“One of that lot? Who’s going to believe him?”
“I do, for one.”
This caused Mountjoy to frown. “You do?”
“Yes.”
“You sent me down. Are you actually admitting you got it wrong?”
“It’s beginning to look that way.”
“Was this crusty the killer?”
“Probably not.”
This wasn’t the answer Mountjoy had expected. The muscles in his face tensed and he said thickly, “Who the hell is it, then?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“What?”
“-but I’m closing in,” Diamond added quickly. “That’s why it’s so important that Samantha is released unhurt. She is all right still, isn’t she?” And after receiving no reply, he said, “Look, the people who are running the manhunt are getting anxious. If you could give them some proof that she is still alive, it might buy us both some time. If not”-he glanced at the gun-“it could end very soon, John, and in a bloody shoot-out.”
Mountjoy’s troubled eyes held his for a moment, but he gave no response.
“Will you tell me something else?” Diamond asked him, his brain in overdrive. “That last evening you spent with Britt: did she mention anyone she was seeing?”
“Other men, you mean? I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
“I mean no. Why would she want to talk to me about boyfriends?”
“Perhaps to give you the message that she was already dating someone.”
“Well, she didn’t. I did most of the talking, chatting her up, you could say.”
“Didn’t that involve asking her questions about herself?”
“Yes, but you don’t ask a woman who else she’s sleeping with.”
Fair point. Diamond was compelled to admit that on a first date the conversation was unlikely to venture down such byways. It was a long time since he’d been on a first date. “Who paid for the meal in the Beaujolais?”
“I used my credit card, but she insisted on giving me money to cover her share. She said something about modern women valuing their independence.”
“You must have expected her to offer.” Diamond moved on-smoothly, considering the circumstances-to the real point that interested him. “Did you by any chance give her some flowers?”
Mountjoy was annoyed by the question. Muscles tensed in his cheek. “The roses? No. Will you get it into your thick head that I didn’t murder her?”
“There’s a big difference between buying flowers for a lady and murdering her,” Diamond said. “Someone else could have seen your flowers and taken it to mean she was two-timing.”
“They were not my flowers.”
“Pity. It would have made a nice gesture, the kind of gift a woman would appreciate from a mature man such as yourself. You wouldn’t have to arrive at the restaurant with them. You could have had them delivered to the house.”
“I didn’t.”
“So did you notice any roses in the flat when you went back there?”
“No.”
“Would you have noticed?”
“Probably.”
“So-getting back to your conversation over dinner- did you talk about her work?”
“Hardly at all. Mostly we discussed Swedish cooking and various cars I’ve owned.”
Heady stuff! Diamond thought. “You’re a keen driver?”
“Used to be.”
“Was she?” He already knew the answer, but he wanted to keep the man talking.
“She seemed to understand what I was on about, only I don’t think she owned a car. She said you could manage easily in Bath without one, what with the minibuses and the trains.”
“And friends with cars. You drove her back to Larkhall after the meal in the Beaujolais?”
“Yes.” Mountjoy was becoming twitchy again, rubbing the gun against his sleeve.
“Did you get the impression that the house was empty?”
“It was. It was in darkness. We had it to ourselves. I thought I had it made until she started on about the Iraqi students I was enrolling. Then I knew she’d set me up. I was pretty sure she had a tape recorder running somewhere.”
“Of course,” Diamond said aloud, and it sounded as if he’d expected nothing less, whereas in reality he spoke the words self-critically. Of course she would have used a tape recorder, a top journalist. “Did you look for it?”
“There was no need. She went on about evidence and pictures and documentation, but I admitted nothing. Didn’t even finish the coffee. I got up and left. I was pretty upset, but I saw no point in giving her abuse.”
“She saw you to the door?”
“If you mean she followed me downstairs saying she’d got all the evidence she wanted and I deserved everything that was coming to me, yes. She slammed the door after me. I walked to where I’d parked my car in St. Saviours Road and drove home.”
“Did you see anybody along the street?”
For some reason this inflamed Mountjoy. “I was too bloody angry to notice. Look, I’ve told you all this at least a dozen times before, you fat slob. You’re just trying to fob me off with this horseshit about the crusty. Britt Strand was a class act. She wouldn’t mix with rubbish.”
“She didn’t normally. She was using him, the same as she used you.”
“What for?”
“A story about a squat in Bath.”
“That’s no story. That wouldn’t even make an inside page in the local paper. I’m not satisfied, Diamond. We had an arrangement. I trusted you. When are you going to deliver?”
“Soon.”
“Tomorrow.”
Diamond thought fleetingly of the man lying unconscious in the RUH. “That’s too soon.”
“Tomorrow-or never.” He tugged open the door and was gone.
All Diamond had to do was pick up the phone and tip off Warrilow. Instead, he went to the kettle and switched it on, picked a sachet of coffee from the bowl and emptied it into a cup. He spilled some of the Nescafe, not because he was in a state of shock, but because he was cack-handed. Always had been. Couldn’t help it. He could handle an interview.
Well, considering his interview wasn’t planned, he hadn’t done too badly. True, he hadn’t confirmed whether Samantha Tott was still alive, but he had just teased out the clue that would transform the investigation.
If there was time.
His elation was short-lived. There was a strange sound in the room, a whine, rising to a fast crescendo, followed by a click. Acrid fumes invaded his nose. There was no water in the kettle and he’d burnt out the element.
Chapter Eighteen
Regardless of Peter Diamond’s warning that the day ahead promised to be a demanding one, his assistant Julie turned down the offer of the Heritage Platter. She breakfasted on muesli and tea, refusing to be tempted by the appetizing smell of crisp bacon and fried eggs wafting across the table. Diamond had once heard muesli likened to the sweepings from a hamster’s cage and had never touched the stuff since. He decently refrained from saying so.
They had a window table overlooking the lawn of Queen Square with its mighty plane trees. A table with starched linen cloth, silver tea service, silver cutlery and fresh flowers. Never mind the gray sky outside; the big, bald ex-detective, chatting affably to his attractive escort, was oblivious of the weather. He was basking in the interested glances of the Germans and Americans he had met in the bar the previous evening, for none of them had seen Julie arrive at the hotel entrance at 8:30.
“Brought my wife here for a meal once,” he reminisced with her. “Bit of a scene I caused. We must have had something to celebrate. Maybe it was when I got promoted to superintendent. Well, we ate a good meal and I asked Steph if she wanted a liqueur with her coffee. We’re not liqueur-drinking people normally. She likes to surprise me, though. She said she’d like a glass of that Italian stuff they set alight and serve with a coffee bean floating in it. We’d seen it once and she’d been keen to try.”
“Sambuca.”
“That’s right. Sambuca. It smells of aniseed. I wouldn’t touch it myself, but I was feeling chuffed that night and willing to order whatever the love of my life requested. It duly arrived at the table flaming merrily. We watched it for a bit and then Steph asked how long it would go on burning, because she wanted a taste. I said I thought you had to put the flame out. There wasn’t anything to hand except an empty wine glass, so, having told her the scientific principle that a flame needs air to keep it alight, I put the bottom of the wine glass over the liqueur glass. Result: the flame disappeared. I lifted up the wine glass. What I’d forgotten is that liqueurs are sticky. The rim of the glass stuck to the wine glass and it came up with it-”