Diamond Dust

'Bit of a change from Latchmere Road,' Stormy remarked when they were parked opposite a gracious four- storey terrace with ironwork balconies, tall shutters and striped awnings.

'Envious?'

He eyed the building approvingly. 'It isn't bad for a second home. Does he own all of it?'

'That's what I heard from my snout.'

'He must have salted some money away between his prison terms.'

'More than you and I ever earned, Dave.'

They lapsed into silence, brooding on a theme familiar to policemen: the inequity between the law-enforcers and the law-breakers. 'Personally,' Stormy said after some time, 'I wouldn't choose to live in Bristol. The traffic is a pain. Always was.'

'Sounds like the voice of experience.'

'Does it? I'm only an occasional visitor.'

'Best way.'

'As a matter of fact,' Stormy said, 'I'm interested in Brunei.'

Diamond had to think before cottoning on that Stormy was speaking of the Victorian engineer. 'Top hat and big cigar?'

A nod. 'One of my heroes. I do some model-making as a hobby, and his constructions are quite an inspiration. I made an SS Great Britain and a Suspension Bridge.'

'From kits, you mean?'

'God, no. That's schoolboy stuff. I go there and take photos and draw up plans and build the things from my own materials.'

Weird, the things some policemen do with their spare time, Diamond thought. Keith Halliwell bred pigeons for racing and John Wigfull had a telescope and was supposed to use it to study the stars.

Stormy went on, 'So I've made quite a number of research trips, you could say. Getting here is the hardest part.'

'Ah, the one-way system is our secret weapon in the war against crime. You'd find it easier escaping from a Dunkirk beach than Bristol. If you want to visit the Brunei sites you're better off using the railway he built and walking the rest.'

Stormy agreed with that. He glanced at the house again.

'What do we do now? Go in?'

'Let's watch for the time being,' Diamond said. 'The place is probably stiff with shooters.'

'Catch him off the premises? We've tried that once.'

'This time I expect a result. So you're an admirer of old Issy Brunei?' he said, pleased to have found a topic unconnected with the tragedies in their lives. 'Have you been to Bath?'

'Not since I was a kid.'

'You ought to come. He changed the look of the city when the railway came through. The old GWR station is one of his buildings and so is the viaduct behind, but he also cut through Sydney Gardens, one of those parks the Victorians liked to strut around in their finery, and it was a neat job.'

'Yes, I'd like to see that.'

'You wouldn't.'

Stormy blinked and frowned. He may also have blushed, but on his blotchy skin it was impossible to tell. 'What do you mean? I know what I like.'

'You wouldn't see it - that's what I mean - unless you went right up to it. The point is that the railway is hidden from view. Really clever.'

The first person to emerge from the house, after about ten minutes, was in a red leather jacket and skirt with matching boots and a hat with a large rim that flopped. She set off down the hill with a slinky walk as if she knew her movement was being appreciated.

'Now I am envious,' Stormy said.

Diamond gave him a look. The remark was lightly made, the automatic reaction to a pretty woman, but to his still wounded mind it didn't come well from a recently bereaved man. He let it pass.

'I wonder if she comes with the house,' Stormy added, oblivious of Diamond's thinking.

'Visitor, I expect.'

'That's not the vibes I got.'

'You could be right. Maybe he sent her to do the shopping.'

'She doesn't look to me as if she's on her way to Tesco's.'

They waited ten minutes more.

'I reckon she's his bird,' Stormy insisted.

'Daughter, more like,' Diamond said.

'He's not that old, surely?'