"What's your point, then, John?"
Wigfull picked his words judiciously. "I may be out of order, sir, but it seems to me that we have the opportunity of, er, staking out the gallery and pulling in these villains."
"Ah." The ACC's response was flat, still uncommitted.
"If so, it might be wise not to make a show of strengthening the security."
"You think so?"
"We don't want them getting suspicious."
"You're thinking of setting a trap?"
"With the Bumblebee team and a few others, I could catch them in the act, sir."
"Good thinking." Wigfull's plan had got the nod.
"I'll need officers I can rely on, sir, preferably people I know. As we were told that the murder squad isn't overburdened at this time—"
At the mention of his murder squad, Diamond jerked forward in his chair. "Hold on. How long will this pantomime go on for? I can't spare men to sit in an art gallery for weeks on end."
"It might improve their minds," said Tom Ray.
"You're not busy," said Wigfull. "You may not have a murder in the next month."
"I may commit one," muttered Diamond.
He had little chance of defending his empire. It was decreed by the ACC that four of the murder squad should be seconded at once to Operation Bumblebee. Wigfull picked them himself. He had the gall to pick Inspector Julie Hargreaves, Diamond's best detective.
"I can't release Julie."
"I need a woman," insisted Wigfull.
Tom Ray said, "Tell us something new."
Wigfull gave him a fish-eyed stare and said, "She'll be just right for this. She can sit behind the desk and sell postcards."
"Terrific," said Diamond. "Would you like her to dust the picture frames as well?"
Chapter Six
On Friday, the paper had a News in Brief item at the foot of page two about the murder of the Saltford bank manager and the magistrates' court appearance of the chief clerk. Stephanie Diamond spotted it by chance when she was looking for the weather forecast. The Guardian's layout always defeated her. Peter wasn't mentioned by name, but now she understood why he was working so late these evenings. He'd muttered something about a meeting as he'd climbed in beside her the wrong side of midnight. Most of his time at work seemed to be spent in meetings or filling in forms.
She timed his breakfast to perfection, lifting the two lightly coated eggs from the pan and placing them on the slice of fried bread beside the bacon and tomatoes just as he came downstairs. The pampering he got at breakfast helped him through the day. She reckoned it was a fair trade for the cup of tea he brought her in bed these chilly October mornings. She couldn't move a muscle without her fix of tea. And he often cooked dinner when he was home.
He reached for the paper and glanced at the football results. Missed the item on page two. Then he yawned.
"Any chance of an easier day today?" she asked him.
"Every chance," he said bleakly.
She felt a stirring of concern. "You haven't done anything rash?"
"Like what?"
"Like resigning again?"
He smiled faintly. "No. It's just gone flat."
"What do you expect in Avon and Somerset? The Himalayas?"
He cut into a fried egg. "I'm not ambitious. I'd settle for the Mendips, but all I see is the Somerset Levels. Take that murder that happened on Monday. The genius who did it walked up to me, shook my hand and confessed."
"That must have helped your clear-up rate."
He didn't answer. Statistics had never appealed to him.
"You can't have it all ways," Stephanie remarked. "We live in a gorgeous old city. It's going to be quiet. If you want serious action, you'd better start applying for jobs in Glasgow or Manchester, but don't ask me to come."
"Thanks." He put some more food in his mouth. "But you're wrong, Steph. Avon and Somerset isn't short of villains."
"You mean they're all in the police."
He grinned.
Stephanie said, "Which villains, then? Local farmers protesting about the bypass?"
"Professionals, I'm talking about. The smartest piece of shoplifting I ever heard of happened in my patch."
"In Bath?"
"Bristol. Didn't I ever tell you? They did one of those ultraexpensive dress shops."
"A boutique?"
"Yes, in Southmead. It was a night job. I don't know how many thousand quids' worth of designer gowns. They didn't break in, didn't smash anything, didn't leave any prints, didn't even set foot on the premises. We never caught them. Took us a long time to work out how it was done."
"If they didn't break in, they must have had a key," Stephanie guessed.
"No."
"Then it was some kind of inside job."
"It wasn't."
"Didn't set foot in the shop, you said?"
"Didn't need to."
"I give up. How was it done?"
"They worked through the letterbox with a twelve-foot boat hook. Dragged the display racks across the floor and tugged out the dresses one by one. Even the owner said she had to admire their cheek."
The kettle boiled, and he made instant coffee for them both, his thoughts on the day ahead. There were still three or four hours of form-filling for the Crown Prosecution Service. The chore couldn't be delegated. All his best people were on Operation Bumblebee now.
Stephanie turned up the volume on the radio. Diamond finished his breakfast in silence.
On BBC Radio Bristol some harbinger of gloom was wittering on about the traffic. If Steph was first downstairs she generally switched on the local station. When Diamond was forced to listen to anything at all in the morning he found it easier to tolerate the more pofaced Radio Four.
