The Vault

by Peter Lovesey

  "You know me?"

  "We were under orders to find you, sir. You're asked to make contact with Bath CID."

  "That's why you stopped me?"

  The young man grinned. "Well, it wasn't to ask the way."

  Revived, he got out and ambled across to the patrol car to use their radio. Keith Halliwell answered the call.

  "What's this-overtime?" Diamond asked, chirpy again.

  "I've been trying to reach you, sir. You were supposed to get a message at the TV studio. We had a call from the lab at Chepstow earlier. They found something."

  "What's that?"

  "In the bits of concrete that came with the hand bones, they chipped out a piece of metal shaped into a skull."

  "Full size?"

  "No. Really small. Like a badge. This was curved, so they assume it was attached to a ring originally. You can see where it broke at the back."

  "A ring? What are we talking about here? The kind of thing kids wear?"

  "Yes. Cheap metal."

  "In the shape of a skull, you said?"

  "An animal skull, like a bull, but with large teeth sticking up, as far as the eyes."

  "Motorhead."

  "I'm sorry?" said Halliwell.

  "You should be," Diamond chided him. "Don't you remember Heavy Metal?"

  "Would you say that again, sir? I'm getting some static."

  Diamond rolled his eyes at the young officer beside him. "He's getting some static. Rock music in the seventies, Keith. The animal skull with the teeth was the Motorhead emblem. Your musical education is sadly lacking. Where were you-at the ballet?"

  "I was just a baby."

  "Oh, yes?"

  "The point is, sir, the ring could have broken when the body was dismembered. It may have belonged to the victim."

  "Where's the rest of it, then? Shouldn't it be with the bones?"

  "The killer could have removed it from the victim's hand, thinking it would help identify the corpse."

  "Equally, it could have belonged to the killer and snapped off when he was doing his grisly work."

  "His what, sir?"

  "Never mind, Keith. You can knock off now."

  He said goodnight to the patrol team, ambled across to his own car and drove home thinking it had not been such a bad day's work. Starting off with no more than a few bones to investigate, he was ending up with a mental picture of someone: probably young, in leathers and jeans, long-haired, a rocker. Rightly or wrongly, victim or killer, this had to be progress.

  Then he remembered the ACC's 'At Home'. He would never make it there by eight. Steph would be sitting at home, dressed and ready to go. He'd better get to a phone.

  NOT LONG after Joe left Noble and Nude, Ellis Somerset returned with the vanload of antiques from Si Minchendon's house in Camden Crescent.

  Peg helped unload. To be precise, she unloaded the two pictures. The rest she left for Ellis to move.

  She had been on tenterhooks to inspect those pictures. There could be no question that they were watercolours in William Blake's style, with the strange, archaic look his drawing had acquired from making hundreds of studies of medieval tombs during his apprenticeship as an engraver. They were essentially graphic illustrations in quill and ink, using the colour mainly as tint, rather than to indicate form. But the subjects of the pictures, if Peg's interpretation was correct, were not recorded anywhere. On her way back from Camden Place she had called at Bath Library and looked at the major biographies of Blake by Peter Ackroyd and David Erdman; neither made any mention that he had illustrated Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

  She was sure in her mind that they could represent nothing else. The first had to be the frozen valley of Chamonix, with Mont Blanc "in awful majesty" as a backdrop for the meeting between Frankenstein and the creature he had brought to life. The figures facing each other differed markedly in physique, the one a mere man, puny beside the abhorred monster, who was unlike the Hollywood version, but faithful to Mary Shelley's concept: yellow skin thinly covering the muscles and arteries, lustrous black hair, pearly white teeth, black lips and watery, dun-white eyes.

  In the second picture, the same grotesque face was staring through the window of the inn where Frankenstein's bride Elizabeth lay strangled on her wedding night. The gloating, grinning monster was mocking Frankenstein. What other interpretation could anyone make?

  Peg had worked long enough in the antiques trade to know that synchronicity occurs from time to time in a quite eerie fashion. So she was not troubled that Mary Shelley had cropped up in another context the same day. It was not mere coincidence, nor entirely the mysterious working of fate. With the idea of Frankenstein already planted in her mind, she would have been alert to anything in Simon Minchendon's house that made connection with the story.

