A Death in Diamonds

Darbishire knew she’d got the arrival and departure of the Artemis Club crowd right because the times were corroborated by the cab driver who’d brought them to Cresswell Place and two others who’d picked the guests up later. There would be no shame in admitting she got something else wrong – but something odd was happening. He needed to sort it out.

Unlike its pastel neighbours, Mrs Gregson’s house at number 23 formed part of a short row of houses in the Arts and Crafts style. The top half was hung with terracotta tiles that gave it airs and graces beyond its station, in Darbishire’s opinion, as if it thought it was a cottage in Tunbridge Wells. He knocked at the door. A young man answered, whom Darbishire had met before. He was thin, pasty-faced and nervous. Or, not nervous so much as wary. There was a difference.

‘Ah, Mr Gregson?’ The young man nodded. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you at this late hour. Is your wife back?’

‘Back?’ The man blinked.

‘Only, you said last Monday she’d gone to her mother’s. Because of the stress. Quite understandable. But I found the telephone number for the address you gave me in Shropshire – her parents live a long way away, don’t they? – and when I rang, they said she’d gone out for a walk with her little girl. She was very helpful when she rang back. She confirmed everything she’d told us before. But I’m confused. I think we must have got crossed wires somewhere.’

‘Oh?’

The young man was wearing a hand-knitted sweater with rather a large hole in it, Darbishire noticed. The sort of hole a wife would normally mend. But Mrs Gregson had a baby to take care of, so perhaps that explained it. His whole face was trying to form a shape of bland politeness, but the wariness seeped from every pore.

‘It’s just that my Mrs Gregson . . . your Mrs Gregson indeed . . . has a little boy, not a little girl, doesn’t she? That was what she said in her original statement. Not the sort of thing a mother gets wrong!’ Darbishire’s face formed a jovial grin around his shrewd eyes.

‘Ah.’ Mr Gregson looked momentarily confused himself, but his frown soon cleared. ‘They must have meant she was out with her sister’s little girl. They’re staying there too, with my parents-in-law. Linda, my wife, helps out when she can. Perhaps she took them both out.’

Darbishire nodded. ‘Mmm. That makes sense. Thank you.’

‘Not at all,’ Mr Gregson said with a smile of . . . was it relief?

‘May I come in, by the way?’ Darbishire asked. ‘I don’t want to keep everyone on the street awake.’

‘No,’ he responded sharply. ‘It’s just . . . I’m doing something for work. I’m a photographer. It’s all very delicate. Can’t disturb it. Sorry.’

Photographer. Hmm. Darbishire didn’t know that much about photography but perhaps it explained the pervasive, unpleasant smell emanating from somewhere in the background.

‘Oh dear,’ he said easily. ‘I’ll have to stay out here then. I wonder what the neighbours will say. Ha!’

Mr Gregson was intransigent. ‘I’m sorry I can’t help you any further.’

Darbishire shook his head. ‘But I’m sure you can. When Mrs Gregson called me back, I had a few questions about the baby that night, the night of the murders. I asked if perhaps she had colic – like I say, I was getting my wires crossed – and your wife said she’d been sick with it for weeks, but she was getting better. She, you see. A little girl. Not a little boy, as my sergeant noted down the first time he spoke to you both. Named Francis. Is that correct?’

‘Sorry, what? Oh, yes – Francis. That might explain it. The different spellings.’

‘Mmm. But not the different pronouns.’ Darbishire’s face still smiled and his eyes were shrewder than ever.

‘I see what you mean. I don’t know what my wife was thinking.’

‘Nor do I, Mr Gregson. And my men and I have been talking to people up and down the street, as you know, and a few times we’ve mentioned the young woman with the colicky baby, and do you know what? Nobody’s seen that baby. Not a soul.’

‘We keep ourselves to ourselves. My wife hasn’t been well.’

‘Or heard it. A colicky baby that cries through the night?’

‘He doesn’t cry if we soothe him.’

‘So he’s a he now?’

‘He was always a he! My wife is confused! She misunderstood you. She hasn’t been sleeping.’

‘I did wonder about that,’ Darbishire said. Then his voice hardened. ‘About that baby. There’s no birth record of a Francis Gregson, or indeed Frances Gregson – I looked for both – in the last two years. Your wife is either in grave danger, or she never existed either. Which is it, Mr Gregson?’

‘Listen,’ Mr Gregson said, his face transformed, his body hunched with a new sense of urgency. ‘Everything she said was true, I swear it. Everything about what happened opposite. I was awake most of the night with her, and I saw it too. We don’t know who did it, and we’ve nothing to gain by lying. We just wanted to do our duty. Yes, she’s frightened. Frightened for her life. Do you blame her?’