Beau Death

by Peter Lovesey

  “I think you’ll be interested. We discussed PMI tests on the skeleton in the hope of learning the time since his death.”

  “PMI?”

  “Postmortem interval. Well, here at the university we have the facilities to run one of the tests straight away. Did I say? I got it under way shortly after you left.”

  “The ultraviolet?”

  “Yes, but a word of caution here. UV isn’t much more than a crude indication of bone age. The test should be used in conjunction with the other tests I mentioned and they take longer.”

  “What did you find?”

  “If these had been old bones—say two hundred years—I would have expected them to show yellow. They fluoresced blue.”

  He felt himself fluorescing bright pink. “Meaning they’re fresh?”

  “Relatively so. All I can say at this stage is that they are not more than a hundred years old. For your purposes, the age of the bones doesn’t match the style of clothes the subject was wearing.”

  “Apart from the pants?”

  “That’s true. The Y-fronts may well be his own.”

  “You’ll let me know the minute the other tests come back?”

  “That is a promise, but don’t call me. I hate being pestered.”

  Diamond wasn’t listening. His brain was in overdrive. He’d just been handed a twentieth-century murder case, if not a twenty-first. All the theorising about Beau Nash and how he had ended up could safely be forgotten. This was a new mystery with challenges of its own.

  He didn’t make any new friends at the press conference, but he wasn’t feeling sociable. This duty had been foisted on him at a time when he wanted to be up and running. With Keith Halliwell at his side—all the friction between them forgotten—he went through the motions in front of a batch of microphones, some TV cameras and a smallish gathering of reporters and photographers who had come at short notice.

  “You all have a press kit and I won’t waste time telling you what you can read yourselves. The newsworthy bit is that this man appears to be a murder victim and the stabbing could have taken place more recently than anyone at first supposed. We’re just at the start of our enquiries. We haven’t identified the victim yet and this is where you can help. We’re interested in hearing from the public about any elderly male without teeth who went missing in the past seventy years.”

  “And had a thing about dressing in old-fashioned clothes?” the man from the Sun asked.

  “Possibly.”

  “An actor?”

  “We’re not ruling anything out.”

  “Are the clothes authentic eighteenth-century—apart from the Y-fronts?”

  “Tests are being done on them. We don’t know yet.”

  “How long had he been in the loft?” the Bath Chronicle woman wanted to know.

  “We can’t say with any accuracy yet.”

  “A long time, surely, to have turned into a skeleton?”

  “Could be as short as two years according to the experts, but the likelihood is longer.”

  “How much longer, do you reckon?”

  “I’m not reckoning.”

  “As long as Y-fronts have been available?” someone from the back put in.

  “That would be the absolute beginning of the timespan. Which I’m told is just before the Second World War.”

  “Can’t they be dated from the style?”

  “Good point. We’ve taken that up with the manufacturers.”

  “Some of us keep our underwear going until the elastic goes.”

  Diamond took that as a joke, not a question. It got a few laughs and somebody at the back made a remark he didn’t catch that sparked another bout of laughter. Most of these press people knew each other well.

  The big-mouth continued with the backchat and there was an edge to the amusement—more like forced laughter—that Diamond didn’t care for. Difficult to see who this troublemaker was because his view was blocked by two TV cameramen. The glimpse he got when one of them moved was of shoulder-length dark hair and a fancy jacket, but the voice was definitely a man’s. A hippy with a grudge against the police? It would be worth checking whether this person actually had a press pass.

  The questioning from the others was rapid-fire, so Diamond soon got distracted and when he next looked, the joker had changed position, or vanished.

  He was relieved when the focus moved away from the Y-fronts. “How will you handle the murder element of this case?”

  His answer came almost automatically. He wanted to get this over and start on the real work. “We have an experienced team in Bath CID and no effort will be spared in establishing the facts.”

  “Have you found anything else at the site?”

  “Nothing I haven’t told you already.”

  “The house is demolished, isn’t it? Will you be searching through the debris?”

  “Most of it has gone to landfill. If necessary we’ll do a fingertip search.”

  “‘If necessary’? Don’t you think it’s worth doing?”

  “Identifying the victim is our priority. The few details we have about height and so on are in the press kit.”

  “It was a fatal stabbing?”

  “So it appears.”

  “Did you find the weapon?”

  “No.”

  “Have you traced the owner of the house in Twerton?”

  “That’s a separate line of enquiry. For some years the house has been condemned and occupied only by squatters.”

  “Haven’t you forgotten someone?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The skeleton—or does he count as a squatter?”

  More laughter that Diamond didn’t join in. He sensed the unwelcome presence had moved to the opposite side. Those with cameras didn’t stay long in one place. He wasn’t giving the barracker the satisfaction of a proper look.

  “Was the loft sealed off from the rest of the house?”

  “We don’t know. The demolition took place before we could check.”

  “Presumably it was, or someone would have looked in there at some point and had a nasty surprise.”

