Septimus wrong.
But had he?
The version Septimus had relayed to Diamond was that Bert Pope had seen ‘the soldier in royalist red’ burying the six-pack.
They’d assumed the soldier was Dave. It now struck Diamond that he could equally have been Rupert.
Septimus could yet be right.
‘We’ll take the turn to Farleigh,’ he told Gilbert.
‘I thought we were going to Bristol.’
‘Farleigh Hungerford Castle. And put your foot down.’
Gilbert grasped that this must be an emergency. He steered into the fast lane and powered forward at a heart-stopping rate while Diamond, averting his eyes, called Septimus again and told him his concerns.
All Septimus could find to say was, ‘Oh, man,’ several times over.
‘So we’re on our way to Farleigh Castle,’ Diamond told him. ‘Put out a call. Get some manpower there. He’ll be armed with a sword at the very least. If he suspects Inge is police I don’t like to think what could happen.’
‘I’ll come myself,’ Septimus said.
‘Quick as you can, then.’ He looked up and spotted the sign for Junction 17. ‘We’re ten to fifteen minutes off.’
This was wildly optimistic, given the amount of slow, heavy traffic on the road. Paul Gilbert added to the suspense by steering with one hand and keying FARLEIGH into the Sat-Nav.
‘Couldn’t I do that?’ Diamond said, and got no answer. On reflection, he didn’t need one. His technophobia would have meant reaching across and getting it wrong several times over. Instead, he said, ‘Don’t you know where it is?’
‘I want the quickest route.’
The machine asked DO YOU MEAN FARLEY?
Gilbert persuaded the microchip that his first choice was correct. They took the Chippenham by-pass and then diverted briefly to the A4 before turning onto a B road at Corsham.
‘It’s taking us through Bradford on Avon,’ Diamond said. ‘That’s a bottleneck any day of the week.’
‘Tell me how to avoid it,’ Gilbert said through his teeth.
There were ways, but they would add desperate minutes.
There were ways, but they would add ‘I’d better shut up,’ Diamond said.
Gilbert didn’t comment.
Winding roads, steep hills, tractors crossing: they suffered it all. Mercifully Bradford didn’t delay them by much. Once they were through the little town the system brought them onto ever narrower lanes.
‘We must be close now.’
‘Thank God for that.’
Ahead were flags and the two ruined towers of the castle, stra-tegically positioned above the River Frome. They crossed over two small bridges. Cars were being diverted down a slope into a temporary park in a field.
‘We don’t have time for that,’ Diamond said. ‘Put me down here.’
A police patrol car came from the opposite direction with its blue beacon lights flashing. Diamond was already scrambling up a grassy bank into the area below the castle where the crowd had gathered. Things were being said over a public address system, but he was too concerned to stop and listen. The hairs on the nape of his neck bristled. In the roped-off area where the display should have been taking place was an ambulance with the doors open and someone was being stretchered inside.
‘What happened?’ he asked the first person he met, a man with two children.
‘One of them copped it,’ he was told. ‘Fell off the horse and didn’t move. Looked serious from here.’
He ran on towards the ambulance. An official tried to stop him crossing the rope. ‘Police,’ he hissed.
The ambulance doors had closed before he got there.
‘Who is it?’
‘Sorry, mate,’ the paramedic told him. ‘We’ve got an emergency here. Talk to the police.’
He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned.
‘Guv, what are you doing here?’ It was Ingeborg, unhurt, radiant in her royalist uniform.
His relief was overwhelming. He would have hugged her if she hadn’t been holding the reins of a large black horse. ‘I thought that was you in the ambulance,’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Sure. I told you I can look after myself. It was Dave who bought it, poor guy.’
‘Dave Barton?’
‘He lost his balance and came off his horse very awkwardly. He seems to have knocked himself out.’
‘Was he in a swordfight, then?’
She nodded. ‘The roundheads were down on numbers, so he was asked to switch sides. Anyone in the crowd will tell you I never even made contact. I swung my sword and he ducked and that was it.’
It doesn’t get much worse than a police officer being questioned about a murder. To avoid the rumour merchants, Diamond had brought Sergeant Chaz McDart out of Bristol Central to one of the few locations where a quiet exchange is possible on a Saturday afternoon, the harbourside. They’d picked a table under the trees in front of the Arnolfini Gallery. True, this agreeable setting was a lot less secure than an interview room, but with Paul Gilbert’s support it was workable. If Chaz tried to make a break for it, the two of them could surely grab him.
For the moment, their man appeared docile, even allowing that the shaven head and muscled torso suggested he wouldn’t come off second best in a fight. When they’d first spoken in the reception area at the police station, he’d said with an air of resignation he knew why they were there and they could count on him to co-operate.
Now, over coffee, looking out at the glittering water, he said, ‘I’m glad you came for me, really I am. Where do you want me to start?’
‘We spoke to your father in Lambourn this morning,’ Diamond told him. ‘That’s why we’re here.’
‘He doesn’t know the whole story,’ Chaz said in a sharp tone eloquent of a history of family tension. ‘He’d have given me a thrashing if I’d told him. They have old-fashioned discipline in stable yards, or at least my dad does. I was only a kid at the time, seventeen or thereabouts, son of the boss, serving an apprenticeship. He was tougher on me than the other lads, not wanting to show favouritism. It was impossible to talk to him – really talk, I mean.’
‘What part of the story doesn’t he know?’ Diamond asked, in control, yet eager for information.
‘The evening we went to Lansdown Races with Hang-glider. Did he tell you much about that?’
‘You and he drove the horsebox there and parked it away from the secure area, somewhere near the Premier Enclosure.’
‘That much is right. And it was my job to parade the horse in front of the two grandstands and return him to his box and see that it was properly locked. I did all that. I gave him water and hay and fitted on his travel boots, tail guard and rug. He was strapped into his stall. I told all this to the HRA people several times over, the same evening, the next day and when they had the enquiry. I wasn’t lying.’
‘Economical with the truth?’
He hesitated, then grinned and nodded. ‘Sums it up. I could have said more and I didn’t. All they were interested in was what happened to Hang-glider and they got their answers. It was obvious I wasn’t the horse thief. I had sod all to gain. So they didn’t question me except for the boring stuff about what I did with the horse. And if they had, it wouldn’t have told them anything. A stable lad and a woman. What’s wrong with that?’
‘This was Nadia?’
He nodded.
Diamond remained outwardly calm while his heart-rate quickened. The case was moving to a conclusion. This was what he’d needed for so long – proof positive that Nadia had been on the racecourse that night in August, 1993.
‘After I’d settled the horse in its box I had some time on my hands. Dad was sure to be in the owners’ and
