‘She was sexually experienced, but you’d expect that at her age.’
‘Which was what?’
‘Round about forty. She’d had a pregnancy at some stage. She also had an appendix scar.’
‘Good man. How’s your stomach?’
‘Fine.’ He added with a hint that ‘fine’ didn’t mean he did this duty willingly, ‘This wasn’t my first time.’
Diamond was unrepentant. ‘See you shortly, then.’
‘There was one other thing,’ Halliwell said. ‘It was rather peculiar. Dr Sealy noticed some particles that fell out of her hair. He said they were grains of sugar.’
‘What — household sugar?’
‘Yes. He was so sure of it that he tasted one.’
‘Rather him than me. Why would she have sugar in her hair? Some kind of shampoo?’
‘He doesn’t think so. Sugar would dissolve, wouldn’t it? His theory is that there may have been some spilt in the vehicle used to move the body and her head came into contact with it.’
‘So we’re looking for a Tate and Lyle driver?’
‘My feeling is that we could waste time on this, guv.’
‘You’re probably right. This is going to be a long evening anyway.’
The phones took over. Local television had just screened the picture of the dead woman and given the police number. The first few calls were duds. One of the hazards of releasing a picture is that you hear from people who want to be helpful and aren’t. They convince themselves it’s someone they saw yesterday, or once knew.
Then Ingeborg waved to Diamond from across the room. She’d taken details from a woman in Midford. ‘I think you should speak to this one, guv.’
He took the phone. ‘Would you mind repeating what you just told my colleague?’
The caller had the local accent and the slow delivery that sometimes goes with it. ‘Well, it’s about the poor soul who was found hanging in Bath, isn’t it? They just showed her picture on the television and I’m certain I know her. I’ve seen her often. She’s got a big house called Brookview Lodge, off the Midford Road, north of the village. She rides her horse around the lanes. That’s where I’ve seen her. Always nicely dressed in her riding things.’
‘Would you know her name?’
‘That’s it, my dear. I don’t. I’ve never spoken to her. But I don’t make mistakes about faces. She’s the poor lady they showed on the television, I promise you.’
‘Is she married?’
‘I wouldn’t know about that. She always rides out alone. The horse is chestnut, with a black mane. He’s big and handsome.’
Another woman phoned in not long after. She, too, believed the victim was the horsewoman seen around Midford almost every day.
Diamond called across to Ingeborg. ‘Get someone else to take over. You and I are going to check on a possible sighting.’
Brookview Lodge took its name from Midford Brook, a misnomer for something more like a full-blown river that channels water into the Avon from its southern source in the Mendip hills. They approached by way of a narrow road through the north-facing Midford Woods where oak, beech and larch grow and nightingales were heard in recent memory. As the Ka descended, the tall-banked lane opened to a panorama of the Limpley Stoke Valley. Ingeborg spotted the sign for the lodge and swung right. A winding drive brought them to a handsome gabled building in well-weathered local stone. They drove onto a paved area at the front. A horse neighed from the outbuildings.
‘Poor thing could be hungry,’ Ingeborg said. ‘Shall I check?’
‘Later. We’re not the RSPCA. Let’s see if anyone’s in.’
He got out and tried the doorbell. Lifted the letter-flap and saw mail inside. Tried the bell again. Walked round the side of the building. The flowerbeds were well maintained. At the rear was a large oval swimming pool. Recliners and small tables were set on the tiled surround, but there wasn’t a sense of anyone in residence today.
He turned towards the conservatory extension that seemed to be used as an anteroom to the pool. Inside were towels on a clothes rack, more garden furniture, a rowing machine, a treadmill and a whirlpool.
The door was unlocked. ‘I bet the inner door is locked,’ he said as they went in.
He was right.
‘And I bet there’s an alarm system,’ Ingeborg said.
‘Let’s find out.’ He picked up a sandbox used to support a sunshade. It was good and heavy. He swung it at the door. The door stayed firm, but the alarm went off. ‘You’re right.’
He tried again.
Ingeborg said, ‘Guv, should we be doing this?’
At the third attempt the box ripped through the bolt mechanism.
He stepped inside, through a living room and across a large entrance hall. ‘Find the control panel and switch that bloody thing off.’
The place had the feel of somewhere that hadn’t seen anyone for most of the week. He felt inside the wire basket containing the mail.
The names on the envelopes told him what he’d feared. More than one person lived here. Martin and Jocelyn Steel. The man had letters from the Law Society and other legal organisations. Probably a solicitor.
Ingeborg silenced the alarm and came from the back of the house to join him. He showed her the letters.
‘A man as well? That’s not what we wanted to find, guv.’
‘What’s through there?’
‘The kitchen, I think.’
They went through. The smell was not nice. Ingeborg found two trout on the work surface wrapped in tinfoil. They reeked. ‘Their supper, I suppose. Look, there are potatoes waiting to boil in the saucepan.’
‘It doesn’t suggest to me that Jocelyn Steel was planning to hang herself.’
A door from the laundry room connected to the double garage. Two cars were in there, the ‘his’ and ‘hers’ it seemed, a silver Porsche Cayenne Turbo and a red Mini Cooper.
He checked the answerphone. Nine messages, the first on Sunday morning. Four from the same person, who called herself Mummy. By the fourth, she was getting frantic and said so. ‘Are you all right? I keep trying. You didn’t say you were going away or anything. Darling, please call me, however late you get in.’
Diamond sighed. ‘Someone had better break it to Mummy.’ He would do it himself. He didn’t wish every unpleasant duty on his subordinates.
Of the other calls, one was from someone called Agnes, who sounded like Jocelyn’s friend and addressed her as Joss. Two were from Dawn, a younger-sounding voice with the soft West Country accent. At the second try she said she was bothered about Prince and she wouldn’t mind getting him out and riding him.
‘The horse,’ Ingeborg said.
‘There was I thinking Prince Harry.’
The other calls were from South-West Gas, to arrange a service of the central heating; and the library, because a book Mr Steel had ordered had come in.
He used the phone to arrange with Leaman for a forensic team to come out. ‘I’m ninety-nine per cent sure we’ve found the right place. Is Keith back from the autopsy yet?’
‘He just got in.’
‘Tell him he’s needed here.’
‘Do you want me as well, guv?’ Leaman asked.
‘No. Someone has to keep taking the calls.’ To Ingeborg he said, ‘Let’s go upstairs.’
She said, ‘I thought you’d never ask.’
‘Ingeborg.’
‘Guv?’
‘I do the jokes.’
The Steels shared a bedroom and it was clearly important in their lives, with a kingsize bed fitted into a wall unit with an array of soft toys, books, CDs and ornaments. A plasma TV and sound system were on the opposite
