“That seems certain, but Daisy didn’t live to say what was missing, so none of it can be traced. The good news is that DNA was recovered from the box lid and the mask.”
“And the bad?”
“It didn’t match anything on the national database, not even unidentified DNA. This wasn’t a known criminal.”
“Huh.” He couldn’t hide his disappointment. He’d been nursing the theory that someone from the TV show had given a tip-off to a professional burglar in London that the house was unoccupied. Even the best professionals leave traces. “Did you ask them to send the DNA profile for our records?”
“I did. It’s in the form of an STR graph.”
“Okay,” he said, doing his best to sound as if he could tell an STR graph from a banana.
“They also sent Daisy’s graph for comparison, and you can see the difference at once.”
“Get it all on file and see that Wolfgang has access, in case he has some ideas on this. Is there anything else I should know about, people? In that case, I’ll get on the road.” He hesitated and looked around the room.
“Need a lift, guv?” Ingeborg asked, grinning.
The Ka wasn’t so roomy or well-padded as Jean Sharp’s husband’s Volvo, but Diamond valued Ingeborg’s experience on a delicate mission like this. “Straight to the pottery, if you would,” he said. “I must break the news to Natalie that we fear the worst.”
“Hasn’t she heard by now?”
“Of course.”
“A shock like this, a sudden bereavement, is overwhelming, I know from experience, and being disabled she’s got the added problem of being dependent on him.”
“Poor soul. She’s finished. She won’t be able to carry on with her business.”
“There’s that, but the first hammer blow is emotional. Theirs wasn’t a love match, not on his part for sure, and probably not hers either. There’s still a bond. She’s going to feel so alone.”
“You want me to come in with you?”
“Please. She’s met you. She won’t get much sisterly support from the nurse I met.”
“Let’s see.”
They passed through Combe Hay and started along the single-track lane with passing places they hoped they wouldn’t need to use. Driving along a Somerset lane adds tension to any journey. This one took them past the field where the Range Rover had been found. A police officer at the gate waved them past. They couldn’t see much of what was going on, but there were two rows of vehicles parked in the field opposite.
“Will they know what they’re looking for?”
“The murder weapon if it’s there. Traces of blood. Shoeprints. Anything, really. Look out, Inge. There are people up ahead.”
She sighed. She’d driven Diamond enough times to know he was on pins all the way, primed for an accident. There was a bend in the lane, so perhaps he really had spotted something she hadn’t. “People” sounded real enough. She slowed. And saw that he was right.
A woman, a man and a dog coming their way, the woman on a mobility scooter, the man, tall and bearded, striding beside, and the dog running loose.
The dog was huge.
“I know who they are,” Diamond said. “What in the name of sanity is Natalie doing with that waste of space?”
22
“Put up your window,” Diamond warned Ingeborg.
The dog was bounding towards the car.
Cool under threat, Ingeborg had reversed a short distance and pulled into a passing place. “We can’t ignore them, guv.”
“I don’t intend to. I want that dog under control first.”
Caesar reached them, made a leap, landed on the bonnet, was unable to get a grip on the shiny surface, slid off, hit the ground, became more enraged and attacked the side. It became a rerun of the experience in Keith Halliwell’s car, the barking and the pawing of the windows, steaming them up and spattering foam and saliva over them.
Inside the car, Diamond said, “This is an arrestable offence.”
“Tell that to the dog,” Ingeborg said.
As if he’d overheard, Will Legat put two fingers to his mouth and produced a whistle so piercing that they heard it inside with all the windows up. Caesar stopped trying to eat the Ka and its occupants, meekly disengaged, trotted back along the lane and allowed himself to have a rope looped through his collar.
“Useful trick,” Ingeborg said.
“Are you okay?” Diamond asked.
“I’m fine.”
“If your bodywork is damaged, we’ll send him the repair bill.”
“Haha. You crease me up, guv.”
“Safe to get out now, I think.”
After a moment more, they emerged and waited for the others to approach, Natalie ahead on her scooter, Legat and the dog at a safe distance behind. The tramp was still in the same shabby clothes he’d worn at the airfield, but he had the air of a man about town.
More barking started and some straining on the leash before Caesar seemed to sense that they were not a serious threat and calmed down.
Diamond’s brain was working like a search engine to make the connection between Natalie and Legat. No result came up.
Natalie halted the scooter. She looked pale, but composed, wearing a thick black shawl over a grey trouser suit. “Do you have some news?” she asked Diamond, eyes wide in expectation.
He wasn’t going to answer that. This wasn’t the time, nor the place, to discuss the violent attack the dashboard camera had picked up. “We were on our way to visit you, ma’am. You remember Ingeborg?”
Natalie didn’t even give Ingeborg a glance. “What is it? You can tell me.”
“You must have heard something already, I think, or you wouldn’t be out.”
“That’s why we’re going to the field. It’s no distance. As soon as I was awake, I phoned the police in Bath and they told me about the car being found. What could have possessed him, driving off the road when he was so close to home? Why hasn’t he called me?”
It was obvious that whoever had spoken to her from Bath Police hadn’t revealed the full facts.
“There isn’t much to see in the field except policemen making a search, ma’am. The car has been taken away for forensic examination. We’re hoping they can give some indications of what happened.”
“I want to see where it was found.”
He understood why. He remembered in vivid detail going to Victoria Park on the worst day of his life all those years ago. Visiting the scene of his own wife’s murder had been heartrending, but in a strange way had helped him process his unimaginable loss.
“Where’s Greg?” she said. “That’s all I want to know.”
“We’re doing all we can to find him.”
“He was definitely on his way here. He phoned me from Trowbridge when he was about to leave.”
“You told me this already. If you remember, I called at the pottery yesterday after we first heard he was missing.”
“So you did,” she said. “The last two days are a blur. I’ve lost track of what I said to people.” She fixed her eyes on him. “There’s something you haven’t told me.”
“Let’s walk to the field together,” he said, realising as he spoke that it was a crass remark to make to someone confined to a wheelchair. Without pause, he went on to say, “Ingeborg will have to move her car. She can meet us there.”
Legat, unusually for him, had stood at a distance and remained silent apart from a few muttered words controlling the dog. He spoke to Ingeborg. “You’ll need to drive up to the pottery to find a turning point.”
She thanked him and returned to the Ka.
Natalie’s scooter was already in motion again. She was on a mission. The two men had to step out sharply to keep her in sight, with Diamond almost at a run to keep up with the big man’s strides.