Jenny used the keyboard. Dalton Monnington was from Wimbledon. He’d stayed one night at the hotel and paid with a voucher from a travel agent.
‘You wouldn’t happen to remember him?’ Diamond said, and this was the moment when she proved herself a star.
She must have dealt with scores of guests, but she had perfect recall of this one. ‘Quiet, black hair and brown eyes, mid-twenties, average height, dark grey suit, white shirt and striped tie. He carried a biggish case, the kind reps have for their samples, and a sports bag for his clothes.’
‘You spoke to him?’
‘Twice about the parking. And later he asked for a city map and I gave him one.’
‘You didn’t register him?’
‘No, that was someone else.’
‘He stayed Tuesday night, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘And went out to eat? Well, we know he did. Would you remember what time he came in?’
‘No, I knocked off early. And you don’t see all the comings and goings from here, especially if guests don’t want to be seen.’
He showed her the picture of Delia. ‘Have you seen this woman at all?’
She glanced at it, then shook her head. ‘Sorry.’
‘You don’t have to be sorry, Jenny,’ he said, picking up the photo and the matches. ‘You cracked the puzzle.’
5
D C Paul Gilbert, the latest member of the murder squad, had transferred from headquarters a month ago. He was still in awe of Peter Diamond.
‘Tell him,’ Keith Halliwell said.
‘Should I? It’s only a suggestion.’
‘Save it for the briefing, then. Let him say his piece and then bring it up.’
And now the opportunity was imminent. It was Saturday morning and Diamond was holding forth to the team, dramatising the crime to get total attention. ‘He strangles her. We don’t know where. Possibly in a hotel or his home, wherever that is. Then he has to dispose of the body. He could dump it in the woods, bury it, dismember it. He does none of these things. He transports it to a public park and hangs it on a swing where everyone will see it. What kind of nutcase is this?’
He seemed to be waiting for an answer. The older hands said nothing.
DC Gilbert glanced towards Halliwell, but there was a shake of the head. This was not the moment.
It was Ingeborg who piped up with, ‘A publicity seeker?’
‘You mean with a stunt like that he’s sure to make the papers. You’re the expert.’
‘If he’d buried her, like you just said, nobody would hear about it.’
There was some amusement at this, but not from Diamond.
‘All right, let’s say he wants the world to know about his crime. What’s it about — his ego? Am I going to have to bring in one of these profilers?’ The way he said the last word showed what he thought of the science of offender profiling.
Halliwell said, ‘There’s got to be some reason for taking a risk like that, stringing her up in the park.’
From the back of the room DI John Leaman said, ‘He was trying to pass it off as suicide.’
‘We’ve been over that,’ Halliwell said. ‘Any fool knows a hanging leaves a different mark.’
‘Hold on,’ Leaman said. ‘Who are we dealing with here? Not you or me. Anyone in this room would think it a dumb idea, but this is a guy who just killed someone and is stuck with a body. He’s in deep trouble. He’s not trained in forensics. He’s not thinking straight. All he wants is to get rid of that body without being found out. Rigging up a suicide could have seemed like a brilliant plan.’
‘You’re saying he did this in the heat of the moment?’
‘Well, if killing someone isn’t a hot moment, I don’t know what is.’
More amusement all round.
Leaman didn’t smile, however. He was the most serious-minded member of the team.
Diamond said, ‘Fair point, John. You’re trying to see it from the killer’s point of view and so am I. If he could pass it off as a suicide, all his problems would disappear. The fake suicide theory stays on the table.’
Three days into the investigation, he was willing to consider anything. Now that the story had broken in the papers, he’d hoped for a better response, sightings of Delia Williamson with her killer. Of the twenty-two calls they’d taken, more than half could be dismissed straight away and the others were no help. Nobody had seen her on the night of the murder. A few women of her description had been seen in various towns up and down the country the day before she was killed and there were three callers who thought they’d spotted her in Bath. No one had seen her with anyone else.
‘What about the former boyfriend, Danny Geaves?’ he said. ‘He must have read the papers. Why hasn’t he surfaced?’
Ingeborg took this as criticism. ‘I’ve run every kind of check I can think of, guv. He hasn’t drawn his benefit for over a week.’
‘He’s got something to hide,’ Halliwell said.
‘Or he’s dead,’ Leaman said.
Diamond struck a more positive note. ‘We’ve got three named suspects, apart from Geaves. That’s a start.’
There was a pause. He looked round the room. This time he seemed to be inviting contributions.
Paul Gilbert flushed all over his young face and asked, ‘Would DNA help?’
The focus shifted to Diamond. ‘What did you say?’
‘DNA, sir.’
‘It would if we had some.’
Ingeborg almost cut Diamond off in her eagerness to help her new colleague. ‘Up to now forensics haven’t found any, or they would have told us. This wasn’t a sex crime. And if Delia fought her attacker she didn’t scratch him. There was no skin under her fingernails.’
Paul Gilbert should have stopped there, but after waiting so long he wanted some credit for contributing. ‘It doesn’t have to be a skin sample,’ he said. ‘Just a touch can leave a contact.’
‘Are you lecturing me on DNA?’ Diamond said, and everyone waited for the explosion. Instead he leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘I’ll tell you something in confidence, constable. Upstairs on the top floor’ — his eyes turned upwards, as if he was speaking of something religious — ‘up there they have our personal records, yours and mine and everyone else’s. We’re all on computer. The high-ups like Georgina spend a lot of time looking at those records. And there’s a special file labelled “professional training”. It goes without saying that any of us with ambition should keep up to date by going on those courses they run at Peel Centre and Bramshill. Anyone notice last month’s on forensic science? I was asked to go. The ACC thought it would do me good. My name is now on that all-important file, and beside it you’ll see the letters DNA.’ He gave young Gilbert a penetrating stare, and then a slow smile. ‘Did Not Attend.’
The rest of the team enjoyed it. Given time, Paul Gilbert would appreciate it, too. Working for Peter Diamond was no picnic, but every so often you got a helping of sauce.
The trip to Wimbledon was a day out for someone, definitely a perk. Diamond bagged it for himself, with John Leaman in support as his driver, note-taker and sympathetic ear. They reached the M25 when the traffic was building.
‘What’s all this for?’ Diamond asked.
‘Football,’ Leaman said. ‘It’s Saturday remember?’
‘All right for some.’
Secretly he was relieved to go slowly. Fast driving was no pleasure for him. His stomach was behaving like a sack of frogs. He produced some extra strong mints and insisted Leaman had one. ‘Reward for the driver.’
Leaman wondered if Diamond was telling him he had bad breath, but decided the boss wasn’t so subtle as that.
The address they had was a turning off Worple Road. The CID at Wimbledon had checked Dalton Monnington’s routine and he was due home at lunchtime.
‘What his line of work?’ Leaman asked.
‘Hot tubs.’
‘What — jacuzzis?’
‘He’s the West Country sales rep for a company called Give it a Whirl. Ho ho ho. Probably seemed a good idea at the time.’
‘I wonder if he’ll offer us a cut price.’