The Vault (18 page)

"H."

Diamond vibrated his lips. A drugs-related motive always had to be taken seriously.

He studied the print-out again. "Some time between three and four Professor Dougan arrives in the shop. This is while Somerset is in charge, right?"

"Yes, sir. He spends some time looking around. He's still there when Peg returns from Camden Crescent about four-thirty in the afternoon."

"So you now have three people helping you with your inquiries into the murder, so to speak: Somerset, Pennycook and Dougan. Any others?"

"No, sir. Other customers came into the shop, but we don't have their names."

"We're stuck with the ones on the list, then. Pennycook lives a hundred miles away. Dougan has been put through the grinder several times already. Putting myself in John Wigfull's shoes yesterday afternoon, I'd have Ellis Somerset top of my visiting-list."

THE ANTIQUES Fair was into its third day at the Assembly Rooms. Diamond and Leaman arrived there thanks to a tip-off from a neighbour of Somerset's in Brock Street. "Ellis is something to do with the committee," they were told. "He'll be there all day, parading up and down. Look for the chappie in the bow-tie and brothel-creepers and a hideous coloured suit."

True, Ellis Somerset stood out, even among the colourful crowd who tour the country with the antiques fairs. His carroty hair would have made you look twice, regardless of the mustard yellow three-piece.

He said in a carrying voice that half the room must have heard, "This is over-egging the cake, isn't it? Two visits from the Bill in two days."

Just what Diamond wanted to know.

"You saw another officer yesterday?"

"He didn't precisely
say
he was from the police, but you can tell. The fellow stood out like a camel in a horse race. Large moustache—"

Diamond cut him short. "Was this in the afternoon?"

"Shortly after lunch."

"In here?"

"We went for a cup of tea."

"What a good idea."

"But I'm supposed to be on hand to answer questions," Somerset mildly protested after being escorted to the tea-room.

"Which you are," said Diamond. "First question: do you take sugar? Second: did you smash the policeman's head in?"

Somerset rocked back in his chair, giving the table a kick that spilt tea across it. Any interrogator knows the trick of going straight for the jugular. It gets a reaction. The difficult part is to pick out the signs of guilt.

He was losing most of the colour from his cheeks and the effect did not sit well with the mustard suit. "What the blazes do you think I am—a psychopath?"

"Would you answer me?"

"No, I do not attack policemen and I protest in the strongest terms at being asked such a question." A little of the colour seeped back as he went on the offensive.

"Drink some of that tea, sir," Diamond suggested. "Did Chief Inspector Wigfull ask you about your employer, Miss Redbird?"

"My
'emphyer'?”
He spoke the word as if it was distasteful. "Peg was a friend, a very dear friend, as it happens. I helped out in the shop from time to time on a voluntary basis. I explained all this yesterday afternoon." He spread his hands, looking to Sergeant Leaman for a more sympathetic hearing, but Leaman was poker-faced.

"I'm sure you did, sir," Diamond answered. "My difficulty is that John Wigfull is lying in the Royal United with his head stoved in. We don't know what you told him because he can't speak to us."

Ripples appeared on Somerset's smooth facade. "The man who was here yesterday?"

"He came to talk to you about a murder and now he's critically wounded himself."

"Surely you can't believe I... ?" His voice trailed off as the seriousness of his position sank in.

"Where did you spend the rest of yesterday? What time did you leave the Antiques Fair?"

Somerset clawed at his red hair distractedly. "When it closed, at six."

"And then?"

"I had a drink in Shades Wine Bar with a couple of friends for twenty minutes and then I walked home."

"How did you spend the evening?"

"Reading a book."

"You didn't go out again? Saturday night and you stayed in?"

"Officer, if you'd spent most of the day on your feet at an antiques fair, you'd be glad of a quiet evening." Then a thought struck him and he became more animated. "There was a man he was asking about, an American who came into the shop while I was looking after it. That's who your inspector friend was interested in."

Diamond heard this without surprise. "What were you able to tell him?"

