Read Peter Diamond - 09 - The Secret Hangman for Free Online Page B

right?’
    Halliwell, who never took snacks, didn’t like to disappoint him.
    At a table by the window they shared their findings. Luigi the waiter had to be a prime suspect. He’d been the only man in the restaurant at the end of the evening, the last known person to have seen Delia alive. Never mind his insistence that he’d used a bike that evening. He owned a car and he could have parked it nearby and offered her a lift and driven her to his home for a night of passion.
    ‘Two nights,’ Diamond said, recalling that she wasn’t found until Thursday. ‘That’s a lot of passion.’
    ‘Maybe he was keeping her there against her will,’ Halliwell said. ‘Most Italian guys think they’re God’s gift to women.’
    ‘And finally killed her when it didn’t work out the way he wanted?’
    As for the others in the restaurant, Diamond said, he didn’t rate them as suspects. He couldn’t see the pot-bellied Signor Tosi suspending a body from a swing. It would require considerable strength. Neither could he picture Carlo as the killer. The way the little cook had talked of having three wives – rather than two ex-wives – suggested he collected women rather than disposing of them.
    ‘There’s the lone diner as well,’ Halliwell said.
    ‘Mr D. Monnington. Decent of Luigi to go to all the trouble of getting the name for us,’ Diamond said with irony.
    ‘You think he’s keen to swing it on someone else?’
    ‘That was my reading.’
    ‘Monnington’s top of my list,’ Halliwell said. ‘I can see it happening: the businessman stuck in a hotel, looking for amusement. Goes for a meal, picks up a waitress, invites her back. Likes her enough to spend the next day with her. Something goes wrong between them and he gets in a strop, strangles her and hopes to fake the suicide and get away with it.’
    ‘Put like that, it’s possible. Have him checked out when we get back, Keith.’
    ‘How do you mean? See if he’s got form?’
    ‘And check the hotels.’ Diamond muttered something under his breath as another thought struck him. ‘But would a stranger to the town know where to string up the body?’
    ‘Maybe they took an evening walk in the park and he saw the swings and took his opportunity.’
    ‘With a length of plastic cord someone had conveniently left?’ Diamond said, sitting back and shaking his head. ‘I don’t think this was dreamed up at the scene, Keith. The killer planned it.’
    ‘And you’re backing Luigi?’
    ‘I’m saying he’s got to be taken seriously, along with the missing father of her children, Danny. And of course Ashley, the laid-back musician.’ He looked across at the rest of the almond croissant sitting on Halliwell’s plate. ‘Aren’t you going to eat your half?’
    Out in the street again, he put his hand in his pocket and felt the hard edge of the book of matches. ‘Let’s cut through Shires Yard. I wouldn’t mind visiting the Hilton.’
    The curious thing about working in a city is that you don’t get to see the hotels that visitors regard as a major part of the experience. Diamond wasn’t all that familiar with the Hilton. Built as the Beaumont Hotel in 1973, a low point in Bath’s architectural history, its blocklike exterior, with yellow stone cladding pretending to be the real local stone, led locals to describe it as a giant hunk of cheese.
    To be fair, the management had done much to upgrade the interior. And Jenny the receptionist proved to be a star. ‘Does this count as helping you with your inquiries?’ she asked Diamond after he’d shown her his warrant card.
    ‘You’ll really help my inquiries if you can solve this puzzle,’ he said, handing her the book of matches. ‘It’s one of yours, right?’
    ‘Yes, they’re complimentary in the bar. What’s the puzzle?’
    He asked her to open it.
    ‘Is it a trick?’ she said, as she unfastened it. Then she saw the number and smiled. ‘A room number?’
    ‘That’s what I was thinking,’ he