Bloodhounds

Chapter Twenty

Julie Hargreaves routinely cleared the surface of her desk at the end of each day's work. She wasn't compulsive about tidiness, but the desk was quite modest in size, and she would transfer everything she could to the filing cabinet and the wire trays. For the pens, pencils, and clips, she had an arrangement of cylinders called a desk tidy. All she expected to find in front of her when she arrived for work next day was the mail, if any. So this Wednesday morning Peter Diamond, whose desk was a disgrace, was making mischief. He had heaped her space with objects in transparent plastic bags-Sid Towers's possessions, ready to be collected for forensic examination. An outraged howl was the least he expected.

She deflated him by saying mildly, "It's a little early for Christmas, isn't it?"

He said, "You're an optimist." He still hoped for an eruption.

But she moved the dialogue smoothly on to professional matters. "Surely he didn't carry all this in his pockets."

"It's all the loose stuff from his car as well."

"Anything of interest?" She picked up one of the bags and rattled the contents. "Keys."

"For the car, the doors to his flat and the warehouse where he worked."

"Nothing so helpful as the key to a certain padlock?"

"You're a superoptimist."

She handled a bulkier package. "This will be the book he had with him at the Bloodhounds' meeting. The Three Coffins."

Diamond frowned as a fresh thought popped into his brain. "Where's the brown paper bag we heard it was wrapped in?"

Julie shifted some of the objects.

"Should be here somewhere," said Diamond, joining in. "Every bloody item has its own plastic bag and label."

"I don't see it, do you? Here's a carrier bag." Julie picked up the packet and read the label. " 'Waitrose carrier used to contain book, The Three Coffins.' No mention of a brown bag."

"Come to think of it, he wouldn't fancy using it for his precious book after Miss Chilmark had been hyperventilating into it. Probably binned it."

"I expect so," said Julie, continuing to examine the collection. Packaged and labeled like this, anyone's possessions would have looked pathetic. There was about thirty pence in small coins. A five-pound note. A handkerchief. A comb. Two ballpoints. Haifa tube of Polo mints. "Does it matter?"

"The bag? Only if it's missing," said Diamond, beginning to question his own assumption. "Would he have thrown it away, seeing that it came in so useful? Suppose the old dear had another attack. They could have needed it a second time."

"Unless it got torn."

"Nothing was said about that. Who held the bag to Miss Chilmark's face?"

"The art gallery owner. Jessica Shaw. She knew what to do."

"Then I wouldn't mind betting she kept hold of the bag, at least until the meeting ended."

Julie gave him a long look. He had this way of pursuing to tedium points that seemed trivial. Once in a while this paid a dividend. Still, it was difficult to understand why the fate of a brown paper bag had any importance.

"And the meeting broke up in some disorder after the Penny Black was discovered," he continued, talking more to himself than Julie. "She may not have returned the bag to Sid. Well, she couldn't have, or it would be among these things."

"Unless Sid got rid of it later."

Diamond didn't think much of that suggestion. "She could have left it in the crypt, in which case some cleaner will have tidied it up."

"Or she may have taken it with her."

"Jessica? Stuffed it into her handbag, you mean?"

"Or a pocket."

He liked that better. "Right. We'll ask her now. We'll take a walk to that art gallery she manages."

"What do I do with all this?" she asked with her hand on the heap of plastic packets.

"Leave it there."

"Cluttering up my desk? No thanks."

"You're not a slave to tidiness, are you?"

"But there's money here."

"This is a police station, Julie. If you can't trust the police.."He spread his hands like the Pope and tried to look as benign.

She gave him a long look, and said, "It's not your money."

"Yours neither. Get your coat. We've more important things to do."

She looked at her watch. "Can't do it. Sorry."

"Why not."

"Actually, I've got an appointment."

His blood pressure rose several points. She had no business making appointments in police time. "What's that?"

"The postmortem on Sid Towers. You asked me to go- remember?"

"Ah." He'd dismissed it from his mind. "What time?"

"Noon, at the RUH."

"We can fit this other thing in first. I'll get you there on time, I guarantee."

"If you say so." Not for the first time in her dealings with Diamond, Julie showed restraint. She could easily have remarked that if he could drive her to the RUH, it was odd that he was prevented from attending the autopsy himself.

The Walsingham Gallery window was being dressed, and Jessica Shaw was directing, gesturing to a man on the other side of the glass exactly where a painting on an easel should stand. She was engrossed, and so was a small crowd of bystanders, making it difficult for anyone to reach the other end of the narrow, flagstoned passage of Northumberland Place. Jessica seemed to be well aware that this was street entertainment. In a cherry-red woolen dress and with a thick white cardigan draped around her shoulders, she was conspicuous among her audience in their drab padded jackets and wind-cheaters.

"Mrs. Jessica Shaw?"

She didn't even turn to answer Diamond's inquiry, but carried on giving instructions. "More to the right. The right, the right, the right."

"Police," said Diamond. "CID. This may be inconvenient, but are you Mrs. Shaw?"

"It is inconvenient, yes."

"And you are Mrs. Shaw?"

"I am. That's it, A.J.! Perfect!"

