Thirty-two
With Emma, the softly-softly approach seemed to be the right one. Diamond spoke with more steadiness than he felt whilst being driven through the cluttered streets of Bath at a speed appropriate to a three-lane motorway.
‘This help you’re giving us won’t be forgotten.’
She didn’t respond.
It was crucial to discover the likely behaviour of the killer they hoped to find at Tormarton.
‘Emma, we’re trying to save Rose’s life. We need to know more about his dealings with her. When did he first meet her?’
‘When she turned up at the farm on the Sunday afternoon.’
He paused, trying to follow the sequence of events. ‘Let me get this straight. You told me old Mr Gladstone was killed on the Friday evening. Now you’re talking about Sunday afternoon?’
She nodded. ‘A couple of days after.’
‘You say William went back to the farm?’
‘He went back on the Saturday and the Sunday.’
‘What for?’
‘To go over the ground. Use the metal detector. Dig for gold or silver or whatever is buried there.’
He breathed out audibly, vibrating his lips. ‘With the old man lying dead in the house? He was taking one hell of a risk.’
Emma, beside him, spread her hands. ‘That’s how fixated he is. I told you it’s an obsession. There’s no other word for it.’
‘The chance to get rich quick? Does he have money problems?’
‘They live beyond their means, but it’s more personal than that. He’s desperate to prove something.’
‘To you?’
‘To himself. Oh, he started out wanting to impress me, to show me that he’s a winner, much smarter than Guy.’
‘By stealing you from your husband?’
She was silent a moment. ‘I haven’t thought of it like that. I was carried along by the passion he put into it. Stupidly, I thought he was doing it all for me. A treasure hunt, with just the two of us sharing a secret. Flattered, yes. Any woman would be, to have a man care so much about her. I let him make love to me. But it’s been brought home to me that I’m of secondary importance. He’ll carry on regardless of anything I say.’
‘An old-fashioned lust for gold?’
She shook her head. ‘It goes much deeper with William. It’s about his self-esteem. He has this terrific opinion of himself and very little to show for it. His public relations business is going nowhere. If he could discover a new planet, or an unknown element, and have his name on it, he would. He’s sure he’s on the brink of a brilliant discovery. You have to know someone as single-minded as that. He thinks about nothing else but the finds he is going to make at that site. With the old man dead, he could get onto the land at last and use his metal detector. That’s how blinkered he is.’
Diamond understood. It was the kind of all-or-nothing motive that made a man into a hero, or a crook. Certain individuals had this supreme belief in themselves that in the right conditions produced great art, huge discoveries and inspiring leadership. But the same self-importance spawned dictators and murderers.
‘So he spent the weekend at the farm, searching,’ he said. ‘Worth the risk, I suppose. It could have been weeks before anyone else turned up there. Old Gladstone didn’t welcome visitors.’
‘Believe me,’ Emma stressed, ‘if it had been Queen Square in the centre of Bath, he would still have been there with his metal detector.’
‘So? Any joy? We saw the places where he dug.’
‘Only bits of scrap.’
‘What a let-down.’
‘He won’t accept that nothing is there. He still believes in this hoard.’
‘That’s the hope we’re hanging onto,’ said Diamond. ‘You were starting to tell me about that afternoon when Rose turned up at the farm.’
‘I’ve only heard William’s side of it. Rose doesn’t remember.’
‘Let’s have it.’
‘He told me time was getting on and he’d just about decided to stop for the day, when he heard a car come up the lane. It was a taxi, and it stopped in the yard, right beside William’s parked car. William took cover behind the chicken house. He heard someone get out, and the taxi driving off.’
‘This was Rose?’
‘Yes. William saw this woman arrive and he didn’t know who she was, or what to do. He stayed hidden while she walked up to the cottage and went in.’
‘It was open?’
Julie, in the front passenger seat, turned and reminded him, ‘It doesn’t lock automatically when you close it. There’s a key that works from both sides.’
‘I get you,’ he said. ‘If it had been locked on the outside, then the suicide theory would have looked very dodgy indeed. So she went in.’
Julie put in, ‘Which is why two of her hairs were found at the scene.’
He didn’t like being reminded of his earlier theory. Ignoring that, he asked Emma, ‘What did Allardyce do?’
‘His first impulse was to run back to his car and drive off. But he had his metal detector lying on the ground where he’d left it and he went to pick it up and everything happened too quickly. She came rushing out in a state of hysteria. She saw William and ran towards him, for help, I suppose. She was gibbering, unable to speak. She must have had the most horrendous shock you can imagine, finding her own father like that. He’d been dead for two days. Enough-’
‘To blow her mind?’
Emma returned Diamond’s gaze. ‘That’s what happened, isn’t it?’
‘Something shut down in her brain, for sure.’
‘William didn’t know what to do with this frantic woman. But she calmed down quite quickly, and he tried talking to her, yet still couldn’t get any sense out of her. Couldn’t even get eye contact. He asked who she was, and where she came from, and she just stared ahead, like a zombie, he said. Obviously she was in deep shock at finding the body. That suited William. His best plan was to get her away from the farm while she was still confused. So he put her in the car and drove off.’
‘And shoved her out a couple of miles down the road.’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Letting her take her chance with the traffic on the A46. Charming. What happened next? You read in the paper that she survived and was the mystery woman who lost her memory, right?’
‘Yes. William saw her picture. He was really alarmed. The report said she’d recovered her power of speech. He didn’t know if she remembered enough to give the police a description of him, or lead them to the farm. People might lose their memory for a short time, but they usually get it back.’
‘So he made the botched attempt to snatch her outside Harmer House – with you at the wheel?’
‘Yes.’
‘Using his red Toyota. If Ada hadn’t dented it, we would have made the connection sooner, wouldn’t we, Julie?’
Julie didn’t look round, or speak.
He turned back to Emma. ‘You drove the car knowing what you’d got yourself into.’
‘No.’ She was adamant. ‘In my worst nightmare I didn’t think Rose would come to any harm. I thought he wanted to talk to her, give her some story that would reassure her and keep her quiet. I was so upset about what had happened already that I didn’t think it through. It was only after he was so violent trying to get her in the car that I knew what danger she was in.’
‘You feared for her life.’
