sergeant said, and were at this minute together in the upper apartment.
Diamond took his time in the entrance hall, taking stock of the artwork displayed on the walls, a set of gilt- framed engravings of local buildings and a number of eighteenth-century county maps. Predictable for people in architecture, he reflected. You wouldn’t expect them to decorate their hall with Michael Jackson posters. Entrance halls were all about making the right impression. He nodded to Julie and moved on.
Litter from the party lay all over the staircase. After picking their way up two flights through beer-cans and cigarette-ends, they were admitted by Guy Treadwell. In case the card downstairs was not enough to establish his credentials, Treadwell wore a bow-tie, a black corduroy suit, half-glasses on a retaining-cord and a goatee beard – bizarre on a man not much over twenty-five.
‘The state of the whole house is disgusting, we know,’ this fashion plate said, ‘but your people gave us strict instructions to leave everything exactly as it is.’
‘Just the ticket,’ said Diamond with a glance around the Allardyces’ living-room. Just about every surface was crowded with mugs, glasses, cans, empty cigarette packs, half-eaten pizzas and soiled tissues. The pink carpet looked like the floor of an exhibition stand at the end of a busy Saturday. His eyes travelled upwards. ‘I like your ceiling.’
‘We’re not really in a mood for humour, officer,’ said Treadwell in a condescending tone meant to establish the pecking order.
When it came to pecking, Diamond had seen off better men than Guy Treadwell. ‘Who said anything about humour? That’s handsome plasterwork. What sort of leaves are they around the centre bit?’
‘In the first place it isn’t my ceiling, and in the second I’ve no idea.’
‘Let’s hear from someone who has, then. Your ceiling, is it?’ said Diamond, switching to the other young man in the room.
‘We’re the tenants, yes,’ came the answer, ‘but eighteenth-century plasterwork isn’t our thing.’
‘You don’t recognise the leaves either? I’m sure the ladies do.’
‘Acanthus, I believe,’ Julie Hargreaves unexpectedly said.
Surprised and impressed, Diamond held out his hands as if to gather the approval of the others. ‘If you want to know about your antique ceilings, ask a policewoman.’
Treadwell tried a second time to bring him to heel by pointing out that they were not introduced yet.
‘Detective Inspector Julie Hargreaves,’ said Diamond, ‘my ceiling consultant.’
Stiffly, Treadwell introduced his wife Emma and his neighbours the Allardyces. They had the jaded look of people badly missing their Sunday morning lie-in. Sally Allardyce, a tall, willowy black woman with glossy hair drawn back into a red velvet scrunch, offered coffee.
Diamond thanked her and said they’d had some.
Her husband William apologised because there was no sherry left in the house. It was a poor show considering he was employed in public relations, he said with a tired smile, but everything in bottles had gone. William Allardyce was white, about as white as a man can look whose heart is still pumping. He had a white T- shirt as well, with some lettering across the chest that was difficult to read. He was wearing an old-fashioned grey tracksuit, baggy at the waist and ankles, and the top was only partially unzipped. The letters IGHT were all that could be seen.
Guy Turnbull added, ‘They even drank our bloody cider-vinegar.’
‘It was a nightmare,’ said Emma Treadwell, large-eyed, pale and anxious. She must have showered recently, because she was still in a white bath-robe and flip-flops and her head was draped in a towel. ‘Three-quarters of the people were strangers to us.’
‘Including the woman who fell off the roof?’ asked Diamond.
‘Guy says we didn’t know her. I didn’t go out to look. I couldn’t bear to.’
‘Total stranger to me,’ said her husband.
‘And you, sir?’ Diamond asked William Allardyce. ‘You went to look at the body as well, I gather. Had you ever seen her before?’
‘Only briefly.’
‘So you remember seeing her at the party?’ Julie asked.
Allardyce nodded. ‘We discussed that just before you came in. I’m the only one who remembers her. She was sitting on the stairs with a fellow in a leather jacket. Large, dark hair, drinking lager.’
‘Our lager,’ stressed his wife.
‘You mean the
Allardyce took this as humour and smiled. ‘The man, yes.’
‘How large?’
‘They were seated, of course, but anyone could see from the width of his shoulders and the size of his hands that he was bigger, say, than any of us.’
‘Drinking lager, you say. Lager from a can?’
Treadwell said in his withering voice, ‘It wasn’t the kind of party where glasses were handed out. The blighters helped themselves.’
Allardyce was more forgiving. ‘Let’s face it, Guy. Most of those people were under the impression that we’d won a fortune and opened our house to them.’
‘Was the woman drinking, too?’ Diamond asked.
Allardyce answered, ‘I believe she had a can in her hand.’
‘And how was she dressed?’
‘A pink top and dark jeans. She had short brown hair. Large brown eyes. Full lips. One of those faces you had to notice.’
‘You did, obviously,’ said his wife with a sharp glance.
‘I’m trying to be helpful, Sally.’
‘Good-looking, you mean?’ said Diamond.
‘Attractive, certainly.’
‘Jewellery?’
‘Can’t remember any.’
‘Let’s come to the crunch,’ said Diamond insensitively, considering the nature of the incident. ‘When did you learn that someone was on the roof?’
Emma Treadwell spoke up. ‘Getting on for midnight. Eleven-thirty, at least. Someone who was leaving told me they’d looked up and seen a woman up there, sitting on the stonework, dangling her legs.’
‘They came back especially to tell you?’
‘Well, wouldn’t you? It was bloody dangerous,’ said Guy Treadwell.
Allardyce said, ‘Most of the people there were decent folk. If you saw someone taking a stupid risk, you’d want to do something about it.’
‘Who was it who told you?’ Diamond asked Emma.
‘A stranger. A man in his thirties, with a woman about the same age. He must have known I lived here because I was trying to protect my things, asking people to use the ashtrays I’d put out.’
‘He found you especially?’
‘Yes. I told Guy…’
Treadwell nodded. ‘And I spoke to William.’ He looked over his half-glasses at Allardyce.
Diamond said, ‘And you investigated and found nobody?’
The PR man blushed. ‘I went straight upstairs to check. The window was open-’
‘This is the attic window?’
‘Yes. But nobody was out there. I was too late. At the time, I had no idea, of course. I thought she must have come to her senses and gone downstairs. It didn’t enter my mind that she’d jumped.’
‘Did you step outside, onto the roof?’
‘I leaned out.’
‘But you didn’t step right out?’
‘No.’
‘Could you see enough from there?’
‘It was a dark night. A new moon, I think. But the street-lamp helps. I could see nobody was out there.’
