The Stone Wife

4

No one was under any illusion that the three hitmen were Chaucer scholars. Everything pointed to professionals, even though the job had been botched. But finding them wouldn’t be easy. Basically, the only description Diamond had was that the first robber had longish dark hair, a scar on the back of his neck and no ear lobes.

‘This will be tough,’ he warned the team at the first briefing. ‘I don’t need to tell you snouts go silent when the crime is murder. We’ll try. We bloody have to. But we may need a better way.’

‘Crimewatch?’ Paul Gilbert said, ever eager to contribute.

Everyone except Gilbert saw the glint in the boss’s eyes that said Crimewatch was a non-starter, but the youngest, greenest member of CID pressed on. ‘It would make great television, reconstructing the auction.’

‘No question.’

‘It’s a massive audience.’

Diamond was patient with him. ‘But there’s only so much information Joe Public can provide. We interviewed everyone who was there.’

‘All we’d end up with,’ Ingeborg added, ‘would be a list of suspicious characters from other auctions.’

‘A thousand other auctions,’ John Leaman said.

‘A few hundred, anyway,’ Ingeborg said.

Gilbert’s shoulders sank. ‘It was only a thought.’

‘Don’t take it personally,’ Diamond said. ‘I’m always open to suggestions.’

A few looks were exchanged. Everyone else in the team had been cut to shreds at some point in the past for coming up with a half-baked idea.

‘The way I look at it,’ Leaman said, ‘we don’t just want to find the three who held up the auction. We’re looking for the guy who hired them.’

‘Too right we are.’

‘Whoever he is,’ Keith Halliwell said, ‘he’s not a happy bunny.’

Gilbert returned to the fray like a boxer bouncing off the ropes. ‘What was he hoping to get out of it? Even if the hold-up had succeeded, all he’d end up with would be a lump of stone.’

‘An antique lump of stone,’ Ingeborg said in a measured, bored voice, ‘linked to one of the most famous poems in the language and valued at over twenty grand by the British Museum.’

Everyone except Gilbert felt the force of the putdown.

John Leaman repeated his mantra: ‘We need to find the guy behind all this.’

‘Agreed,’ Diamond said. ‘So who would have an interest in acquiring a carving of the Wife of Bath?’

‘Another museum?’ Gilbert said.

‘Get real,’ Halliwell said. ‘Museums don’t hire armed robbers.’

‘Some nutty professor, then.’

‘Another? We already have one and he’s dead.’

‘Well, it has to be some weirdo.’

‘There’s a question that always comes up when a well-known work of art is stolen, and we need to ask it, too,’ Ingeborg said. ‘Why do they do it?’

‘To sell on to a third party?’ Halliwell said.

‘Or demand a ransom?’ Leaman said.

‘An insurance scam?’ Gilbert said.

‘Was the stone insured? I doubt it,’ Leaman said.

‘Never mind,’ Diamond said. ‘This is good. Brainstorming. Keep it rolling.’

‘The best scheme I ever heard of was the Mona Lisa theft from the Louvre,’ Leaman said.

Gilbert screwed up his face. ‘Is this a joke?’

‘No. It’s a fact.’

‘When was this?’

‘About a hundred years ago,’ Ingeborg said. ‘It couldn’t happen these days.’

‘It was still the cleverest art scam there’s ever been,’ Leaman said. ‘The main thief was an Italian glazier who helped construct the protective glass box it was housed in, so he knew exactly how to beat the security. This heist was three years in the planning. They stole other works from the Louvre before they went for the big one. The glazier went in with two accomplices dressed in workmen’s clothes on a day the gallery was closed for cleaning, hid in a storeroom and walked out next morning with the painting.’

Ingeborg shrugged. ‘The cleverest ever? I dispute that. Anyway, it wouldn’t be possible in the twenty-first century with modern security.’

‘But do you know the motive?’ Leaman said. ‘That was the brilliant part.’

‘Give it to us, then,’ Ingeborg said in a bored voice, well used to being trumped by the team know-all.

‘The whole thing was masterminded by a crook called Valfierno who’d worked out this method. He’d used it before in Argentina and Mexico. He would hire an insider — in this case, the glazier — to steal the original. News of the theft would get into the papers. Then — this is the brilliant part — he would sell copies to rich collectors who believed they were buying the real thing. They were clever forgeries painted by his accomplice, a skilful artist called Chaudron. In the two years the Leonardo was missing, Valfierno sold six Mona Lisa forgeries to rich American collectors at three hundred thousand dollars a go. Big money in 1911. The fall guys each believed they secretly owned the most famous painting in the world.’

‘How was it detected?’ Gilbert asked.

‘All this time the glazier had kept the original rolled up under his bed. Stupidly he tried to cash in by offering it to an art dealer in Florence. He was caught and jailed and the painting was returned to the Louvre, putting an end to Valfierno’s clever scam. They could have gone on indefinitely selling fake Mona Lisas to rich mugs.’

