The Last Detective (5 page)

'Splendid.' Diamond waited while the car stopped at traffic lights and said nothing else until it moved off again. 'Tonight, I'll arrange for you to stay at the Beaufort, unless you prefer another hotel.'

This time the professor swung round to face him. 'A hotel isn't necessary. I don't mind going home. I'd prefer it, really I would.'

Diamond shook his head. 'Your house is off limits tonight, sir.'

'Why?'

'I want it examined first thing tomorrow - with your permission. Until then, it's sealed. I'm putting a man on guard tonight.'

'What do you mean - "examined"?'

'The forensic team. Scenes-of-crime officers. Fingerprints and all that jazz. You know?'

'Scenes-of-crime?
You're not suggesting that Gerry was murdered under my own roof?'

'Professor, I'm not in the business of suggesting things,' said Diamond. 'I deal in facts. Fact number one: your wife is dead. Fact two: the last place she was seen alive was in your house. Where else am I going to start?'

After mentally wrestling with that piece of policeman's logic, Jackman said, 'I don't see what difference it makes if I spend one more night in the place considering that I've been there on and off ever since Gerry went missing.'

Diamond let it stand as a protest that didn't merit a response. Instead, he asked, 'When you came to report your wife's disappearance this evening, how did you travel?'

'I took the car.'

'So where is it now?'

'Still in the National Car Park beside the police station, I hope.'

'Have you got the keys?'

'Yes.'Jackman was frowning now.

'May I borrow them?'

'What on earth for? You're not impounding my car?'

A reassuring smile spread across Diamond's face. 'Impounding, no. It's just the boring old business of checking facts. We make a print of the tyres, that sort of thing. Then if we can find another set of tyre-prints - say in front of your house - we can eliminate your own vehicle from our inquiries.' He was pleased with that answer. It sounded eminently reasonable, and he hadn't given an inkling of his real purpose, to examine the boot of the car for traces of the corpse. When he had been handed the keys he asked casually, 'Are you planning to be at the university tomorrow?'

'If my house is being searched, I'm going to be there to see what goes on,'Jackman stated firmly.

THE SEARCH OF PROFESSOR JACKMAN'S house was not, after all, begun 'first thing' the next day. The first thing, the first in Peter Diamond's day, was the bleep of the phone beside his bed at 6.30 a.m. A message from the Assistant Chief Constable, no less, relayed by the duty inspector at police headquarters. Diamond was instructed to report to headquarters at 8.30.

He was willing to bet it wasn't for a chief constable's commendation. This, he sensed, was trouble.

He flopped back on the pillow and groaned. Whatever the reason for this sudden summons, it couldn't have come on a more inconvenient morning. The complications! He had somehow to unscramble his arrangements of the previous evening. Vanloads of detectives, uniformed men and forensic scientists were due to converge on Jackman's house at 8.30 - precisely the time of the appointment in Bristol.

Sitting up again, he removed the phone-set from the bedside table and planted it on the duvet between his legs. His wife Stephanie, resigned to their bedroom taking on the function of a police station, wordlessly dragged on a dressing gown and went downstairs to put on the kettle. Diamond picked up the receiver and made the first of several calls, rescheduling the search for 11 a.m. He was unwilling to let anyone go into the house without him. In theory the responsibility could have been delegated to John Wigfull - a theory Diamond preferred to ignore. But he did ask Wigfull to visit Professor Jackman at the hotel and explain the change in arrangements.

On the drive to Bristol, he tried to fathom the thinking at police headquarters. He concluded sourly that Jackman must have got busy on the phone in his hotel room the previous evening. When trouble loomed, people of Jack-man's elevated status didn't go underground like petty crooks. They rose above it by rallying support from the old boy network.

This morning Mr Tott, the Assistant Chief Constable, was sitting behind his desk in white shirt and pink braces, a spectacle so unlikely as to cause any officer of lesser rank to hesitate in the doorway. But he greeted Diamond matily, using his Christian name, waving him towards the black leather settee under the window. As if utterly to remove all apprehension that a reprimand was in prospect, the Assistant Chief Constable got up, went to the door and asked for coffee and biscuits to be sent in. Then he perched himself on the arm at the far end of the settee with arms folded, looking - with his parted hair, flat to the scalp, and Guards' officer moustache - as if he were posing for an Edwardian photograph.

All this forced informality had a dispiriting effect on Diamond. The last time anyone had treated him with such a show of consideration was on a tragic occasion, when a doctor had given him the news that his wife had miscarried.

'Sorry to have messed up your arrangements,' Mr Tott said, managing to sound completely sincere, 'but it was necessary to see you at the earliest opportunity. How's the murder inquiry going, by the way?'

