The Stone Wife (9 page)

Reading about her had helped him by sharpening and enlivening the impression of the character he remembered faintly from his schooldays. Without doubt she was the leading lady in
The Canterbury Tales
and it was possible to understand how she must have figured strongly in the thoughts of John Gildersleeve, whose entire career was founded on Chaucer’s work. Alison would have been very real to him. The chance
to possess the stone carving had obviously excited him. And so Gildersleeve had become one more man to fall under the influence of the Wife of Bath, one more who ultimately perished.

Job done, his eyelids getting heavier, Diamond became as drowsy as the cat. Images of a stout, gap-toothed woman in an enormous hat drifted into his brain. She was sitting in his chair at Manvers Street leading a case conference, her red-shoed feet on the desk. Her amblere was tethered to the radiator, feeding from a nosebag, and no one seemed bothered by it.

He was next aware of the cat’s claws pricking his thighs. The doorbell was ringing. Raffles, startled, had just leapt from his lap. Clearly they had both been dozing. How long, he was unsure.

He heaved himself out of the chair and jammed his feet into the flip-flops he wore around the house. He still ached from the fall in his office the day before. He shuffled to the door, muttering about people who came calling in the evening. If it was a local politician he’d tell them what they could do with their policies.

Ingeborg was standing there, hands open in apology. This wasn’t her usual confident manner.

“I know I should have phoned, guv.”

“You’d better come in. Something the matter?”

“No, I just thought this is the best way to see you away from the office.”

“Coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

He showed her into the living room. Raffles had already returned to the warm armchair and was staring at Ingeborg in the way only a cat can, daring her to eject him. She chose another chair.

And so did Diamond.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Am I right in thinking you’d like me to go undercover?”

“Someone been talking to you?” he said, thinking Halliwell must already have called her at home.

She shook her head. “I’m the obvious candidate, aren’t I? You only have to look at the rest of the team.”

He shifted in the chair, unsure where this was leading.

“But you haven’t actually asked me.”

“It’s a dangerous job,” he said. “I’d rather have a volunteer. I’m not ordering anyone to take it on.”

“You definitely need one of us to get among the hard men.”

He was fully awake now, alert to what she was saying. “That’s true. They’re hard men, all right. Professionals. Admittedly they made a hash of the robbery, but they were carrying guns. We must find out who put them up to it.”

“But who are they?” Ingeborg said.

“Inge, you know as well as I do that there’s only one gang in our manor capable of mounting an armed hold-up. In Bristol there are three or four. If I were planning a crime here I wouldn’t hire the local mob. I’d bring in some of the Bristol boys.”

“I totally agree,” she said. “And it puts one of my doubts to rest. Anyone from here trying to cosy up to the Bath lot runs the risk of being recognised.”

“What are your other doubts?”

She sighed. This was clearly difficult for her. “Whoever takes it on has to face up to what happens if some situation arises.”

“Situation?”

“Law-breaking.”

“I get you. How are you going to deal with it if they commit another crime?”

“Not just me. Anyone. If it comes to court and the undercover cop is found to have aided and abetted, he or she is as guilty as the perpetrators.”

The “he or she” meant he couldn’t yet count on her.

“It’s a grey area, I admit,” he said. “That’s why I want someone who can think on their feet. My own feeling is that the law would take a lenient view.”

“If the cop doesn’t actually fire a shot?”

“But it doesn’t have to come to that. We’re interested in a killing already committed. It’s about getting their confidence.”

“Yes, but that could mean joining in some other heist. They’ll look for the recruit to show loyalty and they’ll be suspicious of anyone who doesn’t.”

Diamond hesitated, searching for the right words. There was an obvious point here, but how could he say it without offending her? “The gang culture is macho, Inge. They’re unlikely to want a woman at the sharp end of a crime. You may not like it, but that’s the real world.”

“So?”

“There are other ways of getting on the inside.”

The look in her eyes wasn’t promising. “Go on.”

“Using your natural assets.”

She held up a warning finger. “I knew it would come to that. I draw the line at shagging the bastards.”

