Bloodhounds

Chapter Thirty-five

Keith Halliwell was in his car having a nap when a heavy tread across the gravel alerted him. He woke instantly, like a dog expecting a walk.

"Any joy, Mr. Diamond?"

"Joy isn't the word I'd use," said Diamond. "Anyway, she's packing her case up there. Going home. I've offered you as chauffeur."

"Right, sir. And a message came through from Sergeant Filkins. That Bradford on Avon enquiry. He spoke to the people. The, em…?"

"The Volks."

"Yes. And it's quite definite that Rupert Darby's beret was marked with paint before the art gallery party. They say he actually complained about it when they met him at the Saracen's Head."

Diamond's interest quickened. "Rupert mentioned it himself, did he?"

"Apparently there was an incident at the Lansdown Arms, his local. He went in with his dog early in the evening, his usual time, for a quick drink. On the way out, some merchant banker was playing about with what Rupert took to be a tin of hairspray."

"Merchant banker?"

"Rhyming slang, sir. Rupert's expression."

After a moment's thought, Diamond responded with a distinct note of affection, "I can hear him saying it in his plummy accent, too."

"Some of it got on his beret. Later he found it was paint."

A low rumbling like a growl came from deep in Diamond's throat. "I wish we'd known this earlier. What about this character with the spray? Is there a description?"

Halliwell shook his head. "Rupert had nothing to say about him."

"Well, it tells us one interesting thing: Rupert didn't recognize the bugger."

"Is that useful?"

"It is if we're dealing in murder here. It eliminates just about all our suspects."

"You think Rupert was murdered, sir?"

"I can't rule it out."

"Shoved over the bridge and hanged?" Halliwell sounded skeptical. "That wouldn't be easy, would it? It would take some strength to get the noose around his neck and heave him over the railing."

"Two people could do it."

"No question… but where are we going to find two?"

Diamond turned and looked Up at the window of the room he'd just left. "Be patient with the old girl, Keith. She's had some shocks."

"I'll treat her like my own mother, sir."

"I wouldn't go that far."

"What's next for you, Mr. Diamond?"

"A little culture." He ambled across to his own car and started up.

For once he didn't curse when he saw the usual queue for the roadworks beginning to form on the London Road approaching Bath. He was in a more positive frame of mind. A pretty demanding investigation was coming to its climax. Mysteries that had seemed impenetrable had been solved by- what? — steady detective work, or brilliance? Either way, he had now disentangled the problems of the locked room puzzle, the riddles, the paper bag, and Miss Chilmark's secret payments. There remained only the unmasking of the killer.

Or killers.

This was when the likes of John Wigfull would run to their computers and start keying in information in the expectation that a mighty buzz from the megabytes would produce a perfect offender profile. "Your murderer is a writer of verse in possession of a ladder and window-cleaning materials and a car or other means of transport, with access to a computer and printer, possessing also a twisted sense of humor, a better than average knowledge of philately, detective stories, padlocks, and the topography of Bath. Now arrest the bastard, you dim plods."

The solution to this one, Diamond had long ago decided, wasn't going to come out of a computer. It required deductions on a more sophisticated level, an understanding of the strange workings of the human mind, fathoming why such a bizarre series of crimes and murders had been necessary or desirable. The sequence of events had almost certainly started with some weirdo wanting to score points, whether from frustration, a grudge, or just a wish to impress someone else. The Bloodhounds had been picked as the patsies. Then the thing had erupted into violence, into murder. Was the first murder always part of the plan, or an unwished-for consequence? And was the second, the killing of Rupert-if murder it was- made necessary by something Rupert knew, or was it cynically carried out to derail the investigation? The latter, surely. It seemed inescapable that the staging of the "suicide" was an attempt to frame Rupert as the conscience-stricken killer of Sid Towers. In other words, to draw a line under the case.

And it hadn't worked.

Ten minutes later, he walked into the Walsingham Gallery, only to be told by a young woman with cropped blond hair that it was Jessica's day off. He was also informed with just a hint of a smile that AJ. wasn't expected in today either.

