The Vault

eight

THAT NIGHT, IN THE privacy of their suite at the Royal Crescent Hotel, Joe Dougan came clean with Donna.

"Want to see something special?"

Donna had just showered and changed into her nightdress. Her eyes, usually so expressionless, widened and sparkled. "Why, have you brought a friend?" she teased him, loosening her hair. Then she noticed he was holding out a book, one of many he had carried away in triumph from Hay-on-Wye the previous week.

"Jeez, Joe, it's bedtime."

"You don't have to read it."

She had no desire to handle a book so old that its binding was turning to a reddish powder. "What is it?"

"The Poetical Works of John Milton."

"Terrific."

Ignoring the sarcasm, he said, "Yes, I happen to agree with you. It is terrific."

An argument at bedtime is not conducive to sleep or anything else. In a change of tone, Donna asked, "Is it the first edition?"

"Lord, no. A Milton first edition would be more than our joint savings, and that's if you could find one. No, this little baby dates from 1810. Dr Johnson's edition."

"Uhuh?"

"I got it for twenty pounds."

"Are you sure you didn't get rooked? It's not in very good condition."

"Showing signs of use, I'd say," said Joe, undeterred.

"Don't you have a clean copy of Milton back home?"

"I have three. The point about this one is… Well, I guess I should have told you before now. Take a look."

Donna said. "If you don't mind, Joe, I'd rather not. I don't want to wash my hands again."

He sighed. "I'll hold it for you." With an air of ceremony, he held it for Donna to see. The front cover was a greyish board. In the top right-hand corner, someone had inscribed in ink that had faded almost to yellow:

M.W.G.

5, Abbey Churchyard,

Bath.

Donna took a quick look and got into their vast four-poster bed.

Joe asked, "What do you think?"

"What do I think? I think you found a book from five. Abbey Churchyard, the house we were looking for. Didn't you tell me it used to be some kind of library?"

"This is not a library book, Donna. Take a look at these initials." He held it close again.

"M.W.G.?"

"Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. I believe this is Mary Shelley's personal copy of Milton's poems."

After an interval Donna said, "If it belonged to Mary Shelley, how come she didn't write M.S. on the front?"

"Godwin was her name when she first lived in the house in 1816. She and Shelley didn't marry until the end of the year."

Donna was not convinced yet. "So you think these letters must be her initials?"

"Honey, they are hers. She was Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and this was her address when she wrote Frankenstein. That's not all. At the front of Frankenstein is a quote from John Milton's Paradise Lost. In her preface she mentions Milton with admiration. So we know she possessed a copy and this is the one, her personal copy of Milton."

Donna still didn't have any inclination to handle the book Mary Shelley had possessed. "You found this at Hay and recognized the address?"

"That's what I'm telling you. The find of a lifetime. The shop people had no idea. But I have the John Hopkins University edition of Mary's letters back home and that address stood out for me."

"Incredible," murmured Donna. "You remember the house where she was living in 1816 and you forget our wedding anniversary."

"Once," Joe pointed out. "Once in twenty-four years."

"You'd better remember next year."

"Will you let me finish? Like I was telling you, when we came to Bath I wanted to see the house for myself."

"Why didn't you tell me about the book until now?"

"You know me, Donna. I like storing up surprises. I was hoping to show you the house first and then let you share my pleasure at finding the book. It was a body blow to discover number five was gone. Well, I thought it was until I found my way down into the cellar today. That made it all real."

"You already told me," said Donna, unable to suppress a yawn.

"It was the cellar to number five, no question."

"Fine. Are you going to wash your hands before you get into bed with me?"

"Okay, okay." He put down the book and padded into the bathroom.

Later, in bed and with the light out, he chuckled and said, "They thought I was a medical examiner. They were expecting the medical examiner down there to look at a skull they found under the floor."

"Let's change the subject," Donna suggested.

"They ought to know there would be bones down there. It's built on a churchyard."

"Can't you talk about something cheerful if you must talk? You know I'm nervous in this old-fashioned bed. I'm going to get nightmares listening to you."

"Sorry." He pondered a moment, then said, "What do you want to do tomorrow?"

"See some shops."

"Good thinking. Let's do that."

Donna turned over and faced him. "The shoes over here are pretty. And good value."

