The Last Detective (12 page)

If I continue to lie here, I thought, I'm going to be incinerated with the summerhouse.

The Men in White Coats

THE INCIDENT ROOM IN MANVERS Street Police Station was not as crowded as the caravan had been. Paperclips no longer danced in their boxes each time Peter Diamond walked across the floor. Nor could the filing clerks feel his breath on the backs of their necks. Loose papers and file cards were not so likely to be brushed off the edges of desks. The carousel of cards, instead of dominating the room, had been relegated to a corner. Four Trojan horses - as Diamond dubbed them - in the form of computer terminals, stood on a table near the door. The Police Committee had decreed that no major inquiry should be without its computer back-up, irrespective of the prejudices of one cantankerous detective.

'We'll soon have them up and running, sir,' Inspector Dalton, who came with the computers and four civilian operators, had rashly promised.

To this, Diamond had responded, 'Up where? Up yours, as far as I'm concerned.'

Apart from that, the air of desperation beside the lake had been supplanted by confidence. They were working to a purpose now. In the hackneyed, but comforting phrase, a man was assisting the police with their inquiries. He had been in the interview room for an hour and a half.

Diamond and John Wigfull came out for a sandwich. Neither was wearing a jacket. The Last Detective was in his element. He had loosened his tie and unfastened the top button of his shirt. His confidence was high and he wanted everyone to know. He didn't so much as glance at the computer screens. He expected all fresh developments in the case to come from the interviewing of Professor Jackman. With his weight securely deposited on a desk, he snapped open a can of beer and remarked to Wigfull, 'You know what this amounts to - this story about the fire?'

Wigfull waited. He was no reader of minds.

'He's laying the foundations for his defence,' Diamond said. 'Mentally he's already in court, pleading mitigation. She tried to kill him on this previous occasion, so when it happened a second time he defended himself. Didn't know his own strength. Panicked. Tried to get rid of the body by dumping it in the lake. See if I'm not right, John.'

Wigfull's eyebrows were raised. 'That isn't the way he told it yesterday.'

Diamond was unmoved. 'They always start by giving you the clean-as-driven-snow gambit. Left her sleeping peacefully and never saw her again. He's had plenty of time to concoct his story. That's only his first line of defence. He doesn't really expect to hold it long and he won't.'

'You think he's ready to admit he killed her?'

'Not yet. Jackman's got a good head on his shoulders, remember. First, he wants to win us over and show himself in the best possible light. But this stuff about the summerhouse, this shows how his mind is working.'

'You don't believe it, sir?'

Diamond said nothing, letting his silence make the point.

'The summerhouse
was
burned down,' Wigfull pointed out.

'Agreed. Did he report it at the time? No. He can give it any slant he wants.'

'Should we ask forensic to take a look at the site, see if the evidence bears out his story?'

'It's already in hand.' Diamond couldn't help sounding smug. He enjoyed keeping mentally ahead of Wigfull, who was no idiot. With the air of an achiever, he tugged at the packet containing the egg and cress sandwich he had ordered. 'Mind you, the lab will take weeks to come up with anything helpful. You and I can crack this today.' Unable to find a way into the packet, he squeezed it. The result was a pulverized sandwich. Furious, he flung the whole thing at the nearest waste-bin and missed.

'Want one of mine, sir - lettuce and tomato?' offered Wigfull.

'Rabbit food. Let's have another go at him. I need an early supper tonight.'

'Are you going to caution him?'

A guarded look closed over Diamond's blunt features. 'Is that advice, or what?'

Wigfull reddened. 'I thought if we have reasonable grounds, we ought to issue the caution.'

Diamond jabbed a finger against his assistant's shirtfront. 'Don't ever tell me my job, Inspector. What I told you just now - about his guilt - was a gut feeling. If you and I are going to work as a team you'd better get one thing straight: if I speak my thoughts aloud, that's my privilege. If I want yours, I'll bloody ask for them. Understood?'

'Understood, sir.'

'I cautioned him last night, before he said a bloody word to me. Remind him when we go in.'

