Shirley-Ann found herself galloping to the defense of two of her favorite writers. "Thick-eared? That's just what they aren't. They're intelligent. They take on issues."
"Like feminism." He barely concealed a sneer. "Or should I say postfeminism?"
"You can't have read them. They say more about modern society-and more convincingly-than most of the so-called serious novels."
He laughed. "I was winding you up. And I haven't read them. Being an artist, I'm into graphic novels, told in pictures- what you would call comics for adults."
"Thick-eared."
"With a vengeance. But the artwork can be brilliant."
"And do you enjoy winding people up, as you put it?"
"Enormously."
"Women in particular?"
His lips twitched out of the smile that was forming. "You're about to accuse me of sexism, or something worse. Women are just as good as men at piss-taking, you know. No, I treat 'em all alike. A sucker is a sucker is a sucker."
"Is that what you took me for?"
He grinned. "Just testing."
In spite of bridling at almost everything he said, she was beginning to enjoy the exchanges. She wouldn't confide in a man like that except under extreme torture, but she found the argument stimulating. Men of his sort should be put to work like bowling machines in women's assertiveness classes.
The sparring went no further because Jessica burst in carrying a Waitrose bag full of groceries. On seeing Shirley-Ann, she put her hand to her blond hair and pushed it back from her forehead, but there was no need. Even after the hassle of shopping she looked ready to step onto the catwalk in the pale blue suit she was wearing. "Well, this is so terrific!" she exclaimed.
"I just dropped in as you suggested," said Shirley-Ann. She had got up too quickly from the chair, teacup in hand, and slopped some in the saucer. She would never be poised like Jessica.
"I'm so pleased you did."
A.J. added without the hint of a smile, "And we just agreed that Mickey Spillane is the greatest crime writer in the world."
"We did not!" protested Shirley-Ann.
"Or was it Peter Cheyney? Dames Don't Care."
Jessica said, "Give it a rest, A.J." Then, to Shirley-Ann, "He's full of crap. Do sit down."
"He's one of the New Men," said A.J. about himself. "He made the lady a superb cup of tea. Pot's still warm. Want one?"
"Warm is no good to me. Make a fresh pot." When they were alone, Jessica said to Shirley-Ann, "Sorry you had to find him in charge. He can be fun in small doses. I'll get rid of him, and then I can show you around in peace. He's extremely rude about all the work except his own."
"He kept me entertained. Does he really know anything about crime fiction?"
"A smattering. Just enough to irritate. You don't want to tell him too much about yourself. He's a dreadful tease, and he'll use anything he can discover."
"That doesn't surprise me at all."
When AJ. returned with the tea, Jessica thanked him for standing in for her and said she'd just seen a traffic warden starting to check the cars in Walcot Street.
"Did you make it up?" asked Shirley-Ann, after A.J. had dashed out.
She smiled. "He lives dangerously. Never buys a parking ticket. He'd do the same to me, only worse, much more bizarre. Probably tell me he saw a circus procession passing through and an elephant leaned against my car. And I'd fall for it, because the one time I disbelieve him you can be damned sure there will be a damned great jumbo sitting on my bonnet."
"He's an artist, he told me," Shirley-Ann said, keen to know more without probing too directly.
"Yes, that's how we got to know each other. His work sells quite well. Life studies, rather different from the usual thing. I'll show you presently."
"Of women?"
Jessica shrugged. "What would you expect? Male nudes don't sell unless they're by Michelangelo."
"Is that so?"
"Think about it. Would you like one in your sitting room, however well hung?"
In a more relaxed situation Shirley-Ann would have giggled. She wasn't sure if the image she received was intended, so a smile did for an answer. She let her eyes travel to the far end of the gallery. "It's bigger in here than I imagined."
Jessica showed her around. Her policy, she explained, was to specialize in the work of a select group of artists. By refusing to crowd the walls with everything that was offered, she was putting her judgment to the test. Early on, she had made a decision not to show abstracts, not because she disliked them, but because she found that the sorts of people who called at her gallery wanted something that gave them a way into the artist's vision. None of the work was slavishly representational. Each image from real life was enhanced by exciting and original use of color and design. All this was said with conviction. The people of Bath might be unadventurous in their taste, but Jessica wasn't knocking them.
