The Stone Wife
- Автор: Ловси Питер
- Серия: Peter Diamond #14
- Год: 2014
- Язык: английский
- Год: Sphere
- ISBN: 978-0-7515-5405-2
- Жанр: Полицейские детективы
Электронная книга - «The Stone Wife». Краткое содержание книги:
‘You told him to use his initiative.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And you called him a pillock.’
Almost the last word he’d spoken. He winced. ‘Okay. I was rattled. He put Ingeborg’s undercover mission at risk.’
‘He didn’t know about that.’
‘He wasn’t supposed to know.’ Diamond ran a hand over his head and scraped back hair that was no longer there. ‘What do you think happened, Keith? Is he still up the bloody tree? Is he a prisoner inside the place now?’
‘Looking on the bright side, he could have done what you said and escaped. He may have thought it was too late to call in and let us know.’
‘He hasn’t been in and he hasn’t called us. I’m getting jack shit from his mobile.’
‘Try calling him at home. There’s a landline.’
‘I already did. All I got was the recorded message.’
‘Give him more time, guv.’
Muttering to himself, Diamond crossed the room and opened his office door. ‘And another thing: the Wife of Bath is missing.’
‘That’s all right,’ Halliwell said. ‘John Wigfull wanted her for a photocall.’
‘For crying out loud.’
‘He came up with a trolley and six burly constables some time yesterday.’
‘Where is it now?’
‘Still outside the main entrance where they took the pictures. It was when I came in, at any rate. I think Mr. Wigfull had trouble getting anyone to hump it back here.’
‘So it sat in front of the building all night? It’s worth a fortune. What if someone nicked it? Doesn’t Wigfull realise a man was shot in a hijack attempt to snatch the thing?’
‘I’ll get onto him.’
‘I’ve been here long enough to remember a member of the public coming in and informing us that we had cannabis growing in the concrete planters outside the front. It took years to live that down.’
When Ingeborg walked into the CID room in the middle of the morning and went straight to her desk and checked the computer, there was no sense of surprise, no applause. Almost nobody noticed — which, perhaps, is what an undercover officer should aim for.
Some minutes after, she knocked on Diamond’s door and got a more satisfying reaction.
‘You’re back. Thank God for that.’
‘And I’ve got some juicy things to report. Is this a good time?’
‘As good as any. Let me call in some of the others first. They didn’t all know you were undercover, but they should now.’
Halliwell and Leaman joined them and gave Ingeborg more of the welcome home that was her due. She launched into a snappy account of her adventure, from the night on the Great Britain to the escape with Lee Li. ‘I brought the sheets from the gunroom for you to study,’ she said in conclusion. ‘I haven’t been through them myself.’ She took the sheaf of papers from her pocket, unfolded them and handed them across.
Diamond said, ‘This is terrific. You didn’t get any photos of his collection, I suppose?’
She shook her head. ‘They took away my phone.’
‘Not to worry.’ Diamond brandished the gunroom log. ‘This is the star prize. With any luck we’ll recognise some names when we go through it.’
‘I also brought away a gun, a Glock 17, for self-defence. It’s got my prints all over it, but it’s evidence that he deals in firearms.’
Leaman in his usual downbeat way said, ‘I doubt if we’ll find the rest of the guns. He’ll have shipped them out already. Even if we raided the place right now, we’d be unlikely to recover much.’
‘We could find the room where they were stored,’ Halliwell said.
Leaman shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t even count on that.’
Ingeborg said, ‘He may not have done anything about the guns. He’s got plenty else to keep him busy.’
‘Repairing all the damage you caused?’ Diamond said with a grin.
‘I meant disposing of the body.’
‘Which body?’
‘Didn’t I mention the dead man in the grounds?’
25
Two busloads of armed police and the dog unit accompanied the response car that drove Diamond, Halliwell and Ingeborg to Leigh Woods — and for once there was no complaint from the big man about the speed they were going. Uncomfortable in their body armour, the three detectives were suffering far more aggravation from the mix of grief and anger in their minds. The only way to get through was to concentrate on practicalities. During the journey, Ingeborg described the layout of Nathan Hazael’s mansion in as much detail as she knew. ‘And there are at least four resident bodyguards armed with handguns,’ she said.
‘From what you were saying, they have an arsenal of weapons to choose from,’ Halliwell said. ‘We could be facing carbines.’
‘And there’s the dog, a Dobermann.’
Diamond emerged from a brooding silence to say, ‘Let’s be clear about this operation. The top priority is to discover what happened to Paul. To achieve that, we must arrest Hazael and question him. And we need the evidence to back up the charge. Inge, your first duty is to identify the spot in the grounds where you saw them standing over the body and tape it as a crime scene. I’ve already asked for a CSI team. There should be evidence of firearms use or other violence. I’m assuming they’ll have moved the body elsewhere.’
‘And then shall I join you in the house?’ Ingeborg asked.
‘Soon as you can, yes.’
‘Do we have a search warrant?’
‘Leaman is arranging it as we speak. We’ll go through the place with a fine toothcomb. But the focus of all our resources right now is Paul. The gun-running is secondary.’
‘This may sound dumb, but did you try calling his mobile?’ Ingeborg said.
‘Switched off, or destroyed.’
‘They’ve had several hours,’ Halliwell said. ‘They’ll have worked out that Ingeborg was undercover and they’ll be expecting a raid from us.’
‘So?’
‘They could have chucked him in the river by now. It’s only a short drive.’
Diamond inhaled sharply while his imagination dwelt on the remark. ‘You can go straight down to the garage in the basement and check the vehicles, Keith, unless they’re out front. Two limos, you said, Inge, apart from the Aston Martin, which we assume is still abandoned on the quayside?’
Ingeborg nodded.
Persevering with the task in hand, trying to keep his darkest fear from taking hold, Diamond said, ‘We know one of the limos was used in the chase, but we can find out if they were driven after. See if either engine is still warm and check the boot, of course.’
‘Are we nicking the bodyguards, as well as Nathan?’ Halliwell asked.
‘You bet we are.’
Already they were speeding along North Road with Nightingale Valley to their right, through the lush vegetation and millionaire estates of Leigh Woods. The resentment against Hazael and his crime-sourced fortune was almost tangible, but went unspoken.
Ingeborg alerted the driver when the turn came. They pulled up in front of the tall iron gate she had last seen from the other side.
Diamond stepped out and buzzed the intercom on the gatepost. There was some delay before a woman’s voice responded over the static.
‘Yes, who is it?’
‘Police. Open up, please.’
‘Mr. Hazael isn’t here.’
Ingeborg told Diamond, ‘Sounds like Stella, the housekeeper.’