The Stone Wife

by Peter Lovesey

  “Why shouldn’t Professor Gildersleeve?”

  Dr. Poke got the gist of that remark and appreciated it with a scythe-like smile. He wasn’t without envy.

  “So you seriously believe it was a sound investment for him?”

  “He acted as if it was. As you just pointed out, he was willing to put up twenty-four thousand of his wife’s money.”

  “Were they very well off?”

  “Monica came into millions when she divorced. I thought you’d met her. She travelled to Bath to identify him.”

  Halliwell cleared his throat. “I should have told you, guv. She was at the mortuary first thing this morning, doing the ID before the autopsy.”

  Diamond’s eyes rolled upwards. The drive from Bath had been a perfect opportunity to mention this. He wondered if Halliwell was losing his grip. He’d never known him so silent. “Did you speak to her?”

  “No, guv. She’d come and gone.”

  “A resourceful woman,” Dr. Poke said. “Her second marriage. John’s first.”

  “How long were they together?”

  Dr. Poke said primly, “Only the lady herself could tell you and I doubt whether she will.”

  “Why?”

  “They had what used to be known as an adulterous relationship for some time—I would say at least two years—before she obtained her divorce. They only tied the knot last autumn.”

  “We’ll need to speak to her.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. She’s staying in Bath with her sister, getting over the shock. It sounds as if you have her contact details.”

  A glance towards Halliwell confirmed this much. “I presume Monica will tell us why the professor put such a high value on the carving.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “If it was her money he was bidding with, she must have wanted a say in the deal.”

  Poke released a long sigh, as if in despair at how little these so-called detectives knew. “It was a trifling amount to Monica. She brought a fortune to the marriage. Her ex is a property developer who floated his company on the stock exchange and trousered millions. She made sure she got her legal entitlement when they divorced.”

  The high bidding at the auction was more understandable now. “Have you spoken to Monica since the shooting?”

  “I sent a sympathy card.” Said without any sympathy at all.

  “Is her ex-husband still about?”

  “Bernie Wefers? He’s everywhere.”

  Diamond blinked at that.

  Poke said, as if to a dull first-year unlikely to make it to the second, “You see his name on boards all over the south of England. He’s been scarring the green belt with his affordable housing for years.”

  Diamond recalled seeing the surname.

  “Was the professor popular with his colleagues here?”

  “Popularity isn’t a concept we’re familiar with. The faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Science is not a working man’s social club. We’re academics. He wasn’t overtly disliked, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Eccentric?”

  “Come now, we’re not all like that. I’d call him colourless.”

  “But capable of excitement?”

  “Admittedly, going by what happened at the auction, but it didn’t manifest itself in his professional life. It was obvious to all of us that the prospect of acquiring the Wife of Bath lit some kind of fuse. I’ve seen it with other people. A cloistered existence can be very dull. We need the occasional pick-me-up.”

  “Was he sure the piece was genuine?”

  “Supremely confident. They’re reputable auctioneers, aren’t they? And he wasn’t the only one prepared to bid high.” He hesitated. “Don’t tell me it’s actually a fake. That would turn a tragedy into a fiasco.”

  “It’s real,” Diamond said. “I tripped over the damn thing in my office yesterday and you can take it from me it isn’t polystyrene. It’s solid Bath stone.”

  “Fitting.”

  “Why?”

  “The Wife of Bath in Bath stone.” From the look Dr. Poke gave Diamond, this conversation had become a pain.

  “Got you,” Diamond said, unperturbed. “Let’s explore that. We know Chaucer got around a bit. Did he ever live in the West Country?”

  “He may have done, but it’s far from certain. I can’t give chapter and verse without checking the textbooks.”

  “Let’s do it now. There’ll be some in the professor’s office, won’t there? You said you’d show us.”

  “Did not,” Poke said. “You announced that you’d be taking a look. It’s not for me to invite you into a colleague’s office, even if he’s dead.”

