Beau Death

by Peter Lovesey

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” Diamond said.

  “Perhaps you’re right. It would take some explaining.”

  “Give me a shout when you’re ready to move again.”

  “You don’t mind waiting?”

  After all this effort, Diamond wasn’t going away. The spark of consolation from the episode was that Algy appeared to have his wits about him. But was he savvy enough to remember events from twenty years back?

  “We can talk out here,” Diamond said when he’d eventually tugged the chair and its occupant into the hallway.

  “Are you tired of lugging me about?”

  “It’s not that. We’ll hear each other better.”

  “Generally it takes two to haul me into the meeting in this contraption. I read somewhere that they used donkeys or ponies originally.”

  Diamond didn’t want to know about the history of the bath chair. A far more urgent bit of history needed to be discussed.

  “You’ve been a member for many years, I was told.”

  “At least a quarter of a century.”

  “So you’ve seen several presidents come and go.”

  “Not as many as you might imagine. Sir Edward has been Beau for most of my time in the society.”

  “And before him?”

  “Professor Orville Duff, who was quite an expert on eighteenth-century Bath. A different character altogether than Ed, much more reserved. He died, unfortunately. He was about the age I am now, so I suppose he’d had a good innings. His health hadn’t been good for some time. He wasn’t our Beau for long. About eighteen months, no longer.”

  This checked with earlier information. Algy’s memory seemed to be dependable.

  Encouraged, Diamond asked, “Do you recall any earlier presidents?”

  “Only one other. Before Orville we had Lord David Deganwy.”

  “Is that Welsh?”

  “I suppose it might have been. I didn’t know David well. He was another generation, well into his eighties when I joined and he’d lived in Bath most of his life and had been Beau for a number of years. Kindly as they come—too kind, as it turned out.”

  “Why?”

  “Someone took advantage—and none of us saw it coming.”

  “What happened?”

  “A fellow called Sidney Harrod came to one of our meetings out of the blue and announced he was keen to join, so we welcomed him on spec as we always do when a new person arrives. We don’t ask for a subscription right away. A few spare costumes are kept in a wardrobe upstairs and Sidney borrowed one and settled into the society as if he’d been a member all his life. Extremely sociable, charming with the ladies and passably knowledgeable about Nash.”

  They were interrupted by a limping woman in a hoop dress looking for the disabled toilet, but too timid to ask. Algy turned in his chair and pointed. She nodded her thanks and scuttled in.

  Diamond got back to business. “Do you remember what year this was?”

  “Funnily enough, I do, because I had a special birthday that year: 1996. Sidney hadn’t been coming long when he offered to teach us eighteenth-century dancing. Someone told me he was a former chorus boy. I don’t know if it was true—or if anything he claimed was true—but he was supposed to have been in some of the big West End musicals in his youth. The King and I, Half a Sixpence. The dancing was his route into the society. He offered to teach us the minuet, which was by far the most popular dance in its day and quite terrifying because it was supposed to be performed by one couple in front of the entire company. Sidney did the research and taught us in a tumbledown community centre in Walcot. The idea was that we should become proficient enough to introduce dancing to the annual ball—and that’s become a tradition now—so we can thank him for that, I suppose.”

  “Something went wrong?”

  “Not at the start. Between ourselves, the society had become rather dull as David Deganwy got older. Up to that time we’d been mainly sedentary, with talks by experts on this and that, but no participation except for the dressing up. Sidney Harrod came in with new ideas that revitalised us. We learned posture and bowing and curtseying and some of the games they played in Nash’s day. We had music. We went on visits. And the dancing lessons really took off when we progressed to country dancing. Very saucy, some of those country dances,” Algy reminisced from his bath chair. “Johnny Cock Thy Beaver, Cuckolds All in a Row, Rub Her Down with Straw.”

  Privately, Diamond was thinking he wouldn’t have wanted to come within a mile of Sidney’s dancing lessons, but then he would never have joined the society in the first place. “He knew his stuff, then?”

  “We believed so. He must have had some background in dancing to carry it off as he did. Looking back, he may not have been the expert he claimed to be. I rather think he clued himself up on the dances and convinced us all by force of personality. He was extremely plausible.”

  A waiter with a silver tray loaded with sweetmeats came rushing towards the main reception room and almost tripped over the end of the bath chair. Algy put out a hand to steady him.

  Diamond ignored the interruption. “What age would this Sidney have been?”

  “Difficult to tell. Sixty to seventy, I’d say. He made a big thing out of being one of the Harrod family, as if he had some link with the department store, but his day clothes certainly weren’t from Harrods. He was slightly shabby, in fact. But, oh boy, he talked like a millionaire, claimed to have gone through Harrow School and Oxford and was a member of several London clubs. A great name-dropper. Anyway, he was a dynamo compared to most of us. I don’t think anyone would have objected if he’d become the next Beau.”

  Diamond was galvanised. “Was that ever a possibility?”

  “It damned nearly happened. He befriended David.”

  “This is Lord David Deganwy?”