Professor Jackman glanced down at his watch as they returned. He seemed so well in control that he might have been about to put the questions to them. On the desk in front of him was an empty mug and one biscuit, the last of a packet of three. Diamond reached for it and scooped it into his mouth in one rapid movement.

The constable taking shorthand slipped in unobtrusively behind them and took her place to the rear of Jackman, just as Wigfull was reinforcing the caution.

Diamond didn't waste time over small-talk. 'Getting back to the fire in the summerhouse, Professor, I take it that you got out without serious injury.'

Jackman's response was even more to the point. 'Yes.'

'You managed to rouse yourself when you sensed the danger?'

'Not without difficulty. It took an exceptional effort.'

'You're certain that you were drugged?'

'Not without difficulty. It took an exceptional

'You're certain that you were drugged?'

'I'm convinced of it. She must have used the phenobarbitone she had from the doctor. God knows how many tablets she'd crushed and mixed in the sauce she gave me. If I hadn't made myself sick, as I told you, I wouldn't have recovered consciousness at all.'

'You were lucky.'

'You can say that again. In a matter of seconds I would have been incinerated. My shoes and trousers were smouldering when I got out.'

'I suppose it's too much to hope that you kept them?'

'The shoes and trousers? I threw them away. They were no use any more.' His eyes narrowed. 'You
do
believe what I'm telling you?'

Diamond answered equivocally, 'I saw the burnt-out summerhouse.' He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his neck. 'What interests me, Professor, is what happened next. Your wife had tried to kill you. What did you do about it?'

'I was in no state to do anything. I flopped down on the lawn at a safe distance from the flames and watched the fire burn itself out. I still had some of the drug in my system and I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew it was daylight and I was aching in every bone. Everything seemed like a dream except that I had in front of me the heap of ashes that had been the summerhouse. I went into the house to look for my wife. She'd behaved like a madwoman but she was no fool. She'd quit the place.'

'How did you know?'

'Her car wasn't in the garage.'

'So what did you do?'

'Slept a few hours more. I was still too muzzy to go looking for her. And when I came to, I started slowly clearing up after the party. I needed to occupy myself in a practical way.'

Rebuking him mildly, as if remarking on a social gaffe, Diamond said, 'You didn't notify us.'

'You?'

'The police.'

'I wanted Gerry's explanation.'

'But you didn't know where she was. She could have killed herself. People frequently do after murdering a spouse.'

Jackman said dryly, 'People clever enough to dress up a murder as an accident don't spoil it by committing suicide. I knew she would come back.'

Diamond exchanged a glance with John Wigfull. 'You're telling us you just started clearing the dishes?'

Jackman rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward to make a point. 'Look, I'm here of my own free will. I'm telling you what happened. I don't expect to have my behaviour called into question.'

With the air of a man whose behaviour had been questioned too many times to matter any more, Diamond commented, 'We're simply trying to understand why things turned out as they did. Let's move on, shall we? When
did
you see your wife again?'

'The same day, early that evening.'

'She came back to the house?'

'Yes.' Jackman related the events with a directness that was vivid and convincing. 'She didn't come into the house immediately. I watched her leave the car on the drive and walk around the side to the garden. She was wearing the black tracksuit that I remembered seeing her in. She stood for a moment staring at the gutted summerhouse. She didn't go too close to it, just stood about thirty yards away, fingering her hair. Then she turned and approached the house. She came in by the patio windows, which were still open.' He smiled slightly. 'Of course, she was shocked out of her skin when she saw me sitting in front of the TV with my feet up. She damned near passed out. I had to pour her a drink. I didn't accuse her right out. I wanted to see what she would make of it, so I asked where she'd been all day. She said she'd gone out early and spent the day on a deckchair in Parade Gardens catching up on her sleep. She said she couldn't face being in the house. Quite possibly she was telling the truth.'

'And what happened when you
did
broach the litde matter of the fire?'

