know. The one small problem is that I’m stuck in a bloody traffic jam. Nothing is moving.’
A further ten minutes went by. The hold-up had reached the stage when people were out of their cars discussing what was going on. Diamond remained seated, thinking of other things, using the time to revisit each stage of the murders, down to such detail as the placing of the butterfly in dressing room one and the secreting of the suicide note in the stove. Nothing conflicted with either Kate or Shearman committing both murders.
‘When we finally get moving again and find the house,’ he said to Lew Rogers, ‘we’ll make sure she doesn’t see us coming and escape through the back. I’ve had that happen before. I’ll park some distance up the street and you can make the first approach. She knows me. I don’t think she’s met you.’
‘I was in the theatre last night with the others.’
‘But you didn’t speak to her. Anyway, you’re lower profile than I am.’
Ahead there was the sound of doors being slammed and engines starting.
‘Thank God for that.’
Progress was still slow, but at least there was movement. It went from a crawl to a sedate ten-mile-an-hour cruise as far as the roundabout and then slowed again on the two-way approach road to Warminster. Rogers looked up from the street atlas. ‘There’s another way into the town, but it may be just as congested.’
‘We’ll settle for this.’
Ahead was a police car with its blues flashing and a uniformed cop guiding the line of traffic past the scene of the accident.
‘Nasty,’ Diamond said as they came alongside a mangled blue saloon being lifted onto a breakdown truck. ‘Must have hit that tree. I wonder if it was fatal.’ Then he realised he was rubbernecking and gave his attention to the road ahead.
Lew Rogers was good with the map. Away from the town centre, Warminster is a maze of side streets and dead ends. He directed them unerringly off the High Street and over a railway bridge to the estate where Kate lived. The houses there must have been built as army quarters to support the nearby barracks, functional brick buildings without much to distinguish them. Some boys were kicking a football in the road.
Diamond succeeded in reaching the end without running over a child and parked at the curbside. ‘Did you spot the house?’
‘I did. It’s the one with the yellow door about halfway along.’
The way the houses were sited, an escape route from the back looked unlikely. Tall fences enclosed the back gardens.
‘Shall I see if she’s in, guv?’ Rogers asked.
‘Why not? Give me a wave if she is.’
Rogers started the walk back, watched covertly in the rearview mirror by Diamond and openly by the young footballers.
Rogers went through the gate and rang the bell on the yellow door.
Diamond watched and waited. The footballers had suspended play.
No one came to the door.
Presently Rogers returned to the car. ‘Nothing doing. The kids say they know when she’s home because she parks her car outside, a blue Vauxhall Astra.’
A disquieting thought popped into Diamond’s mind, but he dismissed it.
‘What do we do now?’ Rogers said.
‘We can at least see if she comes along in the next half-hour. She could have been caught in the traffic jam, like us.’
The evening light was still good although the shadows were lengthening. Behind the houses, the downs were turning pink. A fertile imagination wouldn’t have had much difficulty in seeing flying saucers.
‘Will we wrap this up tonight?’ Rogers asked.
‘I hope so. Why – do you have plans for the weekend?’
‘Not really.’
‘Married, are you?’
‘Second time around.’
‘She’ll have plans, then.’
‘No doubt.’
Diamond took another look at the house. ‘Was that ground-floor window open when you went to the door?’
‘I’m sure it was.’
‘Careless of her. Anyone could get in.’
‘True.’
After a pause, Diamond said, ‘We shouldn’t leave it unsecured. In fact, we have a civic duty to investigate.’
Rogers clearly understood what the head of CID intended. He may have been shocked, but he had the good sense not to mention it. The two of them approached the house. The security risk in question was a small top
