Down Among the Dead Men (19 page)

“Did you find where he'd been working?”

“Even that was uncertain. The lawns weren't cut recently and the mower was in the garden shed along with a load of other equipment and the old padded jacket he used when the weather was cold.”

“He could have been weeding or pruning. This was September and gardens are still growing at that time of year.”

“I'm aware of that, ducky. If you take a trip there, you'll see what I mean, but don't expect to find anything.”

A young woman doctor came by and checked Hen's condition. “She should be all right to travel now,” she told Diamond. “Did you bring her day clothes?”

“Er . . . no.”

“She's in a hospital gown. She can't leave like that.”

“I came in a pink-striped nightie,” Hen said.

“They'll bring it presently,” the doctor said and turned to Diamond again. “You can help her on with it.”

“Probably not,” he said. “She might not welcome that.”

Hen said softly, “Coward.”

From the doctor he got a look that said he was no gentleman and might well have been responsible for Hen's injury.

When the nightdress arrived and the curtains around the bed were being drawn, Diamond muttered something about calling a taxi and quit the ward at speed.

When he eventually got back to the hotel, it was after seven. He hadn't been in his room two minutes before the phone rang.

“There you are at last,” Georgina said in a voice drained of all tolerance. “I've been trying to reach you on your mobile all afternoon. Was it switched off?”

He could so easily have said he'd been on hospital premises and was keeping to their rules about phones, but he didn't want Georgina knowing of Hen's misadventure and putting the worst possible construction on it.

“Funny. I'll check.” He let a few seconds pass before saying, “Ah, you're quite right. It was switched off. Sometimes I wonder if there are gremlins in this damn thing. You didn't need me urgently, I hope?”

“Fat use if I had,” she said. “Come to my room and tell me what you learned from the Reverend Conybeare. And I want to know what else you've been up to. You can't have spent all day at his cottage.”

“Can you give me twenty minutes? I was about to take a shower.” Enough time, he hoped, to dream up some story that would satisfy her.

After giving a detailed account of the Conybeare interview, he made a firm attempt to switch roles and invite Georgina to summarise her day. She was having none of it.

“You haven't told me where you were all afternoon.”

He'd told a few untruths in his time, but experience had taught him to stay as close to the facts as possible without actually revealing all. “Not much to do in Slindon,” he said. “I came back here and told the driver he wouldn't be needed again. I thought about joining you at the nick and then decided against it. You don't need me hanging on your coattails. So I went out again. Fresh air and exercise to get the brain working. We haven't had a case conference since we got here, so I held my own, so to speak, reviewing what we've done and discovered.”

She said with suspicion, “Where was this—in some pub?”

“No, no. I needed a clear head. Do you know Spitalfields Lane?” He was confident she didn't. “That's where I ended up, if you want to know.”

“And did you come to any startling conclusion?”

“Startling? No.”

“But you thought of something important?”

“Maybe.” Anything to steer Georgina away from how he'd passed the afternoon. “I was thinking of Danny Singleton and his story about the stolen BMW. Let's suppose it really happened just as he described: the car arriving outside the pub where he was and by good luck being the make his gizmo would unlock. I was asking myself why the car containing the body was parked in that particular spot in Littlehampton. The person wearing the hooded jacket got out and walked away across the bridge, right?”

“That's Danny's story—which has to be taken with more than a pinch of salt.”

“Let's go with it for a moment. The hoodie wouldn't run the risk of leaving the car there and later returning. He'd leave it there because—”

“She would leave it there,” Georgina said. “We're thinking Joss was the hoodie because her DNA was found in the car.”

“Okay. Joss would leave it there because those were her instructions. There was an arrangement. After dark the body would be removed from the car by whoever it is who has been disposing of these missing persons. That was the plan. But Danny messed it up by stealing the car and driving off, unaware of what was in the boot.”

Georgina leaned forward. “Peter, this is clever. I think you're onto something. I hadn't linked this case to the missing persons.”

“And if I'm right, we now have an insight into the method used.”

“How is that?”

“The location. The bodies are brought to this quiet spot by the river—”

“And dropped off the bridge?”

He was about to say, “Nothing so crude,” and he stopped himself. “It has to be smarter than that. My guess is that they're transferred to a boat and taken out to sea, probably weighted down and dropped overboard somewhere in coastal waters. The disposer—if we call him that—would make damn sure they'd stay submerged.”

“And officially they remain as missing persons. It answers a lot of the questions. Do you think it's still going on, leaving the bodies at Littlehampton?”

