The Bath Conspiracy

by Jeanne M. Dams

  Roberts sighed again. ‘Quite right. Far more prudent. Unfortunately, it’s impossible in a place as busy as this. You have been in the shop, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, just this afternoon as a matter of fact.’ I made a face. ‘It was jammed with school groups that made it almost impossible to move.’

  ‘And I’m sure all the employees were frantically busy, and the till operating at warp speed. In circumstances like that, the key is simply passed from one employee to another, as needed. It’s not ideal, but there has never been a problem before.’

  ‘And I gather,’ said Alan, shaking his head, ‘that the CCTV was of no help?’

  ‘Not with that mob. Well, you were here. You know what it was like. The thief would have had to be nine feet tall with bright green hair to be visible amongst all the rest. Unfortunately, it seems he was not so obliging.’

  Alan smiled, but it was a wry smile. ‘They seldom are. Very well, Rob, you’ve put us in the picture. How do you think we can help you?’

  Rob shuffled his feet. ‘I hope you won’t mind, but I’ve learned … that is, I’ve been in touch with Sherebury. They – that is, the police and others, of course – have a high opinion of both of you. The present chief constable went so far as to say that Mrs Martin—’

  ‘Dorothy, please,’ I interrupted.

  ‘Sorry – that Dorothy would have made a splendid police officer had she come on the scene when women were being accepted into the force.’

  I sketched a little bow. I get almost as embarrassed by compliments as the English.

  ‘All right, Rob,’ said Alan patiently. ‘Kudos received with thanks. And, of course, you checked us out. Now spit it out. What, precisely, do you want us to do?’

  The inspector got a grip on himself. ‘Whew! I’m relieved that you’re taking it that way. In a nutshell, what I was told was that your forte, Mrs— Dorothy, was simply talking to people. All sorts of people. They seem to like to tell you things. I realize that’s easier on your home front, where you’re known, but do you think you could attempt something of the kind here?’

  ‘Actually, Rob, it can be easier in a place where no one knows me. When I first came to Sherebury to live, and became embroiled in a nasty mess involving the Cathedral, I could ask all sorts of questions, and I was just the rude, ignorant Yank who’d go home soon, so it didn’t matter what anyone said to me. Sort of like a shipboard romance, you know? You’ll never see each other again, so anything goes?’

  Rob smiled and nodded. Alan aimed a fake punch at me. ‘Better not try that, woman!’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m too old for that sort of thing, and besides it can’t happen on an airplane. Anyway, the whole thing became harder once everyone realized I was here to stay, but the advantage works again when I’m in foreign climes, so to speak. It’s getting harder, but I can still do a strong American accent when I put my mind to it, and if I’m wearing a silly hat I can get by with a good deal. Where would you like me to start?’

  Alan laughed. ‘Can you ask, dear heart? Start in your natural milieu, the museum shops.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Rob nodded. ‘Talk to the employees, the customers, the lot.’ He cast a quick glance at Alan. ‘And it might be best … er—’

  ‘If I didn’t accompany my wife,’ Alan finished. ‘I take your point. I will never look like anything but what I am, an English copper. And regrettably, I have no silly hats. Now the trouble, Rob, is that we have already frequented most of the shops, together. That might make talking with the employees a bit dicier.’

  I grinned and waved an insouciant hand. ‘Not a bit of it! I’ve come back, I’ll explain, having escaped your restraining leash, so I can indulge my whims as I please, while carrying on a good gossip with everyone I see. It might get just a little expensive, though.’

  Alan pretended to groan. It turned into a chuckle. ‘We may not have to buy Christmas presents for the rest of our lives! I can see a cupboard full of artefacts that our friends and family will have to pretend to enjoy. Feel free, love. Indulge yourself.’

  ‘And bring back some information, if you can,’ Rob reminded me. ‘Meanwhile, Alan, if you will, I’d like you to look over the reports with me. There may be some detail that’s escaped all of us. You bring a fresh eye to the matter.’

