Down Among the Dead Men (26 page)

She stopped and wheeled round. “Tell me, Peter. Is there something going on that you haven't shared with me?”

It would have been so easy to tell her about Archie Hahn's memo, but it would break her. Difficult as she was, he couldn't do that to her.

They were standing toe to toe like boxers, so he sparred with her, just as he had the day before in the school dining room. “We've been over this, but I don't think you believed me. Hen started getting interested in missing persons, contacting police stations all along the south coast to see if there was a trend—if someone was disposing of bodies on an industrial scale. The figures bore it out. She proposed co-ordinated action. This was the development that alarmed the high-ups. The murder rate in Sussex and Hampshire was about to rocket. By sacking Hen, they snuff out the problem.”

“I can't accept this.”

“They want you to rubber-stamp her dismissal, so everything goes back to normal.”

“Peter that can't be true. Don't forget I was invited personally by my old colleague Commander Hahn. Archie, of all people, knows I wouldn't be a party to anything dishonourable.”

He swallowed hard. “That goes without saying.”

“Well, then.”

“Commander Hahn asked you to investigate Hen Mallin's behaviour, and no more. Hen shot our fox by admitting straight off that she'd favoured her niece.”

“She did.”

“That's all they need from us. Job done.”

She frowned. “It isn't as simple as that . . . is it?”

“I'm glad we agree on that. Blame me for throwing it open and asking awkward questions. Bad things have been happening here and you and I are rooting them out. If we give up now, they may never see the light of day.”

She tilted her chin higher, always a promising sign. “That is possible.”

Encouraged, he went on, “From all I know of you, Assistant Chief Constable Dallymore, you're not going to turn your back on serious malpractice. You'll get to the truth, however inconvenient it may be.”

“We'll see it through, the two of us,” she said, quite fired up. And then she turned her back and continued the trek around the lake, brisk and businesslike.

Plodding in her wake, Diamond thought about Paloma and home and Raffles the cat, and tried to reconcile himself to at least one more night away.

They continued as far as the dive team and stopped to ask if anything of importance had been found.

The van driver shook his head. “This could be a long job,” he said, lighting another cigarette.

Up at the house, DI Montacute had finished interviewing the artists. “Waste of my bloody time,” he said, when Diamond asked. “Not one of them saw Melanie. I'm starting to ask myself if she was ever here. Just because one of the schoolgirls decided to gate-crash the party, it doesn't mean her friend did. Out of all those people, someone would have noticed, wouldn't they?”

“Is your information reliable, the sighting of the girl on the scooter?”

“You put your finger on it. We've had dozens of possible sightings since I put out the appeal. This one had to be followed up because of the scooter. We know she owned one, a 125cc sports scooter, very distinctive, purple, and she certainly went out on it that night.”

“Did the witness see the colour of the thing?”

“You don't get that lucky.”

“What time was this?”

“He reckoned about ten thirty. This rider was only five minutes away from here and the party was still going. But nobody from here saw the girl or her scooter.”

“You interviewed the artists. Have you spoken to the owner, Ferdie Standforth?”

“Saw him first, with his son. Another blank.”

“There's someone you won't have questioned.”

“Who's that?”

“Davy the model. He was at the party.”

“You're right,” Montacute said, wide-eyed. “He's been in the studio all afternoon. Easy to miss. I'd better catch him before he leaves.”

“Have you searched the lane where the girl on the scooter was seen?”

“Of course. Nothing.”

“But your informant was reliable?”

“He wasn't an attention-seeker, if that's what you mean. We've had a few of them. Pathetic, aren't they? Want to be part of the action, so they call you up and tell you a load of bullshit.”

“How do you know they're making it up?”

“The same people call every time. And they're generally the first to get in touch. Fantasists. They convince themselves they're helping. My team are good at spotting them, thank Christ. The calls that come in later are more likely to be genuine. We're still getting them. I've got a guy coming to the nick at five thirty, reckons she may have been dumped in the sea off Selsey Bill.”

“That's a lot of sea.”

“He took a GPS reading. I'll have to put him off till tomorrow. Got to see the model while he's still here.”

“I can interview your Selsey Bill man,” Diamond said.

27

W
hen DI Montacute got back to his office in Chichester Police Station at the end of his demanding day, he found Peter Diamond in occupation. Nothing is more certain to induce insecurity than finding someone seated in your office chair.

“Don't stand on ceremony,” Diamond said with all the warmth he could muster for this dislikeable detective. “Come on in. I've finished, anyway.”

“Doing what?”

“Chatting to your helpful member of the public, the boatman who reckons all the missing people are at the bottom of the sea.”

Montacute must have forgotten already. “Oh, him.”

“I knew you wouldn't mind if I brought him into your office. So much more homely than the interview rooms.”

“Is it?”