That 'by the way' was another jolt, for it implied that a matter quite different to the Jackman case was up for discussion. Diamond mouthed the next few responses while making a rapid mental adjustment. 'We identified the woman last night, sir. Perhaps you heard.'

'A television actress - is that right?'

'Yes, sir. She was married to the Professor of English up at Claverton.'

Mr Tott grinned amiably. 'So I heard. Better brush up on your Shakespeare, Peter.' He paused, unfolded his arms and said, 'And I'd better come to the point. Over there on the desk is an advance copy of the report on the Missendale Inquiry.'

Diamond had read the signal right.

'I see.' The bland response was the best he could manage after striving to suppress his troubled feelings for so long. More than eight months had passed since he had appeared before the board of inquiry - and more than two years since Hedley Missendale had been released on the orders of the Home Secretary and recommended for a pardon. A false confession, a wrongful imprisonment. Sections of the press had drummed the story up into a hate campaign against 'rogue policemen', with accusations of racism and brutality. A campaign targeted on Chief Superintendent Blaize and Diamond. Jacob Blaize had been hounded into ill-health and early retirement, which the press had maliciously and without justification written up as confirmation of their smears.

'I thought you should cast an eye over it as soon as possible,' Mr Tott said. 'You'll be relieved to know that none of the wilder accusations was shown to have any foundation.'

Diamond looked towards the desk. 'May I...?'

'May 'Go ahead. That's why you're here.'

Numbly, he got up, crossed the room and picked up the report.

'The main findings are towards the end, of course,' said Mr Tott. 'You'll find the paragraphs from Page 87 onwards are of personal interest. Take your time.'

Diamond flicked through and found the summary of the findings. His name sprang out of the text. He scanned the page swiftly, getting the gist of the comments.
'We
found no evidence of racial bias on the part of Detective Chief
Inspector Diamond
. . .
This officer acquitted himself impressively
under intensive questioning . . . As to Missendale's statement,
there was nothing in it that conflicted with the evidence
.. .
It was
reasonable for Chief Inspector Diamond to deduce, as the court
did, that Missendale's statement was supported by the facts.'

He turned the page, feeling curiously unmoved rather than vindicated after the months of abuse from the media. Then his eyes fixed on a sentence.

'Christ Almighty!'

Mr Tott had returned to his chair. 'What's wrong?'

'
"We are bound to state that Chief Inspector Diamond's
physical presence and forceful demeanour must have appeared
intimidating to Missendale,"
' Diamond read out. 'That's out of order. I'm built that way. I can't help the way I'm made.'

'Yes, it's unfair,' Mr Tott agreed in a tone that attached no importance to the matter.

But Diamond wasn't willing to let it pass. 'Sir, there was no intimidation used to obtain the confession. The judge established at the trial that there was no oppression.'

'Of course, but the inquiry team was charged to re-examine everything.'

Diamond's eyes were already moving on. 'I just don't believe this!
"We view with concern the fact that hair samples
from the woollen hat snatched from the assailant in the struggle
were not compared with hairs from Mr Missendale."
'

'What's the problem?' Mr Tott asked.

'We sent the hat to the lab.'

'But you didn't follow it up, if I understand this correctly. You didn't take hair samples from Missendale.'

'Sir, the man confessed.'

'It would still have been sensible to do so.'

Diamond stared at him in amazement. 'To what end, exactly?'

'As a comparison.'

'This was 1985, sir. Before genetic fingerprinting came in. Even if we had followed up, forensic couldn't have told us whether the hairs in the hat were Missendale's, or Sammy Davis Junior's. This report implies that if the samples had been compared, Missendale's innocence would have been established, but it simply isn't true.'

'The report doesn't go so far as to say that.'

'
"We view with concern" .
..? It's suggesting somebody was at fault.'

Mr Tott said firmly, 'The point is that it should have been done routinely. Nobody is accusing you of withholding evidence.'

'They're accusing Jacob Blaize and me of fitting him up.'

'Oh, don't be so melodramatic, man! If that were the case, you'd be out of a job. Your integrity isn't in question.'

Diamond knew that he should have shut up at this point. He still felt aggrieved. 'I told them at the inquiry what must have happened and they seem to have disregarded it. Missendale
was
fitted up, but not by me. He was a petty thief with a record, not much good at it. He had a low IQ. There were bigger operators in the background, too smart to be caught. It's obvious with hindsight that Missendale was their fall-guy. They wanted the other character, the guy who actually gunned down the sergeant-major, to keep pulling the jobs, so they made it clear to Missendale that if he didn't fake a confession, they'd wipe him out. He was safer in the nick. He had no future on the outside.'

Mr Tott nodded. 'I'll take your word for it. Organized crime is behind so much of our casework these days. But this sort of theorizing falls outside the scope of the inquiry. They were looking at the particular circumstances in which the miscarriage of justice was perpetrated.'