In a tone of formality amounting almost to a warning, he gave his rank and name and Julie's, too. "Could we talk to you inside, ma'am?"

"But I have talked," she said, still staring at her window arrangement. "I had a sergeant here yesterday and he wrote down everything I said."

"This is the follow-up."

She sighed and turned her face to him for the first time. "And I'm trying to get this ready for a private view this evening. I've got over a hundred people coming. What do you think of it so far?"

"The window? I like it. Not so keen on the picture. Meant to be Avebury, is it?"

"God help us," said Jessica Shaw. "What a brutal expression that is. Meant to be. We just have to be grateful the artist isn't here."

They went inside. AJ. was sent to fetch more pictures and unwrap them. "I hope this won't take long," Jessica said to Diamond. "It's interfering with my livelihood, all this third degree." She found them chairs at the rear of the shop. "You want coffee?"

"That's going to delay the questions even more," Diamond pointed out.

"Not if AJ. makes it. White with how many sugars? Two?"

She'd guessed correctly. "Thanks. You should be doing my job," Diamond remarked.

Eyeing his bulk, she commented, "It's not much of a deduction. And no sugar for you, right?" she said to Julie. She gave the order to AJ. as he shuffled past with a large wrapped painting, then she confided to Diamond, "AJ. is a brick. It's all voluntary. I don't pay him a cent. I only wish I could sell more of his work."

"His work?"

"He's an artist."

"Is that his stuff in the window?"

"Lord, no. I keep him upstairs."

"Lucky fellow," said Diamond, then wished he had guarded his tongue. The look he got was all he deserved. She didn't blush, or betray any embarrassment. She simply gave him a cold stare. "First question," he said quickly. "When did you join the Bloodhounds?"

"Last winter. I was one of the last to join, except for the new woman, Shirley-Ann. She's only been a couple of times."

"So was Sid Towers already a member when you joined?"

"Sid? Yes."

"Had you met him before?"

"No."

"Did you know any of them previously?"

"Only Polly Wycherley. I joined at her invitation. She came into the gallery a couple of times toward the end of last year and noticed what I was reading. We discovered we shared an interest in crime fiction, so she told me about the meetings in the crypt. I went along reluctantly. She's a great persuader, is Polly. Have you met her?"

"Not yet."

"She's cooled toward me for some reason. Probably something I said. People like you and me ought to think before we speak. But I don't go to please Polly anymore. I go to be entertained. The members are well informed, but I can tell you there are some pretty eccentric ones among them."

"Lost their Marples, you mean?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Did I hear right? Was that meant to be a pun?"

" 'Meant to be.' What a brutal expression."

Now she laughed, and it was clear from the look she gave him that she was beginning to alter her assessment of this paunchy policeman. "Anyway, 'eccentric' was the word I used. The Bloodhounds aren't so dim. They're well read. I like scoring points off them when I can."

"The meetings can be lively, then?"

"Lively? Deadly, as it turns out."

Now Diamond smiled.

"Yes," Jessica went on. "There are personality clashes. Rupert gets people excited."

"Mr. Darby, you mean?"

"Do I? I only think of him as Rupert. He's harmless, in my opinion, though others will tell you different. A classic case of arrested development. He's locked into the nineteen fifties, when it was chic to hang around Soho smoking Gauloises and going to jazz clubs. You'll get on famously with him, by the look of you."

Diamond's hand curled protectively over the trilby on his knees. "There were incidents with Miss Chilmark, I'm told."

"Silly old duck, yes. She's a frightful snob. The Chilmarks once owned half the city, if she can be believed. She can't understand why we don't prostrate ourselves each time she appears. What really gets to her is that Rupert is manifestly several points above her in the social scale and doesn't give a toss about decorum."

"How is it manifest?"

"His accent. To borrow a phrase from Dylan Thomas, he talks as if he has the Elgin Marbles in his mouth."

"There was an incident on Monday, I heard."

"There's an incident on most Mondays. He insists on bringing his dog, and she gets herself into a state about it. She started to panic, and we calmed her down."

This account was all too perfunctory. Julie intervened to say, "You're understating it, aren't you?"

"In what way?"

"Wasn't she hyperventilating? And didn't you act quickly to stop it?"

"Just the old remedy of holding a paper bag to her mouth," said Jessica dismissively. "She soon responded."

Diamond wasn't going to let this crucial matter get by. "What happened to the bag?"

"What do you mean-what happened to it?"

"Afterward."

"I don't remember, unless…"

"Unless what?"

"… I kept it."

"Did you?"

"I may have done. In fact, I believe I did, just in case she started up again; She insisted on staying for the rest of the meeting. Rupert removed the dog, but I didn't want to take any chances, so I kept the bag by me. Now what happened to it at the end?" She hesitated. "Is this important?"

"Possibly not, but I'd like to know."

"Sid produced it in the first place."

"I know," said Diamond.

"I don't have any memory of returning it to him."

"Would you have thrown it away?"

"Doubtful. Not after it came in so useful. I'm wondering now if I kept the thing. I didn't want it in view, right in front of Miss Chilmark. I may have stuffed it in my handbag."

