Bloodhounds

Chapter Twenty-three

Julie was keen for some human contact after her long session with the Police National Computer. "Ready to demonstrate your sleuthing skills, Mr. Diamond? Let's match you against the PNC. Which one of the Bloodhounds has a police record?"

"Only one?"

"That's all."

"The fellow with the mean-streets dog. Rupert Darby."

She shrugged and smiled. "You could have saved me nearly two hours of eye strain. Two prison terms, of six months and eighteen months, for obtaining money by deception. Seven fines for drunkenness and one for indecency."

"When was this?" Diamond asked.

"The indecency?"

"No, the bird."

"In 1977 and 1983."

"Long time ago. What was the scam?"

"I don't know. The PNC doesn't go into the details."

"But you will, won't you, Julie? That's where the human brain scores over the computer."

"It isn't the brain," she said. "It's hard slog."

"Put a hard slogger on the job, then. Delegate, Julie. I do. And get the facts on the indecency, will you? That could mean anything from streaking at a test match to pissing in a shop doorway."

She didn't complain. She wouldn't have told Diamond, but she was encouraged that the murder inquiry was back on track.

Diamond was off on another tack. "Funny idea," he said, "calling a dog after a character in a book. We've got a cat- well, a kitten, really. Steph brought it home. Haven't thought of a name for it yet. I wouldn't call it Marlowe."

"That wouldn't do," Julie agreed. "Is it a torn?"

"Yes."

"You could call it Sherlock, or Wimsey, or Father Brown."

He pulled a face. "It'll let us know."

Sitting in bed, clutching a mug of cocoa, Shirley-Ann told Bert about the writing on the Walsingham Gallery window. And why shouldn't she? It wasn't as if she had been asked to keep the incident to herself, though she appreciated that the words had been cleaned off in the hope that no one else would find out. She always told Bert everything. It would have made her feel furtive not to have spoken to him.

"Who did it, then?" he asked, yawning. He was already horizontal, physically tired. So much of his day was spent doing sport that if the truth were told he wasn't much of a sport at night.

"Wrote the words on the window? I've no idea," said Shirley-Ann, with energy still to burn. Even the weekends were filled with football refereeing that tired Bert. "It could be anybody. Milo was at the party and so was Rupert, but I wouldn't read anything into that. It may have been done by someone who didn't come."

"Someone bitter about not being invited?"

"Well, yes."

"Who, for instance?"

"I didn't see Polly or Miss Chilmark there. I suppose either of them could have sneaked up and got busy with a spray can."

"Just out of spite?"

"I don't know them all that well, but I wouldn't put it past one of them. They're formidable ladies, those two. The only thing I doubt is whether they'd use that way to register a protest."

"It doesn't have to be one of the Bloodhounds," Bert pointed out.

"Do you think so?" Shirley-Ann said dubiously.

"It could be some artist with a grudge. Someone whose work wasn't included in the exhibition."

"I suppose that's possible," she admitted, disinclined as she was to look outside the Bloodhounds.

"Someone who knows about the Narrowboat Murder," said Bert. "The thing that was written does refer to the murder, doesn't it?"

"I'm sure it does."

"Plenty of people in Bath must have read the papers or seen something on TV. All the reports mentioned that the victim was at the Bloodhounds meeting earlier in the evening. Almost anyone could have linked Jessica to the murder."

"So?"

He said wearily, "So is there any point in trying to work it out?"

She was silent for a while. However, she remained sitting up, taking sips of the cocoa. Eventually she said, "Bert, do you think there's anything in it?"

Bert twitched. He had almost dozed off. "What?"

"I said, do you think there's anything in it? Is it possible that she did for Sid?"

"Who-Jessica?"

"Mm."

He said, "I'm pretty tired, you know."

"It isn't fair asking you," said Shirley-Ann, with more consideration. "You haven't met her, so how can you have an opinion?"

There was an ironic laugh from under the quilt. "You've told me enough about her. You never stop talking about that lot. If you want my opinion, yes, I think she's well capable of murder."

