hero. I was asking myself how a down-and-out like you reacts when he comes across a body in a park. Does he get to a phone immediately and report it? Does he hell. He's on the lookout for goodies. You found the handbag.'
Warburton shook his head.
'It won't do, Jimmy,' Diamond told him. 'The date matches. You raised the alarm, yes, but there can only be one reason. Someone came along when you had your thieving hands in the bag. They saw you right beside the body, maybe even thought you'd fired the shots. You were forced to play the innocent, pretend you were just about to call the police. You stuffed the handbag under your coat and hightailed it to the car park and did the decent thing because they were breathing down your neck. Am I right?'
'Has she been onto you?'
Diamond pounced. 'She? It was a woman, then? Better unload, Jimmy.'
The man looked so sick that Diamond wasn't sure what he would unload.
'Tell me about her, this woman who spotted you.'
'Nothing to tell.'
'What was she like? Where did she come from? What did she say? Come on, man. Do I have to shake it out of you?'
'Dunno,' Warburton said. 'Came from nowhere. I looked up and she was there.'
'What age?'
He shrugged. 'Thirty. Thirty-five.'
'Wearing what?'
'Tracksuit. Blue. Dark blue.'
'A jogger?'
'Yeah. Could be.'
'So what colour was her hair?'
'Christ knows. She had one of them woolly hats.'
'Wearing trainers?'
'Didn't see.'
'How tall?'
'Average.'
'Brilliant. What happened?'
Warburton dragged his hand down the length of his face, pressing the pale flesh as if to squeeze out some memory. 'Asked what I was doing and I told her I found the stiff on the ground, which was true. She said we ought to tell someone, so I got up and legged it to the car park—'
'With the handbag under your clothes?'
'Don't want to talk about that.'
'Spill it out, Sonny Jim, or I'll have you for obstructing the police as well as withholding evidence and theft. Have you done any time?'
He didn't answer.
Diamond took a step closer. No one could look more threatening. 'What happened to that handbag? Is it here?'
'Chucked it, didn't I?' Warburton said.
At least he hadn't pinned the blame on the jogger.
'Where?'
'Dunno.'
Diamond took a handhold on Warburton's T-shirt just below the throat and screwed it into a knot.
'I could have stuffed it out of sight,' Warburton piped up.
'We know that. Where? The car park?' There were big collection bins at one end, for newspapers, bottles and cans. Maybe he'd got rid of it there.
'Can't say.'
'Get up.'
'What?'
Warburton found himself hauled off the floor. 'You're going to have your memory jogged.'
The lurcher woke up and wagged its tail, uninterested that its master was being forced outside against his will. The chance of a walk was not to be missed. Except that it wasn't going to be a walk, simply because Warburton wasn't capable of staying upright that long.
In the car, the dog stood with its front paws on the back of Diamond's seat, licking him behind the ear. Warburton immediately fell asleep.
They drove up Charlotte Street and took the car park turn. Diamond stopped beside the bins. 'Recognise them?'
