He frowned. ‘This isn’t helpful, Inge. You’re telling me the gun hasn’t been used before in any recorded crime.’
‘I’m just reporting what they told me.’
‘So what are we to make of it? Either the killer isn’t a professional gunman or he is — because he’s smart enough to arm himself with a new weapon.’
‘That’s devious thinking. You’re ahead of me.’
‘Doesn’t help us, though.’
‘I wonder if we’re dealing with an amateur,’ she said.
‘Who keeps a revolver in his sock drawer? This isn’t America.’
‘It happens. There are guns in private hands. A one-off shooting by someone driven to desperation.’
‘By drugs, you mean?’
‘Possibly. Or some personal issue.’
‘People with personal issues mostly make a poor job of murder and it’s often spur-of-the-moment. There was definitely premeditation here. The killer chose the time and the place. The gunfire was masked by the fireworks and everyone except him was staring up at the sky.’
‘He wasn’t all that accurate.’
‘Two hits out of five? That isn’t bad. Anyone who has used a handgun knows it’s a crude weapon compared to a rifle. Didn’t we learn anything else from ballistics?’
‘That’s it in a nutshell. We’ll get some detail later.’
Ingeborg never showed much in her expression, but he thought he saw some disbelief.
‘I heard what you said, Inge, about an amateur. They aren’t all hotheads, I have to say. I may be influenced by the drug element. Perry was pretty successful at what he did and that can lead to all sorts of jealousies by less talented people. Let’s keep an open mind about motives. We don’t know enough about his contacts yet.’
‘Are you going to make a call on his supplier?’
‘Newburn? He’s next.’
21
For all Diamond knew, Upmarket may have been in business as an art gallery for months, if not years. He wouldn’t have noticed. His idea of art was the framed film posters from the 1940s that adorned the hallway and stairs of his house in Weston. Build My Gallows High, with Robert Mitchum, old sleepy-eyes, cigarette drooping from his lips; Casablanca, showing Bergman and Bogart cheek to cheek; and a favourite that never failed to raise a smile, Payment on Demand, with a vengeful Bette Davis in a red strapless gown standing over a kissing couple and the plot summary, ‘The one sin no woman ever forgives. He strayed and he paid! She saw to that!’
Images as obvious as his treasured posters would not be offered for sale at any gallery in Bath. Typically an overpriced item that was more eyesore than art (in Diamond’s estimation) would be displayed in the window against a black background that blocked the view of the gallery interior.
The current offering in Upmarket — when he got there — was a large carriage clock without hands or numbers. The face was a human face with a large Salvador Dali moustache that might have been meant to stand in for the hands of the clock. But then a peculiar thing happened. Diamond moved his head a fraction and was surprised to see the moustache jerk to a new position. Instead of 9:15, it showed 10:20. He moved again and it was 11:25 and he realised he was looking at some kind of hologram. Novel, but grotesque. He wouldn’t have given it house room if it was offered as a gift. He turned his back on it. Of much more interest was the fourth-floor window of the building across the street, the obvious place for a police CCTV camera to have been secreted to film everyone who entered Upmarket. He could imagine Don Tate going through the footage later and saying, ‘I knew that Sassenach fucker would compromise our investigation.’
Before going in, the Sassenach fucker glanced up at that window and touched the brim of his trilby.
The interior of the gallery was narrow but extended further back than he appreciated from the street. He pretended to take an interest in the works on display, all evidently created by the same hand. A theme was apparent. More hologram faces stared out at him from household objects: a birdcage, a fan heater, a saucepan and a food processor. They opened and closed their eyes, grinned and scowled. Personally he found them creepy. They might appeal to someone’s sense of humour, he supposed. Not his.
At the far end he caught sight of a living face, a young woman at a desk behind a computer, so he touched the hat again and said, ‘Just taking a look, if I may.’
‘Please do,’ she said in a voice that would have got her the best table in the Pump Room. ‘Are you interested in surrealism?’
‘Not specially.’
‘Don’t hesitate to ask if anything interests you.’
Ask the price was what she meant, because nothing was tagged.
‘I was hoping to see Mr. Newburn,’ he said.
For this he was rewarded with a sigh, a knowing look and the abandonment of all charm. She reached for a phone. ‘Who shall I say is calling?’
‘Peter.’ Buyers of cocaine — and at the beginning he meant to pass himself off as one — wouldn’t give much away, least of all their surnames.
She spoke something into the phone that wasn’t meant for Diamond’s ears and then looked up. ‘He’ll be down shortly.’
‘Good.’
If it hadn’t been so transparent that the head of CID wasn’t a man of culture, he might have asked politely who the featured artist was. Equally, if the gallery assistant had thought Diamond was a potential buyer he might have been offered a glass of wine.
Neither occurred.
Presently she got up and reached behind for her coat and Diamond guessed what was going on. Newburn’s arrival would be the cue for his assistant to leave the shop for a time. The drug dealing was conducted in private.
Now he’d made clear he wasn’t there for the art, Diamond stood by the window looking out at the traffic until a voice behind him said, ‘Have we met?’
He turned and faced five-foot-nothing of cultivated innocence in a pink velvet jacket, striped shirt and lavender-coloured trousers. Tinted blond hair fluffed to candyfloss consistency over a boyish complexion. Small soft hands that had clearly never gripped anything rougher than an emery board. Tiny feet in crocodile-skin shoes.
Have we met? If we had, I’d remember you, matey, Diamond thought. ‘This is the first time.’ He didn’t offer his hand. He wasn’t taken in by the fragile appearance. Dealers in drugs were hard men.
The assistant glided past them both and left the gallery.
‘I believe I’m in the right place,’ Diamond added.
‘The right place for what?’
‘For the art.’
‘Art?’ Newburn said with raised eyebrows, as if he sold compost. ‘Oh, you mean the holograms.’
‘No.’
‘What, then?’
‘The origami.’
This was met with a frown.
‘The art of paper folding.’
‘Ho, ho, ho.’ The joke wasn’t appreciated.
‘If you know what I mean.’
Newburn plainly knew what he meant, and was not ready to trade. ‘Peter, you told my assistant. Peter who?’
‘Diamond.’ Nothing to be gained by keeping up this pretence, so he took out his warrant card. ‘CID.’
The gallery owner turned a shade pinker than his jacket. For a moment he looked as if he would take flight like a Michelangelo cherub. He glanced left and right and then ahead at the door, probably checking to see how many other burly policemen had come to arrest him. No doubt he’d mentally rehearsed this personal Armageddon many times over.
Diamond was the next to speak. ‘Making enquiries into the sudden death of Perry Morgan.’