minor problems. Annoying, but not high priority for us. Would you know anything about it?”
“No.”
“Pity. Your advice would be taken seriously. You’re well-placed to see what goes on.”
“I’m too busy issuing tickets,” he said, finding something to say in his defence.
“All day long?”
“While I’m there.”
“How long is that? A couple of hours at a time?”
“Longer,” Garth said. “Four, five hours.”
“That’s a long stint.”
“I do mine back to back for preference.”
“Then what do you do? Rush to the loo, I should think.”
He didn’t smile. “If I want to go during my duty hours, there are people I can ask.”
“OK,” Hen said. “So you knock off after four or five hours. Is that your working day over?”
“Could be, unless I’ve promised to do another turn later.”
“Coming back to my question, how do you spend your time off?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I might get something to eat. If it’s nice, I could go on the beach.”
“And match up the drivers to the cars you fancy?”
“No.”
It was said a shade too fast. Hen paused, letting him squirm mentally. She was playing a tactical game here. Nothing had been said about the murder. The aim was to manoeuvre him first into admitting the joyriding episodes.
“You know a lot about cars. That’s obvious. You must be an expert, Garth. A connoisseur.”
He didn’t respond.
“You could probably tell me the makes of cars that were taken for joyrides in recent weeks. An MG. A Lancia. A Porsche.”
“No,” he said. “You’re wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“There was never a Porsche. That’s wrong.”
“I believe you. You’d remember, I’m sure of that. It must have been something else in the sports car line. But you confirm the MG and the Lancia, do you?”
“I didn’t say I took them.”
“Borrowed them, Garth. Joyriding is only borrowing really, isn’t it? What do you say, Stella? It’s hardly a crime if the cars aren’t damaged.”
Stella said, “Kids’ stuff.”
Hen said, “We issue an unofficial warning usually. It’s too much trouble to take them to court.”
Garth wiped some sweat from his forehead.
“We’re inclined to be lenient if they admit to the joyriding, and haven’t been caught before,” Hen continued. “Mind you, if they deny it, we don’t have much difficulty proving their guilt. They leave their fingerprints all over the cars, and those surfaces pick up the prints really well. Remind me, Stella, did we find prints in the MG?”
“And the Lancia,” Stella said, nodding.
“And the Porsche?”
“There wasn’t a Porsche,” Garth blurted out.
“I keep forgetting,” Hen said. “You should know. You’re better placed to know than anyone else, aren’t you? Did you go for a spin in the MG, Garth?”
“No.”
“The Lancia?”
He shook his head.
“So you’re in the clear. You won’t mind letting us take your fingerprints down at the nick just to remove all suspicion?”
She watched his hands clench, as if to press the telltale ridges out of shape. He was hopelessly trapped. He said the only thing he could, knowing in his heart that it was hopeless.
“What if I said I took those cars for a ride?”
“Admitted it?”
“Yes.” His face had gone white.
“Admitted you were the joyrider?”
“Yes. Would you let me off with a warning, like you said? I wouldn’t do it again, ever.”
Hen said, “Let’s get this clear, then. You’ve been taking cars from the car park without the owners’ consent and driving them just for the pleasure of being at the wheel?”
“That’s it,” Garth said, nodding vigorously. “Just the pleasure. I wasn’t stealing them.”
“But you stole the keys first. Tell us about that.”
“Borrowed them.”
“Borrowed them, then. How, exactly?”
He was forced to explain. “I remembered who the owners were.”
“So what’s the system? You chat to them from your kiosk, just to get a good look at them?”
“Usually, yes.”
“Go on, then.”
“When I go off duty, I go looking to see where the car I fancy is parked. Then I make a search for the owner. They nearly always pick a place on the beach near the car. I observe them. I might watch from the sea wall, or go down on the beach myself. I wait for them to go for a swim. Then I choose my moment to pick up a bag or some clothes with the keys.”
“What about the people around? Don’t they say anything?”
He shook his head. “Not if you do it with confidence. I know what I want and I go directly to it. The stuff goes into a beachbag and then I’m away and straight to the car. I find the key and drive off.”
Stella said, “What about when you go past the barrier to get out? Aren’t you afraid of one of the other attendants spotting you in a smart car?”
“They’re facing the other way, checking the incoming cars.”
“You’ve got it all worked out,” Hen said. “You’re a smooth operator.”
“I’ll stop now,” he said, desperate to draw a line under this. “I knew it was wrong. It was getting to be a habit. I’m sorry. It was stupid of me.”
“I wouldn’t mind if that’s all it was,” Hen said. “Unfortunately, Garth, we all know it’s far more serious than you make out. The last time it happened, things went wrong, didn’t they? There was a struggle for the bag containing the key. You killed the woman.”
“No,” he said vehemently. “No, no-I didn’t do that!”
“This joyriding was more than a habit. It was a compulsion. You had to get that key from her, and she didn’t leave her bag unattended for one second. So you snatched it.”
“That isn’t true.”
“And she wasn’t asleep, as you thought. She was awake, and she tried to hang onto her bag, which was very unwise of her, because you panicked, thinking she would scream and make a scene, and you killed her.”
“No,” he said, his eyes stretched wide.
“OK,” Hen said calmly. “We’ve got the fingerprints on the car-the dark green Lotus Esprit-and we’ll check them against yours. You’re under arrest, Garth. We’re taking you for fingerprinting now.”
He gave a sob and sank his face into his hands. Any uncertainty was resolved in that moment.
25
Diamond finally got to bed at ten-fifteen that morning, later than he wished, and with a Band-Aid on his right hand. He’d had to get out the ladder to collect Sultan from one of the high branches of the hawthorn in the front
