The Stone Wife

29

Ingeborg arrived early at Manvers Street next morning to find Diamond already there making waves, on the phone to Bristol, asking if the search of Leigh Woods had resumed, firing a series of questions at the hapless inspector on the line. How much of the woods had they covered? Were they still using the dog team? How many dogs? How many men? He went on to ask about the camera footage at Clifton suspension bridge. The check had been completed, a long, laborious process, and it emerged that one of Nathan’s limousines had definitely crossed the bridge in the Bristol direction at 5:50 A.M. on the day Nathan’s body was recovered from the river. The second limo had not been spotted.

‘They split up, then,’ he said, talking to the Bristol inspector as if he was up to speed on every detail of the case. ‘It makes sense. The car caught on camera must have been carrying the gun collection to some secret lock-up in the docks area. The other was used to dump the body somewhere in the woods. Then that second car crossed the river by another route, most likely using Brunel Way and Avon Bridge. Nathan will have known every patrol car in the county was looking for those limos. He will have got them off the road and out of sight as soon as they’d shed their loads. Then he’ll have told his men to disperse and lie low. He’ll not have told them he was about to make his way on foot to the bridge to commit suicide.’

There was a short pause in Diamond’s flow when the inspector got a few words in.

Then: ‘I don’t know if you’ve got the manpower, but somebody needs to search for the weapons and the cars. I’m strongly of the opinion that you’ll find them in the docks area. But the search for DC Gilbert has priority over everything. Do you understand me? Top priority.’

Then he put down the phone and sighted Ingeborg, calm and groomed again, with her blonde hair in the ponytail she usually wore and her lightly pencilled eyes giving no clue as to the tough time she’d been through.

‘Rested now?’

‘Rested and ready to go.’

‘How did Lee Li take the news of Nathan’s death?’

‘Like I expected. Shock. Some tears. She felt responsible, she said, and I soon knocked that on the head. She’s now come round to the view that she was lucky to escape when she did. He could easily have turned angry and she might have ended up dead in the river. Now she can get on with her life and her singing career without looking over her shoulder every minute.’

‘Is she still at your flat?’

‘Only until this afternoon. She’ll be staying with a friend.’

‘You like her, don’t you?’

A shrug and a smile. ‘She’s sweet, but not empty-headed. She’ll have more success, I’m sure.’

‘When she collects her Brit Award, you’ll get a mention in her acceptance speech: “And finally Ingeborg Smith who rescued me from the clutches of a major crime baron.” ’ He updated her on the Reading trip. ‘So you see, there’s a lot happening,’ he concluded. ‘I’m off to Melksham presently to waylay Bernie Wefers.’

‘Want me to come?’ she offered.

He needed her instead to get on the trail of the mystery seller of the Chaucer drawing. ‘I have a strong hunch it’s worth finding out,’ he said. ‘We know the dealers were Matlock and Russell, who seem to have gone out of business. But it was only ten years ago. Someone must know the inside story.’

‘Were they London-based?’

‘I’m not even sure of that. Would one of your contacts from the newspaper world be able to help?’

Before she could answer, another fresh morning face in the CID room set Diamond on a different tack. ‘Hello, here’s the myrmidon of the mortuary.’

‘The what?’ Keith Halliwell said.

‘Never mind. What did you glean from yesterday’s autopsy?’

‘That you’re unlikely to survive if you jump off the suspension bridge. You hit the water at thirty-three metres per second. Your thoracic cage is crushed and the ribs penetrate your vital organs. Lacerated lungs, ruptured liver and heart. Do you want me to go on?’

‘Drowning didn’t come into it, then?’

‘Didn’t need to.’

‘I thought I once read about a woman who survived.’

‘The famous case of the Victorian lady in a crinoline that acted as a parachute. Tragically, Nathan wasn’t wearing his crinoline on this occasion.’

As a reward for that mortuary duty, Halliwell found himself driving Diamond to Melksham, where Bernie Wefers was due to touch down in his helicopter. ‘What are we trying to achieve?’ he asked Diamond.

‘Some straight answers. When you and I met Bernie at Marlborough we didn’t explore his links with Nathan.’

