‘Is there anything I should be told?’
‘About her death? Nothing I can tell you.’
‘Are you saying it was natural?’
‘No.’
‘Unnatural?’
‘I reserve judgement. I’ll do the PM tomorrow. Do you want to be there?’ He knew what to do with a knife, how to twist as well as dissect.
‘Not even a suspicion?’
‘I’m a scientist, my dear fellow. Suspicion is speculative and I don’t have any truck with it.’
‘Put it this way, then. Is it possible she was killed and no mark was left?’
‘Entirely possible, but don’t ask me to list the possible causes or we’ll be here all night.’ He stood up. ‘It gets to your knees, all this stooping. Pity she didn’t die sitting up in the chair.’
‘Just for your comfort?’ ‘Well, if she had, she’d have been visible to the audience and I imagine someone would have spotted something was wrong.’
‘I don’t know. People fall asleep watching dull plays.’
The first glimmer of concern crossed Sealy’s features. ‘Is it dull? I was given tickets for Saturday.’
‘I haven’t seen it. Look, if you’re not going to tell me anything, I might as well be off.’
‘There’s something I can tell you,’ Sealy said.
‘About the cause of death?’
‘No. About the victim. Take a look at her arms.’ He crouched again and rolled back one of the sleeves of the grey jacket as far as the elbow.
Diamond leaned over his shoulder for a better look. There were scars on the inner side of the forearm. ‘She was a druggie?’
‘No. These old injuries are not the same as you get from shooting up. She’s cut her wrists more than once. Clarion Calhoun was a self-harmer.’
17
An event as sensational as the sudden death of a major pop star becomes international news in a short time. Well before midnight on Thursday the police switchboard was jammed with media enquiries. Diamond issued a statement confirming that a woman had been found dead in a box at the Theatre Royal and that a post-mortem would be conducted next morning and a press conference would follow.
Early Friday he phoned Ingeborg at home and confided what the press didn’t yet know.
He heard her intake of breath.
The shock was still with him too, and gave more bite to his words than he intended. ‘When I asked you to bone up on Clarion’s life you didn’t tell me anything about self-inflicted injuries.’
The criticism hurt. ‘Be fair, guv. Don’t you think if I’d found even a hint of anything like that, I’d have told you right away?’
As so often, his plain speaking had caused more offence than he intended. ‘I’m saying this has come out of the blue, that’s all.’
‘If you remember, I was looking at websites and fanzines. This isn’t the kind of stuff a pop star wants to be known for.’
He backed off a little. ‘You’d think the tabloids would have been onto this.’
From Ingeborg’s tone, she appreciated the shift of focus. ‘She must have kept it well hidden. Thinking about it, all the pictures I’ve ever seen show her with her arms covered up.’
‘Well, you can’t hide much when you’re on the dissecting table. Sealy says he can use ultra-violet light to enhance old scars and give us an idea how long she was doing this.’
‘Can we be certain they were self-inflicted?’
‘They’re classic signs, he says.’
Ingeborg moved on quickly to the key question. ‘Are you thinking she may have damaged her own face with the caustic soda?’ She paused, shocked by her own statement. ‘It changes everything.’
He’d debated this with himself for much of the night. What if no crime had been committed at all and the whole of CID was flat out on a barren investigation? ‘Let’s find out if Sealy is right. That agent you and I met at the hospital – the dragon. What’s her name?’
‘Tilda Box.’
‘Yes. She must know what her client got up to. Where is she based? London, I suppose.’
‘We have her mobile number.’
‘You’ll get more out of her if you meet.’
‘We need someone to identify the body.’