  ‘As well as a personal interest,’ he said a little grimly. ‘It was my car that the villains used and then damaged. I’d quite like to see them found and dealt with.’

  I was, by now, nearly ready to sit down on the nearest display table, regardless of the merchandise I might flatten. That beer I’d abandoned was calling me, as well. Alan read my face.

  ‘Right. Rob, I need to get this lady some rest and sustenance.’ We began to move to the door. ‘Will you join us at the pub round the corner?’

  ‘If I might suggest, sir, madam.’ One of the shop employees, the man in charge, from the look of him, had stepped up to us. ‘A pub might be very crowded at this hour of a Saturday night. As you’ve been kept from your refreshment by our problem, we would be most happy to offer you our hospitality at the Roman Baths Kitchen. They do excellent food, whether a light snack or a full meal, and the beer and cider are fine. It will also be crowded, but if you will allow me to call ahead, there will be a table waiting for you. It’s only a few steps away.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Alan. ‘A table for three, please, Mr—’

  ‘Abercrombie, at your service.’ He turned away and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

  ‘I’ll gladly join you,’ Rob murmured, ‘but I’ll have to pay my own bill, you know.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Alan. ‘We’re not talking about bribery here. You’re enjoying a meal with friends and colleagues, and if they happen to have been given a treat, so much the better.’

  ‘But your poor wife,’ I began. ‘Will she—?’

  ‘She has actually gone to Salisbury for the weekend, to visit our daughter, so I’d have been dining on bread and cheese alone. I give in!’

  ‘So much for anonymity,’ I said when I had drunk about half my beer, almost at a gulp, and was beginning on my fish and chips. ‘At that shop, for one, I have no chance at playing the stupid, nosy, American tourist. The minute the employees see me, they’ll see the invisible police badge and turn into clams.’

  ‘True, with this lot,’ said Rob, who had chosen the full English breakfast, served all day, and was making short work of the beans on toast that I find such an odd part of that meal. ‘But they have many more employees, including a goodly number of students.’

  ‘Students?’ I finished my beer and raised my eyebrows at Alan, who nodded and rose.

  ‘Yes, there’s a large university here, just on the outskirts of the city,’ said Rob, creating a forkful of egg, sausage and mushroom. ‘Something like twenty thousand students, and of course like all students, they’re perpetually short of money and in need of part-time jobs. The museum shops are a great boon for them, and they for the shops, because the work is to some extent seasonal, heaviest in the summer when the students’ study obligations are lightest.’

  ‘And, of course, they’re bright,’ I mused, ‘and with so many museums to choose from, they can probably find one that matches their interests. So you think that when I go back to the Baths shop, there’ll be a different crew, kids who won’t see through my pretence?’

  ‘It’s term time,’ said Rob. ‘So the students will probably be there mostly at the weekends. And they don’t usually work both Saturday and Sunday. I’d try tomorrow, if I were you.’

  ‘Sunday? Not in the morning,’ I said firmly. ‘I do know that the police never get to choose their times off, but Alan isn’t on the force anymore, and I never was, and we go to church on Sunday mornings. I can’t wait to hear the choir at the abbey. The shop is open in the afternoon?’

  ‘Till five, as usual,’ said Alan, returning with another round for all of us. ‘Open every day except Christmas and Boxing Day, with later hours in high tourist season.’ He
put down the beer.

  I tried not to look impressed. ‘You remembered all that?’

  ‘I cannot tell a lie.’ He pulled the guidebook out of his pocket. ‘I looked it up. Cheers.’

  It was still early when we’d finished our meal, but I’d had it. The day had been long and eventful, and I was every now and then forced to admit that I was no longer young. We bade farewell to Rob, whose day, sadly, was far from over, and toddled back to our hotel, stopping on the way to pick up a bottle of our favourite bourbon, or at least my favourite, Buffalo Trace. Alan prefers Scotch, or simply whisky as it’s known here, especially Glenfiddich.

  ‘Because,’ said Alan when we had settled down in front of the TV with our small nightcaps, ‘it looks as though we may not be going home tomorrow after all.’