‘It didn’t come up,’ Halliwell said. ‘Can’t say I blame him. If you’re being interviewed by the police you’re not going to throw in a mention of Bristol’s leading arms supplier.’

‘Actually, it did come up.’

Halliwell frowned.

‘But Nathan wasn’t mentioned,’ Diamond went on. ‘If you cast your mind back, Bernie told us he went to Bristol to build an extension for a client, including a gym and a sound studio. We didn’t pick up the significance because at the time we hadn’t heard from Ingeborg about what she found at Nathan’s.’

‘So he gave us the partial truth.’

‘We wrung it out of him. We knew he’d been to Bristol.’

‘Did we?’

Diamond shook his head. As a memory man, Halliwell wasn’t in John Leaman’s class. ‘The pilot told us about flying Nathan there and we checked the log and found it.’

‘Percy Sinclair.’

‘Come again.’

‘The pilot.’

‘You remember all the stuff it’s safe to forget. I sometimes wonder about your reports on the autopsies, whether you give me every blessed detail about the stomach contents and then forget to say that the head was sawed off.’

‘If you doubt me, you could attend the autopsies yourself.’

‘One of these days, I might,’ Diamond said, a boast about as likely as his completing a triathlon. Then he moved on smoothly. ‘Bernie remains the prime suspect.’

‘But he has an alibi for the day of the killing.’

‘So does everyone else. He could still have hired some gunmen to hold up the auction. His motive is stronger than anyone’s. He threatened Gildersleeve outside the divorce court.’

‘You’ll pay for this.’

‘You’re doing better now. And going by his brutal revenge on Monica when he caught her out with Gildersleeve, he takes a strong line on retribution.’

‘But he didn’t attack Dr. Poke when he caught her out with him.’

‘I’m sure he meant to. Poke is a special case. There’s something about the squeaky voice and the wispy hair that disarms people. I noticed it myself. Are you an apologist for Bernie, or what?’

‘Devil’s advocate,’ Halliwell said. ‘I agree he’s got questions to answer.’

Melksham was only twenty minutes from Bath, even at the modest speed Diamond insisted on. A small working town that was also a traffic hub, it had few friends. ‘Of all the small towns of Wiltshire,’ wrote Nikolaus Pevsner in The Buildings of England, ‘Melksham has least character and least enjoyable buildings.’ Whichever way you approached the place, you saw a sewage farm or a caravan park or the twenty-eight acres of tyre manufacturing. So it was possible that Bernie Wefers was doing Melksham a favour with his new shopping centre.

A centre maybe, but central it was not.

They followed the Wefers Construction notices by way of several small roundabouts to a site on the eastern edge of the town surrounded by the rutted mud of months of building work.

THE PALACE PRECINCT, declared the ironwork arch over the entrance to a concrete barrack block. ‘Who would have thought it?’ Diamond said.

‘Some jerk with a degree in public relations,’ Halliwell said.

‘I don’t know. If you planted a few trees, you might make it easier on the eye — in about thirty years.’

‘I expect they sawed down some fine trees here before they started.’

‘That’s known as landscape architecture, Keith. Let’s get to those sandwiches. I’m ready for them.’

They were pleased to see Bernie’s helicopter standing in a corner of the field. They’d timed this trip to perfection. The speeches were over and about twenty guests were being treated to drinks around a non-functioning fountain in the echo chamber that was the new precinct. Not one of the twenty-four shops was yet in use or even spoken for, so the excitement was limited to the potential of the concept. A few helium-filled balloons anchored to the fountain advertised Wefers Construction and a scratchy sound system was playing Elgar.

‘You’ve got to hand it to the Brits,’ Diamond said to Leaman. ‘We know how to celebrate.’

They each took a drink from a tray (sparkling wine, not champagne) and helped themselves to eats (mixed nuts, not salmon and cucumber sandwiches). Then they honed in on Bernie, who had broken away from the mayor’s group and was looking at his watch.

‘Not thinking of leaving already, were you?’ Diamond asked him.

‘You two again?’ he said. ‘I’m starting to feel hounded.’

