Bloodhounds pd-4 Page 4

  "That must have helped your clear-up rate."

  He didn't answer. Statistics had never appealed to him.

  "You can't have it all ways," Stephanie remarked. "We live in a gorgeous old city. It's going to be quiet. If you want serious action, you'd better start applying for jobs in Glasgow or Manchester, but don't ask me to come."

  "Thanks." He put some more food in his mouth. "But you're wrong, Steph. Avon and Somerset isn't short of villains."

  "You mean they're all in the police."

  He grinned.

  Stephanie said, "Which villains, then? Local farmers protesting about the bypass?"

  "Professionals, I'm talking about. The smartest piece of shoplifting I ever heard of happened in my patch."

  "In Bath?"

  "Bristol. Didn't I ever tell you? They did one of those ultraexpensive dress shops."

  "A boutique?"

  "Yes, in Southmead. It was a night job. I don't know how many thousand quids' worth of designer gowns. They didn't break in, didn't smash anything, didn't leave any prints, didn't even set foot on the premises. We never caught them. Took us a long time to work out how it was done."

  "If they didn't break in, they must have had a key," Stephanie guessed.

  "No."

  "Then it was some kind of inside job."

  "It wasn't."

  "Didn't set foot in the shop, you said?"

  "Didn't need to."

  "I give up. How was it done?"

  "They worked through the letterbox with a twelve-foot boat hook. Dragged the display racks across the floor and tugged out the dresses one by one. Even the owner said she had to admire their cheek."

  The kettle boiled, and he made instant coffee for them both, his thoughts on the day ahead. There were still three or four hours of form-filling for the Crown Prosecution Service. The chore couldn't be delegated. All his best people were on Operation Bumblebee now.

  Stephanie turned up the volume on the radio. Diamond finished his breakfast in silence.

  On BBC Radio Bristol some harbinger of gloom was wittering on about the traffic. If Steph was first downstairs she generally switched on the local station. When Diamond was forced to listen to anything at all in the morning he found it easier to tolerate the more pofaced Radio Four.

  The short interval after he'd eaten and before he got up from the table was when Steph found it easiest to broach things she was planning. This morning, it was more of a confession she had in mind. "I don't think I told you," she began, not entirely honestly, because she knew for sure that she hadn't raised the subject until now. "A few weeks ago, soon after we moved in properly, when you were at work and I was trying to get some more of those damned teachests unpacked, I heard a noise behind me. Gave me a fright. It was this little cat, no more than a kitten really, playing about with the newspaper we'd wrapped the plates in. You'd think he belonged here." Steph saw an ominous look in her husband's eye and talked on rapidly. "I'd no idea where he came from. Naturally I asked around. Pete, he was a dear little thing with enormous ears and feet for his size and just a few stripes in the middle. I tried the people who were here before us, but they didn't know. In the end I did the right thing and took him up to Claverton."

  "The home for strays?" Diamond said. "Yes, you did the right thing, Steph."

  She nodded. "They get a lot of animals brought in. I didn't like leaving him really, being so young."

  "Too young to care, probably."

  "Oh, I don't know about that. Anyway, the young girl there said she'd let me know if he was claimed."

  "And was he?" Diamond asked hopefully.

  "Er, no."

  "And where is he now? Still there?"

  "I went to see him yesterday."

  "To Claverton? What did that dingbat say?"

  She swung around defiantly. He'd gone too far this time.

  But Diamond wasn't insulting the people who took in strays. He got up from the table and reached for the radio. The speaker was well into some item: "… so if any of you geniuses listening out there can make better sense of it than we can, call me now. I'll give you the number presently. Is there something we ought to know? Is it like a Valentine message? Is it in code? Is it a cryptic crossword clue? I tell you one thing, for sure. It had better not be some wise guy trying to slip a commercial into BBC local radio or we're all in shtuck. No, my money is on a good, old-fashioned riddle. I understand we're not the only radio station to have received it. And the same message was sent to the local press. The whole region is going to be racking its brains over this. Let's prove that Radio Bristol has the most intelligent audience. We can crack this together."

  "Give it to us again, then," said Diamond, and you would think he had been heard, the response was so quick.

