The Bath Conspiracy

by Jeanne M. Dams

  ‘And my first priority, wife, is to keep you from falling victim, yourself.’

  ‘Me? But I’m not—’

  ‘Andrew warned you, and he’s an extremely astute and observant young man. You’re not leaving my side until we get this cleared up.’

  I would deal with that pronouncement later. Right now, I had another concern. ‘Rob, does he have a wife? Family?’

  ‘I don’t know. You know he’s studying to enter the force, but we don’t have background info on him yet. My people will be looking into it.’

  ‘Dorothy,’ said Sylvie quietly, ‘don’t worry about that part. I’ll visit any family he might have. I’ve always felt that to be part of my duty as a policeman’s wife.’

  I was immediately ashamed of myself for never having thought of such a thing. Of course, by the time I met Alan he wasn’t actively working cases anymore. Still …

  Alan squeezed my hand and gave me the look that always brings tears to my eyes, the one that says I love you and I think you’re wonderful. I blinked them back, cleared my throat, and said, ‘Good. But Rob, you’ll let me know how Andrew gets along, right?’

  ‘And,’ Alan added, ‘exactly what he meant by that cryptic message. It will be far easier for Dorothy to protect herself if she knows what hazards to avoid.’

  ‘For one thing,’ I said briskly, ‘crowded intersections. Rob, Sylvie, I hope you won’t think us rude, but we have a lot to think about. Do you mind if we take this lovely food home? To the B&B, I mean. There’s a microwave we can use, and I know it won’t be quite the same, but it will still be good.’

  The staff seemed astonished at our request. Apparently no one, but no one, ever failed to eat every scrap of their delectable food. But since they also did take-away, they were able to provide containers for our almost-untouched meals.

  Alan waited until we were in the car before saying, ‘That fish will be rather disgusting re-heated.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. I’m not really hungry. We can throw it out, or give it to the cat.’

  ‘Our landlady has a cat?’

  ‘I have no idea. Probably. Alan, what are we going to do about this mess?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  That was the most devastating statement I’d ever heard from Alan. He always has ideas. He never gives up. When I’m tempted to throw in the towel, he always encourages me to give it another try.

  I was speechless. What could we do?

  A trite, silly phrase ran through my mind. Where would I go if I were a horse? The standard, not very useful advice for someone trying to find something. Where would I go if I were a kitten? Where would I go if I were a lost phone?

  What would I do if I were a thief?

  ‘Alan, I’ve thought of something we could try. Haven’t you tried, at times in your career, to get yourself into the mind of the criminal? To try to work out his motives, or find him, or plan how to capture him?’

  ‘Yes, on the odd occasion.’

  ‘Well, then, let’s take what we know about this guy, and see if we can’t get into his mind.’

  ‘You’re sure it’s a man.’

  ‘I’m not sure of anything, but multiple pronouns are a pain. Besides, I’m of a generation that understood “he” could at times be non-gender-specific. So what do we know about him?’

  ‘Damn all!’

  ‘Now, now. We know a lot, actually. For one thing, we know he’s extremely undiscriminating about his thefts. Expensive stuff, worthless junk, old, new – he doesn’t seem to care.’

  ‘There’s one constant, though,’ said Alan, getting a little interested in spite of himself. ‘Everything he’s stolen, or at least everything he stashed in our car – for which I’m pining to get even – everything there had to do with the history of Bath.’

  ‘Or Stonehenge.’

  ‘That can almost count as an extension of Bath.’

  ‘Or the other way round,’ I objected, ‘since Stonehenge came first, by a few millennia.’

  ‘All right, Bath and environs. History and prehistory, indeed.’

  ‘From the bluestone, quarried circa 3000 BC, to the postcard of Fox Talbot’s famous photograph in the mid-nineteenth century.’

  ‘I think,’ said Alan in his pedantic mode, ‘we must remember that we have no idea when our particular chunk of bluestone was quarried.’