‘We work just up the road. Couldn’t miss a chance to see your latest triumph and ask a couple of follow-up questions. When we last spoke, you didn’t mention your business link to Nathan Hazael.’

‘Nobody asked me.’

‘We know you built the major extension to his house at Leigh Woods. Did you also design the first-floor bathroom with the sliding shower cabinet?’

He frowned. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘The hidden gunroom behind the shower.’

‘That’s news to me. Goes in for field sports, does he? I never asked what he planned to do with it,’ Bernie said in a virtuous tone, wide eyes mocking them.

‘Come on, everyone knows how Nathan made his money. A collection of illegal weapons that featured in God knows how many recent crimes.’

‘Fancy that.’

‘You must have become a personal friend, doing so much work for him.’

‘We got on,’ Bernie said. ‘Didn’t talk guns at any point. Is that what you wanted to know?’

‘Didn’t you inspect the collection, even to judge how it would fit into the room?’

He raised a warning finger. ‘Lay off, will you? I told you I didn’t know it was a bloody gunroom. He wanted a hidden room. That was the deal. For all I knew, it was for storing inflatable sex toys. You don’t ask questions of somebody like Nathan.’

‘You must have spent plenty of time with him setting up all these projects.’

He shrugged. ‘Not ’specially. I have staff, you know, architects and surveyors.’

‘All sworn to secrecy? He wouldn’t have wanted his gunroom known to all and sundry.’

Bernie grinned. ‘After they done the work, he took them out and shot them.’

Now it was Diamond who wagged a finger. ‘Let’s have some honesty here, Bernie. Did you personally design and build the sliding shower?’

A shake of the head. ‘His design. My execution.’ And another grin. ‘Except I lived to tell the tale.’

‘It’s an expert job, I’ll give you that. When did you build it? Before the gym and the recording studio?’

‘They were done at the end of last year for some pop star he was shacking up with. The bathroom was an earlier job. I’d say four or five years ago.’

‘While you were still married to Monica?’

‘Must have been.’

‘Did she ever meet Nathan?’

‘Monica?’ He thought about it and shook his head. ‘Not to my knowledge. “Work is work and wife is well out of it is my philosophy.” Hers, too. Long as the money kept coming in, she was happy.’

Not the impression Diamond had got from Monica. She’d been far from happy when Bernie was off on his business trips. ‘Didn’t she know you were doing work for a notorious arms dealer?’

He reconsidered, as if wary of a trap. ‘You’ll have to ask her. Too far back for me to remember.’

‘She didn’t take much interest in your work?’

‘I just said.’

‘Were you interested in hers?’

‘You’re starting to sound like that bloody counsellor we had to see when we was getting divorced.’

‘Fourteenth century English texts.’

‘Give me strength. What would I know about that?’

‘The poet Chaucer?’

‘Are you enjoying this? Because I’m not.’

‘But you know about building materials. Did Monica ever speak of a block of limestone that was said to come from Chaucer’s house in Somerset?’

‘Now I see where you’re going,’ Bernie said. ‘No, mate, leave me out of it. The first I heard about that thing was what I read in the paper after Gildersleeve was shot.’

Angry — she couldn’t disguise it — to be grounded, stuck in the CID room for the morning when a suspect was being interviewed not far away, Ingeborg was at her desk waiting for phone calls. They’d brought in the whiteboard and lots of photos and called it the incident room as if it was all action here, but who were they kidding? This remained the same old place where she spent far too much time sitting on her butt. After her undercover work, research on the phone was safe and boring. To say she was unhappy with Diamond was an understatement. For one thing she suspected he’d invented this task as a time-filler for her. He’d talked blithely about having a hunch. Jesus Christ, she thought, if she’d had the brass to mention a hunch, he’d have shot her down in flames. She’d heard him before going on about women’s intuition. And for another thing, she deserved to be in the front line after all she’d done.

In the last hour she’d put out feelers about the drawing of Thomas Chaucer and the former art dealers Matlock and Russell and now she was waiting for various journalist contacts to get back to her. John Leaman was with her, as smug as the cat who had finished the cream. She didn’t need reminding that he’d joined the boss on the outing to Reading.