“Jim Bentley is from Emsworth. Nice man. Retired civil servant. Owns a small boat and goes fishing with his friend Norman, an ex-lecturer. Not one of your fantasists, I'd say. His information is reliable, such as it is.”

Montacute gave the grimace of a policeman who wants it known that he will not be suckered. “He saw a body being dropped overboard?”

“No. He saw an empty inflatable anchored in the sea and a diver coming up, a lone diver who told Jim and Norman to sail into the sunset, or words to that effect.”

“Is that all?”

“They took a photo, fixed the spot with the GPS and did as they were asked.”

“And he thinks that's worth reporting to us?”

“It's a personal tribute to you. He saw your sparkling performance on TV and felt compelled to respond.”

“Oh, yeah?” That grimace again.

“And how did you get on with Davy the model?” Diamond asked.

“Same as all the rest. He didn't see Mel at the party. Not one of them did.”

“And did the dive team find anything?”

“No.”

“It's a big lake.”

“They searched the obvious area closest to the house.”

“Maybe they should try the less obvious parts.”

“I've laid them off now. It's bloody obvious we've wasted our time at Fortiman House. Someone out of all those people would have seen the girl.”

“Didn't you learn anything at all?”

“I'm in the wrong job, that's what I learned. I'd do better as an artists' model. Did you see that yellow Lamborghini on the drive? It belonged to Davy. I watched him drive off in it at the end of the day.”

“If he owns a thing like that, he doesn't need to model.”

“It gives him pleasure.”

“The modelling or the car?”

“The modelling. He enjoys being looked at. As he put it to me, he's an average bloke with an average body who doesn't get noticed by anyone when he's in his clothes. This way, he's the centre of attention.”

“Strange. Rather him than me.”

“It takes all sorts. And now if you've finished with my office . . .”

Diamond didn't move.

“Where's your boss?” Montacute asked, making it sound like a threat.

“Back at the hotel, taking a shower and arranging for her clothes to be dry-cleaned. She got in a mess stomping around the lake chasing a trespasser who turned out to be your boss.”

“Hen?” he said with disapproval. “What was she doing there?”

“She heard the art group were under investigation. She's anxious to find her niece, Joss. Is there any news?”

Montacute shook his head. “All the focus is on the schoolgirl. Hen's off the case. She'll get into worse trouble if this gets back to headquarters.”

“It won't, will it?” Diamond said.

“Why not?”

“Because you're going to forget I told you. You're a hard man, but my reading of you is that you wouldn't shaft your own boss.”

In the privacy of his room back at the hotel, he called Sussex police headquarters and asked to speak to Commander Hahn.

“It's Saturday,” the duty officer said.

“I know that.”

“He isn't here, I'm afraid.”

“For the whole weekend?”

“He'll be in Monday.”

Excellent. If Diamond hadn't been holding the phone he would have rubbed his hands. “Unfortunately I can't wait for Monday,” he said, launching into one of those hectoring speeches he could make without trying. No duty officer could withstand them. “I'm speaking on behalf of Assistant Chief Constable Georgina Dallymore, working on a top-level assignment at Commander Hahn's personal request. How shall we do this? I don't suppose you want to call him on his mobile and I guess you won't let me have the number. Are you empowered to take executive decisions?”

“Depends what they are.”

“My chief needs to use the search and rescue unit for a sea search tomorrow morning. A dive about a mile off Selsey Bill.”

“Not possible, I'm afraid. The SRU aren't available. There's an ongoing operation.”

Gotcha. Diamond smiled to himself. “Not ongoing any more if it's the one at Fortiman House. I just spoke to DI Montacute at Chichester. He no longer needs the dive team. So would you ask them to get in touch with me at the Ship Hotel and we'll arrange a time and place?”

An hour later, Diamond was stretched on the bed waiting for someone from the dive team to call. His neck started itching. He flicked it with his fingertip and felt a faint contact and realised he'd disturbed a living thing, an insect of some sort, now wriggling on the quilt. He sat up fast.

A ladybird, upside down, its little legs going like pistons. Invading ladybirds are easier to forgive than most other bugs.

He righted it, took it to the window and released it.

A second one was crawling up one of the window panes.

“It's an invasion,” he said, letting the little creature move onto his finger. “Where are you guys coming from?”

He had the answer the moment he turned back. The old wax jacket from the garden shed at Holly Blue Cottage was draped over the armchair in the corner. He'd given the thing a shake before bringing it indoors, but it must have contained some tiny hostages. It wasn't impossible that some less attractive wildlife was harboured there, so he decided to check.

The jacket was in a bad state. His intention had been to go through the pockets, but he didn't fancy putting his hands inside now that insects were on his mind. The answer, he decided, was to turn the pockets inside out. It was just possible that Joe Rigden—if he had been the owner—had pocketed something of interest. So he started methodically pulling out the linings. Most were empty and probably had never been used.

