“We thought she could be. She seemed confident. But it all takes time. They don’t like to be rushed.”
Diamond didn’t need telling. The so-called scientists in the crime field seem to take a professional pride in delaying their results. Only the beleaguered policemen have any sense of urgency.
“So did she give you any opinion at all?”
“A few thoughts at the scene, though she stressed she didn’t like giving off-the-cuff opinions. What she said was pretty obvious, really. The killer was methodical, unemotional and self-confident to the point of arrogance. He, or she-because a woman could use a crossbow just as well as a man-had an agenda, and expected to carry it out.”
“What did she mean by that?”
“There’s more. I’ll tell you presently.”
Tiresome, but the promise was there, so Diamond didn’t press him. “You said the victim was in the grounds of his house. Was he alone?”
“Obviously not.”
“I mean was anyone there apart from the victim and the killer?”
“We know of no one else. It was a fine evening. He was sitting on a wooden seat watching the sunset. That’s the presumption, anyway. He liked to do this.”
“Literally a sitting target.”
“Yes. Plenty of bushes within range as well.”
“When was he found?”
“The next morning, about eight. He had a manservant who lived out.”
“Who came under suspicion, no doubt?”
“Briefly. But he’s in the clear. A good alibi. He was on a pub quiz team that night. They met early to drive to another village and spent the whole evening there.”
“His special subject didn’t happen to be archery?”
The Big White Chief wasn’t amused. “If you’ll allow me to continue, I’ll give you the salient facts. The police arrived at eight twenty the next morning, and everything was done correctly. Jimmy Barneston, a young Sussex detective who has handled several big investigations, took charge. He was unable to find any obvious motive. The victim was a film and TV director, a highly successful one with a number of big successes to his name. Well, I’ll stop talking about him in the abstract. It’s Axel Summers.”
Diamond was no film buff, but he knew the name and he could picture the face. Summers had been at the top of his profession for over twenty years. He was well known for appearances on radio and television, a witty, confident speaker with a fund of stories about the film world. He was much in demand for chat shows.
“And they decided not to go public on this?”
“Not yet. I’ll tell you why in a moment. Summers was in the middle of filming a major project for Channel Four, with a top American actor in the title role.”
“Which is…?”
“
“The poem?”
“Yes. You wouldn’t think a poem could be turned into a feature-length film, but, as you probably know, the
“Is that big budget?”
“By UK standards, yes. There’s a hefty financial input from industry. They get their corporate message on the credits and in the commercial breaks-that is, if the film isn’t blown out of the water by this tragedy. Quite a lot is in the can already. Summers had just been away for five weeks shooting the sea sequences off the coast of Spain.”
“Nice work if you can get it.”
“Rather exhausting, actually. He’d told his office he was taking a complete break before the next phase, leaving them to deal with enquiries. He didn’t want to be disturbed. Convenient for us, as it turned out. It wasn’t necessary to announce his death immediately. Only a small number of people know of it.”
“Why are you suppressing it?”
“Do you know your Coleridge?”
“Do I look as if I know my Coleridge?”
“Inside the house on Summers’ desk the murderer left a sheet of paper with five words on it: ‘he stoppeth one of three’.”
“‘It is an ancient Mariner, and he stoppeth one of three,’” Diamond chanted.
“So you do know it?”
“We did it at school. Heard it on disc. Ralph Richardson, I think. Some lines stay in the mind once you’ve heard them. I couldn’t have told you who wrote it.”
“This was cut from a book and pasted on an ordinary A4 sheet of copying paper. Below were three names, cut from newspapers. The first was Axel Summers.”
“And the others?”
“Are equally well known.”
“A death list?”
“We have to presume so.”
“You could take it that way,” Diamond said. “On the other hand, if you read the lines as Coleridge intended them you could take it to mean Summers was the chosen victim and the others won’t be troubled.” Not very likely, he thought as he was speaking.
A nod, and no other response.
Diamond waited. “So you’re not going to tell me who they are?”
He was given a less than friendly stare. “I’m telling you about Emma Tysoe’s part in all this. As a matter of urgency the team investigating the murder wanted to know if the others were under serious threat-in other words, was this a serial murderer at work?”
“What was her answer?”
“After much thought and a couple of visits to the scene, yes. She said the killer was a type unknown in this country. By naming a list of potential victims he-and she was in no doubt that this was a man-was challenging the police, an act of pure conceit.”
“Psychotic?”
“‘Emotionally disconnected’ was the phrase she used. He was treating this as a chess game. He had planned it cold-bloodedly, and with the advantage of surprise was already several moves ahead in the game. It was probable that he’d drawn up his list in a way that best suited his plan. So we might be mistaken if we looked for motives, personal grudges against the people. Quite possibly there was no motive in the sense that you or I would understand it. The motive was the challenge of the game.”
“Chilling.”
“Yes, it shows a complete absence of humanity, the mentality of a psychopath. My word. Psychologists are wary of using it. But what she said made sense.”
“Did she get so far as to produce a profile?”
“Apart from what I’ve just told you, no. She was still absorbing the data. Profilers like to take their time, and there was plenty to take in-the reports from the scene, the forensics, the autopsy, all the follow-up stuff.”
“The strange choice of weapon.”
“Certainly.”
“That must limit the field. What sort of people learn to use crossbows?”
“I told you. It’s not specially difficult. No doubt Dr Tysoe would have given us some guidance if she had lived.”
“Wasn’t the SIO-this man Barneston-getting her advice?”
“That isn’t the way she worked. She preferred to go away and make up her mind. When she was ready, she would come back with her recommendations. Barneston was running a full-scale murder investigation-still is-and she was on the fringe of it, really.”