  ‘Nit-picking. It was obviously intended to represent the Stonehenge monoliths. So we have the third millennium BC, and then a long gap until the first century or so AD, and the next few, and then another long gap to the Jane Austen era, late-eighteenth to early-nineteenth century, and then a very few years to Fox Talbot. Is there anything we can glean from that timeline?’

  ‘Only that, if our thief is a historian, his interests are somewhat eclectic. There is a good deal of history not touched, even if you discount the first couple of thousand years. The establishment and disestablishment of the abbey, for instance, and its later history of rebuilding. The whole Georgian era, with its remarkable architecture that shaped the face of Bath.’

  ‘Hmm. Is there a museum of the architecture, I wonder?’

  ‘There is. I have never visited it.’

  ‘Maybe it doesn’t have a gift shop with good stuff to filch. Or maybe our villain just isn’t interested in architecture.’

  Alan shrugged at that.

  ‘What I do find very interesting, though, now that you’ve brought it up, is that nothing seems to be connected to the abbey. And they do have a gift shop, small but quite nice.’

  ‘True. Now, what else is there to note about the thefts?’

  We thought, silently, but neither of us came up with anything.

  ‘All right. Now, I’ve written all this down.’ I flourished my notebook. ‘Do we have enough to understand our crook a little?’

  ‘A little, perhaps. Not much.’

  ‘No, but it’s all we’ve got. So. I’m a crook, living in Bath. I decide that I want artefacts, no matter how trivial, from various important eras in Bath’s history. The easiest place to steal most of them is from the museum shops. I don’t care if they have intrinsic value or not. And that means … what?’

  ‘That you have no plans to sell them. Either you want them for yourself, to build some kind of crazy collection, or you are stealing them for someone else, for the same reason – a daft collection.’

  ‘And I’m not stealing anything from the abbey gift shop, because …’

  Alan ran a hand down the back of his neck. ‘I don’t know. It could be that you’re not interested in ecclesiastical history.’

  ‘That won’t wash. Stonehenge, it could be argued, is not ecclesiastical, exactly, but certainly religious. The baths were a part of a temple compound. I’d say religion is very much a part of his – my – focus. Anyway, if we’re right, it isn’t the thief’s interests that matter, but those of whoever is going to get the collection eventually – who apparently is very interested in religion.’

  ‘But only pagan religions, not Christian?’

  ‘Possibly. Possibly.’

  I put down my notebook and stretched. ‘I’m thunk out. I don’t know if we’ve made any progress or not, and I’m sure we haven’t come any closer to figuring out why Andrew was attacked. Andrew, of all people! But I’m tired, and I’m hungry enough even to eat some of that fish and chips.’

  ‘So am I. If washed down with sufficient alcoholic help. I’ll see to the microwave if you’ll pour the libations.’

  So we had a meal that quieted our hunger pangs, if not our misgivings, and went to bed early. It was a long time, though, before I could stop worrying about Andrew.

  NINETEEN

  Morning came, as is its wont. It brought no light to my mind or my heart. And little, for that matter, to the bedroom. It was still raining outside; the sky was charcoal grey. I wanted to burrow back into my pillow and sleep until spring.

  But: problems. Duties. The squirrel in my head took up his round on the w
heel, making further sleep impossible. Anyway, I’d slept long enough. However little it looked like it, morning was definitely here.

  Alan was still dead to the world, so I got up, showered, and made coffee for both of us. That tantalizing smell brought him to consciousness. We drank our coffee in the silence a nasty grey day imposed.

  ‘Well,’ said Alan finally.

  ‘Yes.’ I looked at the alarm clock. ‘Breakfast? It’s getting late.’

  He yawned. ‘Right. Ten minutes.’

  A man can say that sort of thing and mean it. In exactly nine minutes he was showered, dressed, and awake. In that order.

  Breakfast was as good, and as plentiful, as ever. We were both hungry after our unsatisfying dinner, but after a few bites I stopped eating. The eggs and bacon were apparently made of sawdust or chalk.

  ‘Alan, what are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re going to see Andrew in the hospital,’ he said decisively. ‘We’ve got to have something solid to work with, and it sounds as if he knows some things we don’t.’

