The Stone Wife (26 page)

Diamond clasped both hands to his head. “He’s going to foul up this whole operation and put Ingeborg in more danger than she is already.”

Halliwell sent the message and looked up. “Does he know Hazael is a crime baron?”

“He must know, but he won’t know Inge is undercover.” Diamond hesitated, weighing the new information. Plenty had been conveyed in Gilbert’s two messages. On reflection the emergency wasn’t quite as desperate as first appeared. He said in a more controlled tone, “On the face of it, she could be doing precisely what she planned, infiltrating the main arms supplier in Bristol. It’s starting to make sense: a video shoot on the
Great Britain
of some pop singer who lives with Hazael. If Inge has linked up with her and tricked a way into his house, she’s succeeding.”

“What about the fracas?”

“Could be the Trojan horse.”

Halliwell looked as if the logic had passed him by.

“A way of conning Hazael into taking her in,” Diamond explained. “Ingeborg stages a street incident involving this singer. What’s her name?”

“Lee Li.”

“And comes to her rescue and is invited back to the Hazael mansion. Mission successful. If that’s where she is, I’m not in the least surprised she hasn’t been texting me.”

“Let’s hope Paul opens our message, then. Do you want to drive over there?”

Diamond shook his head. “Mustn’t put Ingeborg at more risk.”

“Surely he’ll have the sense to know he can’t do anything alone. If ‘following up’ means putting the house under observation, he can’t cause too much of a problem.”

“We just have to mark time and stay calm, Keith,” said the man who a few minutes before had practically torn out his hair—what there was of it.

They drank coffee and updated Leaman on the Marlborough trip. He kept his usual poker face and said, “Do I gather from all this that Bernie Wefers is no longer the prime suspect?”

“Put it this way,” Diamond said. “He had a powerful motive for killing the man who stole his wife, and he didn’t deny threatening him outside the divorce court, but it became obvious his anger was directed mainly at Monica.”

Keith Halliwell added his own observation. “And the pilot’s log in the helicopter suggests Bernie wasn’t in Bath on the day of the auction. He’ll have needed to arrange a contract killing.”

Leaman nodded. “But that’s what happened. Someone hired a set of gunmen.”

“Which raises the question whether Bernie would murder by proxy,” Diamond said. “I could be wrong, but my impression is that he’d want to be there to witness the killing. He’s not the sort to take revenge at arm’s length.”

Leaman got up and crossed the room to the whiteboard where the faces of the principal witnesses and suspects were displayed. As the architect and manager of the incident room, he never missed an opportunity to demonstrate its usefulness. “So Bernie moves down in the pecking order and Dr. Poke moves up.”

“Certainly. Until today we had Poke down as a suspect because of professional rivalry, but we didn’t know he’d slept with Monica,” Diamond said. “Neither of the pair said a word to us about the Diphthongs.”

“They wouldn’t volunteer it,” Halliwell said. “Doesn’t do either of them much credit.”

“I haven’t met Poke,” Leaman said, “but isn’t he just the sort of creepy guy who would think up an underhand way of removing the professor from the scene?”

“No question,” Diamond said, “and there would be extra satisfaction from having him killed just at the moment he
was bidding for the big prize—the Wife of Bath. We need another session with Poke.”

“And Monica?” Halliwell said.

“Monica, too.” Diamond’s thoughts returned to the conversation he’d had with Paloma, the wacky theory that Monica had hired the gunmen herself to prevent her husband from acquiring the
Wife of Bath
and the plot had literally misfired and resulted in Gildersleeve’s death. Too way out to mention to colleagues? He still thought so. “She has some explaining to do as well.”

Allowing that it had been a long, stressful afternoon, Halliwell was sharp this evening. “How about this? Secretly, Monica was still attracted to Dr. Poke. She discovered she’d made a terrible mistake marrying Gildersleeve. He was boring and locked into fourteenth century poetry. The sex was a disappointment—if it happened at all. We know she has an appetite for sex.”

“I can see where this is going,” Diamond said.

“Doesn’t the auction present an opportunity to get rid of him and also reward Poke with the professorship? She could have hatched the plot on her own or in collaboration with him.”

