“All I know is that Diamond got it wrong. I told him so. Whether he believes me is far from certain.”
“You must have some ideas of your own. You must have thought about it while you were locked away.”
“Constantly. I got nowhere because I didn’t have all the facts. No amount of thinking is going to solve a crime if you don t have the full picture.”
“Does this man Diamond?”
“Does he what?”
“Have the full picture?”
“Not up to now, but he’s the only one with the means to get at the truth. He has all the original statements and he knows-”
Samantha interrupted with a little gasp, followed by “What’s that?”
“What?”
“A sound, a scuffling.”
“I didn’t hear it.”
Together they listened. It occurred to Mountjoy that if a search party had entered the mine, footsteps and voices ought to be audible, but it would be difficult to know from which direction they were approaching because there were so many entrances to this labyrinth. Choosing an escape route would be a lottery.
“There it is again!” she told him.
It didn’t sound human in origin. It was a light sound, a rustle, not far away.
“And again!” said Samantha.
“That’s dust falling. I felt it on my neck.” He shone the torch upward and a dark shape fluttered across its beam. “A bat. That was only a bat.”
“Oh, my God!”
“They won’t come near you.”
“I’m terrified of bats.”
“They’re not interested in us. It’s their home. See that ledge up there.” He pointed the torch. “That’s where it flew from. It disturbed some tiny chips of limestone.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, folded her arms across her chest and started rocking her torso and producing a high-pitched moaning sound. He’d never heard anything like it. The fear had gripped her like an epileptic fit. Was she epileptic? he wondered. How would he deal with it? In all his planning he hadn’t anticipated anything like this.
Abandoning his self-imposed pledge not to touch her, he put a hand on her upper arm and shook her. “Stop it, will you? Don’t be so ridiculous.”
She opened her eyes. “Why don’t you kill me and get it over? Yes, kill me. I’d rather die. Kill me, murderer!”
He pushed her down and forced her hands behind her back and tied them.
Chapter Thirteen
He kept Julie in suspense all the way back to Manvers Street. She was ninety-nine percent sure he wasn’t serious about transforming her into a crusty, but that one percent was amusing to work on. She might pass muster wearing a dread-lock wig, he suggested, and if the CID’s wardrobe didn’t run to combat trousers she could get away with black leggings with plenty of holes. He was sure that the RSPCA could supply her with a vicious-looking pooch; she definitely needed a dog. He strolled on stolidly, embroidering the tease all the way. But behind the poker face his mood was improving and it wasn’t that beer in the Roman Bar that had made the difference.
Julie wasn’t spared until they reached the nick. They were crossing the reception hall when Diamond spotted something behind the protective glass at the public enquiry point.
“I don’t believe this.” But he still marched over for a closer inspection.
Another of the woolen bees was positioned just behind the glass, goggling at him with its ridiculous eyes.
He rapped on the glass until the constable on duty came over.
“Who left this here?”
“What’s that, Mr. Diamond?”
“This bee.”
“That’s a bumblebee, sir.”
“I don’t care what it is. Who is responsible for it?”
The constable frowned.
Diamond had turned flamingo pink. “Whose idea of a joke is it? That’s all I’m asking.”
“It’s no joke, sir.”
“You’re telling me, laddie. When I find the perpetrator he won’t be laughing.”
There was a pause before the constable summoned the confidence to say, “Didn’t you get a bee of your own, Mr. Diamond?”
This polite enquiry went unanswered.
“Everyone should have got one this morning. It’s Operation Bumblebee.”
Diamond’s eyes resembled two dashes in a line of Morse code. Behind him, Julie Hargreaves lowered her face and squeezed her arms across her stomach in a desperate attempt to remain serious.
“You can have this bumblebee if you like, sir,” the hapless duty constable added to his list of offenses. “We’ve got a box of them back here. The poster comes with it.”
Something had to be done, and fast.
Without trusting herself to speak, Julie touched Diamond on the arm and drew his attention to a large poster that dominated the cluster of notices to his right. There was a cartoon figure of a bee in a police helmet and boots. The wording ran: SUPER BEE SAYS TO BEAT
THE BURGLAR WE NEED YOUR HELP. BUZZ THE BEELINE FREE ON 0800 555 111.
He studied it in silence.
Eventually Julie managed to get out the words, “Public relations.”
The constable said, “If you don’t mind me saying so, it isn’t just PR, ma’am. Since we started Bumblebee last year, the break-ins have dropped dramatically. There are five men in the team, working with Sergeant Wood, the Bumblebee officer.”
“The what?” said Diamond.
“Every report of a break-in is fed through a central hive- that’s the computer, of course. Go upstairs and you can hear it humming.”
“God help us!” murmured Diamond.
“And then the villains get stung. Would you like a bee, Mr. Diamond?”
Diamond shook his head and allowed Julie to lead him away.
“Four years is a heck of a time,” Marcus Martin declared in the polished accent of a fee-paying school.
And a heck of a lot of women, thought Diamond. They had found Britt Strand’s last boyfriend in the paddocks behind his Elizabethan manor house, undoubtedly one of the few brick mansions in the whole county, its triple-gabled facade glowing bright orange in the afternoon sun and blood-red where the shadow of an oak fell across the wall. Marcus Martin was with a young woman who was mounted on a black mare, in a schooling ring surfaced with wood chippings and laid out with practice jumps. Immaculately kitted as the equestrienne was, in black velvet hunting cap, black coat, white stock and antelope-colored jodhpurs, she hadn’t succeeded in moving the horse and didn’t seem to be trying, thus giving the impression that the riding lesson wasn’t her main reason for being there. The way Martin helped her dismount with both hands around her thigh reinforced this impression. He unfastened the tack for her and sent her toward the stables with a push on her rump. She didn’t object.
“But you remember me, I expect?” said Diamond.
“Too well, my friend, too well.”
He introduced Julie, who was awarded the doubtful compliment of a lingering head-to-toe inspection.
Martin said with his eyes still on her, “It’s hard to credit.”
“What is?” Diamond asked.
“Inspector Hargreaves.”
“It wouldn’t be if you were evading arrest,” said Diamond in a tribute that almost made up for the teasing earlier. “No doubt you’ve heard that Mountjoy is on the run from Albany?”
Martin hadn’t heard and he couldn’t see how it affected him.
“It doesn’t,” said Diamond. “It affects me, though. I’m the fall guy who may have to speak to him. He claims he’s innocent, of course.”
“What does the wretched man want-a retrial?”
“He wouldn’t get that.”
Martin fed the mare a couple of sugar lumps and waved to a stable lad to take her back to her stall. Then he suggested they go inside the house, where they would be warmer.
“I’m trying to refresh my memory of the case,” Diamond told him as if the facts had all deserted him. For once he was being as amiable as the television detective Columbo, whose style of questioning he aspired to, but only rarely approached. “You’re the obvious man to ask about Britt.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Martin. “Our relationship was short and to the point. Weeks, rather than months.”