Joe's mind was not on shoes. "There was a time when booksellers had their own little stickers that they fixed inside the covers of books they stocked. There's one in that copy of Milton, a neat little oval with the name and address: O. Heath, Rare Books, Union Passage, Bath. Just out of interest, I'd like to see if Mr O. Heath is still in trade."

"Joe," said Donna in a flat tone.

"Honey?"

"That isn't shopping."

NEXT MORNING, Diamond was in the Assistant Chief Constable's office explaining to Georgina why he did not expect quick results from the Roman Baths. "We found this skull, as you know, ma'am, but it turns out to be medieval. Probably it was there from the original churchyard and got disturbed when they were digging for foundations."

"For the present buildings?"

"No. For the houses that were there before. They were knocked down in the eighteen-nineties. This vault is part of the original construction."

"I see. But the other remains you found-the hand bones- are modern?"

Diamond was unwilling to say so. "God knows when they were hacked off. Bones are difficult to date. I've been trying to get an estimate from forensic. They're estimating between ten and twenty-five years ago."

"Can't they be more precise?"

"They're still doing tests."

"When you say 'hacked off'…?"

"They mean it was crudely done, ma'am, using an axe or the edge of a spade."

Georgina stood up and stared out of the window. "So what's your theory?"

"Obviously the rest of the body is somewhere else. The hands were removed because the killer thought the victim might be identified from fingerprints."

"Fingerprints?" The word was pitched high in disbelief.

"You and I know the world has moved on, ma'am, but did the killer? This was up to twenty years ago, before DNA testing came in. People thought fingerprints were the only giveaway."

"Fair point," conceded the ACC. "So where is the rest of the body? Not in the cellar, you think?"

"We dug to a depth of four feet," Diamond said heavily, as if he personally had done all the spade-work. "The job is almost done. No, there wouldn't be much point in dismembering the body and then burying the bits in the same place."

"So where's the rest of it?"

"It could be part of the view you're looking out on."

The ACC took a moment to work this out. "You mean absorbed into a building?" She fingered her white collar. "One hears these gruesome stories. It's possible, I suppose. But in Bath?"

"In Bristol, if that upsets you less."

Georgina's back was registering all the tensions between top brass and brassy copper. "If this was the intention, why go to all the trouble of burying the hands in the vault?"

Having started this hare, Diamond had to run with it. "The risk. He's stuck with a body that he has to get into a truckload of hardcore, or whatever, out in the open, on a building site. Anyone might spot something and switch off the machinery."

"So he removes the hands."

"And the head, probably."

"But the skull you found was ancient."

"I'm not saying the real head is buried in the vault. He could have taken it to some other place, carried it out in a holdall. I may be wrong, ma'am, but the picture I have is of two blokes working on the Roman Baths extension. They fall out for some reason. There's violence and one is killed, possibly in the vault where they keep their tools. The survivor has to dispose of the body. He's scared by what he has done, but after a bit he realises he's well-placed to get away with this."

Miss Dallymore turned to face him. "You make it sound plausible, Peter."

"I've had time to think, ma'am."

"What are our chances of catching up with him?"

"Pretty remote, to be honest. If we knew the victim, it would be a start. I doubt if we ever will. Builders' employment records are sketchy, to say the least."

"What's your advice, then?"

"Keep it on file, but scale it down."

"You can't see us progressing much more with this one?"

Diamond nodded.

Reasonable as this appeared, Georgina was having some difficulty with it. Clearly something else was on her mind. She eyed Diamond thoughtfully. "I believe I'm correct in saying that there's some media interest in this one."

Diamond started to say, "I'm not aware of any…" Then stopped and started again. "Do you mean a woman called Ingeborg Smith?"

"I was thinking of her, yes."

"She's independent. What do they call it? Freelance."

"So I understand. A bright young woman."

"You've met her, ma'am?"

The ACC coloured noticeably. "I joined the Bath Camerata recently. Ingeborg Smith is a member."

Now Diamond reddened. "A club?"

