“I’ve met him, too.” There was a look that Konstantin might not have found flattering. “I can’t help you find her attacker. He drove off before I arrived on the scene.”
The mugging was of small interest right now, but Diamond didn’t mind her thinking it mattered. “You were out running, you said.”
“If you can call it that. Training, for the Other Half. You must have heard of it.”
“We have.”
“Trying to get fit. I’m not a serious runner.”
“Did you run in the race? How did you get on?”
“I made it to the finish, which was all I needed to do. I owed it to my sponsors to finish, and that was a big incentive.”
“Have you run it before?”
“God, no. It was my one and only. I got into it by accident, quite literally. It started with a Toby jug. I seem to be fated to be given presents I don’t want. One of my work colleagues — I’m a teacher, did I say? — gave me this Toby jug.”
“In the shape of a hippo?”
“Jesus, no.” She laughed at that. “An old-fashioned Toby with the three-cornered hat. You know? To be fair to him I don’t think it was meant for me. He was, like, giving it to the BHF in return for the baseball cap.”
“You’re losing me,” Diamond said.
Gilbert said, “British Heart Foundation, guv.”
“The baseball cap?”
“I’m telling it wrong,” Maeve said. “My aunt supports the BHF in a big way and sent me this spanking new red cap with the logo and I don’t wear them, so I took it to school and gave it to Trevor, who’s losing his hair, and instead of being grateful he seemed to take it as an insult, as if I was mocking his baldness. I’ve never seen him wearing it. Fair enough, we all make mistakes. And yet he felt he had to do something in return. I don’t know if I was supposed to be grateful. I can tell you I wasn’t. He told me the jug was some sort of family hand-me-down he’d inherited and didn’t need anymore.”
“He was being honest.”
“He’s like that, tells it to you straight. Well, I was stuck with this thing that was meant for a good cause, and I couldn’t dump it, so I got on my bike and set off for the nearest BHF shop and on the way — wouldn’t you know it? — the bag split and Toby ended up in pieces on the road. The worst part is that I found out later the damn thing had been antique, really, really valuable. To cut the story short, I felt so bad about doing the BHF out of a big payday that I got myself sponsored and ran for them in the Other Half.”
“Good on you.”
“Taught me a lesson, didn’t it?”
“Did Trevor know about this?”
“The running? Yes, he helped me prepare. He takes the kids for games, so he’s well up on fitness, knows a lot about training and stuff, but he still doesn’t know the reason why I took it up. I dread having to tell a porky if he ever asks me about the sodding jug. When he heard I’d signed up for the race he gave me some tips, quite useful.”
“He obviously likes you,” Diamond said.
“Trevor?” She pulled her arms across her front as if she felt a sudden chill. “You could be right. He hasn’t asked me out or anything, but he looks out for me.”
“How?”
“In school, he seems to time his visits to the staffroom to fit with mine. If any of the others say anything critical, even joking, he comes to my defence. I ought to be pleased, but I’m capable of standing up for myself. He’s well-meaning and helps me with my training, so I can’t tell him to piss off. A short time ago he moved into an upstairs flat across the street and I can’t help thinking he chose it because I’m here and he can keep a fatherly eye on me.”
“Fatherly?”
“It’s not romantic for sure. I’m not his type at all. He wants someone serious-minded like himself, not a wacky woman with a house full of hippos.”
“He knows about the hippos, then?”
“The whole school knows about them. We have a tradition that at the end of each school year, the leavers club together and buy their teacher a present. Guess what mine is, year after year without fail. Everyone in the staffroom falls about laughing.”
Diamond was warming to this young woman. There are people in this world — and he was one — who are fated to provide amusement for their friends and colleagues and can’t understand why.
“So you taught yourself how to run seriously?”
“Me and Trev both. Most of it’s obvious. Anyone can do it if they’re motivated, can’t they?”
“You don’t have a personal trainer, other than Trevor?”
She smiled. “On a teacher’s salary? That’s a joke.”
“Have you met Olga’s trainer, Tony Pinto?”
She tensed at the name. “Sure. He’s often at the house.”
“You know he’s dead?”
“I saw on social media yesterday. Big shock.”
So it was common knowledge already. The Combe Down grapevine had fruited.
Maeve said, “I haven’t mentioned it to Olga. She’ll be devastated.”
“She knows now,” Diamond said. “She hadn’t heard until we told her.”
“Is that why you’re here?” She formed a word with her lips and no sound came out. At the second try, she asked, “Was Tony murdered?”
“He was found at the bottom of a mineshaft. He didn’t get there by accident.”
A gasp. “Who would do that? He was... fun to be with.”
“Women liked him, that’s for sure.”
“Well.” She blinked several times before a burst of words followed. “He knew how to make you feel special and not just in the obvious way through flattery. He could do it with a look and the tone of his voice and he had a great sense of humour, which makes a difference.”
“Sounds like you got to know him.”
Her cheeks flushed. “Only through Olga.”
“But enough to be impressed?”
She made an effort to sound more controlled. “I’m sure it was a technique he’d used with other girls. You kind of knew it and still felt good inside because he was giving you his full-on attention.”
“He had a reputation as a ladies’ man.” Listening to Maeve going on about that fuckwit’s seduction routine was hard to stomach, even though the man was dead and dissected. “Do you know whether Olga slept with him?”
All the goodwill drained away and Maeve’s voice became metallic. “That’s a question for her, not me.”
“I would have asked her, but Konstantin was present.”
“What has this got to do with you or your investigation?” She sounded like the schoolteacher she was and Diamond was supposed to feel like a ten-year-old. Instead, he was weighing the significance of the way she’d spoken about Pinto.
“It could have provided a motive for murder.”
She absorbed that. “You’re not serious. You don’t think Konstantin...?” She couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
“It’s our job to explore every angle.”
Maeve shook her head. “Well, you’re wrong.”
“You know for sure?”
“She would have told me.” She frowned, questioning herself. “I feel sure she would have told me.”
Feeling sure wasn’t knowing for sure.
“They were on edge with each other when we were there, as if trust had broken down. Is that usual?”
“It is, now you mention it. He can be really sharp with her and she seems to take it as normal, but she laughs about him when he isn’t there. She manages him well in her own way. I guess it’s a price you pay if you marry a hard-headed business type. Wouldn’t do for me.”
“Has she ever spoken of violence?”
“You mean beatings? Not to me, she hasn’t. If he hit her, she’s strong enough to hit back, and she would. What’s going on there is coercive control, which I suppose gets him results in his working life, so he brings it home as well. I would find it intolerable, but Olga doesn’t. Women have found ways of coping with men like that since the beginning of time. Some never do, unfortunately.”