Skeleton Hill

they call themselves now? Travellers. Not many of them are true Romanies any more.

Let them set up camp as they did at the old RAF station at Charmy Down and you have a real problem on your hands. Scrap metal, vehicles they can’t move, dogs, faeces.’ He halted and hauled himself out of the buggy. ‘They’ve always been trouble. Lansdown had a famous annual fair, you know, and they came from miles around for that, so they think they can set up camp whenever they want.’

‘You mentioned Mrs White. Is she still in the society?’

‘You mentioned Mrs White. Is ‘Oh, yes. Have you met her?’

‘In court from time to time.’

‘Splendid woman. And, as you say, useful to have the law on our side. What is that wretched object on the green?’

Diamond could see it better now. Not a plastic bag, he was sure. Chalky white and unmoving, it lay close to the pin. Was his mind predisposed to death, or did it have the rounded shape of a cranium?

‘I’m going to take a look.’

He’d not expected ever to find the missing skull. The whole point of decapitating the victim was surely to prevent identification. The killer would have disposed of it miles from here.

What could it be doing in plain view on a golf course?

He quickened his pace.

And was disappointed.

The round, white object was a partially deflated balloon. He picked it up. A label was attached. The wording was Number 297. Bath Rugby Club Balloon Race. This balloon hadn’t travelled far. He wouldn’t be ringing the number on the reverse. Unlucky for number 297 and unlucky for him, too.

‘What is it?’ Tipping shouted.

‘Only a balloon.’

‘Keep hold of it. We don’t want litter on the course. At one time, we made a collection of all the rubbish collected off the down in a single week. You wouldn’t believe the disgusting things we recovered. Are you sure it’s a balloon?’

‘Positive.’

‘Take out the pin, then. I’m going to try a long putt.’

Diamond did so. The ball rolled past and off the green again. ‘You could have stuck your foot in the way,’ Tipping said as he approached. ‘Reggie isn’t far behind now.’

‘I’m a little disappointed in you and your Lansdown Society, Sir Colin,’ Diamond said, trying a different approach. ‘I thought you missed nothing of what goes on up here, yet someone is killed and buried and you don’t seem to have any knowledge of it.’

‘I’m concerned, naturally, but it’s a mystery to me.’

‘You were one of the original members?’

‘I was, along with Reggie and Mrs White, who are still very much with us. Do you want to wait for Reggie?’

‘Aren’t you going to take another putt?’

He winked. ‘I’m taking it as holed.’ He picked up his ball and pocketed it. ‘That goes down as a seven for the first hole.’

There was a shout of ‘Fore!’ from behind them.

‘That’s Reggie,’ Tipping said. ‘I can’t see him, can you?’

Another shout from the major: ‘Move the bloody buggy. It’s blocking my line.’

‘As if he ever hits straight,’ Tipping said. He returned to the golf cart and moved it off the fairway.

Diamond could see the major hunched over his ball now, not all that far from the green. By luck or skill the shot came off and the ball stopped inches from the hole.

‘Not bad. Was that your seventh?’ Tipping asked his opponent.

‘Fifth.’ The major held up five fingers.

‘He’s lying,’ Tipping muttered to Diamond. ‘Tap it in, then. That hole is halved.’

‘You took six?’ the major said. ‘You’ve never done that before. Is that true?’ He strode up to the green and asked Diamond, ‘Did he really take only six?’

‘I lost count,’ Diamond said, not wishing to get involved. ‘I was distracting him, anyway. Questions about the buried skeleton. Do you remember anything suspicious going on around the fallen oak tree some years back?’

‘“Some years back” is far too vague,’ the major said. ‘Can’t you be more precise?’

‘All right. After 1987, when the tree came down, and before 1997.’

‘What do you mean by suspicious?’

Tipping was quick to say, ‘Your score for the first hole, old boy.’

Diamond said, ‘A car or van parked near the tree. People digging.’

‘No,’ the major said. ‘I would have noticed. Can we get on with the golf?’

‘I’ll not delay you much longer,’ Diamond told them. ‘I must get back anyway. You said Mrs White is the other founder member of the society. There were eight originally. Who were the other five?’

‘Two of them are dead,’ Tipping said. ‘Roger Rhodes was a gentleman farmer. Crashed his light plane, poor chap, and Willy Drake-Allen, the BBC man, caught one of those hospital bugs. The others moved away. Jamie Fleming went back to his beloved Edinburgh. He was our policeman – before your time, I expect. George Philpot bought a villa in Italy. Who was the other one?’

‘Underhill,’ the major said. ‘The vicar of St Vincent’s.’

‘Of course. He served his time locally and was given a new parish in Norfolk.’

‘So you had the Church and the police on side as well?’ Diamond said, impressed by the power base of this small group.

‘Still do. We recruited the next incumbent at St Vincent’s, the Reverend Charlie Smart.’

‘And who is your policeman?’

‘Policewoman,’ the major said, ‘Assistant Chief Constable Georgina Dallymore.’

Diamond’s boss. He had to bite back a strong word. He couldn’t believe it.

9

John Wigfull’s day started in a promising way. The desk sergeant said two people were waiting in connection with the missing cavalier and there were phone messages as well.

Strictly it wasn’t his job to interview witnesses, but – he reasoned to himself – everyone knew he was more than just a PR man. He’d worked in CID for years. Besides, the cavalier was his pet project. He didn’t want some rookie constable taking it on and missing the significance. He would meet these people himself.

The first was a woman who’d seen the piece in the Bath Chronicle and was certain she recognised the missing man as a down-and-out who was caught stealing food from tables at Saturday’s car boot sale at Lansdown. Wigfull soon learned that she was a witness with attitude. ‘I had you lot come out to him after he helped himself to one of me home-made meat pies, but the bobbies you sent were woodentops. They asked him his name and he told them it was Noddy and they didn’t turn a hair. They let him walk away scot-free. There’s no respect any more. And when I got home and opened the paper there the thieving bastard was, all dressed up in a fancy hat.’

Wigfull decided not to go into an explanation about the hat. The Civil War connection would be lost on this lady. ‘Are you sure we’re talking about the same man? He isn’t a down-and-out, as you put it. He’s a university lecturer.’

‘It was him. No question.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Now you mention it, though, he didn’t sound like a dosser. The voice was posh.’

‘Did he say why he’d helped himself to the pie?’

‘Stole it, you mean. Let’s call a spade a spade. No, he had no conscience. I asked him to pay and he said he didn’t have no money. That much I believe, but he shouldn’t have picked up my pie, should he?’

‘How was he dressed?’