“He’d given her roses in the past.”
“These were from a florist.”
“I know. What does it matter anyway,” she said. “He killed her. I did some checking after you went. I went through his credit card statements for four years ago. He keeps everything for five years, silly mutt. The day he returned from Tenerife, the day of the murder, he spent the equivalent of ten pounds sixty-five at the florist’s at Los Rodeos Airport.”
“That’s why we couldn’t trace the shop,” Diamond said, more to himself than anyone else.
Mrs. Billington hadn’t finished. “And just to be sure I phoned his head office and asked the managing director’s secretary to check whether there really had been an emergency meeting on October the eighteenth, 1990, that Winston had to attend. There wasn’t. The boss himself was away on business in Scotland for the whole of that week. Now do you understand why I clobbered the rat when he stepped inside the door tonight?”
Diamond understood. He also felt marginally more comfortable in his mind that he wasn’t solely responsible for unleashing the avenging wife.
Chapter Seventeen
“No change, I’m afraid, dear,” the charge nurse said when Julie Hargreaves enquired about Winston Billington. The “dear” was kindly meant; the nurse had taken her for a relative, mishearing “DI” as “Di,” a common error. Julie went over to the uniformed embodiment of the police, a youthful constable who was sitting bored in the corner drumming with his fingertips on an upturned plastic coffee cup.
“Any signs of life?” she asked him.
“He groans sometimes.”
“Is that good?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Why don’t you get some air for an hour? I’ll take over. Bring me some tea when you come back. Milk and no sugar.”
He nodded his thanks and left.
She ventured as close as she could to the bed. The little she could see of the patient’s face was gray, the eyes closed, one forcibly, turned purple and heavily swollen. His head was bandaged and he had a ventilator over his nose and mouth. There was another tube giving him a transfusion and leads connected to his chest were monitoring his heart rate. In all, it wasn’t the ideal way to meet the principal suspect. She marveled at the ferocity of the diminutive Mrs. Billington and the power of money when it takes the form of a bunch of coins swung in a plastic bag.
She sat down to begin her vigil. For a time, at least, she’d got a break from Diamond. He wasn’t easy to work with just now. She’d heard him called curmudgeonly, and she wouldn’t argue with that at this stage of their working relationship. She understood the sense of personal failure that was oppressing him over what had happened four years ago. In a way though, she preferred Diamond’s abrasiveness to the emollient manner of John Wigfull, her real boss. For all Diamond’s bluster and boorishness, she felt secure with him. He was open in his emotions. When he smiled (which was rarely just now) it was genuine. When he was gloomy, he shared it. He consulted her and appeared to listen. Mind, he didn’t confide much in anyone else. He seemed to regard the rest of the Bath CID as turnipheads. He obviously felt deep resentment that she didn’t fully understand over his resignation a couple of years ago. She’d gathered that he had always been out of sympathy with the high-ups. For all that, his reputation as a dynamic head of the Murder Squad was still spoken of with awe in Manvers Street. He’d led a strong, loyal team, now dispersed.
About his personal life she had gleaned little so far. She now knew he’d once played rugby for the Met. She’d heard from others that he had been spotted on occasions in the stand at the Recreation Ground, where Bath RFC, the best club side in the country, played their home matches. She’d also been told that he had a natural rapport with kids, in spite of having none himself. The Christmas after he’d quit the police, he’d taken a job as Father Christmas in the Colonnades shopping precinct-and proved to be a popular Santa. He wouldn’t have needed padding.
She was intrigued to know what his wife was like. The woman who coped with Peter Diamond’s grouchy temperament and stayed wedded to him would be fascinating to meet. Mrs. D (Julie had learned) was small and independent-minded, and put a lot of energy into community work. Once she had been Brown Owl to a troop of brownies and more recently she had worked in charity shops. Some people joked that Diamond was dressed by Oxfam.
A moan from Billington interrupted her musing about the Diamonds and reminded her why she was there. She got up and looked at him. There wasn’t a flicker, so she returned to the chair.
This was the first case of serious assault by a wife against her husband that Julie had come across, though the press periodically reported on battered husbands as if it was a logical consequence of the feminist revolution. She’d watched a television program once and been amazed and skeptical that men- big fellows, some of them-allowed themselves to be hit with heavy objects. Of course, such incidents were statistically negligible compared to the domestic violence suffered by women. Julie knew: she was the automatic choice to investigate attacks on women and she’d seen some sickening injuries. More than once she’d had to defend herself from the aggressors, so she wasn’t too appalled that once in a while a woman beat up a man.
Having recently looked at the police photos of Britt Strand’s corpse, she couldn’t raise much sympathy for Winston Billington. It wasn’t compassion that made her hope he would recover entirely and be capable of answering questions. If the bastard died, it would be difficult to procure enough evidence of his guilt to satisfy an appeal court and prove that the judgment against Mountjoy had been in error. It would be so much more positive if the appeal were backed by a signed confession.
Another sound. This time the patient moved his head. Anxiously Julie looked through the glass door to see if a nurse was about. Suppose Billington recovered consciousness only for a short time. What a responsibility she would have to shoulder! She tried to think what she ought to ask him. To accuse him of murder might be enough to kill the man. Yet if she didn’t ask the obvious, she’d be in breach of her duty. Imagine telling Peter Diamond, “Well, he did recover consciousness briefly and I asked him how he was feeling. He said,‘Not too good,’ and died.”
Damn Violet Billington for doing this.
Another disturbing scenario took shape in Julie’s thoughts. If Billington did die, his wife’s evidence became indispensable. Julie hadn’t been present when Mrs. Billington had shopped her husband to Diamond, so it was impossible to tell how convincing she had sounded. Was she reliable? Was it conceivable that she had invented the story to justify her vicious attack on her husband?
No. There was corroboration from an independent source. G.B. the crusty had seen a man of Billington’s appearance enter the house in Larkhall after Mount joy had left.
That was the clincher. But for that, you could well imagine the vindictive wife inventing the story of her rampant husband. After all, Violet Billington didn’t know everything that had happened that fatal night four years ago. Couldn’t. She’d been in Tenerife when Britt Strand had been murdered. And according to her account (relayed by Diamond) Winston had admitted nothing. She’d hit him before he gave his version of the story.
The charge nurse returned and checked that the blood was still moving evenly along the transparent tubes. “Your dad?” she asked.
“No,” said Julie with forbearance. “I’m not related.”
“Just a friend?” The nurse said it sympathetically, but with a gleam of interest in her eye.
“Actually I’m on duty. I’m a detective inspector.”
“Really?” She took a longer look at Julie. “Shouldn’t you be with the wife? I thought she was the assailant.”