  Were the pictures genuine? Blake had been so prolific, despite failing health towards the end, that no one could be certain how many unrecorded works had survived. Frankenstein was published in 1818. Blake would certainly have known of the book; he was illustrating and engraving to the end of his life in 1827. The theme of the novel would have found a resonance with his hatred of perverted science.

  Peg decided there was only one way to find out. Using a penknife, she cut into the already disintegrating brown paper backing one of the frames. Methodically she prised out the rusty pins and removed the board that held the picture against the glass. The age of the mount and frame was of no importance, but did the drawing paper pass the test? Was it almost two hundred years old?

  With extreme care, she lifted out the painting and studied it. Certainly the paper smelt old. There was foxing at the edges, which were rough and fraying. She was not an expert on the age of paper, but her knowledge of antiques of all sorts gave her a pretty reliable sense of what was genuinely old. This, she decided without wishful thinking, could safely be placed in the first two decades of the nineteenth century.

  Nothing was written on the reverse. A faker will often try too hard and add some embellishment to bring extra conviction.

  She performed a similar dissection of the second frame and mount. No further clues were revealed.

  "I'm all fired up, Ellis. You know whose work this is, don't you?"

  "They're not signed," he pointed out.

  "That's no guide, ducky. Blake often left his work unsigned. These look to me like studies for engravings. He did thousands." She smiled. "Well, it would have been nice in a way if there was a signature, but then I would never have got them so cheap."

  "Are you sure they're kosher?"

  "What's your opinion?" Holding it delicately by the edge to avoid marking it with her dusty fingers, she handed him the exterior scene.

  "You think this is Frankenstein and the monster?"

  "It's the core of the book, their meeting in the shadow of Mont Blanc. The monster has strangled Frankenstein's young brother, the child William, and the servant Justine has been hanged for the crime."

  "It's a long time since I read the story," Somerset admitted. "I've seen plenty of films, of course, but we all know the liberties they take."

  "Take it from me, this is straight out of the book. No liberties at all."

  He held the picture at arm's length. "Blake and Mary Shelley? I've never linked them in my mind before."

  Peg said, "I did some checking this afternoon. He collaborated with Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley's mother. She wrote some rather indifferent stories for children and dear old Blake illustrated them. So there is a link, in a way."

  "What will you do with them? Is there a space on the wall anywhere?"

  She shook her head. "People come here looking for bargains, and these are something else. I've got an arrangement under way."

  "A dealer?"

  "Get away." With a mysterious smile, she held out her hands to take back the precious painting.

  "You know someone?"

  "Someone who will want these."

  "Who's that? A collector?"

  "Big game, darling. The rare
beast we all pursue, a party who really must buy. The entire trade depends on people like them."

  "Aren't you going to tell me?"

  She gave him a skittish look. "I may-after I've had my bit of fun."

  "You're being mean to me, Peg."

  "This is the jungle, ducky."

  "Local?"

  "Oh, yes," she said, "I've been on the phone. I'm expecting an offer tonight, if that doesn't sound indelicate."

  Ellis looked away, pink-faced. A vein was throbbing in his neck.

  * * *

  DONNA HAD not, after all, booked for a meal. She was old-fashioned enough to believe restaurant reservations ought to be made by men. She wouldn't enjoy her dinner if the waiters knew she had made the phone call.

  Joe came in and, typical Joe, gushed apologies like a man who had just walked into a ladies' changing-room. He went on to claim confidently that when she heard the reason why he had neglected her for so long, she would not only understand, she would throw her arms around him and give him the biggest kiss ever. Donna doubted that.

  Worse, he suggested they had room service. He would order champagne and caviar as well, he offered.

  "Why?" said Donna, keeping herself under control with difficulty. "Why don't we go out?"

  "It's getting late, honey. We don't want to walk the streets looking for a place with a free table. I can't wait to tell you what happened. Shall I call room service?"

