between the couple?’
In his head Diamond played over the question and answer from that session in the George. He’d remarked that in the photo they’d seemed happy with one another. ‘I never saw a sign that they weren’t,’ was the reply.
‘Not really,’ he was forced to admit, ‘but he couldn’t understand why they were suicidal.’
‘They hadn’t separated, or anything?’
‘No. That’s a clear difference from Geaves and his partner. Delia had found a new man and it’s understandable if Danny harboured a grudge.’
‘I don’t want to be awkward,’ Halliwell said, ‘but I think you’ve got to find a motive before you cast John Twining as a wife-murderer.’
Diamond was silent, forced to recognise the truth of what Halliwell was saying. There was more work to be done.
Then Leaman said, ‘Even if your theory is right, why should Danny Geaves want to try the same thing two years later?’
‘That’s the next big question,’ Diamond said. ‘All right, fellows. You’ve given me plenty to think on.’
After they’d closed the door, he brooded on the matter. Halliwell and Leaman were good detectives and he hadn’t persuaded them. They were reluctant even to speculate.
He picked up the phone. ‘How do I get hold of a certain pathologist, Dr Manzoor Shinwari, who did the autopsies on a couple of suicides two years back?’
He was asked to wait. They would call him back.
When the call came, it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Dr Shinwari had returned to Pakistan eighteen months ago and there was no contact address.
20
O ne thing you could say for Peter Diamond: nothing would grind him down. Dr Shinwari might have left the country, but there was always Jim Middleton. Why hadn’t Jim been in touch? He’d had ample time to read those reports.
His mobile number was on the back of an envelope.
‘Damn you,’ Jim said. ‘I should have turned the bloody thing off. I’m in Starbucks, enjoying a quiet moment here.’
‘Well, I’m not. I’m working,’ Diamond said. ‘Are you alone?’
‘At this minute, yes, but one of my friends could arrive any time.’
‘So we can talk. What did you think of those autopsy reports?’
‘Look, this is hardly the place.’
‘Do you want speak from the toilet?’
‘I draw the line at that.’
‘I wouldn’t worry, anyway. I’ve overheard some amazing conversations in coffee shops. What have you got to tell me?’
Jim must have sensed that the man was unstoppable. He started to open up. ‘I have to say there isn’t much to quibble over. He seems to have done a workmanlike job in both cases. Not everyone provides the kind of detail Bertram Sealy gives you.’
This wasn’t what Diamond had hoped to hear. ‘You agree with his conclusions, then?’
‘Can’t fault him.’ Jim paused, probably to look round and see who might be listening, then lowered his voice. ‘There’s no question the woman was murdered, strangled first and strung up later. And the man was hanged from the railway bridge, just as Sealy suggests.’
‘You say there isn’t much to quibble over. Is there anything?’
There was another hesitation. ‘Almost every autopsy has its points of interest.’
‘And you found some?’
‘You gave me both reports to read, so I had the advantage of an overview. Sealy dealt with each case in isolation. Quite properly.’
This was all too cagey for Diamond. ‘I gave you both reports for a reason, Jim. I want that overview.’
‘I know. And what I say to you, Peter, is that any pathologist worthy of the name treats each autopsy as a separate event, and that’s what Sealy has done. It’s not a good principle to go into the dissection room with ideas of what you might expect to find.’
‘Point taken. What have you got for me?’
‘In no way is this a criticism of a colleague.’
‘You’ve made that very clear. You’re simply suggesting lines of inquiry.’
Jim sounded happier with that. ‘Right. You’re the SIO and your job is different from his. He presents you with his findings and you weigh them with all the other evidence you have. You’re dealing with both incidents, aren’t you?’
‘I was until I got told to wrap up the case.’
‘You saw both bodies in situ?’
Now Diamond hesitated, reminded of his own refusal to climb into the cherry picker at the viaduct. He could at least claim he’d been at the scene and viewed the suspended body from below. ‘I did.’
‘Did you get close up?’
‘Close enough. At the second incident they cut the man down and I saw him on a stretcher.’
‘The cord was still in place?’
‘Yes, they cut it and left it knotted round the neck, if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘Notice anything special about that second corpse?’
He tried picturing it in his mind, unzipping the body bag. His overriding concern at the time had been to identify the body as Danny Geaves. ‘I give up. What should I have spotted?’
‘Did you look at the knot?’
‘The knot?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘I’m trying to remember. You’d better help me.’
‘He used a slip knot. That’s of interest because it wasn’t a slip knot in the first incident. The woman was suspended from a loop with a fixed knot. You got the characteristic mark on the neck rising to a peak at the knot. That was why it was apparent that she’d been strangled previously with a ligature.’
‘Two sets of marks.’
‘Exactly. Hold on. I think someone is coming to this table.’
Diamond found himself listening to a commentary on movements in the coffee shop.
‘No, they’re going past. They’ve seen me using the mobile. Wait, they’re coming back, I think. It’s all right, they just wanted to borrow a chair. Do you know what I mean by a slip knot? It’s a running noose, as distinct from a fixed one. When a slip knot is used, and the cord takes the weight of the body, the noose tightens. The ligature mark is different. It runs right round the neck. Follow me?’
‘Because there’s no slack?’
‘Correct.’
‘Why would he use a different knot the second time?’
‘This is where the pathologist shuts up and lets the detective take over. Our job isn’t to answer questions like that. We report what we find. Bertram Sealy has done that.’
Diamond closed his eyes, concentrating hard. He knew Jim Middleton was hinting at something without wanting to compromise a professional colleague. ‘Can we look at this another way? If he’d used a slip knot when he suspended the woman from the swing, it could have covered the mark of the strangling, and we wouldn’t have known she was murdered.’
‘That’s if the rope was tight all the way round the neck and covered the original ligature mark.’
‘So how can we be sure the second death was a genuine hanging?’
‘The vertebrae were broken in the mid-cervical section of the spine. That’s what you expect from a hanging
