The Vault

by Peter Lovesey

  "You said 'we'?"

  "And I meant you." He put a hand on Halliwell's shoulder. "My oppo."

  DOWNSTAIRS IN an interview room, John Wigfull was face to face with the American professor whose wife had disappeared. It was apparent that Joe Dougan had not yet heard that the woman's body had been taken from the Avon. Either that, or he was giving the impression he knew nothing of it. Wigfull was doing his best to keep an open mind, but keeping an open mind didn't alter a fact well known to criminologists: that most murders are committed within the family.

  "I don't understand it," said Joe with some conviction. "I reported this at two in the morning. You've been on the case twelve hours. Where is she?" To do him credit, he looked and sounded like a man in anguish. He had bluish bags under his red-lidded eyes and his face had sprouted overnight stubble.

  Wigfull handled him calmly. No one was better at taking the heat out of a stressful situation. "I can assure you, professor, we put out a missing person report directly. I checked that. Can I just go over the description with you?"

  "We did that in the night."

  "Yes, sir, but you were in a state of shock. You may have missed something out." Wigfull picked up a copy of the description that had been circulated. "Looking at this, you did miss something. You didn't say what she was wearing, apart from a cream-coloured Burberry raincoat."

  "I can't tell you what else she had on," said Joe.

  "You must have seen what she was wearing earlier that evening. You had a meal out with her."

  "I honestly don't remember. I don't look at her clothes. I can tell you what she said, how she was looking, what she had to eat."

  Wigfull found himself insensitively thinking that what she had to eat might be of some use to the pathologist. "Didn't they go through the wardrobe with you?"

  "Sure, but I couldn't help them. Call me an airhead if you like, but I don't know what she brought with her."

  Wigfull sighed. It is a sad fact that a majority of men, if caught unprepared, cannot tell you what their wives are wearing. "Does she have any distinguishing marks?"

  Joe Dougan frowned. "Birthmarks, you mean?"

  "Tattoos."

  "Donna?"

  "Operation scars, vaccinations?"

  "Why do you need this? She's not going to show anyone her appendix scar."

  "So she has one?"

  "I think so, but I don't see…" He turned paler. Panic threatened. "You mean she could be lying somewhere?"

  Wigfull was not ready to tell all. "It's got to be considered when someone is missing this long. Has she ever done anything like this before?"

  "No, sir, she has not."

  It was wise to move on swiftly. "I'd like to go over your movements last evening, professor. After eating out, you returned to the Royal Crescent Hotel with your wife between eight-thirty and nine, and then you left her. You went out again."

  "So I left her at the hotel. She's a grown-up. She's able to be on her own for an hour," Joe pointed out.

  "Where did you go?"

  "To an antiques store on Walcot Street. Noble and Nude. I was there earlier. I promised to come back."

  "The shop was open as late as that?"

  "The lady was taking in furniture. She told me she'd be there until midnight."

  "You're speaking of the owner?"

  "Her name is Miss Redbird."

  "She can vouch for you, then?"

  "Hey, what is this?" said Joe, his red eyes widening. "Am I under suspicion, or what? Would I call you people in the middle of the night if I'd done something wrong?"

  Wigfull skipped that question. "Was your wife in any way upset that you went out so late without her?"

  "I wasn't going after girls, for God's sake."

  "But was she upset?"

  Joe gave a slight, grudging nod. "Donna didn't see why it was important to me to go back to the store. I tried explaining, but she wasn't in a mood to be reasonable."

  "You had a row?"

  "A difference of opinion."

  "Enough for her to walk out?"

  "In a strange town in the night? I don't think so. Not Donna."

  "She took her raincoat," Wigfull pointed out. "We established that. Do you have any friends she could have gone to?"

  "In Bath? No."

  "Nearby, then?"

  "No, sir. We're tourists. The only people we spent time with here are other tourists."

  "Does she have money?"

  "A couple of hundred pounds, I guess. Sometimes she goes shopping without me. She also has credit cards. Her bag isn't in the room."