  "I'm going to give it to you one more time before we move on to the sports news. Make sure you have something to write it down. Ready? "'J.M.W.T.

  Surrounded by security.

  Victoria, you challenge me,

  I shall shortly come to thee.'

  "Got it? Chew on that for a bit. Must move on now. Sports news coming up next. But I kid you not, listeners, the message was received this morning, early, but early, and we have no idea what it means, or who sent it. What or who is J.M.W.T.? Who is Victoria when she's at home? Over to you."

  Diamond reached across the table for the pen and the Guardian, placed ready for Stephanie's daily assault on the quick crossword. He made a note in the margin.

  Stephanie remarked, "You're always telling me puzzles are a waste of time."

  "Crossword puzzles, yes," he said, tearing off the scrap of paper and pocketing it.

  She said, "About this kitten. I know if you saw it, you'd be captivated."

  He said abstractedly. "Yes."

  "Then you don't mind if…"

  He said, "Anything you say, my love. Got to get off to work now."

  At Manvers Street Police Station he found a worried John Wigfull in the communications room. The big black mustache was drooping ominously.

  "I suppose you've heard," Wigfull said.

  "Depends what you mean."

  "This message about the Turner. It's all over the city. The radio. The papers. People are phoning in."

  "I did catch something on the radio while I was having breakfast. There's no doubt in your mind, then?"

  "J.M.W.T.," said Wigfull. "Turner's initials. And the mention of the Victoria Gallery. 'I shall shortly come to thee.' I'd say that's pretty conclusive. I'm up against a nutter."

  "Sounds like a poet to me."

  "Same thing."

  "A public relations expert, anyway," said Diamond. "He's used the local media to some effect.".

  "Is it just a stunt?" Wigfull asked, as though Diamond in his infinite wisdom might be able to confirm the fact. "If you're aiming to steal a picture, you don't broadcast it to all and sundry."

  "Is the picture still in place?"

  "Yes, thank God. I spoke to Julie Hargreaves a few minutes ago. She's at the gallery. I keep checking with her. Up to now, everything is in order."

  "What's the problem, then?"

  "No problem. Just that I'm bloody annoyed. First I get the tip that someone is about to stage a robbery and then, when I put a team in place, this message goes out, all over the city. Someone is doing his best to run rings around me."

  Diamond suppressed the smile that wanted to come. "No chance you can spare Julie for a couple of hours, I suppose? I'm a bit pushed collecting statements of this Saltford incident. I've got all those bank clerks to interview. Julie does it so well."

  "Sorry," said Wigfull. "She was assigned to me."

  "If I went down to the gallery I could look at the security for you. I'm sure you've got it under control, but sometimes another pair of eyes will spot something."

  "Do you think so?" Wigfull's eyes betrayed a flicker of uncertainty.

  He parked illegally in Bridge Street under the statue of Queen Victoria that stands in a niche high up in the galler
y's facade. For a Georgian city, Bath commemorates Victoria's name quite generously, with a park, a bridge, several streets, a pub and a burger bar, as well as the art gallery. Considering that Britain's longest-reigning monarch shunned the city for the whole of her reign, she scarcely deserved so much. She was brought there for a brief visit as a young girl, before she was Queen, and the story goes that while she was standing on the hotel balcony she was deeply offended to overhear someone remarking how thick her ankles were. Bath was struck off her visiting list forever.

  Glancing up at the old killjoy as he got out of the car, Diamond weighed those words he had heard over breakfast: "Victoria, you challenge me. I shall shortly come to thee." Did the message mean what Wigfull had assumed, a threat to plunder the gallery of its Turner, regardless of the extra security? Or might it be interpreted another way?

  It was not impossible that the cryptic message didn't refer to the owner of the thick ankles at all, but to some living Vicky who had a connection with the Turner. A curator? A gallery attendant? For God's sake, Diamond, he chided himself, it's Wigfull's problem, not yours.

  A local journalist he recognized as from the Bath Chronicle was at the corner of Bridge Street, by the entrance, waiting to hear the latest. So much for the puzzle the whole region was supposedly racking its brains to solve.

