‘Wondering what?’
‘If I might knock off duty for the rest of the day. I’m still weary from last night.’
‘Okay, we’ll see you tomorrow. Going fishing, are you?’
Late in the afternoon came a call from John Leaman — a man who hadn’t been much on Diamond’s mind. A rapid recap was needed: Twerton, the demolished terrace and the six diggers.
‘John? How’s it going there?’
‘It wasn’t the best day I ever spent,’ Leaman said in an accusing tone.
‘I didn’t send you there to have a ball. Are you through yet?’
‘Just about. The weather slightly improved this afternoon.’
‘Yes, that rain early on was the worst I remember. I was out in it.’
The last remark wasn’t appreciated. ‘I don’t suppose you were ankle-deep in mud at the time.’
‘I told you to dress for the conditions. Didn’t you run for cover when it came down hard?’
‘Yes.’
From the clipped way the word was spoken it was obvious there was more to come, but Leaman felt entitled to a prompt, so Diamond provided it. ‘And?’
‘I ordered a halt when it got really impossible, but there was nowhere nearby to shelter except my car. The minibus that dropped them was on another job. They piled in somehow, all six of them, mud all over them and all over the inside of my car, the seats, the floor, even the windows.’
‘It’s known as a bonding experience.’
‘What?’
He didn’t push it any more. He knew how the messed-up car would play on the mind of an obsessive-compulsive.
‘Never mind, John. Take your motor to a garage that offers a valet service and charge it up to CID expenses. Did you find anything when you finally got back to the dig?’
‘We did. That’s the reason I called.’
‘So the day wasn’t a complete write-off?’
As a consolation for all the misery Leaman was about to have the last word. ‘I think you may be interested.’
‘Go on, then. I’m all ears.’
‘We found some bones.’
20
It occurred to Diamond as he was driving down to Twerton to see the bones that the timing wasn’t the best. Right now, a third corpse might shock Georgina into changing her mind. There was still a real danger of Charlie Crocker muscling in. There had to be a smart way to handle this.
What was that bit of twisted wisdom he had once heard?
When in charge, direct; when in trouble, delegate.
John Leaman had turned up a crucial bit of evidence, so why shouldn’t he be given the chance to follow it up? If Ingeborg’s hunch was right and it emerged that the remains were those of the wife or partner who had gone missing in the 1990s, then inevitably it wouldn’t be long before the male tenant known loosely as Harry came under suspicion of killing both the woman buried in the garden and the man found in the loft. The two enquiries would fuse as one.
Made sense.
Meanwhile, he would be in no hurry to tell Georgina about the find. The remains would need to be examined before anyone took them seriously.
At the site, Diamond drove over the rutted remains of the road and parked behind the Honda Civic hatchback owned by Leaman. How six men and a woman had squeezed into that small car to get out of the rain wasn’t nice to imagine.
Leaman was standing alone, arms folded, barely recognisable in mud-coated overalls and wellies. The king of spades, as Diamond now privately dubbed him, didn’t summon up as much as a nod. If he was jubilant at making the find, any joy was internalised.
‘You sent the others home, then?’
‘The minivan came for them. They had a hard day. We all did.’ He looked and sounded terribly down. Browned off in every sense.
‘Your car doesn’t look too mucky standing beside mine.’
‘You think so? It’s a disgrace. Want to see inside?’ Leaman’s striving for perfection was often helpful to the team, but made life difficult for himself.
‘I’ll take your word for it. Where are these bones?’
‘At the far end. You’re going to ruin your shoes.’
‘It’s why I’m here.’
Every part of the small garden seemed to have been turned over. Leaman led a snaking route around heaps of soil and deep trenches to the farthest end where yet another excavation had been started.
‘Not far down, then?’ Diamond said, looking in. ‘The typical shallow grave.’
Leaman took that as criticism. ‘It’s only shallow because I ordered a halt to the dig once we’d decided the first piece was definitely bone.’
‘I can’t see anything.’
‘What do you expect? It’s not the full skeleton.’ He crouched and pointed. ‘They’re quite small pieces, broken up by some of the heavy machinery that was here, no doubt.’ You would think from Leaman’s tone that the bulldozers had been sent in specially to spite him.
With difficulty, Diamond made out some greyish-brown scraps that could just as easily have been stones. ‘Is one of these the piece you examined?’
‘No.’
Leaman stood again, dipped a grimy hand into the pocket of his overalls and brought out a chunk of bulbous material almost the size of a golf ball, but emphatically bone, irregular on one side as if it had snapped off. ‘It’s the top of a femur where it joins the hip.’
‘May I?’
Diamond took the object in his hand, felt the weight, looked closely at the surface and turned it over.
He whistled.
‘Good find, John. And there’s obviously more.’
‘You can see pieces of the shaft. There ought to be other bones lower down. We only had spades and trowels to work with, which is why we stopped digging. We need finer tools and an expert now.’
‘I know exactly who to ask.’
‘Jim Middleton?’
‘No. Our bones man.’
‘Dr. Waghorn? I thought you didn’t get on with him.’
‘He’s a sarcastic old git and if this turns out to be animal bone he’ll give us hell, but I’m willing to risk it. You’ve opened a whole new line of enquiry.’
The ridges of resentment on Leaman’s mud-spattered face vanished like ripples in a puddle. He didn’t raise a smile, but he appeared less likely to offer his resignation. ‘What made you so sure there was someone buried here?’
‘I can’t take credit for that,’ Diamond said. ‘The possibility crossed my mind when I heard about a missing woman, but it was Ingeborg who convinced me we must dig. She won’t like me saying it was feminine intuition.’
‘Personally I don’t believe in that.’
‘Neither does she, but she has an uncanny way of pointing me in the right direction. Right now I’m interested in your abilities. How would you feel about taking on this side of the investigation?’
At first, Leaman was wary. He wasn’t going to be caught twice over. ‘I don’t want to spend any more time in this quagmire.’
‘John, I’m offering you the chance to head the enquiry.’
The voice changed. His entire manner underwent a transformation like a long-term convict at the moment he was told he’d been reprieved. ‘You want me in charge?’
‘You’ve got the experience.’
‘I know, but—’
‘No false modesty, John. You can handle this, right?’ He pressed the piece of bone back into Leaman’s palm like a badge of office.
The hours of misery were as nothing now. ‘Right. Where do I start?’
‘First, you go and see Claude Waghorn at the university and ask him to confirm that this bone is human. Then you bring in the scenes of crime team to search for more clues. They’re professionals. You don’t have to stand over them. You can safely leave them to dig for days on end while you get on with the detective work.’
‘What should I be doing?’