‘But this has so much more. Look.’ She highlighted a section of the screen. ‘Name, age, method, location. Every case for every year this century. That’s about twenty-five thousand suicides. I don’t know who collects all this material, or why.’
‘Or if it’s accurate.’
‘Lighten up, guv. I found what I was looking for, and I’m bloody sure I wouldn’t have got it from the police computer.’
He didn’t like detective constables telling him to lighten up. ‘I haven’t got all day. What have you found?’
‘It may be just coincidence, but two years ago there was a double hanging here in Bath, wife and husband, separated by a couple of days. Their name was Twining, John and Christine Twining.’ She found the names on the screen and highlighted them.
Diamond’s annoyance evaporated at once. The flickering screen had all his attention.
Twining, Christine, 28, of Madras Villa, Hinton Charterhouse, Avon, on 26 July 2004, found hanging from a tree in Henrietta Park, Bath.
Twining, John Merson, 34, of Madras Villa, Hinton Charterhouse, Avon, on 28 July 2004, found hanging at Sham Castle, Claverton Down, Bath.
‘What do you make of it?’ Ingeborg asked.
He was making a whole new scenario out of it, yet trying to stay calm. Experience had taught him not to jump in with both feet. ‘Double suicides happen.’
‘Yes, but on our patch?’
‘Sadly, yes.’
‘Twice in two years?’
‘Our case isn’t quite the same, is it? Ours were unmarried and separated. Good spotting, even so,’ he said, letting a little of his enthusiasm show. ‘I must have read about this myself at the time. I can’t think why it slipped my mind.’
‘Two years ago your mind was on something else, guv.’
She didn’t need to say what. For at least a year after Steph’s murder he’d focused on that and nothing else: finding and charging the killer and seeing the judicial process through. ‘Like you say, could be coincidence, but the fact that they both seem to have hanged themselves within a couple of days is odd.’
‘And in the open, in public places.’
His pulse beat faster. He’d missed that. ‘Good point. Have you looked this up in the newspaper files?’
‘Not yet. I haven’t had a chance.’
‘Better do it.’
She turned and gave him the full beam of her wide blue eyes. ‘If you remember, I’m supposed to be comparing witness statements for the ram raid.’
‘Someone else can take that on. Anything you can dredge up on the Twinings. Find out who did the post- mortems and see if you can get hold of the reports. This is probably one huge red herring, but we can’t ignore it.’
He strolled back into his office, trying to look as cool as he’d sounded while his thoughts galloped ahead. What was going on here? Two double suicides in two years on his patch? A copycat effect? He couldn’t think why. The obvious assumption was that the two couples had something in common. Did they know each other? Had there been some kind of pact to take their own lives?
Impressionable people sometimes get drawn into oddball communities with a morbid sense of alienation from the world, like the Manson ‘family’ or the Jonestown community or the Waco crowd, falling under the influence of a dominant figure with a destructive urge. Things like that happened in California or Texas, places where screwy behaviour surprised no one. Was it conceivable that some cult such as this — with suicide as a laudable objective — was active in staid old Bath? He couldn’t discount it. Even Bathonians were capable of weird behaviour.
Georgina stepped into his office soon after, wanting to know what progress he’d made on the ram raid. She looked as if she already knew the answer, so he decided to surprise her.
‘Significant progress.’
He could have saved his breath.
‘Because it’s a shocking crime,’ she went on. ‘An incident like this alarms the public. Driving a vehicle into a shopfront is a violent act. Shops are vital to the local economy.’
‘I know, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I use them myself… when I get the time.’
She wasn’t listening. ‘In a way it’s an act of rape.’
He raised his eyebrows at that. What a pig-ignorant remark. If he’d come out with it she’d have jumped on him from a great height, and rightly. A ram raid was a ram raid and rape was another class of crime, more selfish, more cowardly and more despicable.
Georgina must have seen his expression because she tried to justify what she’d said. ‘In an abstract sense, I mean. A rape of property. A shopfront violated. I want these people arrested and put away for a long time, Peter. Do you have descriptions?’
‘Not when I last checked. It happened at night.’
‘Nothing on video?’
‘No cameras.’
‘Suspects?’
‘More than enough.’
His phone buzzed.
‘Pick it up,’ Georgina said. ‘It may be for me.’
The switchboard operator said, ‘Personal for you, sir.’ And before he could deflect her he was listening to Paloma.
‘Peter, I hope you don’t mind me calling you at work, but this gorgeous basket of flowers just arrived. How did you know I adore the scent of freesias? And the message. So thoughtful. You really didn’t have to do this, but it’s made my day.’
His own day was disintegrating. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I’m in a meeting.’
‘Oh, trust me to pick the wrong moment!’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’
‘Can I call back?’
‘That would be nice.’
‘This afternoon?’
‘About two would be good.’ He put down the phone. ‘Sorry about that.’
Georgina couldn’t have heard every word, but she would have a fair idea that the caller was female. She said, ‘I hope you’re giving this top priority.’
‘What?’
She emitted a rasping sigh. ‘The ram raid.’
‘They’re working on it at this minute, ma’am.’
‘You say “they” as if you’re not personally involved.’
‘It’s all part of the ongoing work of the CID. I do have other things on my plate.’
‘Like those two hangings? I thought you’d have written your report and forgotten about them by now. You’re like a dog with a bone. What were you doing taking a vanload of policemen out to Bathford?’
‘We got a result — found the cave where Danny Geaves was holed up.’
‘And how does that assist us?’
‘Well, it’s, em — ’ he was flapping around like a drowning man and they both knew it ‘- a guide to his state of mind.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Peter, we know he was suicidal.’
He dug deep for some dignity. ‘If you remember, ma’am, on the day he died you woke me at six in the morning to go and investigate. I took it to mean the matter was important.’
‘Only because we can’t have bodies hanging from bridges.’
‘I understand now. Spoiling the scenery?’