Diamond heard himself saying, 'I'm far from satisfied.'

'In a report that runs to over a hundred pages, it would be surprising if anyone was satisfied with all that it contains. I think you'll find that this lays the whole wretched business to rest. The media won't be interested in the points that seem to be exercising you.'

'But I don't believe it wipes the slate clean.'

'I think I hear the chink of cups,' said Mr Tott.

Diamond waited while the coffee was poured in genteel fashion from a chrome and glass container. When they were alone again, he said, I'd like to ask what effect this will have on my career with Avon and Somerset, sir.'

'None at all,' said Mr Tott, and the voice was metallic in its positiveness. 'What happened four years ago in London is history.'

'Plenty of mud has been slung my way since then.'

'Yes, and none of it has stuck.'

'But you won't deny that you clipped my wings?'

Mr Tott stirred his coffee and said nothing. It was transparently obvious that this was a reference to the replacement of Billy Murray by John Wigfull, the headquarters man.

'I'm not beefing about that. From your point of view it was a reasonable precaution after the Missendale thing blew up,' Diamond conceded. 'But I had a right to expect that this report would vindicate me, and I don't believe it has, not completely.'

'If it makes you just a little more punctilious about procedures, it won't be entirely wasted, Peter. You must admit that you can be rather resistant to technology. The scientific developments of the past few years are mind-boggling, I grant you, but it behoves us all to make an effort to work with them.'

'Up to a point, sir. There's still a lot that native intelligence can achieve. There's a danger in surrendering to technology.'

'Come now. I'm not suggesting any such thing. It's a question of balance, of proportion.'

Diamond closed the report and planted it on Mr Tott's desk. 'So what will happen next time some petty crook objects to the way I question him?'

'I would treat any complaint on its merits,' said Mr Tott, showing in his tone that indulgence can only go so far.

'And I would take exception to any suggestion that I might show prejudice. I see no mud sticking to you, and I hope I don't see a chip on your shoulder, either. Is there anything else you wanted to say to me?'

'In which regard, sir?'

'About your present investigation.'

'No, sir. Nothing else.' In the stress of the moment he had already said more than was politic.

'I appreciate that,' said Mr Tott. 'Wigfull's transfer to your squad was at my insistence. He is not - I stress this -he is not there as some kind of informer. I keep tabs on all my officers without assistance from the likes of John Wigfull. Is that understood?'

'Understood, sir.'

'And accepted?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Then I'll tell you about Wigfull.' Looking down at his cup, Mr Tott traced a finger slowly around its rim. 'Knowing as I did that this report was imminent, but not knowing its findings, I had to face the possibility - the worst conceivable scenario - that you might have to be removed at short notice from the murder squad. I wanted a man capable of taking over, and without going into personalities, there was no one in your team I could confidently turn to. Wigfull was my choice. He hasn't, of course, been told the reason, but as a good detective, he may have worked it out for himself. I appreciate that his temperament and yours are not in tune. You, too, are a good detective. You are also a big man, as the report unjustly emphasizes. Be big in the best sense, big enough to get the best out of Wigfull.'

Shordy after 11 a.m., the convoy of cars and police vans streamed into the drive of Jackman's house some distance up one of the secluded roads off Bathwick Hill. The leading car was Diamond's BMW. Beside him sat Jackman. John Wigfull followed in his Toyota with two detective sergeants and a constable. The other vehicles brought a scenes-of-crime officer from headquarters, two forensic scientists arid a team of uniformed officers in support.

Jackman's blue Volvo was at this moment undergoing forensic examination at Manvers Street. Diamond had commented when handing over the keys to the forensic lads, 'Don't disappoint me, will you? They always believe they've removed every trace.'

Brydon House looked suitable for a professor to inhabit, not quite within walking distance of the university, but convenient for it, as the estate agents had no doubt claimed when the Jackmans first took an interest in the property. It was an ivy-clad, four-square structure with a pillared porch and a first-floor balcony. Probably not much over a century old, it was set in spacious grounds behind a low drystone wall. Plots tended to be generous in size on the outskirts of the city and the houses were distinctive in design. The area was too far out from the centre of Bath for the planners to have insisted on uniformity, and quite modern buildings in garish reconstituted stone stood alongside mellowed Georgian and Victorian villas.

Diamond invited Jackman to open the door. Then he gripped the professor's arm, preventing him from entering. 'No, sir, you and I won't step inside just yet.'

Disbelief and bewilderment were combined in Jack-man's look as two men in white overalls stepped forward, sat in the porch, removed their shoes and replaced them with socks made of polythene.

'If you don't mind,' Diamond said in his ear, 'we'll leave the spacemen to their work. How would you like to show me your garden?'