'I only said they want to interview him.'
'We all know what that means.'
'It isn't certain.'
Harry digested the information. He still felt he hadn't been given all the facts. 'He's done a runner, you said? Isn't it obvious he's the one who grassed us up? I don't know why you give me the third degree as if I'm the snitch when you could be looking for this bastard.'
No one answered.
'Wait a minute,' Harry said, as an ugly thought surfaced. 'You haven't already topped him, have you?'
28
The photocopier at Fulham nick must have been red-hot over the weekend. McGarvie was now in possession of a thick stack of paper: Diamond's entire record of cases with the Met. Three of the most experienced officers in the incident room had combed each page for the crucial mentions of DC Weather's name among the detectives involved.
'One stands out,' McGarvie informed Diamond when he turned up on Monday. 'This Florida. Protection racketeer. A hard man.'
'Can't disagree with that'
'Jacob Blaize headed, right?'
Diamond nodded.
'With you as second in command?'
'Sidekick.'
'And Weather was a junior officer on the team, mainly on surveillance duties, but I discovered he also sat in on several interviews Blaize did with Florida.'
Tell me something new, Diamond thought.
McGarvie was showing signs of excitement. 'And we can assume Weather spent time alone with Florida when Blaize left the room, as he must have.'
'Frequently,' Diamond confirmed.
'You know that for sure?'
'Blaizy was always being caught short.'
The eyes widened, revealing more than anyone would wish to see of the engorged blood vessels. 'Was he, by God? That's something I didn't get from the files.'
'Well, you wouldn't.'
'It meant interruptions, did it?' He was getting as hyper as when he had dug up the gun in the garden.
'Every ten to fifteen minutes.'
'Sounds like prostate trouble.'
'He was on a waiting list.'
Diamond was amused to see McGarvie bring his palms together and rub them as if he was using the drying machine in the gents: the association of ideas. 'You see what this means? This was before we had videotaping. An old hand like Florida would have made use of those breaks. He'd get to work on the young officer sitting across the table. He'd try intimidation.'
'For what? A smoke?' It was hardly enough to justify the killing of Patsy Weather, Diamond was implying, and McGarvie needed to do better.
But he was way ahead, compounding the plot. 'No, he'd twist the facts of the case to make it seem he was being set up by you and Blaize. He'd shake the young man's confidence, doing his damnedest to turn him, you see. He'd think he'd got him as an ally, someone who could testify later that the interview had been improper. When he didn't do it by persuasion, he'd use threats -threats he really meant to carry out. He saw enough of Weather to remember him long after. When a man like Florida has festered in jail for twelve years—'
'Seven,' Diamond said. 'He was out after seven.'
'More than enough to turn his brain.'
'His brain didn't need turning. He hated the police. I can see -just about - that he might have wanted revenge on Blaizy and me. We nailed him. But Stormy Weather? I don't think so. He was small beer.'
McGarvie was unshakeable. 'You and I don't know what passed between them. Maybe Weather was induced to make a promise he never kept. Maybe Florida thought he could rely on Weather to save his skin.'
Maybe . . . Maybe . . . This was futile speculation, and both knew it. Nothing would be certain unless Stormy admitted he'd played along, or Florida was induced to tell all. No matter; for the present it suited Diamond if Florida was the prime suspect, leaving him free to pursue Wayne Beach. Just to get a measure of McGarvie's resolve, he asked, 'Have you given up on Dixon-Bligh, then?'
'No trace. He's holed up somewhere. Arrears of rent. The Met are working on it.' He made it sound like their problem.
Joe Florida was firmly in the frame.
Stormy Weather arrived at Bristol Temple Meads just after eleven, and Diamond met him on the platform and remembered to call him Dave. They drove directly to Sion Hill, an elegant, curving street of eighteenth-century houses built on an incline above the Gorge.