  I was inclined to pout about that. ‘I was looking forward to home. This has been an amazing birthday present, and I want to come back to Bath one day, but I miss the animals, and our friends, and our own bed.’

  ‘I’m sorry, love,’ Alan replied to what I hadn’t said. ‘I had hoped that this would be a holiday, pure and simple.’

  ‘Next time we ought to plan a trip to some infamous trouble spot, the slums of Marseilles or the middle of a war zone somewhere. Since we seem to go by opposites, we might find peace and quiet there.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Alan put down his glass. ‘Are you watching this, love?’

  ‘No.’

  We put out the lights and were asleep almost before the TV screen went dark.

  ELEVEN

  We’d left the window open a bit, the evening being mild, so the bells of the abbey woke us in time for the eight o’clock service of Holy Communion, But as we had planned to go a much later service, we had a leisurely cup of the excellent coffee they provided in the room. ‘We need to make some plans,’ Alan suggested.

  ‘Yes. We can’t stay in this ruinously expensive place forever. And honestly, it’s beginning to feel a bit – I don’t know – confining.’

  ‘I feel the same. We can’t drop a fork without someone rushing to pick it up. Pleasant, perhaps, but a bit stifling. And then there’s the question of our mission.’

  ‘Right. I’ve been thinking about that. Bath is a good-sized city, but most of the museums, and hence the museum shops, are within a fairly tight little circle. If we were seen coming into this place by one of the many employees, my cover could be blown.’

  ‘You, my dear, have read far too many detective novels. They’ve tainted your style.’

  I made a face. ‘I’m still an American, no matter how long I’ve lived here. All right, if you’re going to be a purist: “Questions might arise about the factuality of the persona I have adopted.” Does that make you happier?’

  ‘In other words, your cover might be blown.’ He dodged the pillow. ‘Let’s go down for one more sumptuous breakfast and then do some research into a good B&B.’

  We had plenty of time before church, so I opted for a good solid breakfast and then went up to pack while Alan had a talk with the concierge. He came back, finally, wearing a bemused look.

  ‘An interesting conversation?’ I folded my last pair of slacks into my suitcase.

  ‘Very. Of course, there was a good deal of tiptoeing around at first. The hotel could certainly accommodate us if we wished to make our stay longer. Was there some problem with the service here? What could he do to make it right? After I reassured him that we had simply decided we wanted to see another aspect of Bath and live in a more intimate sort of hostelry, he tried to interest me in a stately home a few miles out of town. “Not quite the standard of this establishment, of course, sir, but very pleasant indeed.” I had to call upon all my powers of invention to explain why that wouldn’t do, and finally managed to imply, very subtly, that the question of finances might enter into it. That shocked him, of course.’

  ‘Of course. Money, or the lack of it, is Not Talked About.’

  ‘Especially in a place where everyone is assumed to have masses of it. At any rate, he finally found a small B&B right here in the city, with space for parking. He tutted a bit over the amenities, or lack thereof, but I assured him that we could manage to survive for a few days without a bar and dining room on site, and that if we needed to go farther than we could comfortably walk, or to a place where parking our own car was difficult, there were such things as cabs.’

  I had been packing as he spoke and now looked around the room to see what I had forgotten. Alan checked the bathroom and the wardrobe and opened drawers. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I think that’s the lot. Now, shall we demonstrate our ability to cope without constant servitude and take our own bags down for storage while we’re in church?’

  The church bells had begun to ring as we closed the door on the most luxurious digs we were ever likely to see.

  The service at the abbey was lovely. The music was exceptional and the ritual uplifting. It was unfortunate that I had a hard time keeping my mind on worship. Our problem kept revolving in my head. What did we know? Almost nothing. What could I hope to learn by talking to a lot of people I’d never met? I didn’t even know what questions to ask.

  Alan nudged me to stand for the creed. I recited it, and slowly the meaning of the words penetrated my brain. I wasn’t really in charge of very much, was I? If I really believed what my lips were saying, I could safely leave things to the one who was in charge. Do my best. That was all that was expected of me.