"Any idea where I can find them? It's important." He showed his ID card.

"You could try the house. You can phone from here if you like."

With maddening inevitability, an answerphone message came down the line from Jessica's.

He turned to the blond woman. "Do you have a number for A.J.?"

She shook her head. "They could be out for a walk. They walk by the canal sometimes."

"It's a bloody long canal."

He tried Barnaby Shaw's business number with a little more success. Barnaby thought Jessica had spoken about going to the framer's. An artist had delivered a picture with a chipped frame, and she wanted a new one for it.

"Which framer?"

"The Meltone Gallery, in Powlett Road."

"Can you find me the number?"

There, the trail went cold. Mel, of Meltone, hadn't seen either of them all day.

It was Keith Halliwell, back at Bath Central, who got the inquiry back on course. Spotting Diamond as he stomped in, the frustration writ large, he reported that Miss Chilmark was now installed at the Paragon again. "She blubbed a bit, but I did my best with her, and she cheered up no end when she got back. There was a nice note from someone saying he'd call later. I went out and got her a box of Mr. Kipling's."

"Jesus Christ."

Halliwell went white. "Did I do wrong?"

"Did this note say what time?"

"I don't know. Teatime, I suppose. That's why she wanted the cakes. What is it now?"

It was ten to four. Diamond actually ran out of the building to his car. He drove white-knuckled, at the limit of his nerve, bucking two sets of traffic lights on the way to the Paragon. Leaving the car to create the mother and father of all tailbacks in the homeward traffic, he dashed across the pavement and down the basement steps.

A.J.. had not yet arrived. The disappointment showed when Miss Chilmark opened the door. She had changed into one of her high-necked oriental dresses and restored the makeup in lashings. She would be in thrall to that extortionist for as long as he cared to trouble her.

Diamond told her he would wait inside.

She protested, "But I'm expecting a visitor."

He said, "That's who I want to see." Then he banished her to the kitchen at the back.

Ten minutes went by, Diamond just to the left of the door, trying to be invisible through the frosted glass while squeezed behind the foliage of a tall benjamina.

About four twenty, someone descended the steps to the basement in a businesslike way. The doorbell rang. Diamond stepped out and flung open the door. The uniformed police constable standing there started to say "Is that your car parked out…?" Then he practically choked as he recognized Diamond.

Miss Chilmark came eagerly from the kitchen, saw the policeman, and said hysterically, "Oh, my God, what's happened?"

"This officer has come to tea-that's what's happened,"

Diamond told her through gritted teeth, tugging the man inside and slamming the door. "Give him his Mr. Kipling, and I'll see to him later."

A short time after came the visitor Miss Chilmark was expecting. Upon seeing Diamond, AJ. did a double take, turned about, and bolted up the stairs, but Diamond's large right arm groped through the iron railing, grabbed a leg, and pulled the man off balance. He fell heavily and gashed his hand on the edge of the bottom step.

"Looks like you're nicked."

The emergency was not over. Before relieving the traffic chaos outside, Diamond called Bath Central and had a message radioed to all units. He wanted Jessica Shaw brought in. She might be heading away from Bath in a new white Peugeot 306. He gave the registration.

Back at Manvers Street, AJ. was waiting in an interview room, stroking the fresh Band-Aid on his hand. He had recovered his composure enough to tell Diamond, "I don't know what the fuck this is about. You're going to pay for this."

"Save it." Diamond ignored him, and fiddled with something on the desk. His cackhandedness defeated him. "Someone's got to get this bloody contraption working for me." He walked out again.

A further twenty minutes passed before he came back with a sergeant, who attended to the tape recorder. "You'll have to wait, squire," Diamond now informed AJ. "They're bringing in Mrs. Shaw. Like I thought, she was heading out of town in the car." He grinned. "Luckily, there's still one hell of a snarl-up on the London Road."

He went down to the canteen for sausages, eggs, and chips. It was half a lifetime since he'd eaten. Casting around for a vacant table, he glimpsed a large mustache topped by a pair of tired, red-lidded eyes. Eyes that made contact. John Wigfull gestured to him to come over. Difficult to ignore. Promising himself that he would soon escape, he carried his tray across.