  ‘He might talk more freely if I weren’t there. Man to man, you know.’

  Alan set down his coffee cup very carefully. ‘We are going together, or not at all. I know you don’t like to be restrained. I know you think you don’t need protection, nor do you want it. You’re a free spirit, and I respect that. But until this villain is found and locked up, I am going to be by your side at all times. Period. Amen.’

  Well, we’ve argued this point over the years until Alan finally abandoned his in-bred English male chivalry and reluctantly let me take my own risks. I looked at his face this time. It couldn’t have been more set if it had been carved into Mount Rushmore.

  I said mildly, ‘You may raise some eyebrows when you accompany me into the ladies’ room.’

  That made him smile a little, but he wasn’t going to budge one inch. ‘I’ll be just outside. With my ears tuned to any strange noise. Are you going to eat any more of that, or shall we go?’

  ‘I thought I was hungry, but I don’t want any more. Ready as soon as I go up for my raincoat and my purse.’

  He was right behind me on the stairs.

  I thought we might have trouble at the hospital, as it was well before visiting hours, but I’d forgotten the power of Alan’s warrant card. He’s not technically supposed to use it now that he’s retired, but in situations like this he finds flourishing it to be more efficient than arguing.

  The guard was seated just inside Andrew’s room, with the door open. He stood up and came to the door as we approached. ‘Sorry, sir, madam. This patient is not allowed visitors.’

  ‘Well done, Sergeant,’ said Alan sotto voce. ‘If you’d like to phone Inspector Roberts, I believe he’ll allow an exception in our case.’

  Alan pulled out the warrant card again. The young man read it carefully, then handed it back with a smile. ‘Yes, sir. The inspector did order me to let you and your wife in. You’ll find Mr Williams still somewhat groggy, and in a good deal of pain. I think the nurses would ask you to limit your visit.’

  Andrew looked awful. His skin, normally the lovely Jamaican coffee-cream, was greyish. His right arm was in a cast all the way from the shoulder, with only the tips of his fingers showing. He managed a smile, though, and nodded at the only chair in the room. ‘Do come in. I’ve been expecting you. Sorry, Mrs Martin.’

  It took me a second or two to realize that he was apologizing for not standing when I came into the room, and I very nearly lost my composure, but I hid my face for a moment and gravely took the indicated chair.

  ‘I won’t ask how you’re feeling,’ I said. ‘I can guess, and I don’t think you usually use that kind of language.’

  ‘The drugs help a bit,’ he said. ‘It’s only broken bones. They will heal.’

  Alan, standing at the foot of the bed, said, ‘Andrew, they’ll only let us stay for a few minutes. So I don’t want to be unsympathetic, but we need to know why you warned my wife.’

  ‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘It must be important, or you wouldn’t have made the effort to speak through the pain.’

  He pushed himself a little higher in the bed. ‘It’s a long story, and nothing is what you, sir, would consider evidence. But I’ll try to summarize.’ He paused for a moment. ‘You know that the Rolls has communication between driver and passengers. You used it.’

  We nodded.

  ‘Passengers can control it, as you discovered, but not everyone realizes that. I usually speak up after a few minutes to tell them where the controls are, so they’re not embarrassed by some indiscretion. Last Sunday I left it too late.’ He coughed and swallowed. I handed him the glass of water.

  ‘I picked up this man at the hotel a little before noon. He was talking on the phone when he got in the car, and continued before I could say a word. What I heard was this: “Trouble with the American woman. She is the prying, interfering sort.” And then a pause, while he listened. Then: “Yes, I quite understand. Certainly this is too important to be stopped at this point, when you’re so close. I’ll see to it. She won’t bother us any more, I promise.” Another pause. “Yes, that will be splendid. I’ll check with my bank tomorrow.” Then he rang off. I looked in the mirror and saw him put his phone in his pocket. Then he laughed to himself, a nasty sort of laugh, and said, “Silly bitch.” He was quiet the rest of the way, until I dropped him off at the Abbey. I thought at the time it was really stupid to hire a limo for that short way; he could have walked it.’