“Not bad,” Diamond said. “They were cool about each other under interview and that’s what you’d expect from two killers working together.”

Leaman nodded. “I like it. But they’d still need to find the gunmen to stage the hold-up.”

“She’ll have met all sorts in her time with Bernie,” Halliwell said. “She’d know who to contact.”

Leaman picked up a marker pen and drew a line on the whiteboard linking Monica’s name to Poke’s and adding a question mark. Then he pointed to another name. “Shouldn’t we also look at Sturgess, the British Museum man? He was the rival bidder.”

“When you say ‘British Museum man,’ he was only acting as an agent for the museum,” Diamond said. “His firm is independent. They must get some kind of commission or fee.”

“They’d be under pressure to acquire the carving for as little as possible,” Leaman said. “When the bidding went way past the valuation, Sturgess must have been worried. It could have gone higher. The gunmen put a stop to that.”

“You’re not suggesting Sturgess is behind the hold-up?”

“We haven’t looked into his background. There could be other stuff we don’t know about.”

“Do it, then,” Diamond said.

Leaman continued to study his board. “Is there anyone else from the auction we might be overlooking?”

“The glass lady,” Diamond said.

“Who’s she?” Halliwell asked.

“Miss Topham, from Brighton. The only witness able to give us anything useful on the gunmen, a scar like a moon crater on the back of the neck of the one who stopped the auction. She’s known as the glass lady because she specialises in glass objects.”

“We don’t have a picture of her, unfortunately,” Leaman said, ever the perfectionist.

“I’m not losing any sleep over that,” Diamond said. “I can’t see Miss Topham having anything to do with the shooting.”

“The auctioneer?” Halliwell suggested.

“I got his picture from the internet,” Leaman said, pointing to the beaming apple-cheeked face above a pink cravat. “Denis Doggart. He’s well known.”

“And in the clear,” Diamond said. “I can’t think of any reason why he would sabotage his own auction, can you?”

“Who’s left?” Halliwell asked.

Apart from the victim, the only other individual displayed on the board was the Wife of Bath.

Two hours on, they remained in the CID room. Diamond had sent out for beer and sandwiches. He didn’t want to leave without hearing from Ingeborg. But he was in a better frame of mind now, satisfied that she must have got inside the Hazael mansion. Her silence was understandable.

Finally, about nine thirty, his phone went.

It wasn’t a text this time. He was grateful for a real, old-fashioned call. But not so thrilled to see on the display that it was from Paul Gilbert.

“Yes?”

The voice was little more than a rustle.

“Is that you, Paul? Speak up. Where are you?”

“Leigh Woods.” He was still barely audible.

“At Hazael’s place?”

“I told you I was going there.” The voice trailed away.

Diamond turned to Halliwell. “It’s no use. I can barely hear him.”

Halliwell took the phone and worked the keys.

The volume improved by a few microdecibels. Gilbert was saying, “… up a tree.”

“I missed some of that,” Diamond said. “You did what?”

“Climbed over the wall.”

“You said something about a tree.”

“I’m up the tree now. There’s a guard dog.”

“And now a dog has got you trapped?”

“For the time being. It’s getting dark here. I’m hoping it will lose interest and I can make a run for it.”

“I wouldn’t count on it. Didn’t you get my text?”

“Yes, but too late. I was already inside. I thought I was doing the right thing, guv. Ingeborg is with this singer, Lee Li, who was being filmed on the ship. They all think Inge is a journalist.”

“You didn’t let on that she isn’t?”

“To Marcus the director? No. But there was an ugly scene on the horned bridge at the quayside. The thing is, Lee Li wants out. She’s been trying to escape from Hazael. Marcus was roughed up and both women were driven away by Hazael and his minders. It’s likely they’re being held here. I came to check, but the place is a fortress.”

“No one told you to go there.”

“I used my initiative, guv. Sorry.”

“You’d better use it to get out, you pillock. And without anyone knowing. I can’t send a rescue party and risk a major alert. Keep us informed.”

With a sigh and shake of his head, Diamond pocketed the phone. He liked young Gilbert, but this was a near disaster. He told the others to leave. He’d stay on for a while and see this through. They knew better than to argue.

