‘What’s up?’
‘Georgina’s writing. Could be the old heave-ho.’
He was wrong. He found two theatre tickets inside. Georgina had attached a note saying, Hope you can use these. It’s one of my choir nights, unfortunately.
A peace offering, he decided, with a whole new perspective on his boss. She’d been well out of order earlier and no doubt regretted it now.
Leaman asked, ‘Something nice after all?’
‘How did you guess? Close the door as you go out.’ A smart idea had popped into his head. He looked up Paloma’s number and called her.
She answered at once.
‘Sorry about this morning,’ he said. ‘I had the dragon sitting in my office.’
‘The lady boss? I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have called on spec like that. Just wanted to thank you for-’
‘You did,’ he said. ‘Look, I know you like the cinema, so I guess that goes for the theatre as well. I’ve been given a couple of tickets for the Theatre Royal tomorrow night and I thought we might do another restaurant afterwards. My chance to treat you for a change.’
‘I’d really enjoy that,’ she said. ‘What’s on?’
‘Can’t say I know it,’ he said, ‘but it sounds appropriate. An Inspector Calls.’
18
L ater the same afternoon, Diamond took a trip to Norton St Philip and it had nothing to do with the ram raid. He’d asked John Leaman to drive him, leaving Halliwell in charge. Georgina wouldn’t be overjoyed to hear that her top man was elsewhere, but she’d know his deputy was capable of progressing the investigation.
‘You know what this is about?’ he said to Leaman.
‘The couple who hanged themselves a couple of years back? Ingeborg filled me in, guv.’
‘I would have asked Inge along, but she’s digging out files for me and she knows what she’s got and what she hasn’t. You and I are going to meet Harold Twining, the older brother. He’s a teacher on leave of absence at the moment, suffering from stress. So we treat him gently, right?’
For all his fault-finding, Leaman had a sympathetic side that sometimes showed. After some thought, he said, ‘Brute of a job, teaching. I wouldn’t like it, facing a roomful of bolshie kids.’
‘If the teacher’s any good, the kids aren’t bolshie. You remember that from when you went to school, don’t you?’
‘When I was at school they clipped you round the head if you messed about. Teachers have got no sanctions now.’
‘They used the cane in my day. You favour corporal punishment, do you?’
‘They had other methods,’ Leaman said.
‘Like what? Slinging blackboard rubbers at the kids? Cold showers? Those were the bad old days, John.’
‘Didn’t do me any harm.’
‘So you end up in the police, whacking villains with batons. The old, old story.’
Leaman realised he’d walked into that one. ‘Hey, what about you, guv? You’re part of it.’
‘Me? Haven’t you noticed? I’m the Mr Chips of Bath nick.’
Leaman smiled and said no more on the matter. Presently they left the A36 and turned right. ‘I’m in your hands now,’ Leaman said.
‘Took that to heart, did you, about me being a gentle soul?’
‘What I’m saying is that this is Norton St Philip coming up and I don’t know where we’re meeting Harold Twining.’
‘Do you know the George?’
Leaman nodded. Everyone who has been to Norton knows the George Inn, a mighty and magnificent pub said to have been built by the monks of Hinton Charterhouse. Samuel Pepys, Oliver Cromwell and the Duke of Monmouth stayed there, although not at the same time or Pepys’ Diary might have had an interesting entry.
‘He’s waiting for us in the main bar,’ Diamond said.
‘Off school with stress and he goes to the pub?’
‘Not much stress there.’
‘Unless like me you happen to be the driver.’
They parked and went in and found a cheerful character at the bar telling a joke to a barmaid. They let him reach the punch-line, which was, ‘Don’t laugh. You’re next.’ Then he turned and said, ‘These must be my visitors. What’s your tipple, gentlemen?’
‘Mine’s a draught bitter,’ Diamond said. ‘A pint. His will be lemonade. And you’re…?’
‘Skint,’ said Harold Twining, ‘so you’ve copped the first round.’ He chuckled at his own wit and Diamond remembered a history teacher from his grammar school who had the same annoying habit. ‘I hope you’re on expenses,’ Twining went on. ‘I’d love to treat you, but I know my limitations. If you press me, I’ll have the bitter as well.’
At Twining’s suggestion — and Twining was making all the running, but it probably eased his stress — they took their drinks out to the garden at the back. The pastel softness of the Somerset scenery was worth it. A groundsman was using the mower on the village cricket green beside the church and the smell of cut grass wafted up to them.
‘Good to be alive, looking out at this,’ Diamond said to get the conversation under way. It was a distortion of his true state of mind. Having just put his hand in his pocket for the drinks he didn’t feel it was good to be alive at all.
‘Is it?’ Twining said. ‘I’m used to it. Lived here all my life.’
‘Do you teach here as well?’
‘In Norton?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Too close to home. Maths and physics at Frome.’
‘When you’re fit.’
‘Quite.’
‘How long have you been off work?’ All thoughts of giving this freeloader a stress-free time had gone.
For the first time since their arrival, Harold Twining’s smile deserted him. ‘I thought you were here to talk about my brother.’
‘We are. I’m being friendly. Can’t dive straight in.’
‘It doesn’t sound friendly when the first thing you mention is my problem. People don’t understand psychosomatic illness. It isn’t obvious, like mumps or asthma, but it’s just as real. Some of those buggers at work believe I’m having a high old time of it.’
‘There’s no accounting for human nature,’ Diamond said and turned to Leaman. ‘Did it cross your mind that Mr Twining was skiving off, John?’
‘I take people as I find them, guv.’
‘There you are.’ Diamond smiled at Twining. ‘Let’s talk about your brother, then. And his wife. Because I understand it was a double tragedy.’
‘Dreadful,’ Twining said. ‘Afterwards you ask yourself if you could have helped in some way, but I had no inkling they were so unhappy.’
‘Were they?’ Diamond said. ‘You’ll have to give us some background. We don’t know the full circumstances.’
‘I doubt if anyone did. The coroner couldn’t work it out. Mentally my brother John was a hundred per cent and so was Chrissie. They had no money problems. Each of them was earning more than I ever will. Alpha people. You asked on the phone if I could bring a picture and I dug one out.’ He took a postcard-sized photo from his pocket and flicked it across the table in a way that seemed to express his contempt for the couple.
Diamond picked it up. It had been taken with flash at some party. A good-looking couple with drinks in front of them. John Twining had receding hair and a thick moustache; she was blonde, the hair scrunched back. They both looked comfortable being photographed. The smiles weren’t at all forced.
‘What did they do?’
‘She was a buyer for Marks and Spencer, a high-powered job. And John was an architect. They had a beautiful property he designed for himself in Hinton Charterhouse, just down the road from here. Holidays in the Caribbean, a sports car each. No kids. No ties, not even a budgie to look after.’
‘They seem happy with each other in the photo.’
‘I never saw a sign that they weren’t.’
‘So what was said at the inquest? How was it explained?’
‘I don’t think it was. The coroner came out with some claptrap about successful, wealthy people suddenly realising that their lives were vacuous. His word. Vacuous. It’s not in my vocabulary. I can tell you what a vacuum is because I’m a physicist. But a vacuous life is an unscientific term. He reckoned they must have made a pact to put an end to themselves. He said if they’d had children, or even a dependent relative, they might have felt their lives had more purpose. I’ll be honest with you, I would have volunteered to be a dependent relative. No problem.’