Free Diamond Dust by Peter Lovesey

presupposes she went to the park of her own free will.'
    'You think otherwise?'
    'I don't know any reason she would go there.'
    'By arrangement?'
    'Then she would have told me.'
    McGarvie commented tardy, 'If she told you everything.' He leaned forward, showing more of his bloodshot eyes than Diamond cared to see. 'Before you take offence again, consider this. The whole thing is strange, you've got to admit. You tell us she was acting normally that morning, had no secrets from you, had no reason to visit the park, yet that's where she was shot within two hours of your leaving for work.'
    'If I knew why, I'd have told you.'
    'At what stage were you told she'd been shot?'
    'Nobody told me. I found out for myself.'
    There was a pause while the horror of that moment was relived, and when McGarvie resumed again, there was less overt hostility. 'Okay, to be accurate, you heard that a woman had been shot and you went to the park and recognised the victim as your wife?'
    'You know this. Do we have to go over it?'
    'DI Halliwell was competent to deal with the incident. What prompted you to go there?'
    Amazing. Even his attendance at the scene was viewed as suspicious. This experience on the receiving end, having to account for everything he had done, would change for ever his attitude to interviewing a suspect.
    'I said we hadn't seen much action.'
    'Point taken. Spurred on by the prospect of something happening, you went to the scene. You saw who it was, and you ignored procedure at the scene of a crime and handled the victim—'
    'She was my wife, for pity's sake.'
    'We're going to find blood on your clothes.'
    'How inconvenient.' He'd taken enough. '\bu know what really pisses me off about this farce? It's not the personal smear, the assumption that I might have murdered her. It's knowing the real killer is out there, and every minute that goes by his chance improves of getting away with this.'
    'This isn't our only line of enquiry,' McGarvie said. 'I've got over a hundred men on the case.'
    'For how much longer? What happens when Headquarters ask for your budget report? They'll cut the overtime. The whole thing will be scaled down.'
    Georgina said with determination, 'I'll deal with Headquarters.' She asked McGarvie if he had any more questions and he said he was through and they stopped the tapes.
    'I've had it up to here with you lot,' Diamond said. 'I'm going home.'

    But he didn't. Instead, he drove out to the crime scene, now abandoned by everyone, and restored to normal except for the wear on the turf of hundreds of police boots. The one place where the ground had not been trampled was a small oval of fresh grass where Steph's body had lain. Someone had placed a bunch of flowers there. No message. He could have brought some himself, but he knew Steph would have been troubled by the idea of cut flowers without water. She wouldn't willingly deprive anything of life.
    If he'd written a message, it would have been the one hackneyed word people always attach to flowers they leave at murder scenes. 'Why?'
    He looked around him, taking in the setting. Previously he'd been aware of nothing except Steph lying dead on the ground. Now he saw a curved path lined with benches about every thirty yards. In spring, he remembered, the daffodils sprouted here and made a glorious display. The shoots were already visible. Lower down, the remains of the Victorian shrubbery, a long line of trees and bushes, hid the Charlotte Street Car Park from view. You wouldn't believe all those cars were actually only a few paces away.
    Higher up the slope was the unprepossessing rear of the old bandstand with its domed roof. He walked up to it and around to the front.
    The facade was much more elegant than the back, being visible from the Crescent. He could imagine an audience seated here listening to one of the German bands that were so popular around the turn of the century. The shell-shaped design was more modern in concept than the weathered stonework