Without moving his hands from his face, Treadwell said in a low, measured voice, as if he were speaking into a tape-recorder, ‘I knew Emma rejected me physically, but I never thought she was seeing a woman until you told me. I thought she was with men. And now I discover it’s this Gladstone woman and it’s tied in with murder. I’m gutted.’ He looked up, his eyes red-lidded. He hooked a finger behind the bow-tie and tugged the knot apart. ‘I don’t know what else you want from me.’
‘There is one thing: did you stick the knife into your neighbour’s car-tyre?’
His startled gaze flickered between Diamond and Julie. ‘God, no. What makes you think…’ he started to say, then answered his own question. ‘You thought I suspected William and Emma were at it. Well I did, to be honest. There were times when I noticed the pair of them looking at each other as if they knew things I didn’t. He’s more outgoing than I am, smiles a lot, so I couldn’t be sure. Emma laughs at his remarks as if he’s the wittiest man she ever met. And that irritates me. I was jealous, let’s face it. I once saw them by chance coming out of the Hat and Feather in London Street. And quite often she’d come in at the end of an evening and a few minutes later I’d hear the front door open quietly again and he’d creep upstairs to his flat. You can torture yourself imagining things. But I wouldn’t do anything so sneaky as to take it out on his car.’
‘Who did, then?’ said Diamond, more to himself than Treadwell.
‘Sally?’ suggested Julie.
Thirty-one
Treadwell had been silent during the short ride. Diamond left him locked in his own misery until the patrol car swung onto the cobbles in front of the Crescent, jerking them all out of semi-slumber.
‘In the morning we’ll put your wife on an identity parade. These things take hours to set up, so it can’t be much before noon. I advise you to get your solicitor there.’
Troubled questions welled up again. ‘What’s Emma really supposed to have done? You don’t think she was involved in the deaths of these people?’
‘Will you sleep any better if I give you an answer?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, unable to decipher such a Delphic utterance.
‘How’s your cooking?’
‘What?’
‘Cooking. Pretty basic, is it? Boiled eggs and baked potatoes?’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘Go out in the morning and buy a decent cookbook. She’s not coming home for a long time.’
The wretched man trudged towards the front door like the closing shot of a sombre East European film.
Inside the car, Diamond yawned. ‘My place next.’
Only it was not to be. Julie, seated in the back, with a better view of the house, had spotted something she did not understand.
‘Hold it’
‘What’s up?’
‘The door’s already open. Someone is there.’ She wound down the window for a better view. ‘I’m sure of it.’ Without another word, she got out and crossed the pavement. Guy Treadwell heard her, turned and stopped.
She ran straight past him. The figure she had glimpsed for a moment in the doorway had retreated inside. Shouting, ‘Stop. Police!’ she dashed in and across the hall.
Diamond, still in the car, roused from his torpor, swung open his door and followed.
Treadwell had halted uncertainly outside his house.
Diamond asked him, ‘Who was that?’
‘I didn’t see.’
‘Which way?’
‘Upstairs.’
Inside, the sounds of a struggle carried down from an upper floor. The place was in darkness. He fanned his hands across the wall for a light-switch and couldn’t find one. Groped his way to the banister rail and took the stairs in twos. The gasps from above sounded female in origin.
Blundered up two flights of stairs.
Moonlight from a window on the second-floor landing revealed two figures wrestling. There was no need to pile in. Julie had her adversary in an armlock. A young woman.
‘You want help?’ Diamond asked. ‘Cuffs?’
‘You don’t have any cuffs,’ Julie reminded him. She eased her grip slightly, allowing the woman to turn her head.
Sally Allardyce’s eyes gleamed in the faint white light, the more dramatically against her black skin. She was wearing a blue dressing-gown over a white nightdress. Her feet were bare.
‘Let her go, Julie.’
Released, Sally sat up and rubbed her left arm, moaning.
‘I called out,’ said Julie. ‘And you took off.’
‘I was scared,’ Sally said. ‘I saw the police car.’
Diamond loyally did his best to justify Julie’s conduct. ‘What were you doing, peeking round the front door?’
‘I thought it was my husband coming in.’
He hesitated, playing her answer over in his head. ‘He’s still out? Where?’
‘God knows.’ Her voice faltered. She swallowed hard, pulling the dressing-gown across her chest, getting command of herself. ‘I heard a car draw up outside. I wanted to catch them sneaking in together.’
‘Catch who?’
‘William and Emma.’ Speaking the names caused a torrent of resentment to pour from her. ‘I’m sick of all the deceit. I’ve known about it for months, the way they look at each other, the secret meetings, the evenings out together, the restaurants on his credit card statements, pretending it’s business when I know bloody well what it is. I want to catch them creeping in. Tonight I was sure. I waited up. I knew they were together.’
So it was cards on the table with a vengeance.
‘But he isn’t with Emma,’ Julie told her.
‘Don’t give me that. I know bloody well he is.’
‘You’re wrong, Sally. Emma came back a good two hours ago and we picked her up. She’s in a cell at the police station.’
Sally stared at her. ‘What for? But I heard her go out at seven, seven-fifteen, or something, and he was looking out of the window, waiting. He didn’t know I was watching. It was like a signal to him, like she was some bitch on heat. He was off down those stairs without even telling me he was going out.’ She paused, letting Julie’s statement sink in. ‘If he isn’t with her, where is he, then? If she’s locked up, where the hell is William? What’s he doing at this hour of the night?’
The same question was troubling Peter Diamond. He thought of a possible answer that would be no comfort to anyone. Instead he asked, ‘Someone slashed a tyre of your husband’s car yesterday night. Was that you?’
‘Me?’ She looked bewildered. ‘Why should I do that?’
‘You’ve just told us. You’re an angry young woman with a two-timing husband, that’s why. You walk to the station early on your way to work, when it’s still dark. You go through the Circus, where you know it’s parked. You could easily-’
‘I didn’t,’ she said in a tight, controlled voice. ‘I wouldn’t demean myself.’
Back in the car, he told the driver, ‘Change of plan. Switch on the beacon and back to the nick. Fast.’
Above the surge in acceleration, Julie said, ‘If this is to do with me-’
‘It isn’t.’
‘I know I was out of order to scrap with her.’
‘Will you listen, for Christ’s sake? Another killing may have taken place tonight.’
‘William Allardyce?’ Her voice rose high. ‘You think he’s been murdered?’