"A choir, actually. Singing is a pastime of mine. The Camerata are very good. I don't know if my voice will be up to their standard, but that's beside the point. Miss Smith is a very accomplished alto. Over coffee the other evening she surprised me by mentioning this case. To give her credit, she declared her interest right away. She quite properly thought it right to state that she knows all about the police activity in the vault. She seemed to think she had passed you some vital information. Naturally, I made no comment."

Illuminating as this was about the ACC's private recreations, it came to Diamond like a low punch. He knew Ingeborg was a sharp mover. He had not anticipated this. Stiffly he commented, "The information may have seemed useful at the time, ma'am, but events have moved on."

"I see."

"This was before we eliminated that old skull from our inquiry. Miss Smith had a theory about a missing woman."

"She seems anxious to be of use."

And how, thought Diamond. "Did she tell you she wants to join the police?"

"Really? No, she didn't say so."

"I expect she's saving it up. Better not say I tipped you off, ma'am."

"Right you are."

"She'd be an asset by the sound of it."

"Do you think so?"

"To the police choir, anyway." Diamond took a half-step in the direction of the door. "If that's all, ma'am?"

"There is one other thing," said the ACC, as if she had just thought of it. "You made a strong impression last night at the PCCG, I was informed."

"PCC…? Ah, yes."

"You put the crime statistics into perspective very neatly."

"Did I?"

"But if I were you, I should soft-pedal with Councillor Sturr at future meetings. He's a powerful man in the community."

"Did you say 'future meetings'?" Diamond felt a pulse throb in his forehead: the old hypertension. Surely that meeting had been a one-off. The way he'd been dragooned into going, simply because he'd happened to walk up a corridor at the wrong moment, had not suggested it was a permanent arrangement.

"Absolutely. From all I hear, you represented us admirably. I can't think of anyone better equipped to do the job."

He reeled out of that office in no doubt who had lumbered him. John Wigfull. Who else could have taken back tales of the meeting? Between Ingeborg Smith and Wigfull, he would have to watch his back in future.

IN A shop at the lower end of Milsom Street, Donna was trying on pink high-heeled shoes with the dinkiest little bows you ever saw. They were adorable, only they pinched. The assistant went off to look for something similar in a wider fitting and while Donna massaged her toes and wondered if she could put up with the discomfort, Joe suggested meeting later for coffee in a French place they had discovered the morning before. Donna didn't reply. For just such a situation as this, Joe had collected an address card from the cafe. He wrote 11.30 across the top, placed it beside Donna's bag and left unobtrusively.

He found Union Passage without difficulty. It was one of those narrow walkways that add so much interest to the older English towns. Too bad that O. Heath no longer had a bookstore there.

He made enquiries in a couple of shops and they said they had no recollection of a secondhand bookshop in Union Passage, unless he meant a charity shop.

"No, no, this was a regular bookstore dealing in rare antiquarian books," Joe said for the second time.

And now he was in luck, because one of the customers, a tall, white-bearded man, said, "Excuse me, but if you're speaking of Mr Heath, he retired a long time ago. It must be ten years, at least. The business closed down altogether, which was a pity, because it was a smashing little shop, an absolute treasure house for book-lovers."

"Do you know what happened to him?"

"Mr Heath? He's still about. I see him in the library sometimes, elderly now, but very upright still. I can't tell you where he lives."

"Maybe the library can. Where is it?" Persistence was one of Joe's virtues, though some would argue that it was the other thing. He looked at his watch. Donna would still be testing the endurance of the shoeshop staff.

The library assistant he spoke with said they weren't allowed to pass on addresses, but it was quite possible that the information he wanted was on the shelves. Her eyes slid sideways, towards the section where the phone directories were. Why the British never said what they meant in simple words, Joe had never fathomed. But the information was helpful. The only O. Heath listed in Bath lived in Queen Square. He didn't need to ask for directions. He had his pictorial map. It would just be a short walk.

THE VOICE came loud and clear over the answerphone: "Do I know you, Professor?"

"I'm afraid you don't, sir. I'm from Columbus, Ohio, and I recently bought a book that-"

"A book? Come up straight away. First floor, first left," the voice cut in.

A tall, silver-haired gentleman in brown corduroys and a black polo-neck was standing at his open door. He extended a hand. "Oliver Heath. I'd better say at once that I've given up dealing, but I do enjoy meeting another book man."