The short interval after he'd eaten and before he got up from the table was when Steph found it easiest to broach things she was planning. This morning, it was more of a confession she had in mind. "I don't think I told you," she began, not entirely honestly, because she knew for sure that she hadn't raised the subject until now. "A few weeks ago, soon after we moved in properly, when you were at work and I was trying to get some more of those damned teachests unpacked, I heard a noise behind me. Gave me a fright. It was this little cat, no more than a kitten really, playing about with the newspaper we'd wrapped the plates in. You'd think he belonged here." Steph saw an ominous look in her husband's eye and talked on rapidly. "I'd no idea where he came from. Naturally I asked around. Pete, he was a dear little thing with enormous ears and feet for his size and just a few stripes in the middle. I tried the people who were here before us, but they didn't know. In the end I did the right thing and took him up to Claverton."
"The home for strays?" Diamond said. "Yes, you did the right thing, Steph."
She nodded. "They get a lot of animals brought in. I didn't like leaving him really, being so young."
"Too young to care, probably."
"Oh, I don't know about that. Anyway, the young girl there said she'd let me know if he was claimed."
"And was he?" Diamond asked hopefully.
"Er, no."
"And where is he now? Still there?"
"I went to see him yesterday."
"To Claverton? What did that dingbat say?"
She swung around defiantly. He'd gone too far this time.
But Diamond wasn't insulting the people who took in strays. He got up from the table and reached for the radio. The speaker was well into some item: ". . . so if any of you geniuses listening out there can make better sense of it than we can, call me now. I'll give you the number presently. Is there something we ought to know? Is it like a Valentine message? Is it in code? Is it a cryptic crossword clue? I tell you one thing, for sure. It had better not be some wise guy trying to slip a commercial into BBC local radio or we're all in shtuck. No, my money is on a good, old-fashioned riddle. I understand we're not the only radio station to have received it. And the same message was sent to the local press. The whole region is going to be
racking its brains over this. Let's prove that Radio Bristol has the most intelligent audience. We can crack this together."
"Give it to us again, then," said Diamond, and you would think he had been heard, the response was so quick.
"I'm going to give it to you one more time before we move on to the sports news. Make sure you have something to write it down. Ready?
"'J.M.W.T.
Surrounded by security.
Victoria, you challenge me,
I shall shortly come to thee.'
"Got it? Chew on that for a bit. Must move on now. Sports news coming up next. But I kid you not, listeners, the message was received this morning, early, but early, and we have no idea what it means, or who sent it. What or who is J.M.W.T.? Who is Victoria when she's at home? Over to you."
Diamond reached across the table for the pen and the Guardian, placed ready for Stephanie's daily assault on the quick crossword. He made a note in the margin.
Stephanie remarked, "You're always telling me puzzles are a waste of time."
"Crossword puzzles, yes," he said, tearing off the scrap of paper and pocketing it.
She said, "About this kitten. I know if you saw it, you'd be captivated."
He said abstractedly. "Yes."
"Then you don't mind if. . ."
He said, "Anything you say, my love. Got to get off to work now."
At Manvers Street Police Station he found a worried John Wigfull in the communications room. The big black mustache was drooping ominously.
"I suppose you've heard," Wigfull said.
"Depends what you mean."
"This message about the Turner. It's all over the city. The radio. The papers. People are phoning in."
"I did catch something on the radio while I was having breakfast. There's no doubt in your mind, then?"
"J.M.W.T.," said Wigfull. "Turner's initials. And the mention of the Victoria Gallery. 'I shall shortly come to thee.' I'd say that's pretty conclusive. I'm up against a nutter."
"Sounds like a poet to me."
"Same thing."
"A public relations expert, anyway," said Diamond. "He's used the local media to some effect." .
"Is it just a stunt?" Wigfull asked, as though Diamond in his infinite wisdom might be able to confirm the fact. "If you're aiming to steal a picture, you don't broadcast it to all and sundry."
"Is the picture still in place?"
"Yes, thank God. I spoke to Julie Hargreaves a few minutes ago. She's at the gallery. I keep checking with her. Up to now, everything is in order."
"What's the problem, then?"
"No problem. Just that I'm bloody annoyed. First I get the tip that someone is about to stage a robbery and then, when I put a team in place, this message goes out, all over the city. Someone is doing his best to run rings around me."
Diamond suppressed the smile that wanted to come. "No chance you can spare Julie for a couple of hours, I suppose? I'm a bit pushed collecting statements of this Saltford incident. I've got all those bank clerks to interview. Julie does it so well."
"Sorry," said Wigfull. "She was assigned to me."
"If I went down to the gallery I could look at the security for you. I'm sure you've got it under control, but sometimes another pair of eyes will spot something."
"Do you think so?" Wigfull's eyes betrayed a flicker of uncertainty.
He parked illegally in Bridge Street under the statue of Queen Victoria that stands in a niche high up in the gallery's facade. For a Georgian city, Bath commemorates Victoria's name quite generously, with a park, a bridge, several streets, a pub and a burger bar, as well as the art gallery. Considering that Britain's longest-reigning monarch shunned the city for the whole of her reign, she scarcely deserved so much. She was brought there for a brief visit as a young girl, before she was Queen, and the story goes that while she was standing on the hotel balcony she was deeply offended to overhear someone remarking how thick her ankles were. Bath was struck off her visiting list forever.