“Going on, yes, but I doubt if the location is the same. The Rigden case will have required a re-think. But from what we hear, people are still going missing all along the south coast.”

Georgina clearly liked what she'd heard. “No one in Chichester CID has thought of this.”

“It's just a theory,” Diamond said.

“But not obvious. If you and I can find Joe Rigden's killer, we're more than halfway to collaring the ghoul who is making so many bodies disappear without trace.”

“Or there's another way of looking at it.”

“What's that?”

“Catch the ghoul first and he can lead us to our killer.”

She shook her head. “Far too difficult. He could be anywhere along the coast.”

“He's known to the people who use his services, else how would they contact him?”

“Peter, I'm impressed. You've really thought this through. It wasn't a day wasted.”

Here was a perfect opening. “And how was your day, Georgina?”

This casual use of her name gave her a jolt. It practically gave her whiplash. Earlier on the trip she'd invited the liberty, but she hadn't expected him to take it up. “My day?” she eventually managed to say. “I was at the police station. I banged a few heads together, but basically they're doing all they can. Soft-pedalling? I wouldn't say so. Finding Joss is their priority and they've done all the right things, issued photos to the media, given a press conference, followed up on every lead.”

“But no success?”

“It's not for want of trying.”

“So DI Montacute can't be faulted?”

“He's not the easiest person to get on with, but I'm used to dealing with awkward detectives.”

Diamond grinned.

“However,” Georgina went on, “I'm a little concerned about something that happened towards the end of the afternoon. It could so easily distract them. Well, it must, to some extent.”

He waited for her to go on.

“In my opinion, it's scarcely a CID matter at all. We deal with things like this all the time.”

“Like what?”

“A schoolgirl whose parents don't know where she is. You and I know there's nothing to get excited about when a teenager goes off the rails. In ninety-nine per cent of the cases they come back.”

His interest quickened. “Which school?”

“Priory Park. She's only been missing a few hours.”

“Did you catch the name?”

“Melanie Mason. Everyone calls her Mel.”

20

M
iss Du Barry, the Headmistress of Priory Park, liked to be known simply as the Head. She was a natural leader, dignified, decisive and calm in a crisis. She also terrified the students. Here, in her office, seated in the white leather executive chair behind a desk that could have doubled as Queen Victoria's funeral bier, she was ready to deal with anyone, police included. Gilt-framed portraits of previous headmistresses in academic dress adorned the wall behind her. She was in what she called informal attire, a charcoal grey suit and white blouse with a choker collar.

Peter Diamond, grey-suited as usual, on the other side of the desk in an upright chair a couple of inches lower than the head's, had an inkling of how any girl summoned here must have felt. A sharp aroma invaded his nostrils and added to the unsettling effect. He traced it to an arrangement of yellow and white chrysanthemums only an arm's length away, on the filing cabinet. Probably the school colours, he decided.

He'd come straight from the hotel. Georgina wasn't with him, having told him quite reasonably that this was a distraction, unrelated to their mission. Doubtless she thought it was another excuse to avoid a meal in her company.

“It's late in the day, I know,” Diamond said.

The head gave a thin indulgent smile. “Not at all. My responsibility is twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”

“It's about the missing schoolgirl.”

“We call them students, superintendent.”

“The missing student, then.”

She gave a curt nod, familiar to anyone who has been through school, registering that a slow learner had got there without earning any credit. “And if they fail to appear in school we say they are absent.”

He wasn't swallowing that. “By our reckoning, if a girl hasn't been home all night and no one has heard from her, she's missing.”

“Do you have new information?”

“Not yet, ma'am.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I need information from you.”

She tried persuasion first. “I have every confidence Melanie hasn't come to any harm. Young people of her age often go through a rebellious stage and give their parents a fright.” Then she covered herself. “However, we're duty bound to take it seriously.”

“So are we. Have you spoken to the parents?”

“To her stepfather, yes. He called me this morning, hoping one of her friends would know where she was.”

“And I gather they don't.”

“No. Melanie happens to be the kind of girl who keeps her life outside school to herself. Most of them are only too eager to share every trivial detail with friends and with the world in general, using the entire paraphernalia of the social media. Not Melanie.”

“Any reason for that?”

“Her situation. She's here on a bursary provided by the trade union her late father belonged to. He was killed in an accident at work. He was working-class, a road-mender, very different from the parents of most of our students. Any group of children is quick to notice an individual who is different. One can't do anything about it.”

