The Stone Wife by Peter Lovesey Read Free Book Online Page A

thing, the sixties-built police station was where he made his living, and he was comfortable there. Recently he’d been troubled by the Headquarter’s decision to site the custody suite in Keynsham. He could foresee Manvers Street becoming a ghost station. He had long since given up on the decisions coming out of Portishead, known to the lower ranks as ASDA, the Avon & Somerset Dream Academy.
    No negative thinking this morning, he told himself. There’s a killer at liberty and it’s my job to find him.
    He marched in and greeted the team. It was always good to see the place transformed with the trappings of an incident room: display boards, crime scene photos, extra phones, more civilian staff. The fire service had done their work and he could get into his office—or so he briefly believed. All traces of the shattered VDU, as Leaman had called it, had been removed, but the Wife of Bath on her dolly had not, and she remained a hazard. Worse, the room reeked of ammonia or some chemical. Having stepped inside, he came straight out again, forced to slum it with the rest of the team.
    He parked himself temporarily at Keith Halliwell’s vacant desk. There was plenty to catch up on. John Leaman with his brain-numbing efficiency had been looking through CCTV footage from a camera in Queen Square in the hope of spotting the silver getaway van. The one-way system round the square meant that there was not much interference in the view of traffic. The imaging was good and the registration numbers showed up well.
    “This could be our best chance, guv,” Leaman told him. “I’ve recorded seventeen sightings of silver vans in the two-hour slot.”
    “Where’s this camera located?”
    He pointed to the map on the whiteboard. “Top corner, where it links with Queen Square Place and Charlotte Street.”
    Diamond spotted the snag straight away. “The auction rooms are on the other side of the square, so this would be the second possible exit.”
    Leaman reddened. “Actually the third. They could have escaped down Barton Street. But if I was driving a getaway van, this is the way I’d go, heading straight out of the city.”
    Diamond wasn’t persuaded. Professional criminals would surely have taken note of where the cameras were sited. “Better trace the owners, then.”
    “Do you want me to run the film for you?”
    “Of seventeen silver vans? No thanks, John. I’m sure you missed nothing. Why is this desk empty? Where’s Keith?”
    “At the autopsy.”
    “Right you are.” He wished he’d remembered. It was well known in CID that Halliwell regularly got the grisly job that should, by rights, have been the top man’s. All Diamond could offer as an excuse was that he expected little of interest to emerge from the mortuary. Everyone knew how Gildersleeve had met his death and there was small likelihood that the dissected corpse would yield more information about the killer. Ballistics would specify the bullet used and maybe the type of weapon, and that was it. In a shooting such as this, forensic science was about as helpful as clairvoyancy. The CSI team were unlikely to have recovered any DNA, fingerprints, shoeprints, stray hairs or specks of blood other than those of the victim.
    “Has anyone talked yet?” he turned in his chair and asked Ingeborg. He was damned sure the case wouldn’t be cracked without outside help.
    “It’s early days, guv.”
    “That’s a negative?”
    “Well, yes. Making contact can’t be rushed.”
    She was right. Meetings with informants generally happened over a few beers at a time and place of their choosing. They couldn’t risk being seen with a detective.
    Diamond felt his arm touched lightly. He looked up at Paul Gilbert.
    “Guv, could I have a word?”
    “Go ahead.”
    “It’s personal.”
    “I see. We can go outside.”
    Normally he would have used the office.
    The corridor was crowded with uniformed officers just out of their morning briefing. He took the young DC out of