Joe was shown into an apartment that might easily have passed for a bookshop. A couple of the floor-to-ceiling shelves had ornaments and family photographs, but otherwise only the spines of books were showing. Good books, too, many in fine bindings.

"Do you specialise?" Oliver Heath asked. "As you see, I go in for criminology and the theatre. You'd be surprised how much overlap there is."

Joe had the precious copy of Milton's poems under his arm. He took it from its paper bag. "Then I begin to understand how you were able to part with this one, sir. It falls outside your main interests."

"May I see?" The old man took a pair of half-glasses from his pocket. Handling the book with the care of a specialist, he glanced at the cover, opened it, found his sticker inside, examined the title page and leafed through the rest. "The one-volume Dr Johnson edition. I do remember this one. I suppose I remember most of the books I acquired over the years. I can't tell you what I paid for it, but it was on my shelf for a good long time. Not in the best of condition. I expect I disposed of it when I gave up the business in Union Passage. Where did you find it?"

"At Hay-on-Wye."

This was cause for a smile. "Sooner or later everything of no special distinction seems to end up there." He handed back the book.

Joe felt insulted. He had not intended to point out to Oliver Heath that the find of all finds had slipped through his hands. He had no wish to inflict unnecessary pain. But that condescending phrase "of no special distinction" caught him off guard. He reacted instinctively. "Sir, I wouldn't have thought Mary Shelley's personal copy of Milton was without distinction."

The smile faded. Oliver Heath gave a prim tug at his spectacles. "May I see it again?"

"Certainly."

A longer inspection. He took the book closer to a desk-lamp. "I take it that the hand-writing on the cover leads you to assume it belonged to Mary Shelley?"

Joe nodded. "Those were her initials before she married and that was her address."

"She lived in Bath?"

"She wrote Frankenstein in Bath, or most of it."

Oliver Heath became conciliatory. "Strange. I didn't know that. Here I am purporting to be a bookseller and I didn't know that."

"You're in good company," said Joe. "It's a piece of information you have to go looking for. People with a special interest in the Shelleys know about it, but for some reason it's ignored in this city."

"Intellectual snobbery, no doubt."

"I wasn't going to say that."

"But I can. I know my own city. They're happy with stories about silly young women in poke bonnets, but the greatest of all monster novels is about as welcome here as a cowpat on the cobbles. Well, congratulations, Professor. You evidently found a bargain in Hay. Would it be indiscreet to ask how much it cost you?"

"Twenty pounds. I, em, rubbed out the price."

"Sensible, in the circumstances. Twenty is about right, going by the state of it. You can probably add several zeroes if you can prove the ownership beyond all doubt. Intrinsically, it's nothing special." He opened the book at the front. "Do you see where some of the fly-leaves have been cut out? Rather neatly, I have to say-but it matters to a collector."

Joe had not noticed before. "Why would anyone do that?"

"Paper was harder to come by in the old days. Expensive, too. Blank sheets had their uses for notepaper, or whatever." He closed the book carefully and handed it back. "I suggest you get that inscription authenticated. There are scientific tests for ink. Then if you want to make a tidy profit I would offer it to one of the London auction houses."

"I don't know if I'll sell it," said Joe.

The blue eyes glittered in approval. "There speaks a true book man."

"Would you remember who you bought it from?"

"You're hoping to trace the provenance?" said Oliver Heath, his eyebrows peaking in surprise. "I don't think that's very likely with a book as old as this, unless it's been in a private library for many years."

"Any chance of that?"

He spread his hands to gesture that he had no answer. "I'm trying to remember who sold it to me. Not one of my regulars, I'm sure of that. I have the feeling he was not a bookish person at all." He tapped the end of his nose with his forefinger as if that might stimulate thought, and apparently it did. "I believe it was Uncle Evan."

"Your uncle?"

"No, no. He's about fifty years my junior. He's the puppeteer."

"Would you mind saying that again?"

"The puppeteer, Uncle Evan. He runs a puppet theatre for children. He's quite well-known in Bath. Very talented. Built the theatre himself, makes his own puppets, paints the scenery, writes the scripts and works the strings as well."

"Is he interested in poetry?"

"I couldn't say. You can never tell with people. He has depths, but I wouldn't have thought he troubled with things like Paradise Lost, unless he was planning to turn it into a puppet show."

