Upon A Dark Night

Diamond headed the murder squad. In bleak spells like this when everyone in Bath respected everyone else’s right to exist, the squad virtually disbanded. Most of the lads were employed on break-ins and car thefts. Like anyone keen to defend his small empire, Diamond insisted that certain officers were detailed to pick the bones of the three unsolved homicides he still had on his books. He felt sure one of this pair was last given orders to work for him.

‘You’re not skiving, I trust,’ he called across.

‘No chance, Guv,’ said the less dozy of the two. ‘Incident at Tormarton. Some farmer blew his brains out.’

‘Didn’t I hear a patrol being sent to that one an hour ago? How has it become a CID matter?’

‘Mr Wigfull’s orders, Guv.’

‘Two of you? CID must be under-employed these days.’

He went up to his office and opened Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat. Concentration was difficult. John Wigfull had the nose of a tracker dog and the resemblance didn’t end there. It justified a call to his office. A sergeant answered. Chief Inspector Wigfull, it emerged, was not in. He had driven out to look at a suicide at Tormarton.

When Wigfull got back towards the end of the afternoon, Diamond – remarkable to relate – met him coming in from the car park. ‘Been down on the farm, John?’

Wigfull gave a guarded, ‘Were you looking for me?’

‘Nothing vital.’

‘But you went to the trouble of finding out where I was?’

‘Just out of interest. I’m not going to shop you if you need a break.’

‘It was police business.’

‘I know that.’

They eyed each other for a short, silent stalemate. Diamond had never been able to take that overgrown moustache seriously. He explained, ‘I spoke to Sergeant Burns. How was your farmer?’

‘In a word, high,’ said Wigfull.

‘Been dead some time?’

‘Too long for my liking.’

‘Straightforward suicide?’

‘He blew a hole through his head with a twelve-bore.’

‘Sounds straightforward to me.’

There was another interval.

‘Not so straightforward?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ Without understanding how it had been done, Wigfull found himself having to fill Diamond in on the incident. ‘He was a loner. The farm, such as it is -more of a smallholding, in fact – is in a pitiful state. He was old, living frugally. It all got too much, and no wonder. You should have seen the inside of the house.’ Wigfull paused, remembering. ‘The saddest thing is that he wasn’t found before this. Nobody visited. Anything up to a week, the pathologist reckons.’

‘Who found him?’

‘Two unlucky women who take the meals-on-wheels round.’

‘He gets meals-on-wheels? Why wasn’t he found before this, then?’

‘It’s only Tuesdays and Thursdays. He may have had a visit from them last week. We’ re checking. They work to a rota. The thing is, whoever was due to call may have gone away when they didn’t get an answer.’

‘Neighbours?’

‘It’s way out in the sticks. And he discouraged visitors.’

‘Where exactly is it? North of the motorway?’

Wigfull’s eyes widened. ‘I don’t recommend a visit, Peter. The two lads I have at the scene are still wearing face-masks, helping the pathologist find all the bits.’

‘Quite a baptism for them.’

‘Yes.’

‘The shotgun?’

‘At his feet. He was in a chair.’

It was apparent that Wigfull was playing this down for all he was worth. He answered the questions honestly because his sense of duty wouldn’t allow him to lie. But he hadn’t revealed what induced him to go out to Tormarton in person. There was something else about the case, and Diamond was too proud to ask precisely what it was.

Before leaving work that night, he asked Julie Hargreaves, his second-in-command, and the one person he could depend upon, to keep an ear open in the canteen. Wigfull wouldn’t give anything away, but his officers might. Something about this business offended the nostrils and it wasn’t only the dead farmer.

Six

Mrs Thornton was a sweetie. She was well over seventy, tall, upright and so thin that she must have been suffering from chronic osteoporosis. Yet her thoughts were all of her husband David, an Alzheimer’s patient. ‘I don’t know what’s in his mind, if anything, poor darling,’ she told Rose in an accent redolent of a privileged upbringing more than half a century ago. ‘It’s very distressing. He rambles dreadfully. It’s hard to believe that he once commanded an aircraft carrier.’

Rose explained that her own brain was impaired, but temporarily, she hoped. ‘I’m trying desperately to find something that will get the memory working. Would you mind terribly if we walked over to the car park where you found me?’

They had to move slowly. Once or twice Mrs Thornton had to be steadied. This walk to the car park was an imposition, and it was clear why Dr Whitfield had been reluctant to encourage it. ‘In case you’ re wondering,’ the old lady remarked, ‘I don’t drive. I come in twice a day -afternoon and evening – on one of the minibuses. It stops outside my house in Lansdown Crescent. The drivers are so thoughtful. They always help me on and off. I get off at the gate and walk to David’s ward. It takes me through the car park, which is where I found you the other evening.’

‘Lying on the ground?’

‘Yes, over there, by the lamp-post. If I hadn’t spotted you, I’m sure someone else would have done. The car park was completely full. It always is in the evening.’

‘Was anyone about?’

‘I expect so. That’s what I was saying.’

‘But did you notice anyone in particular?’

‘Hereabouts? No. I’m afraid not, or I would certainly have told them. Someone better on his pins than I am could have got help quicker. This is the spot.’

They had reached a point between two parked cars under an old-fashioned wrought-iron lamp-post with a tub of flowers under it. The small area in front was painted with yellow lines to discourage parking. In fact, there wasn’t space for a car, but you could have left a motorcycle there.

‘When I saw you lying there, I thought you might be asleep. With all the homeless young people there are, you can come across them sleeping almost anywhere in broad daylight sometimes. Only when I got closer, it was obvious to me that you weren’t in a proper sleeping position. I can’t say why exactly, but it looked extremely uncomfortable. I thought you might be dead. I was profoundly relieved to discover that you were breathing.’

‘I suppose I was dumped there.’

‘That’s the way it looked.’

‘Thank God they left me here and not in the path of the cars where I could have been run over.’

‘Yes, it shows some concern for your safety,’ said Mrs Thornton.

‘And after you found me you came up to the ward and told someone?’