Peter Diamond - 09 - The Secret Hangman Read Online Free PDF Page A

Marietta, the child-minder.’
    ‘I have to ask this, Ashley. Do you have any suspicion that Delia was seeing anyone else?’
    He looked away, out of the car window. ‘Oh, come on.’ But there was something in the tone that undermined the words.
    ‘Was she like that, one for the men?’
    Corcoran scraped his fingers through his hair and gripped the ponytail. The answer was a long time coming. ‘Guys liked her. She was something. She really was. She laughed a lot. But we trusted each other, right?’
    Diamond gave a nod to that ‘right’, but he wasn’t sure if Ashley Corcoran’s trust had been well founded.
    ‘And you’re quite certain, are you, that there wasn’t any dispute with the girls’ father about custody?’
    ‘Danny? He’s a jerk. He’s never shown any interest. If he surfaces now and wants them back, he can go to hell.’
    ‘I’d take a more cautious line if I were you. As the father, he has more rights than you.’
    Back at Manvers Street police station, the investigation machine powered into motion. Extra civilian staff were brought in to deal with statements. A press conference was scheduled. Halliwell was sent to Tosi’s, the Italian restaurant where Delia had worked, to see how much they knew of her missing days. Ingeborg continued to try and trace Danny Geaves.
    Georgina, the ACC, liked to think of herself as a hands-on executive. Diamond liked the high-ups to keep their hands off. ‘Leave it to me, ma’am,’ he said when she looked in for the second time that day. ‘Have I ever let you down?’
    ‘We’ve had our moments, Peter. I put you on to this one, remember? Amanda sings with me. What’s the motive here? Have you thought about that?’
    ‘I will when I get a moment,’ he said.
    ‘The woman was strangled first and then suspended from the swing to make it look like a hanging,’ Georgina said. ‘That’s not the behaviour of a professional crook. Any villain worthy of the name would know forensics can tell the difference. I think we’re dealing with a first-time murderer who panicked when faced with a dead body. He didn’t think it through.’
    ‘I’ll bear that in mind, ma’am. And now if I can get on . . .’
    ‘An amateur, in other words. But the motive is the problem. I don’t understand the motive.’
    ‘Neither do I, yet.’
    ‘It doesn’t seem like panic,’ she said without realising she’d just contradicted herself. ‘It wasn’t manual strangulation. He used a ligature. And it’s pretty cool to transport the body to the park and string it up, however naïve it was.’
    ‘It beats leaving it in his car.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    He shrugged. ‘Neutral ground. Nothing to connect him.’
    ‘Good point.’ She weighed it before speaking again. ‘Perhaps he is a professional. This is shaping up as a beast of a case.’
    ‘Thanks, ma’am.’
    She gave a sideways smile. ‘But I have every confidence.’ And that was her exit line.
    He crossed the room to where Ingeborg was using a computer. ‘Any progress?’
    She shook her head. ‘This Danny seems to have gone to ground, guv. We’ve asked at all his usual haunts. No one knows him well enough to have heard of his plans. He isn’t a loner exactly, but he gives nothing away.’
    ‘There’s no talk of a girlfriend?’
    ‘Not in Freshford anyway. He does a lot of walking, serious walking, with a backpack.’
    ‘I’ve seen you with a backpack and I wouldn’t call you a serious walker.’
    She rolled her eyes. ‘Mine is a fashion accessory.’
    ‘Does he work for a living?’
    ‘No one seems to know.’
    ‘See if he’s on the social.’
    Keith Halliwell, when he returned from Tosi’s, had more to report. ‘Delia did her waitressing as usual on Tuesday, the night she went missing, guv.’
    ‘Did she now? But according to Dr Sealy she was killed Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, so where was she?’
    ‘That’s a mystery. I spoke to the owner, Signor Tosi himself. He said she was