me if you want to talk about anything else.’
‘People, actually, as distinct from plants.’
‘I shouldn’t say this as a man of the cloth, but they’re not nearly so interesting. Any particular people?’
‘Have you noticed anyone recently hanging about the cemetery across the road?’
‘Apart from the people in paper suits, do you mean?’
‘Before they arrived.’
‘You want to know if I spotted the poor fellow who was murdered?’
‘Him, or, better still, his killer.’
‘Sorry, but no.’
‘Do you get over there at all?’
‘Quite often, in my pastoral capacity, conducting funerals on the declivity towards this end where the more recent graves are located. Also, wearing my botanical hat, studying the vegetation. The Victorian section near the tower was a wildlife sanctuary until your levellers arrived and hacked it down.’
‘Searching for the weapon.’
‘Which I understand they didn’t find, so all that destruction of habitats was for nothing.’
‘They had to make the effort,’ Diamond said. ‘Before they arrived, you noticed nobody?’
‘Don’t look so surprised. I wasn’t on a twenty-four hour watch.’
‘We believe the victim was sleeping in the gatehouse for a number of nights before he was killed.’
‘Sensible,’ Charlie Smart said. ‘He’d stay dry there and wouldn’t be disturbed. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t remember seeing anything suspicious. You get the occasional visitor coming to see William Beckford’s grave, but that’s by day. It’s not the sort of place most people would choose to visit at night. Every so often I’ll go there with a lamp to study moths, but not in recent weeks. Have some more cordial.’
‘No, thanks. As a member of the Lansdown Society, you patrol the down regularly?’
‘I wouldn’t put it in those terms. My rambles arise from my interest in the natural world. I’d cover the same ground whether I was in the society or not. However, I support its aims.’
‘Do you get up to the battleground?’
‘Regularly. You’re going to ask me about the skeleton and I’m going to disappoint you again. I know nothing of what went on up there. I’ve lived here only three years.’
‘But you know the fallen tree?’
‘The old oak? Yes. It’s our success story, that tree. The farmer wanted to saw it up and sell the timber, but the Lansdown Society made sure he didn’t. There was a rare variety of lichen growing on it, so they got a conservation order, or whatever you get for trees.’
‘Like bats in your loft? It’s illegal to evict them.’
‘The same principle, yes.’
‘What’s it called?’
‘The lichen? To tell you the truth, I don’t know. Whatever it was, it’s no longer there. The trunk has a nice shaggy jacket of
‘So the conservation didn’t work?’
‘Apparently not.’
‘Will it reappear?’
‘I wouldn’t hold your breath.’
‘Could someone have misidentified it?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘I can’t answer that, not having been here at the time.’
‘The others aren’t experts like you.’
‘In their own spheres they are. The major with his military know-how keeps a special eye on the war games.’
‘And the golf.’
‘Yes, indeed, along with Sir Colin, who is a man of the turf and has the racecourse under his wing. Augusta White is our legal eagle. And if Augusta represents law, your esteemed Georgina is the embodiment of order.’
‘None of them wildlifers.’
‘That’s my section of expertise, apart from the obvious.’
‘They’re fortunate to have you. Was the previous vicar a botanist?’
‘Arthur Underhill? No, he was a literary man, a Beckford expert, so he was in his element living here. Beckford wrote books, you know, as well as building towers.’
‘Should I have read any?’
‘I doubt if they’ll assist your investigation. He wrote much about his travels abroad. His novel, called
Diamond was losing control of this interview. He’d only asked about Arthur Underhill.
‘Beckford is still a cult figure,’ the vicar went on. ‘People knock on my door asking the way to the tower and some of them know a lot about him. You still get the occasional crank who thinks he squirreled away some of the treasures and masterpieces he stacked in the tower. The auction after his death was a very dubious affair presided over by a crooked auctioneer and his son who absconded soon after.’
‘I don’t know why Lansdown should give rise to so much crime,’ Diamond said. ‘It’s just one large hill, after all.’
‘It’s Bath’s back room,’ Charlie Smart said, ‘stuffed with things people want to forget about.’
‘Where’s Ingeborg?’ he asked in the incident room.
Septimus looked up from his computer. ‘Somewhere on Lansdown by now, looking for an elderly warhorse. I told her your theory and she got really fired up.’
John Leaman said, ‘Any excuse to get out of this place.’
‘Wishing you’d thought of it?’ Diamond said.
‘I’m not a horse person.’
‘Who’s the old nag in here, then?’
There were grins around the room.
Septimus added, ‘She was on the phone to someone in the Sealed Knot, finding out where they stable the horses they use.’
‘What’s she going to do if she finds the right one – interview it?’ Leaman asked, not done for yet.
‘I expect she’ll get a hair sample.’
‘To see if it’s the same colour?’
‘For the DNA,’ Diamond said, using his freshly acquired knowledge. ‘Didn’t you know horses have DNA?’
Leaman went quiet.
‘Plenty of horses are taken to Lansdown for the race meetings,’ Paul Gilbert said with a charged tone in his voice. He’d been on a high since finding Nadia’s landlady. ‘Maybe we should make a check up there.’
‘Twenty-year-olds, in training?’ Diamond said.
He turned a shade more pink. ‘I guess not.’
But something was stirring in Diamond’s memory. He asked, ‘What happened to that calendar Ingeborg made of events that happened on Lansdown? It was on the display board.’
‘She transferred it to a computer file, sir,’ one of the civilian staff said. ‘Would you like to access it?’
‘I would if you do it for me.’
‘On your computer, or mine?’
‘On your
‘Mine.’