They were large canvases, many priced in four figures, and Shirley-Ann thought with amusement of the shock it would give Bert to see her being escorted around this gallery. Her devoted partner had it firmly in his mind that she only ever bought pictures from charity shops, and it was true. The pictures of elephants and dancers in the flat they shared in Russell Street had cost under a pound, every one. She'd had to brighten up the walls with something, and quickly. All they had when they moved in was a collection of framed James Bond book jackets dating from Bert's days as a student at Loughborough College. He was quite fixated on Bond.
Up a white spiral staircase were more paintings, including A.J.'s nudes, which weren't the crude or flashy things she had expected. The figures were painted with subtlety and draftsmanship, posed against strong light sources that cast much of the form into heavy shadow, letting the spectator's eye make sense of the areas exposed to the light.
"He's good," said Jessica. "I have to admit he's bloody good."
"Who are the models?" Shirley-Ann asked, and heard herself saying, too late to hold back, "Have you ever posed for him?" It was a tactless thing to have said, and she felt like slapping herself.
Jessica's large, shrewd eyes widened, but there was no obvious embarrassment. She answered coolly, "No. Why should I? They're professional models, I imagine."
They moved on to a view of a village church that Shirley-Ann was profoundly glad to recognize as one she knew. "Oh, Limpley Stoke! It is, isn't it?"
It was, and the moment passed.
Downstairs, they made fresh tea. The evening paper had been pushed through the door, and the headline was about a million-pound stamp theft in the city. It had pushed the story of the murdered bank manager off the front page.
"I don't approve of theft, but you've got to admire anyone bold enough to put a ladder against a window in broad daylight and climb up and nick the thing," said Jessica after briefly studying the report. "That's what happened, apparently. They're appealing for witnesses, of course, but they think people must have taken him for a window cleaner. The guys with the squeegees are out in force before the shops are open. Scores of them. I have mine done every morning. It's essential. You wouldn't believe the state they're in sometimes."
"The window cleaners?"
Jessica smiled. "The windows, lovey."
"I saw the police looking up at the Postal Museum window this morning," Shirley-Ann said. "I happened to be having coffee outside the French cafe, with Polly Wycherley, as a matter of fact." For the second time in a few minutes she wished she had guarded her tongue. The way Polly had spoken of Jessica should have made her more careful.
Jessica picked up on the remark at once. "You were with Polly?"
"Just for a coffee, yes:"
"You knew her already, then, before the other evening?"
"No." She thought of saying that she met Polly in Shires Yard by chance, but she had never been a convincing liar. "She phoned me this morning when I was in the shower. She must be an early riser. I think she felt as chair of the Bloodhounds that she ought to follow up on the meeting and find
out if I was coming again."
"Probably," said Jessica.
"We couldn't have known that a real mystery was unfolding in front of us."
The real mystery had ceased to interest Jessica. "Did she have any advice for the new member?"
"Oh, I think it was just a friendly gesture," said Shirley-Ann, resolved to stonewall.
"Polly is good at giving advice," remarked Jessica, and it didn't sound like a compliment.
"Well, I'm grateful for all the friendship. I feel as if I belong already. I'm certainly going to come again."
"Good-we can do with you," said Jessica more warmly. "It was getting polarized between the whodunit readers and the blood-and-guts lot. There's so much else we could talk about, but we hardly ever do."
"Apart from Umberto Eco."
Jessica smiled. "Apart from him. They're charming people, but they will insist on taking up positions, and it's only because they don't read widely enough. If Rupert were to try a Peter Dickinson for a change, with that fertile imagination thinking up the most amazing plots and settings-"
"Oh, yes!"
"— and still worked out as puzzles, with clues and a proper investigation, he'd be jolted out of the rut he's in. And I'd love to get Milo reading American thrillers. I know the way in for him. It's through the Fletch books."