‘There’s always a reckoning,’ Ingeborg said.

‘Not in the art world, there isn’t,’ Diamond said. ‘Fewer than ten percent of art thefts are ever detected.’

‘We’re on a loser, then,’ Leaman said.

You didn’t say that kind of thing in Diamond’s CID meetings.

There was an uncomfortable silence before the main man said, ‘I’m going to take the last remark as a joke. A few minutes ago you were all supplying theories. Come on.’ He snapped his fingers.

Leaman said, ‘I thought my Mona Lisa story was a good example.’

‘It can’t teach us much about the present case. They’d be hard pushed to sell forgeries of the Wife of Bath.’

‘The theft of the Stone of Scone was closer to what we’re talking about,’ Halliwell said.

‘Stone of what?’ Gilbert said.

‘Before your time. And mine, come to that. The ancient coronation stone nicked from Westminster Abbey in the 1950s.’

‘Political,’ Ingeborg said. ‘That was all about Scottish nationalism.’

‘The practical problem of shifting a bloody great rock was the same.’

‘True. But there the resemblance ends.’

‘So, what’s your theory?’ Halliwell asked Ingeborg.

‘It’s about single-minded people, collectors, who covet great works of art. They don’t want them in public galleries being enjoyed by everyone. They want the thrill of having the stuff all to themselves. Thousands of precious artefacts have been stolen over the years and never recovered. They can’t be sold on. They’re too well known. Van Goghs, Picassos and Rembrandts. It’s possible our mystery man is a secret hoarder.’

‘With an Aladdin’s cave piled high with stolen treasures?’ Leaman said with a curl of the lip.

‘Doesn’t matter where he stores it. Collector’s mania is a recognised condition.’

‘You think he has a stack of stone carvings at home?’

She sighed and spread her hands. ‘Listen, guys, all I’m suggesting is that we focus our investigation on the brains behind this operation.’

‘Ingeborg is right,’ Diamond said, before anyone else chipped in. ‘The paymaster is our main target. We’ll investigate everyone with a conceivable interest in acquiring the stone.’

‘Excuse me,’ Leaman said.

‘What’s up?’ Diamond said.

‘That was my suggestion.’

‘What was?’

‘You said Ingeborg is right about investigating the paymaster.’

‘It’s bloody obvious, isn’t it?’ Ingeborg said to him. ‘I didn’t think we were reduced to scoring points off each other.’ But she’d just scored a good one off him.

It was clear to Diamond that the brainstorming was at an end. Nothing more would emerge while they were sniping at each other. He liked his team and valued them, but bright people tend to think their opinions should carry the day. ‘This doesn’t mean we let the gunmen go free. I’m thinking one or more of us may need to go undercover.’

Conversation ceased while they all considered their options.

When Keith Halliwell spoke, it was to say, ‘High risk.’

Diamond didn’t say a word.

Halliwell was supposed to be Diamond’s back-up, the senior man. ‘There’s a fine line between getting on the inside and aiding and abetting. We all know about certain high profile cases where the officer concerned got too involved. The law doesn’t take kindly to cops bending the rules.’

Diamond knew he should have discussed this first with Keith. The man was speaking sense. But it was still a cause for anger that his deputy’s first reaction had been so negative. ‘You’ve made your point,’ he said, tight-lipped. ‘Whoever takes this on will need to be ultra careful.’

They wouldn’t be queuing up to volunteer.

‘Anyone wants to speak to me, I’ll be in my office.’

What followed was to become a classic ‘I was there’ episode to be endured at the time, cherished in the memory and relayed to generations of CID officers who came after. Diamond stepped into his office and closed the door. Actually ‘slammed’ would be a better word. Immediately came an almighty thump followed by the sound of glass shattering and a roar of mingled pain and outrage giving way to a passage of swearing the like of which had not been heard in Manvers Street in twenty years. Then silence.

There was no rush to assist.

Consciences were being examined. Everyone could picture the scene inside. They should have seen it coming and warned the boss. He’d stumbled, staggered, made a grab for the only thing within reach and brought his computer screen crashing down with him.

Diamond had tripped over the Wife of Bath.

Earlier that morning six fit young policemen in a van had transported the stone from the auction room to the police station in Manvers Street. As an exhibit, it should by rights have gone into the evidence store in the basement, but the sergeant in charge had baulked. He’d insisted the thing was too heavy to take off its dolly and carry downstairs. The PCs who had shifted it were only too pleased to wheel it into Diamond’s office. Just inside the door.

Ingeborg said, ‘We can’t just sit here. Someone’s got to go in.’

All eyes turned to Halliwell, the senior man.

The responsibility couldn’t be shirked. Halliwell rose, crossed the room and opened up.

He found the big man still conscious, sitting on the floor, picking bits of broken circuitry and glass from his clothes.

No words are adequate in a situation like this.

