“Nothing at all. She only mentioned him in passing, and I didn’t probe. I’d rather not know who slept with her before I did.”
Diamond asked, “How did she refer to him-as a boyfriend, or a long-term lover, or what?”
“I told you. She simply said, ‘I was in a relationship and it’s over now.’ ”
This wasn’t helping overmuch. Diamond said, “We know she dumped him. Do you think it’s possible he could have found out about you?”
“I don’t see how. I didn’t visit her in Bath.”
“We’re wondering if he followed her to Horsham and saw you together. Did you have a sense of anyone following you, or watching you?”
“No.”
“Was Emma relaxed?” Hen asked.
“I thought so. She seemed to be enjoying herself.” He spread his hands in a gesture of openness. “Listen, if there was anything I could think of to help you, I would. She was a sweet girl. I really enjoyed being with her. I can tell you, I freaked out when I heard what happened to her.”
This little tribute didn’t melt Peter Diamond’s heart. “But you didn’t come forward and say you spent the night with her. You didn’t even tell us when we met you at the hospital.”
“Because it was a red herring. You could have wasted time questioning me when you should have been after her killer.”
“You just hoped we’d make an early arrest and leave you out of it?”
No answer. Diamond had hit the mark.
He said, “Tell us about the morning of the day she was murdered. Did she talk about her plans?”
Barneston looked down at the ground, shifting a stone a short way with his well-polished right shoe. “She did her best to persuade me to spend the day with her at the beach. Said she knew I was working flat out on the Mariner enquiry, but I’d function better for a few hours away from it. Six days shalt thou labour, and all that. It was Sunday morning, of course.” He paused and sighed. “I was almost persuaded, too.”
“So what happened, exactly?”
He continued to poke at the stone with his toecap. “I gave her breakfast in bed and told her to take her time getting up. When I left around nine, she was about to take a shower.”
“You left her alone in your house?”
“Sure. I trusted her.”
“Did she say anything about going to the beach alone?”
“Oh, yes. It was a beautiful day. She was going, with or without me.”
“She must have driven there,” Diamond said.
“Yes, her sports car was on my drive. And that’s about all I can tell you.” He rubbed his hands together, ready to move on to other matters.
“There is something else,” Diamond said. “Would you mind telling us how you actually spent the rest of the day?”
Barneston frowned, glared and then gave a hollow laugh. “You’re not asking me to account for my time?”
“You’ve got it in one, Jimmy.”
“You know what you can do.”
“Not until this is sorted,” Diamond said with a look as unrelenting as his voice. “Did you go into work?”
Barneston hesitated for a long time, perhaps to show dissent. Diamond’s eyes, unblinking, had never left his. Finally, he submitted. “I went to the nick and worked on the case.”
“Until when?”
“I don’t know. Late morning, early afternoon. I had a canteen lunch. Do you want to know if it was roast beef and two veg?”
“And then?”
“A stroll around the park.”
“Alone?”
Barneston’s face reddened. “I don’t have to take these innuendoes. Who do you think you’re questioning here?”
“Alone, then,” Diamond said. “How about the rest of the afternoon, Jimmy?”
“Didn’t you hear me? I’ve had enough of this crap.”
Hen put in gently, “He’s doing his job, Jimmy. He’s got a duty to ask.”
Making every word sound like an infliction, Barneston said, “I returned to my office for about an hour and finished the job I was on. Then I went home and looked at the cricket on TV. I guess it was about two-thirty when I left the nick. No, I didn’t make any phone calls, and nobody knocked on my door, so if you want to fit me up it’s perfectly feasible that I could have driven to Wightview Sands inside an hour, found Emma and strangled her.”
Hen said, “Jimmy, calm down.”
He carried on in the same embittered flow: “Of course, you have the minor problem of the motive-establishing how we fell out after a night together-but I guess that’s not beyond your fertile imagination.”
“Probably not,” Diamond said evenly, “but there is another problem. How would you drive two cars away from the scene? Hers hasn’t been seen since the murder.”
Barneston was silent while he played this over in his mind. After a longish interval he saw the point. “So you’re not about to caution me?” It was an attempt to recoup, a feeble joke.
Diamond indulged him with a grin.
Above them, the helicopter crossed so low that they saw the trees bowing in the down-draught.
Hen said, “Do you think they’ve spotted something?”
After the tension of the past few minutes it was a relief to go back inside the house and check developments. But nothing
“How could he have conned his way in?” Diamond asked.
“God only knows,” Barneston said. “The guards have an entry code that even I don’t know. Anyone at the gate is under video surveillance from the control room upstairs.”
“Are you sure of the guards?”
“Special Branch is. One hundred per cent.”
“And the system is fully tested?”
“It’s the best they have. We only moved him here three days ago. And, yes, it was tested, every item of equipment. Infrared sensors in every room, lasers, cameras, the lot.”
“Fine-so long as they’re activated.”
“Well, yes, but you need to know the codes before you can tamper with anything.”
“Who knows the codes?”
“Only the guards-and if you want to know how many are involved in this operation, there are six men, all experienced, all armed with Glock 17s and Heckler and Koch machine guns. They rotate their duties, of course. And in addition there are four dog-handlers. At any one time, there are always two officers and a dog on the premises.”
“Did Matthew Porter approve of all this?” Hen asked.
“Sure. He was given more freedom than he had in the Streatham safe house. It’s considerably bigger, with an outdoor heated pool and a games room. He was OK.”
“I mean, potentially he’s the security risk, isn’t he, even though it’s all set up to protect him?”
“You mean if he wanted out? That could have been a risk in Streatham. Not here, I think.”
A personal radio gave off the sound of static and a voice came through clearly enough for everyone to hear. “Oscar Bravo to Control, reporting a sighting from the chopper. A four by four, possibly Range Rover, stationary in Caseys Lane, reference six-eight-five-eight-zero-three. Repeat six-eight-five-eight-zero-three. Shall we investigate? Over.”
“Await instructions. Over.”
“Caseys Lane. Where?” Barneston demanded, already poring over the map on the kitchen table.
Hen found it. “Less than a mile, I’d say.”