  "Are you on this case, Super?"

  "What case?" Diamond rapped on the door, annoyed by that "Super." The gallery wasn't open to the public yet, but the security team would be inside.

  "The Turner. Has it been knocked off?"

  "I've no idea what you're talking about."

  "Come on, Mr. Diamond. I've got my job to do, same as you."

  "Nothing to my knowledge has been knocked off," said Diamond.

  "It's still there?"

  "Far as I know."

  "You must be taking it seriously. You must be worried that they mean to have a go."

  "Do I look worried?"

  He heard the sound of bolts being withdrawn; One of the great wooden doors opened a fraction, and part of a face was briefly visible, followed by the sound of static from a personal radio. The door opened widely enough to admit him. The reporter said something about cooperation, and then Diamond stepped inside, and the door slammed in the face of the press, if rather more heavily than the constabulary intended.

  The last time Diamond had seen the black-and-white marble tiled vestibule was when the lower floor had been in use as the public library. Now both floors were used as galleries, and the permanent collection was upstairs. He was escorted up the stone staircase past some paintings of rustic scenes, most of them featuring sheep, or what were intended by the artists to pass for sheep, but could have been giant, cream-colored rats, or armadillos. Landscape painters, he decided, weren't on the whole successful with sheep.

  Not the sort who spent his leisure hours looking at art, he'd never ventured up here before, and it was grander than he expected. At the top of the stairs was a tiled area surrounded by columns supporting the dome of the building, the underside of which was decorated in gilt with the signs of the zodiac. He stepped into the gallery, and was surprised by its size. It was a fine example of Victorian pomp, big enough for a ball-room, some fifty feet high, with a copy of the Parthenon frieze extending right around the walls below the glazed, arched roof that extended the length of the room. There were no windows. The pictures in their ornate gilt frames were attached to maroon-colored walls, and some were displayed on purpose-built units along the center of the room.

  "Safe as the Bank of England, I would have thought," he remarked to Julie Hargreaves, who had got up from behind the attendant's desk to greet him. "I suppose he could try a Riflfi-styleentry from the roof."

  A look of incomprehension crossed Julie's face, and he realized that the film Rififi must have been made before she was born. Not for the first time, he had to remind himself that his best support in the murder squad was female and not much over thirty. Julie was a colleague he could rely on absolutely. She was as bright as a brand-new coin, and it was a measure of her professionalism that he disregarded her good looks. He hoped it wasn't a measure of his advancing years.

  "It was a film," he informed her. "Maybe you saw one called Topkapi? Same method of entry… No? Never mind."

  "Two men spent the night on the roof," she told him.

  "Two of ours?"

  She laughed. "I hope so. There are two more up there now."

  "I take it that the picture is still in place?"

  "I expect you'd like to see it." She led him across the gallery to one of the display units in the center. "It's not so big as I imagined."

  He looked at the fixings before he examined the painting. The Turner was secured to the wooden unit with nails driven through small metal plates projecting from the back of the frame. A thief equipped with a crowbar wouldn't take long to achieve his purpose, but no system has been devised that will withstand that kind of assault. Galleries are better employed installing alarm systems and strong locks.

  As for the painting, he was less than impressed. It was a muted watercolor, a view of the Abbey from across the churchyard at an angle that to Diamond's eye was distorted, making the West Front outrageously taller than it is. He'd often sat on one of the wooden seats in the yard and looked at the building from that direction. Bath Abbey projected a sort of charm, but it had never pretended to be lofty. It wasn't as if the painting had other merits to compensate. He could see nothing remarkable in the pale blue and yellow ocher coloring or the brush-work. The total effect reminded him of a dull Sunday. Toward the bottom of the picture was an empty sedan chair with two attendants beside it, and elsewhere the artist had tried to add some interest by including several figures of women in long skirts.

  "Would you hang it in your front room?" he asked Julie.

  She smiled slightly. "I think it ought to be here, where everyone can enjoy it."

  "Be honest. Turner may have painted some wonderful pictures, but this one is crap."

  She said, "There's a lot worse. There's one on the wall over there called The Bride of Death that gives me the creeps. It's really depressing."