  More amusement and laughter that lingered too long. And this time Diamond did catch a glimpse of someone he didn’t know to be a journalist and the long hair looked uncannily like a wig. The face was old, the figure portly and the clothing . . . well, it was old-fashioned in style. But then in the blink of an eye it was gone. The trick of an overactive brain, obviously. The demands of this case weren’t good for his mental well-being.

  Getting a grip on himself, he issued a warning. “I hope none of you make the mistake of reporting this in a light-hearted way. We’re dealing with the apparent murder of an elderly man.” He stopped himself from adding, “It could come back to haunt you,” but the cliché almost tumbled out. The presence at the back of the room must have brought the words to mind.

  He continued. “Whatever his story is, it had a tragic outcome that will have affected several lives, people who may not even know it yet. He could be someone’s husband, father or grandfather.” And now despite his best intentions the homily got personal. “Believe me, the moment of learning about a violent death is hell. Anyone unfortunate enough to have known a murder victim will tell you about the pain, the grief, the black despair that won’t go away. You people are the message bringers. Don’t forget the living when you report on the dead.” At risk of being overwhelmed by his own memories, he took refuge in another cliché: “We’ll be pursuing every line of enquiry and as always we look to you to pass on any new information that may come your way.”

  When they were well away from all the microphones, he put on a show of bravado for Halliwell. “Buggers. They’ll take no notice. They’ll play it for laughs, some of them, anyway, giving the skeleton a stupid nickname, Bony, or some such.”

  “
If it catches people’s interest, does it matter?” Halliwell said. “We want all the publicity we can get.”

  “Publicity is double-edged. The public gave us Beau Nash’s name. We spent the best part of a week on a wild goose chase thanks to that useless tip-off.”

  “He was dressed like Nash,” Halliwell said. “The stuff we learned could still come in useful.”

  “Yeah? Convince me.” He thought about asking Halliwell if he’d noticed anyone unusual at the back, but he couldn’t be sure how much of it he’d imagined.

  “Pity,” Paloma said.

  “Why?”

  “I was thinking this was a case I could help with, something we could work on together. I even had visions of getting you into a frock coat and breeches and going to one of those costume balls they put on at the Assembly Rooms.”

  He almost choked on his coffee. “Give me a break.”

  “I’ll have to, won’t I?”

  They were in his front room in Weston after a meal at his local. These days the Old Crown called itself a gastro pub and had a chef and served dauphinoise potato with some of the dishes, but you could still get the classic fish and chips he always ordered there. Paloma had settled for the Cornish hake fillet with wild mushrooms, wild garlic and Jersey royals, so both of them had been catered for.

  Raffles padded into the room and tried jumping on to Paloma’s lap, but needed scooping up. His rear legs weren’t as strong as they’d once been. Once in place, he started purring—as if he knew who had provided the gourmet salmon and whole shrimps he had just enjoyed. Normally he subsisted on a diet of Whiskas and dry food.

  “You spoil him,” Diamond told her.

  “He needed fussing up.” She smoothed her hand gently over the warm fur. “He’s rather thin these days.”

  “It’s his age.”

  “How old is he now?”

  “I don’t speak of it in his presence. All I know is he costs me a fortune at the vet’s.”

  “He was Steph’s cat, wasn’t he?”

  He nodded. “A stray kitten who just walked in when we first moved into this place. That was the year I was dealing with a bunch of oddballs who met in the crypt at St. Michael’s to discuss crime stories. Crime experts—the Bloodhounds, they called themselves—and would you believe they didn’t know a real murderer was among them? Anyway, Steph was here holding the fort as usual, trying to unpack cardboard boxes and suddenly became aware of this little tabby exploring them. She was captivated but did the decent thing and asked around and eventually took him up to the place for strays at Claverton.”

  “I think I know the rest.”

  “Yes, she kept asking if anyone had claimed him and they hadn’t. He settled in here as if it was meant to be.”

  “He’s smart.”

  “He helped me through the worst time of my life. I’ll be gutted when he goes.”

  “Don’t think about it. Enjoy him while you’ve got him.”

  “We’re all going to go sometime.”

  “Snap out of it, Peter. You’re getting morbid.”

  “One of those newspapers called me a veteran. ‘Veteran detective Peter Diamond.’ That was a first.”

  She laughed. “Did you take that to heart? Treat it as a compliment. They might as well have called you a safe pair of hands or a mastermind.”

  “Not if they’d seen me flipflopping over this damned case. Even my own team are losing patience.”

  “There’s always a low point, isn’t there? You’ve passed it now. Onwards and upwards.”

  In truth, it felt to him like backwards and downwards. The Beau Nash enquiry had been progressing nicely, with a named victim, a place and time of death and a potential suspect. Now he was back to an anonymous set of bones. “I still need your help.”

  “How exactly?”

  “With the clothes. We’ve got them at the police office now. Would you come and give an expert opinion?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Please.”

  “There you are, then,” Paloma said. “Already moving on.”

