The Tooth Tattoo (30 page)

Leaman agreed. ‘All we have is the vague idea that some nutter has a kink about Japanese women.’

‘Two very different women,’ Ingeborg added.

Gilbert said, ‘Should we be checking all the cities the Staccati have visited for unsolved murders of Japanese women?’

‘Speak for yourself,’ someone murmured.

‘A serial killer?’ Diamond said.

Gilbert hesitated. ‘That’s possible, isn’t it?’

‘Fair point. Do that, would you, Paul? We have a list of all their gigs for sixteen years, thanks to John Leaman.’

Gilbert looked as if he’d just grown older by all of those years. ‘Me? How would I do that?’

‘Interpol. That’s why they exist, for something like this.’

The young man’s face relaxed. ‘Thanks, guv.’

‘Then if they’re unable to confirm anything it’s a matter of trawling through the international press.’

The appeal of teasing Gilbert was that every emotion was as vivid on his face as if he was a silent film actor.

‘Don’t despair. A lot of it’s digitised.’

‘The Japanese papers should be helpful,’ Halliwell said.

Ingeborg said, ‘This is getting mean. You’d better come clean, guv. Are we seriously looking at a serial killer?’

‘Personally, I think it’s unlikely,’ Diamond said. ‘A series of killings would have shown up on the radar before now. The Japanese police are no slouches. So it won’t be necessary to go back all those years, Paul. But it’s not impossible some maniac has just started on a psychopathic career, and I’m serious about checking for a similar case in the past five years. Meanwhile for the rest of us it’s back to the nitty-gritty of probing the secret lives of our musicians. And I’m not ruling out their manager. He flew out to Vienna while they were performing there.’

‘Is Mel still in the frame?’ Ingeborg said. Her tone suggested he ought not to be. Mel had made a favourable impression on her when she interviewed him. ‘He wasn’t around when the first girl was killed in Vienna.’

‘You saw him at the concert,’ Diamond said. ‘Of the four, who looked the most nervous?’

‘He
is
the new boy, guv.’

‘He’s had several months to settle in. This wasn’t the first concert they’ve played.’

She nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll keep digging.’

Paul Gilbert still hadn’t been silenced by the drubbing he’d received. ‘There could be a reason why Mel was nervous.’

‘Better tell us, then,’ Ingeborg said before any of the others could inflict more punishment.

‘It’s in the copy of the message log I put on the guv’nor’s desk.’

A show-stopping moment followed. Everyone in the room except young Gilbert knew Diamond was a word-of-mouth man who rarely went near his desk.

‘Message about what?’ Diamond asked.

‘The statement I took yesterday evening from a Mrs. Carlyle.’

Diamond drew a sharp, impatient breath. ‘Never heard of her. Is it relevant?’

‘It could be.’

‘Go on, then.’

‘She came in and made this voluntary statement. Only the thing is she happens to be Mel Farran’s landlady and it was all about a hit and run incident outside the house yesterday afternoon. Mel was knocked down.’

The old blood pressure rocketed. ‘And you wait until now to tell us?’

‘It was in the message. I thought you must have seen it by now, guv. If you want to listen to the statement it’s all on tape.’

Diamond managed to contain himself. Strictly speaking, the lad had acted correctly. Not sensibly, with the way things were done in CID, but correctly. ‘We’ll do that. Fetch it in and play it to us.’ While Gilbert went off to retrieve the cassette, Diamond told the rest of the team, ‘This may have nothing to do with our investigation, but we can’t take that chance.’ He frowned. ‘How come Gilbert interviewed this woman? A voluntary statement about a traffic incident ought to be dealt with downstairs.’

No one knew why, so he asked the young DC when he reappeared with the cassette player.

‘When she first came in she wasn’t talking about the car accident, guv. She was on about a sex maniac stalking her daughter. Uniform said it was a CID matter and I happened to be the only one here.’

‘We’d better hear this.’

He switched on.

They listened enthralled to Mrs. Carlyle’s melodramatic account of the stalker and his all-too-obvious lust for the innocent Tippi. They heard how her gallant lodger Mel went to investigate and was almost killed by the escaping car.

Diamond was gracious enough to say at the end of it, ‘Difficult interview. You handled her well, finally got to the real facts.’ He pressed his forefinger against his chin. ‘Why didn’t Mel report this himself, I wonder?’

‘Too busy with the concert, I expect,’ Ingeborg said.