“For God’s sake, I wouldn’t expect you to. You’re well capable of chatting up a guy without going the whole way.”

She glanced across the room at the book he’d dropped face up on the floor. “Is that where you’ve been getting your ideas?”

Chaucer: The Bawdy Tales
. The Wife of Bath again, muscling in.

“Christ, no. It’s unreadable. I gave up after a couple of pages.” He leaned forward. “Listen, Inge. You’ve done journalism. You’ve gone after stories. Basically, that’s what this is.”

“With one important difference,” she said, unimpressed. “The people I was hounding knew I was press. This is another game altogether.”

“It’s why we don’t wear uniforms.”

“That’s one thing. Trying to pass ourselves off as crooks is another.”

“I’m not doing very well, am I?” he said.

“Guv, I didn’t come here expecting to be persuaded,” Ingeborg said. “I can make up my own mind and I will, but not right now. I wanted you to front up with me and I suppose you have. I was uncomfortable with nothing being said.
At least we know where we stand now. If you ordered me to take this on, I would.”

“I won’t insist,” he said. “It’s too dangerous.”

She stood up, preparing to leave. “All the others would find out, of course. It would be no use telling them I was on leave.”

“We can trust them.”

“The civilian staff?”

“We have to.”

She walked to the door. “I’ll sleep on it and let you know.”

He got up to show her out, put his foot on Gildersleeve’s book and skidded forward, arms flailing, almost falling over. “Bloody hell, not again.”

Ingeborg turned. “You all right?”

“I’m starting to feel jinxed.”

She smiled. “She’s fiction, you know.”

“And I was almost history.”

In the morning plenty seemed to be happening in the incident room. Leaman was running through the CCTV tapes of silver vans, Ingeborg checking statements she’d taken from the antique dealers at the auction, Gilbert searching the files for evidence of armed robberies in Bath and Bristol and Halliwell on the phone to the CSI team chasing results of their findings at the crime scene. Even John Wigfull, the press liaison man, was there, wanting to know when he could issue an update for the media. Interest from the press was growing, he said.
The Mirror
had asked if they could get a new picture of the
Wife of Bath
with Detective Superintendent Diamond.

“Stuff that,” Diamond said. “I’m not posing with her.”

“She’s the story, she’s your case and she’s in your office already,” Wigfull said, obviously prepared for a skirmish. “It’s a done deal.”

“It isn’t. We don’t allow the press in here.”

“We can’t move her out.”

“Tell me about it.”

“So will you make an exception and cooperate for once?”

“Get lost, John.” They had a history, these two.

“Be reasonable. The only picture they’ve got is the one from the catalogue. They need something more dramatic.”

“Like me standing over it with a magnifying glass? You’re out of your tiny mind.”

“How about Ingeborg, then? Give them some glamour.”

“Hang about,” Ingeborg called from across the room. “I heard that.”

“It’s give and take,” Wigfull said. “There are plenty of times when we need their help.”

Diamond wasn’t having it. Ingeborg in the national press would blow her cover before she started. “Listen up, John. If they need a picture, you can have one taken by a police photographer and the only shot they’re getting is a close-up of the stone. No one will be posing for them. Get that clear.”

In truth, there wasn’t any progress, for all the show of activity. He wasn’t expecting much. The drama of the killing in the auction room had been a gift to the media, but as a case to investigate, it was a brute. A failed heist and an unintended killing by masked men didn’t give much to work on.

The only good thing this morning was that he could use his office again. He stepped inside—gingerly.

She was still in occupation, of course. His cactus had turned an unhealthy colour and was leaning over, but the
Wife of Bath
had received a makeover from the fire service. The result was as good as a stone-cleaning firm could have achieved. She and her amblere were better defined and improved in colour. Fresh from reading the poem, he could see the curve of the jowls, the fleshiness of the face under the substantial hat. She was starting to come alive. She looked well capable of turning her head and giving him the gap-toothed grin.

Idiot, he thought. What’s getting into you?