He would use the time catching up on emails and paperwork in his office. There was sure to be masses of stuff to be got through. He stepped inside and sank into his comfortable leather chair and eyed the in tray without disturbing it. He reached out to touch the spacebar on the keyboard and watched his screensaver light up, an old film poster of the Margaret Lockwood and James Mason classic from 1945,
The Wicked Lady
. After today, the title had extra resonance. He continued to gaze at it and thought about Monica and her talent for picking up unsuitable men, a brute of a builder, a one-track professor and a diphthong. With better judgement, she might have had a long, fulfilling marriage. Too lusty for her own good, she’d made terrible choices. But was she a wicked lady? He couldn’t see it—yet.

A sense of unease with his surroundings was keeping him from opening the emails. Something wasn’t right. Subconsciously he’d noticed an abnormality, but subconscious it remained. He scratched his head, rotated his chair and looked at the ceiling for inspiration. His eyes returned to the screen and the film title.

Then he knew.

The
Wife of Bath
was missing from the room.

20

The shower was bliss.

Ingeborg lingered longer than she normally would, trying all the adjustments, especially the massage, easing her back against the powerful jet and enjoying the relief on her aching neck and shoulders. She didn’t think Marcus had caused any serious damage yanking her head back, but some of the muscles had stiffened. It wasn’t much consolation that her attacker would be nursing a sore leg.

Taking a shower always stimulated her brain. Better be honest with myself, she decided, and admit that the undercover work hasn’t yet delivered anything, in spite of all the action in the last twenty-four hours. The good news is that I’m in Nathan’s house and on speaking terms with him, but I still have no proof that he supplied the Webley that killed Professor Gildersleeve, a necessary step before—hopefully—winkling out the identity of the killer.

So she wouldn’t be calling Peter Diamond to report on progress.

Not yet.

Even so, she was tantalisingly close to finding out. She wanted keenly to be the one who nailed the killer. It could be as simple as getting the name from Nathan. How cool it would be to pull the rabbit from the hat and let the CID team conclude that all the painstaking work at the crime scene and by forensics, all the interviews and statements, the trips to Reading, Bridgwater and North Petherton, were superfluous. In reality they wouldn’t be, because evidence is needed for the trial, but it would feel like a triumph. She
could picture the long faces, hear the comments, taste the bitterness. Mean—but understandable. John Leaman’s face would be a picture.

Getting the information was another thing. Extracting the name of the secret client was a tough call. She doubted whether Nathan kept records on paper or computer of his dealings. He’d shown in the car that he was canny, well capable of discussing how he operated without giving anything away that could incriminate him or anyone else. He hadn’t amassed his fortune by shopping his clients.

How could it be done, then?

She ran through the possibilities. Talking to the staff was an obvious one, except that they acted as if they’d rather cut their own throats than give anything away even if they knew it. She was pretty certain Lee wasn’t privy to all of Nathan’s secrets even though she’d said something about telling all. Loosening his tongue with drink was another option she rejected. He wasn’t going to be around for drinks. He’d said he had business to deal with.

Then an idea came.

If Nathan had a weak point, it was his enchantment with Lee. The pretty little singer had obviously got to work on him to further her music career. More recently she’d put her efforts into plotting her escape. He’d already forgiven her. She wouldn’t welcome it, but he was in thrall to her.

Lee had to be persuaded to get him off guard so he would spill the beans.

That settled, Ingeborg stepped out of the shower and reached for one of those fluffy white towels.

At Lee’s suggestion, they took a chilled bottle of Chablis and two glasses into the jacuzzi in her gym. “We can talk there in private. I’m still tense from this afternoon and I’m sure you must be aching all over. You can use one of my costumes.”

Ingeborg was at least a size larger, but the bikini had ties so it was easy to get into. She followed Lee into the churning water and sat beside her.

“Your arm is bruised,” Lee said after they’d clinked glasses.

“It’s nothing.”

“Did Marcus hurt you?”

“Only at the time. He was forcing my head back. I thought my hair would come out at the roots. His ribs came off worse.”

“What was the fight about?”

“He thought I’d led him into a trap. I didn’t. When Nathan and his men blocked off the bridge I was as surprised as Marcus was.”