  “I can’t be bothered with the niceties. We’re on an investigation.”

  The office next door was similar in layout to Poke’s, but with more evidence of its user, with poster-size maps of medieval Britain and Europe and behind the desk a small framed print of a figure on horseback reproduced from some medieval manuscript.

  “Geoffrey Chaucer,” Poke said with a flick of the coiffure. “The Ellesmere portrait, from the manuscript I mentioned, now in California.”

  “Either the horses were small in those days or the artists were piss-poor at proportion,” Diamond said. “This is like the poor old nag in the Wife of Bath sculpture, no bigger than a large dog.”

  “A miniature pony?” Halliwell suggested.

  “The figure of the poet is exaggerated to give him status,” Poke said. “It’s a good likeness.”

  “How do you know? You didn’t meet him.”

  Dr. Poke was unamused. He reserved his smiles for his own wit. “It’s one of several portraits in existence. The National Portrait Gallery has another, an oil painting on a panel, a standing figure, without the horse, and there are at least two others in manuscripts.”

  Diamond stepped closer to the picture. Chaucer was wearing some kind of head dress. Sharp brown eyes, a straight nose with a strong bridge and a moustache and beard trimmed at the edges to leave the side of his face clear of whiskers. A modern face, intelligent and with a sense of destiny. If you want to know more about me, the poet seemed to be saying, you’ll have to work harder than this. I don’t give up my secrets easily.

  “I can assure you, gentlemen,” Poke added, “that John Gildersleeve knew what Chaucer looked like. He was the leading authority in this country and probably the world on portraits of the poet. A few years ago he was asked by the National Portrait Gallery to authenticate a newly discovered drawing said to have been of Chaucer. They were proposing to buy it for some ridiculous amount. He was able to demonstrate that it was of the poet’s son, Thomas, and thus saved the gallery a great deal of money.”

  “I hope they rewarded him.”

  “I’ve no idea. He didn’t discuss it with me, but the story was in the national press. The man trying to sell the drawing had some hard things to say. His own reputation as an art dealer was seriously dented.”

  “I’m surprised Professor Gildersleeve didn’t discuss it with you. You obviously know about these things.”

  “We only spoke when it was absolutely necessary.”

  The notion of these two academics obliged to work closely together, yet unwilling to communicate, was puzzling Diamond. Pure chemistry—or had there been some issue between them?

  Halliwell said in an awed tone from in front of a wall of books, “Do you think the professor read all of these?”

  “Some people still possess books,” Dr. Poke said. His own collection was pathetic by comparison. “Others store them electronically.”

  “And others nick them from the library,” Diamond said, taking one down and confirming what he’d suspected from the lettering on the spine by opening it at a date-sheet headed Reading Public Library. It was a life of Chaucer by an American. He thumbed through the pages and found a chronology of the significant events in Chaucer’s life. “This may be helpful.” But presently he said, “Three pages of dates and places and not a mentio
n of the West Country.”

  “We can’t expect to strike gold the first time,” Halliwell said.

  “How true,” Poke said. He selected a book and turned to the index with obvious confidence of finding what he was looking for.

  Diamond went over to the desk and switched on the computer. He was no expert, but he knew the basics these days and after the condescending remark about e-books he intended to demonstrate that he wasn’t out of the Stone Age.

  “Should you be doing that?” Poke asked. “It seems disrespectful.”

  “He isn’t going to object,” Diamond said. “We’ll be taking it with us, anyway.”

  He accessed the emails. A check of the inbox revealed little of interest. It seemed to be monopolised by online booksellers.

  “Found it,” Poke said, looking up from the book in his hand. “Towards the end of his life Chaucer was named as deputy forester of Petherton Park in Somerset.”

  “Forester?”

  “Deputy. I expect it was a sinecure,” Poke said. “A way of thanking him for services rendered to the king. He completed diplomatic missions to France and Italy and he was a senior civil servant, the clerk of the king’s works, with responsibility for the construction and repair of numerous buildings, including all the royal palaces.”