‘Any joy?’ he asked. Not the best choice of words.

‘On the phone, you mean? No. I’m waiting for someone to call back.’

‘Is this just a red herring?’

‘We’ll find out, won’t we?’ she said.

‘He’s losing confidence,’ Leaman said. ‘He’s got three people firmly in the frame — Dr. Poke, Monica Gildersleeve and Bernie Wefers — and he hasn’t nailed one of them yet. The more he questions them, the more confused he gets.’

‘Is that why he’s having hunches, do you reckon?’

‘Desperation, isn’t it?’

She’d heard John Leaman in this vein before. There was always a point in an investigation when he rubbished all the theories. Normally, she wouldn’t have listened, but this morning his pessimism chimed in with her bolshie mood.

‘What about forensics?’ she said. ‘Won’t they come up with something?’

‘We won’t get much more from them. We know the gun that fired the fatal shot was probably a Webley, but we haven’t recovered it yet. The gunmen left no traces and they were all wearing balaclavas and rubber gloves. What does he think — that one of his prime suspects dressed up in a balaclava — or all three?’

‘There were two Webleys in Nathan’s collection. I saw them.’

‘Pity you didn’t bring them back with you.’

‘I couldn’t.’

‘Tough.’

Leaman seemed to regard that as the last word. Ingeborg had no desire to explain the difficulties of her mission to old misery guts, so they each returned to their computer screen and silence — until her phone beeped.

‘Inge? This is Klaus.’

Klaus Harting, one-time arts correspondent on the Daily Telegraph.

‘Good to speak again,’ Ingeborg said.

‘Sergeant Smith, the switchboard said. So the change of job worked out for you.’

‘Most days, yes. How is it with you?’

‘The same. I’ve done some rooting around, without much success. Whoever was selling the drawing you mentioned — of Thomas Chaucer — went to some trouble to stay anonymous. I can tell you it was withdrawn from sale when the value plummeted because it wasn’t of Geoffrey Chaucer. The National Portrait Gallery were willing to buy it at a much reduced but not unreasonable price — Thomas being a significant man in the fifteenth century, if not quite a celebrity — but the seller refused to negotiate and the drawing hasn’t been heard of since.’

‘Waiting for a more favourable time to sell?’

‘Very likely. If it was billed as the main item in a new auction of historical portraits, it might do better. After the disappointment that it wasn’t the poet, there was the feeling it was second-rate.’

‘But it hasn’t come up for sale yet? Is it still with the original seller?’

‘The mystery man — or woman. I presume so.’

‘Did you find out any more about Matlock and Russell?’

‘The dealers. They ceased trading in two-thousand and five, I’m afraid. It was an old-established firm based in the West Country.’

‘Where I am,’ Ingeborg said.

‘The kingpin was a guy called Austen Chalk. When he died, the firm died with him.’

‘Where in the West Country?’

‘Bath. They had premises in Broad Street. It’s probably selling fish and chips these days.’

She was already on her feet. ‘I’ll find out. Klaus, you’re a star.’

Fish and chips? Unlikely. Broad Street specialised in antiques, crafts, upmarket homeware, fashion and, of course, public houses. The best thing about it this morning was that Ingeborg could walk there in five minutes.

Out of the police station and with a mission in mind, she felt better already. The sun was out, turning the paleness of the stonework a richer cream and giving the colourful shop fronts more pizzazz. Broad Street has no desire to compete with the formal elegance of its neighbour, Milsom Street. Not particularly broad except in style, it caters for the independent-minded, some of whom might not object to being called broads.

The shop once owned by Matlock and Russell had changed hands at least twice to Ingeborg’s knowledge and was now selling ethnic clothing, so she had no great hope that the present incumbents would know anyone who had worked there. But she knew of a gallery long established in Broad Street called Mary Cruz and decided to try there.

The assistant she spoke to had no memory of Matlock and Russell, but in the street outside someone tapped her on the shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me, I couldn’t help overhearing you in there. I take an interest in art and I remember the gallery you were asking about, long since gone, I’m afraid.’

‘I know,’ Ingeborg said. ‘That’s my problem.’