Wigfull actually came to life and pulled out a chair. "You've cracked it, I hear. Pulled in Mrs. Shaw and her boyfriend."

"I really need this," said Diamond. "Haven't eaten since breakfast, and that was cold toast and marmalade."

"Letting them stew, are you? Want some brown sauce?" Wigfull glanced around for some, but Diamond didn't seem to care. He had already started eating. "It did cross my mind more than once that two people had to be involved." Wigfull was clearly expecting a rundown on the case. "And when Darby was strung from the bridge, it really had to be them working together."

Diamond spoke between mouthfuls. "Wise after the event, John?"

"No. I don't mind admitting I was confused up to that point. But the hanging clinched it, to my mind. Just about impossible for one person to hang a man. You'd have to be exceptionally strong-or the victim feeble. And this plot was always too complex to have been masterminded by one individual. They're an odd pair, those two. Too clever by half. Milking the old lady's bank account, weren't they?"

A nod from Diamond- "That's how the art gallery kept going."

"And the smart new Peugeot she was driving?"

"I expect so."

"Surprising, really, that the husband didn't object."

"To the gallery being funded like that? He didn't mind." Against his inclination, Diamond found himself being drawn into a dissection of the case. "To Barnaby, A.J. was just a third-rate artist with a private income. If he wanted to throw money at Jessica, fair enough."

"I meant the relationship," Wigfull explained. "Why didn't he object to A.J. screwing his wife?"

"Because it wasn't happening. This is the whole point. They aren't lovers. Barnaby convinced me of that. Intellectual flirting, he calls it."

"Get away," said Wigfull.

"Straight up. Their relationship is nonsexual. They got their kicks in other ways. The courtship display stops short of the act itself. These two are games players. That's their turn-on. It's like a grown-up version of truth, kiss, or dare, ultimately leading to destruction. The crimes arose out of A.J.'s need to impress her. He's given her most of the money he creamed off from Miss Chilmark, but that wasn't enough. He planned a spectacular stunt."

"Stealing the Penny Black and having it turn up at the Bloodhounds' meeting? That was spectacular, no question. It proved he was smarter than any of them. The riddles. The business with the padlocks. Bloody clever."

"Yes, but it went wrong," said Diamond. "He didn't reckon with Sid. Here was a bloke who was a Dickson Carr buff with an interest in locked room puzzles, so naturally he was fascinated by what had happened. He drove out to look at the narrowboat and came along the towpath while AJ. was in the act of replacing the padlock. I think AJ. heard him coming and hid inside the cabin, grabbing a windlass for a weapon. Everything had worked brilliantly up to then. He'd almost got away with a perfect crime. He was angry and scared at the same time, and he panicked. He cracked Sid over the head, probably meaning to knock him out, no more, but it killed him. You can never tell with skulls until you give them a bash." He forked up some more chips. "And everything after that was done to cover up."

Wigfull had been over that scene a thousand times in his mind and never pictured it so vividly before. He tried to sound casual. "So when did Jessica come into it?"

"After Sid was killed. She suspected AJ. was responsible, and she didn't want us to find out. With luck, he'd get away with it. There was a chance that everyone would assume Sid had stolen the stamp and staged the locked room trick."

"And we did," said Wigfull.

"Well, it fitted the facts. After all, he was the Dickson Carr expert, and he had plenty to prove to that lot who thought him thick because he didn't ever have much to say for himself. This theory was an ideal cover for A.J. It meant anyone at all- not just someone in the know-could have been on the tow-path that night and attacked Sid. Tidy. It let A.J. off the hook. And then the writing on the paper bag seemed to confirm that Sid had written the riddles."

"Jessica did that."

"Yes. She admitted it to me. She was covering up for A.J. To be fair, I don't think he'd told her anything. She's not slow, that woman. She worked out that he'd done it. Later it all began to unravel, of course. So Plan B was devised to frame Rupert and fake his suicide."

"They were both in on that?"

