pocket and passed it across the table. ‘They said you were out making inquiries. They couldn’t tell me where.’
Diamond left the cutting where it was. ‘I see. You thought I might be here.’
‘I thought I’d come and see.’
‘Local, are you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘From Bath, I mean?’
‘Great Pulteney Street, actually.’
‘Very local, then. Nice address.’
‘It’s my mother’s.’
He lived with his mother, and who would have guessed, Diamond cynically thought. ‘And are you in a job?’
‘I work at the Treasure House.’
‘What’s that – a Chinese restaurant?’
Gary Paternoster blushed scarlet. ‘No. It’s a shop in Walcot Street, for detectorists.’
‘Oh, yes?’ Diamond’s confidence in his star witness plunged another fathom. ‘Like me, you mean?’
‘Are you a detectorist?’
Save us, he thought. ‘Detective Superintendent. Will that do?’
The young man blushed again. ‘I don’t think you understand. I’m talking about people who use metal detectors.’
Normally Diamond was quick, but it took a moment for the penny to drop. ‘What – treasure-hunters? The guys you see on the beach with those probe-things looking for money and watches other people have lost?’
Gary Paternoster swallowed hard and said with disapproval, ‘Those people get us a bad name. Real detectorists aren’t interested in lost property – well, not modern lost property. You’ll find us in a ploughed field looking for ancient relics.’
‘Do you do it?’
‘Quite often, yes.’
‘Detectoring, you call it?’’ Yes.’
‘Ever found anything?’
‘Plenty.’ Self-congratulation lit the boyish features for a moment.
Diamond pretended not to believe. ‘What – horseshoes and nails and bits of barbed wire?’
‘No. Medieval bronze buckles. Roman coins. Brooches and things. You learn a lot about history.’
‘Lonely hobby, I should think, for a young man like you.’
This gentle goading was not wasted. Faint glimmers of a personality were emerging from behind the shop- assistant’s manner. ‘I find it very satisfying, actually.’
‘And profitable?’
‘Not yet, but you never know what you might find – and profit isn’t really the point of it. We’re uncovering the past.’
Uncovering the past summed up Gary Paternoster. He was a relic looking for relics.
‘But you weren’t out with your metal detector last Saturday night,’ Diamond said in an unsubtle shift to the matter under investigation.
He looked at Diamond as if the question did him no credit. ‘It’s no good going out after dark. You wouldn’t find a thing.’
‘Mr Paternoster.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘I’m inviting you to tell me what happened.’
‘Oh.’ He fastened a button on his suit. ‘I was up at the Royal Crescent, at that party.’
Surprised, for Gary Paternoster didn’t look like a party-goer, Diamond said, ‘By invitation?’
‘Not in point of fact. It was open to everyone, wasn’t it? The shop was open late that evening, being Saturday. I was on my way home, about nine, I suppose, when I met some people I knew in Northgate Street. One of them was at school with me, quite a forceful personality. They were all on their way to this party and they asked me to join them. They said things I’m too embarrassed to repeat, about getting…getting…’
‘Laid?’
‘I was going to say getting lucky with girls. I didn’t really want to, and I said I wasn’t invited, but they said none of them were. I’m not very good at standing up to people like that.’
‘So you tagged along.’ Now he understood. The kid had been press-ganged.
‘I thought I’d slip away as soon as I got a chance. Parties make me tense. There seemed to be dozens going up there. They said someone here – in the Grapes – had won the lottery and thrown their house open for a party. That was what I heard and I think it’s true. When we got to the house, the door was open and we just walked in. There was loud music and beer. It seemed to be on several floors. We went upstairs to the first floor and that was where I saw the young lady who was killed.’
‘Already dead?’
‘No, at this point she was alive.’
‘You’re sure it was her?’
‘She’s the one whose picture is in the paper today. She was German, wasn’t she? She had a pink jumper thing and jeans – black or dark blue. A pretty face with dark hair, quite short. My friends seemed to know her from the pub – this place. She used to come here most evenings. It turned out that she didn’t know any English, because they were talking about her, making fun of her, saying suggestive things to her face.’
‘Such as?’
‘Stupid stuff, like she was desperate for…’ He cleared his throat. Simply couldn’t bring himself to say the word.
‘Sex?’
Paternoster took an intense interest in his shandy. ‘And they tried to embarrass me by telling her I wanted to go upstairs with her. She didn’t understand.’
‘She must have guessed what was going on,’ said Diamond. ‘She must have known what it was about from the sniggering. How did she take it? Was she upset?’
‘She ignored it. She seemed to be thinking about other things. She kept looking away, across the room.’
‘What at?’
‘The door, I think. She wasn’t looking at people. After a short time she just turned her back and moved off. They told me to go after her. They said she wanted me to follow her. I didn’t really believe it, but they were making me very embarrassed, so I went, just to get out of the room, really.’ He paused. ‘I don’t want you to think I had anything to do with her falling off the roof.’
‘It hasn’t crossed my mind,’ Diamond said in gospel truth. ‘Did you see where she went?’
‘Upstairs to the top flat. It was open. The party was going on there as well.’
‘And you followed?’
The young man took a deep, audible breath through his mouth. ‘On the stairs she looked round to see who was following. I was at the bottom of the stairs, and our eyes met. I’m not very confident with girls as a rule, and I didn’t really expect anything, but the look she gave wasn’t unfriendly. It was kind of amused, as if she’d expected one of the others to be coming after her and was pleased to find it was me instead. I knew she was foreign and couldn’t speak the language and that was a help actually because I get tongue-tied when I talk to them. She was older than me by a few years and that was nice. Girls my age seem more hostile. Older women like my mother’s friends say I’m nice. She wasn’t as old as Mum’s friends, but she was in her twenties, I should think.’
‘So you began to fancy your chances?’
He fingered his tie. ‘No, don’t misunderstand me. I was pleased because she’d noticed me and hadn’t pulled a face or something. I followed her upstairs. There were quite a number of people in the top flat, drinking and talking. I think some of them were dancing. It’s quite a big room.’
‘I’ve seen it. What did the woman do?’
‘She stood for a bit, watching. She went into the kitchen, I think, and came out.’
‘Was anyone with her?’
‘No.’
