The Stone Wife

5

Paloma treated Peter Diamond to a superintendent-sized ham and pineapple pizza and several beers at her house the same evening and listened in sympathy. She offered to smear arnica ointment on his bruises, but he was quick to thank her and say the soreness was just a memory now. He didn’t want her getting the idea he was too damaged to go to bed with her. She’d learned about the shooting and said it was hard to understand how people could get so violent. From all she’d read in the papers, Professor Gildersleeve had been respected in academic circles.

‘Yes, it’s hard to understand,’ he said. ‘If he’d stayed calm he’d still be alive. He lost his cool when the robbers tried to grab the piece of so-called sculpture he was bidding for. Obviously he’d set his heart on buying it.’

‘What’s it like?’

‘The Wife of Bath? Unappealing.’

‘There speaks the man who tripped over her.’

‘Truly. It’s a chunk of dirty old limestone with some carving you can barely make out. A figure on horseback and some broken lettering underneath that they say identifies her.’

‘And now she’s sitting in your office?’

‘She’s taken it over.’

‘Smart gal, not moving until her case is solved.’

His jaw jutted. ‘We’ll see about that.’

‘Better not let it get personal, Peter.’

‘Don’t you worry about that. My feet are firmly on the ground.’

A ripple of laughter greeted the second statement and presently he remembered why and joined in the amusement.

‘Like her or not,’ he said, trying to sound impartial, ‘my job is to find out more. If I’m going to understand the professor’s reaction I’ll need to brush up on my Chaucer.’

Paloma rose from her armchair and looked along her shelves of books.

‘Don’t tell me you have a copy.’

‘I once did the costumes for a revival of the musical.’

‘A Wife of Bath musical?’ he said in disbelief.

‘The Canterbury Tales. You must have seen it.’

‘Theatre-going isn’t my thing, if you remember.’

‘Gotcha,’ she said, picking out a paperback and handing it to him. ‘This is the Nevill Coghill modern English version, much easier to follow than Chaucer’s original. Coghill also wrote the lyrics for the show. He was an Oxford professor.’

He opened the book at random and read a few lines. ‘I recognise this. We used it at school. Even a peasant like me can follow it.’

‘Keep it. I doubt if I’ll need it again. The musical was a romp, quite naughty by the standards of the time, not long after censorship ended. Before that, everything had to be vetted by the Lord Chamberlain’s office.’

‘Naughty in what way?’

‘Simulated sex, four-letter words.’

‘Which ones?’

‘Read your translation. They used three or four of the tales in the show, including the Wife of Bath’s. It’s about one of King Arthur’s knights — a right bastard he is — who rapes an innocent girl and is condemned to death. But the queen, who should have known better in my opinion, asks for him to be spared and sends him on a quest for a year and a day to discover what it is that women most desire.’

‘Some quest.’

‘I can see how your mind is working and you’re wrong. Actually the tale itself isn’t as bawdy as some of the others.’

‘More of a tease, then?’

‘Yes, basically it’s the frog prince story. After much travelling and asking for help, the knight finds an ugly old woman who makes him promise to marry her if she gives him the answer to the question. He’s desperate by now and agrees. Then he returns to court and tells the queen the answer and wins his pardon, but of course the old crone insists on the marriage.’

‘And he does the decent thing?’

‘Without much grace. In bed the first night he calls her loathsome. For this she gives him a dreadfully long lecture on the meaning of gentility that seems to wear him down. Eventually she offers terms. Either she’ll stay ugly and be an obedient wife or she’ll become young and beautiful and he can take his chance on what happens. He’s so beaten down by now that he says it’s her choice. She’s pleased. Basically, she’s now the boss and asks him to kiss her, whereupon she magically turns into a young beauty.’

‘And what was the answer?’

‘What do women most desire?’ She widened her eyes. ‘If you haven’t discovered by now, I’m surprised.’

‘The same as what men most desire?’

She shook her head.

‘Shoes?’

‘Actually, no. Women want sovereignty over their men.’

‘Girl power?’

‘It sounds modern, but it goes back to the medieval notion of courtly love, the noble man devoted to his lady and willing to suffer all manner of trials and tribulations even to approach her.’

‘Worship from afar?’

‘Something like that. She is perfection and he perpetually desires her and performs deeds of valour in a vain attempt to win her favour.’