What an admission. “Have you tried?”

“It doesn't help the child in question. It's group psychology at work.”

“Mob violence.”

“That's overstating it. There was nothing physical involved. Some disapproval, a certain amount of teasing.”

“Mental cruelty, then.” Argument was futile, so he left it there. “But the mother remarried?”

“To another working man.”

“When did they first notice she'd gone?”

“Don't you know?”

Sharp question. He tried not to react like the class slacker. “I'm coming to the case rather late in the day.”

“Melanie was at home yesterday evening in her room,” the head informed him. “She would appear to have gone out at some point without saying anything to the parents. They discovered this when they were about to retire for the night, towards eleven. She never fails to say goodnight to them. The scooter she rides is missing. People of their sort are either panicky or indifferent in a situation like that. They are clearly the former. I understand they phoned your police station about six.”

Explaining that Chichester wasn't his nick was just too complicated. “Everyone has been alerted. Is there a boyfriend?”

“Not to the parents' knowledge. And her fellow students haven't heard of anyone either.”

“But you said she keeps thing bottled up, so we can't rule it out. Does she have any male teachers?”

Miss Du Barry shifted in her chair. “I don't follow your reasoning here. If I do understand your question, I don't care for it.”

“It's got to be asked,” Diamond said. “Students have crushes sometimes and teachers have been known to take advantage.”

“Not in this school.”

“There's always a first time. I assume you have some men on the staff?”

Her eyes slid upwards, letting him know this was all too impertinent. “A few.”

“Getting back to my question, is Melanie taught by any of them?”

“Superintendent, there are more than five hundred students in Priory Park. I don't know the personal timetable of every one.”

“I'm not asking about them all. Just Melanie.”

“I can access hers if you wish.”

“That would be helpful.”

She opened a drawer, took out a laptop, worked the keys and said, “One of her A level subjects is art.”

“And is one of your art teachers a man?”

He was shadow-boxing and so was she. Of course she knew.

“Mr. Standforth joined us at the start of term. He's from a good family and highly responsible in his dealings with the students.”

“What age would he be?”

“I don't see how that comes into it.”

“You must have some idea.”

“Quite young, between twenty-five and thirty, but that's not an issue.”

“Was he in school today?”

“He was.” She snapped down the lid of the laptop. “I saw him myself.”

“Did you speak?”

“We passed the time of day, as one does.”

“Is he here now?”

“He will have left an hour ago.” She gripped the arms of her chair and took a deep breath. “Superintendent, I don't seem to have made myself clear. There is no question whatsoever of Mr. Standforth being implicated in Melanie's absence. He is fully aware of the sensitivities of being a male teacher in a girls' school. Like every new teacher, he went through the usual DBS checking process before we employed him. Aside from that, Melanie herself is one of the most mature students in the school, and the chance of her becoming infatuated with a teacher is so unreal as to be ridiculous.”

“I hear you, but—” Diamond said, and was stopped.

Miss Du Barry had cut in with: “Thank you. There's a real danger in any teaching establishment of gossip and rumour spreading like wildfire. I won't allow unfounded theories to disturb the smooth running of the school. That would be deeply disruptive and mustn't happen.”

“I appreciate everything you say, ma'am,” Diamond said, “but I have a job to do as well. We could be dealing with something far more serious than an absent student.”

She tensed. The bigger risk had got home to her at last.

Diamond said, “If Melanie hasn't shown up by tomorrow, we'll step up the investigation. I'll come in and have a few words with your Mr. Standforth.”

“I've vouched for Mr. Standforth's character. Isn't that enough?”

He gave her the sort of look she gave her students.

She sighed. “However you go about it, there will be consequences.”

“And while I'm here, I'll need to speak to some of Melanie's classmates.”

Her shoulders sagged. “Oh dear. We'll never hear the end of this.”

“Let's hope she's perfectly all right, then.” He paused, watching her. “I was impressed when I met her.”

Miss Du Barry blinked. “You met Melanie?”

“Strangely enough, she came into the police station yesterday.”

“Whatever for?”

“She was enquiring about a Miss Constance Gibbon, who used to teach her art.”

“Melanie was asking you about Miss Gibbon?” The face turned pale. Almost immediately blotches of red started to appear.

“A missing person,” Diamond said. “Officially missing, on the missing persons' index. Not absent, but missing.”

“There's no need for sarcasm. Miss Gibbon left the school last term, at the end of July.”

“And hasn't been heard of since. She hasn't been in touch with her family and they reported their concern.”