'She denied it, naturally. Said I must have dreamed the bit about her coming into the summerhouse. She insisted that I must have dropped a lighted cigar and set light to the place myself - which you can bet is the story she would have put about if she'd succeeded in killing me. There's no chance that it was true,'Jackman said quickly, as if sensing that he'd given them an opening. 'In the first place, she definitely drugged me.'

'Let's say that someone drugged you,' said Diamond.

Jackman was quick to scotch that amendment. 'Listen, Geraldine had the drug in her possession. She had the sauce put aside for me. She insisted on collecting it herself. She poured it all over the food. Within a short time of eating it, I was three parts slewed. She'd put the cigars and the spirits ready beside the camp-bed in the summerhouse. It was all set up. And I'm certain it wasn't a dream when I saw her there because I noticed what she was wearing. She was still wearing that black tracksuit when she came back the next day.'

'You mentioned that already. You've been over this many times in your mind, haven't you?'

Jackman nodded. 'And the conclusion is irresistible.'

'All right, Professor,' said Diamond cheerfully, as if he accepted every word of the story. 'Why do you think it happened?'

'Why did she try to kill me?'

'Yes.'

Jackman lodged his face ruminatively against his hand. 'I put it down to her mental state. As I explained, some time before that evening she was showing symptoms of paranoia. She imagined I was plotting her downfall, or something. It was illusory, a fantasy, but plainly very real to her. I didn't appreciate how serious her mental state had become - until that night.'

'Did she have any history of disturbance?'

'Only what I've described. I'm no psychiatrist.'

'Paranoia,' Diamond repeated, and with a gleam of mischief looked across at the constable taking notes. 'Do you want the professor to spell that?'

The PC shook her head.

Diamond swung back to Jackman. 'And how about you? Did you feel persecuted?'

Jackman tensed and drew back from the desk. 'What?'

'Persecuted or threatened, at least. I should think you were entitled to feel like that after what happened.'

'I wouldn't describe it in those terms.'

'Would you care to describe it in your own terms then?'

The professor hesitated, and when he spoke it was with reluctance, as if he were being drawn into alien territory. 'Naturally there was a loss of trust on my part. I had to be on my guard in future.'

'You thought you could look after yourself?'

'She wasn't going to rush at me with an axe, or something. At least, that's the way I saw it. A lot of planning had gone into the summerhouse incident, mainly to ensure that the killing would be passed off as an accident. She didn't want to be caught. If she plotted another attempt on my life, I thought I was capable of picking up the signals before it got really dangerous.'

'Brave man,' commented Diamond, without actually meaning it.

Jackman leaned forward to solicit more understanding. 'When you've lived with a person, married them, shared their joys and disappointments, you've got to believe you have some influence, some hope of making sense to them. Okay, the magic had gone from our marriage, but we didn't have to destroy each other.'

There was a silence. Neither Diamond nor Wigfull would say one word to deflect him from what sounded like the beginning of a confession.

Jackman appeared to see the expectation in their eyes, because he said, 'I'll put that another way. I was willing to take my share of responsibility for what had happened. We'd made mistakes in our marriage. I'd alienated Gerry by failing to reach out to her mentally. The best thing I could do was try and remove the suspicions she harboured.'

'Give her the benefit of the doubt?'

'There
was
no doubt,' said Jackman flatly. 'She tried to kill me and failed. The fact that I knew for certain was my safeguard.'

Someone tapped on the door and opened it. Diamond wheeled around in his chair, ready to raise hell. He couldn't abide interruptions when he was interviewing a witness. But the intruder was the police doctor, accompanied by a constable carrying a kidney-shaped steel bowl containing a syringe and other items. 'Ah,' said Diamond, reconciled. He turned back to address Jackman, whose face was a study in disbelief and alarm, 'I asked the doctor to step in. We'd like to take a sample of your blood for the forensic lab. It's a routine procedure. I take it we can rely on your co-operation?'

'Just a blood sample?'

Diamond grinned unkindly. 'What did you expect — a truth drug?'

WHILE THE TWO DETECTIVES STOOD outside, Wigfull took the opportunity to ask, 'What's next?' His superior wasn't much of a communicator.