‘A Mr. Chalk managed it, but he died.’

‘So I heard.’

‘However, he had an assistant, who did all the paperwork, a Miss Brie. We used to call them Chalk and Cheese, for obvious reasons. That’s how I remember her name. She’s still living here. I’ve seen her about.’

‘Do you know where?’

‘Couldn’t tell you, I’m afraid.’

Rather than returning to Manvers Street to look up Miss Brie’s address, Ingeborg called in at the library. An assistant at a gallery must surely have had an interest in reading. If not, it was likely she would be on the electoral register, which they kept there.

The librarian didn’t need to consult the records. ‘We all know Miss Brie,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘She’s often in, a very observant lady.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Whenever she returns a book, she supplies us with a handwritten report on it. She lets us know of any grammatical errors or spelling mistakes or unsuitable language. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do about it. Books are full of mistakes. If it isn’t the author’s fault, it’s the publisher’s or the printer’s. We’ve tried explaining, but she doesn’t give up.’

‘You have her address, then?’

‘Always at the top of her report. Mon Repos, Saville Row, Bath. She’s a bit old-fashioned, so she leaves off the postcode.’

Mon Repos wasn’t exactly modern either. ‘Saville Row is the alleyway behind the Assembly rooms, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but Miss Brie wouldn’t put it like that. She’s proud of the address, even though it’s over a shop.’

Ingeborg wasn’t discouraged by what she’d learned so far. A punctilious woman was likely to remember the clients she’d met at Matlock and Russell. With Miss Brie’s cooperation this phase of the investigation ought to be concluded shortly. Diamond’s shocked face would brighten up the day.

She toiled to the top of Broad Street, across George Street, through Bartlett Street and on to Saville Row, uphill all the way. Anyone living here and regularly borrowing books from the library would need to be fit.

A black door squeezed between two shops had a card set into a metal frame with the legend: Mon Repos, press bell and take stairs to first floor.

She did as she was asked. The stairs were unlit and uncarpeted. At the top, a second card advised: Mon Repos, privacy please, no free newspapers, no uninvited callers.

Sorry, Ingeborg silently said, but this uninvited caller isn’t going away. She rang the bell.

A delay of half a minute wasn’t promising. She looked up and about her and was reassured that it was nothing personal. A lady who hadn’t yet entered the age of postcodes was unlikely to be equipped with CCTV.

Then there were footsteps and the door opened a fraction. Ingeborg could just about make out a face not far above the level of the safety chain. Nothing was said. She had a suspicion that the door was about to be slammed shut, so she put her foot against it and said, ‘Miss Brie, I’m Ingeborg Smith, from Bath police. May I come in?’

‘Is something the matter?’ a voice suitable for a National Trust guide (but not so welcoming) asked.

‘It’s all right. I just need your help.’

‘Are you in trouble?’

‘Not at all.’ She pressed her ID close to the gap. ‘It would be easier if you let me in.’

The sound of the chain being released was encouraging. The gap widened and Ingeborg looked with awe at Miss Brie, so close to being a stick insect that she might have squeezed through the door with the chain still in place. A hint of eau de cologne was left in her wake as she led the way through a small entrance hall into a sitting room that could have been an interior from a 1930s René Clair film, with lace edging everywhere, on the curtains, the lampshades, the tablecloth, the antimacassars and over the bird cage. Now that she was seated, ankles crossed, tiny hands resting in her lap, the top of a lace petticoat showed at the divide of her white blouse. She was at least seventy and probably half blind if the way she applied her lipstick was anything to go by.

‘I do hope you’re not here to sell me something,’ she said, having waved Ingeborg to the only other armchair.

‘Not at all. I’m hoping you can tell me a little about Matlock and Russell. You worked there, I understand.’

‘For twenty-seven years, typing, filing and occasionally showing people round.’

‘Until when?’

‘Until the manager, Mr. Chalk, decided to retire and died within a matter of days. That was two-thousand and five. It was a difficult time. People weren’t buying so much. Has there been an art theft?’

‘Not to my knowledge, but it’s an item of art I would like to ask you about, a fourteenth century drawing that turned out to be of Thomas Chaucer.’