‘You okay, guv?’

‘Does it look like it?’

‘Can I help you up?’

‘Which idiot is responsible for this?’

Halliwell tried his best to explain the problem the removal team had faced. Diamond didn’t seem to be listening.

By now some of the others had joined Halliwell in the doorway. Leaman asked, ‘Are you injured, guv?’ As the keeno in CID, he’d long ago been made the first aid man. Everyone had the training, but Leaman had the bandages. ‘Are you bleeding?’

‘Bleeding mad. Why didn’t anyone warn me?’

‘We were about to. You were too fast for us,’ Halliwell said. ‘You opened the door and went straight in.’

‘Isn’t that what people do when they enter a room?’

No one answered.

‘You had at least twenty minutes to warn me.’

‘We were brainstorming.’

‘Brainstorming be buggered. I could have ended up in hospital. Someone give me a hand.’

With Halliwell’s assistance, he hauled himself upright, making a sound like wind chimes as bits of the smashed screen hit the floor. Glass was distributed widely in all directions.

‘I’m bruised all over.’

Instead of offering sympathy, Leaman said, ‘You need an immediate shower and a change of clothes.’

‘Why? I’m not incontinent.’

‘The VDU.’

Abbreviations had always been Diamond’s blind spot. His features twitched. ‘WHAT are you trying to tell me now?’

‘You need hosing down. Most of the parts in that visual display unit are highly toxic. Mercury in the circuit boards, lead in the cathode ray tube and chromium protecting the hard surfaces. If any of that gets into your system, I can’t answer for the consequences.’

‘It’s too bloody late to answer for the consequences. That’s what I’m hopping mad about.’

Leaman refused to be silenced. His authority in this emergency overrode rank, discipline, everything. At any rate, that’s what they’d told him on the training course. ‘And you’re not to use your office again until it’s been completely decontaminated.’

‘Get lost.’

‘That’s an order.’

‘What did you say?’

‘If you happen to remember,’ Leaman said through clenched teeth, ‘you appointed me the health and safety rep as well as the first aid man. What I say goes.’

The only shower was in the custody suite and the only change of clothes was the cornflower blue paper suit normally used for suspects and victims whose clothes were taken for forensic examination. Diamond emerged some time later looking like a visitor from another planet, but free of contamination. At this low point in his life he had nowhere to hide. The Wife of Bath was now in sole occupation of his office. A block of weathered stone had reduced him to this.

Leaman was a credit to health and safety. He had locked the door to Diamond’s office and pinned crime scene tape across it. The top and bottom were sealed with wet tissues. He’d contacted the fire service. Their decontamination squad would go in overnight and remove all traces of the toxins.

From the CID room Diamond phoned his friend and sometime lover, Paloma Kean. Everyone could hear his end of the conversation. He couldn’t ask them to empty the room and he wasn’t going to step outside where other people would see him in the paper suit.

‘Me,’ he said to Paloma. ‘Got a big favour to ask. Any chance you could call at my house in the next hour and collect a set of clothes for me?’

Fortunately Paloma worked from her home in Lyncombe, running her business supplying antique artwork for costume designers. From what was said next she must have asked what had happened. A reasonable question.

He said, ‘I’d rather not discuss it over the phone.’

Pause, for another question.

‘Everything,’ he said. ‘Shoes, socks, pants. Picture me naked and you won’t go wrong.’

The team was enjoying this. They all had their heads down, but some of them were shaking uncontrollably.

‘In the bedroom, most of it. I’d better warn you. It’s not all that tidy.’

He glanced over his shoulder.

‘If you can’t find the underwear, don’t worry. I could manage without on this occasion, until I get home, that is.’

Behind him, Ingeborg was in tears of mirth. Paul Gilbert had covered his face and was emitting a muffled cooing sound like a pigeon.

‘In a black plastic sack would be best,’ Diamond said, ‘preferably knotted at the top and labelled personal, with my name. You could hand it in at the front desk and tell them it’s urgent. I’ll call you tonight and give you the whole sorry story.’

The paper suit wasn’t made for warmth. Temporarily positioned close to a radiator, he had time to reflect while waiting for his clothes to arrive. ‘The fire service, you said? They’d better treat the place with respect. I don’t want anything destroyed. I’ve got personal things in there, the photo of my wife, my coffee mug, my cactus.’

‘Not sure about the cactus,’ Leaman said, still exerting his authority. ‘It may have to go.’

‘It’s on the filing cabinet, well out of range.’

‘Plants absorb things from the air. It could wilt.’

‘I brought that cactus with me from London. I had it when I was in the Met.’

‘Difficult to clean.’

Keith Halliwell said, ‘We may need to have a whip round and get you a replacement. The least we could do, really.’

Ingeborg said, ‘There’s one good thing about this.’

‘What’s that?’ Diamond asked.

‘The Wife of Bath will benefit. A good cleaning can only improve her.’