‘When the new term started, you landed yourself deeply in trouble, dealing in cannabis. You were reported to the dean. This isn’t guesswork, Tim. I’ve checked with the university. It’s all documented in their files. You were sent down — for good.’
Tim blurted out, ‘He destroyed me. He didn’t give me a chance.’
The solicitor was quick to shush him.
Encouraged, Diamond said, ‘I’m sure it seemed harsh and still does, but you ought to realise the damage you’d already done to Gildersleeve’s self-esteem. In his mind, the failure of the Chaucer dig and the misconduct of the students were fused together in the same humiliating episode. Years later, he related it all to his new wife and she repeated it to me. He never forgot you. So when you came before him for dealing in drugs, he couldn’t avoid being influenced by what had happened in Somerset. It was a repeat offence as far as he was concerned. He expelled you, and no redress.’
Tim’s shoulders sagged, but he said nothing, locked in his own unhappy memories.
‘To your credit, you came back to Somerset, where you lived, and rebuilt your life. You got a job at the arts centre in Bridgwater. The interest in history hadn’t been knocked out of you. You joined the local archaeological society and took an interest in the early history of the area. They thought well of you. Unfortunately, when the economy went belly up you lost your job like everyone else. You worked for your brother instead, clearing houses. You’re not going to deny any of this because you told me about it yourself.’
‘That’s true,’ Tim said. The exchanges were still civiclass="underline" a good sign.
‘And although it was a comedown compared to what you might have achieved as a university graduate, you had one remarkable success. Down in the basement of the arts centre, you found the Wife of Bath sculpture and recognised it for what it was. A personal triumph, that, and a sweet revenge, finding a major medieval carving with a direct link to Chaucer that probably had been recovered originally from the Chaucer house in Parker’s Field. You were so proud of the find that you took me down there and showed me the empty space where you first spotted the thing.’
‘You asked to see it,’ Tim pointed out.
‘You’re absolutely right. I had an interest. You were very obliging. But let’s backtrack to the excitement of that discovery, a terrific boost to your self-confidence. The people in the museum and your archaeological society were impressed. Terrific — until the Blake Museum committee discovered what a valuable asset the stone wife was. They were running the place on a modest grant from the council and donations and now they had a chance to boost their income by thousands of pounds. I don’t suppose you approved—’
‘I didn’t,’ Tim couldn’t resist saying.
‘But you understood the economics. You couldn’t do anything to stop the sale. And then — to your horror — you learned that your old enemy John Gildersleeve was taking a strong interest and apparently had the funds to bid high at the auction. All the old wounds were opened. The thought that your find was about to fall into his hands was more than you could bear. You had to stop it and you had the means.’ Diamond paused and watched across the table.
The reaction came, even if it was unspoken. Alarm, if not panic, was all too obvious in Tim’s eyes.
‘We know that Gildersleeve was shot with a thirty-eight calibre bullet that was typically fired from a Webley — almost an antique in itself. I’m going to make a guess now, and it won’t be far out. Working at house clearances, as you do, I’m sure you come across plenty of things tucked away in old places. Some of the generation who served in the war hung on to their service revolvers until they passed on and then the guns lay in the loft or under the floorboards for professionals like you and your brothers to find when you cleared the house. Don’t worry. I don’t expect to find the murder weapon — if, indeed, the shooting was murder.’
‘It wasn’t,’ Tim said, keyed up and quick to react.
The solicitor said, ‘Careful now.’
The interview was fast approaching the critical point. ‘Do you want to explain?’ Diamond asked.
Tim hesitated, and then shook his head.
‘Three masked gunmen were involved in the attempted hold-up at the auction,’ Diamond continued, still willing to lay out the facts. ‘Those balaclava masks worked well. Fortunately, we had a helpful witness — a Miss Topham, from Brighton, known in the trade as the glass lady — and she was standing behind the one we called the first gunman before he pulled the balaclava on. His head was blocking her view and she noticed a few things about it. He had long dark hair going grey. The hair had refused to grow over a scar on the back of his neck described by Miss Topham as like a little crater on the moon. And there were no lobes to his ears. Now fast forward to this morning. We’re lifting the stone off the trailer, I’m next to your brother Wayne, and when he leans over the stone I get a good view of the back of his neck, the hair, the moon crater, the ears.’
Tim’s attempts to stay aloof from the narrative were losing all conviction. He was trying to stare at the ceiling.
‘What’s more,’ Diamond pressed on, ‘just after I had the twinge in my back and cried out with the pain, Wayne said, “Nobody move” — the same words he used at the auction. Denis Doggart, the auctioneer, tells me he’s certain it was the voice he’d heard before. If Wayne was the spokesman for you three — and he seems to have been — I have to ask myself who fired the fatal shot, and why?’
The solicitor put a restraining hand over Tim’s arm. The intricacies of the case must have been difficult to follow, but when a fatal shot is mentioned, you don’t want your client uttering a single syllable.
Diamond played his ace. ‘It could make all the difference to the charge, the question of intent. Did you go to that auction with the clear intention of murdering Gildersleeve?’
‘No!’ Tim shouted. ‘Definitely not. It was never in the plan.’
The solicitor said to Diamond. ‘That’s enough. I’m stopping this now.’
But Tim saw this as his chance to head off the murder charge and he wasn’t letting it go by. ‘I only ever planned to get the stone back, to stop Gildersleeve from owning it. I knew he’d bid really high and he did. I couldn’t stomach the thought of it going to him.’ He swung around to the solicitor who had stood up and spread his arms as if he was herding geese. ‘Let me have my say, for God’s sake. The bastard had messed up my life already, big time. This was more than I could bear. I persuaded my brothers to help me take the stone back. We didn’t plan to kill him. We’d have hidden the stone where no one would ever find it. Wayne and Roger wouldn’t have agreed to murder anyone. They were carrying plastic guns. I only loaded mine in case I needed to fire a warning shot. He was shot because he went berserk in there. He was trying to grab the stone. I hadn’t expected that. He was always this cold, unfeeling guy. I panicked and pulled the trigger. That’s the truth of it. One shot and it killed him. How unlucky was that?’
‘Thank you,’ Diamond said. ‘We’ve got the picture now.’
While Diamond had been interviewing Tim, Keith Halliwell, with a Taunton detective for company, had taken statements from the other two brothers. Nothing said by Wayne or Roger conflicted with Tim’s account.
‘What happens next?’ Halliwell asked Diamond over beer and a sandwich with Ingeborg before they took to the road.
‘We transfer them to Bath and go over it all again.’
‘Is it a murder charge, or what?’
‘It’s homicide, for sure, and in the course of an attempted robbery.’
‘Tim on a murder rap and the others as accessories?’