  Algy nodded. “We should have seen it coming, but the blighter was so persuasive he took us all in and most of all he took in David.”

  “How?”

  “We only learned about this later. He used to visit him in Widcombe Hall and take away items of antique furniture supposedly to get them cleaned or repaired. Of course, David never saw them again. The poor old lad was losing his memory as well as his furniture and Sidney took full advantage.”

  Diamond had come across parasites like Sidney Harrod many times before. People are so easily taken in.

  “When did you find this out?”

  “Too late, I’m sorry to say. At a meeting one evening—this would have been early in 1997—David announced to us all that he planned to hand over the presidency of the society at the end of the year because it was becoming a burden to him rather than a pleasure. He said he would be putting forward Sidney’s name as the next Beau.”

  “Really? Someone as new as that?”

  “To be candid, most of us were rather relieved that someone else’s name was put forward. We weren’t queuing up for the honour. We agreed it would be the best possible outcome.”

  “There were no suspicions about Sidney?”

  “Not at that time. He’d made himself very agreeable, never missed a meeting and appeared to be a Beau Nash fanatic like the rest of us, but with a sense of fun. He once gave us a talk on the Beau’s witty sayings—a book of them was published after Nash died—but to be brutally honest, eighteenth-century humour hasn’t stood the test of time, so we were enjoying Sidney’s wit rather than the Beau’s. I do remember the session as hugely entertaining.”

  “So Sidney was all set to succeed Lord Deganwy as the Beau?”

  “That was the intention and nobody objected, but it never happened. Between David’s announcement and the meeting when we were supposed to welcome Sidney as our new president, he vanished.”

  “Sidney Harrod did?”

  “Yes, without a word of explanation to David or any of us. Simply disappea
red into thin air. We were all completely mystified. He wasn’t answering phone calls and his landlady said he hadn’t spoken to her about going. In fact, he owed six months’ rent. Only later did it emerge that he’d been steadily disposing of David’s furniture. He even took off with David’s Beau Nash costume, which was genuine eighteenth-century and extremely valuable.”

  A genuine eighteenth-century costume stolen by a man who had gone missing more than twenty years ago? It ticked a lot of boxes.

  “You just mentioned his landlady. Who was she?”

  “I can’t answer that. I only heard about it later, at third hand. I’ve no idea where his lodgings were.”

  “Didn’t you report this swindler to the police?”

  “Me?”

  “All of you.”

  Algy shook his head. “There was this period of uncertainty that lasted several months. When he missed one meeting without explanation, we didn’t think anything of it. David Deganwy was increasingly confused and when the next meeting came and David didn’t turn up either, we asked Orville Duff to take over on a temporary basis. He was a good man, was Orville. He called on David and pieced together what had happened. That’s how we learned about Sidney’s appalling behaviour. Poor old David was succumbing to dementia. He couldn’t be sure whether he’d voluntarily handed over the things to that thieving scoundrel. Anyway, the furniture went, the costume went, and so did Sidney.”

  “Was the wig taken as well?”

  “The black Beau Nash wig? I believe it was,” Algy said. “David was in poor health by then and died soon after.”

  Behind them the toilet door opened and the limping woman emerged and glided by without making eye contact.

  “Was any more heard of Sidney Harrod?”

  “Not a whisper. I suppose he did what conmen do and moved away to some other city to start up under a new identity.”

  Diamond didn’t comment. He had his own opinion where Sidney had ended up. “Were his lodgings in Twerton, by any chance?”

  “I already said I couldn’t tell you.”

  “So the police were never informed?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “And Professor Duff took over?”

  “He died in office, too, not long after. Lung cancer.”

  “Does anyone have pictures of these guys? Does the club keep a photo album of the annual balls?”

  “I’ve never seen one. However, we do have the portraits of past presidents. Didn’t you notice them in the anteroom?”

  “It was such a crush in there I didn’t see anything like that. I’ll take a look presently. There won’t be one of Sidney, I guess.”

  “Emphatically not. He’s persona non grata.”

  “You said he was about seventy.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any memory of his teeth?”

  Algy blinked at the question. “Not particularly.”

  “Is it possible he had false teeth?”

  He tapped his forehead as if it was a cash dispenser supplying memories rather than banknotes. “They may well have been false. He was a good-looking man for his age, I have to admit.”

  “Are you picturing him right now?”

  “The smile. He was constantly smiling. Regular teeth certainly, but I couldn’t say for sure whether they were artificial. That’s the whole point of modern dentistry, isn’t it, to make them appear real? I’ve had some implants myself.”

  “I’m not talking implants. I mean a complete set of dentures he could remove when he wished.”

  Algy plainly didn’t know.

  “Is there anyone else among the current members who was around at the time?”

  After a moment’s thought, Algy said, “I’m sorry. I believe I’m the only one left. Even Ed Paris wasn’t in the society then. I expect you were hoping for someone sharper than me. I haven’t been much help.”