‘Story of my life,’ Diamond said.

‘Come off it. Even in Chaucer’s story, the bloke has his way with her at the end.’

‘With the pretty one?’

‘Yes — and wouldn’t you know it? — instead of insisting on running the marriage her way, she promises, basically, to love, honour and obey. End of story — as written by a bloke.’

‘But is she happy?’

‘Supposedly, but it’s not true to the code of courtly love. The woman is supposed to be unattainable.’

‘If they were, men would give up and watch football.’

‘Very likely,’ Paloma said. ‘Another beer?’

‘Depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On whether I’m to stay the night.’

‘There you go,’ she said. ‘Twenty-first century man. Where did I go wrong?’

He was thinking of something else. ‘The Wife of Bath. I wonder why Chaucer picked Bath, rather than any other town. Is that explained in the poem?’

‘Not that I recall.’

‘Was he from around here?’

Paloma shook her head. ‘Far as I recall, the family were Ipswich people and he was born in London.’

‘So she could have been the Wife of Ipswich.’

Paloma sighed, and it wasn’t a sigh of admiration.

‘But why Bath?’ Diamond said. ‘A random choice?’

She shook her head. ‘No, there’s good evidence that he knew this part of the world. First, he says she was “of beside Bath.” Chaucer used words carefully. There was a city wall from Roman times and there were suburbs beyond the walls to the north and south even in the fourteenth century. It’s believed he must have known about these to have placed her there.’

‘She may even have lived in Weston, where I do.’

‘Or much closer. St. Michael’s church and Broad Street were outside the walls. So was Milsom Street. We think of this area as central now, but it was outside the northern limit.’

‘The slums?’

She shrugged. ‘I expect there was snobbery about who the real citizens were and who came from the other side. And that’s not the only bit of local knowledge Chaucer used. The local source of wealth was the wool trade and when you read the Prologue, as I’m sure you will, you’ll see that Alison — that’s the wife’s name — was an expert weaver. She surpassed the cloth-makers of France and made all her own clothes, which were beautifully spun. So she’s a Bathonian by residence and occupation.’

‘You know a lot about this.’

‘I had to, for the costumes. I could tell you more about what she wore than you’ll ever want to know.’

‘Yet you still say Chaucer didn’t live in Bath?’

‘That wouldn’t stop him knowing the place. People like him, in the service of the king, travelled more than you might suppose. He spent time in France and Italy, so Bath wasn’t any distance at all.’

His thoughts were already moving on. ‘The carving is a West Country piece, apparently, in the local stone. I wonder if it’s a relic from one of Bath’s medieval buildings.’

‘Could be. There aren’t many left apart from churches.’

‘The carving wouldn’t be from a church. You can’t call the Wife of Bath a religious subject.’

‘She was on a pilgrimage,’ Paloma pointed out.

‘True.’

‘A pious woman. Worldly and down-to-earth, but God-fearing.’

‘But she was fiction. Would a church want a piece of carving that wasn’t a Bible story? If it’s fourteenth century, as they seem to think, the church authorities would have to be very open-minded to adopt a character from a modern poem, a fruity one, too.’

‘Put like that, you may be right,’ Paloma said. ‘The carving could have been part of a private dwelling. I don’t know of any in Bath that are old enough. But some fragments of stone from old houses will have survived.’

‘I’m thinking Gildersleeve knew something we don’t, something that ramped up the value.’

‘Maybe he discovered where it came from.’

‘Some old guy in Chilton Polden owned it in the eighteen hundreds, but I don’t think anyone knows its history before that.’

‘Provenance is hugely important in the buying and selling of works of art. And you said the British Museum was bidding, so they must have done some research of their own and decided it was worth a bit.’

‘Yes, I’ll be speaking to them.’

‘And obviously the robbers were also well informed.’

‘Or whoever hired them.’

Paloma was looking thoughtful. ‘Have you examined the back and sides of your lump of stone?’

‘What for?’

‘Mortar — to see if there’s any evidence it was once attached to a building.’

He liked that. ‘When I’m allowed back in my own office, that’s the first thing I’ll check. I can picture it built in, maybe with other carvings from the poem.’

‘A frieze? But do you know of any other pieces that survived?’

‘None that I’ve heard of. I’m no expert.’

