“He’ll be only too pleased to talk. His name is Bellerby and it’s the bungalow called Bellerby Lodge with the Union flag in the front garden.”
They were sharp, these two, but with any luck Bellerby would keep them busy for the rest of the day.
He left them to it.
Ingeborg was in the CID room when he returned there. He noticed she already had the hard disk plugged into the computer on her desk.
“Tell me the story so far.”
“You don’t want to know, guv,” she told him. “It’s all about trains-toy trains, real trains, old trains and when it isn’t trains, it’s tracks. There’s masses of stuff here.”
“Emails? I couldn’t find any when I first tried.”
“There aren’t any. He must have another computer for them. He uses this one for the Internet and storing documents he downloads or creates himself. It’s nicely organised, which I’d expect from an engineer, but I’ve found zilch of interest to us.”
“The discussion about murder methods?”
“Not here.”
He almost groaned in frustration. “It must be on his computer. He printed it out.”
“Direct from the website. He didn’t need to keep it on file.”
A painful silence followed while he plumbed the shallow depths of his computer know-how.
“Have you been through everything?”
“I’ve got the overview. I haven’t opened every file yet, if that’s what you’re asking, but I’ve seen plenty.”
“Is there a quick way you can make a search looking for key words?”
“Within a document, I can, and I’ve tried just in case he’s hidden stuff in a long piece about some class of locomotives. I put in Fortuny, for example.”
“And…?”
“No joy. I tried other words like the names of his friends. Up to now, it’s been a waste of time. I really had hopes that we’d nail him this way.”
“Me, too.”
“I’ll keep going unless you have other plans.”
He nodded, trying not to load his disappointment on to Ingeborg. “This one was never going to be simple.” He hesitated again before confiding a personal experience. “I was at the hospital yesterday. He’s lying there with eyes closed and no movement except what the ventilator is doing, but I got a kind of message-call it telepathy if you like-that he knows who I am and what I’m about and he’s well satisfied because he’s way ahead of me. Is that possible or is it my insecurity?”
“Funny you should say that,” she said. “I get something like that from working with the computer data. You can’t avoid thinking about the brain that set up the system. This is one very smart guy.”
“We need to raise our game, Inge.”
“But how?”
“We can find out more about how the Filiputs died. There’s the friend called Cyril who spoke at the funeral. He ought to be able to give us the inside story.”
“Do we know his surname?”
“Neither Dr. Mukherjee nor Mrs. Stratford could tell me, but he used to lecture at the same college in Salisbury that Filiput did. That’s how they knew each other. Someone there must remember him. Cyril-it’s unusual, isn’t it, a bit old-fashioned?”
She smiled. “You could be right. None of my friends are called Cyril.”
“You’d remember if you met one?”
“For sure.”
First he needed to find the college. He went off to make a search on his own computer. The first to arrive on his screen was Salisbury College of Funeral Sciences. He grinned and scrolled down the choices.
Up came Wiltshire College. Now that he saw the name he remembered passing it often on his way through the city to the A36, a massive white block several stories high with rows and rows of windows.
He found a phone number to call. Eventually he was put through to someone in the science department who had been on the staff long enough to remember. There was only one Cyril he could recall and he’d retired more than twenty years ago. Cyril Hardstaff. He’d lived in a cottage in Little Langford.
This had to be the man. Diamond remembered a signpost to the Langfords not far out of Salisbury on the A36.
He told Ingeborg.
“Are you going there yourself?” she asked with a glance at the car key already in his hand.
“It’s not far.” In this unsanctioned investigation he couldn’t ask Wiltshire police to check the address for him. Besides, he had a gut feeling it would go wrong if he didn’t make the trip himself. The gods had not been charitable lately.
“Do you want company?” she asked.
“You’re better employed on the computer.”
She rolled her eyes upwards. “Thanks.”
“We went to a lot of trouble to copy the disk. I’m not giving up.”
“You’re not giving up?”
He got out fast.
Driving away from Keynsham, he felt some sympathy for Ingeborg, but this, surely, was the best use of his small team. At some point he expected to elevate the enquiry into a full-scale murder investigation with the whole of CID actively involved, but until strong suspicion turned to certainty, it wasn’t on. Convincing Georgina and Headquarters was a challenge yet to be faced.
There was still a chance, wasn’t there, that Pellegrini was innocent?
The day was clear, the road not too cluttered with commercial traffic and the vast open spaces of the Wiltshire countryside were a joy to drive through. He passed Warminster inside fifty minutes and started looking for the Langfords. Great and Little, Upper and Lower, they liked subdividing villages in this county. It turned out, when he came to the sign he remembered and took the right turn, that there was a Steeple Langford leading to a junction that offered Hanging Langford and Little Langford. Good to avoid Hanging Langford, he told himself. The lane became more narrow and the signs of habitation fewer as he entered Cyril Hardstaff’s home territory. Little Langford was a place of scattered buildings, including a church of its own.
He reached a farmyard and stopped to ask for directions. The young lad he met listened carefully but said nothing. He simply pointed up the lane.
“Is it far?” Diamond asked, hoping for at least a word or two.
The boy shook his head and walked off.
About two hundred yards further on was a slate roof. Trees and bushes obscured the view. As he got closer he saw this stone cottage in a neglected, overgrown garden. A white van was outside and someone’s legs were visible below the open rear doors.
Diamond stopped and got out.
“Morning.”
A woman in her sixties stepped back and looked him up and down. Men in suits are not often seen in villages. She was wearing a tank-top and jeans. Her tanned arms were well muscled.
“I’m looking for a gentleman called Cyril Hardstaff, a retired lecturer. I was told he has a cottage here.”
She nodded as if to confirm it. “What’s it about?”
Nosy, he thought. Village life was like that. “I’m saving my news for him. Can you tell me where he lives?”
“I’m his niece Hilary,” she said.
“Well, that’s a bit of luck.” But he still didn’t plan to share anything with Hilary about Cyril’s links to a murder plot.
She seemed to be reading his thoughts. “Anything you want to know, you’ll have to ask me. I’m clearing out the place by stages. This old heap was where my uncle used to live.”
“Used to live?”
“He died six weeks ago.”
He played the words over, mentally reeling.
“I had no idea.” All the optimism built on the journey had just vanished like hot breath on a mirror. “You have my sympathy.”
She shrugged as if to show she was past needing sympathy. “He had a long life. He was over ninety.”
Diamond couldn’t be so philosophical. Another death. Another old person. It was too mind-blowing to take in properly.
“What did he die of?”
“Old age. He went peacefully.”
That word again.
“Here? At home?”
“In his sleep, the doctor said. Heart. He’d treated him for years.”