  “You’ve been a fantastic help.” Diamond hadn’t given up on the possibility of finding a photo of Sidney Harrod. “Were the press invited to the annual ball?”

  “The local press, you mean? I don’t think we were reported in the Bath Chronicle but there was a glossy magazine called Bath City Life that covered all kinds of social events and sometimes we got into that. You might even find a picture of him there.”

  “We can try. He was probably smart enough to dodge the camera. What height was he?”

  “Average.”

  “Did he have much hair?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. We all wore wigs for the meetings. I know exactly why you’re interested and I wish I could tell you more. Tantalising, isn’t it?”

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Diamond said.

  23

  “Before you say anything, guv, you’d better brace yourself,” Ingeborg told him when he walked into the CID room next morning as chirpy as a sparrow at first light.

  Then he saw the worry lines on Ingeborg’s face.

  “Why?”

  “A call from Dr. Waghorn about the piece of bone John Leaman dug up at Twerton.” She paused, looked into his suddenly hostile eyes and almost took a step away. “It’s not human.”

  He’d tried to prepare for bad news as she’d suggested, and still the shock came like a kick in the stomach. “What is it, then?”

  “Sheep.”

  “Get away.”

  “Really. It was from a sheep. Our theory about the wife being murdered and buried there isn’t looking too good this morning.”

  “Hell.”

  “Apparently the bulbous bit at the head of the femur is roughly similar in size and shape although the shaft is longer in a human.”

  “Waghorn is certain?”

  “You know him better than I do. He sounded very sure on the phone. And horribly smug.”

  “So you took the call yourself?”

  “John wasn’t in, so I got the full blast. What a smart-arse. He was going on about osteons, which evidently contain the channels or canals carrying the blood supply through the bone. Under the microscope he was able to make measurements proving that the bone wasn’t human.”

  “Why would a sheep be buried in a garden?”

  “The dog.”

  “Sheep, you said.”

  “I’m trying to answer your question,” Ingeborg said through gritted teeth, showing she was feeling frayed herself. “Waghorn also said the femur showed signs of being chewed by a carnivore. I’m thinking of Tank’s dog. Tank the squatter. His greyhound, remember? They were living in the Twerton house and dogs like nothing better than burying old bones. My guess is that the dog was given a mutton bone to chew on and it dug a hole and buried it at the bottom of the garden.”

  He made a sound deep in his throat not unlike a growl. “I knew that dog was trouble from the moment it slobbered over my trousers.”

  “You can’t blame the dog for burying a bone,” Ingeborg chided him. “If anyone is to blame, it’s me. I was pushing the idea of the woman being murdered.”

  “My decision to dig up the garden. How is John Leaman taking it?”

  “He doesn’t know yet.” Her face creased into a pained look. “I couldn’t bring myself to phone him.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He drove out to Twerton early to check on the crime scene people.”

  “Christ, are they still there?”

  “John made sure they were. He was cracking the whip all of yesterday expecting more finds. All they dug up were fragments of bone.” She sighed. “Poor old John. He’s so excited to be in charge, like a dog with a—” She stopped in mid-sentence, angry with herself. “You know what I mean.”

  Her sympathy had to be deep-felt for the rivalries within the team to be set aside. Diamond, too, ached for his earnest colleague. “I’ll go directly and see him. Is there anything else I should be tol
d?”

  “It can wait.”

  Leaman was in conversation with the senior crime scene specialist when Diamond ducked under the tape and picked a path through the heaps of excavated earth.

  The man was cheerful, untypically, alarmingly, distressingly cheerful. “You should be in boots, guv. That’s another pair of shoes you’ll have to clean.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “We’ve almost cracked it now.”

  “Have we?”

  “The house-to-house has brought a result. The lads found a retired newsagent living over one of the shops and he remembers Harry coming in sometimes for the Daily Mail. Our suspect was definitely called Harry, by the way, and the woman he was living with was Sarah.”

  “Okay,” Diamond said wondering how on earth he could let the man down without too much hurt.

  “Harry and Sarah, guv. The names are confirmed.”

  “Right.”

  Leaman gave him a puzzled look before resuming. “They didn’t have much to say, either of them. The guy—Harry, I mean—was in his thirties, white, with dark hair, average height, always paid in cash rather than card, and didn’t have much to say for himself. The woman was friendlier, quite a bit younger, nice-looking, with long reddish-brown hair, but she suddenly wasn’t seen again and no one knew why. I didn’t tell him we have our suspicions. This was in 1997, the year Labour were elected. Harry carried on living alone in the place for at least two more years before Jerzy the Pole took over the tenancy.”

  “Good. That could be helpful.”

  “I’ve asked for another check of the soil. If we can find some hair of the right colour, that will clinch it.”

  “Mm.”

  “You don’t sound all that pleased. Is something up?”

  “I wanted a few words, John.”

  The effect of the few words was pitiful to witness. Leaman turned deathly pale. He shook his head. His mouth shaped to say something and no words came.

  It was left to the crime scene man to utter the obscenity the bombshell demanded.