  “The things the victim was wearing look authentic, being in such a bad state, but I wonder if it’s fancy dress. I’ve got to assume he liked dressing up.”

  “In which case the garments are unlikely to be genuine eighteenth-century. The real things are museum pieces. We don’t let anyone try them on.”

  “You’re talking about the Fashion Museum?”

  “Of course.” The collection in the Assembly Rooms in Bennett Street was almost Paloma’s second home.

  “Where would anyone go if they wanted to hire an outfit for one of those balls you mentioned? A fancy-dress shop?”

  “There are three or four in the area, but I’m not sure if that’s what you mean. Those places stock a whole range of things for hen and stag parties and the like. Gorilla suits, Frankenstein outfits.”

  “Cheap and vulgar.”

  “Not all of it. They have some better-made clothes. But the class of people who attend the balls tend to go to theatrical costumiers or specialist suppliers. You can hire some gorgeous things and if what you want is not in stock you get it handmade.”

  “Probably in the Far East.”

  She smiled.

  “Wigs?”

  “They supply those, too. All the gear. Where’s your laptop? I’ll show you.”

  “You won’t. It’s not here.”

  “You’re incorrigible. How do you manage your life, paying bills and checking bank statements?”

  “The post mostly.”

  “Take my word for it, then. For well-made clothes you’d go to one of the firms I’m talking about. Tomorrow I’ll look at the stitching and see if I can tell you some more.”

  “There’s quite a bit of this dressing-up going on, is there?”

  “More than you’d think. I’ve heard of several annual balls at the Assembly Rooms and the Guildhall with more than three hundred guests immaculately dressed. Admittedly there’s some licence over which period is represented. An early Georgian gown might be seen at a Regency ball.”

  “Is that a sin?”

  “It’s about a hundred years different. Fashion is always changing. As well as the balls there are private parties going on all the time and charity dos and civic occasions when the town lashes out and goes all Jane Austen.”

  “The costume firms do good business, then?”

  “Their stock would amaze you.”

  “It would depress me. But it’s an obvious line of enquiry. Nobody has yet explained how an old guy in eighteenth-century clothes ends up in a loft in Twerton. Do you get old men attending these affairs at the Assembly Rooms?”

  “Certainly. They’re often the ones who can afford to be there. It’s not just dancing. There’s usually supper and card games. Gambling.”

  “Have you been?”

  “No, but I wouldn’t mind,” Paloma said. “Would you?”

  “Not my scene.”

  “There’s drinking.”

  “Not beer-drinking, I bet. And I don’t suppose the dancing is jive.”

  “It’s all in period, as it should be. Before a ball they offer classes for people to learn the steps. You’d be all right.”

  “I didn’t think we were talking about me.”

  10

  Next morning the murder squad was in session.

  “We’ll get nowhere until we identify the victim,” Diamond told the team. The intent in his voice was obvious to all. He was in no mood for sarcasm from anyone. “Male, elderly, five-eight in height. And toothless. Must have had a reason to be dressed in eighteenth-century costume and wig. The marks of interest on the bones are the damage to the ribs and hand and the indications that he was old. Have I missed anything?”

  “The absence of hair,” Ingeborg said.

  He hadn
’t seen this as significant, so he waited for her to explain.

  “We seem to be assuming he was bald and we could be wrong about that.”

  “I’m not assuming anything.”

  “What I mean is that we should look for hair. Hair survives longer than anything except the bones.”

  “Dr. Waghorn didn’t find any on the scalp,” Diamond said. “He’s painstaking and he’d know the importance. But you’re right, Ingeborg. We won’t give up on this.”

  “If we can find a single hair there’s information to be got from it. Will Waghorn have searched the clothes for hairs when he was undressing the skeleton?”

  Paul Gilbert chipped in with, “And the inside of the wig?”

  “He’s extremely thorough and he had an experienced assistant. They used evidence bags, so I suppose there could be the odd hair lurking inside. Forensics will do their own check. I’m having the clothes examined by an expert today to see if they’re genuine eighteenth-century—which has now been thrown into doubt.”

  “If they’re not old, we can find out who made them and maybe where they were bought,” John Leaman said.

  “You can hire costumes,” Paul Gilbert said.

  “What’s your point?” Leaman said.

  “They weren’t necessarily bought.”

  “Fine. That’s good,” Diamond said at once, not allowing the session to be undermined by old antagonisms in the team. “As soon as anything is confirmed, we’ll start making enquiries with the manufacturers.”

  “Are the pants being checked to see when they were made?” Leaman asked.

  “That’s already in hand. Marks and Spencer have a company archive up at Leeds. It’s vast. They do heritage tours and lectures. I’ve spoken to the lady in charge and emailed her pictures of the back and front and the label. She promised to get back to me shortly. If we can focus on just a few years, we’ll be in a far better position.”

  “To check missing persons?” Gilbert said.

  “Right—and that won’t be easy. The numbers who go missing every week never fail to amaze me and a high proportion of those are elderly, but it’s got to be done. That’s going to be your task, Paul.”