“How sensible. I’d get two or three opinions on it too, just in case you ask somebody who’s up to their necks in fakes.”
Robin nodded. “Is there any way of telling if this came from the same source as the forgeries you’ve identified?”
“I doubt it. I don’t remember seeing any faked mosaics, although that doesn’t mean they aren’t about.” Agnew knocked back the remainder of his coffee, then set down the mug with a snort. “Oh, I see. Are you thinking that the dead woman was somehow caught up in this racket and the mosaic was put into the grave as a kind of symbol of guilt?”
“It’s a possibility.” And one that Robin himself had just been mulling over.
Pru, who’d appeared slightly miffed at not being able to contribute to the archaeology talk, was back on more familiar ground. “You suspect this fakes trade links to Culford. Why?”
“It’s all in here”—Agnew tapped the envelope he’d handed to Robin—“but the gist is to do with IP addresses. It’s hard to follow up this stuff directly, not least because you don’t want to scare people off while you’re on the trail, so we went round the houses. My wife’s a whizz-kid at all things online, so she and I have been rooting about, using a lead we got from another disgruntled customer. Not everybody wants to keep shtum and avoid admitting they were ‘had.’”
Valid point. “So this stuff is sold over the web? Darknet?”
Agnew chuckled. “A lot of the people I work with can hardly manage a smartphone, let alone get into the deeper recesses of the internet. No, we found what looks like a legitimate site connecting buyers and sellers. You could call it an artefact ‘lonely hearts’ business, selling mainly genuine stuff with a few forgeries hidden amongst it. Emily—my better half—registered under an assumed name so nobody would see ‘Agnew’ and get rattled. She then had the bright idea of following up on a few of the comments on the forum and seeing where these people were located. Some of them, allegedly from a variety of usernames, all came from the same IP address. Which appears to be the Culford site, and seeing as the occupants of the villa wouldn’t be online, it must be the office.”
Robin recalled the PCs he’d seen there, then had a revelatory vision of Howarth and Bairstow not romping on sofas but chatting online, dealing in dodgy artefacts. Ms. Bairstow infiltrating the Culdover meetings before the great split, to find out whether anybody suspected their game. “Do you think the stuff’s actually being made at Culford?”
“No, they haven’t got the capacity. It could be being churned out anywhere—maybe even at the university, although I’ve not seen any evidence of that yet, and I’ve been on the hunt, believe me.”
Robin didn’t doubt him. “Does this link to our dead woman? Have you come across anybody really suffering because of the faked antiquities? Losing a stack of money, or maybe losing their reputation and being out for revenge?”
“Does loss of life count?”
A prickle of excitement shot up Robin’s neck. His question had felt so thin in the asking, so much like grasping at straws, he’d despaired of getting a useful response. “Exactly.”
“Yes, although not a woman, I’m afraid. If I’d come across the merest hint of anyone disappearing, I promise I’d have been in touch. There is a story, which I suspect is worth looking into, if you don’t mind me suggesting it. It must be a pain in the arse when members of the public try to tell you how to do your job.”
“It is, believe me.” Robin couldn’t help chuckling. “I can usually work out for myself what to follow up and what to ignore.”
“Glad to hear it. Well, among her many talents, Emily’s a fine-art expert, so she’s your girl when it comes to making sure provenance is spot on.” The self-deprecating, jokey tone turned serious. “She said that there was a collector of antiquities—guy who’d made his mint in the city, absolutely rolling in it—who died under mysterious circumstances two years ago. Chap called Eric Wheatstone.”
Robin, suppressing a thrill at the mention of the surname, hoped Pru would be equally cautious and not let on they recognised it. “How mysterious? Murder?”
“I don’t think so. He was supposedly out for a walk and strayed off the path. The ‘supposedly’ being that Emily’s heard he might have chucked himself over the cliff, rather than it being an accident. All covered up. Assuming people can cover up that sort of thing.”
