Diamond said to Legat, “I’m struggling to understand what you’re doing here.”
This gentleman of the road had bluffed his way through more situations than the miles he’d tramped through Britain. “What else would you expect? I couldn’t allow poor Natalie to make this sorry pilgrimage on her own. She needs support at this time. And apart from that, it’s bloody dangerous driving a scooter up a narrow lane. You never know what nuisances are coming the other way, as we discovered.”
Diamond ignored the slur. “How is it that you know her?”
“She’s one of my guardian angels. Has been for years.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m always assured of bed and a good breakfast at the pottery. I have a barn to myself — Caesar and myself, I should say. A ground sheet, an inflatable bed and we’re in clover. But you know about this. I remember telling you I stay with a kind lady at Combe Hay.”
A faint memory stirred from his first interview. “I thought you were down in Bath.”
“On the streets? I don’t make a practice of sleeping rough. After you inhospitably instructed the Keynsham custody sergeant to give me my marching orders next time I needed a night in the cells, I had to look to other resources.”
“You’ve been here some days, then? You were here the other night when Greg Deans failed to come home.”
“Do you mind? You make it sound positively culpable. I was in the barn all evening. I first heard he was late when I called at the farmhouse for my evening drink and found Natalie beside herself with worry.”
“You know Greg, obviously?”
“Isn’t ‘knew’ the operative word? I can guess why you’re here, superintendent. I saw it in your eyes and I think she did, although she doesn’t want to face the truth. You’ll have to break it to her soon. Have you found the body?”
The gall of the man. Diamond was hard pressed to keep this civil. “I asked if you know Greg.”
“The precious Greg? A bit. I’ve seen him here from time to time, but Natalie owns the farmhouse and all the outbuildings, so she’s my main point of contact. Greg was an adjunct.”
“A what?”
“Something extra she took on one year when I was away on my travels. I’m surprised he lasted as long as he did.”
“You knew her before he moved in?”
“Years before.”
“I gather you don’t get on with him.”
“No reason to. He went his way — into the farmhouse — and I went mine — into the small barn. He was something important in television, but it never washed with me. I judge people as I find them and one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but I can’t say I’m sorry he’s gone. He didn’t care for me or Caesar. More importantly, I don’t think he cared much for Natalie.”
“He helped her run the pottery after she got ill. She told me that herself.”
“Yes, turning into chief cook and bottle washer must have come as a shock to a high-flier like Greg. Living here and using the pottery as a hotel suited him nicely when she was in good health.” He hesitated, stroking his beard, trying to appear in command of these exchanges, yet keen for more information. “I asked you a moment ago if you’ve found the body.”
“Not yet,” Diamond said, “but there’s strong evidence he was murdered and forensics ought to confirm it soon. I think she’d prefer to be told in her own home.”
“If I may say so, your record at failing to find corpses is second to none, superintendent. Is this the third, or the fourth?”
Diamond wasn’t taking that without a riposte. “I can tell when a major crime has been committed and you’ll have questions to answer, my friend.”
Natalie had already reached the gateway to the field and was talking to the policeman on duty.
“Oh my hat. If she tries to drive in she could tip over,” Legat told Diamond with genuine alarm. He was acting like a guardian — or a spouse.
Legat legged it. And Caesar went, too.
Diamond followed at a brisk walk while asking himself how serious this relationship was and what it meant to the investigation. Legat had put himself firmly back in the frame. He’d been present at the scene of Jake Nicol’s disappearance and now he’d placed himself suspiciously close to another and with an obvious motive for murder.
In the field, white-clad figures in a long row were progressing slowly towards the other side, a surreal spectacle. Within the cordoned area near the gate, the scene-of-crime team were at work, bent like fruit pickers. A curved spine must be a hazard of the job.
By the time Diamond reached the gateway, Natalie had explained who she was and was being helped over a protective tarpaulin and into the field. She didn’t get far, even with Legat pushing the scooter. She was forced to watch the search from behind some DO NOT ENTER tape. The sight of so much activity could only increase her suspicion that this was being treated as a murder scene.
Diamond had a new concern. Wolfgang would surely be one of the stooped figures in polypropylene gear and would spot him and start sounding off about bloodstain patterns, so he took the initiative and called out, “We’re not here to interrupt you, Wolfgang. This lady is the missing man’s partner.”
One of them straightened, gave a kind of wave, and continued his work.
Natalie turned to face Diamond. “Now will you tell me the truth about Greg?”
“Shall we return to the pottery?”
The care nurse had left and Will Legat had clearly taken over her duties. He lifted Natalie off the scooter and into her wheelchair as if handling her was as natural as whistling to Caesar. The effort showed considerable strength. And the way the so-called down-and-out moved about the farmhouse kitchen making coffee and knowing where to find everything showed he was no longer confined to the barn.
“I’ll take my coffee through and watch television,” he said in a lordly tone. “I sense that you folk need privacy. Come, Caesar.”
The dog heaved itself up from the warm spot in front of the Aga and padded out to the living room.
“That’s what I call tact,” Diamond said after the door was closed, “and the man showed some as well.”
“He’s a good man,” Natalie said.
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
She clicked her tongue. This was off to a bad start. “Well — what have you been keeping from me?”
Diamond took a seat on the opposite side of the large, square kitchen table, with Ingeborg to his right, closer to Natalie. Keeping his account low-key and unemotional, he told her about the dashboard camera and the violence it had captured.
She listened in silence, shut her eyes when he spoke of the large bloodstain on the ground, but otherwise stayed in control.
“To be totally sure, we must wait for the test results,” Diamond thought it right to add.
“Is this why the woman in the forensic suit went up to Greg’s room yesterday?”
“For samples of his DNA. If we get a match, we’ll know.”
“Know that Greg is dead, you mean?” She wasn’t letting him gloss over the obvious.
“I’m afraid you should prepare yourself for that. Can you think of anyone with a grudge against him?”
“I told you before. He doesn’t discuss the people at work. He likes to leave all that behind.”
“Any enemies out here at Combe Hay, then?”
“Sometimes buyers of my work find their way here, but they’re friendly. They wouldn’t have any reason to harm Greg. They’re the only visitors. We don’t see anyone else except delivery people.”
“Aren’t you forgetting someone? Your friend in the next room doesn’t deliver things. He expects to be given them.”
“Will is the exception. He turned up out of the blue a long time ago, before I met Greg. He asked to use one of the outbuildings for an overnight stop. I could tell he was a genuine traveller and not a threat.”