  "Did you give details of the credit cards to the officers who saw you in the night?"

  "Sure, as much as I knew."

  "Was there any place your wife mentioned that she planned to visit while she is here?"

  "We're finishing up in London, if that's what you mean. Tomorrow-I mean today-we were going to visit Wilton House. She loves big houses."

  "Was that what brought you to Bath?"

  Joe gave a nervous, angry sigh. "Look don't get me wrong, but talking about our vacation isn't helping to find my wife. I told you we're tourists."

  Wigfull pressed on regardless. "All right. Would you mind telling me what you were doing visiting an antique shop as late as nine-thirty in the evening?"

  Joe thought before he spoke, as if deciding how much to say. "There was something I was interested in buying, an antique writing box about two hundred years old. I found it in the afternoon, rummaging around, only it was locked and the key was missing. The lady had hundreds of keys in her office. We looked for one that fitted, but couldn't find one. I had to get back to the hotel to take Donna out to dinner. I promised to go back after and see if the lady had found the right key. That's all."

  "You explained this to your wife?"

  "Of course I did."

  "And…?"

  "She thought it was stupid. Couldn't it wait until next day? You know how they go on."

  "You argued."

  "I promised her the trip to Wilton House."

  "But she had a point. Couldn't it have waited?"

  "If you know anything about antiques," Joe said as if to a child, "you see something you want, you'd better buy it. If you go back later you can bet your life it won't be there. It might have been sitting in the store collecting dust for ten years, but some wiseguy will have moved in and beaten you to it. That's the first law of antique-buying."

  "Did you get it, then?"

  Joe shook his head. "No, sir. It's still down at the store. The lady won't part with it until she finds the damned key. So it was a wasted evening, and you can imagine how I feel about the whole fiasco."

  Wigfull weighed the explanation, studying the little man's face: creased with the ordeal, vulnerable and nervous.

  What else was he hiding?

  "You were there until what time?"

  "Eleven, or soon after."

  "Trying keys?"

  "Sure. By then, I figured Donna would be getting anxious about me, or apeshit, to be honest, so I beat it back to the hotel."

  "Walked?"

  "Yes, sir. No taxis in sight. I carried a map. I was back by eleven-thirty, easy. And Donna wasn't in the room. I told myself there must be some rational explanation and she would soon come back. I got more and more worried and asked the hotel staff to make a search. They couldn't have been more helpful, but we didn't find her. At two in the morning, I called the emergency number."

  "We have it logged at two-ten."

  "I'm being approximate here."

  "Understood," said Wigfull. "I was just confirming your statement." Aware that he could not much longer delay telling Joe about the corpse in the river, he leaned back in his chair and pressed his thumb and forefinger against his big moustache, tracing the shape, as if to make sure it was still there, hiding his own insecurity. He had never been good at breaking bad news to people. "I, em, was down at the river an hour ago. It's probably someone else, but we have to check in a case like this.
"

  Abruptly, Joe opened his eyes wide. "What are you saying exactly?"

  "A woman was found."

  "You mean in the river?"

  "By the weir." Wigfull tried to soften the remark by adding, "Do you know Pulteney Weir?" Even as the words left his mouth, he realised how crass they sounded, like some conversation-piece at a cocktail party.

  Joe gripped the arms of his chair. "She's dead?"

  "It may not be your wife. This woman wasn't wearing a raincoat."

  The detail made no impression on Joe. He covered his face and cried out, "Oh, Jesus, I can't believe this."

  Wigfull looked down at the table and wondered what to say next.

  Joe said, more to himself than Wigfull, "What have I done? So help me, what have I done?" When he opened his eyes they were streaming tears.

  Wigfull was in turmoil himself. He didn't know how to react, whether to say something reassuring or lean harder on the man in the expectation that he was about to confess to murder. Finally he blurted, "I'll get you a coffee," got up and quit the room.

  sixteen

  "WHAT'LL IT BE.MrD?"

  What else could it be after the morning's breakthrough? "Bangers and mash."