He turned his back on her and stepped the other way round his desk and sat down. She wasn’t in view from here. He could turn his thoughts to other things. They hadn’t yet replaced the computer, but he didn’t feel deprived. Why, he
now had space for pens and paper and his picture of Steph, his late wife. Everything must have been stuffed away before they started the decontamination.

His phone started ringing, but where was it? Fairly close to hand, for sure. He tried two drawers before tracking it to the bottom one. They’d tucked it away when they were clearing the fumes.

The switchboard said they had a caller for him, a Monica Gildersleeve.

The professor’s wife.

“Put her on,” he said, while numerous possibilities jostled in his brain.

The voice was on a low register and would have sounded sexy in any other situation. “You’re the officer on my husband’s case, I believe. I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“Thank you for calling, Mrs. Gildersleeve,” he said. “I’ve been out of the office. Please accept my condolences.”

“It’s so sudden,” she said. “I find it hard to believe.”

“I know what it’s like to lose someone close. We’re still at the early stages, but we’re doing all we can.”

“We were married only a few months. So you haven’t yet found the people who shot him?”

“No, ma’am.”

“They gunned him down in full view of everyone at the auction.”

“Correct, but they were in masks and nobody got the number of their escape vehicle. Are you speaking from Bath?”

“I’m staying for a day or two with my sister Erica in Camden Crescent. I don’t feel comfortable in the Reading house. I’d like to speak to you about certain things you ought to know, things I can’t say over the phone. I’m worried.”

If he’d had antennae, they would have twitched. “I can call as soon as you want.”

“Not here,” she said, lowering her voice. “Walls have ears. Do you know Hedgemead Park below the crescent?”

“Quite well.”

“The gazebo near the entrance?”

“With the curved seat?”

“Let’s meet there, say, at eleven. I’ll be in a black leather coat and purple scarf.”

“I’ll find you.”

He’d once heard another version of the proverb she’d used: fields have eyes and woods have ears. Parks have both, he reckoned, but he guessed the sister was the problem.

He passed the next twenty minutes restoring his office to the shambles that made it his own. Then he put on his hat and stepped through the CID room. “Meeting someone. Shouldn’t be long.”

“If you ask me, he isn’t comfortable in there,” John Leaman said when the big man was out of earshot.

Hedgemead Park, on a strip of land topped by Camden Crescent and sloping steeply to London Road, was created out of a disaster. It was once occupied by two hundred and seventy-one Georgian houses known as Somerset Buildings, but whoever surveyed the site had been seriously at fault. The first landslips started in the 1860s and continued intermittently until June of 1881, when a hundred and thirty dwellings collapsed or were damaged beyond repair. With typical Victorian resource, the city fathers cleared the rubble, shored up the terrain, planted extensively and converted it into a pleasure ground with bandstand, water fountain and boundary railings. The former name of Edgemead was too suggestive of more slippage, so someone had the bright idea of adding the “H.” It was all about presentation in those days and it hasn’t changed.

The octagonal gazebo close to the south entrance was a good viewpoint and a useful place to meet. The lady was already there when Diamond arrived. Short, slight and dressed in the sombre colours she’d described, she looked him over with dark, intelligent eyes before confirming her name and offering her hand.

“Sorry you had trouble getting through to me,” he said. “Actually I was in Reading.”

“At the university?”

“Why don’t we sit and talk here?”

She glanced right and left as if making certain her sister hadn’t followed her. “If you like, then. Who did you see at Reading?”

“Dr. Poke.”

The edges of her mouth turned down. “He wouldn’t have been John’s choice or mine. They didn’t get on.”

“Why was that?”

“Differences of approach, for one thing. Archie Poke is a linguist, while John adored the literature.”

“
The Canterbury Tales
?”

“And much else. He was a great champion of everything Chaucer wrote, poor darling. The man was alive for him. To hear him speak, you could almost believe they’d met. The poetry really excited him.”

Hardly the impression Diamond had got from Gildersleeve’s book, but this wasn’t the time to say so. “That’s one way he differed from Dr. Poke, then. And the other thing?”

“Oh?”

“You said ‘for one thing,’ so there must be another.”