He drew himself back from the brink. He’d given Julie the job yesterday, the kind of research she did so well, systematically uncovering the deception. Moreover, she’d been exposed for a couple of hours to Ada’s anxieties about the missing woman. Was it any wonder that she took a different line?
‘Thanks, Julie. Point taken.’ He pitched his voice to the entire room again. ‘I propose to bring in the press at this stage. I’m issuing this picture of the missing woman with the few real facts we know about her. For public consumption we’re appealing for information because there’s concern for her safety. Understood? Julie, you’d better warn Social Services to be ready for some flak over this.’ He crossed the room and switched off the projector. ‘We’ll also go public on the killing of Daniel Gladstone. It’s going to make large headlines, I’m afraid. The execution-style killing of an old man is sure to excite the tabloids. For the time being we’ll treat the incidents as unrelated. Let’s see what the publicity brings in. And of course it’s all systems go on the murder inquiry. Keith, would you set up the incident room here? Frank, you’re in charge of the hunt for Rose Black. Jerry, the farmer’s background is your job. His life history – family, work, the state of his finances, the lot. I can give you some pointers if you see me presently.’ He went on assigning duties for several minutes more. This had always been one of his strengths, instilling urgency into an inquiry.
After Diamond had left the room, Keith Halliwell put a hand on Julie’s shoulder. ‘You’ve got more guts than the rest of us, kiddo, speaking out like that.’
She shook her head. ‘I knew what was coming. Had more time to think it over.’
‘What do you reckon?’ he asked. ‘Has the old buzzard flipped?
‘In what way?’
‘Picking on this woman as a suspect. Can you see a woman trussing up an old man and firing a shotgun at his head?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ she answered, sensitive to the discrimination. ‘Any fit woman is capable of it.’
He shrugged. ‘But would they carry it out? Don’t you think it’s too brutal?’
‘It’s a question of motivation.’
‘Unlikely, though.’ He stretched and yawned. ‘He made such a brilliant start, too, all that stuff about the shotgun. No one else in CID would have sussed that it was murder. John Wigfull didn’t, and he was supposed to be handling the case.’
Julie declined the invitation to rubbish Wigfull.
Halliwell continued to fret about Diamond’s startling theory. ‘I mean, all he’s got on the woman is that she was in the area – well, a couple of miles away – at the time of the killing, give or take a few days.’
‘Behaving strangely.’
‘Okay. Give you that.’
‘With loss of memory. And then she gets spirited away by someone telling a heap of lies.’
He laughed. ‘I should have known you’d back the old sod.’
‘The thing is,’ Julie said, ‘he’s not often wrong.’
Part Three… a Bag of Gold…
Twenty-four
John Wigfull was pencil thin and a brisk mover, so Diamond was breathless when he finally drew level on the stairs.
‘A word in your ear, John.’
Wigfull stopped with one leg bent like a wading bird. He didn’t turn to look.
Diamond spoke more than a word into the ear. ‘I didn’t mention this in the meeting, but I need to take over any exhibits you picked up at the scene. Gladstone’s personal papers. Prints, fibres, hairs. Can I take it that the Sellotapers went through the farmhouse?’
‘Sellotapers?’
‘The scenes of crime lads.’
‘SOCOs.’
Diamond nodded. Something deep in his psyche balked at using the acronyms accepted by everyone else in the police. ‘I was sure you must have called them out, even though it looked like a routine suicide.’
‘A suspicious death. I know the drill.’
‘I never doubted.’
There was a glint in Wigfull’s eye. ‘Forensic had a field day. The place hadn’t been swept or dusted in months. The bloodstains alone are a major task. So if you’re looking for results, you may have to wait a while.’
‘I’ll check with them.’
‘You could try.’
‘Is the rest of the stuff with you?’
‘Yes. You can have it. Is that all?’ The bent leg started to move again.
‘Not quite. There’s the question of the other inquiry, into Hildegarde Henkel’s death.’
Wigfull turned to look at Diamond. ‘What about it?’
‘Difficult for me to manage at the same time as the Tormarton case.’
Wigfull’s eyebrows reared up like caterpillars meeting. ‘You want me to take it back?’
‘I do and I don’t. It could well be another murder.’
‘Work under your direction?’
‘I know. You’d rather have a seat in a galley-ship. Listen, all I want is a watching brief. You tell me what progress you make and I won’t interfere. We’ve had our differences, but, sod it, John, you ran the squad when I was away.’
‘I’m not saying I couldn’t do it.’
‘Shall we square it with the boss, then?’
‘Would you give me a free hand?’
Diamond swallowed hard.
‘And a team?’
‘The pick of the squad, other than Keith and Julie.’
Thoughtfully Wigfull preened the big moustache. This was an undeniable opportunity.
‘I could have taken on that job,’ said Julie when he told her.
‘I know.’
‘Well, then?’ Her blue eyes fixed him accusingly.
‘I need you on this one.’
‘Nobody would think so.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘You assigned responsibilities to practically everyone else.’
‘I don’t want you tied down. That’s the reason.’
She was unconvinced, certain he was punishing her for speaking out of turn in the meeting. He always expected her to back him, or at least keep quiet. He was so pig-headed that he didn’t know most of the squad agreed he was way off beam when he linked Rose Black to the murder.
Oblivious to all this, he said, ‘These stories that the old man had money tucked away – I’d like to know if there’s any foundation for them. Would you get on to it, Julie? Find out if he had a bank account. He must have received the Old Age Pension. What did he do with it?’
In front of him was the deed-box that Wigfull had removed from the farmhouse. ‘There’s precious little here. His birth certificate. Believe it or not, his mother gave birth to him in that squalid house.’
‘Perhaps it wasn’t so squalid in the nineteen-twenties. Do we know when the parents died?’
‘There’s nothing in here about it. Some Ministry of Agriculture pamphlets he should have slung out years ago.