  Pandora, the catering assistant known as Pan to everyone who used the police canteen, gave Diamond a beguiling smile and picked up the largest, gleaming sausage with her tongs. "Does this one look like yours?"

  "How did you guess?"

  "Inside information, Mr D. Another one?"

  He held up three fingers.

  She heaped sausages and mash onto his plate, winked and said, "One thing I always say about a big man. He's no use if he can't keep it up."

  "Talking from experience, Pan?"

  "His strength, I mean. Isn't that a fact? Next."

  He took the tray to a table. Nobody would be joining him. His spiky personality was enough to ruin anyone's digestion. So he sat alone, making short work of the meal and wondering if, after all, the mystery of the hand in the vault was capable of solution. It would please him immensely to crack it.

  He went back for jam roly-poly-setting Pan off on a whole new flight of innuendo-and shortly afterwards, needing to dispose of some calories, stepped outside and took a walk along Manvers Street. Still the heat-wave persisted. He was over- dressed in his suit and soon had the jacket slung over one shoulder.

  He had not gone far when he was conscious of a blonde head bobbing at his side. Ingeborg, the newshound, songbird and partygoer, was dressed more sensibly than he, in what he old-fashionedly thought of as running-kit and gym-shoes.

  "Any progress, Superintendent?"

  "You haven't given up, then?"

  "Why, have you?"

  He caught some extra inflexion in the words that made him turn to look at her. "Should I?"

  "Just that it was obvious yesterday you didn't share in all the excitement about the vault. It made me wonder if you're going to switch to another case."

  "It doesn't work like that, unfortunately."

  "I meant in view of the body found this morning."

  His face was flushed already from the heat. Now it caught fire. "What did you say?"

  "The body. Haven't they told you? Some poor woman dragged out of the river at Pulteney Weir. Your Chief Inspector Wigfull seems to be handling it."

  "Oh, that body," Diamond extemporised, completely in the dark.

  "Do you happen to know if she's the missing American?"

  Instead of giving her the satisfaction of asking which missing American, he said, "I've been flat out on other things."

  Ingeborg laughed. "Don't tell me you got lucky at the party."

  It was a cheap joke and he ignored it.

  She said, "I wouldn't have mentioned it, but as the woman in the water seems to have been the wife of that professor who talked his way into the vault the other day, I thought there might be some overlap."

  "Not necessarily," he managed to say quite smoothly, "but we follow everything up, as you know."

  They had stopped at the top of Pierrepont Street. Diamond had stopped, anyway. Manvers Street was exerting a powerful pull now he knew what was going on there. Your Chief Inspector Wigfull seems to be handling it. Indeed.

  "Any time you need the woman's angle, you only have to ask," Ingeborg told him. "You're missing Julie Hargreaves by now, I'll bet."

  "No one is irreplaceable."

  "I couldn't agree more, Mr Diamond. I wouldn't be any great loss to journalism if I joined the police."

  "Still on about that, are you?" he said mechanically, his mind more on Pulteney Weir than Ingeborg's next career move.

  "I picked up some forms yesterday." She hesitated. "You wouldn't give me a reference, would you?"

  "Mm?" Her request penetrated slowly. "I don't know enough about you."

  "We could remedy that." She must have realised as she spoke that it sounded like a come-on that she didn't intend. She gave a laugh that-unusually for her-betrayed some nervousness.

  He shook his head. "Get someone else. What about your friend the councillor?"

  "John?" She frowned. "I slept… I can't ask him for a reference."

  "He's on the Police Authority."

  "Oh, God. He is, isn't he?" She turned pink. "I could end up being interviewed by him."

  He was anxious to be off, but it was obvious that she really did have this ambition. He was not too old to remember being passionate himself about joining the police. If she was willing to sacrifice the high fees she earned from journalism and face a couple of years in uniform, she ought to be encouraged. In this warm-hearted spirit, his mind took a devious route. "This choir you belong to."

  "The Camerata?"

  "Yes. How long have you been singing with them?"

  "A couple of years, maybe three."