Some green garden twine fell out of one of the large side pockets along with a penny coin and some bits of black organic material, dry and shrunken, that might have been the remains of fungi. The opposite pocket yielded a copper coin, a penny turned green, and some walnuts, surprisingly well preserved. All in all, nothing likely to explain the unanswered questions about Joe Rigden and his violent death.

Then the phone rang.

28

G
eorgina wasn't happy missing her Sunday breakfast to be on the road by 6:30
a.m.
All the way to Selsey she emitted short, disapproving sighs as if every turn in the road was a pain. And when a sea mist crept over the fields, she said she might as well have stayed in bed. “What's the point of making a search in these conditions?”

“The mist makes no difference,” Diamond said. “We know the GPS reading and the search is under the water.”

They met the dive team—four of them, led by a giant of a man called Dave Albison—beside the launch ramp for the lifeboat, the main feature of a long narrow stretch of pebble beach. But they weren't using the ramp. A large rigid inflatable was on the stones ready to go.

Georgina gave it a suspicious look and said she'd been expecting a proper boat, not the most tactful of starts. The senior man said it was their main marine vessel and they were proud of it. He added that she might want to put on waterproofs. They had spares with them.

For Diamond, the spectacle of his boss in bright yellow and with her ample chest augmented by a life jacket was an amusing sideshow.

“Does it bounce?” she asked.

“The sea doesn't get much calmer than this,” Dave Albison said—which didn't exactly answer the question.

Screaming seagulls added their own comment.

The team loaded so much diving equipment into the front of the vessel that Diamond found himself wondering if there would be room for everyone as well. But the professionals didn't seem to have any doubts. They boarded their two passengers in the shallows and then three of them gave the craft a hefty push to get it afloat. They leapt on board, the motor spluttered and roared, a beacon light flashed and the search mission was under way.

Did it bounce much? It did, but there wasn't any point in protesting because you wouldn't have been heard. The thing fairly raced towards the deeper water. Diamond had a suspicion that this was the SRU's payback time. There was really no reason to be hurtling across the water at maximum speed unless it was to intimidate the passengers. The same team had spent a fruitless day at Fortiman House and now their Sunday morning was spoken for as well.

In the mist, it was extremely exciting or extremely scary, depending on your state of nerves. Diamond made sure he didn't lock eyes with Georgina. She was being brave. He'd insisted she come on the trip, pressing her at least as hard as he'd pressed that duty officer. She would regret not being there, he'd said. This was the most promising shout they'd had. A sighting at sea was one thing; a sighting with a GPS reading was a gift from the gods. Even the SRU lads had been impressed by that.

What seemed a long ride took under ten minutes in reality before Albison eased the throttle. One of his team took a reading. They were close.

It was weird to be fixing a position in open water with only sea and mist on all sides. The Selsey shore had vanished. With Albison using his iPhone to call the fine points, they used paddles to manoeuvre before taking the decision to lower an anchor. One of the crew, already in a drysuit, was being prepared to dive, making checks to valves and seals. When Diamond saw a tin of powder being used, he tried to lighten the mood a little.

“Is that talc you've got there?”

“It is.”

“Does the suit chafe, then?”

“It's to help the hands through the wrist seals,” Albison said. He wasn't receptive to chafing jokes.

“Will he take a camera down?”

“That's the plan. You won't see much if he doesn't.”

“So can we look at the images up here?”

Albison said in a voice as unfriendly as the sea. “Would you mind letting us get on with our job?”

Fair enough, he thought. Diving is risky at the best of times. There were safety procedures to be gone through in a small space and the experts could do without some land lubber demanding a running commentary. Instead, he asked Georgina how she was doing. She had her arms clasped tight below the life jacket.

“Do you want an honest answer? My hair is ruined and I wish I was wearing thermals.”

“It should get warmer when the mist lifts.”

“Good God, I can't wait that long.”

He was shivering himself, even under the waterproofs. For once his two-piece suit hadn't been the ideal choice.

She asked him, “Is Commander Hahn aware of what we're doing?”

“He doesn't work over the weekend.”

“I was thinking he'd want to be informed.”

Diamond nodded, privately thinking Archie Hahn would hit the roof if he was told they were on the trail of missing people.

A line had been put overboard for the diver to use. The youngest of the team, he was finally ready to go, full face mask and fins on, gas cylinders attached and a dive video camera strapped to his chest. He seated himself on the side, gave a thumbs up and dropped back-first into the water. A splash, a glimpse of fins and he disappeared.

Already his colleagues were fully occupied with something else, as if the diver entering the water wasn't important. They were giving their attention to a flickering monitor.

Diamond gestured to Georgina and they both edged closer for a view.