“In theory no, but if you had a sympathetic coroner and there wasn’t any implication in terms of life insurance, I guess it could happen.” Robin tried to hide his disappointment that the information hadn’t quite been what he’d hoped. “No chance he was pushed?”
“I’m not sure. Reliable witnesses saw him heading off on his own, seeming as happy as Larry, and the cliff path is said to be dangerous.”
“Nobody raised the alarm when he didn’t return?” Sian had said her father’s body lay undiscovered until the next day.
“Apparently not, because nobody was expecting him to be at any particular place at any particular time. His daughter said he’d a habit of setting off on the spur of the moment for a few days’ walking. Sorry to disappoint you.” Agnew shrugged.
“It’s never a problem to establish the facts.” Robin’s bland words covered a mad whirl of thinking. “Why was suicide suspected in the first place?”
“Emily says the rumours arose because of Wheatstone’s distress at some faked artefacts he’d bought. Nobody likes to be made a fool of, especially if they’ve got a bit of a reputation for knowing what’s what.”
“Agreed.” Robin realised he’d been running his fingers along the table edge, as though they were chasing his thoughts. He clamped his hands together. “But is that enough for somebody to take their own life?”
“Who knows why anybody commits suicide? I had a cousin who did, and the family have beaten themselves up ever since.” Agnew winced. “We’ve come to the conclusion that these things are rarely logical, which is why there’s no point in us puzzling over what we should or shouldn’t have done to prevent it. In cousin Gary’s case, it probably would have made no difference.”
Chilling but true. “Did Wheatstone’s family beat themselves up?”
“His daughter did. She got herself into a terrible state over his death, making all sorts of wild accusations of fraud and the like. How she’d see the perpetrators in court and how they’d never be able to work in archaeological circles again.”
All this bore out Sian’s version of events. “Do you know the daughter’s name?”
“Alas, no, but it would be easy enough to find out.”
Although to all intents and purposes, the police already knew.
Pru, still busily taking notes, asked, “If she talked about bringing them to trial, did the police get involved?”
“I don’t think so. Emily heard she was mainly sounding off to friends, although there may have been some offensive comments on social media. All taken down now and not to be used in evidence.”
“Did the threat of prosecution work? Has the fakes industry stopped now?”
“It may have worked, initially. At least something must have given them cause of thought, because it all went quiet, but they started up again last year and it’s been ticking over, ever since.”
“Still operating out of Culford?” Which might explain why Sian had moved to the area and why she’d volunteered to work at the Roman site.
Agnew shrugged. “Can’t tell.”
“Okay.” No point flogging that horse further for the moment. “I’ve got some names to put to you. Tell me if they mean anything. Lydia Oliver.”
Agnew, brows knotted, shook his head. “Nope. Not ringing any bells. Should she?”
“There’s a Culdover connection.” Best leave it at that. They couldn’t entirely rule out the possibility that Agnew himself was somehow caught up in this, unlikely as it may seem. “What about Becky Bairstow?”
“Surely we’ve all heard of her. The missing woman who wasn’t missing. I’d not come across the woman before I
saw the local news story, although Emily—I have no idea how she finds out these things—has heard on the grapevine that she’s either about to sell her story to the tabloids or is getting a spread in Hello magazine.” Agnew’s face showed what he thought of either of those prospects.
“Great. Just what we need.” It was a judicial nightmare, having information related to cases all over the media; it made finding untainted jurors difficult. But was this an indication of Ms. Bairstow having nothing to hide? Or sheer brass neck, getting her version of the story out in advance? Another name, out of left field. “Philippa Palmer?”
“I’ve come across a Pippa Palmer. Same girl?”
“Could be. Archaeologist?”
“I think so.” Agnew leaned forwards, lowering his voice. “I’m intrigued to ask why her name cropped up, because a Pippa Palmer was connected with hawking these fake artefacts about.”
“Selling them?” Was Robin jumping to conclusions thinking that Palmer’s “going travelling” was connected to threats Sian had made? His mind ran on to the problems of questioning her; surely it wouldn’t be that easy to get an extradition warrant for a suspect just because they’d been hawking fake statuettes, and there was no clear connection to the dead girl.
