you. Then you’ll need my help.”
“Need it? I’m depending on it,” Hen said. “Bath nick is my second home from now on.”
He grinned. Without getting heavy, they had reached an understanding. “And you’ll be welcome. So what’s happening at this end?”
She told him about the TV appeal and the difficulty in finding a genuine witness. “Plenty of people offered help, but not the ones we want most.”
“Who are they?”
“A family of three who were sitting close enough to notice her failing to move when the tide came in. The man fetched the lifeguard.”
“A responsible citizen, then?”
“But we’ve heard nothing from him since.”
“Do you have a description?”
“We have a name.”
“Good. What is it?”
She told him and he smiled. She told him about the daughter called Haley who had been lost for a short time.
“Haley is better than Smith,” he said. “Not so many Haleys about. Have you tried the local schools?”
“No joy.”
“People drive miles to the seaside,” he said. “They could be Londoners, or from anywhere. My way, even. Do you want me to take it on?”
She was guarded in her response. “For the present, I’d rather you found out what you can about Emma Tysoe’s life and work in Bath.” But it had not escaped her that he’d deferred to her. Maybe this man Diamond was more manageable than people said. “Now that we have her name, it’s going to open up more avenues.”
“As you wish,” he said. “And let’s get
“Try it, and see what happens,” she told him with a sharp look. “I’m Hen.”
“Fair enough. Is it time we rescued your colleague from the one-gun salute man?”
“Stella? Not yet,” she said with a steely gleam in her eye. “I think I’d like a second cup. How about you… Pete?”
Haley Smith’s teacher, Miss Medlicott, was telling the class about their project for the afternoon. “We’re going to do measuring.
Presently I’ll ask some of you to come to the front and collect a metric rule. Not yet, Nigel! Then you’ll work in pairs with the person sitting on your right. Anyone without a person sitting on his right put your hand up now.”
Without fuss, she made sure everyone had a partner.
“You’ll also need a pencil and a large sheet of paper. One rule for each pair, one pencil and one piece of paper. Decide now who will collect the rule, and who comes for the pencil and paper. Quietly. Is everyone ready? Then we’ll begin now.”
They carried out the instructions well. She explained that they would be measuring the length of their shoes, and showed them how to make two marks on the paper, and measure in centimetres. Most of the children understood and started making marks. She moved among them, assisting the slower learners.
After twenty minutes she said, “Now we’ll see what results we have.”
Not all of the kids had fully understood, so there were a few strange answers causing hilarity among those who had done the thing properly. Aidan, who was Haley’s partner, reckoned the length of his shoe was eighty-four centimetres.
“I expect you used the wrong end of the rule,” Miss Medlicott said. “What about you, Haley? What was your measurement?”
Haley held up the paper. She seemed to be hiding behind it.
“No, I’m asking you to tell me the length of your shoe in centimetres.”
Haley turned and whispered something to Aidan.
Aidan said, “She says fifteen, miss.”
“Thank you, Aidan, but I’d like to hear it from Haley.”
Again Haley whispered to Aidan, who said, “She can’t, miss. Her daddy said she isn’t to speak to you.”
After a moment, Miss Medlicott said, “Very well. Who’s next?”
She thought about asking Haley to remain behind to explain exactly what her father had said, but she decided the child was under enough pressure already. Something very wrong was happening in that family. She would have another word with the mother.
Diamond didn’t mention to Hen Mallin that he intended visiting Wightview Sands beach before returning to Bath. She might have taken it as interference. He was going there, he persuaded himself, purely from altruism. To contribute as fully as possible to Hen’s investigation, he needed to visualise the scene.
He didn’t inform Dr Seton either, until they were most of the way down the road to Wightview Sands and Seton remarked, “I don’t remember coming this way.”
“We didn’t. I thought you’d like to see where your colleague was found.”
“Not particularly.”
“Well, I do, and as I’m driving…” His stock of altruism was all used up.
This being towards the end of the afternoon, the oncoming lane was busy with cars leaving the beach, but the southward side was clear. At the car park entrance, they were asked for a pound.
“We’re not here for the beach,” Diamond told the attendant. “I’m a police officer, here about the murder.” He held his warrant card up to the cubicle.
“Bath and North-East Somerset?” the man said. “I thought this was a Sussex investigation.” He had the look of a petty official, tight, thin mouth and ferrety eyes. Dark hair flattened to his skull.
Diamond gave him the benefit of the doubt. “You’re perfectly right. I have a kind of watching brief. You can help us, in fact. Where’s the lifeguard hut?”
“Park near the beach cafe and you’ll see it,” he said. “Are they under suspicion, those lifeguards? They’re Aussies, you know.”
“That’s the bit of beach where the body was found, I was told.”
“So was I,” the man said. “I was stuck in here issuing tickets, so I missed all the excitement.”
“You must have let the police cars through.”
“I meant I missed what was happening on the beach.”
“Do you happen to remember the woman who was killed?”
“Out of a thousand or more who came past me? I’m afraid not, my friend. No doubt I met the murderer as well, but don’t ask me to pick him out.”
They drove through and parked where he’d told them. “Want an ice cream?” he asked Dr Seton, as they were passing the serving hatch of the beach cafe.
“I haven’t had such a thing for years,” Seton said
“Give in to it, then. It’s allowed. Wicked, but not illegal,” he said, having his own private joke. “If you don’t want an old-fashioned ice cream there are plenty of things on sticks. Take a look at the diagram and pick one out.”
“I don’t know, I’m sure.”
“Go for it, man. You look like a Classic Magnum fancier to me.”
“All right.”
When Diamond had paid for two Magnums and handed one over, he said, “Looking at that board with all the different shapes and colours, I was thinking they’d make a nice research project for someone.”
Seton gave him a frown and said nothing.
They moved across the turf and sat on the stone wall above the pebbles. The tide was some way out, so Diamond was able to point to where the sand met the stones. “That’s approximately where she was found, I gather, in a white two-piece swimsuit. Don’t suppose you ever saw her in a swimsuit, Dr Seton.”
“Certainly not.”
Diamond was the first to finish his Magnum. He said he’d go and have a word with the lifeguards.
