He found Hen on a trolley in the corridor, her head bandaged. She opened her eyes when he spoke her name.
After a moment’s uncertainty, she said, ‘Hell’s bells.’
‘It’s me,’ he said, ‘Peter Diamond.’
‘I can see who you are, dingbat. I was expecting another wet-behind-the-ears doctor. How did you...?’
‘Never mind me. What happened? Did you fall?’
She screwed up her face. ‘Don’t ask.’
‘I’ve been to your flat,’ he said. ‘I was able to walk in. The paramedics had to break in.’
‘I was on the vodka — nuff said?’ Hen in confessional mode again.
‘You were depressed.’
‘I’m not exactly jumping for joy right now.’
‘We’ve all had a few drinks in our time.’
‘Thought in my own home I could do as I liked. Woke up, needed the bathroom, stepped out in the dark and straight into a bookshelf. Hit my head and saw stars. It bled a bit. I thought I was all right and then I passed out. Tried standing up and it happened again, so next time I came round I crawled to the phone and called the ambulance. I don’t remember much about it.’
‘You did the right thing. You can’t take chances with head wounds.’
‘They say I’ll survive. Brute of a headache. I don’t know if it’s a hangover or the bonk on the conk. They insist I spend some time in a recovery ward. Help me up, Pete. I want to be out of here now.’
‘Take their advice. They won’t keep you any longer than necessary.’
‘I’m dying for a smoke. You don’t happen to...?’
‘This is a hospital, Hen.’
‘You could push this damned trolley outside.’
‘No.’
‘What a mess.’
‘Did something else happen — or is it the situation you’re in?’
‘There’s that, of course, and Joss.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘And there’s Danny Stapleton. He was on my mind after you and the she-wolf came to visit. To be honest, I hadn’t thought much about him in recent years. Out of sight, out of mind. I have to face the possibility that it wasn’t a pack of lies he gave me about how he came into possession of that stolen BMW. I could have put him away mistakenly for a life stretch and I feel wretched about it, thinking of him in jail all this time.’
‘If it was a mistake, it was a reasonable one,’ he said. ‘It convinced a judge and jury. We know Danny is a crook.’
‘A small-time crook. You saw him in Parkhurst and he stands by his story after all this time.’
‘Hen, I listened to him and he makes it sound plausible, but I was left in two minds. He’ll say whatever he can to get another hearing. Any prisoner will.’
‘I know, but as things are turning out, he could be on the level. He’s on my conscience and it’s doing my head in. That’s why I took to the bottle last night.’
‘The bottle — and the sleeping tablets.’
She blinked and looked more alert. ‘Pete, I wasn’t trying to kill myself, if that’s what you think — else why would I have called the ambulance?’
‘You didn’t let them in.’
‘You’re right. I don’t remember. I must have passed out again. You know what I hit my head on?’
‘You told me — a bookshelf.’
‘It’s the one in the passage outside the bathroom. My Agatha Christie paperbacks.’
‘The Queen of Crime strikes again.’
A nurse and a porter arrived and told Hen they were moving her to the ward. She tried to sit up, said she was ready to leave, but they insisted she remained and Diamond gave the nurse his backing.
‘I’ll keep her company and when you say she’s OK to go home I’ll call a taxi and go with her.’
‘You don’t have to talk about me as if I’m a pet rabbit,’ Hen said. ‘I can hear you. I’m fine now. I’ll be all right.’
But she wasn’t believed.
He passed twenty minutes seated beside the bed drinking lukewarm tea in a ward full of old ladies who stared at him.
Hen said, ‘Where’s the dragon?’
‘Georgina? Still at the nick, I hope.’
‘My nick?’
‘That’s where I sent her this morning.’
‘You sent her?’
‘I went to see the Reverend Conybeare and I didn’t want her muscling in. She’s sniffing out a possible conspiracy in your CID.’
She shifted herself higher on the pillow. ‘Go on.’
‘The search for Joss. I suggested they might be soft-pedalling.’
‘God, I hope not. Why would they do that?’
‘Out of loyalty to you.’
‘I don’t follow you. I don’t want any soft-pedalling. I want Joss found as soon as possible, the same as everyone else. Her family are going spare with worry. We all are.’
‘I know — and it won’t hurt for Georgina to crack the whip.’
‘You’d better watch it, chummy. She’s not daft. She’ll rumble you.’
‘She often does.’
‘I don’t know how you stand it, Peter. I lost my cool with her, as you saw.’
‘Practice. Georgina and I understand each other. In fact, I’ve got to know her a lot better since we came on this trip. I discovered she has a soft underbelly.’
The crossed swords of the Victory Arch in Baghdad were no higher than Hen’s eyebrows. ‘The mind boggles.’
‘Oh, come on,’ he said. ‘A weak point. Insecurity.’
‘I get you. Which you will now exploit.’
‘I doubt if I will, but I can read her better.’
Now Hen’s mouth curved at the ends. ‘After all this time I do believe you’re starting to understand the female psyche.’
‘No chance.’
Each was silent for a while. Another patient on a trolley was wheeled past.
‘So did you learn anything new from the sky pilot?’
‘Conybeare? Well, you didn’t tell me he’s a member of the Magic Circle.’
‘Why would you want to know? What the vicar does in his spare time doesn’t have any bearing on the murder.’
‘Ah, but it told me something interesting about the victim, Joe Rigden. He didn’t approve.’
‘Of the conjuring? How come?’
‘For some reason it touched a raw nerve. There was an occasion when Conybeare performed a little trick, snapped his fingers and produced a bunch of flowers. They were only paper, but they unsettled Rigden so much that he slung them aside “like a piece of waste,” according to the vicar.’
‘Why? It was just a bit of fun.’
‘His explanation is that Rigden liked his world solid and real. For the same reason he didn’t have any time for religion — which you would think made problems for their friendship, but they seemed to respect each other’s point of view.’
Hen shook her head. ‘Peter, I don’t know how you do it. You have this knack of rooting out information that goes over my head.’
‘Well, you’re only four foot something.’
‘Bloody cheek.’
He became serious again. ‘The same raw nerve twitched the last time the two of them were together. Rigden used to give the rector a lift into Chichester on a Sunday when there wasn’t a service in the church at Slindon. The day before the murder, they had a strong argument on the way home. Conybeare didn’t want to tell me anything about it. I had to prise the story out of him. He’d been listening to a sermon about one of the miracles in the New Testament, the widow’s son who is raised from the dead. Rigden said there was probably a rational explanation.’
‘Talk about a raw nerve,’ Hen said. ‘I should think that was a problem for the reverend.’
‘Exactly — and it was. He felt bound to defend the story and miracles in general and Rigden got very angry and when they parted at the end of the ride, they were both feeling frayed. It shows Rigden’s state of mind was edgy not long before he was killed. Everyone speaks of him as a nice, obliging guy, almost saintly, yet here was a topic that got him rattled.’