle this?’
In effect, he’d already conceded Leaman would take over the questioning. Something might be gained from sitting in as the observer.
Encouraged, Leaman said, ‘We’ve got a trump card now.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Like you suggested, I went to the evidence room and collected the plastic cord used to hang Jocelyn Steel. It’s identical to the pieces you found in Monnington’s car. Same colour, same diameter.’
The nasty cop felt a flutter of excitement.
‘Did you look at the ends to see if it was cut from the same piece?’
‘You can’t tell with the naked eye. That’s a job for forensics. But I’ve measured them, and what we have are two lengths of cord, one at twenty-two feet, the other twenty-eight foot three, just about right to haul a body over a beam. The cord used on Mrs Steel was just over twenty-three.’
He rested a hand on Leaman’s shoulder. ‘OK, John. Give it your best.’
Monnington’s jaw dropped and his brown eyes opened wide when the two detectives returned to interview room one carrying evidence bags. What was he anticipating? Torture?
Leaman asked if he was feeling better. Monnington gave a shrug. Diamond checked the clock and spoke the preamble for the tape. Then nodded, and Leaman took over.
‘The reason we’re doing this is that a man’s life depends on it. No one has seen Martin Steel for three days. We think you can tell us where he is.’
The predictable shake of the head.
Leaman said in a measured voice, ‘The killing has to stop, Dalton. It’s over now. Time for you to think about your situation.’
He said, ‘I’ve thought. I want my solicitor.’
‘That can be arranged, and will. Cooperate now and we’ll all feel more agreeable.’
Silence.
‘I don’t think you appreciate how much we’ve got on you. Your laptop is being examined at this minute.’
This got the response. He sounded panicky. ‘You’d better not damage the files. I need them for business.’
‘You may not be in business much longer. We expect to find some names we recognise, like Martin and Jocelyn Steel.’
He tried to appear indifferent. ‘I don’t suppose they’re on file any more. I haven’t spoken to them for two years.’
‘But you got to know them quite well?’
‘I wouldn’t say so.’
‘Come on, Dalton, any half-decent salesman makes a relationship with his clients.’
His professional skills were in question and he was spurred into saying, ‘All I remember is that they fitted the profile of our customers. High-flyers, professional people, singles or couples, generally with no kids. They’re the ones most interested in spending money on leisure items for their homes.’
‘Did you ever come across a wealthy couple by the name of Twining, living out at Hinton Charterhouse?’
A shake of the head.
‘That’s in your area, isn’t it? We’re going back to 2004 now. It seems to me they were just the sort of people you would target.’
Monnington’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean — target?’
‘As potential customers. Like you say, well-heeled professional people living in a big house in the country.’
‘Never heard of them.’
‘They died the same way as Jocelyn Steel. And Delia Williamson and Danny Geaves. Strangled first, and then suspended as if they’d hanged themselves.’ Leaman let that sink in. He was handling this well. ‘The thing is, all these people were found in Bath. That’s one common factor. And another is this.’ He reached for the evidence bag and took out the coil of plastic cord. ‘White plastic cord used to string them up. Have a good look at it. This was used on Mrs Steel.’ He pushed it across the table. ‘For the tape, I’m now showing Mr Monnington the cord found attached to body five.’
Monnington swayed back in the chair.
‘Feel free to handle it,’ Leaman said. ‘It’s been forensically examined.’
Monnington made no move at all.
‘It’s identical to the two lengths of cord we found in your car.’
A look of panic passed across his features.
‘Same quality, colour, diameter. Even the length would be similar if we added the portion of cord we had to cut that was tight round the victim’s neck. About twenty-three feet, by my estimate. The lengths in your car’ — Leaman reached for the other evidence bags and slid them towards Monnington — ‘were twenty-two feet and twenty-eight foot three.’
The eyes still looked alarmed, but Monnington was making a huge effort to appear unaffected, deliberately ignoring the coils of plastic, fixing his gaze somewhere neutral between Leaman and Diamond.
Leaman persevered, determined to get a response. ‘It’s obvious they’re not tow-ropes. The plastic is strong enough to string up a corpse, but you couldn’t pull a car with it. It’s not long enough for a washing-line. Anyway, why would you want a washing-line in your car?’
Monnington remained silent.
Diamond stole a look at the clock. The cord was supposed to be the trump card and it was in danger of being ignored.
Leaman said, ‘If there’s an innocent explanation, you’d better tell us.’
After another uneasy pause, Monnington said, ‘Take them away from under my nose and I’ll tell you.’
The breakthrough? Diamond’s pulse beat faster.
Leaman leaned forward and scooped up the cords and bags and dropped them on the floor beside him. ‘Well?’
Monnington sniffed and said as if to a persistent child, ‘If you really want to know, I use them in my work.’
‘How?’
‘For demonstration purposes.’
‘Oh, yes?’ Leaman couldn’t have sounded more sceptical.
Monnington went on as if such details were too obvious to explain, ‘To mark out the shapes of the spa baths so that customers can visualise them. I lay them out in a circle, right? My company supplies two sizes of bath. One is seven feet in diameter, the other nine feet. If you do your maths, you’ll see that the twenty-two-foot cord is the circumference of the seven-foot bath. And the twenty-eight-foot-three cord is for the nine-foot bath. Twenty-two over seven is the approximate value of pi, the ratio between a diameter and a circumference.’
Leaman was drowning in a virtual jacuzzi.
Diamond took over. ‘Let’s get this right. You lay down the cord in the shape of a circle at the place where the bath will be installed?’
‘To show the client how much room it will take.’
‘And the cord is pre-cut to the two sizes?’
‘You could try it here, but you wouldn’t have room for a whirlpool, and why would you want one in an interview room?’
‘Take a wild guess,’ Diamond said.
Clive the computer expert was waiting when they emerged in their deflated state. Clive had better news, but it was short-lived. He’d cracked Monnington’s password and the files were accessible.
‘There’s masses of stuff about plumbing and water pressures and ceramic tiles.’
‘E-mails?’ Diamond said.
‘Not many. He’s a deleter.’