"You do? Jessica?"

"All she had to do was follow the bloke-what's his name?"

"Sid."

"Follow Sid after the meeting that night, catch him off guard, and crack him over the head with some heavy object. A woman could do that as well as a man if she crept up behind him."

"Why? Why would she do it?"

"Why would anyone do it? Nobody knows. All I'm saying is that she's as capable of clocking the bloke as anyone else. What age is she?"

"Around thirty, I'd guess."

"Well, I tell you this. Most of the women in my over-forties group tonight could lay a man out cold with a blow on the skull, no problem. I wouldn't like to tangle with some of them."

"But she liked Sid. She took him into the Moon and Six-pence a few times, she told me. She knew quite a bit about him, his job and everything. She said he had guts to come to the Bloodhounds. She admired him."

"That doesn't mean she's innocent. She had a high opinion of him, you're saying. She believed he was all right. That's exactly the sort of person who gets angry and homicidal when it turns out they were mistaken."

"I don't see Jessica like that at all, Bert. She isn't hot-headed."

"Ice-cool, is she?"

"She's well in control, anyway."

"Calculating?"

"Now you're twisting my words."

For a time, no more was said. Bert began to breathe more evenly, while Shirley-Ann weighed Jessica's capacity to kill. She finished her cocoa and put her Snow White mug on the bedside table. The clock showed it was past midnight. Bloody nuisance. Bert had really set her brain into overdrive, yet she needed her sleep in case she was offered another chance as tour guide in the morning. She spoke her thoughts aloud. "I suppose if she found out there was another side to him… if he wasn't the placid, unassuming bloke she took him for, and she caught him in the act of letting himself into Milo's boat- which meant that he, Sid, of all people, was the stamp thief- then she might have got mad with him, but I still don't see it. Not Jessica. She's too intelligent. She operates in far more subtle ways. No, the only way I see Jessica getting violent is if…" She caught her breath at the idea, at the same time bending her legs to her chest and clasping her hands around her knees. "That's it! They were in cahoots. They worked together. Are you listening, Bert? Jessica and Sid worked out this brilliant scheme to amaze the Bloodhounds. Sid was a security man, right? He knew how to beat the video cameras and special locks at the Postal Museum. And he had some way of getting into Milo's boat as well. I don't think he'd have done it by himself. It was Jessica who put him up to it. At those meetings at the Moon and Sixpence, they planned the Penny Black job. Sid's expertise and Jessica's intelligence-quite a combination. I reckon she made up those riddles. And together they devised a way of getting into Milo's narrowboat and placing the stamp in his copy of The Hollow Man so that it turned up at the meeting. Okay, what they did was dangerous and illegal, but they returned the stamp and they didn't expect anyone to work out how it was done. Only something went wrong. For some reason Sid decided to go back to the boat. Maybe he thought it was an opportunity to do some real burglary while Milo was talking to the police. Or he could have left some trace that he thought they were sure to find. Jessica was suspicious and followed him. She was furious. The perfect crime she'd planned was about to be undermined by Sid. She hit him over the head, locked him in, and left. That's it, Bert!.. Bert, are you listening?"

She grabbed Bert's shoulder and gave him a shake. He had drifted into a shallow sleep and heard nothing. He said from a long way off, "Yes?"

"I said she did it, Bert. Jessica did for Sid.".

"All right," muttered Bert apathetically.

"Only somebody worked it out and tried to make it public tonight. I wonder who."

"Who what?"

"Who sprayed the words over Jessica's gallery window."

"Someone with one of those aerosols, I expect," said Bert in an interval of clarity.

"Well, you don't have to tell me that," she said.

"Must have got some on their clothes," added Bert. "You can't use one of those things outdoors without some of the spray getting on your clothes." It was his last contribution that night.

She pondered that for a time. Then something stirred in her memory that would keep her awake another two hours. She pressed her hands to her face and said, "I thought it was dandruff. Well, would you ever?"