Professor Joe Dougan winced at the concept. "But he definitely owned this book before you did?"

"Yes, I'm certain it was Evan, no doubt needing to raise some funds for one of the shows."

"Where do I find this theatre?" Joe asked.

"Lord only knows."

"Doesn't it have an address?"

"It's not a building. It's a mobile thing. Collapsible. He drives it around in a van, doing shows for schools, hospitals, birthday parties and so on. I don't know where you'll catch up with him."

"Do you know his surname?"

"If I did, it's gone. You could ask at the Brains Surgery. He's well known there. I think he gets some of his bookings through them."

There was a long, uneasy pause. "You did say 'Brain Surgery'?" Joe sought to confirm.

"Brains, with an ‘s’."

"That's where I should go to ask for Uncle Evan?" he queried the advice slowly, spacing the words. He was beginning to have doubts about the competence of Oliver Heath's brain.

"Don't look so shocked. It's a Welsh pub. In Dafford Street, Larkhall."

"A Welsh pub in Bath? You wouldn't be putting me on?"

"My dear chap, Brains Bitter is a beer brewed in Cardiff. The pub's name is a play on words."

"I understand now." Joe grinned. "I had a mental picture that was truly bizarre."

"Dare I suggest, professor, that you read a little less of Frankenstein?'

THE ANTIQUES trade is big in Bath. Go window-shopping in any direction and it isn't long before you are looking at Stafford-shire dogs and Japanese fans. Two areas have a concentration of the trade: the streets north of George Street at the top of the town, stretching right up to Lansdown; and Walcot, on the main route out to the east. Walcot cheerfully admits to being the dustier end of the market, its shops co-existing with used clothes outlets and takeaways. Here, on Saturdays, the old tram shed becomes a flea market and hundreds of bargain-hunters jostle among the stalls.

At the far end of Walcot Street stood Noble and Nude, a shop unlike any other, three floors and a basement crammed with bygones, without the slightest attempt to classify them. This hoard was presided over by Margaret Redbird, a formidable little woman known in the trade as Peg the Pull, from her genius for "pulling" or buying cheaply from gullible sellers. Why Noble and Nude? For no extra charge, Peg would tell you that she plundered Swinburne as cheerfully as she plundered everyone else:

"We shift and bedeck and bedrape us,

Thou art nobk and nude and antique."

The shop's name seemed right for Peg. Noble she certainly appeared. She might have been born a duchess, for every syllable she spoke was beautifully articulated. Nude she was not (when in the shop)-but a hint of the erotic was good for business. Her vitality attracted men and she was old enough-close to fifty, if the truth were told-to lavish endearments on males of all ages and get away with it. She was small, energetic and playful, all of which helped her strategies in the antique game.

Peg had been in Bath over twenty years and amassed a collection that was two-thirds junk, but with enough good things among the rubbish to have serious collectors slavering. Finding the treasures was the problem. You went through a confusing series of small rooms connected by stairs that themselves served as display areas, leaving only the narrowest ways up between figurines and candlesticks. Everywhere the display was haphazard. Each surface was crowded with ceramics, glassware and silver, all unclassified. If you opened the drawers in the furniture they spilled out prints, postcards and photographs. From hooks in the ceiling another whole area was put to use. Suspended on strings over the customers' heads were dolls, teddy bears, saucepans, parasols, hats and birdcages. A full-sized waxwork of a woman in a red velvet dress was poised on a swing like a Fragonard beauty, her petticoats wired out to give the impression of movement.

Peg managed her business from a boxed-in position behind the grandfather clocks facing the front door. Hidden, not very cleverly, under her desk was a small safe. In it she kept the cash, and a few precious items such as a silver watch, once allegedly owned by Beau Nash, an eighteenth century pearl necklace and a letter written by Oscar Wilde.

Visitors came through steadily from the time Noble and Nude opened, about ten in the morning. Not all came to look at the stock. Peg kept her finger on Bath's pulse by dispensing gin and tonic to a fair cross-section of local society. Keeping up with the gossip was a professional necessity. When someone died at a decent address, Peg was invariably the first to offer deepest sympathy and expert help in valuing the contents of the house.

