personality had secured the bogus confession, and he had fought his corner ruggedly at the hearings.
Eight months on from the hearings, the inquiry team had yet to publish its findings. Meanwhile, Peter Diamond was unrepentant, and willing to argue the rights of his conduct in the case with anyone rash enough to take him on. No one did; the mud-slinging went on from a safe distance. His response was to prove his worth as a detective, and this he was doing – between appearances in London – with fair success. The string of cases he had investigated in Avon had been properly handled without a suggestion of intimidation.
He was still finding the going tough in the new job. Although the men on the murder squad gave him professional support, they hadn't accepted him on a personal level. He had come in first as the streetwise detective from Scotland Yard, which understandably had created a certain amount of scepticism among detectives who had served all their careers in the West Country. Then, with ruinous timing, the Missendale story had broken.
The work somehow had to continue amid all the distractions. He had learned to live with stress. On any murder squad, the nerve of the man in charge was severely tested in those first hours at the start of a case. It was a kind of phoney war when nothing was happening. All these expensive resources were being deployed. Men were wanted for other policing duties. How long could you justify employing so many if results weren't apparent? Inevitably the CID were regarded as the top dogs, enjoying different conditions of service from the uniformed branch, working flexible hours, more mobile, more independent, and able to snap their fingers and call up reinforcements as soon as someone went missing, or a body was found. A certain amount of resentment was understandable. It was built into the system and it existed at all levels. Maybe it was more subde nearer the top. It was there. So you lived with it.
Diamond had learned to hand off the opposition as if he was still playing rugby. He was proving a hard man to stop, a burly, abrasive character who spoke his mind. Computer technology was 'gadgetry', accepted with reluctance as an aid to the real detective work. Some of the career-minded people around him thought it a miracle or a travesty that a man so outspoken and with the Missendale Inquiry hanging over his head could have progressed to the rank of superintendent. They failed to appreciate that his bluntness was a precious asset among so many backbiters.
Whether he would ever earn respect in Avon and Somerset it was too soon to predict. His detractors said that his successes so far owed too much to help from paid informants. They couldn't fault him for using grasses; but they waited gloatingly to see him handle an inquiry when no help could be bought.
The Chew Valley case might be the one.
Sunday was disappointing. Nothing of significance was found.
On Monday Diamond recorded interviews for BBC Television and HTV West for their regional news broadcasts after the early evening news. An artist's impression of the dead woman was shown, followed by Diamond beside the lake appealing for help in identifying her. He asked for information from anyone who might have witnessed suspicious behaviour over the last three weeks. An invitation, he commented afterwards to the TV crew, to all the voyeurs in the valley to wipe the steam off their glasses and share their secondhand thrills, but he had to admit that it was worthwhile. A thirty-second spot on TV brought in more information than a hundred coppers on house-to- house duty all the week.
Late that night, while the calls were being processed, he called Jack Merlin and asked for the results of the laboratory tests.
'What exactly were you hoping for?' the pathologist asked in that benign, but irritating way he had of sounding as if he were from another, more intelligent form of life.
'The cause of death will do for now.'
'That, I'm afraid, is still an open question until all the results are in, and even then -'
'Jack, are you telling me those flaming tests are still going on? The autopsy was yesterday morning, thirty-six hours ago.'
For this petulant outburst, Diamond was given a lecture on the time-scale necessary for the processing of histological tissues, which required at least a week, and on the pressures the Home Office Forensic Laboratory was under. 'Currently they're so pressed that it could be weeks before they deliver.'
'Weeks? Have you told them it's a suspicious death? Don't they understand the urgency?' Diamond had picked up a pencil and put it between his teeth. He bit into the wood. 'You're still not willing to say if she drowned?'
'All I will say is that as yet the cause of death is not apparent.' Merlin was retreating behind the form of words he used in giving evidence.
'Jack, my old friend,' Diamond coaxed him. 'Can't you speak off the record to me? Can you help me with an estimate of the date of death?'
'Sorry.'
'Terrific!' The pencil snapped into two pieces.
There was a longish silence. Then: 'I am doing the best I can in the circumstances, Superintendent. I won't be steam-rollered. You must appreciate that the service is undermanned.'
'Jack, spare me the charity appeal, will you? Just call me the minute you reach an opinion.'
'I always intended to.'
Diamond dropped the phone and left it dangling below the worktop. The telephonist retrieved it without complaining and removed the pieces of pencil. Diamond ambled across the floor again to see what had come in as a result of his television appeal, knocking the carousel out of alignment as he went.
John Wigfull, his second-in-command, summed up. 'We've heard from seven callers convinced that the victim is Candice Milner.'
After a pause to decide whether the question should be taken seriously, Wigfull said, 'The Milners – that soap on the BBC. Candice was written out of the story a couple of years ago, at least.'
'Give me strength! What else?'
'Two deserted husbands called in. In one case the wife left a note saying she was going away for a week to unwind. The home is in Chilcompton. That was six months ago.'
'Six months. She ought to be in missing persons.'
'She is. The photo doesn't bear much resemblance. We passed it over.'
'I'll take another look at it. You'd better send someone to talk to the bloke tomorrow. What else?'
'Slightly more promising, this. A farmer by the name of Troop from Chewton Mendip had a row with his wife three weeks ago and she hitched a lift with the lorry-driver who collects the milk-churns. Husband hasn't seen her since.'
'Didn't he report it?'
'He was giving her time
'He was giving her time to come to her senses. There's a history of fights and walk-outs.'
'And he reckons the picture looks like his wife?'
'He's not saying, sir. His sister-in-law thinks so. She was the one who phoned us.'
Diamond's eyes widened a fraction. 'Anything on file? Complaints of violence?'
Wigfull nodded. 'Just the one, on 27 December, 1988. Farmer Troop seems to have kicked his wife out of the house, literally, and refused to let her in again. The sister reported it. A PC from Bath was sent out and saw the bruises. The woman refused to proceed. She said it was Christmas.'
'Goodwill to all men.' Diamond took a deep, disapproving breath and let it out slowly. 'What can you do? You and I had better follow this one up ourselves, John. Chewton Mendip can't be more than five miles from the lake. I'll see the sister-in-law in the morning – and you'd better find out the name of the gallant knight of the churns.'
Wigfull grinned appreciatively. Any sign of good humour in the superintendent had to be encouraged. They weren't exactly bosom pals. Wigfull had been named as Diamond's assistant in the worst of circumstances, when the Missendale scandal had first made banner headlines. In the few preceding months, Diamond had made an impressive debut with Avon and Somerset and cleared up two murders, assisted by an inspector he had got along well with, called Billy Murray. But within hours of Diamond's involvement in the Missendale case becoming known, instructions had come from County Headquarters that Murray was to be transferred to Taunton, where a vacancy had arisen. John Wigfull, from CID (Administration), was his replacement. Rightly or not, Diamond was convinced that Wigfull was a plant, the Headquarters man under instructions to report any excesses. Unlike Billy Murray, Wigfull did everything by the book. He'd gone to a lot of trouble to ingratiate himself with the squad. He hadn't succeeded yet with his superior.