For some seconds there was nothing on the screen you could call an image. Then the interference stopped and they could see things moving, definitely the contour of the seabed. A crop of the weed known as dead men's fingers sharpened into focus. Something like a sheet of newspaper rippled and rose from the mud.

“Skate,” Albison said.

The diver's movement disturbed more flat fish. This was all quite involving for those above, sharing in the search, in spite of their discomfort.

Diamond wasn't comfortable with the underwater images. They reminded him of a dream he'd been getting lately, of being trapped in deep water.

“For some reason, his intercom isn't functioning,” Albison said. “I may have to bring him up to fix it.”

Georgina exchanged a glance with Diamond—and not with the diver's welfare in mind. This could be a long morning.

More swaying weed and no sign yet of anything you wouldn't expect to see down there. The quality of the picture was good. They had a glimpse of the line the diver was using and some bubbles from his regulator.

“Making a turn,” someone explained.

“Is he okay?”

“He appears to be.”

“Has he spotted something?”

“Don't get your hopes up,” Albison said to Diamond. “Horizontal visibility isn't great today. He's surveying the area. Doesn't look like there's much of interest to you, but he'll be thorough.”

“The GPS marked the place where the suspect surfaced, not necessarily where he was below water,” Diamond said.

“We're aware of that, sir,” was spoken in a tone that might as well have said the team weren't total novices.

“Perhaps this man you're calling the suspect was innocently filming the life below, just as our diver is,” Georgina said.

This wasn't what anyone wanted to hear.

Doubts had been introduced and Georgina started to act and look like the player with the winning hand as the methodical process continued. Weed, mud and the occasional fish. The first thrill of seeing submarine life on the screen was wearing off. There is only so much seaweed you can find interesting.

The diver glided to a new section and his left hand loomed large on the screen and then reduced in size as he stretched towards the seabed. He was agitating the mud, creating clouds that fogged everything for some seconds.

They waited for the cloudy mud to clear.

With agonizing slowness, some of the silt dispersed and they saw the diver's hand again, this time with a raised thumb.

“He's found something,” Diamond said.

“You wish,” Georgina said.

More seconds passed before the image sharpened enough to be apparent. Where there had been mud there was now a cleared patch that was level, so level that it could only be man-made.

“Looks like a floor.”

“The surface of something or other.”

“A ship's deck—assuming the rest of it is buried?”

Diamond's stomach clenched. He wasn't down there with the diver, and he had to keep telling himself he wasn't.

The diver moved on a couple of yards and repeated the process, clouding the screen again. When it cleared, another level section was revealed.

“All right, I'm willing to believe there's a wreck down there,” Georgina said. “I expect that's what the mysterious diver found and why he was annoyed at being seen. They like to keep these finds a secret in case there are valuables to be salvaged.”

If that was truly the case, Diamond thought, the man must have been disappointed. “It looks metal rather than wood. It can't be all that old. A lot of shipping went down here or hereabouts in the war.”

“Quite a discovery, even so,” Georgina said. “I believe divers are very competitive. Are you satisfied? Mystery over?”

While they were talking, the diver had progressed several more yards.

“He's found something else,” Albison said.

“Not another strip of deck?” Georgina said. “He's made his point, hasn't he? Can't you call him up?”

But the “something else” was being revealed, fast filling the screen: an area of blackness that was actually a void.

Diamond stared at the screen. This was so involving that he clasped his hand to his mouth.

They were looking at an opening in the deck, a square hatch.

Albison said, “He'll get some light on it.”

A right angle defining one corner of the hatch entrance slid across the screen. This wasn't edited television, it was disconcerting and jerky, but compelling. The diver was preparing to go inside. His free hand grasped the crosspiece. He'd switched on a lamp attached to his helmet.

“A hold of some sort,” Albison said.

Diamond didn't need the commentary. Everyone could see what was being revealed.

The diver had dipped inside and now visibility was restricted to what appeared in the light beam.

First there was more mud. The interior was silted to a level of several feet, but above that some large objects were coming into shot, stowed between the mud and the underside of the deck.

“What's he found?” one of the team said.

“Looks like a plastic sack with something inside,” Albison said.

The ray of light moved slowly along a row of such sacks, some partially immersed in mud, as if they had been in position longer than others.

Diamond said, “If this is what I think it is, we've found what we came for.”

The diver reached towards one of the sacks and poked the thing several times. It remained securely tied. He worked at it without result. Every action underwater is subject to resistance. He pulled back briefly and his arms disappeared from the screen. When they came into view again, he was holding his knife.

No one spoke.

The knife was seen to penetrate the plastic. The diver made a slit and widened it with a sawing motion. Abruptly, he withdrew the knife. The opening in the sack gaped as if something was straining to get out. After a couple of seconds, it slipped out and hung below the bag.

“God help us,” Georgina whispered.

They were looking at a human hand.