Annoyingly, he felt himself go pink. “As a matter of fact, I am,” he told her in a shirty tone.
“Kids?”
“No. Is this of any relevance?”
“I’m just interested. You don’t wear a ring, I notice.”
“Maybe you should be doing my job.” He recovered his poise. “You don’t wear one either.”
“That doesn’t mean a thing these days, ducky,” she said with a laugh that was more guarded than usual.
“But you were married once?”
She nodded. “It’s an unfair world, isn’t it? You probably wanted a kid and I got mine through a slipup. The father did the decent thing, as they say, and it lasted just over a year.”
“Did he get custody?”
“No. Johnny was happy for me to keep her, because he was clearing off to Northern Ireland.” She gave a belly laugh. “He’s been stuck in Belfast with his mother and the troubles since 1982, and the best of luck. Men? You can keep them. I went back to my maiden name. Why should I put up with his for the rest of my life?”
“So you became-what’s the current expression?-a lone parent.”
She hesitated and her tone of voice altered. “I won’t pretend it was easy, but if I could have the time back, I would. Sometimes I’m asked to make birthday cakes for other people’s kids. I usually shed a few tears.”
“And now?” said Diamond, to steer the conversation back to a less distressing topic.
“Now?”
“Is there anyone else?”
She said sharply, “If you’re about to ask me if I’m a dyke, save your breath. I saw it in your eyes the first time you came here. Just because I don’t diet or wear pretty clothes, it doesn’t mean I was always built like a planet.”
Diamond said, “I wasn’t probing. Just now you asked me if I was married and I responded.”
The face relaxed slightly. “Fair enough. I’m unattached. I’m straight. And interested in other people. We chubbies have a lot in common, right?”
He wasn’t happy with “chubby.” “Burly” was how he preferred to think of himself. She pushed more cake toward him to show solidarity, only at that moment he wanted to appear less solid. “Did Britt ever discuss her sex life with you?” This was a question he could ask more easily now.
“The men she had? No. I told you when you came before, she didn’t gossip. What I learned, I picked up here and there. The last boyfriend-I hate that word, but ‘lover’ sounds even more outdated-was that show jumper.”
“Marcus Martin. Did you meet him?”
“No. She was watching him on telly one day when I called. Frankly, he’s the last one I would have picked out of ail the riders. Little red-haired runt.”
“But a rich red-headed runt,” said Diamond. “And G.B.? Last time we spoke, you weren’t willing to rate him as a boyfriend. I’ve met him since. He admitted to being keen at the time.”
“You’re telling me. He was undressing her with his eyes when we did the shoot in Trim Street,” she confirmed. “He certainly fancied his chances. She certainly didn’t. She was just toying with him.”
“That’s what he says now.”
“Men are so gullible.”
He gave a shrug. “If I may, I’d like to take another look at the, em, pics you took.”
“The Trim Street set? No problem.”
She went upstairs to fetch them. The smell of fruit cake was undermining Diamond’s defenses, so he stepped out of the kitchen. She had moved things round in the living room since his first visit. The alcove where the small violin had been displayed now had a green porcelain bowl, a special piece, no doubt, but of less appeal to Diamond, who warmed to children’s things in a house-with the exception of samplers, which tended to depress him when he thought of the forced labor involved. There were none here. Some of the pictures had been changed, however; instead of the Redoute roses, she had hung woodland scenes that weren’t much to his taste.
“What do you think?” she asked, on her way downstairs with the photos. “I found them in an antique shop in Bradford-on-Avon.”
“You collect Corots then?”
She shrilled in surprise, “You know about art?”
“I know he writes his name very clearly in the corner.”
“Ah.”
Smarting at the contempt in that “Ah,” Diamond went on to say, “But I’ll tell you something about Corot. For every one of his paintings there are over a hundred forgeries. He’s the most forged painter in the world.” This useful piece of trivia had lodged in his memory thanks to a lecture at police training college. “These, I’m sure, must be genuine.”
“Genuine prints, ducky.” She handed him the manila folder of photos. “What are you looking for this time?”
“Some reason why Britt went to the trouble of visiting a squat,” he answered truthfully. “I still haven’t worked it out and G.B. was no help.”
“At least you caught up with him.”
“Yes. He’s a bright lad, but he couldn’t help.”
“Why is it important?”
He started working his way slowly through the photographs. “Because it may yet provide the answer to why she was murdered.”
“Isn’t old man Billington the answer?”
“We don’t know for sure.”
“You think Britt stumbled into something dangerous?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think Britt ever stumbled into anything. She knew precisely what she was up to, and why. I wish we did.”
“She could still have given one of the crusties a fright without knowing it,” Prue Shorter speculated, standing close to Diamond. “Just look at this lot! There really were some hard cases among them. God knows what unspeakable things they got up to. It only wanted one of them to think his past was about to be resurrected. I tell you, ducky, they scared me.”
He studied each photograph, characterizing the hard-faced people as individuals rather than an amorphous mob. Certain of them had obviously appealed to Prue as subjects, for they were prominent in the majority of the shots: a man with a Mohican bar of hair down the center of an otherwise shaven skull; a woman with a cropped head and round glasses; a heavily tattooed man clutching a bottle of cider and lying with his eyes closed in most of the pictures; and of course G.B., dominant in height and personality, judging by the attitudes others around him struck. Having established the leading players, Diamond took stock of the others, the less photogenic, sometimes just out of focus, or half obscured by furniture or bisected by the frame of the picture.
“This one,” he said, his finger on a slim, large-eyed girl with dark hair in a plait, “do you remember her?”
“I remember them all,” said Prue, “but I’ve no idea of their names, if that’s what you’re asking. Introductions weren’t encouraged.”
“I think I know this one’s name,” said Diamond.
“The thin woman?”
“Can you remember her?”
“Only vaguely. She stayed in the background. One of the squaws. Who is she?”
“Her name is Una Moon.”
“Should I have heard of her?”
“No.” And he didn’t enlighten her. Una Moon was the young woman he had last seen at the nick with Warrilow, the one who had first reported that Samantha Tott was missing.
Chapter Nineteen
Mountjoy’s barely functioning brain struggled to explain how it was possible that a woman was with him in his cell in Albany. He could definitely hear her moaning quite close to him. A conjugal visit-that great myth so often spoken of by the wishful thinkers? Conjugal visits-in Albany? About as likely as balloon trips. Even if they were permitted, who in the world would want to be conjugal with him? Sophie had sworn never to speak to him again after the divorce, let alone visit him in jail for what she would surely regard as the ultimate degradation.
And why was he lying on the floor instead of in bed? The thin mattress they provided was bloody uncomfortable and sometimes you could hardly tell the bed from the floor, only this felt cold as well as solid. And there was a woman somewhere close.