  He told her that he was reclaiming her from John Wigfull, and the relief on her face was obvious. She preferred real people, even if it meant statement-taking, to looking at Victorian deathbed scenes. She called up one of the sergeants on duty downstairs and instructed him to take over in the gallery until her replacement arrived.

  Chapter Seven

  Polly Wycherley said over a cup of cafe au lait, "You didn't mind meeting here, I hope? It's one of my favorite places. I always think of dear Inspector Maigret here."

  The call had come unexpectedly, before 8:30, when Shirley-Ann was in the shower and Bert was about to leave for work. He'd handed her the mobile phone and a towel and followed up with an intimate fumble that had made her squeak in protest. What it must have sounded like on the other end of the line she dreaded to think. Anyway, it hadn't stopped Polly from suggesting coffee at Le Parisien in Shires Yard.

  Not knowing what the weather would do on a mid-October morning, Shirley-Ann had put on a pink trouser suit overprinted with what looked like large blackberry stains. She had bought it for a song last May in the Save the Children shop in Devizes, along with the white lamb's wool sweater that she was wearing under the jacket. Polly was less colorful, in a dark mauve padded coat. As it turned out, there was some fitful sunshine, so they sat under a red-and-white umbrella at one of the marble-topped tables outside. Faintly, from the interior of the cafe, came a song just recognizable as "J'Attendrai."

  Polly was right. This little sun-trap tucked away between Milsom Street and Broad Street could have been lifted from the Latin Quarter. Le Parisien and the Cafe Rene existed side by side, and the waiters really were French. "To be truthful, I think of Rupert Davies lighting his pipe. You wouldn't remember him, dear. You're too young. It was in black and white, on Monday evenings."

  "Television."

  "And th
at elegant Ewen Solon, who played Lucas, his sidekick. A dreamboat in a porkpie hat. Soigne." Polly gazed wistfully across the yard. "I could have forgotten I was married for Lucas." She pulled herself together. "I wanted to talk to you about Monday night."

  "The Bloodhounds?"

  "Did you find it off-putting? We weren't at our best, and I didn't want you to go away thinking you wouldn't bother another time."

  "I enjoyed myself immensely," said Shirley-Ann, and meant it.

  Polly didn't seem to have heard. "Rupert really is the limit, with that dog. He's a much nicer man than he appears, but he makes no concessions to what I think of as decent behavior. He thinks we're all terribly bourgeois and deserve to be shocked, but that's no reason to let the dog misbehave." Her hand shook as she lifted the coffee cup.

  "It didn't bother me at all. Really."

  It seemed that Polly identified so closely with the Bloodhounds that the incident upset her personally. But as the conversation went on, recapitulating the meeting, it became cleat that she was agitated about something more than Rupert's dog. She skirted the matter for some time, retelling the story of the club's beginning over that dinner at the Pump Room in October 1989, even using the same phrase about the deceased founder member, Tom Parry-Morgan: "… now dead, poor fellow." Then she started recalling the names of people who had joined, stating the reasons why some had left, as if it was important to stress that they hadn't all been put off by Rupert. "There was Annie Allen, a very old lady who gave up because of the cold evenings; a young chap who was more interested in films than books. Now what was his name? Alan Jellicoe. Another man, Gilbert Jones, was out of his depth, I think, and lasted only three weeks. The Pearce sisters found that the evening clashed with lacemaking when the evening classes started up." The list continued: Colonel Twigg, who wandered in by mistake, thinking it was about crime prevention; Marilyn Slade-Baker, the delinquent girl, whose probation officer stopped her from coming; the Bentin family, just visiting from Oklahoma. More names followed.

  Shirley-Ann wasn't counting, but upward of fifteen had dropped out, and that seemed a high figure. Of the surviving six, Polly and Milo had been the founders; the formidable Miss Chilmark had joined soon after and bored everyone with The Name of the Rose ever since; then Rupert had arrived one evening looking like a convict after two weeks on the run; shy Sid had been introduced by his doctor; and Jessica had joined only last year. "You could write a thesis about our reasons for sticking with it," she summed up. "All sorts of motives."