‘Is Mel still in the frame?’ Ingeborg said. Her tone suggested he ought not to be. Mel had made a favourable impression on her when she interviewed him. ‘He wasn’t around when the first girl was killed in Vienna.’
‘You saw him at the concert,’ Diamond said. ‘Of the four, who looked the most nervous?’
‘He is the new boy, guv.’
‘He’s had several months to settle in. This wasn’t the first concert they’ve played.’
She nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll keep digging.’
Paul Gilbert still hadn’t been silenced by the drubbing he’d received. ‘There could be a reason why Mel was nervous.’
‘Better tell us, then,’ Ingeborg said before any of the others could inflict more punishment.
‘It’s in the copy of the message log I put on the guv’nor’s desk.’
A show-stopping moment followed. Everyone in the room except young Gilbert knew Diamond was a word-of-mouth man who rarely went near his desk.
‘Message about what?’ Diamond asked.
‘The statement I took yesterday evening from a Mrs. Carlyle.’
Diamond drew a sharp, impatient breath. ‘Never heard of her. Is it relevant?’
‘It could be.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘She came in and made this voluntary statement. Only the thing is she happens to be Mel Farran’s landlady and it was all about a hit and run incident outside the house yesterday afternoon. Mel was knocked down.’
The old blood pressure rocketed. ‘And you wait until now to tell us?’
‘It was in the message. I thought you must have seen it by now, guv. If you want to listen to the statement it’s all on tape.’
Diamond managed to contain himself. Strictly speaking, the lad had acted correctly. Not sensibly, with the way things were done in CID, but correctly. ‘We’ll do that. Fetch it in and play it to us.’ While Gilbert went off to retrieve the cassette, Diamond told the rest of the team, ‘This may have nothing to do with our investigation, but we can’t take that chance.’ He frowned. ‘How come Gilbert interviewed this woman? A voluntary statement about a traffic incident ought to be dealt with downstairs.’
No one knew why, so he asked the young DC when he reappeared with the cassette player.
‘When she first came in she wasn’t talking about the car accident, guv. She was on about a sex maniac stalking her daughter. Uniform said it was a CID matter and I happened to be the only one here.’
‘We’d better hear this.’
He switched on.
They listened enthralled to Mrs. Carlyle’s melodramatic account of the stalker and his all-too-obvious lust for the innocent Tippi. They heard how her gallant lodger Mel went to investigate and was almost killed by the escaping car.
Diamond was gracious enough to say at the end of it, ‘Difficult interview. You handled her well, finally got to the real facts.’ He pressed his forefinger against his chin. ‘Why didn’t Mel report this himself, I wonder?’
‘Too busy with the concert, I expect,’ Ingeborg said.
‘Maybe.’
‘Perhaps what actually happened wasn’t as dangerous as the woman described it,’ Leaman said. ‘She sounds hyper on the tape.’
‘Mel did have a plaster on his left hand,’ Ingeborg said. ‘And at the soirée he was looking every which way as if he expected someone to attack him.’
‘But he didn’t report the driver,’ Diamond said, refusing to excuse the omission. ‘I want to know why. And if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed...’
Mel’s lodgings were in Forester Road, north-east of the city centre. Diamond asked Ingeborg to drive him there since she was the member of CID who knew the violist best and had a good rapport with him. In his twitchy state Mel would probably appreciate some female reassurance. Which wouldn’t stop Diamond putting the boot in when required.
It was best to call unannounced, so they’d made no appointment. This was still before mid-day. The quartet rehearsed mainly in the afternoons. Mel shouldn’t have left the house.
‘What was the make of the stalker’s car?’ Diamond asked as they cruised up the road looking at house numbers.
‘A Renault Megane. Black.’
‘Haven’t noticed one along here, have you?’
‘In view of what happened he’d be an idiot to come back the next day,’ Ingeborg said.
They stopped outside a house with a crimson door and gleaming metal fittings.
‘You must be Tippi,’ Diamond said when their knock was answered by a young woman in a bathrobe with her hair colour matching the door.
She gave him a suspicious look. ‘How do you know? And what’s it to you anyway?’
‘Police,’ he said, showing his ID. ‘Your mother reported an incident yesterday and we’re following up on it.’
‘Mum’s out.’
‘Good. We’d like to speak to Mel if he’s in.’
‘He’s out, too.’
‘Any idea where?’
‘He walks in the park sometimes.’ She pointed along the road in the direction of Sydney Gardens.
‘Your mother seems to believe you have a stalker,’ Diamond said. ‘Has he troubled you before?’
‘Who — me?’
‘That’s what I’m asking, Tippi.’
‘A stalker? Give me a break.’
‘What’s that meant to mean? Don’t you believe your own mother?’
‘I wasn’t here, didn’t see him.’
‘And nothing like it has happened before?
‘Dunno, do I? If he’s any good at it, I wouldn’t notice him.’
They drove down to Sydney Gardens, originally an eighteenth century pleasure garden that suffered a major assault soon after its opening when the Kennet and Avon canal was driven through. And forty years later it was sliced through a second time by the track of the Great Western Railway. But thanks to deep cutting and the building of ornamental bridges and a parapet, the worst horrors were averted. Jane Austen walked there often in its heyday and remarked that one of the advantages was that it was wide enough to get away from the music. These days the gardens are a haven of quiet in a busy city. Helpfully for Diamond, it wasn’t the sort of park where you had no chance of finding anyone. There is a central path almost from end to end with views to either side.
They spotted Mel Farran near the Temple of Minerva, the faux Greek structure of Corinthian columns at the centre of the gardens. Clearly he saw them coming and seemed undecided whether to make an about turn, but thought better of it.
‘How are you doing?’ Diamond said when they got close enough. ‘You had a run-in with a Renault Megane yesterday, I was told.’
Mel was quick to dismiss. ‘It was nothing. My landlady got excited, but I’m fine.’
‘Any idea who was driving?’
‘It all happened too fast. As much my fault as his, I reckon. I don’t want to make a complaint.’
‘How was it your fault?’
‘I was dead set on speaking to him and I kept going when he started the car. Walked right into it.’
‘When you say “dead set”—’
‘I thought I recognised the car. Saw one just like it the same day outside the Tippett Centre, some idiot who drove off fast and almost knocked down a student. But I could be mistaken.’
Diamond didn’t let that pass. ‘You think you saw him twice the same day?’
‘I didn’t get the number or anything. I’m not a hundred percent sure.’
‘Can you think of any reason why anyone is tailing you?’
Mel hesitated. ‘No.’
‘Just that you seemed nervous at the concert last night, as if you were looking out for him.’
He pulled a disbelieving face, as if somebody else was being discussed, and then seemed to remember and gave a shrill laugh. ‘That’s nothing to do with the driver of the Megane. I was playing a new instrument in public for the first time and I thought the owner might be in the audience.’