‘You will be before you’re through.’

He nodded. ‘I’m already working on it. Do I get that other beer?’

‘In a mo.’ She got up. ‘Or should it be “In a mo, sire?” ’

‘The “sire” sounds good to me.’

‘Let’s have some courtly grovelling, then, and we’ll see.’

He decided as he opened the can that it was a good thing no one in CID had ever heard Peter Diamond spoken to like that.

Next morning he made a detour to Weston to feed the cat. Raffles had been his late wife’s cat and always treated him with disdain after being left alone for the night. They say animals aren’t capable of judging people’s conduct, but this old tabby could give him a guilt complex with one look and a flick of the tail. He was relieved to leave the house and drive in to work.

Manvers Street, the home of Bath police, was definitely ‘beside Bath,’ on the wrong side of the walls. In all his time there, Diamond had never had reason to think about the original layout of the city, but this morning it dawned on him that the Roman heart of the place had once been enclosed by Upper Borough Walls to the north and Lower Borough Walls to the south; street names he’d heard a thousand times without ever realising the significance.

For all its tawdry appearance, a block of lemon-yellow reconstituted stone masquerading as the real thing, the sixties-built police station was where he made his living, and he was comfortable there. Recently he’d been troubled by the Headquarter’s decision to site the custody suite in Keynsham. He could foresee Manvers Street becoming a ghost station. He had long since given up on the decisions coming out of Portishead, known to the lower ranks as ASDA, the Avon & Somerset Dream Academy.

No negative thinking this morning, he told himself. There’s a killer at liberty and it’s my job to find him.

He marched in and greeted the team. It was always good to see the place transformed with the trappings of an incident room: display boards, crime scene photos, extra phones, more civilian staff. The fire service had done their work and he could get into his office — or so he briefly believed. All traces of the shattered VDU, as Leaman had called it, had been removed, but the Wife of Bath on her dolly had not, and she remained a hazard. Worse, the room reeked of ammonia or some chemical. Having stepped inside, he came straight out again, forced to slum it with the rest of the team.

He parked himself temporarily at Keith Halliwell’s vacant desk. There was plenty to catch up on. John Leaman with his brain-numbing efficiency had been looking through CCTV footage from a camera in Queen Square in the hope of spotting the silver getaway van. The one-way system round the square meant that there was not much interference in the view of traffic. The imaging was good and the registration numbers showed up well.

‘This could be our best chance, guv,’ Leaman told him. ‘I’ve recorded seventeen sightings of silver vans in the two-hour slot.’

‘Where’s this camera located?’

He pointed to the map on the whiteboard. ‘Top corner, where it links with Queen Square Place and Charlotte Street.’

Diamond spotted the snag straight away. ‘The auction rooms are on the other side of the square, so this would be the second possible exit.’

Leaman reddened. ‘Actually the third. They could have escaped down Barton Street. But if I was driving a getaway van, this is the way I’d go, heading straight out of the city.’

Diamond wasn’t persuaded. Professional criminals would surely have taken note of where the cameras were sited. ‘Better trace the owners, then.’

‘Do you want me to run the film for you?’

‘Of seventeen silver vans? No thanks, John. I’m sure you missed nothing. Why is this desk empty? Where’s Keith?’

‘At the autopsy.’

‘Right you are.’ He wished he’d remembered. It was well known in CID that Halliwell regularly got the grisly job that should, by rights, have been the top man’s. All Diamond could offer as an excuse was that he expected little of interest to emerge from the mortuary. Everyone knew how Gildersleeve had met his death and there was small likelihood that the dissected corpse would yield more information about the killer. Ballistics would specify the bullet used and maybe the type of weapon, and that was it. In a shooting such as this, forensic science was about as helpful as clairvoyancy. The CSI team were unlikely to have recovered any DNA, fingerprints, shoeprints, stray hairs or specks of blood other than those of the victim.

‘Has anyone talked yet?’ he turned in his chair and asked Ingeborg. He was damned sure the case wouldn’t be cracked without outside help.

‘It’s early days, guv.’

‘That’s a negative?’

‘Well, yes. Making contact can’t be rushed.’

She was right. Meetings with informants generally happened over a few beers at a time and place of their choosing. They couldn’t risk being seen with a detective.

Diamond felt his arm touched lightly. He looked up at Paul Gilbert.