Essential to the system, a friend with time to spare was on call to mind the shop when Peg went on a valuing foray. This useful person rejoiced in the name of Ellis Somerset. Ellis knew everything about silver and quite a lot about china, yet his overriding passion was Peg. Her charm enslaved him. Each time she called him Gorgeous or Poppet, he turned pink with pleasure, regardless that she used the same words for the milkman and the bank manager. This morning Peg had summoned him and he was here soon after lunch in his suede shoes and olive-green corduroy suit with the red bow-tie that gave a helpful air of authority. Ellis was not much over forty, slight, well-groomed and red-haired. To borrow a phrase that rather suited him, he was a single man in possession of a good fortune. Pity he had a face like a turnip.

"I shouldn't be more than a couple of hours, if that," Peg was saying. "This is one of the Minchendon family, old Simon, who had that tailor's at the top of Milsom Street at one time. He was gathered last Tuesday. Heart. His nephew asked me to run an eye over the furniture."

"You're in for a treat," said Ellis, quite as well-briefed as Peg about Bath's recently departed. "Old Si didn't buy rubbish. When I was up at Bartlett Street one afternoon a couple of years ago, he picked up a set of Queen Anne spoonback chairs, a four and two. They cost him two-fifty apiece, but they'll be worth twice that now."

Peg was giving a crocodile smile. "Not this afternoon, ducky."

Ellis raised an eyebrow. "You'll get us a bad name, Peg."

"Tell me something new." She reached for the black straw hat she wore for funerals and valuations.

"All right. I will. I know you don't bother much with antiquarian books-"

"Each to his own, blossom. Old farts with elbow-patches trade in books."

"Yes, but listen to this, straight off the grapevine. Remember an old boy by the name of Heath, who owned that antiquarian bookshop in Union Passage?"

"Of course I remember him. He's still alive, I think."

"He certainly is. He was in Shades at lunchtime telling this story to a crowd of us, and now the trade is buzzing with it."

"Buzz it to me, then," Peg said indifferently.

"It seems he had an unexpected visitor this morning, a professor from Ohio, or Oregon, or somewhere in the colonies, wanting an opinion on a book of poetry by John Milton. Nothing special about the edition, except this little American reckons it once belonged to Mary Shelley."

Peg wriggled her little nose in disbelief. "Oh, yes? And how does he know?"

"It carried her initials, I was told, and the address-five, Abbey Churchyard-and that, apparently, was where Frankenstein was written. Did you know that?"

"I'll own up. I did not," Peg said without the slightest stirring of enthusiasm. "Now, if anyone is serious about the furniture, ask them to come back later, when I'm here, right? Anything else, you can deal with."

"I haven't told you the interesting bit," said Ellis.

"Snap it up then, sweetie."

"This professor found that number five was knocked down years ago. It was where the entrance to the Roman Baths is now. But he doesn't give up easily. He discovered that the original vaults are still there, and he managed to go down and have a look."

"Is this going to take much longer, Ellis, because I'm expected at Camden Crescent ten minutes from now?"

"Hold on. It's worth it. He reckons the police were down there digging, and they'd just found a human skull-in the vault of the house where Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein. Spooky, isn't it?"

"What do you mean-'the police were down there digging'? What for?"

"I don't know. Looking for something, I suppose. Stolen goods? Your guess is as good as mine."

"And they dug up a skull?"

"It makes your blood run cold, doesn't it?" Ellis breathed some drama into his piece of gossip, frustrated that Peg had missed the point. "In the place where this great gothic horror story was written, the monster put together from bits of old bodies, they actually discover this."

"But what about the book?" she said.

"Frankenstein?"

"Milton's poems."

Ellis stared back.

"Did the American part with it?"

"I didn't ask." Ellis gave up. Peg's only interest in the matter was whether a transaction had taken place.

After she had left for Camden Crescent, he picked up the phone. He knew someone in the newspaper business who would appreciate the story.

TRYING TO sound normal, Joe bent his head to a taxi window and asked, "Do you know the Brains Surgery?" Back home, any driver faced with a question like that would push down the door-lock and look the other way. But it made no problem here. He was allowed into the cab and they drove out of the centre to the part of Bath called Larkhall.