  “The Bernie Wefers of his day.”

  Poke wasn’t amused. “Hardly. In case you were wondering, I doubt very much whether the clerk of the king’s works practised tree surgery as well.” He raised a finger. “It’s come back to me now. Some years ago, John Gildersleeve spent a whole summer down there under canvas with a group of students on an abortive excavation of a house said to have been owned by Chaucer.”

  “Abortive?”

  “They found absolutely nothing. He became a laughing stock. I doubt if he ever got over it.”

  “This might explain why he got so excited when the Wife of Bath came up for sale.”

  “A vindication of his wasted summer?” Poke said. “That’s not outside the realms of possibility.”

  “Have you heard of Petherton Park?” Diamond asked Halliwell. “I’m damned if I have.”

  “There’s a small town called North Petherton on the A38, south of Bridgwater.”

  “The same place, but there’s no certainty Chaucer ever went there,” Poke said with a clear desire to undermine them as well as his former colleague. “He was living in London at the end of his life.”

  Diamond ignored him and spoke to Halliwell. “How far south of Bridgwater?”

  “Only two or three miles. Strange that the Wife of Bath should end up in the museum there.”

  “Correction,” Diamond said. “She ended up in my office.”

  “There’s something else about the place,” Poke said, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Something far more interesting. It’ll come to me presently.”

  “Petherton Park?”

  “North Petherton. I’m trying to think. It has associations with Anglo-Saxon studies. Would it be the church, I wonder? No, I have it now.” He clasped his hands in triumph. “North Petherton is where one of the great Anglo-Saxon treasures was found—the Alfred Jewel, a spectacular piece from the ninth century, unearthed by a ploughman over three hundred years ago, filigreed gold enclosing a highly polished piece of clear rock crystal, now in the Ashmolean at Oxford. The lettering round the side provides evidence that it was made for King Alfred.”

  “All I know about Alfred is that he burnt the cakes.”

  Dr. Poke’s tongue clicked in contempt. “Supposedly at Athelney, where he took refuge from the Vikings. Such stories must be treated with reserve. However, Athelney is a mere four miles from North Petherton. This is my period. I can tell you a lot about Alfred.”

  “We’ll pass on that, unless it ties in with Chaucer,” Diamond said.

  “Hardly. Chaucer came five hundred years later.”

  Halliwell spoke up. “Well, what if the jewel was presented to Chaucer in thanks for all the services he performed for the king? It may have been a gift from the royal family.”

  “And then he loses the thing?” Diamond said. “Unlikely. I think we can safely forget about the Alfred Jewel. I’m interested in the link with Chaucer. It’s safe to say Professor Gildersleeve thought there was good evidence, even if he failed to find it.”

  “We can make a search online,” Halliwell said.

  Seated in front of the computer, Diamond could hardly refuse. Never comfortable with technology, he grasped the mouse and stared at the screen.

  Halliwell said, “It’s one of the icons at the bottom.”

  “I know, I know.” He found the Google icon and typed in PETHERTON PARK.

  “Put in Chaucer’s name while you’re at it,” Dr. Poke said. “See what you get.”

  Up came a welter of results. The one that caught Diamond’s attention was towards the bottom of the screen. In bold blue letters: CHAUCER CLOSE, NORTH PETHERTON.

  “Promising.”

  The other two moved to his side to look. He pointed to the name and immediately the list of websites was replaced by an estate agent’s website with a list of houses.

  “How did that happen?”

  “It’s touch-sensitive,” Poke said.

  “You see?” Halliwell touched the screen and restored the list of hits. “But this is good news. North Petherton must be the right place.”

  “I wouldn’t get too excited. We’ve got a Chaucer Close in Reading,” Poke said.

  “There’s a Chaucer Road in Bath,” Diamond said.

