‘Is that bad?’
‘It doesn’t help you much.’
But the incident room was buzzing when he returned there with Leaman. A call had come in from Express Fit, a vehicle service centre on the Upper Bristol Road. The CAD room had received what they described as a garbled phone message about twenty minutes ago and the caller seemed to be in some distress.
‘He gave his name,’ Ingeborg said, ‘and the woman at the garage — she’s an office cleaner who picked up the phone — said it was very faint, but it sounded like Marcus Teal.’
‘Martin Steel?’
‘That’s what we’re thinking.’
‘He’s alive? What did he say?’
‘He kept repeating, “Help me.” She asked him to speak up and he couldn’t. She asked where he was and he said he didn’t know, except somewhere near Bath. She thought he said he was tied up and lying on the floor.’
‘This has got to be Steel. Has the call been traced?’
‘They’re trying. It’s not so simple.’
‘Why not? Did you tell them it’s life and death?’
‘It’s automated. Long-distance calls are logged, but local calls are not. They can’t retrieve them so easily. Something to do with the billing system. They’re doing all they can.’
‘Oh, great! Was there anything else he said? You got it all down?’
‘I spoke to the cleaner myself and went through it twice.’
‘Why would he call a garage?’
‘We’re thinking certain numbers were keyed into the phone and he managed to press the button that called Express Fit. If he’s tied up he may have touched the button with his foot.’
‘So we have a phone that is pre-set to call this garage. Could be private, or some office. We need a printout of all the Express Fit customers.’
‘I’ve asked for it. Someone is coming in specially. They’re closed, you see. He was lucky the cleaner picked up the phone.’
‘He needs more luck than that.’
He returned to his office and called Paloma on the mobile. ‘I’m sorry, but I’ll have to cancel tonight. Things are happening here.’
‘Good things?’ she said.
‘Not really. I can see myself spending the night here.’
‘Peter, that’s awful.’
‘Sorry.’
‘For you, I mean. You looked tired when I saw you. Couldn’t you call it a night and go back refreshed in the morning?’
‘No, there’s too much stuff going on.’
‘About those ram raids? It’s only property.’
‘No, the other thing.’
‘The hangings?’ She hesitated. ‘Has there been another one?’
‘Not yet, but there could be.’
‘Ghastly. What sort of monster…? Forgive me, I’m not helping. Listen, I know you’ll say it’s a silly thing to do, but before I go up to bed I’m going to leave my front-door key under the mat just in case you do sort everything out. You can let yourself in at any time.’
‘That’s not a wise thing to do.’
‘That’s the policeman talking, not the man I know.’
‘Both.’
‘It’s a deal, then. Promise?’
‘Paloma, I can’t promise anything.’
But if he needed an extra incentive to finish the job he had one now.
*
Paloma was right. He was dog tired. He wished she hadn’t said it, because he felt more woolly-minded than ever. His brain was trying to pick up on something said during the questioning of Monnington, some detail that had been passed by. The harder he tried to grasp whatever it was, the more it eluded him.
‘I want to listen to the tape of that interview,’ he said to Leaman.
‘Rubbing my nose in it, guv?’
‘Not at all.’
‘I really thought we’d got him. I couldn’t see any other explanation for those bloody lengths of plastic.’
‘Nor me.’
‘He’s right,’ Leaman said. ‘I’ve done the sums now. The two cords from his car make circles just the size he says. And the laptop hasn’t given us a single name we know. It’s a lost cause. Shouldn’t we let him go?’
‘Fetch the tape. I want to hear it.’
In the incident room a few minutes later they ran the interview. Leaman, Ingeborg and Paul Gilbert huddled with Diamond over the machine. They were alert for Monnington’s responses, but Diamond had a curious feeling it was something Leaman had said that was significant.
After a couple of minutes, he said, ‘Stop it. Now play that sentence again.’
‘That was me, not Monnington,’ Leaman said.
‘Play it.’
Leaman’s voice came over: The thing is, all these people were found in Bath. That’s one common factor.
He nodded. ‘Common factor. That’s the cue. Now go back a bit further, to where Monnington was telling us about the kinds of people he targeted as customers.’
Leaman pressed the rewind. Now it was Monnington’s voice: All I remember is that they fitted the profile of our customers. High-flyers, professional people, singles or couples, generally with no kids.
Diamond snapped his fingers. ‘Stop there.’ The adrenalin rush was starting and his brain was making connections. ‘He’s talking about the Steels, right? Equally, he could have been talking about the Twinings.’
‘Except he claims not to have heard of the Twinings,’ Leaman said.
‘That’s not the point. Forget Monnington for a moment. Think of our victims and the common factor.’
‘But they weren’t all his customers.’ Leaman’s logical mind couldn’t follow Diamond’s free association of ideas.
‘I said forget him. It’s what he said. Professional people, singles or couples, generally with no kids.’
Next Ingeborg sounded sceptical. ‘That may be true of the Steels and the Twinings, but Delia Williamson wasn’t a high-flyer. She was working as a waitress.’
‘Maybe,’ Paul Gilbert said, ‘but don’t forget she lived with that muso in a big house in Walcot.’
‘He wasn’t the one who was killed,’ Ingeborg pointed out. ‘It was Danny Geaves, her ex, and he can’t be described as a professional. What’s more, she had two kids by him, so that doesn’t fit the profile either.’
Diamond nodded. ‘Two little girls.’ But he wasn’t shaken. His thoughts were slotting into place. ‘I’m trying to remember stuff. I need to look at some witness statements. Can we get them up on the computer?’
‘No problem,’ Leaman said, ever ready to showcase his efficiency. ‘Who, in particular?’
‘Let’s start with that skiving teacher you and I met in the George.’
‘Harold Twining? He’s on file for sure. I logged everything he said.’
‘Find the bit about children — the children they didn’t have.’
Leaman used the mouse to bring up the report he’d written. ‘He mentioned it several times. Here’s what he told us, the exact words: No kids, no ties, not even a budgie to look after.’
‘I remember him saying that.’
‘Then he comments on what the coroner said. He said if they’d had children, or even a dependent relative, they might have felt their lives had more purpose. Then you asked if they wanted a child and couldn’t have one and he said — these were his actual words — Another misguided theory. She had a baby stopped a year after they married. They slipped up.’
‘Right. Christine Twining had an abortion.’ Diamond’s gaze shifted swiftly from the screen to his team. ‘And so did Jocelyn Steel. Now who told us that?’
Paul Gilbert said at once, ‘The friend, Agnes Tidmarsh. I took down the witness statement. May I?’ He brought up another document on the screen and scanned rapidly to the sentence: ‘… a couple of years before they moved down here she had a termination. She was in that high-pressure government job and it wasn’t the right time. Neither of them was ready for a family then. She kept it quiet from everyone, including her mother.’
‘That’s two couples out of three,’ Diamond said. ‘Now, am I dreaming this, or did Amanda Williamson tell us her daughter had an abortion at some stage? Bring up the file.’
Gilbert returned to the list of files. ‘Williamson, Amanda? I don’t see it here, guv.’
‘Where the hell is it, then?’
‘Is the name exactly right?’
‘Of course it is.’