“Now we know where he got the shorts he wears for the synchronized swimming.”
After a moment to take it in, she giggled. His sense of humor took some getting used to. “You were listening.”
“I heard every word.”
Like hell you did, she thought. She said as if bringing it up for the first time, “So would you like to know what the PNC has on Una Moon?”
“Of course! And all the others.”
This time it seemed that the information penetrated, because when she had finished, he said, “I don’t know how I’m going to fit it in, but I’ve got to see Miss Moon myself.”
She took the sharp left turn into Combe Park, where the hospital entrance was. They were responding to a message from the constable on duty at the RUH: Winston Billington had recovered consciousness and was considered to be capable of making a statement.
Diamond asked what time it was.
He could have got it from the clock on the dashboard as she did, but Julie didn’t mention this. “One-thirty, almost.”
“Too late for lunch.”
“I never have much, anyway.”
“Just as well. We have ten and a half hours to nail the killer, Julie.”
They found the patient sitting up, in conversation with a woman in a dark red quilted coat.
“Who’s the visitor?” Diamond muttered to the constable on duty in the corner.
“His sister.”
“Did they say he could have visitors?”
“They didn’t say he couldn’t, sir. She just walked in.”
He rolled his eyes upward. “What do you think your job is, then-watching the nurses?”
As soon as he approached the bed the woman got up from the chair, blushing scarlet. She was wearing a perfume that more than canceled out the hospital smells. She must have been in her mid-forties, with dark, dyed hair and a small, pretty, round face of a type that had been commonplace in the fifties, but you didn’t see so often now.
“Pardon me,” Diamond said, “but we’re from the police.”
“Of course.” She leaned over Billington, said, “I’ll come again, Win. Take care, love,” and planted a kiss on his forehead that left a lipstick mark.
In stepping aside to let her pass, Diamond backed into a screen and had to steady it. In the confusion he murmured to Julie, “Follow her.” Then he gave his total attention to the patient. Billington’s head was bandaged, yet he was no longer linked to a ventilator or a drip feed. The bed had been raised a few turns to bring him up from the horizontal. Was this frail figure with watery eyes the killer who had bluffed his way through the police investigation four years ago, the bottom fancier with sex on the brain and a steady supply of Milk Tray to help achieve it? “Remember me, sir? Peter Diamond, Bath CID. We met some years ago. Are you ready to tell me what happened?”
Billington said something inaudible.
“Can you speak up?”
“… very hazy.”
“I’m not surprised. You were out cold for a day. Can you recall anything at all?”
“… don’t see how I can help.”
The phrase triggered a memory. Four years ago in court Billington had been more articulate, yet the essential message had been similar: he was a decent citizen anxious to cooperate, only puzzled as to his part in the proceedings. Diamond reflected cynically that the same air of innocence probably worked a treat in selling saucy greetings cards.
“What happened, Mr. Billington?”
“My wife…”
“Yes?”
“… spoken to you?” Hazy he might be, but he was smart enough to test the water first.
“She has.”
“We had a falling-out. She tell you that?”
“I’d like to hear your version, sir.”
“… got rather out of hand this time. She must have struck me. Couldn’t say what she used.”
“A bag of coins, she told us.”
“Just coins?”
“A solid mass of them can weigh quite heavy. Enough to do serious damage.”
“Mm. Awfully sore.”
“You’re lucky to be alive. What was the cause of this falling-out?”
He pondered this for a considerable time. “Something she imagined.”
Diamond looked at the lipstick imprint on Billington’s forehead. “You didn’t provoke her?”
“All in her mind.”
“You can’t say for certain why your wife attacked you?”
“Don’t wish…”
“Yes?”
“Don’t wish to press charges. Sort this out in our own way.”
“It was a serious assault, sir. She damn near killed you.”
“Poor old me.”
You’ll feel even worse when you know what she’s accusing you of, thought Diamond. “Mrs. Billington told us that the reason for her anger went back four years, to the time the Swedish woman was murdered in your house.”
“Yes?” The voice was hollow and the eyes slid aside, as if he was unwilling to make the effort of thinking back four years.
“She stated that you returned home from Tenerife before Britt Strand was killed. That wasn’t what you said in your statement to us at the time, or in court.”
Billington mumbled, “This important?”
“It’s bloody important,” Diamond told him, trying to speak the words calmly.
“Long time ago.”
“I must know what really happened.”
Billington’s eyes made contact with Diamond’s again and he said in a surprisingly lucid utterance, “I don’t wish to testify against my wife. The reason why she attacked me is academic.”
“I’m not particularly interested in what happened yesterday, sir. I want to know about 1990. Your wife has accused you of murdering Britt Strand.”
He digested this and then summoned up a smile. “Bit over the top, isn’t it?”
“Did you return from Tenerife two days before your holiday was due to end?”
“Don’t think I should answer that.”
“Mr. Billington, you won’t know this, but John Mount-joy, the man convicted of Britt Strand’s murder in 1990, has escaped and is at this minute holding a young woman hostage. He swears he’s innocent of that murder. Your wife has named you as the killer.”
This elicited a long interval of silence.
“Shows how much she knows,” Billington was finally spurred to say. “She wasn’t even in this country when Britt was killed.”
“But you were. What your wife told me is true.”
“Yes.”
“She also told me you bought some flowers at Tenerife Airport.”
“How did she know that?”
“Credit card statement.”
Billington made no response.