'This.' Diamond picked up a book and held it at the level of his shoulder as if he were about to swear an oath in court, except that the book had a laminated cover of pink elephants. 'Geraldine's address book.'

'You want to go through the names?'

Diamond confirmed it with a grin. 'With the help of our friend in there, of course. Let's give him some rope, John.'

'And see if he hangs himself?'

'You're out of date, chum.'

Wigfull nodded. Diamond's views on the death penalty were well known. He firmly believed Britain's decline as a world power could be traced back to 1964, the year of abolition. This wasn't the moment to get him on that old hobbyhorse. 'How will he give himself away?'

'By pointing the finger at someone else.'

'To sidetrack us, do you mean?'

'Assist
us,' Diamond said, affecting a pained look. 'We don't want to make any premature assumptions about our professor, do we? He is co-operating to the best of his ability. You're a devious bastard.'

'You're a sarcastic one,' said Wigfull.

Diamond beamed.

When they returned to the interview room, they found Jackman buttoning his cuff, looking less self-assured than he had previously appeared. 'Why did you want my blood?' he asked at once.

'You make me sound like a vampire,' said Diamond. 'I told you. It's standard procedure these days. Have you heard of genetic fingerprinting?'

'Yes, but what does it have to do with me?'

'There were traces of blood on the quilt of your wife's bed.'

'I didn't notice any.'

'They weren't very obvious.'

After a pause that was open to several interpretations, Jackman asked, 'Was she attacked in bed, then?'

'That's impossible to say yet. We don't even know if the blood was her own. There may be a perfectly innocent explanation if she scratched herself accidentally, as we all do from time to time. Or it may be significant. Either way, we won't know this side of next week. The forensic science lab isn't noted for quick results. And if your sample happens to match the bloodstains, I'm sure there's an innocent explanation. We can talk about it now if you want.'

Jackman shook his head. 'We'd be wasting our time.'

'As you wish.' Diamond dropped the address book on the table and they began the process of going through names. Whether anyone's address book is an indication of character is debatable, but Geraldine Jackman's was chaotic. For the few full names and addresses that appeared under each letter, many more were entered under forenames alone, often with no address listed, only a phone number. Some were circled or heavily underlined and many were scored through. Additional jottings had been added on most pages, times of trains, appointments, bank balances and densely-patterned doodles strung across the entries like an illustrated guide to cobwebs. A detective of the school of Sherlock Holmes would surely have deduced enough from those elaborate pages to convict the murderer and state exactly how the crime had been committed and when. Diamond's more workaday method was to observe Jackman's demeanour and listen to his comments as together the three men attempted to compile a list of Geraldine's friends.

Painstakingly, in the course of the next hour and a half, the task was completed - or as nearly completed as it was ever likely to be. By concentrating on local addresses and phone numbers, Jackman identified more than thirty of his wife's friends of the past two years. A scattering of names remained mysteries, but his willingness to assist was not in doubt. He went meticulously through the book interpreting the jottings. He could be faulted only in one respect. Inconveniently, he omitted to suggest that any of the names was a potential suspect.

Far from satisfied with the exercise, Diamond started probing with less subtlety. 'When you were telling us about the barbecue, you mentioned an estate agent by the name of Roger, the character who was dancing with your wife.'

'Yes. He's in here somewhere. Roger Plato.' Jackman leafed through the pages. 'Under "R". Two phone numbers, work and home.'

Diamond reached for the book and peered at the entry as if he hadn't noticed it previously. 'His wife isn't mentioned.'

'As far as I know, she didn't go about with the Bristol crowd.'

'She came to the barbecue, you said.'

'Yes. I didn't know of her existence until that evening.'

'But your wife knew, presumably.'

Jackman gave a shrug.

Diamond snapped the book shut and said on a sudden aggressive note, 'Was Plato sleeping with your wife?'

The attempt at a shock-effect was too obviously stage-managed. Jackman showed that he was unimpressed and unruffled. 'Isn't that a matter you should discuss with Roger, rather than me?'