"Gregory McDonald."
"Yes. He'd adore the humor, and he'd appreciate the logic of the plots and he'd soon be into Westlake and McBain and Block and ultimately Ellroy."
"There is a way in through women writers," Shirley-Ann pointed out.
"True." Jessica laughed. "True in theory. But you don't know Milo."
Shirley-Ann raised her eyebrows, and Jessica nodded.
Much more gossip about the Bloodhounds would certainly have emerged, but Shirley-Ann didn't want to appear overcurious. She turned the conversation back to the art and was rewarded with an invitation to a private view on Wednesday of the following week.
"I won't pretend it's anything amazing," Jessica explained. "Rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, A.J. calls it. The same people tend to come each time, but it does pull in a few dealers, and I sell enough to cover the cost of the buck's fizz and Twiglets. You'll see a couple of faces there you know. And don't, for God's sake, feel under any obligation to buy."
The Second Riddle
The Locked Room
Chapter Ten
When John Wigfull emerged from his press conference Diamond was in the main office reading the poem-if that isn't too grandiose a description of the four lines of verse that had misled everyone, including himself.
"Was it grueling, John?" he asked, with a matey grin.
"I didn't expect an easy ride."
"You took. my advice, I hope?"
"What was that?" said Wigfull in a hollow, preoccupied tone. "Look, no offense, Peter, but I don't have time to talk. There are urgent things to attend to."
"Like a strong coffee? The throat does get dry, answering those damn fool questions."
Whatever the state of Wigfull's throat, his vocal cords had no difficulty in projecting his growing impatience. "I'm heading a major inquiry. This is the world's most valuable stamp. It's far more serious than your shooting in Saltford."
"Not in the eyes of the law, it isn't, and not to the bloke who was Jdlled. So you're calling for reinforcements, no doubt?"
"I'll use every man and woman on the regional crime squad if necessary." There was no doubting Wigfull's commitmerit. His jaw jutted like Churchill's uttering the "blood, toil, tears and sweat5' speech.
"And what are your lines of inquiry?"
"For a start, I'm going to have that bloody poem analyzed by forensic."
"What for-to see if it scans?" Before Wigfull reacted to that, Diamond added, "Because if you hope to learn something from the copies that were sent to the media, you'd better think again. I've got one here." He held out the sheet of paper he had been studying, but Wigfull displayed no interest. "There was a time when it was possible to look at a piece of typing and say which typewriter was used, thanks to some tiny flaw in one of the characters. 'Pray examine this small irregularity in the letter W. It proves conclusively that the note was typed on Professor Moriarty's Smith-Corona.' Not these days, laddie. Moriarty puts it through a word processor and runs it off on a laser printer that gives a perfect finish, indistinguishable from a million others. Then he photocopies it. Your forensic friends aren't going to help you, John." A favorite theme of Diamond's, and worth repeating each time he got the chance.
Wigfull was not to be downed. "Wrong. With fluorescence under laser illumination they can get good fingerprints off paper these days."
"All the prints except the thief's."
"You can't say that."
"This guy is smart, John. He won't have left any prints. Have you checked the spelling?"
"The spelling?"
"Of the words in the note."
"Let me have another look." Wigfull snatched the scrap of paper from Diamond and stared at the words. "I can't see anything wrong with this."
"Nor I," said Diamond, after a pause. "Like I said, he's smart. We know the bugger can spell."
That "we" rang an alarm bell for Wigfull. He thrust his head forward combatively. "You and I had better get one thing straight, Peter. This one is mine. Just because I listened to you about the press conference it doesn't mean you can muscle in."
"Muscle in?" Diamond blandly echoed. "You know me better than that. I'm far too busy talking to bank clerks."
