‘Found a place,’ he told them straight away.
‘In Bath?’ Cat said.
He nodded.
‘Big enough for all of us?’ Headmistress asked.
‘No problem. You get your own room.’
‘Cool.’
‘Thing is, it’s non-residential.’
Headmistress wasn’t sure if this was good news or bad.
But Cat understood. ‘So we can’t be done in the criminal courts.’
‘What is it — the Pump Room?’ Joke said. Just occasionally there was a clue as to how he came by his nickname.
Tank didn’t laugh. ‘Building work has been going on there since January,’ he said, ‘and they finish today. Total refit. Gas, electrics, running water, heating, all up and working. Toilets and a shower.’
‘A shower?’ Cat said in a squeak. ‘Is this heaven, or what?’
‘The planning permission is for a centre for oriental medicine.’
‘Acupuncture and stuff?’
‘Much more than that. But what they aim to do in there doesn’t concern us because the place hasn’t been stocked yet. The owner lives in Beijing.’
‘One of those Chinese millionaires?’ Headmistress said.
‘How did you find this pad?’ Joke asked.
‘By asking around. Bought a few drinks for the foreman and came to an arrangement. Five hundred to borrow a key for twenty minutes.’
‘Five hundred just to borrow a key?’ Cat said in horror. ‘Where are we getting that much from?’
He didn’t tell her. He said, ‘In the twenty minutes I went down to the key shop and got them to make me a spare.’
‘Is it really worth that much?’ Cat asked.
‘You’ll see tomorrow morning. We move in before dawn when all the neighbours are asleep. And the move has to be slick, slicker than rifle drill. Joke, you come ready with tools to change the lock on the front door, soon as we’re inside. Also a heavy-duty bolt.’
‘I’ve done this before.’
‘That’s why you got the job. Get to it straight away. I don’t want any of you lot roaming the house deciding which room to bag. We’ve all got responsibilities. Headmistress, you can write nicely, I hope. We need a notice this big we can pin on the door saying it’s a legal squat and we didn’t break nothing getting in. The wording is important. I’ll give it to you. Have the thing ready, enclosed in a rainproof see-through bag, right?’
Headmistress nodded and Tank turned to Cat.
‘You want to use the shower, so you can earn the right. First thing, find the meters and write the reading down. The suppliers are EDF and British Gas. As soon as they open and start taking calls, contact them and set up new accounts. We pay for what we use like anyone else, including water and sewerage. Wessex Water have installed a water meter as well. Don’t forget them.’
Cat, like the others, was impressed by the planning that had gone into this.
‘We’re going to be quick and quiet,’ Tank said, ‘but let’s not kid ourselves. The neighbours will know something’s going on. When they come knocking, as they will, we don’t open the door.’
‘We know this,’ Joke said. ‘We’re not daft. We talk through the letter box.’
‘Yeah, but be nice. No telling them to piss off.’
‘I thought it was non-residential,’ Cat said.
‘Our place will be, but the rest isn’t. The people either side will have lived there for years. We’re part of a large terraced block and they’ll very likely panic a bit when they know squatters have moved in next door. Your job — my job, his and hers — is to calm them down. We won’t be playing loud music, lighting fires, dealing in scrap metal, doing drugs, throwing all-night raves, any of that shit. We’re homeless people through no fault of our own, just wanting a roof over our heads and a quiet life.’
Tank had to be serious to make a speech as long as that.
‘Look at it this way,’ Cat said. ‘I don’t suppose the neighbours were too thrilled when they heard about the oriental medicine.’
‘Right.’
‘They ought to be glad to get us.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So where is this amazing gaff?’
‘The best address in Bath. The Royal Crescent.’
6
The meeting in Las Iguanas threw everyone off course. Estella was forced to plan a rewrite of her final chapters, and Diamond to examine the role of the fearsome Mrs. Hill. He didn’t mind. He was fascinated that in the twenty-first century a case done and dusted more than two hundred years ago was producing twists from hour to hour. There could be no arrests here, no questioning of witnesses, but someone had behaved improperly and quite possibly with criminal intent. The coroner would need to consider the facts before reaching a conclusion on the identity of the skeleton and where, when and how the death occurred.
Dr. Waghorn’s findings at the autopsy would be the next piece in the puzzle. All sorts of information can be gleaned from examining bones. Diamond was impatient to get it done, but there was a snag. Anthropologists won’t be hurried. Old bones aren’t like rotting flesh. They’ve waited a long time and can easily wait longer. Waghorn was a self-important cuss who’d delay things even more if you tried to hurry him along.
Instead of returning directly to the CID office after the Mexican meal, Diamond drove into Twerton for another look at the demolition site.
It had been levelled.
Any possibility of finding more clues was remote. The entire row of eighteenth-century terraced dwellings was gone. Hundreds of noisy gulls were wheeling over the rubble. The wrecking ball was already at work on some nearby nineteenth-century houses. ‘What are the plans for the site?’ he asked a foreman.
‘Supermarket.’
‘Haven’t we got enough?’
‘It’s progress, mate.’
‘Don’t know about that. I quite like old buildings.’
‘These were condemned.’
‘Who by?’
‘Housing inspector, isn’t it? Bath’s got enough old buildings already and better built than these. You should be wearing a hard hat. Do you have permission to be here?’
No point arguing with him.
Diamond returned to his car and drove off.
In the meeting room at Concorde House, young DC Gilbert had done a good job putting together the information board, except for one thing. Diamond stepped up and unpinned the press picture of himself eye to eye — more accurately eye to eye socket — with the skull. ‘We don’t need this.’
Gilbert had turned crimson. He was obviously as surprised as his boss.
‘Didn’t you put it there?’ Diamond said.
‘I’d rather not say, guv.’
‘Someone else did. There’s no loyalty any more.’ He tore the photo in half and stuffed the pieces into the nearest bin. ‘Is that Beau Nash top right?’
‘Yes. It’s the one everyone knows.’
‘Blue eyes with bags under them, double chin, cheeks like mangos. I don’t get the “Beau.” I don’t get it at all. Who’s the woman with the cleavage?’ He was already looking at another portrait, a dark-haired young woman in a ballgown. Unusually for the period she wasn’t wearing a wig.
‘Juliana Popjoy, his mistress.’
‘Papjoy.’
‘I thought—’
‘Never mind. We won’t go into that.’ He wouldn’t be filling the gaps in Gilbert’s sex education. ‘She’s one pin-up we won’t be needing. I’ll be telling you why when I speak to the team. The one I’d like up there is Mrs. Hill, if we can find a picture. I don’t even know her first name yet. She was his last companion — and if you feel sorry for any woman living with a lump of lard like Nash, don’t. Mrs. Hill was a toughie who knew what she was taking on.’ He stood for some seconds more inspecting the rest of the board: shots of the half-demolished house and the skeleton bizarrely seated in the loft space; a map of the Twerton area with the site marked with a red pushpin. None of it necessary, in truth, except to bolster the lad’s self-esteem. ‘It’s a fine effort.’