And it really did exist, a substantial brick-built public house with the name in bold lettering on each side of a corner of Dafford Street. Dafford Street. Joe was glad he had not needed to name the pub and the street together. He paid the driver, went through a Regency-style entrance into the public bar and asked for a half-pint of Brains.

"The bitter, sir?"

Joe was not sure what the bitter was, but he said that would do. While it was being poured, he checked the clientele, wondering if Uncle Evan could be one of the three standing by the pool table, or the man practising at one of the dartboards.

The Brains Bitter appeared on the counter. Joe paid, leaned closer to the barman and said he was looking for Uncle Evan, who ran the puppet shows.

"Evan? He comes in regular." The barman called across to the pool players. "Anyone see Evan today?"

One of the three came over, cue in hand. "Are you wanting to offer him a job, like?"

Joe explained that he wanted to talk about a book.

"What sort of book-an encyclopedia?" The last word was drawn out in a cadenza of disapproval.

"No, sir, don't get me wrong. I'm not selling anything. I happen to own a book that may have belonged to this gentleman once. I'm trying to find out where it came from originally."

"Is that it, under your arm?"

"As a matter of fact it is." Joe was keeping it under his arm for the present.

"Better show it to me, then. I'm Evan."

Joe was suspicious. If this was Evan, why hadn't he spoken up before? But the barman gave a confirming nod. "You picked the right time to come in, mister."

Joe felt at a disadvantage in this setting, among these people talking in their Welsh lilt. He wanted to be sure this was not a try-on. The man claiming to be Uncle Evan was around forty, dressed in jeans and a check shirt, with black hair worn in a pony-tail. His glasses had round metal frames that reminded Joe of John Lennon. Behind them, his deep-set eyes locked with Joe's.

"I can't hold up the game too long."

Joe noticed the hand clasping the cue. The fingers were long, the nails shaped. It was not the hand of a labouring man. He thought he could picture those fingers working puppet strings. It might be safe to let him handle the book. "Mr Heath-who used to have the bookshop in Union Passage-says he believes he bought the book from you."

"Did he now?" Evan-if that was he-rested the cue against the bar-counter.

With some reluctance, Joe handed over the precious Milton.

"What's so special about this?" asked Evan, thumbing through it. He paid no attention to the inscription.

The ultra cautious Joe decided to play the raw American tourist card. "You buy something really old like this, you want to know who owned it before you."

"Seems to me it's just a book."

"Dr Johnson's edition."

"Is that special?"

"It's going to have a place of honour on my shelves."

After a pause, Evan said, "You're telling me it's worth more than I sold it for, is that it?"

"So you did own it?"

"Yes-and you came here to gloat?"

"Not at all, sir. I'm just trying to establish a chain of ownership. Do you happen to remember how it came into your hands?"

Evan vibrated his lips. "It's a bloody long time ago."

"Would another drink help you to remember?"

"Thanks. I'm on SA." While the pint glass was being filled, Evan went on, "Far as I recall, and this was the best part of twenty years back, I got it in Bath, out of an antique shop. Don't ask me why. You go into these places and come out with things you never expected to buy. Milton. My God, I must have been trying to impress someone, mustn't I? A girl, I reckon."

"You wouldn't remember which shop?"

Evan frowned.

"I could line up another beer," Joe offered.

The face lit up. "I do remember. It was in Walcot. It's still there. Noble and Nude."

THE FIRST phone call came around three in the afternoon.

"Superintendent Diamond?"

"Speaking."

"John Delany, News of the World crime desk. I understand you're in charge of this case concerning the dismembered bodies."

"What are you on about?" Diamond hedged, wondering what was in this for a national Sunday.

"The bodies in the vault. A couple of hands. A skull. Have you found anything else yet?"

" 'Dismembered bodies' is laying it on thick."

"It's only one body? The same victim?"

" 'Victim' isn't a word I'm using."

"Why not?"

"Look, we found some human bones in a cellar, a skull and a pair of hands, as you said. The cellar happens to be built over a churchyard. We believe the skull is several hundred years old. I wouldn't think this has any news value for a paper like yours."

"Parts of a body under the cellar of the house where Frankenstein was written? You're joking, Mr Diamond. It's going to make front pages all over the world."