The way the interior was furnished didn’t tell them much. Two fabric-covered armchairs and a sofa. A foxhunting print over a stone fireplace. A few nondescript vases. No dust, but the place still had an unused look, suggesting the Spearmans observed the outmoded British tradition that front rooms are kept for formal occasions.
Uneasy seconds passed.
Diamond looked at his watch. His thoughts were divided. He was mystified and deeply worried about Paloma being at the party.
Halliwell became suspicious that they’d been duped. ‘He hasn’t done a bunk, has he?’
‘Unlikely,’ Diamond said. ‘He needn’t have come to meet us.’
There was a movement at the door. It wasn’t Spearman. The child walked in, hands in pockets, and his wide blue eyes assessed them.
This might be an opportunity. Diamond said, ‘Hi, Superman.’
‘Hi.’
‘What’s your real name?’
After hesitation: ‘Rufus.’
‘Good name. I like it.’
‘My dad says you’re policemen.’
‘We are.’
‘You’re not dressed like policemen.’
‘We’re plainclothes policemen.’
‘Like on the telly?’
‘Just like that.’
‘Why have you come to our house?’
‘To see your dad.’
‘Did he kill someone?’
Straight to it. Small kids don’t mince their words.
Diamond couldn’t allow himself to be so direct. ‘I haven’t heard that he did. What makes you say that?’
‘It’s what policemen do, catch people who do killing.’
‘You think so?’
‘Seen it on the telly.’
‘You don’t want to believe everything you see on the telly, Rufus. It’s mostly stories, made-up stuff.’
‘I saw a dead man. He wasn’t a story. He was real.’
‘Where was this?’ Diamond asked in the same even tone, trying to conceal his rocketing interest.
‘Through the window in the fence. My dad held me up so I could see.’
‘See a dead man?’
‘No, silly. See the houses being knocked down.’ He removed his right hand from his pocket, raised it high and swung it down so hard that he took a step forward. ‘Crrrrrrrash!’
‘Got you.’ Diamond was on to it.
‘The big ball crashed into the roof and made a hole. It’s called a reh... reh...’
‘Wrecking ball?’
‘Yes, and there was dust and I saw the dead man in a chair.’
‘You were actually there watching?’
‘I knew he was dead because he was a skeleton.’ The word came out as ‘skelington’ but there was no doubt what the boy meant. ‘It was dressed in funny clothes. When my dad saw it, he said we’d got to go.’
‘Good thing, too.’
‘I wasn’t scared.’
‘I believe you, Rufus.’
The boards in the hallway creaked.
‘That sounds like your dad now.’
Spearman came in, saw the boy and saw red. ‘What the hell...? Get out of here, Rufus. Go to your mother.’
Rufus didn’t stop to argue.
The full force of the father’s anger was turned on Diamond. ‘Is that legal, questioning a kid? You have no right.’
‘He walked in and started chatting. As a matter of fact, Mr. Spearman, Rufus was asking the questions, not us. And why shouldn’t he, two strange men in his home? He got us to admit we were policemen and wanted to know why we were here. They get ideas from the TV about what detectives do. These days it’s part of growing up. But we’re here to talk to you, not your boy. Sit down and let’s make a start. We can’t keep you too long from the party.’
Diamond at his most urbane. He seemed to have persuaded Spearman that the issue wasn’t worth pursuing. Shaking his head, the chauffeur did as he was asked, taking the sofa and leaving them to shift the armchairs to face him.
‘Sir Edward told us you once had a high-powered job up at Widcombe Hall with Lord David Deganwy.’
The dark eyes glinted some kind of assent.
‘You were a younger man then, on the brink of a good career.’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Spearman said. ‘We all know what happened to me. I’d be a fool to think I paid my debt to society and the slate was wiped clean. It never is, as far as you lot are concerned.’
‘Do you want to tell us about it?’
‘Why bother, when you obviously know already?’
‘You’re wrong, as it happens,’ Diamond said. ‘We didn’t know you had a record until an hour or two ago, but we’re catching up.’ He turned to Halliwell. ‘Anything yet from the oracle?’
Halliwell had his phone out and was studying Leaman’s information from the newspaper files. ‘Assault on a security guard in the course of theft.’
‘A break-in?’ Diamond said with interest. ‘Where?’
‘It was never a break-in,’ Spearman said. ‘I had my own set of keys.’
Halliwell said, ‘Widcombe Hall.’
‘Where you worked?’ Diamond’s eyebrows peaked.
‘Where I used to work,’ Spearman corrected him.
‘I get it now. The estate was sold after Lord Deganwy died and the new owners didn’t change the locks and you didn’t hand over your keys. Naughty.’
‘I was going through a bad time.’
‘But you came into money. I’d call that a good time. I’ve seen the will. The old man left you ten grand.’
Spearman made a sound deep in his throat, a laugh like curdled milk going down a drain. ‘That’s what the damned prosecutor said in court. He didn’t tell them I was jobless and kicked out of my home.’
‘Your home?’
‘The converted coach house at Widcombe Hall. Okay, I could afford to rent in Twerton, but it was a rubbish place.’
‘Not the house where the skeleton was found?’
‘For Christ’s sake, no. Give me a break, will you? That’s South Twerton. I was the other side of the Lower Bristol Road. Moving from the Coach House at Widcombe Hall to that poky two-room flat was a shock.’
‘And you were unemployed?’
‘Estate steward jobs are few and far between. I tried. Oh yes, I tried looking for work, calling in favours from people I’d known. All they could offer was sympathy. I went to the job centre. Nothing. It wasn’t a downward spiral, it was a free fall.’
‘So you decided to make use of those keys?’
‘When I reached desperation point. I knew Widcombe Hall was going to be converted into a conference centre. The sale had gone through. You say you’ve seen the will. Everything except a few legacies went to the Electoral Reform Society, the entire estate and the contents worth millions. They wanted the money so they sold it straight away and when I thought about making my visit no one was living there, or so I believed, but the place was still stuffed with antiques. I reckoned if I let myself in and picked up some items of value nobody would notice.’
‘You didn’t know about the security man?’
‘Should have realised, but didn’t. I was naïve. I rented a van and drove in there bold as brass. I was shifting things into the van when the guy caught me red-handed. Came at me with a bloody great baton. In self-defence I hit him with a silver candlestick. Put him in hospital. Didn’t think he would already have phoned the police. Your lot stopped me before I drove out the gate.’
‘And you got three years? I’d say that was lenient.’
‘In Shepton Mallet clink? No, officer. That wasn’t lenient.’
Diamond didn’t argue. Shepton Mallet was the most depressing prison he’d visited. The oldest in Britain, dating from the seventeenth century, it had been closed in 1930 and then reopened during the war and brought into use again, finally decommissioned as recently as 2013. ‘Before we talk about your life since then, I’d like to hear about Lord Deganwy.’
‘David? We were on first-name terms. He didn’t stand on ceremony. He was a sweet man, a real gent, but I saw the change in him as the Alzheimer’s got a grip. It happened horribly fast. And he had no family to care for him. He brought in nurses. I didn’t see much of him in the last months. I was left to my own devices, managing the estate. It wasn’t huge, nothing like Longleat, or Prior Park, or even Widcombe Manor, but it was a full-time job. I didn’t have a lot of experience when he took me on, so I was grateful to him. Still am.’