scan and the heart wasn’t beating.’
This time she didn’t speak at all. Her hand went to her mouth.
He hadn’t talked of these painful memories with anyone before. Here in this peaceful garden with this calm, interested woman, it was all right. It was more than that. It was a help to him. ‘They gave her a tablet to induce labour and sent her home to wait. That’s the worst time, the two days before we went back to hospital and our dead baby was born.’
‘Were they kind to her?’
‘Immensely. And after the delivery they make sure you’re kept busy with all the arrangements, the form-filling about the postmortem and funeral. Good psychology, I suppose.’
‘But the grief catches up with you?’
‘Mm.’ He exhaled quite sharply. ‘Sorry, I don’t know how I got started on this.’
‘It was me,’ she said. ‘I asked.’ She looked across the lawn without focusing on anything. ‘My experiences couldn’t be more different. Jerry was born precisely nine months after I married Gordon, the man I told you about, who dumped me later. I was a failure as a mother. Some women have this powerful maternal instinct. I’d hoped when I had the baby that the mothering, nurturing thing would magically take me over, but it didn’t. I was uncomfortable even holding the child. I didn’t want another.’ She sighed.
Blackbirds in the garden were outdoing each other in joyous song that was a counterpoint to the confidences being exchanged.
Paloma went on, ‘But then we slipped up, as they say. I opted for a termination. When you hear something like that — after your experiences — it must make you angry.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘We all have to cope with what life throws at us.’
She turned to face him and her blue eyes held his for a moment. ‘In the choice versus life debate, I’d have thought you’d be pro-life.’
He shrugged. ‘In my job you see so much that’s gone wrong in families, unwanted, abused kids, that you can’t take such a firm line. I can think of situations when my values tell me abortion is morally right. But as a routine procedure, I’m not so comfortable with it.’
‘I can understand why.’
Later, when the sun and the champagne had almost sunk from view, he asked how she managed the house and garden and she said she had a treasure called Rita who was in every morning and Carl the gardener came in twice a week. Diamond praised the state of the lawns and said he thought of his own as a wild flower meadow. She took him seriously and asked if he was an environmentalist and he laughed and said he was sorry to disillusion her, but no. He’d have a show garden himself, but he lacked one vital element. ‘What’s that?’ she asked.
‘Carl the gardener.’
She smiled. ‘Before it gets properly dark I want to show you the secret garden. Do you know about night- scented stocks? It’s full of them. Gorgeous. Come on, Pete.’ She took him by the hand. It was a while since anyone had called him Pete or held his hand. ‘Look, the fairy lights are coming on,’ she said. ‘They show us the way.’
She didn’t let go of his hand as she led him across the lawn towards the solar-powered lamps marking the path round one of the borders. The clouds were inky-black tinged with the last suggestions of red and this wasn’t the best light for looking at a secret garden, but he sensed this wasn’t the real object. Paloma had finished the champagne without help from him and was happy, if not merry, if not plastered. Soon it would be make-up-your- mind time. He started mentally rehearsing what to say.
As it turned out, the secret garden had a door set into a brick wall, and the door was locked, so Diamond didn’t get to see inside. What followed was down to his heightened anticipation and her inebriation and would embarrass them both for days to come.
Paloma rattled the door and said, ‘Oh, fuck.’
Diamond made the little speech he’d been struggling to put into words: ‘I really like you, Paloma. It’s just a bit sudden for me.’
She said, ‘That’s not what I meant.’
He said, ‘Nor me.’
Appalled with himself, not knowing how to follow that, and with his dignity in free fall, he leaned towards her and kissed her, but the kiss was clumsy and desperate and didn’t improve matters one bit.
In under ten minutes he was driving home, going over what he’d said and should have said, like a schoolkid who has messed up his first date.
14
O ver the next week he plunged himself into his work. He and Halliwell tried to put together enough evidence to show beyond doubt that Danny Geaves had murdered Delia and then hanged himself. The one indisputable fact — that both the principals in the case were dead — made it an unappealing exercise, but it had to be gone through. The forensic reports had come in, and added little to what was already known. Nothing so helpful as a DNA sample had been found to link Geaves to the crime scene in the park.
‘If we knew where he spent the last week of his life we might find something,’ Diamond said.
‘A suicide note that tells all?’ Halliwell said. ‘You’re an optimist, guv.’
‘I was thinking of some trace of Delia. She was away from home on the Tuesday night and found dead on Thursday. If we could show she spent those two nights with Geaves, we’d be home and dry.’
‘Are you thinking they got together? Deep down, guv, I believe you’re a romantic.’
His thoughts strayed back to the secret garden. ‘Some chance.’
‘I thought they’d parted for good.’
‘People change. She wasn’t getting much attention from Ashley Corcoran. Maybe she heard from Danny and decided to see if there was still a spark in their relationship.’ He sketched the scenario. ‘She agrees to meet Danny thinking it might work out, but the magic isn’t there. On their second evening together she tells him she isn’t going back with him. He loses it and strangles her.’
‘I can believe that.’
‘Then there’s the unromantic theory,’ Diamond said. ‘He was planning to kill her from the start. Old wounds. He’d never forgiven her for leaving him the first time.’
‘What — and he has sex with her before he strangles her? That’s sick.’
‘He was sick. He was suicidal.’
‘Sometimes,’ Halliwell said from the depth of his experience, ‘it’s no bad thing to admit you’re not one hundred per cent sure.’
Diamond wasn’t having such defeatist talk. ‘Sometimes you have to make more of an effort. There’s going to be an inquest and the coroner will expect more than guesswork. We need to find Danny’s bolt hole. We appealed for help in tracking Delia’s movements. What have we done about Danny? Asked around in Freshford. That’s not enough. What if he was seen in Trowbridge, or Westbury, or Bath, even?’
‘Are you thinking of going on TV again?’
He shook his head. ‘We wouldn’t get air-time. Everyone else thinks the case is done and dusted.’
‘Especially the boss.’
‘Especially her, yes. You and I are supposed to paper over the cracks and tiptoe away.’
Halliwell gave him a speculative look. ‘And we’re not happy with that… are we?’
‘You know me, Keith. I have to find out what really happened, even if it turns out exactly as Georgina thinks.’
‘So what’s the next step?’
‘We make an appeal in the local papers: did anyone see Danny Geaves in the week leading up to his death?’
‘Smart move. Have we got a picture? I mean of when he was alive?’
‘I was given one by Amanda. We issue a press release saying we’re keen to trace his movements in the week before his death.’
‘I’ll see to it.’