‘Maybe.’

‘Perhaps what actually happened wasn’t as dangerous as the woman described it,’ Leaman said. ‘She sounds hyper on the tape.’

‘Mel did have a plaster on his left hand,’ Ingeborg said. ‘And at the soirée he was looking every which way as if he expected someone to attack him.’

‘But he didn’t report the driver,’ Diamond said, refusing to excuse the omission. ‘I want to know why. And if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed …’

Mel’s lodgings were in Forester Road, north-east of the city centre. Diamond asked Ingeborg to drive him there since she was the member of CID who knew the violist best and had a good rapport with him. In his twitchy state Mel would probably appreciate some female reassurance. Which wouldn’t stop Diamond putting the boot in when required.

It was best to call unannounced, so they’d made no appointment. This was still before mid-day. The quartet rehearsed mainly in the afternoons. Mel shouldn’t have left the house.

‘What was the make of the stalker’s car?’ Diamond asked as they cruised up the road looking at house numbers.

‘A Renault Megane. Black.’

‘Haven’t noticed one along here, have you?’

‘In view of what happened he’d be an idiot to come back the next day,’ Ingeborg said.

They stopped outside a house with a crimson door and gleaming metal fittings.

‘You must be Tippi,’ Diamond said when their knock was answered by a young woman in a bathrobe with her hair colour matching the door.

She gave him a suspicious look. ‘How do you know? And what’s it to you anyway?’

‘Police,’ he said, showing his ID. ‘Your mother reported an incident yesterday and we’re following up on it.’

‘Mum’s out.’

‘Good. We’d like to speak to Mel if he’s in.’

‘He’s out, too.’

‘Any idea where?’

‘He walks in the park sometimes.’ She pointed along the road in the direction of Sydney Gardens.

‘Your mother seems to believe you have a stalker,’ Diamond said. ‘Has he troubled you before?’

‘Who – me?’

‘That’s what I’m asking, Tippi.’

‘A stalker? Give me a break.’

‘What’s that meant to mean? Don’t you believe your own mother?’

‘I wasn’t here, didn’t see him.’

‘And nothing like it has happened before?

‘Dunno, do I? If he’s any good at it, I wouldn’t notice him.’

They drove down to Sydney Gardens, originally an eighteenth century pleasure garden that suffered a major assault soon after its opening when the Kennet and Avon canal was driven through. And forty years later it was sliced through a second time by the track of the Great Western Railway. But thanks to deep cutting and the building of ornamental bridges and a parapet, the worst horrors were averted. Jane Austen walked there often in its heyday and remarked that one of the advantages was that it was wide enough to get away from the music. These days the gardens are a haven of quiet in a busy city. Helpfully for Diamond, it wasn’t the sort of park where you
had no chance of finding anyone. There is a central path almost from end to end with views to either side.

They spotted Mel Farran near the Temple of Minerva, the faux Greek structure of Corinthian columns at the centre of the gardens. Clearly he saw them coming and seemed undecided whether to make an about turn, but thought better of it.

‘How are you doing?’ Diamond said when they got close enough. ‘You had a run-in with a Renault Megane yesterday, I was told.’

Mel was quick to dismiss. ‘It was nothing. My landlady got excited, but I’m fine.’

‘Any idea who was driving?’

‘It all happened too fast. As much my fault as his, I reckon. I don’t want to make a complaint.’

‘How was it your fault?’

‘I was dead set on speaking to him and I kept going when he started the car. Walked right into it.’

‘When you say “dead set” – ’

‘I thought I recognised the car. Saw one just like it the same day outside the Tippett Centre, some idiot who drove off fast and almost knocked down a student. But I could be mistaken.’

Diamond didn’t let that pass. ‘You think you saw him twice the same day?’

‘I didn’t get the number or anything. I’m not a hundred percent sure.’

‘Can you think of any reason why anyone is tailing you?’

Mel hesitated. ‘No.’

‘Just that you seemed nervous at the concert last night, as if you were looking out for him.’

He pulled a disbelieving face, as if somebody else was being discussed, and then seemed to remember and gave a shrill laugh. ‘That’s nothing to do with the driver of the Megane. I was playing a new instrument in public for the first time and I thought the owner might be in the audience.’

‘Don’t you own your viola?’