Diamond reverted smoothly to his more civil approach. 'Let me phrase it differently, then. Did you suspect that he was sleeping with her?'

Paradoxically, this caused a flicker of annoyance. 'No, I didn't. She wouldn't have been so obvious about it. She flaunted Roger like a new hat.'

'Was there some other man?'

'I can't say. I simply do not know.'

'Did you care?'

Jackman hesitated. 'Yes.'

'So the openness you talked about in your relationship didn't extend to taking lovers?'

At this stage in the interview the professor made a bid to seize the initiative by demanding, 'Why are these questions necessary, Superintendent?'

Diamond answered candidly, 'Because jealousy may be the motive I'm looking for.'

'Jealousy on whose part?'

Unaccustomed to finding himself on the end of a sharp question, Diamond cast his eyes up to the ceiling and answered, 'A wife who is being cheated, possibly.'

'Or a husband?' said Jackman angrily. 'You've made it plain enough that I'm your principal suspect, so why don't you say it?'

'Principal witness,' Diamond insisted. 'You're my principal witness up to now. I need your help. I'm not going to throw accusations at you when you're helping us.' He reached for the address book again. 'There are several names here that we passed over quickly. Andy. No surname. Bristol phone number. Did you meet a friend of your wife's called Andy?'

'No.'

'Was anyone of that name at the barbecue?'

'I've no idea. I doubt whether I saw everyone who came.'

'You mentioned stepping over someone in the doorway who was using your Coronation biscuit tin as a drum.'

'Silver Jubilee biscuit tin. I didn't discover his name.'

Diamond tried another. 'Chrissie - does that mean anything?'

'No.'

'Fiona?'

'Look, if I'd recognized the names, I would have told you when we were going through the book. I thought I had made it abundantly clear already that we didn't live in each other's pockets. Gerry had a life of her own and I shared a part of it, just a part.'

Diamond gave a tolerant nod and eased back in the chair. 'Let's concentrate on
your
life, then. Take us through the weeks leading up to your wife's disappearance. How long was it after the barbecue that she went missing?'

'The barbecue was on 5 August. The last time I saw Gerry was Monday, 11 September.'

Diamond glanced at Wigfull, who made a mental calculation and said, 'Just over five weeks.'

'So how did you fill the time?'

Jackman gave an exasperated sigh. 'For Christ's sake! I was working my butt off organizing a bloody exhibition.'

The Jane Austen exhibition didn't interest Diamond. 'What about your personal life? What was going on at home?'

'Nothing much. We were pretty suspicious of each other after what had happened. I think Gerry deliberately kept out of my way as much as possible — to let me get over it, I suppose. And I was getting in late.'

'Did you continue to sleep together?'

'If you mean in the same bedroom, yes.'

Wigfull put in, almost out of curiosity, 'How could you relax, knowing she'd tried to kill you?'

'I felt safer knowing she was in the same room than if she were somewhere else in the house, where God alone knows what she might have got up to.' He made it sound reasonable.

Diamond, too, was making strenuous efforts to sound reasonable. 'So this was the pattern of your life for the five weeks up to her disappearance: long days preparing the exhibition?'

'Correct.'

'It can't have been very relaxing.'

'Sometimes at the end of the day I went for a swim.'

Diamond raised his finger. 'Ah -1 was going to ask about the swimming. You spoke earlier about the boy you rescued. What was his name?'

'Matthew.'

'Yes. You invited him to the university pool.'

'I mentioned it in passing,'Jackman said. 'I don't see why it should interest the police.'

Diamond leaned forward on his elbows, covering his face in an attitude of fatigue or discouragement and ran both hands over his forehead and the bald curve of his head. 'Professor,' he finally said, 'everything interests the police in an inquiry as serious as this. Everything.'

With a slight upward movement of the shoulders, Jackman said, 'Fair enough. Matthew came for his swim. He came a number of times. I would generally meet him outside the sports centre about seven.'

'With his mother?'

'She drove him up to Claverton, but she didn't join us. He and I had the pool to ourselves most evenings. I helped him lose some faults in his overarm style. He'll develop into a useful swimmer if he keeps it up.'