"You would have found it later, then."

"Not me. I carry things for years before I turf them out. It's probably still in there. Want me to fetch my bag?"

"Presently," said Diamond. The questioning had settled to a tempo that he didn't want interrupted. Give her half a chance and she would go back to her window dressing. "Tell me about Sid."

"That won't take long," she said. "He was a member before I joined. Polly told me once that he came on the advice of his doctor. He was painfully shy, poor bloke. The doctor's idea was that he was a crime fiction buff, so he would be encouraged to chip in. He hardly ever did." She smiled. "It was so rare if he did that we all turned our heads and scared him rigid."

"Did anyone try making friends with him?"

"Polly fussed over him sometimes like the old hen she is. If anyone else had spoken more than a couple of words, I'm sure he would have run a mile."

"And I understand you spent some time with him in the Moon and Sixpence on more than one occasion."

She colored slightly. "Are you trying to trip me up, or something? You make it sound like infidelity. I felt sorry for the guy, that's all. I thought someone should try and draw him out a bit, for his own sake. The others simply ignored him."

"No one was hostile?"

She shook her head. "There was nothing you could dislike about Sid."

"Someone must have objected to him."

"I know," said Jessica.

The coffee arrived in bone china cups, AJ. bearing it in on a lacquered tray. Potential buyers of the art had to be cosseted. From the efficient way he handed the cups around, AJ. had performed the duty more than once. "If it doesn't seem frightfully rude," he said, "I'll take mine to the front of the shop and carry on with what I was doing."

Alert to the possibility that AJ. was something more in this setup than a volunteer window dresser, Diamond watched him with interest. The man had an air of confidence that belied the menial tasks he was performing here. There was poise in the way he moved, and a suggestion of anarchy, as if any second he might execute some Chaplinesque trick with the tray, and his dark curls and mobile brown eyes reinforced the idea, though he was actually quite tall. However, Jessica was content to treat him as a domestic in spite of the approving things she had said earlier. They both appeared at ease with each other.

Intriguing.

But there were things still to be asked. "On Monday after the meeting ended, what did you do?"

"Went home," Jessica answered.

"Immediately?"

"Yes."

"Where's home, Mrs. Shaw?"

"Widcombe Hill."

"You've got a good view from there, I dare say."

"A view of a chapel roof with the words PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD painted in big white letters across it, if that's what you call a good view." She laughed. "A nice message to see each morning when we pull back the bedroom curtains."

"If that's the Ebenezer, it must have been there when you moved in."

"Of course. Actually, it doesn't bother us. I was just amused when you mentioned the view."

"When you got home that evening, was Mr. Shaw there?"

She put down her cup of coffee. "This is becoming rather intrusive."

"I'm sorry. That's my job," said Diamond. "I need to know if anyone can vouch for the time you got in."

"So I'm a suspect?"

"We're doing our best to eliminate you."

"That's precisely the message I see from my bedroom window."

He laughed. This had become an interview to savor. It was all too rare to meet a witness so adept at verbal sparring. Jessica Shaw had a quick intelligence. He told her, "You haven't answered the question yet."

"Which one? Oh, was Barnaby at home? No, he was not. He didn't get back till late. Lions." She folded her arms, enjoying Diamond's puzzled reaction to the last word, making it plain that she wasn't intending to add anything.

"Live lions?" he asked after taking a sip of coffee.

"Very lively, so Barnaby tells me."

Diamond's thoughts were on the safari park at Longleat. Julie was quicker on the uptake.

"You mean the Lions who collect money for charities, like the Rotary?"

"Didn't I make it clear?" said Jessica, eyes twinkling.

"You said he got home late," said Diamond. "What's late?"

"Oh, God. I don't keep a stopwatch for him. After I was in bed. Toward midnight. You don't regard him as a suspect?"

"We're trying to fix some parameters, that's all," Diamond hedged.

She rolled her eyes. "Could you fix my wonky exhaust while you're at it?"

"So you have a car?" He wasn't so slow himself when an opening came.

"Of course I have a car. I'm running a business here. And in case you were about to ask, I didn't use it on Monday evening. I didn't need to. It's just a short walk to St. Michael's and back."

"Would you give me the make and number?"

She told him it was a new Peugeot 306. White. It seemed there was money in art, even in these straitened times. Or perhaps Barnaby Shaw was the provider.

"Your husband. Is he in business?"

"Houses." She paused, playing her game of letting the wrong assumption take root, only this time Diamond was more alert. He wasn't thrown when she held her thumb and forefinger about three inches apart. "This high. He makes miniature houses."

He smiled.

She said, "Gullible people buy them for exorbitant amounts. He does a police station with a blue lamp at fifty pounds, if you're interested."

Diamond was more interested in the way the pupils of Jessica Shaw's eyes reduced in size and the edge of her mouth turned down when her husband was mentioned. He said, "Maybe we should check your handbag now."

"What do you mean-we?" She got up and crossed the room to where a leather shoulder bag was hanging over a tall-backed chair. "I'm not having my personal objects pored over by policemen, thank you." She released the catch, felt inside and straightaway withdrew a folded brown paper bag. "This I have no further use for."