The line went quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Are you sure you’re all right? That bee sting hasn’t affected you in some way?”
“I’d forgotten all about the bee sting.”
She asked warily, “What did you take for it?”
“I’m perfectly okay, I promise you. Just happy at the outcome.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” she said. “I thought you’d be totally knackered by now.”
“Not at all,” he told her. “It was a challenge, and I was equal to it. In the end, it was a piece of cake.” He laughed. “A piece of cake, my love.”
Chapter Thirty
When Diamond looked into the makeshift office, Julie was still typing statements.
“How many more?” he asked.
She looked up and sighed. “Two sheets of this one, and then I’ve got to start my own.”
“Paperwork,” he said. “Don’t you hate it?” He riffled through a sheaf of papers of his own that he had just collected from estate agents: details of properties for sale in and around Bath. He would be doing his paperwork on the train to London.
She typed another sentence, then said, “At least she admits everything.”
“Four years too late.”
“I felt quite sorry for her, and she’s a murderer.”
He was unmoved. “She didn’t show much sympathy for Mount joy, stuck in Albany for the past four years.”
“He’ll get a quick release, won’t he?”
“Don’t know,” he said. “The wheels grind slowly. The CC promises a report will go straight to the Home Office.”
“After I’d taken the statement, I asked her about Mount-joy,” Julie said. “If he was on her conscience, I mean. She said when she read about him in the papers, the violence he used on women, she reckoned he deserved every day he spent in prison.”
“That misses the point, Julie. Prue Shorter isn’t the law.”
“I didn’t say I agree with her.”
She went back to her typing.
“We ought to have a drink,” he suggested.
She said, “If it doesn’t seem too ungrateful, I’d like to get this out of the way. I don’t want to hold you up.”
“Can I fetch you a coffee before I go?”
“No, thanks.”
“Cheer up. The news isn’t all bad,” he said.
“What do you mean-the prospect of you getting your job back?” Oddly she didn’t sound cheered up.
He left to catch the next train.