  Halliwell leaned over Diamond and brought up a map that showed the location of North Petherton. “Well, I wasn’t wrong about where it is, just down the road from Bridgwater.”

  “I saw another hit mentioning Petherton Park,” Diamond said.

  They returned to it and Halliwell was proved correct. Petherton Park, North Petherton, was, indeed, a one-time forest, and Geoffrey Chaucer had been the deputy forester from 1391. After his death in 1400, his son, Thomas, had succeeded him with the title of forester and had lived in the Park House in Park House Field, currently known as Parker’s Field.

  “This is getting better,” Diamond said. “We have a house.” He was starting to enjoy the hunt for evidence. He could even see some pleasure in using the internet.

  “It tells us the son lived there,” Poke said, “not necessarily the father.”

  “But we now know that being the forester was more than—what was your word?”

  “A sinecure.”

  “Yes, Thomas Chaucer must have taken the job seriously, so why shouldn’t his father have lived in Petherton Park before him? Nothing says he did, but nothing says he didn’t. And if there was a house, it wouldn’t be remarkable if somewhere in the structure they commemorated The Canterbury Tales with a piece of sculpture. Does Park House still exist?”

  “You’re an optimist,” Poke said. “Just as poor Gildersleeve was.”

  Notes from a website called British History Online revealed that Park House had been in place as early as 1336 and may have been renamed The Lodge about 1400. Most of it was dismantled during Queen Elizabeth’s reign.

  “Pieces may have been preserved,” Halliwell said, “particularly anything associated with Chaucer himself.”

  “All of this is tenuous, to say the least,” Poke said.

  Diamond nodded. “But at the end of the day, I have a chunk of masonry in my office that no one disputes is the Wife of Bath. And she must have come from somewhere.”

  With the computer and other items from Professor Gildersleeve’s office stacked into the boot of Halliwell’s car, the two detectives drove home. They agreed on one thing: Dr. Poke was a jealous man as well as a pompous twit.

  “He thought he should have been the professor,” Halliwell said.

  “With Gildersleeve dead, he may get his wish,” Diamond said. “But in case you’re about to say it gives him a motive for murder, let’s keep a grip on what really happened. The professor was shot because he tried to take
on the hold-up men. Everyone who was there agrees on that. The mystery is why he was so possessive about the Wife of Bath.”

  “And who hired the robbers.”

  “Exactly. I can’t picture Dr. Poke staging a hold-up himself, even if he thought it would upset his rival to this extent.”

  “He’d be obvious, with a voice like his, and that hair.”

  “They were wearing balaclavas, remember.”

  “Well, he isn’t the gun-toting type,” Halliwell said.

  “Agreed. But I didn’t ask him where he was on the day of the auction. Slipped up, there.”

  “I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that, guv.”

  “One thing he said gave me a bit of a turn. About the curse of the Wife of Bath. I’m sharing an office with her.”

  “He was on about Tutankhamun’s curse, the old story about people dying during the excavations, supposedly because they disturbed the tomb. Load of balls dreamed up to sell newspapers.”

  They checked in at the incident room at the end of the afternoon and found an email printout from the CSI team. Diamond read it, frowning, and jerked back in disbelief.

  “Something the matter?” Halliwell asked.

  He handed the paper across. “The bullet that killed the professor was more than fifty years old. It was a thirty-eight calibre designed to be used with a Webley Mark IV revolver.”

  Halliwell looked it through. “That’s a name from the past. Webley. The army were using them as standard sidearms in the war.”

  “Both wars.”

  “Long time ago. It says here the Mark IV remained in service until 1963.”

  “When sexual intercourse began.”

  From Halliwell’s dropjaw reaction, it was obvious he missed the reference.

  In a lofty tone, Diamond said, “The Larkin poem. Do I have to quote the lines? And you thought I was just a Chaucer expert.”

  Halliwell was lost for words.

  “Don’t look like that. Let’s stay with guns. You’re going to ask me how they can tell it was fired from a Webley and not some other weapon.”