Will Legat pondered the question, drummed his fingertips on the desk and said, “No comment.”
“What?” Diamond doubted his own hearing. He turned to look at Gilbert, who was equally surprised.
“I said, ‘No comment.’”
“You’re not under caution. You can’t incriminate yourself, if that’s what bothers you.”
He got no reply. The switch to non-cooperation was wholly out of character.
“What’s the problem here?” Diamond asked after several more seconds. “You already admitted you watched them leave before you moved in. Did you witness something you don’t wish to speak about?” He realised as he completed the question that he’d laid himself open again.
“No comment.”
“This is getting serious, Will. If you know something and refuse to speak about it, you could force me to get more formal. I may need to caution you after all.”
“And we both know how the caution goes: ‘You have the right to remain silent.’ Comforting words to a man in this situation.” Legat stifled a yawn. “Can I go back to the cell, then?”
Diamond was tempted to answer with a “no comment” of his own. Instead, he pushed his chair back and stood up. “All right. We’ll end it there. I’ll call the custody sergeant.”
Legat looked suspicious, as if he hadn’t really expected the interview to stop so abruptly.
Outside the building, Gilbert, too, expressed surprise. “What are you up to now, guv?”
“Couldn’t you see it was going nowhere?” Diamond said. “He’s working his ticket. He wants more nights in that cell. We could hold him on a minor charge like being in possession, but that would be playing his game.”
“Do you still think he’s our suspect?”
“He’s all we’ve got. The blood on his clothes is serious. We’ve only got his word that he didn’t know Jake Nicol and didn’t go anywhere near him.”
“The blood could have come off the belt.”
“Almost certainly. Even if he didn’t carry out the killing, he knows how it was done and where the body went.”
“Could more than one person be involved?”
“We won’t rule it out.” Even as the words came out, he remembered who was nominally running the case. “Or, rather, you, as investigating officer, won’t want to rule it out. The choice is yours, Paul, but my inclination is to get all the evidence we can, see if the SOCOs find anything and meanwhile question more of the TV people. You may need help. I’m available and so are some of the others.”
“What should we do about Will?”
“Let him stew in uncertainty. He thought he was going to be held and now he isn’t. He’s your witness, but I suggest you turf him out of the cell and see what his next move is.”
“Let him go?” This clearly wasn’t in Gilbert’s plans.
“He won’t get far with the dog and the pram.”
“Was the knife really clean of blood?”
“No. You can’t clean a jackknife with water alone, not enough to pass a forensic test. Bits of muck get lodged inside where the blade folds.”
“So they found some?”
“Blood residue.” He paused. “Unfortunately...” He left Gilbert to complete the line.
“...it wasn’t human?”
“Left over from one of his meals.”
11
Before they left Keynsham police station, Gilbert checked his phone and found a text from Ingeborg asking him to tell the boss to call her urgently. When told, Diamond said, “Why didn’t she text me?” Like most of us, he had a large blind spot about his own faults.
Gilbert had the good sense to shake his head as if he had never noticed that Diamond treated his phone as if it was a used tissue he was keeping in his pocket until he passed the next litterbin.
He took the alien object out and stared at it. The urgency from Inge, he guessed with a sinking heart, was because Georgina was on the attack with all guns blazing.
A small amount of battery strength remained. “Is that you, Inge?”
“Guv, where are you — still at Keynsham?”
“What’s the fuss about?”
Her answer wasn’t what he expected. “Remember when we interviewed Sabine and you asked about the actor who was originally cast as Swift?”
“Trixie Playfair?”
“I’ve managed to trace her and she’s not at all keen to talk to us, which makes me think she’s got something to hide. If I pin her down, would you like to be in on the action?”
She made it sound like an assault, but he knew what she meant and he trusted Ingeborg’s judgement. If Trixie was being evasive, all the more reason to see her — and sucks to Georgina. “Where is she, then?”
“Not far from where you are. You did say you’re still at Keynsham?”
“I didn’t, but I am.”
“Trixie is now a drama teacher in a private school for girls called Chimneys in Compton Dando. That’s only two miles south of where you are. I can meet you there in half an hour.”
“Have you made an appointment?”
“I sent a text and she doesn’t want to see us, which is why I suggest we turn up unannounced.”
“Good thinking.”
Leaving Gilbert to eject Will Legat from custody and get him back on the road, he walked off to find his car.
No need to ask how Chimneys got its name. They were visible against the sky from a long way off, ornamented red-brick pillars three metres high in clusters of three capped with clay pots. The eighteenth-century mansion had been in use as a private school since the 1980s, a venture that had prospered because an extension twice the size had been added at the back in more recent times. How such an ugly thing had met the building regulations was a mystery.
Ingeborg’s yellow Ka was already on the drive. She got out. “How would you like to play this, guv?”
“The office first. I can’t march into a girls’ school unannounced.” He didn’t mind marching into most places, but there were limits.
“Before we go in,” Ingeborg said, “there’s something I should tell you.”
“I should be wearing a suit and tie?” For the first time in years, he was wearing casual clothes for work, or what he took to be casuaclass="underline" open-neck shirt, sports jacket, corduroy trousers and brown brogues. His thinking was that a new image might persuade Georgina he could move with the times. Just his luck that he was now about to visit an upmarket girls’ school.
She smiled. “Not at all. You’re fine.” She hesitated. “Has Paloma seen the new ensemble?”
“Not yet. It’s not actually new. I’ve had it in the wardrobe for a while. Paloma will suggest I buy a whole new outfit.”
“She’s usually right. She knows about clothes.”
“Historic clothes.”
She bit back the comment she could have made. “I was about to say I called my contact at the Post and asked about the mysterious caller.”
He was still thinking about Georgina.
She said, “You wanted to know if the voice was male or female.”
“Got you. Any luck with it?”
“She checked with the switchboard and phoned back this morning. Definitely a woman.”
“Good work, Inge. That narrows it down.”
The school secretary, a friendly middle-aged woman dressed in a Take That T-shirt and jeans and wearing a nametag that said Sheelagh, seemed untroubled when Diamond explained that they were police officers needing assistance about an ongoing enquiry. In fact, her eyes glinted with what looked like relish when Miss Playfair was named. She studied her computer screen. “She’s finishing off a year-twelve session in the drama studio. Does she know you’re coming?”
“We texted her.”