understood the importance of giving an account. 'I tell her I've come for my money and she says yes, it's ready. She opens a drawer in her desk, takes out a key and opens the safe. She has the money ready in a brown envelope. Fifteen hundred, mostly in twenties. She asks me to count it, and I do. I say something about doing more business with her, how I'd give her a second chance when I got the probate. She doesn't say much. I reckon she wanted to get rid of me and close the shop.'
'What made you think that?'
'Don't know really. She wasn't so talkative this time. But I got what I came for, so it didn't bother me. I cleared off back to Camden Crescent.'
'And the street outside-was that the same? Nothing waiting?'
'If it was, I didn't see it.'
Diamond looked towards Leaman. 'Anything I missed?'
The sergeant shook his head.
'Right,' said Diamond, turning back to Pennycook. 'That was Thursday night. What happened to you since?'
'Since?' He frowned. 'Is that important?'
A look from Diamond told him that it was.
'I stayed in Bath. Friday I had to visit the bank to sign some papers. I hung about the streets until late to see if I could buy some H for less than they charge here in Brighton. No chance. The bastards fix the price all over, the same as cigarettes, or bloody cornflakes.'
'And then half of it is filler, talc or some such,' Diamond commented. 'So you spent Friday evening there. How about Saturday?'
'I came back here, didn't I?'
'What time?'
'I keep telling you, I got no sense of time.'
Well, Diamond thought wryly, railway timetables were supposed to be the detective's salvation. 'How did you travel? On the train?'
'You're joking. Thumbed it, didn't I?'
The budget of the drug addict didn't run to train fares.
Pennycook claimed he had hitchhiked to Southampton on a juggernaut lorry bound for the docks and from there along the coast roads to Brighton with a couple of students. He had got back some time in the early hours of Sunday and slept until the afternoon.
No alibi for Peg's murder or the attack on John Wigfull.
'During your time in Bath, did any other police officer question you about Thursday?'
Pennycook shook his head.
'Can you drive?'
'What?'
'You heard me. Have you ever had a licence?'
'Yeah, some time. What are you trying to pin on me now?'
'Filling in the gaps in your statement, that's all. Maybe you went for a drive in the country yesterday afternoon.'
'What with, for Christ's sake? I got no wheels.'
'I reckon you have, amigo. Somewhere in a garage round the back of Camden Crescent, there's a nice, shiny motor that old Si used to drive about in. I'd put money on it. In fact, we can check on our computer.'
'It ain't mine yet, even if there is one,' he pointed out.
'The house isn't yours, and that didn't stop you.'
'Bog off, will you?'
Which, presently, they did.
Outside on the lawn, interested residents still stood around the helicopter. Diamond looked about him as if for an escape route. 'Where's the nearest pub, do you reckon?'
Leaman looked surprised. 'Do you need a drink after that, sir?'
'Anything but. I didn't fancy using his toilet.'
They headed across the grass to the roundabout at the north end and spotted a pub sign a stone's throw away on Dyke Road. And they did have a quick beer.
'What did you make of him?' Diamond asked, on the way back to the helicopter. Any conversation had to be got through before they boarded.
'Typical junkie,' said Leaman. 'They'll do anything to get the stuff. Sell their own mothers. Anything. We don't have to dig deep for a motive. He needed cash. She had it stacked away in the safe, didn't she? We don't know how much. All there was when we opened it was a few antiques, letters and things.'
'If he did kill her, he didn't help himself much talking to us,' Diamond commented. 'Admitting he was at the shop that night and going on about how desperate he was for cash in hand.'
'He's not very bright, is he?' Leaman said. 'His brain's gone soft.'
'I don't agree. It's easy to confuse poor speech with low intelligence, but there are plenty of big achievers, artists, musicians, inventors, who prove that wrong. I've known druggies smarter than anyone I've met in the police. Brilliant people. They channel all their intelligence in one direction, that's the tragedy.'
'So you don't rate him as a suspect?'
'Didn't say that, did I? I just said he's smarter than you think, and probably smarter than both of us. He's putting one over everyone-the bank, the taxman, his landlord, Brighton Deckchair Services. Why shouldn't he put one over us as well?' As they stooped to enter the wind funnel under the rotor blades, he shouted to Leaman, 'You wouldn't catch a bright lad like Pennycook risking his life in one of these.'
twenty-four
BACK IN BATH THAT Sunday evening, there was no better news of John Wigfull. He had not recovered consciousness. His closest relative, a brother, had travelled down from Sheffield and was at the bedside; the hospital were making arrangements for him to spend the night there.
The search of the fields around the scene of the attack had produced a number of lumps of wood that could conceivably have been used as clubs. They were being tested for bloodstains, but no one was optimistic that the weapon had been found. And the door-to-door enquiries had proved negative for witnesses, except a couple of people who remembered seeing a red car- Wigfull's, presumably-outside Westwood Manor late Saturday evening.
'How late?' Diamond asked the DI who was on the phone from Trowbridge.
'Ten-thirty was the first sighting, but it's a little-used lane, sir. The car could have been there some hours without being noticed.'
Trying to be positive after he came off the phone, Diamond pointed out to Sergeant Leaman that this narrowed the time-span. He still firmly believed that the attack took place on Saturday in daylight, the direct result of Wigfull's questioning of suspects. The way to discover Wigfull's assailant was to go for broke and find the killer of Peg Redbird.
'Did John Wigfull do anything about her phone?' he asked Leaman.
'Her phone, sir?'
'The calls she made on the day of her death. If they can do it for my phone bill, they can do it for us, pronto. It's all routinely logged. The date, the time, the duration and, worst of all, the charge.'
Til see to it.'
A little later, Leaman reported that British Telecom would supply a list by the morning. This young sergeant's support was a real asset. Together, they went down to the canteen for supper.
The ever-cheerful, ever-saucy Pandora greeted them with an offer of roast lamb at half the price listed on the board.
'What's the catch?' Leaman asked.
