– and I wouldn’t say that about many others in this God-forsaken nick, male or female.’
She held his gaze. It was the nearest thing to an apology she was likely to get. Nothing more was said for an interval. Finally she looked away and told him, ‘God help you if you ever meet a real feminist.’
The air was not entirely clear, but it had improved.
He nearly ruined it by the lordly way he extended his hand towards a chair. With a sigh, she sat down.
Normal business resumed. ‘You asked about progress,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure if this fits the heading, but I discovered that Ada Shaftsbury may be right after all in raising the alarm about her friend, the one who lost her memory and hasn’t been in contact.’
‘Rose.’
‘I just called at Social Services. The people who collected her gave a bogus address.’
‘She isn’t living there?’
‘The street doesn’t even exist.’
Their minds were working in concert now. ‘Then the woman really is missing.’
‘She can’t be contacted, anyway.’
Julie weighed the implications. ‘If something dodgy happened, it’s quite a coincidence that Hildegarde was staying in the same hostel.’
‘Or quite a connection.’
‘One woman dead and one missing out of how many staying there?’
‘Only three, as far as I can make out. Ada is the only one left.’
‘Then she does have reason to be concerned,’ said Julie. ‘We’ve been treating her like the boy who cried “Wolf!”’
Diamond introduced a note of caution. ‘On the other hand, people like these – living in a hostel, I mean – are more unstable than your average citizens.’
‘Meaning what? That one suspicious death and one abduction are par for the course?’
He smiled. ‘No, but it’s not impossible that two people at the same address turn out to be victims of different crimes.’
‘But are they different crimes?’ said Julie. ‘We don’t know what happened to Rose. She could be dead, the same as Hildegarde.’
He shook his head. ‘Not the same at all, Julie. There’s no evidence that Hildegarde’s death was planned. How could it have been, when the party at the Royal Crescent was a surprise even to the tenants? Compare it to the planning that seems to have gone into the abduction of Rose Black, or whatever her name may be.’
She thought it through and grudgingly concluded that he had a point. The abduction of Rose, if it was an abduction, must have involved some sophisticated planning. To have gone to the Social Services claiming to be her family and producing photographs as evidence was a high-risk operation that could only have worked if it was carried through with conviction. She spoke her next thought aloud: ‘But is it right to assume something sinister just because the woman gave a false address to Social Services? Could there be a reason for it?’
He said flippantly, ‘Like winning the lottery and wanting no publicity?’
Julie treated the remark seriously. ‘In a way, yes. I was thinking that the family knew something they wanted to keep to themselves. Suppose they discovered that Rose lost her memory in a car accident she caused, killing or maiming someone. They’d have reason enough for whisking her away and leaving no traces.’
Diamond’s eyebrows pricked up. ‘That’s good. That’s very good.’ He leaned back in his chair, confirming that her theory made sense. ‘If I remember right, she was found wandering on the A46 by some people from Westbury.’
‘Some people Ada is being cagey about in case we prosecute them,’ said Julie.
‘Prosecute them – why?’
‘Oh, come on, Mr Diamond. Rose stepped into the road and their car struck her and knocked her out. They drove her to the Hinton Clinic and dumped her in the car park.’
‘Then they damned well should be nicked.’ But he allowed that trifling thought to pass. ‘Why was she wandering in the first place? That’s the nub of it. You’ve got a point. An earlier incident, on the motorway perhaps. It’s not unknown for people in shock to walk away from an accident. Do we know the date she was found?’
‘It’s on file,’ Julie reminded him. ‘The clinic notified us when she was brought in. There are photographs of her injuries. If you’d care to see them-’
‘Not now,’ he said quickly. He’d seen enough gore for one day.
Julie added, ‘We checked at the time for road accidents on the motorway and every other road within a five- mile radius. There weren’t any that fitted the circumstances.’
‘There weren’t any we heard about. That’s not quite the same thing, Julie.’ He drummed his fingertips on the chair-arm. ‘Look, by rights this could be farmed out to one of Wigfull’s people.’
She listened with amusement, confident of what was coming.
‘But it could be argued that Harmer House provides a link with the Royal Crescent case, so I think we’ll take this on board, Julie. See what you can do with it. Have a talk yourself with Imogen Starr, the social worker, and see what she remembers of Doreen Jenkins, the woman who collected Rose. Then check every detail of the story for accuracy. Find out where Jenkins was staying in Bath. See if there really was a man in tow, as she claimed. Check Hounslow, Twickenham. Check the mother, if you can.’
‘Do you want me to involve Ada at this stage?’
‘Personally,’ he said, ‘I don’t feel strong enough. It’s up to you.’
She got up. At the door she turned and asked, “Will you be concentrating on Hildegarde Henkel’s death?’
‘Someone has to,’ he said with a martyred air.
But the first move he made after Julie had left was to the room where items of evidence were stored, and the item he asked to examine had not belonged to Hildegarde Henkel.
‘A shotgun,’ he told the sergeant in charge. ‘Property of Daniel Gladstone, deceased.’
There was some hesitation. ‘That’s Mr Wigfull’s case, sir.’
‘You think I don’t know whose case it is, sergeant?’
‘Mr Wigfull is very hot on exhibits, sir.’ And so was this sergeant, a real stickler for procedure.
‘I’m sure he is, and he’s right to be. He and I are working hand in hand on several cases, as you heard, no doubt. The gun has been seen by forensic, I take it – checked for prints and so on.’
‘I believe it has, sir.’
‘It’s bagged up, then? Bagged up and labelled?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Said with a note of finality.
‘Good.’ Diamond grinned like a chess-player who has watched his opponent make the wrong move. ‘Just what the doctor ordered.’
‘Is it, sir?’
‘Because I won’t need to disturb the bag. I can examine it without breaking the seal, and no one need get uptight.’
‘Mr Diamond, I don’t wish to be obstructive-’
‘Nor me, sergeant, nor me. So I’ll save your reputation by coming round the back and checking the item here on the premises. It won’t have left your control. Just lift the flap for me, would you?’
Minutes after, the sergeant was privy to the bizarre spectacle of Detective Superintendent Diamond seated on a chair, with the shotgun in its polythene wrapping poised between his legs, the butt supported on the floor, the muzzle under his chin, while his fingers groped along the barrel towards the trigger guard.
‘Be a sport, sergeant, and keep this to yourself. There are things a man wouldn’t like his best friends to know about.’
With his mind still on Farmer Gladstone, he drove out to Tormarton to have another look at the farm. Crime- scene tape was still spread across the gate and the front door. He left the car in the lane and lifted his leg over the tape.
There were several large heaps of earth in the field outside. He went over to one of the pits and looked inside. They had dug to the bedrock.
He detached the tape from the front door of the farmhouse and was pleased to find that he could open it. He went through the kitchen to the back room. The Bible he had found was still on the window-sill, obviously of no interest to John Wigfull. He picked it up and glanced at the family tree in the front, the long line of male
