Upon A Dark Night

‘We haven’t heard from the lab yet. It’s possible. I’m going to look at her room presently.’

‘She didn’t leave a suicide note, I can tell you that.’

‘You’ve been in to check, I suppose?’

‘It’s open house here, always has been,’ Ada said, unabashed. ‘Are you going to talk to that ball of fire, Imogen, her social worker?’

‘I expect so.’

‘Hildegarde was on her list, same as Rose was. Imogen keeps shedding clients, have you noticed? Dropping them faster than a peep-show girl.’

‘You can’t blame the social worker.’

‘Try me, ducky. Rose didn’t know the woman who came to collect her, but did it cross Imogen’s tiny mind that it might be a try-on? Not on your nelly.’

Here we go, thought Diamond.

She went on, ‘I’ve been thinking about those photos. They didn’t prove this woman was Rose’s stepsister. The only thing they proved is that she’d brought in some photos of Rose with some old woman. If there had been a picture of the step-sister with Rose, the two of them in one picture, I’d shut up, but there wasn’t. And I still haven’t had that postcard.’

‘Her memory was dodgy,’ said Diamond.

‘Her short-term memory was spot on.’

‘You won’t let go, will you? Look, when I speak to the social worker I’ll check on your friend Rose as well, right? Now point me towards Hildegarde’s room.’

Ada escorted him downstairs, still griping about Rose. After she’d thrust open a door, he thanked her and said he would examine the room alone. He had to repeat it before she left him in peace.

Had she remained, she would have told him, he was certain, that Germans are very methodical. Everything in sight in the room – and there was not much – was tidily arranged. It was rather like entering a hotel room. The bed, unlike Ada’s, was made without a loose fold anywhere. Hildegarde’s few items of make-up and her brush and comb were grouped in front of the mirror on the makeshift dressing-table consisting of two sets of plastic drawers linked by a sheet of plate glass.

He started opening drawers and the contrast with the sights and smells he’d recoiled from in Daniel Gladstone’s cottage could not have been more complete. Everything from thick-knit sweaters to knickers and bras was arranged in layers and each drawer had its bag of sweet-smelling herbs in the front right-hand corner.

The room was conspicuously short of the personal documents that Hildegarde Henkel must have possessed: passport, wedding certificate and social security papers. Their absence tended to confirm his view that she had carried them in a handbag that some opportunist thief had picked up at the party in the Royal Crescent. He doubted if Ada had taken anything from the room. As far as he knew she never stole from individuals.

Anything of more than passing interest he threw on the immaculate bed. At the end of the exercise he had a photo of a dog, two books in German, a German/English dictionary, a packet of birth control pills, a set of wedding photos, a Walkman and a couple of Oasis tapes and a bar of chocolate. No suicide note, diary, address book, drugs. He scooped up the lot and replaced them in a drawer.

In sombre mood, he drove home.

Twenty

Peter Diamond’s moods may have been uncertain to his colleagues, but his wife Stephanie reckoned he was transparent ninety-nine per cent of the time. This morning was the one per cent exception. His behaviour was totally out of character. After bringing her the tea that was her daily treat, he rolled back into bed and opened the Guardian instead of going for his shower and shave and starting the routine of grooming, dressing, eating and listening to the radio that he’d observed for years. When he finally put down the paper, he went for a bath. A bath. He simply didn’t take baths in the morning. There was never time. He preferred evenings after work, when he would linger for hours with a book, topping up the hot water from time to time by deft action with his big toe against the tap.

She tapped on the bathroom door. ‘Are you all right in there?’

‘Why? Are you waiting to come in?’ he called.

‘No, I’m only asking.’ She was more discreet than to mention his blood pressure. ‘As long as you know how the time is going.’

‘Sixty minutes an hour when I last heard.’

‘Sorry I spoke, my lord.’

She’d finished her breakfast and was on the point of going out when he came downstairs.

The sight of him still in his dressing-gown and slippers evoked a grim memory and her face creased in concern. ‘Peter, should you be telling me something? You haven’t resigned again?’

He smiled and reached for her hand. The two-year exile from the police had been a rough passage for them both. ‘No, love.’

‘And they haven’t…?’

‘Given me the old heave-ho? No. It’s just that I don’t have to go in first thing. I’m supposed to be down at the RUH.’

‘Oh?’ White-faced, she said, ‘Another appointment?’

‘A post-mortem.’

A moment of incomprehension, then, as the light dawned, ‘Oh.’

‘You know, Steph, it never occurred to me when we bought this place that it was just up the road from the hospital. When we lived on Wellsway I could say I’d been sitting in a line of traffic for ages and be believed. That little wrinkle isn’t much use now I live in Weston and can walk down to the mortuary in five minutes. If I want a reason for not showing up on time I’ve got to think of something smarter.’

‘And have you?’

‘I’m giving it my full attention.’

‘Do you really need to be there?’

‘Need? No. But it’s expected. This one is what we term a suspicious death. The pathologist points out anything worthy of note, and discusses it with CID. I’m supposed to take an active interest, or one of us on the case is.’

‘Isn’t there someone else, then? I mean, if you’re practically allergic, as we know you are…’

‘Not this time. I had a bit of a run-in with Julie last night.’

‘Oh, Pete!’

‘Can’t really ask her a favour. No, I’ll tough it out, but I don’t have to watch the whole performance, so long as I appear at some point with a good story.’ He rolled his eyes upwards, trying to conjure something up. ‘We could have a problem with the plumbing. Water all over the floor. Or the cat had kittens.’

‘A neutered male?’

‘Surprised us all. There’s no stopping Raffles.’

‘I’d think of something better if I were you.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as your wife, finally driven berserk, clobbering you with a rolling-pin. No one would find that hard to understand.’

Eventually he drove into the RUH about the time he judged the pathologist would be peeling off his rubber gloves. He parked in a space beside one of the police photographers, who had his window down and was smoking.

‘Taken your pictures, then?’ Diamond called out to him matily and got a nod. ‘Are they going to be long in there?’

‘Twenty minutes more, I reckon,’ came the heartening answer.

He made a slow performance of unwrapping an extra-strong peppermint. He thought he might listen to the