  ‘And of course you never let him know the mike was on,’ I said.

  ‘No. But I think he worked it out somehow. Why else would he have tried to kill me?’

  Alan leaned forward. ‘You think he was involved in what happened later. Why?’

  ‘I think he hired the limo to scope me out. If he’s in on the thefts, as I believe he is, he would have known that you used the limo when your own car was unavailable. I think he thought you might have talked to me about them. Or something.’

  He was tiring. Alan leaned forward and asked the critical question. ‘Andrew, who was he?’

  ‘The name he gave when he hired the car,’ said Andrew in an expressionless voice, ‘was John Smith.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ I almost wept. ‘But what did he look like? How did he speak? Didn’t he give you any clues at all? How about his credit card?’

  My voice had risen. It was a shame I hadn’t been able to keep quiet, for the noise brought a nurse into the room.

  ‘I understood the police were allowing no visitors,’ she said in her starchiest voice. Nurses no longer wear the starched uniforms and caps of my distant youth, but they do often wear the equivalent attitudes.

  ‘We are the police,’ said Alan. Well, it was only a little white lie. ‘We have some important questions about his accident—’

  She overrode him, not an easy thing to do to my husband. ‘They can wait. Right now my patient needs quiet, and I intend to see that he gets it.’

  ‘But I wanted—’ Andrew began.

  ‘We have only—’ from Alan.

  ‘Not now. Please be quiet as you leave. There are other very sick people on this floor.’

  She had been edging us toward the door, and now shut it firmly, leaving us in the hallway.

  ‘Well! That’s the very first time I’ve seen you defeated by a nurse. When I was in the hospital in Durham, you routed her utterly.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to let some officious female get between me and my wife. This is a different situation.’

  ‘But he was about to tell us something important. How frustrating!’

  ‘Dorothy, try to remember he is a man with painful injuries. He’s probably on a morphine drip. He truly should be allowed to rest. I’ll give the sergeant some questions to ask when Andrew is able to deal with them. Meanwhile, I’m going to call Rob and give him a full report. He will be able to trace that passenger further.’

  He pulled out his phone. A nurse walking by shook a finger at him. ‘Not allowed h
ere. Outside, please.’

  I tried to think of something that would moderate his chagrin at being told off twice in five minutes. I couldn’t. But I did manage not to giggle.

  Once back in our car, Alan phoned Rob and told him of the conversation Andrew overheard, and asked him to try to trace the man who ordered the limo. I had settled down enough by then to control my reaction to his defeats.

  ‘And now?’ I asked when he had finished the call.

  ‘We find ourselves some lunch, and then we wait.’

  ‘Alan, I’m so tired of restaurant meals! Do you suppose there’s a Tesco’s someplace?’

  Alan looked at his phone again, poked it a few times, spoke into it, and said in satisfaction, ‘There are several, in fact, and one’s not far from here. Walking distance.’

  ‘Not in this rain, it isn’t! Drive there, and if there’s no place to park, I’ll go in while you drive around.’

  ‘You will not.’ He pulled out of the car park. ‘You keep forgetting. Siamese twins, my love. Joined at the hip.’

  I made an exasperated noise. He ignored me.

  There was no parking place near the shop. We might almost as well have stayed in the hospital car park. We were both drenched when we got to Tesco, and I was in a very bad temper.

  ‘So unnecessary!’ I muttered. ‘I’ll only be here a few minutes! What could happen to me in a crowded supermarket?’

  Alan continued to ignore me and kept scanning the crowd. He looked like a Secret Service agent, and I almost told him so.

  His phone rang, and I thought I could escape him for a moment and slip into the frozen food aisle, but he took a firm hold on my arm and led me to a quiet corner while he listened, now and then making a face. He ended the call and sighed. ‘The man booked the limo through the concierge at the Royal George, claiming he was checking in as soon as he got back from his little jaunt. Booked it under the name of John Smith, as Andrew reported. The concierge didn’t check; the guy was fast-talking and plausible. There certainly are people named John Smith in this world.’