Glancing up at the old killjoy as he got out of the car, Diamond weighed those words he had heard over breakfast: "Victoria, you challenge me. I shall shortly come to thee." Did the message mean what Wigfull had assumed, a threat to plunder the gallery of its Turner, regardless of the extra security? Or might it be interpreted another way?
It was not impossible that the cryptic message didn't refer to the owner of the thick ankles at all, but to some living Vicky who had a connection with the Turner. A curator? A gallery attendant? For God's sake, Diamond, he chided himself, it's Wigfull's problem, not yours.
A local journalist he recognized as from the Bath Chronicle was at the corner of Bridge Street, by the entrance, waiting to hear the latest. So much for the puzzle the whole region was supposedly racking its brains to solve.
"Are you on this case, Super?"
"What case?" Diamond rapped on the door, annoyed by that "Super." The gallery wasn't open to the public yet, but the security team would be inside.
"The Turner. Has it been knocked off?"
"I've no idea what you're talking about."
"Come on, Mr. Diamond. I've got my job to do, same as you."
"Nothing to my knowledge has been knocked off," said Diamond.
"It's still there?"
"Far as I know."
"You must be taking it seriously. You must be worried that they mean to have a go."
"Do I look worried?"
He heard the sound of bolts being withdrawn; One of the great wooden doors opened a fraction, and part of a face was briefly visible, followed by the sound of static from a personal radio. The door opened widely enough to admit him. The reporter said something about cooperation, and then Diamond stepped inside, and the door slammed in the face of the press, if rather more heavily than the constabulary intended.
The last time Diamond had seen the black-and-white marble tiled vestibule was when the lower floor had been in use as the public library. Now both floors were used as galleries, and the permanent collection was upstairs. He was escorted up the stone staircase past some paintings of rustic scenes, most of them featuring sheep, or what were intended by the artists to pass for sheep, but could have been giant, cream-colored rats, or armadillos. Landscape painters, he decided, weren't on the whole successful with sheep.
Not the sort who spent his leisure hours looking at art, he'd never ventured up here before, and it was grander than he expected. At the top of the stairs was a tiled area surrounded by columns supporting the dome of the building, the underside of which was decorated in gilt with the signs of the zodiac. He stepped into the gallery, and was surprised by its size. It was a fine example of Victorian pomp, big enough for a ball-room, some fifty feet high, with a copy of the Parthenon frieze extending right around the walls below the glazed, arched roof that extended the length of the room. There were no windows. The pictures in their ornate gilt frames were attached to maroon-colored walls, and some were displayed on purpose-built units along the center of the room.
"Safe as the Bank of England, I would have thought," he remarked to Julie Hargreaves, who had got up from behind the attendant's desk to greet him. "I suppose he could try a Riflfi-styleentry from the roof."
A look of incomprehension crossed Julie's face, and he realized that the film Rififi must have been made before she was born. Not for the first time, he had to remind himself that his best support in the murder squad was female and not much over thirty. Julie was a colleague he could rely on absolutely. She was as bright as a brand-new coin, and it was a measure of her professionalism that he disregarded her good looks. He hoped it wasn't a measure of his advancing years.
"It was a film," he informed her. "Maybe you saw one called Topkapi? Same method of entry . . . No? Never mind."
"Two men spent the night on the roof," she told him.
"Two of ours?"
She laughed. "I hope so. There are two more up there now."
"I take it that the picture is still in place?"
&nb
sp; "I expect you'd like to see it." She led him across the gallery to one of the display units in the center. "It's not so big as I imagined."
He looked at the fixings before he examined the painting. The Turner was secured to the wooden unit with nails driven through small metal plates projecting from the back of the frame. A thief equipped with a crowbar wouldn't take long to achieve his purpose, but no system has been devised that will withstand that kind of assault. Galleries are better employed installing alarm systems and strong locks.
As for the painting, he was less than impressed. It was a muted watercolor, a view of the Abbey from across the churchyard at an angle that to Diamond's eye was distorted, making the West Front outrageously taller than it is. He'd often sat on one of the wooden seats in the yard and looked at the building from that direction. Bath Abbey projected a sort of charm, but it had never pretended to be lofty. It wasn't as if the painting had other merits to compensate. He could see nothing remarkable in the pale blue and yellow ocher coloring or the brush-work. The total effect reminded him of a dull Sunday. Toward the bottom of the picture was an empty sedan chair with two attendants beside it, and elsewhere the artist had tried to add some interest by including several figures of women in long skirts.
"Would you hang it in your front room?" he asked Julie.
She smiled slightly. "I think it ought to be here, where everyone can enjoy it."
"Be honest. Turner may have painted some wonderful pictures, but this one is crap."
She said, "There's a lot worse. There's one on the wall over there called The Bride of Death that gives me the creeps. It's really depressing."
He told her that he was reclaiming her from John Wigfull, and the relief on her face was obvious. She preferred real people, even if it meant statement-taking, to looking at Victorian deathbed scenes. She called up one of the sergeants on duty downstairs and instructed him to take over in the gallery until her replacement arrived.
Chapter Seven
Bloodhounds Page 4
