‘All I’m hoping is to be picked as a spear-carrier or something. I can’t be jealous of someone getting the lead.’
‘Not many spear-carriers in this play,’ Diamond said.
Belinda smiled.
‘You’d better get back to your duties,’ he said.
‘May I have my talc back?’
He handed it across and she took off fast.
‘Not a serious suspect, but a useful witness,’ he told Ingeborg.
‘Agreed.’
‘It’s pretty obvious Denise was brushing caustic soda on Clarion’s face while she was waiting to go on. One mystery solved.’
‘The delay?’
‘Yes, and if we can find the box she was using we’ll get the contents analysed.’
‘Is it worth searching wardrobe?’ she asked.
‘We’ll have to – but my guess is that if Denise knew what she was doing she wouldn’t be so careless as to leave it lying about.’
‘We could look now.’
He passed a hand thoughtfully over his head. ‘Should be okay by now.’ He told her about the scene of passion he’d stumbled into.
‘What an old goat,’ Ingeborg said. ‘I thought he fancied Gisella.’
‘He fancies anyone willing to have him.’
11
An alert policeman spotted Denise’s Vauxhall Corsa late the same evening when the huge Charlotte Street car park was just about empty. It was in the top section near the path linking with Royal Avenue, below the Crescent.
Bath Central phoned Diamond at home. He hadn’t been in for long and was microwaving a TV dinner. He turned it off and said he’d come at once. ‘You can never relax,’ he told Raffles, who had just been fed and was actually quite relaxed. ‘You know the real reason I’m going hungry tonight? Because Georgina wants to tread the boards in
It was dark when he arrived. Keith Halliwell was there with a torch and so was the young constable credited with the find.
‘Nice work,’ Diamond said, trying to raise his own spirits. ‘Have you looked inside?’
Halliwell shone his torch over the interior. ‘Nothing to see.’
‘Let’s have the boot open. Got the tools?’
Halliwell unfurled a cloth containing a set that had belonged to a housebreaker. He selected a jemmy.
With the job under way, Diamond told the constable they could manage without him now. ‘Top result,’ he added as an afterthought.
‘Thanks, sir.’ But the young officer lingered, shuffling. ‘Would you like my torch?’
‘Don’t you need it? You’re still on patrol, aren’t you?’
‘I can easily get a spare.’
‘All right, then.’
‘I was thinking…’
‘No harm in that.’
‘Well, wondering, actually, if there are any openings in CID.’
‘You what?’
‘That’s my ambition, sir, to do plainclothes work.’
‘Bloody hell. Another one. What’s your name?’
‘Pidgeon, sir. PC George Pidgeon.’
‘Well, Pidgeon, I’ll bear you in mind, but right now we’re trying out Sergeant Dawkins. Do you know him?’
‘I’ve worked for him, yes.’ From the tone, the experience hadn’t been a rip-roaring success.
‘And it may be a while before we take on anyone else.’
‘Understood.’ George Pidgeon’s face said it all. He nodded and walked off into the darkness.
Halliwell meanwhile was bending metal, mutilating the car. One extra heave on the jemmy and the boot-lid sprang open to reveal a large, soft bag and the leather case Kate had described.
