put an end to the conversation by telling Diamond that he was wanted urgently on the phone.
'Who is it?'
'Inspector Wigfull, sir.'
'From Bristol?'
'Yes.'
'Bloody better be urgent. Wait here with the professor. I'll be back shortly.'
Cursing Wigfull under his breath for having the gall – he was damned certain – to check up on him, he snatched up the phone when he got to the interview room. 'Yes?'
'Mr Diamond?'John Wigfull's voice was tense.
'Who else?'
'I just spoke to the Plato couple. They told me something I think you ought to know right away, sir. On the day Professor Jackman last saw his wife – the Monday – she phoned the Platos some time between ten and ten- thirty.'
'In the morning?'
'You see the point, sir? If Jackman caught the 8.19 to London, as he claimed, and then went on to Paris, he couldn't have killed her. She was alive after he left. Mr Diamond – are you there?'
Diamond dropped the phone without answering. He shouted across the room, 'Sergeant Boon!' shouted 'Sir?'
'Did you check the professor's movements as I asked?'
'Yes, sir.'
'With what result? Come on, man!'
'It all checks out, sir. He saw Professor Dalrymple at University College, London, some time before eleven on II September and he was on the 1410 Air France flight from Heathrow to Paris.'
For a moment Diamond had the look of a deflating balloon. Then he managed to say in a small voice, 'Have a car at the back door directly. The professor is going home.'
Chapter Six
THE FIRST FROST. PEOPLE HAD talked all Summer of the damaged ozone layer and the greenhouse effect, unable to accept that weeks of steady sunshine were possible in the English climate. Now normality was restored. On this chilly morning the geraniums in the window-boxes of Bath had a wan, defeated look that Peter Diamond noted with a cynical eye as he waited in a traffic queue on his way up Manvers Street towards the police station. This year the Parks and Gardens Department had spared no effort in trying to wrest the title of top floral city from Bath's main rival, Exeter. Every sill, ledge and surface had been stacked with pots, even the roofs of the bus shelters. Not a lamp-post had been without its hanging basket. Such enthusiasm! Such commitment! To no avail; Exeter had retained the title. Bath's abundant flowers were losers.
Diamond, too much the policeman to take a few wilting geraniums as his text for the day, still wished someone would cart them away.
The bus ahead slowed as it approached a stop. Diamond moved out to overtake, only to discover that the entire line of traffic in front had stopped. Not a promising start to the day, stuck out there, obstructing the opposite lane. Fortunately someone behind flashed his headlights and backed a few yards. Decent of him. Diamond shunted back into line and looked in the rearview mirror to see who the Good Samaritan was. A fellow in a Toyota. Big moustache, wide grin. John Wigfull, of all people. Probably thinking what a dumbo his superior was for failing to notice that the bus was one of the bright yellow open-top double deckers for tourists. Every kid in Bath knew that the city tour buses didn't use the regular stops.
He switched on the radio, and after the crackle as the automatic aerial went up (he hadn't wiped it clean for weeks), he heard the newsreader saying on Radio Bristol, 'Detectives are today expected to step up the hunt for the murderer of Geraldine Snoo, the former star of the long-running BBC television serial The Milners, whose unclothed body was recovered from Chew Valley Lake at the weekend. She was identified by her husband, Professor Gregory Jackman, of Bath University, who is understood to have given the police -'
'… a pain in the bum,' Diamond muttered as he switched off.
The bus ahead started moving again, giving the full view of its back end. To underline its commitment to tourism, the company had given names to each of the buses, chosen from the city's illustrious past. Diamond had just noticed what this one was called. It was the Jane Austen. Much more of this and he would feel that the gods were mocking him.
Almost too late, he spotted the entrance to the police station and spun the wheel violently without giving a signal. A good thing it was only Wigfull who was following.
Neither man referred to the incident when, soon after, they were joined in Diamond's office by Halliwell, Croxley and Dalton. A crime conference, so-called; let no one suggest that the murder squad was up a gum-tree. Up a ladder was more like it – that stone ladder on the front of the Abbey, clinging rigidly to their positions. And now four rising detectives had better chip in some ideas, and fast.
Diamond decided on a low-key opening. 'More forensic reports – for what they're worth,' he told them first. 'The men in white coats are still hedging over the date of death, but 11 September looks the strongest bet. She was certainly dead before she got into the lake – as if we didn't know. And asphyxia remains the most likely cause of death. Damn all there.' He snatched up a second sheet. 'This is the report on the cars, Jackman's and the victim's. No indication that either was used to transport the body. No significant traces or fibres. Either the murderer was useful with a vacuum cleaner or we're looking for another vehicle.' Muttering, he turned to a third lab report. 'Blood groups. The victim was Rhesus Positive O and so was her husband. You'll recall that someone found traces of blood on the quilt. They proved to be too minute to analyse in preliminary tests.'
The heat's off the prof, then,' Keith Halliwell observed, and must have wished he hadn't after the glare he got from his superior. He doubled his rate of chewing. Everyone on Diamond's murder squad needed some recipe for survival; young Halliwell's was to fantasize that he was a case-hardened New York cop. He was never seen in anything but leather and denim.
Diamond returned his eyes to the sheet of paper in his hand. 'It says here that the blood sample on the quilt has been sent for DNA analysis – genetic fingerprinting -which ought to please the press boys, if no one else.'
This prompted Croxley, usually the most reticent of the DIs, to speak up in the name of science. 'It is an infallible identity test.'
'And bugger all use to us unless we find a suspect with a matching profile,' said Diamond.
Croxley turned pink.
Halliwell rashly tossed in a suggestion in support of Croxley, 'Okay, so if they get a profile from the blood on the quilt, we keep sending in blood samples until we get a match, like they did for that rape and murder case in the Midlands.'
Mercifully, Wigfull beat Diamond to the draw. 'Come off it, Keith. If you're talking about that case in Leicester, there isn't a chance in hell of us mounting a similar exercise. The police up there were working within quite narrow parameters – looking for a male, between seventeen and thirty-four, in three small villages, about four and a half thousand men – and that took months to complete. We don't even know the sex of our killer.'
Dalton said, 'The reason they finally caught the bloke was that somebody talked. He fiddled the test. Persuaded some other berk to take it for him.'
'If you've quite finished,' Diamond said morosely, 'I wouldn't mind talking about the case in hand. I may be an incurable optimist, but what I propose for this morning is a brain-storming session.'
That silenced them all.
He took his time measuring the effect of the announcement before resuming. 'First, let's have an update. Yesterday evening's interviews. Mr Dalton, would you report?'
Dalton, who was responsible for the computer back-up, stared in horror. 'We haven't processed them yet, sir.'
'Why is that?'
'It's too soon.'