The grin faded as the week progressed. The bank clerks failed to revive it. Every one of them had a tale to tell of meanness, injustices, and slights inflicted by the former manager. If only the chief clerk, Routledge, hadn't confessed, the liturgy of complaints might have been worth listening to, because the bank was chockfull of potential suspects, and a number of customers with grudges would have come into the reckoning as well. Dispiriting for a keen detective, there was no question that Routledge had fired the fatal shot. Forensic confirmed his statement. By Friday, Diamond was so bored with the business that he told Julie Hargreaves to finish up at Saltford without him. He spent the day in the office attacking the stack of paper that was spilling off his intray and across the desk.
Late in the morning he took a phone call from Dorchester. John Croxley was formerly one of the murder squad at Bath, a pushy young inspector with an ego like a hotair balloon. His naked ambition had grated on the nerves of everyone. He had transferred to Dorset CID in the period Diamond was away, a sideways move that had been greeted with relief in Avon and Somerset.
"Thought I'd give you a call, Mr. Diamond." The voice made a show of sounding casual. "I heard you were back. This isn't a busy moment, I hope?"
"Rushed off my feet-but carry on."
"Are you handling the Penny Black case, then?"
"Not at this minute. I'm on the phone to you, aren't I? Must keep it short, I'm afraid. How are things down there in Dorset? Statistics perking up no end since you arrived, I bet."
"To be perfectly honest, it's not entirely what I expected," Croxley confided. "I hadn't appreciated how much more rural this county is than Avon and Somerset."
"More what?"
"Rural. You know, countrified."
"You mean sheep-shagging?"
There was a pause. "I don't know about that. I'm not getting much work in the field of murder."
Diamond chuckled and said insensitively, "Plenty in the field of turnips, however."
"Not so much turnips as cattle, Mr. Diamond," Croxley said with total seriousness. His sense of humor had never blossomed. "My main job just now is noseprints."
"Is what?"
"Noseprints. It isn't widely known that every bovine noseprint is unique to the individual, like a fingerprint. You coat the animal's nose with printing ink and then press a sheet of paper against it."
"You wouldn't be having me on, John?"
"I wouldn't do that, Mr. Diamond. It's a scheme we've set up with th
e Dorset County Landowners' Association to combat the rustling of cattle. We've processed seven hundred cows already."
Diamond was containing himself with difficulty. "You get noseprints from cows? Go on, John."
"Well, that's all there is to it. They've recently put me in charge. I don't know why. It isn't as if I was brought up in the country. And I don't see much prospect in it."
"I don't know," said Diamond, tears of amusement sliding down his cheeks. "Things could be worse."
"Do you think so?"
"If it's their noses you deal with, you're out in front, aren't you?"
"I suppose so."
"Good thing you're not taking prints from the other end."
"I hadn't thought of that, Mr. Diamond."
"Think of it when you're feeling low, John. This is new technology, and you're the man who does it. Get your noseprints on the computer. You can set up-what is it they call it? — a database on all the cows in Dorset. You asked about prospects. You've got unlimited prospects, I would think. Ypu could go on doing this for years."
"That's what I'm afraid of," said Croxley bleakly. "I was wondering if-with so much interest in the Penny Black business- you might be mounting a major inquiry, recruiting extra detectives."
"You'd be willing to give up your exciting new job?"
"If there was half a chance."
"No chance at all, I'm afraid. You know how it is with budgets as they are. I'd stick with the cows, if I were you. You could be the world's foremost authority on bovine noseprints."
When he put down the phone, he sat back and rocked with laughter for the first time in a week. He could hardly wait to tell Steph at the end of the day. But something else later that afternoon put it clean out of his mind.
On BBC Radio Bristol after the four o'clock news headlines, the presenter said, "Something different here. I've just been handed a note that my producer believes could link up with that cryptic verse we gave you last Monday morning. Remember? The one the police later said was almost certainly linked to the million-pound stamp theft from the Bath Postal Museum. The Penny Black, right? Well, this looks like another poetic effort from the cryptic cat burglar. It's printed on a sheet of A4 paper with no covering note. Came with the afternoon post, I gather. See what you make of this. Is it a hoax, or could it be a genuine clue? We'll be handing it pronto to the Old Bill, listeners, but you'll be able to say you heard it first on Radio Bristol. Are you ready with pen and paper?
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