  "The choirmaster. Does he know you reasonably well?"

  "Reasonably." She frowned. "Do you think he would do as a reference? If I couldn't get you, I was going to ask my bank manager or a solicitor, or someone like that."

  "Go for the choirmaster. I can't think of anyone better placed to swing it for you."

  Her eyes shone as she realised what he was driving at. The Assistant Chief Constable-Georgina-would turn somersaults to become a permanent member of the Camerata. She could hardly ignore a reference written by the choirmaster. "Thanks!"

  He nodded, turned and marched briskly back to the nick.

  WlGFULL HAD just left for the mortuary with the American professor, so Diamond got the story of the body in the river from Sergeant Leaman, his deputy, who had sat in on the interview. Leaman was a keen young detective, unlikely to have missed any of the salient facts.

  When he had heard it all, Diamond asked, "What does your boss think?"

  "About what, sir?"

  "The dead woman."

  "He's keeping an open mind."

  "I should have saved my breath, shouldn't I? John Wigfull's mind is so open you can see daylight through it. How is the husband bearing up?"

  "Professor Dougan? It's difficult to tell, sir. He's obviously in a state of shock, but you've got to remember he's missing a night's sleep."

  "Did he have any explanation?"

  "For his wife's death? Not really, sir. Seems to blame himself for leaving her alone in the hotel last night. Says he had no idea she would take it so badly."

  "Was she neurotic? Depressed?"

  "Mr Wigfull didn't ask."

  "There must be more to it than the husband going out for a couple of hours."

  "I expect you're right, sir."

  "If that was cause for suicide, the river would be teeming with dead wives."

  "Perhaps it was the last straw."

  "Perhaps." Diamond didn't sound convinced. "How is she supposed to have done it? Walked out of the hotel, found her way to the river somewhere above the weir, a fifteen-minute walk, easy, taken off her coat and jumped in? I don't see it, sergeant."

  "I'm only reporting what I heard, sir."

  Diamo
nd gave a nod. Why take out his frustration on young Leaman? He would have it out with Wigfull later. "Keep me informed."

  He returned upstairs to see if Halliwell had made any more progress. He had not. The two builders he'd managed to reach on the phone had no memory of a pair of casual labourers known as Banger and Mash. It was evident in Halliwell's voice that he felt this was leading nowhere. The quest wasn't helped by the ludicrous names, like an outdated music hall turn.

  "Keep trying," he told Halliwell, and added as encouragement, "I was impressed by that plasterer from Winchester. It's the best lead we're likely to get."

  "It's all we've got," said Halliwell. "We've followed up all the calls that came in after your spot on Newsnight. The rest were dross. It gives some people a sense of importance, helping the police. 'I had tea in the Pump Room in 1963 and I remember seeing a man with staring eyes.' That's the quality of information we got from most of them."

  "It was the bill for the cream tea, I expect."

  "What's that, sir?"

  "The reason for the staring eyes."

  His wit had not infected Halliwell, who had spent far too long on the phone.

  "Have you eaten?" Diamond asked him.

  "Not yet."

  "Better get down there, hadn't you? It's gone two."

  "You just told me to keep trying, sir."

  "Within limits, Keith. I'm not a slave-driver."

  Halliwell refrained from comment. He was on his feet and heading for the canteen when Sergeant Leaman appeared in the doorway.

  "Hold on a minute, Keith," said Diamond. "What is it, sergeant?"

  Leaman looked right and left, as if he was about to impart something confidential. "I'm not sure what to do, sir. I just heard from the hospital. The mortuary. They wanted to speak to Mr Wigfull. I said he was on his way there with Professor Dougan."

  Diamond glanced at the clock. "Ought to be there by now. What did they want?"

  "It was about the body-the woman found at the weir. They said the police surgeon called in to look at her. It seems he found something nobody noticed down by the weir. She had injuries to the back of the head. Really nasty injuries, hidden by her hair. The skull is impacted in a couple of places. It could have happened when she fell into the water, or after she was in it, but-"