flight to Toronto next Friday for Rachel Diamond and her son Lev. And we’ve found a holiday rental company who leased a cottage for a month, starting on Saturday, to Rachel Diamond. Yousef Aziz had previously viewed the cottage on his computer. Both flight and cottage were paid for on her personal credit card. So Tony’s right. Whether she was planning to join Aziz or not, she had the bookings to demonstrate her intent.’
‘It’s very thin,’ Brandon said.
‘There’s more to be found,’ Carol said. ‘We’ll be able to trace the call to the remote-control timer. If she used her landline, it’ll be on her phone records. If she used a mobile, we’ll be able to find what mast it went through. I’m betting Stacey will be able to find some evidence on one of the Diamonds’ several computers. We’ll be talking to all the Diamonds’ friends. There must be someone who knew the marriage was in trouble. There always is. And now we know what we’re looking for, we’ll find witnesses who saw them together. And Tony will give evidence of what Lev said.’
‘Hearsay,’ Brandon said.
‘Actually, sir, I think this comes under one of the exceptions to the hearsay rule,’ Carol said politely.
Brandon shook his head. ‘I don’t like it, Carol. You think a jury’s going to buy the idea of a Jewish woman setting up her Muslim lover to kill himself and thirty-five other people, just to get rid of her husband? Why didn’t she just divorce him, like the rest of us do?’
‘Because she’s greedy,’ Tony said.
‘I want to arrest her, sir,’ Carol said. ‘On thirty-six counts of murder. Because if we don’t, as soon as her mother tells her what Lev said to Tony, she’ll be on the next plane out of here. And if you think what we’ve got is thin for an arrest, it won’t even get to first base on an extradition warrant.’
Brandon groaned, ‘I don’t like this, Carol. It feels like a fishing expedition.’ There was a knock at the door. ‘Come in,’ Brandon shouted.
Stacey walked in looking very pleased with herself. ‘I thought you’d want to see this,’ she said, laying the folder she carried on the table.
‘What’s this?’ Brandon asked.
The CSIs who turned over Aziz’s flat found a receipt for a Coke and a cake at the City Art Gallery on Friday morning. So we took the initiative and seized the CCTV footage from the cafe and the gallery. We’ve got the whole thing upstairs, but I thought you’d like to see the edited highlights now.’
Brandon flipped the file open and they all stared at the contents. The first photo showed Yousef Aziz sitting at a table reading the paper, Coke and cake in front of him. In the next shot, Rachel Diamond was approaching from behind carrying a newspaper. The next shot showed her putting the paper on the table in front of Yousef. In the final shot, she was beyond him, no longer carrying the paper. ‘Three points of contact between them,’ Carol said. ‘I say it’s definitely time to go fishing.’ Brandon still looked dubious, but he nodded his assent.
‘Look on the bright side, John,’ said Tony. This way you get to tell CTC to piss off.’
A bright Sunday afternoon, a classic Northern England landscape of high moors and long valleys. A scarlet Ferrari convertible, top down, drifted along a single-track road that wound uphill to a high plateau. ‘Where are we going?’ Tony asked Carol. ‘And why are we going there in Kevin’s car?’
‘It really doesn’t matter how many times you ask, I’m not going to tell you till we get there.’
‘I hate surprises,’ he grumbled.
‘You’ll appreciate it,’ Carol said. ‘So stop whining.’
A couple of miles on, the road flattened out. On the moor, shooting blinds stuck out of the bracken and cotton grass like gun turrets on a ship. A track cut off to the right and Carol pulled up. She reached into the back seat and grabbed a backpack. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘This is it.’
Tony looked around at the blank landscape. ‘This is what?’
‘Follow me.’ She set off down the track, then turned round to wait for him. The limp was still noticeable. She wondered if it would ever disappear completely. They were talking about replacing the joint, she knew. But he wasn’t keen on the idea of more surgery. Not even at the hands of the redoubtable Mrs Chakrabarti.
‘I still can’t walk far, you know,’ he said, catching up with her.
‘We’re not going far.’ About half a mile down the track, the hill dropped away abruptly, providing a spectacular view of the valley below and, at its head, a fine castle. ‘This’ll do nicely,’ Carol said. She opened the backpack and took out a lightweight groundsheet. They sat down next to each other and she produced two pairs of binoculars, a half bottle of champagne and two glasses. She glanced at her watch. ‘Perfect timing.’
‘Are you going to tell me what is going on?’
‘Use your eyes.’ She handed him a pair of binoculars. ‘Look up the valley, towards the castle.’ As she spoke, a wisp of smoke twisted into the sky. Then there was a sudden whoosh of flame and a swathe of greenery turned scarlet and yellow and black with fire and smoke.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ Tony asked, gazing at the spectacle through his binoculars.
‘Lord Pannal’s poison garden,’ Carol said. ‘He’s been wanting to do it since the day we arrested Jack Anderson. But we needed to be sure the prosecution and the defence had done all the research they needed. They both signed off on it on Friday, so His Lordship’s finally got his way.’
‘I see now why you borrowed the Ferrari.’ Tony lowered the glasses. ‘Is Anderson still pleading guilty?’
Carol nodded, twisting the champagne cork with her thumbs. With a soft pop, it flew out and she poured it. ‘His brief has tried everything to get him to change his mind, but he’s smart enough to understand that, if he sticks with guilty, almost nothing will come out in court about the reasons why he went off the rails the way he did. And of course, since the toxicology guys found the pessary in his pocket was loaded with strychnine, it would be hard to argue that he was just an innocent bystander.’