  They walked the streets looking for a place with a free table. To be exact, they walked as far as Brock Street, a mere three minutes from the hotel, and found a table straight away in a quiet restaurant.

  Joe launched into his account of the trail that led to Mary Shelley's writing box.

  "How do you know it's hers?" Donna said, as yet feeling no urge to throw her arms around Joe.

  "It's got to be. I've got a feeling about this."

  "I've got a feeling this woman saw you coming. She's running rings around you, Joe Dougan. You show her the book and she sees a chance to unload an old box on you. If it was Mary Shelley's, where's the sense in using it as a stand for a heavy vase?"

  He opened his palms to emphasise the simple logic. "She didn't know it was Mary Shelley's. This is the whole point, Donna. And there's a very good chance that I'll get the proof when the box is opened. There could be other things inside."

  "Like Mary Shelley's credit cards?"

  "Oh, come on."

  "You said she claims to have found the book inside the box."

  "That's right. And a sketchbook that she sold. That's more evidence."

  "It's not if she doesn't have it any more."

  "No, listen. While Mary Shelley was staying in five, Abbey Churchyard, she was having drawing lessons from a a teacher called West. That's on record. She wrote in a letter to Leigh Hunt about finishing a picture she regarded as tedious and ugly. Oh, boy, I'd love to find that sketchbook."

  "Joe."

  "Honey?"

  "I've had it up to here with Mary Shelley."

  "Sure," he soothed her. "I can understand why. Listen, tomorrow let's do something totally unconnected with Frankenstein."

  "Such as?"

  Conveniently for Joe, someone had pinned some tourist leaflets to the wall behind Donna, and over her shoulder Joe could just read the large print. "I thought we might take a bus-trip somewhere. They do excursions to all kinds of places. How would you like to see Wilton House, where the Earl of Pembroke lives?"

  "Is it open to the public?"

  "Sure. I wouldn't mention it if not."

  Donna melted a little. "I'll think it over."

  "After tonight," said Joe rashly, "we'll draw a line under Mary Shelley."

  "Thank God."

  He looked at his watch. "There's only one more thing I need to do this evening, and that's go back to Noble and Nude and see if she found the key to the box."

  Donna was lost for words.

  * * *

  IT WAS after eight when Diamond got back from the TV studios at Bristol. He'd phoned Stephanie, knowing she was sure to be uneasy about turning up late to the 'At Home'. She hated being late for things.

  "You can afford to make an entrance in that terrific dress," he said with conviction. He'd had time to prepare a rallying speech on the drive back from Bristol. And it was a classy dress, a floral print in some silky material, worn with a shiny black belt. "In fact, it demands to be noticed. I like it. By God, I don't know where you found it, but it's a smashing little number."

  Without a trace of acrimony in her voice Steph informed him that she'd found it in her wardrobe. If it demanded to be noticed, he should have noticed it last Christmas Day, when her sister came, and last April at the charity do at the Theatre Royal. Then she returned to her main concern. "Your boss could be waiting to serve the food."

  "I don't think it's that kind of do," he told her airily. "It'll be cheap Bulgarian wine and peanuts in little silver dishes." He said he would freshen up and change into some party gear.

  "Snap it up, then, Peter. It's going to be close to nine by the time we arrive."

  "Georgina will have to make allowances. I was on police business."

  They managed to get to the house in Bennett Street within the half-hour.

  "Good. You're here," said their hostess. Out of uniform and in a blue cashmere dress she looked more approachable, but hadn't discarded the parade ground manner. "I was just about to serve the supper." She shook Stephanie's hand and said she was fascinated to meet the wife of Peter Diamond.

  The wife of Peter Diamond was made to feel more like an exhibit than a person, though probably no slight was intended. Steph managed a sociable smile while Diamond explained the reason for their delay. He wasn't sure how to address the ACC in this setting, so he started with "Ma'am".

  "Newsnightl Who interviewed you?" Unexpectedly the ACC's voice piped in excitement, "Don't tell me you met Jeremy himself, my all-time favourite television presenter? You did. I can see it in your eyes. I can't possibly miss that! What time do they show it-ten-thirty? We'll switch on and let everyone have a goggle."

