Four years on, this taxed Mrs. Billington to the limit. She managed to dredge up a memory of a caller Diamond took to be Marcus Martin, the horseman. He had called two or three times. And she was positive-because she had been asked it before-that John Mountjoy had never called while she was there.
“Was she ever sent flowers?”
A frown. “I can’t remember any arriving.”
“Did she like roses specially?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“I see you have rose bushes in the garden.”
She reddened and slipped out of her old lady role to deliver a rebuke. “Obviously you’re no gardener. You wouldn’t find a dozen roses in bud in my garden or any other in October. The ones found in the room obviously came from a florist.”
He asked whether Britt had ever discussed her journalistic work and got the answer he expected: she had not.
Diamond, better than most, always knew when he had outstayed his welcome. Suddenly he was getting the message that Violet Billington wanted him out as quickly as possible and not just for the sake of the new tenant upstairs. The question about the roses had unsettled her. This made him all the more interested in prolonging the interview.
“You must have got to know a certain amount about Miss Strand’s relationships with men.”
“Nothing.” Curt and uncompromising.
“Come now, Mrs. Billington,” he coaxed her. “No one is going to accuse you of prying into her life. She was your tenant for three years. In that time you’re bound to have seen the comings and goings and I’d have thought you’re bound to have speculated about her love life. It’s only human.”
“I’ve told you everything you have any right to know.”
“We’re not exchanging gossip,” he pressed her. “This is someone who was murdered.”
“I’ve nothing else to say on the matter. It’s over. You took the man before the courts and he was found guilty.”
Not, simply, Mountjoy murdered her. More like a refined way of saying you clobbered him and it’s your arse in a sling, mate. What did she know?
“Should I speak to your husband? Maybe he’ll feel easier talking to me.”
“You’ll get nothing out of Winston.”
She gave too much away this time. Implicit in the force of the remark was her conviction that Winston knew something and hadn’t confided in her, in spite of her best efforts.
“He’s out at work, I take it?”
“Yes.”
“Does he come home for lunch by any chance?”
“No.”
“So what time do you expect him home today?”
“I can’t say. It varies.” Her mouth pursed and those pale eyes glared in defiance.
Diamond was plumbing the depths of his memory to get a mental impression of the man. Winston Billington’s testimony at the trial had been confined to describing how he had found the body. He had never been considered as a possible suspect because the holiday in Tenerife had given him an alibi. He’d appeared younger than his wife, perhaps under fifty, a slight, dapper figure in a striped suit. “What’s his job, then? I take it he has a job?”
“Sales rep.”
“Selling what?”
“Greeting cards.”
“For a local firm?”
“No.”
“So where are they based-in London?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s the area rep?”
“Yes.”
“Visits the shops, does he, trying to interest them in the new designs? Have you got any samples around the house?”
She turned away and started busying herself with dishes. “He doesn’t keep them here. We wouldn’t have room.”
“What does he have-an office?”
“Something like that. A place where the cards are stored.”
“But you don’t have any you can show me?”
She glared. “I already made that clear, I thought.”
His curiosity was mounting. “What sort of cards are they, Mrs. Billington?”
“What do you mean, what sort? Greeting cards.”
“The sort I might choose for my wife?”
“I’ve no idea.” But she had gone a shade more pink.
“Let’s give you an idea then. Her preference is for country scenes, or animals. Not over-sentimental. A basket of Persian kittens would be too sappy for my Stephanie. She wouldn’t mind a horse looking over a gate.”
“I said I have no idea because I don’t see the blessed cards,” she told him, overriding her blushes with acrimony. “If you’ve finished, I do have things to attend to. I don’t wish to discuss my husband’s business.”
“You’re right,” said Diamond generously. “I’d better go to the fountainhead. When can I be sure of finding him at home?”
Her entire body tensed. She said, “I thought the reason you called was to warn us about Mountjoy. Winston knows he escaped. I don’t see why you have to bother us anymore. We suffered enough at the time of the murder.”
“I’m still going to speak to him.”
“He’s got nothing to say.”
“What time do you suggest?”
“After eight, if you must.”
“Certainly must.” He picked his trilby off the table. There wasn’t anything to thank her for.
“Not so much as a cup of weak tea, Julie.” He voiced his disapproval of Mrs. Billington over a sandwich lunch in the Roman Bar at the Francis. “She treated me as if I was something the cat brought in.”
“Is there a cat?”
“Yes, and it ignored me. So it was worse than being something the cat brought in.”
“You’re not having much of a day so far. And you think Mrs. Billington was keeping something back?”
He picked up the sandwich plate. “Put some of these on your plate or I’ll swipe the lot. I’m like that. It isn’t gluttony, it’s concentration. Working lunches have that effect. Yes, I’d lay money that she was withholding information, and it concerns the husband. Of course it could be simply that he deals in raunchy greeting cards and she’s ashamed of him.”
“Does he?”
“Don’t know for sure. I got the impression that they’re not the sort you’d send to your aunt. Fair enough, the shops are full of them. Mrs. Billington may not want the world to know, but if it’s a living and within the law, I’m not condemning Winston.”
“Wicked Winnie.”
He chuckled. “I can remember a time when a sales rep was called a commercial traveler and the butt of thousands of dirty jokes. I’m curious to find out whether Winston fits the picture.”
“Meaning what?” said Julie.
“Meaning was he laying the lodger?”
Julie’s eyebrows arched.
“It’s not unknown,” he added reasonably. “Middle-aged man lusting after pretty girl upstairs. When I looked at Mrs. Billington this morning-”
“Come off it, Mr. Diamond,” Julie cut in sharply. “I’m not one of your beer-drinking cronies.”
He hesitated. Once he would have waded in. But he valued Julie’s support and wanted to keep it.
She repaired the conversation seamlessly. “If he had something going with Britt, it would be interesting to discover, but where would it lead us since we know he was in Tenerife at the time of the murder?”
“I’m talking off the top of my head,” Diamond said, “but it might provide a motive that we didn’t consider at the time. If Billington slept with Britt and someone else got to hear of it, we could be talking about a jealous lover as the killer.”
“Marcus Martin?”
“He claimed he’d broken up with Britt, but we only have his word for that.”
“He had an alibi for the night of the murder, didn’t he?”
“Didn’t they all?”
Julie was becoming inured to the big man’s cynicism. “He was at a party in Warminster until one in the morning.”
“Time of death isn’t certain.”
“Yes, but the woman he was with is certain. She said he spent the rest of the night at her flat in Walcot Street.”
“Was there corroboration, though?”
“No.”
Diamond took a long sip of bitter. “I wouldn’t place too much reliance on it, then. Let’s talk to Mr. Martin this afternoon if we can.”
She looked up, surprised. “You want me to come?”
He nodded. “Unless you need more time with the crusties. How did you get on?”