‘Don’t stand there like a load of bollards,’ Diamond yelled to the rest of them. ‘We’re on the Pepperpot Trail.’
The little path led south, towards Warleigh, and the views of the city testified to the height they had climbed.
‘Caves up here?’ Diamond said. ‘I find that hard to credit.’
‘You have to look out for them. Some of the entrances are overgrown,’ Flint said. After just a few minutes of walking he stopped and said, ‘Through there.’
Half hidden by a crop of nettles was a dark hollow that plunged deep into the hill.
‘Is that it?’ Diamond said. ‘It’s got a grille over it.’
‘That’s for protection, sir.’
‘Protecting stupid people like us from getting inside.’
‘Protecting the bats.’
‘Bats?’ The word impacted in Diamond’s brain.
‘They nest in there, don’t they?’ Flint said. ‘Ten or twelve species, I was told. The grille is big enough for them to fly in and out. The trust does its best to stop them being disturbed.’
Diamond wasn’t too concerned at this stage about the welfare of bats. He went closer and took a grip on the grille. It was very secure. ‘Our man had a picture of a bat in his room. He must have known about these caves. There are other entrances, you said?’
‘Four or five.’
‘Let’s look at the others.’
At first sight the next cave entrance was just as secure. But when Diamond shook the bars there was some movement. He pulled sharply and the whole thing came away from the rock. ‘Someone had this out and replaced it,’ he said, laying the grille on the ground.
He ducked and looked inside — except that looking wasn’t any use. Couldn’t see a thing. Just felt the chill. Then he was aware of something soft against his foot. In a cave? He gave a yelp and stepped away. Backed out into the daylight and asked with a transparent attempt at dignity if anyone had a lighter.
The only smoker in the party had a rare boost to his self-esteem.
With more caution, he tried a second time. The flame made the experience easier to endure. Nothing was moving on the floor, which was a relief. He was not overfond of things that lived in caves. He could see the soft object he had touched: a folded blanket. There were candles, some spent matches and a plastic bottle of water. There was an inflatable pillow.
He stepped outside and said to Halliwell, ‘We may have found his sleeping quarters. Ask the men in white suits to do a job in there.’
While Halliwell was phoning for the crime scene investigators, Diamond prowled around outside. ‘You lot make yourselves useful,’ he told the team. ‘There’s got to be the remains of a fire around here.’
They soon discovered it, not twenty yards from the cavern entrance. Of even more interest, in the embers, along with chicken bones and orange rind, were some fragments of newspaper, and even though it was scorched almost black, they could see that it was the Saturday edition of the Daily Mail, the day before Danny Geaves’s body was found suspended from the viaduct.
Diamond stayed kneeling and presently picked out a piece of cardboard about three inches by four. Just visible under the scorch-marks was an embossed design of a coat of arms.
‘Now we know what happened to his passport,’ he said. There were other printed papers too far gone to be recognisable, but forensic scientists can do amazing reconstructions.
‘So — assuming this was Danny — he quits his comfortable cottage in Freshford to live in a cave. He takes his personal papers with him and makes a bonfire of them at some stage. He strangles Delia in Bath and rigs it up to look like a suicide. Three days later, he hangs himself. What’s it all about, Keith?’
‘Mental breakdown?’
‘Possible. The balance of his mind was disturbed, as they used to say when a nutter was sent to Broadmoor. Has anyone mentioned previous mental problems? Amanda didn’t.’
‘I can check.’
‘Do that. Even if it’s true, we still have another mystery. Where was Delia on the two nights before her death? She didn’t come home. I can’t believe she was sleeping in this horrible cave with Danny. It knocks my theory on the head.’
The CSI team arrived within the hour and were set to work in and around the cave. Diamond showed them the site of the bonfire. The senior man said, ‘I notice your fingertips are black, sir.’
‘And?’
‘Would you, perhaps, have done some rooting in the fire already?’
Diamond gave him a look like a cat accused of chasing birds. ‘Don’t come onto me as if I contaminated the scene. If I hadn’t done some rooting I wouldn’t know there was a passport and I wouldn’t have called you out.’
‘No offence. I just need to know what we’re dealing with.’
‘Right. And I suppose it will take days before I hear from you.’
‘If you want the job done properly.’
He left them to get on with it.
In a more upbeat mood, the search party descended the hill. The mission had been a success. In the van on the return to Manvers Street, Diamond discussed the day with Halliwell.
‘I’ve been thinking about your theory.’
‘Which theory was that, guv?’
‘Nervous breakdown. It’s too easy.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘There was planning involved. Cool, deliberate planning.’
‘Madmen can plan stuff.’
‘I know. I just want to dig around. I’d rather you didn’t mention the nervous breakdown to Georgina.’
‘Why is that?’
‘She’ll jump at it. She wants this whole thing sorted, so she can go to choir practice and tell her friend Amanda she’s completed the job.’
‘And you believe there’s more to it?’
‘I looked inside that cave. It wasn’t a nice place to spend one night. We now know Geaves was sleeping rough for about a week, at the end of which he was found hanging. About a week, Keith. That takes it back to before Delia was murdered, so he didn’t go into hiding as a result of the murder. Why did he quit his comfortable house in Freshford to act like a fugitive in Bathford? I think he was afraid. Terrified.’
16
T he mid-week tea dance was in progress at the Melksham assembly hall. Sixteen couples quickstepped to a Victor Silvester arrangement of ‘Ain’t She Sweet’, watched by an appreciative audience seated at card tables. The average age must have been close to seventy and the majority were women. The arrival of Peter Diamond, not much over fifty and not bad-looking either, created a certain amount of interest.
Which was a pity because he’d come to look for a man.
Jim Middleton was a retired forensic pathologist and this other blue-rinsed and sequinned world he inhabited had been unsuspected by Diamond until this afternoon. Wanting advice from one of the few scientists he respected, the big policeman had called at Middleton’s house on spec, tried the doorbell and got no answer. The neighbour had told him where to find old twinkletoes on a Saturday afternoon.
And Jim looked the part, managing a nifty lockstep as he steered a substantial lady past Diamond without a flicker of recognition. The dance was claiming all Jim’s concentration. In a dove-grey suit, white shirt and red bow with matching socks he was another creature altogether from the gum-booted, anoraked figure familiar at crime scenes. His movement was quick and inventive. When it seemed he and his partner would be trapped in one corner by other dancers he executed a double reverse spin and nipped through a small space.
