Beau Death

21

For all Diamond knew, Upmarket may have been in business as an art gallery for months, if not years. He wouldn’t have noticed. His idea of art was the framed film posters from the 1940s that adorned the hallway and stairs of his house in Weston. Build My Gallows High, with Robert Mitchum, old sleepy-eyes, cigarette drooping from his lips; Casablanca, showing Bergman and Bogart cheek to cheek; and a favourite that never failed to raise a smile, Payment on Demand, with a vengeful Bette Davis in a red strapless gown standing over a kissing couple and the plot summary, ‘The one sin no woman ever forgives. He strayed and he paid! She saw to that!’

Images as obvious as his treasured posters would not be offered for sale at any gallery in Bath. Typically an overpriced item that was more eyesore than art (in Diamond’s estimation) would be displayed in the window against a black background that blocked the view of the gallery interior.

The current offering in Upmarket — when he got there — was a large carriage clock without hands or numbers. The face was a human face with a large Salvador Dali moustache that might have been meant to stand in for the hands of the clock. But then a peculiar thing happened. Diamond moved his head a fraction and was surprised to see the moustache jerk to a new position. Instead of 9:15, it showed 10:20. He moved again and it was 11:25 and he realised he was looking at some kind of hologram. Novel, but grotesque. He wouldn’t have given it house room if it was offered as a gift. He turned his back on it. Of much more interest was the fourth-floor window of the building across the street, the obvious place for a police CCTV camera to have been secreted to film everyone who entered Upmarket. He could imagine Don Tate going through the footage later and saying, ‘I knew that Sassenach fucker would compromise our investigation.’

Before going in, the Sassenach fucker glanced up at that window and touched the brim of his trilby.

The interior of the gallery was narrow but extended further back than he appreciated from the street. He pretended to take an interest in the works on display, all evidently created by the same hand. A theme was apparent. More hologram faces stared out at him from household objects: a birdcage, a fan heater, a saucepan and a food processor. They opened and closed their eyes, grinned and scowled. Personally he found them creepy. They might appeal to someone’s sense of humour, he supposed. Not his.

At the far end he caught sight of a living face, a young woman at a desk behind a computer, so he touched the hat again and said, ‘Just taking a look, if I may.’

‘Please do,’ she said in a voice that would have got her the best table in the Pump Room. ‘Are you interested in surrealism?’

‘Not specially.’

‘Don’t hesitate to ask if anything interests you.’

Ask the price was what she meant, because nothing was tagged.

‘I was hoping to see Mr. Newburn,’ he said.

For this he was rewarded with a sigh, a knowing look and the abandonment of all charm. She reached for a phone. ‘Who shall I say is calling?’

‘Peter.’ Buyers of cocaine — and at the beginning he meant to pass himself off as one — wouldn’t give much away, least of all their surnames.

She spoke something into the phone that wasn’t meant for Diamond’s ears and then looked up. ‘He’ll be down shortly.’

‘Good.’

If it hadn’t been so transparent that the head of CID wasn’t a man of culture, he might have asked politely who the featured artist was. Equally, if the gallery assistant had thought Diamond was a potential buyer he might have been offered a glass of wine.

Neither occurred.

Presently she got up and reached behind for her coat and Diamond guessed what was going on. Newburn’s arrival would be the cue for his assistant to leave the shop for a time. The drug dealing was conducted in private.

Now he’d made clear he wasn’t there for the art, Diamond stood by the window looking out at the traffic until a voice behind him said, ‘Have we met?’

He turned and faced five-foot-nothing of cultivated innocence in a pink velvet jacket, striped shirt and lavender-coloured trousers. Tinted blond hair fluffed to candyfloss consistency over a boyish complexion. Small soft hands that had clearly never gripped anything rougher than an emery board. Tiny feet in crocodile-skin shoes.

Have we met? If we had, I’d remember you, matey, Diamond thought. ‘This is the first time.’ He didn’t offer his hand. He wasn’t taken in by the fragile appearance. Dealers in drugs were hard men.

The assistant glided past them both and left the gallery.

‘I believe I’m in the right place,’ Diamond added.

‘The right place for what?’

‘For the art.’

‘Art?’ Newburn said with raised eyebrows, as if he sold compost. ‘Oh, you mean the holograms.’

‘No.’

‘What, then?’

‘The origami.’

This was met with a frown.

‘The art of paper folding.’

‘Ho, ho, ho.’ The joke wasn’t appreciated.

‘If you know what I mean.’

Newburn plainly knew what he meant, and was not ready to trade. ‘Peter, you told my assistant. Peter who?’

‘Diamond.’ Nothing to be gained by keeping up this pretence, so he took out his warrant card. ‘CID.’

