DS Diamond nodded. ‘You’ve done well to come and talk to us.’
‘I was thinking of getting it out on Facebook and the social media.’
He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t yet.’
DI Montacute said, ‘Christ, no. That’s not the way to go. Leave it to us to make more enquiries.’
‘What will you do?’ Mel asked, far from convinced.
‘Depends. We might speak to her sister, get more of a picture of her life. It may be that she lost her job and went away on some foreign trip without telling anyone and will surface again and wonder what the fuss was about. That happens.’
‘I’ve remembered something. She did go on cultural cruises.’
‘There you are, then. Could be as simple as that. But we’re investigating, be assured of that.’
‘You see the stuff we have to deal with?’ Montacute said after the girl had left. ‘If Hen’s missing persons scare ever goes public we’ll be snowed under. Runaway teenagers, confused old people.’
‘I thought the focus was on known criminals.’
‘Yeah, but we’d have to vet them all.’
‘Miss Gibbon doesn’t sound to me like a gang member. Will you speak to her sister?’ Diamond answered his own question. ‘I didn’t think so.’
Montacute crossed to the door.
‘Before you go,’ Diamond said, ‘I must pick up the printing.’
‘You’ll need a handcart.’
They returned to the CID section together. ‘I’ll also need the printout on the missing persons,’ Diamond said.
‘No problem. It’ll be in the tray with the other stuff,’ Montacute said.
‘When I spoke to Hen this morning, she said there were eight cases that interested her. Eight in four years.’
‘So?’
‘Was that a deliberate choice, the four years?’
‘Her decision, not mine.’
‘Did it take long to check?’
‘Hell of a time.’
‘It was a practical decision, then? She might just as well have gone back eight years, or twelve?’
‘She’d have had a bloody strike on her hands if she had.’
Diamond had the information he wanted. A scenario was taking shape in his brain.
‘I notice you’ve started calling her Hen,’ Montacute said.
‘Same as you do.’
‘Yeah, but you only met her this morning. You’re investigating her. Shouldn’t you keep it formal?’
‘I need no lessons from you,’ Diamond said. He scooped up the hefty printout and carried it out. Fortunately for his dignity he didn’t drop the lot.
16
The deceased had been placed in a foetal position in a large cylindrical polypropylene bag of the heavy duty type used for garden refuse, with stitched seams and webbing carry handles. He had been shot with a near discharge almost certainly from a rifle leaving a circular entrance wound 3cm above the left ear with smoke soiling, burning of the skin and some singeing of the hair. The cranium was severely disrupted, with some ejection of brain tissue.
Do I really need to read on? Diamond asked himself. He’d already skipped several sheets of photographs. He turned the page and found a list of the clothes worn by the victim, clearly working garments.
Then he took a deep breath and decided he’d better go back to the description of the corpse.
This was the moment Georgina chose to knock on the door.
‘Homework?’ she said, parking herself in the only armchair.
‘The Rigden shooting.’
‘A lot of reading.’
‘Yes, I’ve made a start.’
‘Anything of note?’
‘One thing I hadn’t appreciated was that the bag the body was found in was a garden refuse bag.’
‘Is that important?’
‘Could be.’
‘Plastic?’
‘No, that heavy duty synthetic material stitched at the seams. In other words, the sort of bag used by garden professionals. One of his own, I suppose.’
‘That’s grim, his own bag.’
‘Not so grim as the pictures.’
‘Had it been used before?’
‘As a body bag?’
‘I meant for garden refuse, grass cuttings and weeds.’
‘Doesn’t say so.’ He picked up the report again. ‘No, sounds like a fresh bag — at least until the body was dumped in it.’
‘May I see?’
He handed over the sheets with those graphic images of the head wound printed in colour.
Georgina winced at each one and then tried to appear indifferent. ‘Wasn’t any DNA recovered?’
‘Only Rigden’s. Quite a lot of brain and gore.’
She turned the pages face down. ‘I was about to ask if you’ve eaten yet, but I’m not sure I can face food now.’
Diamond wasn’t sure he could face Georgina. He’d escaped shared meals so far. ‘There’s a mass of paperwork here to look through. I was thinking of seeing if room service would do a burger or some such.’
A burger wasn’t the suggestion Georgina needed at this moment. She turned ashen. Her eyes bulged and her cheeks puffed out. She made a beeline for the bathroom.
It became obvious Diamond would be dining alone.
Left to himself, he made a call, but not to room service.
‘Yes?’ In that one word Hen conveyed the misery she was going through.
‘Chin up,’ he said. ‘It isn’t the bank about your overdraft.’
‘Peter? What’s up now?’
‘Is this a bad time?’
‘Bad time, good time. To be honest, I’m feeling pretty low, so a call from you is a welcome distraction.’
‘More problems?’
‘It’s finally sunk in that I can’t rerun my big mistake. Like you, I sound off at regular intervals about the bloody job, but when it’s taken away and you’re hit with what you’re missing, the future is bleak. I’m already thinking it was a mistake to fess up.’
‘You were honest, Hen. That took courage.’
‘Yeah, but my instinct is to fight my corner. I didn’t.’
‘Never been in trouble like this before, have you?’
‘Christ, no. Once is enough.’
He understood and sympathised. His usual way of dealing with other people’s troubles was to respect their fragile feelings by saying the minimum. This called for something different. He would share a confidence with Hen. ‘Years ago, before we met, something similar happened to me. I messed up badly and quit the police.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘I was out in the cold for the best part of two years, doing a series of temporary jobs to make ends meet, barman, security guard, Sainsbury’s trolleyman, school assistant, even ho-ho-hoing it as Father Christmas. The hardship was self-inflicted, I may say. I’m hot-tempered now and I was worse in those days. Definitely not cut out to be Santa. Actually there were times when I felt like topping myself. But I got my CID job back eventually. I hadn’t appreciated that a time would come when they needed me back to re-investigate a case I’d once been involved with. I won’t bore you with it. I’m saying don’t write yourself off. You have a wealth of experience and they’d be idiots to ignore it.’
‘Peter, I appreciate what you’re saying, but no one is indispensable.’
‘You haven’t been sacked, Hen. You’re suspended. There’s a difference.’
‘Suspended pending an inquiry. But there’s nothing to inquire about. I’m guilty as charged. Even you can’t ignore the fact that I held up my hand to misconduct in public office.’
‘I’m not ignoring anything. It’s up to Georgina and me to look at all the circumstances.’
‘That woman took an instant dislike to me. She has no sympathy.’
‘She’s not the dragon she appears. And she’s only half the team.’