‘Guv, could I have a word?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘It’s personal.’

‘I see. We can go outside.’

Normally he would have used the office.

The corridor was crowded with uniformed officers just out of their morning briefing. He took the young DC out of the building and across the street to a coffee shop.

‘Something up?’ he asked when they’d been served and had found a table well away from anyone else.

‘No, guv. It’s this. You said yesterday you might need someone to go undercover and find out who fired the shot. I want to volunteer.’

‘Really?’ He was taken by surprise. ‘That’s good to hear. Thanks.’ Pity he couldn’t have sounded more enthusiastic. Gilbert wasn’t remotely right for the job. The lad had performed well in some tough situations, but this was a totally different assignment calling for guile and coolness under pressure.

‘Is that a yes?’

‘I’m going to keep it in mind,’ he said. ‘The situation hasn’t yet arisen. I’m bound to say you’re the least experienced member of the team, even if you’re one of the keenest. For one thing this will be bloody dangerous and for another it’s walking a tightrope. Whoever does it needs to get in with the pond life without dirtying his hands.’

‘With all due respect, guv, I’m up for it.’

‘Right. You’ve made yourself clear.’

Gilbert appeared to sense the barrier coming down. ‘I’ve been attached to CID for four years now. I’m not the rookie I was when you took me on for the hangman case.’

‘As long ago as that, was it? Time flies.’

‘I’ll be perfect for this because my face isn’t all that well known locally. Some of the others will be known to the gangs.’

‘Did someone put you up to this?’

Gilbert coloured a little and shook his head. ‘It’s my own idea.’

And he had to be believed. He spoke the truth, which was the quality that barred him from the job.

‘I want to get more sand in my boots.’

‘You what?’

‘Sand in my boots. Experience.’

‘Odd turn of phrase for a young guy.’

The blush became more obvious. ‘It’s something my mum says.’

‘So your mum’s been getting at you, has she? You’re still living at home?’

‘Can’t afford a place of my own. It’s expensive round here. On a sergeant’s wage I could manage it, but I won’t get the stripes for years and years at the rate I’m going. They still ask me to fetch tea for them.’

‘You’re out of uniform. Plenty would swap with you.’

‘I know. But mum keeps onБ’

Diamond tensed. ‘Have you talked at home about this case?’

‘Christ, no. I wouldn’t do that,’ Gilbert said with such a start that he slopped his coffee. ‘It’s an ongoing gripe of hers. She says I’ve got no ambition.’

‘I expect she’s as keen as you are to see you in your own place. What does your dad say?’

‘He died when I was eleven. An operation that went wrong. There’s just the two of us.’

Diamond had a rush of sympathy. He could see it all now. ‘Your mum wants the best for you. It’s understandable. But you can be sure she’d miss you if you moved out.’

‘I don’t think so. She’s got a boyfriend.’

He’d thought he could see it all. The pressure on young Gilbert wasn’t what he’d imagined. ‘All I can say is this. In CID, opportunities present themselves sometimes when you least expect them. You may not be right for one job, but there’s always another in the offing.’

Gilbert nodded. He couldn’t hide the disappointment.

‘It’s good that you spoke to me,’ Diamond said. ‘Your mum’s wrong about you not having ambition. We’d better drink up and get back to the job.’

Keith Halliwell was back from the autopsy and biting into a doughnut, unaffected by what he had witnessed. He stood beside his desk uncertain how to deal with the large cuckoo in occupation. After yesterday there was still tension between them — not so much over Diamond’s pratfall as the fact that Halliwell had spoken out about the suggestion to send someone undercover.

Diamond showed no sign of moving. ‘What’s the story?’

‘The professor was unlucky. The bullet severed the aorta. That’s the main artery that supplies blood from the heart to the rest of the body.’

‘Not much doubt about that, then.’

‘But he probably wouldn’t have lived much longer anyway. When Dr. Sealy opened the brain he found a tumour the size of a plum. The medical records made no mention of it. I’m wondering if that helps to explain Gildersleeve’s behaviour at the auction.’

‘Erratic, you mean? Taking on the gunmen? Possible, I suppose. On the other hand, you’d expect people to get hyped up when the bidding is going on. We don’t know enough about this guy and what drove him. Want to come with me to Reading and find out?’