  I went up for communion in a chastened and exalted mood.

  There was no time of fellowship after the service; someone explained that the coffee-and-chat gathering met between the services. We decided to defer the abbey gift shop until another time, found ourselves a traditional Sunday lunch at a restaurant recommended by one of the vergers, and by early afternoon had checked out of the George, collected our car (repairs being completed), and established ourselves in our new room.

  ‘A bit small,’ was my comment. ‘But perfectly acceptable. And look at the lovely little garden down below. We can bring our tea out there one afternoon.’

  ‘The bed’s comfortable,’ said Alan, stretching out on it.

  ‘Don’t you dare! We don’t have time for a nap this afternoon. I have to get to the gift shop at the Baths, or I’ll miss talking to the students.’

  ‘Right you are. It’s a trifle far to walk, and the wind is chilly, even if the sky is your favourite bright October blue. I’ll drive you as close as we can reasonably get and then go on about my own nefarious business.’

  It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and the heart of Bath was thronged with shoppers and sightseers. Alan dropped me off on a corner near the Tourist Information office and said he’d pick me up there whenever I called him. ‘You have your phone? And it’s charged?’

  I barely had time to answer before a traffic cop loomed, so I extricated myself from the car, waved, and set off on my mission.

  I’d been smart enough to bring the city map with me, since without a map I can get lost in the smallest of towns. But even with a map I can run into difficulties. The problem in English cities isn’t reading the map. The A-to-Z people do an admirable job of laying out large street plans, with an index to streets and places of interest, printed in big enough type for an old lady to read. No, the problem is figuring out where one is. It ought to be simple. Look at the street sign, find it on the map, voilà.

  But street signs in England are often not where one expects them to be. I’ve lived in this country long enough not to look for signs on poles at corners. The English post them as large plaques on the corners of buildings. Sometimes. I have stood on corners looking at every building in sight. Nothing. Look farther down the street. Nothing. One might think that a city that was always a tourist attraction, that was built for visitors, all those centuries ago, would do better.

  One might be wrong.

  The kindness of strangers, however, is one of the things I like best about the British Isles. No one I asked seemed to think me stupid for having to ask
directions to Bath’s most famous landmark. One kind young man even pointed out on my map exactly where I was and showed me the best way to get where I was going, and was gone before I could even thank him.

  Maybe my silly hat led them to expect ignorance from me. Good. Exactly the impression I wanted to convey.

  The Roman Baths, gift shop and all, were around only a couple of corners. I straightened my hat, put my map carefully in my purse so that part of it stuck out, and opened the door into the shop.

  And ran straight into difficulties. Literally. The man coming out wasn’t looking where he was going, and my broad-brimmed hat obscured my view. We collided head-on. I dropped my purse, which opened and scattered its contents. He dropped his parcels. Apologies. We bumped heads reaching down for our scattered belongings. More apologies.

  When we’d got ourselves straightened around, belongings restored, I finally got a good look at my companion in misfortune, and to my distress, recognized him. If I hadn’t seen that he also recognized me, I’d have slipped away, but as it was I thought I’d better brazen it out. ‘Oh! I’ve forgotten your name, but didn’t we meet yesterday? Watching the video about the temple?’

  ‘Why, yes! Simon Caine, at your service. And you’re – wait a minute, I’ll get it – Doris Something.’

  ‘Dorothy, Dorothy Martin. You did better than I. I’ve a hopeless memory’ I pointed to his laden carrier bag. ‘Looks like this is a wonderful place for gift-shopping.’

  He ducked his head in embarrassment. ‘Got carried away, didn’t I? I do like souvenirs, but I’m asking myself, now, if my mates will like this lot as much as I do. I … um … I don’t suppose you’d like to come for a coffee with me and give me some advice?’

  No, that wouldn’t do at all. I had only this afternoon to try to talk to the student employees. ‘How kind of you to ask. And of course I’d be happy to help, but as I don’t know your friends, or their tastes, I’m afraid I’d be pretty useless. And I’ve my own shopping to do – grandchildren, you know.’