‘I couldn’t possibly afford an Amati. They’re worth a fortune.
This sometimes happens with professional players – if you get lucky. We get offered top quality instruments by the people who own them. In a few cases they’re gifts, but mostly they’re on extended loan.’

‘I guess that would make anyone nervous.’

‘Especially as I once had my own instrument stolen.’

‘When was this?’

‘Years ago, when I was doing orchestral work.’ Mel related the story of the mugging outside the Royal Festival Hall and it was obvious that the experience had deeply affected him. Even at this distance in time his voice broke up a little in telling it.

‘That’s so cruel,’ Ingeborg cried out suddenly.

‘Mean,’ Diamond said. ‘What would they want with a viola that had very little value?’

‘Maybe they thought it was worth more,’ Mel said. ‘For me, it was valuable.’

‘A young musician, trying to earn a living?’ Ingeborg stressed in sympathy. ‘I should think it was irreplaceable.’

‘So who does your Amati belong to?’ Diamond asked.

Mel vibrated his lips and became cagey again. ‘I’m not allowed to say. The owner likes to remain anonymous. That’s a condition of the loan.’

‘From what you were saying, you only acquired it recently. Can I infer that he lives in Bath?’

‘No, you can’t.’

‘Meaning he doesn’t live here – or I shouldn’t be asking?’

‘No comment.’ Followed by a twitchy grin.

‘We’ve heard those words a few times before, haven’t we?’ Diamond said with a glance at Ingeborg. ‘Let’s walk a bit, Mel.’

They crossed the bridge over the railway and headed through a wooded area towards Sydney House, a large private building at the eastern end of the gardens, but screened by another pseudo-classical folly known as the Loggia, a semicircle of Ionic columns and pilasters fronting a cement wall.

‘Tell us about your background, how you came to join this quartet – or is that another secret?’

‘Not at all.’ Mel seemed to welcome the change of emphasis. ‘It was a phone call from Ivan. They needed a violist and they’d got to know about me and came to some recital to hear me play. I met them by stages, Ivan first, then Cat, and they called me in to do an audition, playing with them. I was in a blue funk but it seemed to go well and I was welcomed in.’

‘Did you have any qualms about joining?’

‘I jumped at the chance.’

‘And now you’re fully signed up.’

‘Yep.’

‘For how long?’

‘Indefinitely.’

‘Foreign tours?’

‘They’re planning one for South America as soon as we finish our stint in Bath.’

‘Up the Amazon?’

He smiled. ‘I hope not.’

‘Have you played abroad before, Mel?’

‘Heaps of times, filling in with orchestras and ensembles.’

‘Europe?’

‘Paris, Warsaw, Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam.’

Trying not to reveal that every neuron in his brain was transmitting at peak capacity, Diamond threw in a question that could have passed for small talk. ‘So you’ve been to Vienna? Who was that with?’

‘You name it. I must have played there a dozen times. The first was with the London Symphony Orchestra. Last winter guesting with the Vienna State Ballet.’

‘When you say “guesting” …?’

Mel grinned. ‘I wasn’t dancing. They needed a violist at short notice and one of the orchestra remembered me from a previous visit. In the music business it’s who you know.’

While the two were in conversation, Ingeborg had left them to it. They appeared to have hit it off without any input from her. But she’d noticed something Diamond had not. Her difficulty was finding how to tip him off without Mel knowing. She touched Diamond’s arm. ‘Guv.’

He ignored her, still high on the discovery that Mel had worked in Vienna. ‘So when were you first there?’

Mel was still talking in a relaxed way. ‘With the LSO? That was a shorter trip. Two or three concerts as far as I remember. Mahler, I think. As you approach the stage there’s a bust of the composer staring at you. Slightly unnerving.’

‘Yes, but when?’

‘Two thousand and eight, if my memory is right.’

‘Weren’t the Staccati performing in Vienna in two thousand and eight?’

‘Don’t know. I wasn’t following their progress at the time.’

‘I believe they were.’

‘Coincidence, then. But Vienna is a stop-off on most of the European tours, so it’s no big deal if we overlapped.’

Diamond was like a sniffer dog in a cannabis plantation. His list of strong suspects had increased. ‘Which part of Vienna were you in?’

‘Now you’re asking,’ Mel said. ‘Must have been Karlsplatz. We played at the Musikverein.’

‘The Staccati were at the Konzerthaus. That’s a different location, is it?’

‘I didn’t run into them, if that’s what you’re asking. There are several concert halls.’