The gallery owner turned a shade pinker than his jacket. For a moment he looked as if he would take flight like a Michelangelo cherub. He glanced left and right and then ahead at the door, probably checking to see how many other burly policemen had come to arrest him. No doubt he’d mentally rehearsed this personal Armageddon many times over.

Diamond was the next to speak. ‘Making enquiries into the sudden death of Perry Morgan.’

‘Who?’

‘Don’t mess with me, Newburn. You know about the shooting.’

‘Shooting?’

‘At the fireworks Saturday night.’

‘I can’t help you. I wasn’t there.’

‘But you knew the victim.’ Having given the sharp shock, Diamond offered some reassurance, the possibility that this might not be a drug bust after all. ‘We’re speaking to everyone he came into contact with. He was a client of yours.’

‘What makes you say that?’ The little man was stalling.

‘We searched his flat and found some wraps. Your handiwork, I’m reliably informed. Before you say another word, I’m not here to pull you in. I’m investigating murder, not the dealing.’

Newburn swallowed hard, getting over the first shock and deciding how to react. It seemed he was ready to talk. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Did he come here to buy?’

A nod.

‘On a regular basis?’

‘It was occasional, after a payday, I suppose. His work wasn’t regular.’

‘Did he buy in bulk, then?’

‘He preferred it that way and so did I.’

‘How did he find you?’

‘Through a recommendation, he said. He came in one morning.’

‘With a large amount of cash?’

‘Of course.’

‘A recommendation from another user? Did he say who?’

‘No.’

‘When would this first visit have been?’

‘Towards the middle of last year. I haven’t known him long.’

‘Did you get the impression he’d moved on from another seller?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘That’s not good enough. You must have formed an opinion.’

‘All right. I suppose he had. Why do you ask?’

‘Another supplier may have felt he was justified in killing him.’

‘Oh, I doubt that. Not in Bath.’

‘It’s all very civilised here, is it? A shake of the hands and a fond goodbye. Was Perry Morgan already an experienced user? Did he know about quality and prices?’

‘He wasn’t a beginner.’

‘He’s quite well known in Bath. Did you recognise him?’

‘Not when he first came in. Later I saw his picture in the press, but I didn’t let on. My better-known clients prefer it that way.’

‘Did he ever reveal anything about his situation?’

‘You mean his finances? Never. They don’t like you knowing what they can afford.’

‘Or you raise the price?’

He was tight-lipped.

‘Actually I meant his personal life. He had a flat above a shop in Union Passage and lived alone there.’

‘He never spoke of anyone else. I wouldn’t expect him to.’

This wasn’t stonewalling, Diamond decided. If the landlady, Miss Divine, was to be believed, Perry had guarded his privacy. Newburn was scum, but his account so far rang true.

‘Is there anyone in the drug community who may have wished him dead?’

‘Not to my knowledge. Why should they? It’s the middlemen like me who are most at risk of violence.’

Indisputably true, but if this toerag wanted sympathy from Peter Diamond he wouldn’t get any.

‘How do you protect yourself? Do you have a gun?’

Newburn didn’t say anything. The change in his skin colour was the giveaway.

‘So you do.’

‘I told you I wasn’t there when he was shot. Besides, I had no reason to wish him dead.’

‘Where’s it kept?’

‘I’ve never used it.’ His right hand moved towards the inner pocket of his jacket.

‘Don’t.’

‘I was about to show you.’

‘I’ll see for myself.’ Diamond stepped forward, pulled open the front of the pink jacket and removed a small black gun. Going by the weight, it was loaded. ‘Dinky.’

But it was an automatic and they eject the casings at the scene. This couldn’t have been the weapon used in the murder.

‘Self-defence,’ Newburn said. ‘I meet some unpleasant people in the course of my work.’

‘Snap,’ Diamond said.

‘Are you going to charge me?’

‘What with — possession of an unlicensed weapon? Not at this minute. I have more important things to do. You’ll hear from us.’

He pocketed the gun and left soon after.

Georgina had warned him that taking on a new case of murder when he was already dealing with the Twerton skeleton would stretch him and she was right. This evening he was due to attend the Beau Nash Society meeting wearing the rented costume — a challenge that required a different mindset from dealing with pond life like Newburn. He needed time to prepare, so instead of returning to Concorde House, he decided to knock off early. First, he phoned Keith Halliwell.

All the key people in CID were usefully occupied, Halliwell told him. Leaman had informed everyone he was in charge of a third investigation. He was currently waiting for news from Dr. Waghorn about the bone dug up at Twerton. A team of crime scene examiners was already on site lifting more fragments. Five DCs were knocking on doors making yet more enquiries about the earlier tenants of the terrace. Ingeborg was with Hector, the mobile device examiner, checking the contents of Perry Morgan’s phone. Paul Gilbert was at the university going through enrolment records to see if Morgan had ever been a student there.

