‘I was thinking if you were getting warm in your enquiries and the people behind this racket got to know, they would have wanted you suspended.’
‘But they’d need a line into our investigation and it hasn’t even reached the stage of being an investigation.’
He said nothing.
‘Peter, that’s appalling. Can’t I trust my own colleagues? Who would leak it? I work every day with my team. They’re solidly behind me.’
‘All of them? You said Montacute moans about you.’
‘Heat of the moment. We have a mutual disrespect. You know yourself CID isn’t a love-in. But if there isn’t loyalty, there’s nothing.’
‘Civilian staff?’
‘They’re OK. They don’t get involved in office politics.’
‘The only one I’ve met so far is Pat Gomez.’
‘Pat who?’
‘Gomez. She showed us upstairs and made the tea.’
‘I know who you mean. She’s only been in the job a couple of weeks. She knows nothing about my faux pas of three years ago.’
‘You were in consultation with other stations. Can you trust all of them?’
‘They’re senior detectives.’
‘So?’
A gasp came down the line. But there was amusement in her tone when she said, ‘Peter Diamond, you’re a rabid old cynic.’
‘Tell me about it. Will Montacute have taken over from you as convenor of this unofficial group?’
‘Nobody tells me anything. They seem to be under instructions to treat me as the enemy now.’
‘Has it occurred to you that the villains could have won and your missing persons project might be kicked into the long grass? You were the prime mover. Is anyone else as keen as you to push on with this?’
She didn’t seem to have an answer.
‘Every chief constable wants falling crime figures,’ he went on. ‘Meet our targets, let the public think they’re safer now than they ever were. You were threatening to spoil all that, uncovering lots of extra murders. Am I such a cynic?’
Hen gave a little murmur of impatience. ‘Listen, matey, I appreciate your interest in my missing persons crusade, but right now I’d prefer you to concentrate on the case in hand — my runaway niece.’
‘You want me to prove Joss had nothing to do with the body in that car?’
‘That would be the perfect outcome.’
‘I can’t promise anything, Hen.’
After the call ended, he thought about what had been said and it didn’t hang together. Hen preferred to think there was no connection between what she called her crusade and her suspension. But three years had gone by since she had chosen to ignore the DNA evidence that Joss was involved. She’d insisted she’d confided in nobody when Joss’s name came up. Why had her dereliction of duty been raised at this particular time if it didn’t have something to do with the stirring she was doing? She trusted her close colleagues in Chichester and couldn’t face the realisation that one of them had betrayed her.
Trust is the mother of deceit.
Georgina knocked on the door and said she was ready to go again.
‘Did you get some shut-eye?’
She glared. ‘I wasn’t sleeping. I was deciding what to do next.’
‘Did you reach a conclusion?’
‘I did. First, I want to get your impressions of DI Mallin.’
Difficult. This sounded like a trap. Georgina was no fool. She’d noticed him calling Hen by her first name. She could have used some of her siesta time to put a call through to headquarters and check whether their careers had overlapped. He didn’t want to be stood down. ‘My impressions? Mostly favourable,’ he said. ‘At least she admits she was in the wrong.’
‘She couldn’t do much else.’
‘She could have spun some story and fudged the issue. Pressure of work. Unfamiliarity with the Rigden case. She held her hand up and I can’t fault her for that. It simplifies our task.’
‘And...?’
‘Do you want me to go on analysing her motives?’
‘That’s what I asked.’
‘She’s obviously under strain. The outburst towards the end.’
‘More than an outburst. A personal attack,’ Georgina said. ‘I’m not used to being spoken to like that. I was temporarily lost for words.’
‘Yes, I hope you didn’t mind me taking over.’
‘You called her “Hen”. What was that about?’ She wouldn’t let it go.
This time he was ready with his explanation. ‘I heard it from you. Down by the canal yesterday, when you told me who we’re investigating, you spoke her full name — Henrietta. ’
‘Did I? It seems a long time ago.’
‘I once knew a Henrietta and called her Hen. The name sprang to my lips at the moment I needed to get this lady’s attention. It seemed to do the trick.’
She said without much gratitude, ‘Yes, you brought her to her senses. She made some sort of apology, I think. It’s all a blur now.’
The blur was good news. Georgina wasn’t often vague in her recollections. ‘If she’d spoken to me in that way,’ he said, ‘it wouldn’t have been just a blur. It would have been a red mist. You were gracious.’
‘Was I?’ she said in an interested tone, keen to hear more.
‘I was proud of you. Can’t recall exactly what you said, but I was grateful. Gave me the chance to move on and ask her some questions about the problems with the Rigden murder investigation.’
‘I do have a memory of that.’
Better get back to the script then, he thought. ‘And after that I asked about her missing niece.’
‘Yes, and the family background. The mother who died young and the domineering father.’
‘Brother Barry.’
‘He sounds unpleasant. Do you think DI Mallin is in awe of him?’
‘Hard to say.’ He couldn’t imagine Hen being in awe of anyone, but it wouldn’t have been wise to say so.
Georgina wasn’t the sort to be in awe either. ‘We’d better go to Midhurst and meet this ogre.’
Their police chauffeur took them over the South Downs along a winding route through farmland and forest. Georgina had spoken on the phone to Barry’s second wife, who had wanted to know if there was news of Joss and sounded genuinely distressed that there was none. She’d suggested they came at once. Barry would be there soon.
‘Was he at work, then?’ Diamond asked in the car.
‘She didn’t say. I’ve no idea what work he does.’
He looked out of the window. ‘Management, I should think, if he can afford to live here.’
Midhurst is an affluent market town with a rich history and a low crime rate. Diamond assumed this branch of the Mallin family had come up in the world, so it came as a surprise when the car pulled up at the edge of a field on the northern outskirts. There was a gate with a rutted approach that a tractor might have used.
‘Are we there?’
‘This is where the sat nav brought us,’ their driver told them.
‘Those things aren’t infallible.’
‘I can see something white through the hedge,’ Georgina said. ‘Take a look, Peter.’
He was wary. As a townie, he mistrusted fields. You never knew what they contained. Something white could be one of those enormous Charolais bulls. He thought about delegating the job to the driver who had brought them to this unlikely spot, but perhaps it wasn’t enough to make an issue about. He stepped out and looked over the gate.
The white was a static caravan alone in the field. Grey breeze blocks had been used to stabilise it. A wooden set of steps was in place in front of the door.
The Mallin residence?
He opened the gate and went over.
A woman answered his knock. About fifty, blonde, overweight, anxious-looking. ‘You’ll be from the police? Come right in.’
‘Hang on. I’ll fetch my boss.’