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:
‘Open the gate or we’ll take it down.’
After more hesitation, the ironwork was activated with a shudder and began its slow inward movement.
They drove through the woods towards the house, already visible ahead, overblown and pretentious with its turret and battlements. Ingeborg said to the driver, ‘Slow up a bit, would you?’ She was concentrating on the swiftly changing view across the turf, trying to visualise the scene she’d passed in a very different light. This time there were no flashlights and no people under the trees to mark the spot. A massive oak came up on the right. ‘We’re coming to it, I think. Stop. I’ll get out here.’
‘Are you certain?’ Diamond asked.
‘As near as I can be.’
‘They’ll have police tape and cones in the bus. See you presently.’
The car and the second bus drove right up to the house. The armed police in their Kevlar jackets poured out and spread wide across the frontage. Diamond marched up to the already partly open front door and flashed his ID to the middle-aged woman barring the way. She looked aghast at such a large police presence.
‘You must be Stella, the housekeeper.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We’re coming in to search the building. A warrant has been issued. Where’s Nathan Hazael?’
‘He went out earlier with some of his staff. He didn’t say where.’
‘Some of his staff, or all of them?’
‘The catering people are still here.’
‘So has he taken all the cars?’
‘I expect so. I didn’t see them leave.’
‘Step aside, please. We’re coming in now.’
‘I don’t know if Mr. Hazael would like that.’
‘We don’t give a toss what he would like. Do you want to be charged with obstruction?’
She stepped back to avoid the inflow of armed officers. Halliwell asked her which way the garage was and she pointed to a passage on the right. He led a group straight through.
Diamond remained with Stella, reminding himself she was only one of the staff, low in the pecking order. He’d let rip at the door and now he needed to keep his emotion in check. In a measured tone, he said, ‘I’m going to warn you that withholding information is an offence. We have reason to believe there was a violent incident here overnight. A man was attacked and possibly murdered in the grounds. You must have heard the alarm go off.’
She nodded, wide-eyed. ‘I didn’t know anyone was murdered.’
‘Come on. Everyone must have been talking about it. What did you see?’
‘Someone came through my bedroom in the night, a woman, a journalist who was staying here. I don’t know what it was about.’
‘That was before the alarm, right? What did you do when you heard the alarm?’
‘I got out of bed and ran downstairs. I thought there must be a fire, but there wasn’t. One of Mr. Hazael’s personal staff was in the front hall and told me to go back to bed. He said a guard dog had found a trespasser in the grounds and they were dealing with it. I took him at his word and went back to my room. Soon after that I heard shooting.’
‘Where from?’
‘Outside.’
‘More than one shot?’
‘I wasn’t counting. Several.’
‘And when you got up in the morning? What time were you about?’
‘My duties start at eight, so I was up soon after seven.’
‘What was going on at that time? Did you speak to anyone? See anything?’
‘Plenty was going on, but I’m not sure what. People up and down stairs, in and out of the house. I was told by the kitchen staff that no one was eating breakfast. They were all too busy with other stuff. Lily — that’s Mr. Hazael’s partner — had left the house in the night with the journalist and taken the sports car from the garage. They drove off while the men were out in the grounds dealing with the intruder.’
‘Does anyone know what exactly happened with this intruder? Did they attack him?’
‘He was hiding up a tree, I was told, and fell out.’
‘Fell out? He wasn’t shot?’
‘I don’t know about that. I wasn’t there.’
‘Who told you this?’
‘The cook.’
‘But you say you heard gunfire in the night. Didn’t you get up to look?’
‘In this house it’s not wise to be too curious. I covered my ears and stayed in bed.’
‘Was an ambulance called for the man?’
She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t hear one.’
‘The man was a police officer keeping the house under surveillance,’ Diamond told her. ‘It’s possible he was murdered. You won’t need telling how serious that is. I’ve warned you already about withholding information. The man isn’t out there now. Do you know what they did with him?’
‘I was told they took him away.’ She was clearly frightened and the answer sounded genuine.
‘The cook told you this?’
She nodded.
Diamond’s phone buzzed. It was Halliwell. ‘The garage is empty, guv.’
‘Get onto the PNC and find out which vehicles are registered to Hazael. Do we know what make the limos are? Ask Ingeborg. And then get an all-units out. Two black limos, possibly together.’ He turned back to the white-faced Stella. ‘Did you see them lift the body into one of the cars?’
Her voice shook. ‘I didn’t myself…’
‘Someone else did?’
‘Cook mentioned seeing something.’
‘Take me to him now.’
‘Cook is a lady.’
The lady — the fount of all knowledge about the morning’s events — was in a white linen jacket outside the kitchen door, mid-fifties, reed-thin, twitchy and lighting a cigarette. Diamond went through the necessary cautions and added some veiled threats of his own. These women knew their employer was a monster and must have realised instant dismissal would be the least of their problems if they grassed to the police. But they were up against another ogre and today he was fired up by emotions of his own. Last night he’d left young Gilbert to fend for himself, unarmed in this hostile place. Conscience strikes deep into the soul.
‘Did you hear the shooting in the night?’
She was a cooler character than Stella. She took her time stubbing out the cigarette on the stone wall, then gave a nod.
‘And was that before the alarm went off or after?’
‘After.’
‘How many shots?’
The answer was a shrug.
He moved on to the more crucial incident. ‘I heard what you witnessed this morning. I want to hear it in your own words. What time was it?’
‘Six, or soon after.’
‘And where were you?’
‘In the dining room, trying to find out if anyone wanted a cooked breakfast before I started. No one was in, so I looked out the window.’ She was probably lying about her reason for snooping, but it didn’t matter if she spoke the truth about what she had witnessed.
‘What exactly did you see?’
‘One of the cars on the drive with the back open. Mr. Hazael under the trees with two of his staff. There was shouting, but I couldn’t hear the words. He seemed to be angry. I saw the men bend down and pick something up and carry it across the grass towards the car and when they got nearer I could tell it was a person.’
‘Dead?’
‘You should have seen the way it was being carried. They dumped it in the boot and shut the lid down.’
The ‘it’ was chilling. ‘Then what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What do you mean — nothing?’ For all his good intentions, he was getting irritated with this cold-eyed woman.
‘Nothing happened for a long time.’ After some hesitation she seemed to sense his anger and decide more had to be revealed. ‘No one came in for breakfast except Stella, the housekeeper. I told her what I’d seen and we talked about the disturbed night we’d had. After she went, when I was clearing plates, I saw them drive off.’