Diamond Dust Read Free Page A

the side held some important message. 'They're a dangerous family, Peter. I wish we had something major on the other two.'
    'Des and Danny? No chance,' Diamond said. 'They don't soil their hands.'
    'It's all contracted out, you mean?'
    He nodded. 'The only reason we got Jake was that he let this girl become a personal issue.'
    'He's not the smartest of the brothers, then?'
    'Smart enough to live in a swish pad in its own grounds in Clifton - until yesterday.'
    She examined the pen again. 'What will they do now? Regroup?'
    'I expect so. Vice, or Drugs, have better tabs on the empire than I do.' He sensed, as he spoke, that he was walking into something, and Georgina's eyes confirmed it.
    'Right on,' she said. 'It's organised crime.' She leaned forward a little and her eyes had a missionary gleam. 'You'd be good at that - detecting it, I mean.'
    He reminded her guardedly, 'I'm your murder man, ma'am.'
    'And a very effective one. But there are times, like now, when all we have on the books are the tough cases from years back that nobody ever got near to solving.'
    'Doesn't mean we give up on them.' He didn't like the drift of this one bit.
    'I'm thinking your skills might be better employed elsewhere, particularly as you know a lot more about the Carpenter family now.'
    Elsewhere? He looked away, out of the window, across the grey tiled roofs towards Lansdown. There was an awkward silence.
    'You might need to work out of Bristol Central, but it's not like moving house. What is it - under an hour's drive from where you live?'
    He waited a long time before saying, 'Is this an order, ma'am?'
    'It's about being flexible.'
    "Well, you're talking to the wrong man. I'm not flexible. Never have been. I'm focused.'
    Georgina's voice took on a harder note. 'Focus on the Carpenters, then. Yes, it is an order - while nothing new comes up on the murder front. Liaise with Mike Solly and George Eldon. Get an oversight of the entire operation - drugs, prostitution, protection. Put a surveillance team together if you want. This is the time to strike, Peter. They've lost Jake, so they have to put their heads above ground.'
    'Have you finished?'
    'Careful what you say,' Georgina warned him.
    'That's someone else's empire. Not mine.'
    'I've issued an order.'
    'You want me out of Bath - is that it?' The old demons raged in his head, savaging any good intentions that might have lingered there. He hadn't felt so angry since the day he'd faced another Assistant Chief Constable in this room and resigned from the Force.
    'It's not personal. It's about effective management.'
    'Effective?' He threw the word back at her.
    'I think you'd better get out.'
    'Piss off.'
    'How dare you!'
    'I'm just summing up what you said to me. You've got no use for me here, so you want me to piss off to Bristol.' He turned and walked.
    Down in his own office, he stood shaking his head, getting a grip on his emotions. Organised crime had nothing to do with this, he believed. Georgina wanted him out. While he'd been tied up with the court case she'd been plotting his removal. Wrongly, she thought he couldn't take orders from a woman. She didn't understand that he didn't let anybody push him around. No doubt she planned to put some pussycat in his place. John Wigfull was out of hospital and supposed to be returning to work any time. Bloody Wigfull would fit in beautifully: the Open University graduate who did everything by the book, never raised his voice and kept his desk as tidy as a church altar. Yes, she'd love to upgrade Wigfull to head of the murder squad.
    He spent the next hour with his door closed, looking at the paper mountain on his desk, the filing cabinets that wouldn't close and the stacks of paper on the floor. Was it admitting defeat to tidy up? Wasn't it better to leave everything as it was, just to demonstrate that he'd be back?
    He didn't go to the canteen for his usual coffee. And they had the sense not to disturb him.
    At lunchtime he got out of the place for