have served her and if he would take a seat for a moment, darling, she would look at the mailing list.
The darling reclined in a deep settee by a Georgian fireplace thinking how shabby his shoes looked against the pink carpet and wondering how much the clothes cost. The display material seemed to be French and Italian. It was the kind of place Stephanie would make a beeline for (in their salaried days) when she was supposed to be on a ten-minute shopping trip; she once came home with a sequinned jacket and pointed out that something quick for dinner need not be edible.
The helpful saleswoman returned with the disappointing news that no Miss Strand appeared in the records. Asked which businesses had been in existence four years ago, she mentioned Minerva, the art shop, and Nixey’s, the electrical shop. Then she asked if this had anything to do with the crusties.”
Diamond drew himself up in the settee. “Crusties?”
“Do you know who I mean?”
“Of course I know who you mean.” It was just that he hadn’t expected the subject to come up in a smart boutique. The crusties were the begrimed and dreadlocked people who congregated in the city center with their dogs and created alarm and despondency among the council officers responsible for tourism.
“I only mention it because at about that time we had quite a scare with them. They took over one of the houses as a squat. It was reported to the police. I mean, it was very unhelpful to anyone trying to run a business. Perhaps you remember.”
“I was up to my eyes in the murder inquiry,” said Diamond. “What happened?”
“Luckily for us, they didn’t stay long, but I heard they left the place in a disgusting state and did no end of damage.”
“And you thought it might have some connection?” he said.
“She was a journalist, wasn’t she?”
“Ah, but in the big league,” said he in a way that rejected the suggestion graciously. “She sold her stuff abroad, to some of the top magazines. I can’t see that a bunch of crusties squatting in Trim Street would interest anyone in France or Italy. She wouldn’t, by any chance, have written a piece about your shop?”
“If she had, I’m sure I’d have noticed her picture when the murder was in all the papers.”
Ninety-nine percent of doorstepping gets you nowhere, but in this game, you have to be persistent, he consoled himself as he left the boutique. He tried Nixey’s next, then the Trim Bridge Galleries at the top of the street.
“No joy at all,” he commented to Julie when he was back at the nick. “I thought I might get lucky with the fitness place, but I gather it wasn’t in existence at the time of the murder. No one in Trim Street remembers Britt.”
“It was a long shot,” Julie was bold enough to comment.
“I enjoyed the exercise. How did you get on with the diary?”
Julie had plotted every diary entry on a grid arrangement on a large sheet. The names and places were listed down the left side, with the weeks from January to December across the top. A tick at the intersection marked each mention. This way, the regular appointments were clearly defined.
Diamond viewed her work with some reserve; this was about as much technology as he was willing to take. He studied the grid. “Presumably these are days she paid the rent. This is the riding. These are dates with Marcus Martin. There are some women’s names here. Who was May? Her name comes up quite a bit.”
“May Tan, the hairdresser.”
“That would explain it. Britt kept up appearances.”
“And Hilary Mudd…?”
“… gave her facials.”
“Why didn’t I guess?” He ran his finger down the list. “So Prue Shorter-don’t tell me-has to be a manicurist.”
If Diamond made an unsmutty joke, however feeble, it wanted encouraging. Julie humored him by wincing. “Actually she was the press photographer Britt sometimes worked with.”
He became serious again. “A professional colleague? Presumably we took a statement from her at the time. Be helpful to trace her. I’d like to know what other stories Britt worked on. I imagine an investigative journalist isn’t everyone’s favorite person. It’s possible she made enemies before she ever met Mountjoy.”
“I’ll see if Miss Shorter is in the phone book.”
“She’s yours, then,” he said in his old, imperious style. “Get out and see her tonight.”
She didn’t object. Anyone who worked with Diamond expected overtime. But then he added, “I’m going to see what I can get from the rock musician.” And she did feel like objecting, but she had the sense to keep silent.
As for the man himself, he was beginning to function as a senior detective again, and it felt agreeable. It would have felt even more agreeable in a larger vehicle than the Escort they had put at his disposal. Fortunately Monkton Coombe was a mere fifteen-minute drive. Jake Pinkerton, if the records were up-to-date, lived in a cottage close to the public school.
The coach lamp that lit up automatically as Diamond approached, the trimmed lawn and pruned cordon fruit trees, didn’t fit the image of a pot-smoking Heavy Metal freak. And the man who opened the door was revealed as a smart dresser in a purple designer shirt buttoned at the neck, coffee-colored slacks and soft leather boots. He hadn’t enough hair remaining to let it grow with any conviction. Around forty, well in command, slim, tall and with alert brown eyes, unfazed by the unexpected visitor.
“Sorry to spring this on you, Mr…?”
The man stared back. He wasn’t falling for that one.
“Mr. Jake Pinkerton?”
A grudging nod.
“You were good enough to help the police in regard to a murder inquiry four years back. You remember the case of the Swedish woman who was stabbed? It’s come up again and we’re speaking to the principal witnesses.” Diamond presented his credentials, so to speak, without actually revealing his civilian status.
Pinkerton’s face took on the glazed look of a man importuned by a door-to-door evangelist.
Diamond pressed on. “You’re going to tell me a man was convicted, and I should know, because I was in charge. Peter Diamond. I don’t think we met.”
“The guy is on the run,” said Pinkerton. “It’s been in all the papers.”
“Confidentially, Mr. Pinkerton, we believe he’s somewhere in this area.” Diamond’s eyes slid sideways, as if he expected Mountjoy to come around the corner of the cottage carrying a sledgehammer. “Mind if I come in?”
The interior was straight out of Homes amp; Gardens, furnished with fine antique pieces that must have taken some finding, and some funds. Three framed gold discs were displayed in an alcove. Where were the cigarette burns and the wine stains, Diamond thought, the signs of head-banging and wild parties?
Pinkerton showed him to a white leather chesterfield and faced him from an adjacent window seat.
He said, “Let me absorb this fully. You’re reopening the Britt Strand case-is that why you’re here?”
“I wouldn’t put it in those terms. This is routine, in case Mount joy attempts to contact anyone. He claims he was unjustly convicted.”
“Who doesn’t these days?”
“I don’t want you to think there’s any reason for panic,” Diamond said, regardless that Pinkerton was totally self-composed. “Do you know Mountjoy?”
“Never met him.”
“But you were a close friend of the victim?”
Although Pinkerton didn’t quite deny this, his tone made clear that he would have liked to. “Britt and I had something going at one time. It was over by the time she was killed. That was a couple of years later.”
“You’d stopped seeing her altogether?”
“We each found other people, but we kept in touch. I liked her.”
“But there had been an affair between you?”
Pinkerton thought about his answer. His whole manner was dismissive. “If you want to call it that.”
“When?”
“Around 1987, through ‘88.’
“What was she like?” Diamond rephrased it more tastefully. “I mean, what sort of person was she?”
