A sound as unsocial as a fart interrupted him.
“Whose is it?” Ingeborg said. “Who didn’t switch off?”
Red-faced, Paul Gilbert felt in his pocket for his phone and looked at the display. “It’s the lab. I wasn’t expecting a call-back so soon. Do you mind, guv?”
Diamond shrugged and Gilbert moved to the back of the room with the phone to his ear.
“This bee-rustling,” Leaman said. “Is it on the statute book?”
He was definitely hooked.
“It comes under theft,” Halliwell said, “but you might get a law passed if you get some steam behind this.”
“Smoke,” Ingeborg said.
“Be serious,” Halliwell said. “It could be called Leaman’s law.”
Leaman’s eyes gleamed. He googled bee-rustling on his phone. “Forty thousand bees were stolen in one raid in Anglesey.”
“Didn’t I tell you?”
He was scrolling rapidly. “There are clubs all over this area: Bath, Bristol, Keynsham, Saltford, West Wiltshire.” He had to break off in mid-list.
Gilbert was back, looking as if he’d just met Hamlet’s father.
“Tell us,” Diamond said.
“They asked if we knew the rigger’s belt is heavily encrusted in blood.”
“Hell’s bells!”
“It was stained dark,” Gilbert said, wide-eyed, “and I thought that was dirt from plenty of use. They’re carrying out more tests and this is to let us know that it looks like a serious crime was committed, possibly murder. Someone was almost certainly bleeding profusely.”
“And that wasn’t Will Legat,” Ingeborg said. “He’s got questions to answer.”
“What time is it?” Gilbert said. “He’ll be in Bath by now.”
“Where?”
“North Parade Road. The law courts.”
“He wasn’t charged with anything, was he?”
“No, but they drove him there and released him.”
“We must pull him in again,” Diamond said. “He’s the prime suspect now, not just a witness. Your gentleman of the road may be no gentleman at all.” The head of CID was no longer in the doldrums. He was elated. This could be the saving of his career. “‘Heavily encrusted.’ That’s a lot of blood. They’re right, we could well be dealing with murder.”
“Shall we still apply for these courses, guv?” Halliwell asked.
“That’s on hold. First, we pick up Legat. You and I can take care of that. We’ll need to send his clothing and everything he owns to forensics to be tested for more blood. Did you say he had a knife hanging from the belt?”
“A jackknife.”
“Large?”
“Three to four inches.”
“Is it confiscated?”
Gilbert swallowed hard and blushed. “He was given it back to butter his toast. At first they gave him a plastic knife, but it broke.”
Diamond squeezed his eyes shut in disbelief. People make stupid mistakes, but the police were supposed to be trained to look out for trickery. “That knife has got to be tested by the lab. What age is he?”
“Forty-two, he told the custody sergeant. He’s got the grey beard, but he’s younger than he appears.”
“State of fitness? Strong enough to take on a rigger in a fight?”
“Probably.”
“Jean.”
DC Jean Sharp, the team’s online researcher, was so alert she spoke the words in Diamond’s mind before he could get them out. “A full check on Legat’s form, court appearances, prison terms, instances of violence.”
“Spot on,” he said. “Especially any links to the rigger. And, Paul?”
Gilbert, shamefaced, expected a roasting for having missed so much that was obvious. “Guv?”
“This belt. He’s supposed to have found it lying about at the airfield, is he?”
“In the mud where everyone parked.”
“It’s a heavy-duty thing, obviously. How does it fasten — a pin buckle?”
“No. A quick-release clip. You press the centre and it opens.”
“Easy to remove.”
“It would be, yes.”
“Might come off in a fight?”
“I see what you’re thinking, guv. Quite possibly.”
“Right. You’re the man who knows the airfield. It’s our probable crime scene. Get a CSI team up to Charmy Down.”
“Do you think the body’s up there?”
“We’ll find out. Let’s see how much Legat is willing to tell us.”
The change in mood was electric. Everyone was fired up again.
Two hours later, Legat had not been found and some of the enthusiasm had ebbed away. Diamond was with Halliwell in front of the Abbey. The two detectives had walked the length of Stall Street and seen nothing of their quarry. They’d radioed a description to all patrolling officers and PCSOs and got no response.
How does a six-foot-two grey-bearded tramp with a pram and an enormous dog manage to disappear in a city heaving with sightseers?
They’d phoned the custody sergeant at Keynsham and he’d confirmed that Legat had been driven to North Parade Road outside the court building and allowed to make his own way into town. They’d asked more people than they could remember. Nobody had been able to help.
“He told Paul he was here for the tourist season,” Halliwell said. “He turns up every year. Right here where we’re standing is where he ought to be. This is where the buskers make their money.”
“He doesn’t busk. He gets the dog to lie down looking pathetic and people arrive with tins of dog food. A lot of them give money as well.”
“He must spend it somewhere. We haven’t tried the supermarkets.”
“Good suggestion.”
The good suggestion came to nothing. All they found outside Waitrose were two saffron-robed Buddhist monks with their alms bowls. They had been there over an hour and seen nothing of Legat or his dog.
“He must have left town,” Diamond said.
Halliwell was doubtful. “He gave the impression he was here for weeks to come.”
“We’re not dealing with a truth-teller, Keith. He charmed young Gilbert into believing him, but that doesn’t fool me. He knows the belt was sent to forensics. If he also knows how it came to be covered in blood he’s not going to hang about, is he?”
“How would he get out of town?”
“From outside the courthouse, where he was last seen? The obvious way is north on the A36.”
“We put out that all-cars message. Someone would have picked him up by now.”
“He may have taken the canal towpath. No cars there.”
“He’d still be spotted. Plenty of people walk their dogs there. Someone would have noticed a monster the size of Caesar.”
“You depress me, but you’re right.”
“Can we scale this up into a full-scale manhunt?”
“Call out the plods?” Diamond shook his head. “Georgina will come down on me like a ton of bricks. We’re supposed to be back in Concorde House applying for courses. We have to soft-pedal, Keith.”
“I can’t think what else to suggest.”
“Where does a homeless man make for?”
“Julian House?”
It was worth a try. The charity for the homeless offered medical care, resettlement advice and free meals as well as beds in private pods. Legat evidently knew Bath, so he must have known about Julian House. But was he too proud to go there?
“We can ask if they’ve seen him.”
The police had once been near neighbours of Julian House, which was tucked away below the Baptist church.
Visiting Manvers Street again was a bittersweet experience for the two detectives. The nick they’d worked in for more than twenty years had been sold to the university, refurbished and converted into a study centre. The Virgil Building, as rebranded, had never been much to look at and there had been complaints about it as a workplace, but compared to Concorde House it was the Ritz. Diamond hadn’t said anything to the team, but he’d wondered at the time if he and his team would be sacrificial lambs.