“No. She appears to have been providing ‘expert’ opinions that these things were real. Her provenance was almost as dodgy.”
“Fake expert on fake artefacts?” This was getting more bizarre by the minute.
“Not entirely. She has a first in archaeology, even if she was doing her PhD on representations of the ancient world in modern media. Brad Pitt’s Achilles, Colin Farrell’s Alexander, and all that.” Agnew rolled his eyes at the mention of the film, although maybe it was simply the PhD topic he found distasteful. “She’s just rather over-egged the pudding in terms of her qualifications, even if what she said about authentic artefacts seemed spot on. The whole business was pretty clever, to be honest. All the verifications—for fake and real—were couched in terms that strongly implied the object was genuine, without guaranteeing it one hundred percent.”
“Is there anything about her in here?” Robin tapped the bundle of material Agnew had given them.
“Indeed there is. Nothing in terms of an actual name or face, however. Apart from Miss Palmer, who did use her real name, as she probably had to be seen to be the genuine article, the main players generally hide behind icons and usernames.”
That sounded familiar. “Is one of them ‘Trowelgirl’?”
“Not that I recall. There is a ‘Trowelboy,’ though.” Agnew grimaced. “I remember thinking how corny that was.”
Robin nodded. Though if that turned out to be Howarth, corny was just his style.
Robin and Pru sat in the car after pulling into a convenient lay-by, watching the Kinechester traffic pass by and considering what they’d heard. Had they reached a crucial point in the case?
“What if Howarth and Becky Bairstow are in this together?” Robin proposed. “Running a dodgy business out of Culford rather than indulging in rumpy pumpy?”
“Rumpy pumpy? Is that what they’re calling it?” Pru made a disdainful face. “Maybe. It could explain why he was so determined not to take up some of those business ideas that student, Ros, put forwards. Wanted to keep anybody with a bit of nous out of Culford’s computer system.”
“Yep. And the timing of that suicide is interesting. I could imagine Sian Wheatstone tracking down the people who’d conned her father, maybe following them here. What if Becky got scared off at that point and did a runner with her fortuitously timed—and absolutely genuine—lottery win? Her legging it would have slowed down business for a while, but now Howarth’s got it up and running again. Maybe.” That mysterious file of Howarth’s, which he’d been so keen to recover; if only Robin had been able to have a proper look through it, would there have been some clue to his nefarious dealings?
“Hmm.” Pru stared out of the window. “Trouble is we still have no objective evidence to link them to the forgeries, or to the dead girl. We’re back there again.”
She turned and gave Robin a long, thoughtful look. “I know you don’t like Howarth, and I don’t blame you, but we can’t let our opinions blind us to other possibilities here.”
Robin took a deep breath before answering; his sergeant was right. “Point taken. If Howarth’s not up to his neck in fakes, who at Culford is?”
“One of the CAS? Or the detectorists? Or Jamie Warnock if he used to be involved with Palmer. Maybe Howarth didn’t suspect people were just digging up stuff illegally, but digging it up and selling it on. Or manufacturing it and selling it on. Or both.” Pru waved her hands. “Running some sort of operation out of the Culford site. That’s what he asked Becky Bairstow to look into.”
Robin could think of several arguments to counter that, but didn’t want to be accused of further anti-Howarth bias. “Okay. How would they have accessed the site?”
Pru spread her hands. “As you found from interviewing Sian, it would be easy enough to get a set of copy keys made. Or perhaps they’ve got their own mole on the inside. Warnock, for example, who might have had the opportunity to make an imprint of the keys when he was working at Culford.”
They sat in silence again, mulling over thoughts, until Pru said, “You didn’t ask Agnew about ritual killings. Is that because you don’t want this to be a replica of that Bronze Age burial?”