Seizing the chance to deflect attention from himself, Somerset answered, "That the American was with us a long time on Thursday afternoon. An hour and a half to my certain knowledge, and probably longer. Some of the time he was waiting for Peg to come back. He insisted on seeing her personally and would not be put off when I told him she was out doing a valuation. He went off upstairs, rooting around the shop. To tell you the truth, I'd clean forgotten about him by the time Peg finally came back. Rather embarrassing actually. I introduced them and then went out myself to organize some transport. She'd bought a few things up at Camden Crescent and wanted them collected."

Diamond glanced towards Leaman. "I wish I had friends like that."

"I wouldn't do it for everyone," said Somerset. "Peg was special."

"More than just a friend, you said?"

All his colour returned now, and more. "That is not what I said. I referred to her as a very dear friend. We respected each other."

His face was making a stronger statement. He had been smitten. Diamond would put money on it. The friendship may not have amounted to an affair, but not through want of passion on Somerset's side.

"So what did you do? Hire a van and collect these antiques from Camden Crescent?"

"Exactly that. Some small bits of furniture and a few pots and pictures."

"Valuable?"

"Peg seemed well satisfied."

"That's ducking my question. You're an antiques man yourself, Mr Somerset. Were these items going to make her a tidy profit?"

"Listen, officer, profit is a taboo word in the antiques trade. We talk about everything else under the sun, but we don't mention our mark-up."

"Was it quality stuff?"

"Peg wouldn't have bought rubbish. The pots were all right. Furniture so-so. She was more excited about the paintings. She insisted on unloading them from the van herself. A couple of watercolours. Not my field at all. You have to specialise. She thought she'd found a pair of Blakes."

"Sextons?"

"I beg your pardon."

"Sexton Blakes. Fakes. Rhyming slang. That fellow who became a celebrity on the strength of his forgeries. He called them his Sextons. What was his name?"

"Tom Keating," said Somerset. "I'm with you now. No, the Blake I referred to was genuine enough. The mystic, poet and engraver, William Blake."

Diamond dredged deep into his memory and brought up a fragment from an English class in his grammar school one sunny afternoon when he would rather have been out on the school field. He could hear Mr Yarrow speaking the words: " 'Tyger.'
tyger! burning bright'?

"The same," said Somerset with a sniff.

"And was it good to find a pair of Blakes?"

"Spectacularly good, if that's what they were, and I can't believe we were wrong. Blake's style was so individual that one couldn't confuse it with anyone else."

"You seem knowledgable."

"A specialist wouldn't think so."

With that satisfying sense of things slotting into place, Diamond remembered meeting a specialist only a day or two before. Councillor Sturr had boasted of owning one of the best collections of English watercolours. Hadn't a Blake been the main attraction of those insipid daubs on the wall of the Victoria Gallery?

He returned to the main business. "You told all this to John Wigfull yesterday, right?"

"I believe I did, yes."

"Was there anything he asked in particular? Anything we haven't covered?"

"He kept on and on about the American professor. By the time we finished I was wrung dry."

"Did you tell him anything useful?"

"I haven't the faintest idea."

"Fair enough. Dumb question. Have you told me everything you told him?"

"Just about."

"When you got back from Camden Crescent on Thursday evening, was Professor Dougan still there?"

"No, he'd left by then."

"What time was this?"

"About eight, I suppose. Peg was expecting him back, though. There was this early nineteenth century writing box on her desk that he was extremely keen to buy. I don't know why. It had been gathering dust in the shop for donkey's years. The key was missing—or so Peg claimed." A thin smile fleetingly surfaced.

Alerted, Diamond leaned forward. "What are you saying— that she had the key all the time?"

"You can't blame her. She wanted to get the best price she could for the goods."

"Are you telling me she unlocked the box after Dougan left?"

"It was open when I first got back. I expect she wanted to see what was inside. A private look, while the professor was away. If he was so keen, there could have been something valuable inside, couldn't there? She'd have been daft to part with it without checking."

"And was there anything in it?"

"Nothing she was telling me about."

