She pondered that for a moment. “It’s bloody dangerous.”
“For Walpurgis, you mean? So what’s new? She’s under threat of death already.”
“But you’re right about one thing,” she conceded. “You’re forcing the Mariner’s hand. I’ve no idea how you’ll cope with this crazy bimbo, but the show definitely moves to Bath, leaving Jimmy Barneston here in Sussex looking at tyre marks.”
17
Bath was travel-brochure bright as Diamond drove in from Weston the next morning. Innocent, even. Who would be so coarse as to think about crime in surroundings such as these? You couldn’t imagine a mugger on the streets, let alone a serial killer. The tall trees in Queen Square were thick with gently stirring foliage at this time of year, softening the views across the green towards the corner house, number thirteen, where much of
“Back to reality,” he called across to Keith Halliwell when they both happened to park at the same time behind the ugliest building in Bath, the Manvers Street police station. “What’s been happening?”
“Progress, guv.”
They went through the code-operated door and started upstairs towards the incident room.
“Come on, then,” Diamond said after giving Halliwell ample time to say more.
“I think Ingeborg would like to tell you herself. She worked her little butt off yesterday.”
“Keep me in suspense, then.”
Most of the team were already in there clustered around John Leaman, who was telling a joke. At the sight of their burly superior, people sidled back to their desks.
“Did you want to give them the punchline, John?” Diamond offered.
“They can wait, guv.”
He looked to his right. “Well, Ingeborg?”
The new face in CID glanced up and batted the long lashes. “Hi, guv.”
Halliwell said quickly, “Don’t make a meal of it, Inge. I told him to expect something.”
“Oh.” She smiled. “Well, I finally nailed Ken.”
“Tell me more.”
“His name is Bellman-Kenneth Bellman. He works for an IT firm based in Batheaston.”
“A nightie firm? Our suspect? What are we talking here-black lace, see-through, baby doll or plain old winceyette?”
“IT,” Halliwell said through the laughter. “He’s in information technology.”
“Pity. Not much glamour in that. As what?”
“A consultant,” Ingeborg said.
“I’ve met a few of them in my time, borrowing your watch to tell you what the time is.”
Ingeborg smiled. “In the IT business it means anyone who isn’t actually employed by the company, but does a job for them. An outside expert.” She stopped and gave him a wary look. “You’re going to say a window-cleaner, aren’t you, guv? I know it.”
“OK, let’s call an amnesty,” he said. “How did you get onto him-through the credit card slips I suggested?”
“No. It turns out he paid cash. They had his name wrong in the reservations book. I spent ages trying to trace somebody with the name of Cableman. On the phone he must have told them K. Bellman.”
“Easy mistake.” He smiled. “I can overlook it. Cableman wouldn’t be a bad name for a computer nerd, now I think about it. What else do we know?”
“He works for a city firm called Knowhow & Fix. Lives in digs in a house on Bathwick Hill, about halfway up on the left-hand side.”
“Bit of a climb. Does he have wheels?”
“I expect so. I couldn’t tell you for sure.”
“But you know why I asked?”
“Yes, guv. The drive to Wightview Sands.”
He nodded. “So have you spoken to him?”
Halliwell said, “We thought you’d want first crack at him.”
“You thought right.” He showed an upturned thumb to Ingeborg. “Nice work.”
She asked, “Can I bring him in, guv?”-and couldn’t conceal her eagerness.
She’d led with her chin, never a wise tactic with Diamond, but he restrained himself and shook his head. “Not yet. I promised DCI Mallin, our colleague from Bognor, that I’d give her the chance to come in on this. More important than that, I want the SP on this guy before we see him. Keith, see what you can get without alerting him or his employers. Do it discreetly. I don’t want him to know we’re onto him.”
“Now, guv?”
“No time like the present.”
He called Hen and told her the news. She offered to come right away, so he explained about getting some background first, and she agreed it was right to do the job properly. Until this morning, Ken had been just a name, his only known achievement the bedding of Emma Tysoe.
“Probably tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll keep you posted.”
“I wish I could report some success at this end,” Hen went on to say. “I was hoping my lot would have found Mr Laver by now, but he’s vanished into thin air.”
“That figures. They called him Rocket, you know.”
“Who?”
“The tennis player.”
“Give over, Peter. And to make matters worse, Emerson has not been seen on the beach for a couple of days as well. I’ve got visions of chasing Aussies in camper vans all over Europe. Let’s hope your Ken puts his hand up to the murder and saves me the trouble.”
If only it were so simple, Diamond thought. After he’d put the phone down, he said to Ingeborg, “Do you know much about IT?”
“Not a lot, guv.”
“What did they say it stands for?”
“Information technology.”
“It was on the tip of my tongue. Supposed to be the answer to everything, isn’t it? Taking over our lives?”
She said, “Look around you, guv. We depend on it.”
Keeping his eyes resolutely off the hardware on every side, he said, “ I can’t agree with that. They’re tools, nothing more. We always had office machinery. Typewriters. Dictaphones.”
A voice behind him murmured, “The abacus.”
“Did you say something, John?”
“Adding machines, guv.”
“Right. Just because they’re all contained in one machine it doesn’t mean we’re slaves to it.”
“I said we depend on it,” Ingeborg stressed, returning him to the point she’d made. “If this lot crashed, we’d be in trouble.”
“You’re right about that,” he conceded, and added jovially, “We might have to ask the Cableman to fix it. I wouldn’t want his job. It must be tedious, staring at screens all day. Then they go home and watch TV.”
“Sometimes they don’t leave home,” she said. “They work from their own PC.”
“I’m not surprised Emma Tysoe found this fellow boring. What can he know about the real world, sitting in front of his screen? How does he make friends, meet women?”
“There are chatlines.”
“That’s not meeting them.”
