Diamond smiled to himself and let the remark pass. “It crossed my mind when I interviewed her. But there’s a problem with it.”
“Oh?”
“She has a live-in driver called Chen. ‘Driver, hairdresser, cook and chiropodist,’ in her own words. Chen is extremely loyal and protective, but I’m doubtful whether Sabine would share a secret like that with her or anyone else.”
Having poured out all his thoughts, Gilbert was at a loss. He scratched his head.
Diamond prompted him. “So what’s next? Is there any more from the scene-of-crime lot?”
“Nothing helpful. The blood on the belt was the big discovery — and the fact that it matched Nicol’s DNA. They were asked to check the interiors of every one of the trucks used for the Charmy Down shoot and there was no more blood evidence. It doesn’t mean the body wasn’t moved from there. The killer may have been careful.”
“Have you spoken to the other riggers?”
“They all swear they scarcely knew the guy. I’m still thinking Will Legat knows more than he told us. You asked Jean Sharp to look into his background and see if there was any contact in the past with Nicol.”
“Has she found anything?”
“No.”
“She’s thorough.”
“I know. She said it didn’t mean there wasn’t some overlap. Just that it wasn’t there in the written records.”
“Legat is a challenge,” Diamond said. “He likes the sound of his own voice so much that if we let him witter on, there was a good chance he would tell us everything we want to know. That sudden switch to ‘no comment’ when you and I questioned him at Keynsham came as a shock.”
“I can’t remember what triggered the first ‘no comment.’”
“It was when I reminded him he’d told us he’d watched the riggers loading the lorries at the end of the day. I asked if he’d seen Jake Nicol leave and he shut up like a clam.”
Gilbert was frowning. “He didn’t need to. His story was that he’d never met Nicol. If that’s true, he had no way of knowing which one he was.”
A telling point. The DC was shaping up as a canny detective. “Exactly. I’m wondering if he was on the point of saying something else and stopped himself just in time.”
“Like ‘I saw Jake Nicol drive off’ — which would have been the giveaway. Was it a trick question, guv?”
Diamond said in all honesty, “I can’t pretend it was. I was treating him as a witness, trying to find out whether there were threats or violence.”
“But he saw it as a trap.”
“Apparently. And what does that tell us?”
“Either he lied about not knowing the guy, or he saw something he doesn’t want to tell us, or” — Gilbert took in a sharp breath — “he wasn’t just a witness, but the killer.”
“That pretty well sums it up. And I need to look at him as the possible killer of Dave Tudor.”
“Should we pull him in again?”
“We must get more background on them both, but if you want another go at him, don’t let me stop you.”
“I’ll wait,” Gilbert said. “I’ll see what I can get from the other riggers. They’re a cagey lot.”
The major incident room across the corridor was taking shape. John Leaman was in his element, making sure computers were active and desks labelled. Diamond noted his own at the far end with the sign Senior Investigating Officer. If he’d had delusions of grandeur he would have enjoyed seeing how the other desks were sized by status, from Office Manager (Halliwell) to one no bigger than a card table for the Exhibits Officer (one of the civilian staff).
“Quick work, John,” he told Leaman. “Quick and faultless.”
Leaman beamed.
“Did you find time to check on the accident with the stuntmen?”
The sort of question you don’t ask an obsessive compulsive. “Didn’t you see my written report? I put a copy in your in-tray. I know you don’t always read emails.”
“I have a backlog of paperwork to get through,” Diamond admitted. “Can you sum it up in words?”
“Now? I haven’t got my notes.”
“The gist will do.”
The struggle in Leaman’s brain was apparent in his troubled features. He liked to please and he was intensely loyal. “Well, I can try.”
“Thanks. Appreciated.”
“I spoke to the man who coordinates stunts and he told me neither of the pair works on Swift now. They were doing a rooftop chase above the Roman Baths with the woman who doubles for the main actor. She landed safely, but the stuntmen got in a tangle with each other and fell about forty feet.”
Diamond winced, imagining it. He was squeamish about injuries of any sort.
“Luckily they fell in the water.”
“Ah.”
“Unluckily—”
“Don’t tell me.”
“Unluckily one fell on top of the other and broke his own collarbone and three of his mate’s ribs.”
Diamond’s indrawn breath sounded like a burst from a blowtorch. “Nasty.”
“But no one else was involved. It was their own fault.”
“You’re sure?”
“It happened in full view of everyone. It’s on film, in fact.”
“So can we cross them off the jinx list?”
“That’s what I recommended in my report.” Leaman gave one of his penetrating stares. “Will you still want to read it, guv?”
“I can’t wait.”
“I can print a copy now if you want.”
“Don’t bother. I know where to find it. You did well, John. I knew I could rely on you.”
He returned to the office, where Jean Sharp was waiting to speak to him. Another earnest and dedicated team member. “You asked me to look into the circumstances of Mary Wroxeter’s death, guv.”
“Have you got anywhere?”
“I’m not ready to report back in full.”
Why were his best researchers so touchy? he asked himself. “That’s all right. Was there anything dodgy?”
“It’s too soon to say for sure.”
“But...?”
“According to the death certificate, she died of sudden arrhythmic cardiac arrest and chronic alcohol abuse. I contacted the doctor who performed the postmortem and he looked at his notes and said she must have been on a real bender because the BAC was right at the top of the scale.”
“You’re losing me, Jean.”
“Blood alcohol concentration. They measure the number of grams of alcohol in each millilitre of blood. A chronic alcoholic can appear quite sober at a high BAC, but anything over two hundred fifty is dangerous and may lead to coma. Hers was above four hundred.”
“Phew! But you said cardiac arrest. I thought liver disease was the killer for alcoholics.”
“He told me that’s a widespread belief, but recent research has shown that if you drink to excess, the heart is more vulnerable than the liver. In cases of sudden death, cardiovascular disease is the real killer. It’s often misattributed to other causes.”
“I wonder what she was drinking.”
“She liked vodka. It was revealed at the inquest that her bin was filled with empties.”
“You’ve read the coroner’s report?”
“Yes. A couple of witnesses spoke about her addiction.”
“Do you recall who they were?”
“One was Candida Jones, her former assistant, who knew her best. She said she’d never seen Mary incapable in working time, but if you caught a whiff of her breath, the sweet smell of alcohol was always there.”
“After work — was that when she did the heavy drinking?”
“People knew it wasn’t wise to call her in the evenings.”