Diamond digested this. If Joe Dougan could be believed, the box had been locked when he returned to the shop after having dinner with his wife. In Peg's absence, he had spent more time fruitlessly trying keys. If he
could be believed.
This part of his story could so easily be a cover-up.

Suppose, instead, Dougan had returned to Noble and Nude and found Peg there, with the box open, its secrets revealed. Here was a scenario for violence: Peg setting an impossibly high price, or even refusing to sell. Dougan, crazed by the prize being snatched away, striking out.

"Did you tell Chief Inspector Wigfull what you just told us, about the box being open?"

"Yes, that came up in the questions."

"You said the box was open when you
first
got back. Did it get locked again?"

"It was still open when I left."

"What time was that? Before Dougan returned?"

"Oh, yes," said Somerset. "I finished unloading the van by nine and then I was off."

"Off where?"

He frowned, not liking the shift in the questioning. "To Brock Street, where I live."

"In the van?"

"Yes. It was due for return by eight the next morning."

"So you parked it overnight. Where?"

"In Brock Street. There are spaces by that time."

"Did you speak to anyone? Is there a neighbour or someone who can vouch for you being home at that time?"

"Did you make any phone calls?" Leaman sensibly asked.

Now Somerset gave a nervous, angry sigh. "No, I don't have an alibi. You'll just have to take my word for it. I was Peg's devoted friend. I wouldn't have harmed her in a million years." Just to confirm it, a tear rolled down his cheek and made a dark spot on the yellow suit. "I'm sorry. This is all too much."

Diamond would be the judge of that. He was not finished yet. "You left by nine, you say. She was still in the shop, is that right?"

"Yes."

"Expecting a second visit from Professor Dougan?"

"Not only him. She had other business to attend to."

"Other business?" Diamond repeated the words in a more animated tone. Somerset had spoken them like a dirge.

"She already had a buyer for those watercolours I mentioned. She'd been on the phone and expected an offer the same evening."

"Who from?"

"She wouldn't say. She was being mysterious about it. To tell you the truth, I was more than a little upset. She made it sound like an assignation."

"A what?"

He hesitated, needing to swallow before the words would come. "As if she was meeting a ... lover. She was being mischievous, trying to make me jealous. Her exact words—I remember them clearly—were 'I'm expecting an offer tonight, if that doesn't sound indelicate.' "

"How did you react?"

"I was too hurt to speak. I know she was only playing with words, but they were meant to wound, and I didn't care for that one bit."

"You don't have any idea who she meant?"

"You're not expecting me to point the finger at someone?"

"Come on, Mr Somerset," Diamond said, his patience snapping. "This isn't junior school. Your friend was murdered and dumped in the river."

He was still reluctant to speak. He swallowed deeply and took a look around the room. "I could be mistaken. The only serious collector of English watercolours I know in Bath is John Sturr. But he's a well respected figure in the city. He's on the Council."

Diamond heard this without surprise. He had got there five minutes before, from personal knowledge. But it was still an intriguing link-up. "Would you cast your mind back and tell me exactly what Peg said about this deal she was setting up?"

"I just did."

"You repeated one sentence that you found hurtful. I want to know what else she said, about the paintings and the client."

"That's not easy."

"Try."

"Well, she talked about the subject matter, how it seemed to be straight out of
Frankenstein."

"You're serious?" This added an extra dimension. Diamond was beginning to feel plagued by the wretched monster.

"Peg was convinced of it and she convinced me. She knew the book, and she'd brought back a copy from the library. One of the pictures was the meeting of Frankenstein and the monster in a Swiss valley and the other was Frankenstein discovering his bride had been killed, with the monster staring through the window. Incidents straight out of the book."

Diamond said, "I remember seeing a film—"

"Forget it," Somerset cut him short. "The cinema versions of
Frankenstein
are a travesty. They make the monster out to be brain-damaged, an unmitigated villain. I've been reading the book again. It's Frankenstein, the creator, who is the true villain. The monster isn't inherently evil. He is driven to cruelty by Frankenstein's neglect and bad treatment. He's deprived of a soul, a friend, a love. It's a very modern story in that sense. A terrible upbringing warps the poor creature's development."