Notwithstanding his recent declaration, Diamond didn't want to know any more about Matthew's progress as a swimmer. What really intrigued him was the pretext that the swimming lessons must have given Jackman for regular contact with Matthew's divorced mother. He had noted how approvingly Jackman had spoken earlier of Mrs Didrikson, even commenting on the beauty in her smile. 'And when the swim was over . . .?' he ventured.

'Mat went home.'

'In his mother's car?'

'In his mother's 'Most times.'

'Most times.'

'The exception being . . .?'

'When I drove him home on a couple of occasions.'

'Did you go into the house - for a coffee, or something?' Diamond added as if it scarcely mattered what the answer might be.

His casual air failed to woo Jackman, whose equanimity snapped. 'For pity's sake! What are you driving at now? Do you want me to say the swimming was just a front for secret meetings with Mrs Didrikson? Give me strength! This isn't 1900. If I really wanted to spend time with the woman I wouldn't have to find some fatuous excuse.'

'Perhaps you'll answer my question, Professor.'

'Perhaps you'll tell me what it can possibly have to do with my wife's death.'

'That remains to be seen. Are you tired? Would you care for a break?'

Jackman sighed impatiently and said, 'On two or three occasions I was invited in for a coffee. Is that what you wanted to know? And since you seem bent on pursuing this line of questioning, I took Mat to a cricket match at Trowbridge one afternoon and to a balloon festival at Bristol. I like the boy. I have no son of my own and it pleased me to spend some time with him. His mother was working on both occasions. Are you willing to believe that people sometimes act on innocent motives?'

'My beliefs don't come into it,' said Diamond. 'What about your wife? Did she mind you taking the boy to cricket and so on?'

'Why should she?'

'Perhaps with her suspicious mind she took it that you were making inroads with the boy's mother.'

'Her suspicious mind, or yours?' demanded Jackman. 'Look, Gerry was capable of twisting anything into a conspiracy, but don't forget that she invited Mrs Didrikson to her barbecue in the first place, so she could hardly object if I exchanged a few civil words with the woman next time I happened to meet her. That's all it was. I haven't been to bed with her.'

'How
was
your wife in those last five weeks of her life?'

'Her behaviour, you mean? I didn't see a great deal of her. She spent the mornings lying in bed talking on the phone to her friends.'

'Anyone in particular?'

'The entire galaxy, so far as I could tell. When we did meet she was pretty insufferable, either too moody to speak or spoiling for a fight - which I didn't give her.'

'Was she like that with everybody?'

'No, she turned on the charm when the phone rang and it was one of her friends. She could be in a towering rage with me and then pick up the phone and say a sexy "Hello, Gerry speaking", before she knew who was on the other end. That's the mark of a good actress, I suppose.'

'What sort of things were you fighting over?'

Jackman clenched his fists and thumped them on the table. 'How do I get this across to you fellows? I didn't fight. The aggro was all on her side. The issues were trivial. Example. The hand-mirror from her dressing table went missing and she accused me of taking it. What would I want with an ebony-handled mirror from a woman's vanity set? I told her one of the women at the barbecue must have taken a fancy to it, but Gerry wouldn't accept that any of her friends was light-fingered. That's the sort of piddling thing she was getting agitated about. In the end, to shut her up, I offered her a shaving-mirror I'd once used. She didn't need it. She had three adjustable mirrors fixed to her dressing table, another in the bathroom and any number of wall-mirrors around the house. But she told me she'd already been to the bathroom cabinet and helped herself to the shaving-mirror. I didn't inquire what made a hand-mirror so indispensable. In the mood she was in she wasn't amenable to logic'

'You're suggesting this was another symptom of the paranoia you mentioned?'

'I'm not suggesting anything. I'm stating what happened. I have neither the expertise nor the energy to go into her mental problems. How much longer do you propose to keep me here?'

Sidestepping the question, Diamond said, 'I want to go over the last couple of days of your wife's life in detail. This is a useful time to take a break while you think about it. I dare say you could do with something to eat by now.