“I do know about this,” the head said in a more measured way, trying to recover her equilibrium. “We had someone here asking questions. As far as we're concerned, Constance Gibbon handed in her notice and left. I don't see what business it is of Melanie's.”

“If you're asking me, I'd say it's a credit to Melanie that she's troubled about this woman. I gather she wasn't all that popular.”

“Popularity isn't necessarily the hallmark of a good teacher,” Miss Du Barry said.

“Were there complaints? I'm wondering why she left.”

“No complaints I ever heard of.”

“Melanie said her lessons were boring.”

She gripped the desk and drew herself higher in the chair. “I find this profoundly offensive, being asked to respond to student tittle-tattle.”

“It wasn't said out of spite. The teacher is on Melanie's conscience because of the way she was treated.”

“Superintendent Diamond, I assure you Miss Gibbon was treated in the professional way every teacher is entitled to expect.”

“Don't get me wrong,” Diamond said. “I'm not criticising you.”

“I should hope not.”

“And neither was Melanie. The problem with Miss Gibbon, as I understand it, was in the classroom. You may disagree, but I can't ignore what Melanie had to say. And now she, too, is . . . absent.”

“I think you'd better leave. Now.”

There was nothing to be gained by staying. At the door, he turned. “This Mr. Standforth. Is he a straight replacement for Miss Gibbon?”

“He is.”

“From round here?”

“He's a local man, yes, well qualified and with the right experience at this level. We were lucky to get him.”

“From a good family, you said. Do you know them?”

“I know of them. The Standforths have lived in Boxgrove for generations and contribute generously to all kinds of good causes. Tom Standforth has a studio that he opens regularly for local artists.”

“I look forward to meeting him—if it becomes necessary. Thanks for your time, ma'am.”

Back at the hotel, he ordered room service and spent some time on the phone. First he called Hen to make sure she was recovering well. She sounded like her old self, much amused by his account of the headmistress. She'd heard of the Standforth family and confirmed that they were well known locally, although she hadn't met any of them. “Which is probably a recommendation, darling,” she added. “You and I only ever get to meet the baddies.”

He also had a long call to Paloma, who didn't seem to be missing him at all. Neither did his cat. Paloma had driven past the neighbour's house and seen Raffles blissfully asleep on a windowsill in a patch of sunlight.

“I'll be back as soon as possible,” he told Paloma. “I'm trying my best to speed things up.”

“Don't you worry,” she said. “Enjoy the hotel life while you've got the opportunity.”

Next morning, about a mile south of Selsey Bill, a small cabin cruiser was chugging through calm water. Aboard were two men in their seventies, friends for half a century, who had rented the boat for a day's sea-fishing. They didn't expect to catch much. They never did. The pleasure of these trips was being at sea, away from it all, with a hamper of good food and a bottle or two of wine, while their wives had a shopping expedition to Portsmouth's Gunwharf Quays. A good arrangement all round.

Jim Bentley, currently at the wheel, unexpectedly said, “Something up ahead.”

“Give it a wide berth, then.” His friend Norman Hallows was relaxing in the cabin playing Klondike solitaire on his iPhone. “It could be a marker buoy.”

“I don't think so. It's black. Low in the water.”

“Driftwood.”

“Maybe.”

“Is it moving? Not a whale, by any chance?”

“Wrong shape.”

“Use the glasses.”

There was an interval while Hallows made some moves in the game.

“I think it's an RIB.”

“A rib?”

“Rigid inflatable boat. Yes, I'm right. And it's anchored in some way.”

“Out here? Strange.”

“Can't see anyone aboard.”

“Give them a blast on the horn.”

“When we get closer.”

A few minutes later, Jim Bentley sounded the horn.

Nothing came back.

“Be like that,” he said.

“They won't have a horn,” Hallows said.

“They could wave.”

“They're lying low, shagging, I expect. Thought they were all alone in the ocean and we show up, giving them the fright of their lives.”

“It's early in the day for that. Seriously, I'm wondering if they're in trouble, engine failure or something.”

“They'd be waving to you by now if they are.”

“Not much sign of life. Suppose the guy has had a heart attack.”

“Serve him bloody right for being at it so early in the morning,” Norman said.

“I'm going closer, just to be sure.”

Hallows sighed. He wasn't going to get the game done. He stirred himself, got up and watched as they drew alongside the anchored inflatable gently bobbing with the waves. No one was aboard.

“The Mary Celeste,” he said. “Another unsolved mystery of the sea.”