‘And how about you?’ Diamond asked Halliwell.

‘Standing in for you, guv.’

‘Standing or sitting?’

‘Doing what you would normally do if you were here. Someone has to oversee it all. How did it go with the gallery owner?’

Diamond updated him and then said, ‘I won’t be back tonight. It’s the Beau Nash bunfight and I need to get ready.’

‘Rather you than me.’

He drove home and phoned Paloma. She had already offered to help him get into the costume before driving him to the house in the Circus where the meeting was to take place. She suggested he came about 5:30, which left time to freshen up.

But not before he’d fed the cat. Raffles made sure of that with some heart-rending mewing. The years had taken their toll of some of the wily old tabby’s abilities, but he was more vocal than ever.

Rarely had Diamond looked forward to a shower so much. Visiting Newburn had left him feeling dirty. There were no marks for the soap and water to remove. It was all in the mind, yet the act of cleansing felt as necessary as if he’d been back to the crime scene and jumped into one of Leaman’s trenches.

He’d always found showering a sure way of relieving mental stress. He didn’t go to the extreme of the James Bond method, starting with warm water and turning it down to finish stone cold. The Peter Diamond shower was hot, strong, steady and unchanging, a perfect recipe for fresh thinking.

He’d need to be sharp for his appearance at the Beau Nash Society.

When Georgina had threatened to remove him from the case and bring in Charlie Crocker he’d been forced into some wild claims. He wasn’t anywhere near Mastermind level on Beau Nash. Even so, the prospect of an evening with all those keenos and academics had influenced his bedtime reading. Instead of the latest final sensational who-would-have-thought-it unmasking of Jack the Ripper, he’d been working through a small stack of books about the Beau and the extraordinary way one charismatic Welshman had taken over and made Bath his own. Admittedly the conquest was on a lower scale than many people believe. Most of the buildings that define the modern city were simply not there when Nash arrived in 1705. No Royal Crescent, no Queen Square, no Circus, no Theatre Royal, no Assembly Rooms. Even the Great Bath had not been excavated. To call it a one-horse town might not be fair to a cathedral city, but it was largely given over to slums. The transformation from small spa to one of the architectural glories of Europe took place in the years of Nash’s supremacy and after.

While the jets of warm water were reviving him, Diamond mused on how Perry Morgan must have had some of the Nash attitude, the strength of personality that persuaded people of influence to allow a young man to stage major public events. Would a modern-day Nash have laid on the world fireworks competition and marched into the assistant chief constable’s office to demand adequate policing? Without a doubt. Such people weren’t put off by authority. Would some mean-minded person have shot him dead? Possibly, human nature being what it is. Remarkable enterprise can spawn remarkable jealousy.

Better put Perry out of his mind for this evening, he decided. He finished showering, dried himself and changed. In ten minutes he was on his way to Lyncombe.

Paloma had a pizza supper and salad ready when he arrived. ‘I know you’re not over-keen on salad,’ she said, ‘but it balances the meal, I think. Shall I open a can of beer?’

‘I could break the abstinence of a lifetime and allow myself one,’ he said.

‘I phoned Estella earlier. She’s going to be there tonight, so there’s at least one person you’ll have met.’

‘Did she say what happens at these meetings?’

‘The welcoming of strangers, of course.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Anyone who hasn’t been before gets put in a sedan chair and is carried into the presence of the president and made to recite Nash’s rules for the Pump Room. Nothing to worry about. He speaks them first and you repeat them.’

He didn’t like the sound of that at all. ‘A sedan chair? Really?’

She laughed. ‘No. I made it up to see the look on your face. It’s just a social get-together. Sometimes they have a speaker, Estella said, but there isn’t one tonight.’

‘Pity. That would have taken some of the heat off.’

‘And at some stage they discuss business.’

‘What kind of business? Seriously. I want to know.’

‘Like the arrangements for the annual ball, which dances they need to learn. Stuff like that. All quite harmless. Brace up, Peter. I shouldn’t have teased you.’

‘I need another beer.’

‘You don’t. You need to be on top of your game — and I’m serious about that.’

He knew she was right. The evening was his opportunity to learn things vital to the case. Unless his theory was rubbish, he was going to meet people who had known the skeleton when it was a living, breathing individual.

He’d cleared his plate and he couldn’t have told you whether the pizza had been a Margherita or a Four Seasons.

‘Let’s get you into the clothes,’ Paloma said.

He was glad he’d tried them on before. This time they didn’t feel quite so freakish. By the time he was in white stockings, breeches and floral waistcoat, it felt almost normal to put on the frock coat.

‘Fine,’ Paloma said. ‘Just the shoes and the wig now.’

‘What time is it?’ She’d persuaded him to remove his wristwatch.

‘Almost time to go.’