“No. I don’t think I’m that blinkered.” Robin gave his sergeant a smile; she seemed much more able to guess what he was thinking than Anderson had been able to. Was it sexist to put that down to female intuition, or did the fact simply reflect her empathetic personality irrespective of gender? “I haven’t got much—if any—experience of darker cases, if you want to call them that, but this doesn’t appear to fit the bill. Not weird enough.”
“That mosaic isn’t weird enough for you?”
“No, oddly. It feels far too prosaic.” Nothing seemed to make sense: Robin longed for just a spot of clarity in this case’s muddy waters. “I’ve got a question for the forensic team about the window of time in which our victim was buried. We’ve been focussing on when Becky Bairstow disappeared, but have we been too narrow minded? We need to go back to first principles—what if the timescale were either shorter or longer than that? Back a couple of months to when Pippa—assuming she’s the same girl as Philippa—Palmer initially fell off the radar.”
“But she’s still alive, sir. Like Becky bloody Bairstow. There’s a total lack of dead women associated with this case.” The line sounded so much like it might have come from a Monty Python sketch that they both giggled.
“Indulge me.”
“You think she’s our unidentified corpse? Really?”
Was it such a ridiculous idea? “I think we have to examine the possibility, and we’ll start by seeing if the timings work.”
“Okay. If we’re taking it back to first principles, let’s take it all the way. Means, motive, opportunity.” Pru counted them off on her fingers.
“Motive.” Robin tapped the dashboard. “Revenge. Sian, or another family member, avenging Wheatstone’s death by physical action rather than just naming, shaming, and prosecuting.”
Pru put her index finger down, eliminating one objection. “I’ll grant you that. Nearest thing we’ve come across to a motive in this case.”
“Means—well, anybody can lay their hands on a blunt instrument, especially in the heat of a domestic argument. But not everybody has access to an archaeological site.”
“I’ll half give you that. And not everybody has posh Chinese rugs, either.” Pru tried to hold her middle finger halfway down, then gave up the attempt. “Opportunity?”
“Opportunity aplenty for burying her. We’ve seen how easy it was for Howarth to get into Culford out of hours without attracting notice from the locals. It was sheer luck we found out he’d been there after dark.” Little events on which successful solutions hinged; if the workman hadn’t dropped his mobile and had
to return, they’d never have picked up on that thread.
“It doesn’t narrow matters down much, although I suppose there’s no real chance of that until we know who the dead girl was.”
“I suspect you’re right.” Robin rubbed his knuckles together in frustration. “You say I’m biased against Howarth, but if he’s innocent, why didn’t he—or Becky Bairstow—tell us what they suspected was going on at Culford?”
Pru sighed. “Because he’s an idiot. The sort of idiot who’d like to claim all the glory for uncovering something. That’s what he was like at school, anyway, and I’m not convinced this leopard can change his spots.”
Well, irrespective of that, Robin was relishing the prospect of bearding that particular leopard in his den—or whatever leopards liked to live in—to see what the bloody hell he was playing at.
Adam’s day started well, with most of his class understanding what he was trying to get across about shape symmetry, but the note from Baxter he found in his pigeon hole at playtime unsettled him.
“Hope you enjoyed the meeting last night. Sorry about all the ‘business’ stuff, but Tuckton said he’d been contacted by someone from the local radio to give the detectorists’ point of view on this murder up at the Roman villa. He’s forbidden any of us from talking to the media.”
Adam grinned. He could imagine the members being threatened with excommunication should they disobey.
“Thing is, this researcher from the BBC has been in touch with a couple of us—they must have known they’d get nowhere with Tuckton—and we’re thinking of talking to him. Show we’re not all stick-in-the-muds. Anyway, if we didn’t put you off, come along next time.”
It wasn’t the bulk of the content or the direct contact which was so disconcerting—school rules meant that social media or telephone contact was frowned on, so good old-fashioned pen and paper was the only way to send a message—but the mention of the media. Why did that ring an uncomfortable bell?
A school-related question from one of the teaching assistants brought his mind back to more pressing matters, so he stuffed the note into his pocket and returned to his work.
Two Feet Under (Lindenshaw Mysteries Book 3) Page 15
