Gledhill nodded, and Diamond called for the photographer.
The victim’s eyes were closed, the mouth open a little, but not sagging. There’s a question of taste about showing the faces of murder victims in the press and on television. Some picture editors are reluctant to challenge old taboos. It was essential that this woman was recognised as soon as possible. If the ligature was cropped from the picture there was nothing repulsive in her appearance.
The photographer took about twenty shots with the hair drawn back from the face. ‘Good-looking woman… considering,’ he said.
‘Is that digital?’ Diamond asked. ‘Can we go on line with it immediately?’
‘As soon as you like. Do you want some with the eyes open?’
‘No.’ He’d seen what Delia Williamson’s eyes were like after being strangled. It wouldn’t assist recognition. ‘The press will be here shortly.’
‘You can pick out the shot you want. Scan through them now.’
They were not offensive. The best were taken at an angle, eliminating the skewed effect of the head against the cord. He chose two, full-face and half-profile.
Halliwell informed him that the first reporter had arrived. ‘Are you going to link this to the other hangings, guv?’
‘That’s the plan. Do you have a problem with it?’
‘They’ll go to town on it. A serial killer at large.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’
‘I was wondering if you need to clear it with headquarters, the ACC, or someone.’
‘I’m running this inquiry, Keith. Georgina wanted it shelved.
She’s more interested in protecting shop windows.’
‘Yes, but I thought I’d mention it.’
‘And you have. Where’s the best place to meet the press? Across the road by the other arch?’
Halliwell was right. Georgina would go ballistic when she saw on television that a serial hangman was at work in Bath and she hadn’t been informed. Press relations are a minefield for the police. Elaborate procedures are laid down. Every statement is supposed to be rubber-stamped.
Diamond didn’t give a toss. Another life was at stake and there wasn’t time for consultation. He wanted headlines tonight.
Bertram Sealy approached him again. ‘So who wants a front seat at the autopsy?’
31
T he entire murder squad stayed late that evening in hope that someone would call and say they recognised the dead woman. The Bath Chronicle was on the streets by mid-afternoon and, as Diamond had predicted, the hanging in the park was the headline story. The regional TV news would go out at six.
About four thirty, when nothing had come in except calls from attention seekers, Leaman said, ‘Could mean she isn’t local. The killer could have brought the body in from miles away.’
‘Thanks for that, John,’ Diamond said. ‘I can always rely on you to cheer us up.’
‘The others were local,’ Ingeborg said.
‘But is there a local connection?’ Leaman said. ‘We haven’t found one yet.’
‘Keep going,’ Diamond said. ‘I’m hurting.’
‘Anyway, the nationals will carry the picture tomorrow,’ Ingeborg said. ‘It’s big news.’
Leaman said, ‘So if we don’t hear anything in the next hour, do we all go home and wait for tomorrow’s papers?’
Next time, cleverclogs, Diamond thought, you can sit in on the autopsy instead of Keith Halliwell, who always does it. Some blood and guts might take the smile off your face.
His personal phone buzzed, but it was only Georgina’s PA. The ACC wanted to see him as a matter of urgency.
He said, ‘That’s all I need. Would you inform the ACC I’ve got a matter of urgency down here?’
‘I think she knows all about that, Mr Diamond.’
‘I’m for the high jump, am I?’
‘The pole vault, I would say.’
‘Better show my face, then?’
‘I strongly advise it.’
He told Leaman where he was going. ‘But I’m not doing fifteen rounds with Georgina. Give me ten minutes, max, and then call her office and say it’s all happening and you need me, right?
Don’t let me down.’
On the way upstairs he rehearsed his explanation. He would say — and it was true — that time was running out. He needed to identify the latest victim and his only chance had been to break the story without delay. He would add — and it was less true — that he’d fully intended to report what was happening at the first opportunity.
Georgina didn’t give him the chance. She’d rehearsed her piece, too, and came at him with all guns blazing. He’d heard most of it after previous insubordinations, so he fixed his gaze on the wall behind her and thought about other things. Finally the tirade stopped. Georgina said, ‘Have you been listening? Have you heard one word of what I was saying?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘You have this bumptious look on your face as if your mind is on higher things. Why don’t you look me in the eye when I’m talking to you? What is it you find so riveting on the wall behind me?’
‘The picture of Her Majesty the Queen, ma’am.’
The phone went. It needed to be Leaman.
She snatched it up. ‘What is it?’
He waited.
Georgina eyed him like a caged lioness. ‘You’d better return to your team. They seem to think there’s been a development.’
The only development was that DC Gilbert had arrived with a tray of tea.
‘I can do with that,’ Diamond said.
‘No chance of cake, guv?’ Leaman said.
‘What?’
‘We were thinking the ACC might have baked you another chocolate cake.’
‘Another? That wasn’t from upstairs. Get real, John.’
‘Did you ever find out who sent it?’
‘Not Georgina.’
‘She’s a cracking good cook, whoever she is.’
Ingeborg said, ‘Leave it, John.’ She’d seen the danger signals. Leaman had touched a raw nerve. Paloma’s cake wasn’t the delicious memory for Diamond that it was for everyone else. Maybe he should have been flattered that she had gone to so much trouble to get him interested, but it unsettled him instead. He’d been happier thinking he’d made the main moves in their coming together. It shouldn’t matter. He still fancied her like mad. She was witty and intelligent and she seemed to think he was good in bed, which any man likes to be told. Go with the flow, he told himself. At your age you don’t expect to have women running after you.
A call from the mortuary jerked him back to the world of work. Keith Halliwell was reporting on the autopsy. ‘Dr Sealy reckons she was strangled with a ligature, the same as Delia Williamson. It wasn’t so obvious this time, and the slip knot masked it, but the signs are there, he says.’
‘She was dead when she was strung up? The same MO?’
‘He’s sure of it.’
‘Did she put up a fight?’
‘There were no indications. Maybe he got her drunk, or drugged. The blood tests will take a while.’
‘Anything else I should know about?’
