Peter Lovesey - The Secret Hangman

To Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond

Dear Mr Diamond,

This is so difficult. Several tries have ended in the bin already.

Please be kind and read to the end before making up your mind.

Im a woman of lets say a few years younger than you. Like you, I was married for a time but now Im back to the single life and I cant say I enjoy it even though Im left with my own house and enough to live on. What else? I went through university in the days when it was difficult to get in. I like a lot of the things you enjoy, like old black-and-white films, rock music and the occasional glass of beer. Im lucky enough to be in good health. People tell me Im good company. Figure-wise, I could still get into some of the clothes I had as a student if Id kept them, but I keep up with fashion, so Im always buying new things. You dont have to be a detective to see where this is leading, so Im going to stop wittering on about myself.

I just wanted you to know Im not the Wicked Witch of the West.

Youll be wondering how I know so much about you and Id better come clean and say I read about you in the paper a couple of years ago and cut the piece out because I liked your picture and the things you were saying. It was a feature article with a photo. I just loved the way you talked about your life in the police. You give it to them straight whether theyre chief constables or cub reporters from the Daily Grind. Since then Ive followed you through several cases and its obvious youre in the top bracket as a detective.

What do I want now Ive plucked up the courage to write? I just wonder if youd like to meet some time for a drink and a chat? My generation of women isnt used to making the first move, not face to face, and even writing it down like this is a big effort which is why Im hiding behind a made-up name and no address.

Ill be in the Saracens Head this Thursday between seven and eight. If you come in, Ill introduce myself.

In anticipation and thanks, anyway, for reading this far, Your secret admirer

Lady, if you knew anything about me you wouldnt bother, Peter Diamond thought. He sighed and shook his head.

He dropped the letter into the bin with the other junk mail. The envelope was about to follow, but didnt. Hed noticed it was the self-seal kind and the seal wasnt too good because the flap had come apart easily without tearing anything. He tried sealing the thing again and it wouldnt hold just as if someone had opened it already.

No stamp. No address. Just his name on the envelope and By hand written where the stamp should have been. She must have delivered it to the front desk, and that gave him an uncomfortable thought. Suppose the entire nick knew hed got a secret admirer.

Now he picked the letter out of the bin, replaced it in the envelope and put it in his jacket pocket. Later, hed put it through the office shredder.

A worse thought: some joker on his own team had done this as a hoax. They were waiting to see his reaction.

Well, he wouldnt give them that satisfaction. Bugger it, hed check their reactions. He got up and took his usual route between the desks towards the door at the far end, appearing nonchalant while alert to any suggestion of a snigger. At one point he stopped and swung round as if hed forgotten a file and needed to go back.

No one was paying him any attention.

Two, at least, had their eyes on Ingeborg, the novice detective, as she bent over a filing cabinet. Keith Halliwell, the longest-serving DI and well capable of practical joking was on the phone. The civilian staff were fingering their keyboards.

Yet he doubted if Halliwell would stoop to this. Halliwell had been with him that ill-fated morning when he attended a crime scene in Royal Victoria Park and made the worst of all discoveries. Keith of all people knew better than to trespass on his personal life.

The hoax theory withered and died.

He moved on and kept going through the building as far as the canteen. Picked up a mug of tea and a sticky bun and parked himself at a table at the quiet end. He was used to being alone.

Not for long. Assistant Chief Constable Georgina Dallymore, the closest thing he had to a boss, appeared from nowhere carrying a glass of water and sat opposite him.

Peter, you look peaky.

Peaky. That was a word from the past. Hed last heard it used by one of his aunts forty years ago to explain why she wouldnt sample his mothers Victoria sponge.

Im OK, he said to Georgina.

Overwork?

Hardly.

Something personal?

I said Im OK.

The boss gave him a sympathetic look. Shed given him looks like that ever since Steph was murdered, as if she expected him at any moment to bury his face in her bosom and sob uncontrollably. She said, An MP report has come in.

Thats all we need, he said, rolling his eyes upwards.

She frowned. Whats wrong?

Politicians, thats whats wrong. We dont want them breathing down our necks.

Not members of parliament, she said in the despairing tone of a schoolmistress to the kid who never listened. Diamond had an inbuilt resistance to abbreviations. Missing person.

He thought about that for a while before saying, Got you.

A woman in Walcot with a partner and two small daughters was out on Tuesday night and hasnt been home since.

Tuesday? Thats only yesterday.

Its very unlike her, Georgina went on as if she hadnt heard. Shes in the habit of speaking to her mother on the phone every day at the same time.

The mother reported it. Not the partner?

Hes relaxed about it. Says she must have needed space and shell come back when shes ready.

Hes probably right. And you want it checked?

Please, Peter.

Isnt it rather quick? One night away isnt much. Shes not a fourteen-year-old.

Georginas chest expanded, an ominous sign well known in Manvers Street nick. I happen to have spoken to her mother. Shes in my choir. A level-headed woman. She wouldnt fuss without reason.

He understood now. Georgina was a devoted singer. How good her voice was, he didnt know. She had joined, and left, several of Baths many choirs over the past four years. Even so, there is a fellowship among singers, a kind of freemasonry as Diamond viewed it, that meant they helped each other when they could. She was going to insist on a routine check.

Whos looking after the kids? he asked.

The partner.

Are they his?

I believe not.

His name?

Corcoran. Ashley Corcoran. More importantly, hers is Delia Williamson. She handed him a scrap of paper with some details shed got from her friend in the choir.

Missing persons are a constant of police work. Over four thousand join the list every week in Britain. Rebellious teenagers, runaway spouses, middle-aged dropouts, feeble-minded old people. The index grows steadily, but a good proportion return. Some give cause for real concern. A few are never heard of again.

He returned upstairs and told DC Ingeborg Smith to find out what she could about Delia Williamson.

Are you thinking this is a domestic, guv? Ingeborg asked, mustard-keen as usual. She had everything on computer at the speed of a texting teenager. As a former investigative journalist, she was used to meeting deadlines.

Im keeping an open mind. When you visit the partner this Corcoran make sure a man is with you.

I can handle it.

With a bloke at your side, Inge. I dont want two female detectives knocking on his door.

She drew a sharp breath, and then bit back what she was going to say and settled for less. It says here Corcoran is cooperating.

They do at the beginning. Thats an order.

He looked at the printout shed given him. Delia Williamson was thirty-three, dark-haired and wore glasses. The two daughters, aged eight and six, were from a previous relationship. Get the name of the father, he told her. Everything you can on him.