  "Ma'am-"

  She flapped her hand. "You don't have to be formal… Peter. It's Georgina tonight."

  "Understood," said Diamond. "About Newsnight, Georgina. I don't know if that's such a good idea."

  The advice wasn't heard. Georgina had rushed away to serve the supper.

  With Diamond blanching at the prospect of people being ordered to watch that mortifying interview, he and Stephanie started the process of meeting other guests. Rarely had so many local bigwigs been gathered in one small space. Directly ahead, the Chief Crown Prosecutor was in serious conversation with the two other ACCs. "Not that way," Diamond murmured to Steph. "Go right."

  "Straight for the blonde in the corner?" said Stephanie. "The story of your life."

  "At least it's someone I don't have to say 'sir' to."

  "Don't be so sure. Wait till Blondie turns round."

  But it was a woman. Ingeborg Smith gave a wide smile of recognition and said, "Hi, you're late." She was in a black sparkly outfit that left one shoulder and a good deal of leg exposed.

  Diamond had the feeling this was one of those nights that would sear his soul for ever. He stumbled through the introductions, stressing-without actually nudging Steph-that Ingeborg was a freelance reporter. Ingeborg laughed and said she wasn't on duty now.

  "I'm forgetting," he said. "You know our hostess through the choir." To Stephanie he explained that Ingeborg sang with the Bath Camerata. "I'll get you ladies a drink," he offered.

  "I'm being looked after," Ingeborg said at once. "A gorgeous man called John Sturr is fetching me a refill from the other room. I think I've struck gold. He's on the Police Authority."

  Diamond winced. "Councillor Sturr?"

  "Councillor? I don't think anyone stands on ceremony here."

  He turned to Stephanie, "Ingeborg won't want us around when her friend comes back. Let's head towards the drinks ourselves."

&n
bsp; "Go for it, guys," Ingeborg cheerfully urged them. "You've got some catching up to do. It's bubbly-the real thing. I don't know how many I've put away."

  The food was served soon after from a huge table in the dining room.

  Georgina had lashed out on an amazing array of exotic dishes and was helpfully explaining to the more wary guests how to tell a spicy Chicken Tikka from a milder Kashmiri concoction. Steph, knowing Diamond's tendency to panic in the presence of foreign food, took his arm and steered him firmly past the multicoloured sauces to a tray of dishes topped with mashed potato, with steamed vegetables nearby.

  "So much for my forecast," Diamond murmured.

  "I did wonder where the peanuts were," Steph murmured back.

  Besides helping people to food, Georgina was waving them outside to the patio, where they could sit at garden tables. The warmth of the day was lingering nicely. The Diamonds found places with a couple they didn't know who introduced themselves as Danny and Karen. "Better than a barbecue, this," Diamond said, to start a conversation. "Burnt things on skewers taste all the same to me."

  "I know just what you mean about barbecues," said Danny. "This is recognisable food."

  "Marks and Spencer."

  "Peter, you've got to be a detective," said Karen. "How do you know that?"

  "Can you prove it?" said Danny.

  "We could check the kitchen for empty packets."

  "Oh, Pete!" said Steph. She explained, "If he doesn't get his M & S shepherd's pie at least once a week, he isn't safe to be with."

  "I'm still impressed," said Karen.

  "Don't take my word for it," said Diamond. "You ought to check."

  "No need," said Karen. "I believe you absolutely. Nothing gets past our lads in CID."

  Diamond was beginning to like Karen. "I'll let you into a secret," he said, with exaggerated glances right and left before leaning confidentially forward and dropping his voice. "Outside the nick in Manvers Street we've got some tubs of flowers. Have you ever noticed them?"

  Karen nodded.

  Diamond nodded, too. "We lads in CID pass them hundreds of times a week. Not one of us spotted some extra foliage among the pansies. It took a member of the public to tell us we had a fine crop of cannabis growing in front of the central police station. Some joker had scattered cannabis seeds in there. That's how smart our lads in CID are."