"By this time, yes. This killing was not accidental. It was planned in cold blood. They staged the graffiti incident, making sure Rupert was well sprayed first. It was simple to surprise him coming out of his local. A.J. must have done that. Rupert hadn't met him."

"Fair enough," said Wigfull, "but what about the message-' She did for Sid? Why on earth would they draw attention to their own guilt?"

"First, it wasn't true. She didn't do for Sid. A.J. did. Second, if anything went wrong, who would suspect that they wrote up the message themselves?"

"And they got Rupert tanked up the next night and hanged him?"

"After writing another riddle supposedly by Rupert, predicting his suicide. Case closed. End of story."

"So they hoped," Wigfull said, and sighed. "You're good, Peter. I've got to admit you're better than I am."

"Yes," said Diamond abstractedly, glancing at the clock. He'd practically finished the snack. A portion or two of treacle pudding would go down a treat. Very soon he would start the first interview. He was hoping Wigfull would take the hint and leave. A couple of minutes alone would be nice. With any luck, Julie would be back from the Sports and Leisure Center by now. She ought to be in on the interviews.

But Wigfull still had something on his mind, "What about this character, A.J.? Is he really Miss Chilmark's long-lost son?"

"She seems to think so," Diamond said, making it clear that his mind was on other things.

"If he isn't, and it's all a con, he ought to be done for that as well as murder."

"Maybe."

"Well?"

Diamond said irritably, "Well what?"

"Is he the son, or isn't he?"

"Most probably not. It's a side issue."

"Could he have conned Miss Chilmark?"

"Easily. It was part of the arrangement when the child was given away that she wasn't told the name of the parents or the child. Anyone of approximately the right age could have knocked on her door and claimed to be the son if-and it's a big 'if-they knew the story."

"Why does he call himself A.J.?"

"Doesn't like the name he was given. Ambrose Jason Smith. It is quite a mouthful. At one time…" His voice trailed away. He really didn't want to prolong this.

"Yes?" said Wigfull. "At one time, what?"

"Oh, I had another theory about AJ."

"You've got to tell me now you've started," said Wigfull. "It won't take a minute, will it?"

Diamond sighed and felt into the inside pocket of his jacket. He had several pieces of paper there. He started sorting through them as he talked. "I asked Polly Wycherley to write down the names of everyone who had ever been a Bloodhound, thinking, you see, that there might be some former member with a grudge against Sid. Here it is."

"No one called Ambrose Jason Smith, I'll bet," said Wigfull.

"No, but there was a name-this one-Alan Jellicoe, that made me pause."

"The initials?"

"Yes," said Diamond. "Coincidence, I expect."

Wigfull was more suspicious. "I wouldn't count on it. Don't you think this is worth following up? After all, he could have made up the A. J. Smith identity just to con Miss Chilmark."

Diamond didn't want to push this. Wigfull had a point. It ought to be checked, but if there was anything to it, the truth would come out. There were hours of interviews stretching ahead. Call him Smith or Jellicoe, he was still sitting in an interview room waiting to be charged.

"If I were you," Wigfull went on, "I'd ask Mrs. Wycherley to come down here and have a look at him. Has she seen him lately?"

"No, she wasn't invited to the gallery party. She and Jessica don't get on too well."

"All the more reason to check."

Diamond yawned. "You're a persistent bugger, John. All right, I'll arrange it. Alan Jellicoe. It is a little out of the ordinary." His eye scanned the list again. Something else was stirring in his brain. Tom Parry-Jones, Milo Motion, Polly Wycherley, Annie Allen, Gilbert Jones, Marilyn Slade-Baker…

"There's another coincidence for you."

"Someone you know?"

"Put it this way," said Diamond. "I know someone called Bert Jones." He handed the list to Wigfull to read.

"This says Gilbert. You don't shorten Gilbert to Bert, do you?"

"Some people might. It's the name of Shirley-Ann Miller's partner." He looked up at the canteen clock. "Julie was going in to interview that bastard over two hours ago. I've heard sweet Fanny Adams since."

He was on his feet and out of the canteen before Wigfull had time to draw breath.