‘Did I?’
How bizarre is this? he thought, trying to analyse a work of fiction on a rusty old staircase a hundred feet off the ground. But his show of interest seemed to be working. She’d invested a lot in the blog and this was her chance to find out how well she’d succeeded. Keep talking, he told himself. Pitch it calmly and she may not think about jumping.
‘So let’s sum up the real situation. When we first met and I informed you Harry was dead, you were straight with me, remarkably straight. You let me know it was a failed marriage. He was a non-communicator with no ambition and when he was off work he slumped in front of the telly or went fishing. You convinced me you were an honest, hard-done-by woman. It didn’t cross my mind that you had a lover, not until much later. I only twigged when I spoke to one of his neighbours, the blonde on the ground floor. She told me Sean Willis had a night visitor sometimes. Was that while Harry was on the night shift?’
After he’d spoken, he knew it sounded a cheap remark. He wasn’t surprised she didn’t answer.
A huge flock of starlings was spiralling just a short way off in the flat, grey sky. They twisted into the shape of an hour-glass.
He tried again. ‘You wanted an escape from Harry and when you started seeing Willis, your home life seemed even more pointless. You’re not going to deny the affair? Only a short while ago I was told by my team that he called at your house.’
She said, ‘Sean? You’re bluffing.’
‘To comfort you after the funeral, I guess. Obviously he couldn’t be there at your side in front of everyone, so he waited for it to be over. He let himself in with his own key.’
‘He didn’t!’ Her voice piped in disapproval.
‘And if he had a key to your place, it’s reasonable to assume you have a key to his — the house in the Paragon. Where did you first meet him — at the rifle range in Devizes?’
She said, ‘Let’s get one thing clear. Sean had nothing to do with Harry’s death.’
‘But that’s how you met?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’d learned to shoot when you served in the police. In those days it was a five-day course to get qualified as a firearms officer and lots of us did it.’
She snapped, ‘How do you know that?’
‘It’s listed. You know what the police are like. Everything goes on record. I asked for the list of firearms officers at Helston while you were on the strength. It said PC Tasker, which at first I took to be Harry. That’s the sort of sexist I am, assuming only men are interested in using guns.’
‘Harry’s sport was fishing, not shooting,’ she said, as good as admitting she’d done the course. She was proud of her skill with the rifle.
‘After leaving the police, you had a less adventurous life teaching infants. Harry had his own hobby at the weekends, so you went back to shooting at targets and found a new friend as well. You were keen, keen enough to make trips all the way to Devizes.’
‘There’s no gun club in Bath.’
‘How did you get there? Not on your pushbike?’
‘Other people offered me lifts. Several came from Bath.’
‘Including Willis?’
‘He was one of them, yes. Sean knows nothing about any of this,’ she insisted.
‘I’m not suggesting he does. Let’s talk about Harry. He had his own way of controlling youth crime. Confiscation, as one of our sources put it. He’d take away illegal goods and demand hush money. Did you know about that?’
She shrugged. ‘Make a guess.’
‘We haven’t searched your house, but I’m sure we’ll find a stash in the loft or under the floorboards. Harry’s biggest prize was Soldier Nuttall’s sniper rifle, unwisely borrowed by his son Royston to impress his friends. You found the gun and the temptation was too much. Harry had supplied you with the means of your freedom, the same make of rifle the Somerset Sniper was known to use.’
‘It wasn’t as cold-blooded as that,’ she said. ‘Several things came on top of each other.’
He waited for her to expand on this, but she chose not to. ‘I know what some of them are,’ he said. ‘There was all the stuff in the media about the sniper shooting policemen. Wives of policemen all over the West Country worried sick that their men would get the next bullet. You, I imagine, thought along different lines.’
Her mouth twitched into a quick, faint smile.
‘You knew Harry’s beat took him along Walcot Street, below the Paragon. Last Saturday night you let yourself into the house with the gun and waited in the empty garden flat and most of what happened went according to plan. You picked off Harry with your second shot. You meant to make your getaway at once, but there was a delay.’
‘That damned alarm went off,’ she said. ‘I was afraid someone in the house would look out and see me in the garden, so I crouched down among the weeds. I lost one of the cartridge cases and panicked a bit. The sniper never leaves them behind. It would give you the chance to prove I used a different rifle. I don’t know how long I was scrabbling around, trying to find it. Then I noticed Sean’s blinds were raised. He had no idea I was there. I couldn’t go back through the basement flat and risk running into him. I had to give him time to go back to bed. I hadn’t reckoned on some of your lot getting there so soon. I was hiding behind the nettles. The police noticed the gun where I’d left it, but then they went away for a minute and only one came back.’
‘You picked up the gun and cracked him over the head with it. Almost a double murder.’
‘He’ll be all right, won’t he?’ she asked without much concern.
‘Decent of you to enquire. He’ll survive. Whether he’s brain-damaged, I don’t know. How did you eventually make your escape?’
‘The way I came. On my pushbike.’
He was in awe. ‘Where was it?’
‘In the street opposite.’
‘You cycled through the streets at night with the murder weapon?’
‘It’s a short ride, under a mile, even taking the quiet route along Royal Avenue, and the gun folds up and fits into the saddlebag.’
‘After which you played the angry widow, sat back and watched events unfold.’
‘More or less,’ Emma said.
‘Right. “More or less” means you weren’t as passive as it appeared. You still did what you could to influence things. Top marks for the fake blog, inventing a whole different explanation.’
‘So you were taken in?’
‘Almost. Something didn’t ring true. I felt this was an educated woman trying too hard to sound streetwise and trendy.’
‘In what way?’
‘Some of the conversations and how you handled them. “She was like …” and “She went …” I bet you don’t say stuff like that to your own friends. It didn’t chime in with the rest, the university degree, teaching the piano and so forth.’
‘It’s the modern vernacular.’
‘And only an educated woman would use a phrase like that. But I did fall for the “You’re next” threats. They reinforced the idea of a series of shootings. I really thought someone in the police must have threatened Harry. I suppose you added the note to his card-case after it was returned to you.’
‘Anything to deflect suspicion,’ she said.
‘Including the one you sent me?’
‘That was meant,’ she said in the same calm tone of acceptance and then without warning switched to a shrill note of frenzy. ‘Because you’re next, Detective bloody Diamond, of course you’re next, else why would I have brought you all the way up here?’
With that, she braced herself and leapt off.
Directly below her, Diamond had the split-second warning of what she was about to do, but there was no escape.