‘I remember. It was towards the end of my time there.’

‘Two-thousand and four, I believe.’

‘You really are well briefed. Would you join me in a preprandial glass of Courvoisier?’

Not while on duty, Ingeborg realised she ought to say. A lager top would go down a treat, she was tempted to say. ‘How kind — I’d love to,’ was what she actually said. Warming up the witness was a sensible move, even if she wasn’t quite certain what she was letting herself in for.

Two balloon glasses were produced and she remembered what Courvoisier was. ‘I was born and brought up in France,’ Miss Brie volunteered as she poured generously from a cut glass decanter. She went on to open a tin of biscuits and arrange some on a Limoges plate that looked as if it, too, was made of lace. This was evidently a daily ritual. ‘I do insist that you have a Bath Oliver with it. I’ve survived on them for most of my adult life.’

‘They’re hard to find now,’ Ingeborg said, taking one, a hard, bland version of a cream cracker.

‘Not if you know where to shop. It’s a well kept secret.’

‘Are you going to share it with me?’

‘Certainly not. A secret shared is a secret lost.’

This was not promising. ‘We were speaking about the Thomas Chaucer drawing,’ Ingeborg prompted her.

‘I remember because it was so unusual. You don’t see much pen and ink work from such an early period.’

‘I believe it was first thought to be of the poet, his father.’

‘The seller firmly believed so. We kept an open mind and insisted it was authenticated by an expert, a professor who made Chaucer a life study.’

‘John Gildersleeve.’

‘Correct.’

‘Unfortunately, he was shot a short while ago.’

‘I heard on the radio. A dreadful incident. Is this why you’re here?’

‘Indirectly, getting background information.’

Miss Brie took a long sip of brandy and began to talk more freely. ‘When the professor recognised the subject as Thomas, he saved us all, and not least our client — who wasn’t best pleased at the time — from a professional faux pas. Imagine the embarrassment if it had been sold to the nation for a fortune and later turned out to have been incorrectly identified.’

‘Who was the client?’ Ingeborg asked, and immediately saw from Miss Brie’s eyes that she’d asked one brandy too soon.

‘I can’t tell you that. We had an anonymity clause.’

‘But it’s history now. You’re not in business any longer.’

‘I have my standards, dear.’

‘It’s become a police matter now. It’s gone past personal ethics. We’re investigating the professor’s death.’

Miss Brie smiled. ‘You don’t scare me in the least. My parents stood up to the Gestapo. I’m unlikely to be bullied into submission by an English lady policeman.’

‘I’m not here to bully you.’

‘And I’m not betraying a confidence. Not now. Not ever.’

‘That is a disappointment. And Mr. Chalk is dead?’

‘He wouldn’t have told you, either.’

‘But the client is still with us?’

Miss Brie chose not to answer and emphasised it by tilting her little chin a fraction higher.

Ingeborg said, ‘If the client was also dead, there’d be no reason to keep this up.’

Miss Brie said, ‘Are you secretly recording this?’

‘Good heavens, no.’

‘Even if you leave a hidden microphone here, you won’t catch me out. I’m not going to make a phone call the minute you leave.’

‘There’s no question of hidden mikes.’

‘I’m sober, you know. Being French, I can take brandy like water.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of doing anything underhanded,’ Ingeborg said, setting aside the fact that she’d only just returned from an undercover mission. ‘I believe in appealing to people’s public spirit. I wonder if I can persuade you that there’s a higher morality at stake here. For everyone’s sake we need to catch the person who shot the professor before there’s another shooting.’

Miss Brie swirled the brandy and looked over the glass. ‘All I will say is this. Our client couldn’t possibly have fired the shot.’

‘Why do you say that? How do you know?’

‘You can go on all afternoon trying to trick me, Sergeant Smith. It won’t succeed. I’m holding fast to my principles, even in a world that I hardly recognise any more.’

Half an hour later, Ingeborg realised that the old lady was right. She would no more get the name of the client than she would learn where to buy Bath Olivers. And after several top-ups from the decanter, she was starting to fear that she, too, wouldn’t recognise the world any more.