The Vault

by Peter Lovesey

  "I get the drift," said Diamond with a wry smile. "They killed her for it?"

  "Listen, I'm trying to help you with your inquiries. Literally. And I have one great advantage over you."

  "What's that?" said Diamond, all interest.

  "I know I'm an innocent man."

  Diamond couldn't help grinning.

  Joe was nodding solemnly. "Some other guy must have done these things."

  "In the furtherance of theft, you think? Was it really worth killing for? Just an antique somebody famous once owned?"

  "People have killed for less. It depends what price they put on a human life."

  Sergeant Leaman looked around the door and Diamond beck' oned to him to come over. He had brought Joe Dougan's coffee. He said in confidence to Diamond, "Those phone numbers, sir-the local calls Peg Redbird made on the day she died. We've traced them now. The first was to a pub in Larkhall."

  "The Brains Surgery?"

  "Right. And the second was a private number, a Mr E. Tanner-Jones. It has to be Uncle Evan, doesn't it?"

  "Got the address?"

  "One Tree Cottage, Charlcombe Lane."

  "Any previous?"

  "Nothing known."

  "What time is it now?"

  "Ten to three."

  "We'll pick him up pronto."

  Leaman asked after a pause, "Do you mean you want to come, sir?"

  "Try and keep me away." He stood up.

  Joe Dougan let out a breath that seemed to come from the depth of his soul.

  Diamond glared.

  Joe said, "I was blowing on the coffee." After some hesitation he asked, "Have you finished with me?"

  "For the present," said Diamond. "I'm going to ask one of our people to book you into a hotel for the night. It won't be the Royal Crescent, but it should be comfortable."

  * * *

  ON THE drive, he told Leaman about Mary Shelley's sketchbook. "What a gift for a forger-sheets and sheets of paper dating from the first years of the nineteenth century."

  "Is that what happened to it?"

  "How would I know? I'm speculating. If they're working in ink or watercolour they need genuine old paper, sheets of the stuff. It was made differently in those days, with rag, or something. No good using modern paper. It has to pass all the dating tests. Larger sheets would be hard to come by. So you can imagine the use a forger could make of an entire sketchbook."

  "Peg Redbird?"

  "As the forger? No, she simply found the sketchbook in the writing box and put it on sale."

  "Someone else bought it for the paper, to fake pictures on?"

  "That's the way I'm thinking. Some clever forgeries have been unloaded on the art market in Bath."

  "The Blakes?"

  "Or what passed for Blakes. Councillor Sturr owns one and Minchendon had two. There may well be others on the walls of smart houses in the area. I'm hoping to get a sight of an art forger's studio."

  "At this cottage?"

  "It has to be somewhere. That afternoon when Peg got her hands on the pictures from Si Minchendon's, she spent a lot of time on the phone to galleries and museums and I can only think she was trying to find out if Blake ever painted a Frankenstein series. He didn't. At the end, she phones two local numbers, the Brains Surgery, where Uncle Evan hangs out, and One Tree Cottage. Why? We'll find out presently, I hope."

  * * *

  IT TURNED up unexpectedly in another half-mile-unexpectedly because the building was no cottage in the ordinary sense of the word. Set back at the end of a gravel drive in an isolated stretch of Charlcombe Lane, it was a modern two-storey house in the Georgian style, built the expensive way in the local stone, not the reconstituted sort. Gables, sash windows, portico, coach-lamps, conifers in white tubs.

  They saw it through closed wrought-iron gates equipped with an entry-phone. Leaman drew up alongside the grille and put down the car window.

  "Do we say who we are?"

  "Let's see who we get."

  A woman's voice announced, "Mr Tanner-Jones isn't at home."

  Diamond muttered an obscenity, then leaned across Leaman and said genially, "That's all right, my dear. We're the police. We'll talk to you."

  "I'm only the cleaner."

  "But you know how to press the button that opens the gates."

  It got them through the gate. She had the front door open before they were out of the car, a nervous-looking young woman wiping her hands on a red overall. "I can't help you."

  "You can," said Diamond. "You're just the right person. What's your name?"

  "Linda."

  "We won't keep you long, Linda. Shall we do this inside?"

  The Tanner-Jones residence was as fine inside as out. They were standing on an Afghan carpet in a hall with an antique grandfather clock and a huge celadon-ware vase containing pampas grass.

  "Out for the day, is he?" Diamond asked.

  "He often is when I come in to do the house," she said. "I'm not supposed to let anyone in."

  "But you wouldn't obstruct the police in the course of their duty, would you? That's against the law. Where's the art room?"

  "The what?"

  "Art room, studio, whatever he calls it. As the cleaner, you should know."

  Linda shook her head. "There's nothing like that."

  Too easy, Diamond decided. He would have to think in terms of hidden rooms, something in the attic, or outside in the garden. "How does he relax, then? I thought he was a painter."

  "I don't know anything about that."

  "What's his job?"

  "I don't know if he has one."

  "How does he live so well if he doesn't work?"

  "I couldn't say. He must have been left some money, or won the lottery, or something."

  "You don't mind if we look around?" He didn't wait for her answer, but opened a door and stepped into a large sitting room with a tan-coloured leather suite. The pictures on the wall were modern abstracts; nothing remotely resembled a Blake. "What does he look like, your boss?" he asked Linda. "Is there a picture of him anywhere?"

  "I've never seen one. He's tall and thin. Mostly he dresses in casual clothes, jeans and things. He has long hair, really long for a bloke, I mean, in a pony-tail, and glasses."

  It was Joe's description of Uncle Evan, near enough.

  "He hasn't gone missing, has he?" Linda asked anxiously.

  "I hope not."

  Diamond strolled into another room, a dining-room with walnut chairs and oval table. The taste in art still favoured the twentieth century. The end wall had a huge Frink charcoal drawing of horses. "Does he entertain much?"

  "I only come in two afternoons a week," said Linda.

  She didn't seem aware of the ambiguity, and he didn't make anything of it. She was too soft a target. "We'll look upstairs."

  "I haven't done the upstairs yet," Linda said.

  She tagged along while they looked into five bedrooms, each with its en suite bathroom. The most lived-in still told them nothing except that Tanner-Jones owned about twenty pairs of designer jeans and read John Updike and GQ. Halfway along the landing was a hatch to the space under the roof. "Is there a room up there?"

  "I've no idea."

  "You've never been up to clean it?"

  "No. It's not on my list."

  Diamond nodded to Leaman, who reached up, released the catch and pulled down the hatch door. A light came on automatically. A folding ladder was attached to the hidden side of the door. With the sense of occasion of an astronaut bound for a new planet, Diamond climbed upwards.

  He found himself standing among cardboard boxes, rolls of wallpaper and lampshades. He came down like the manager of the national football team after it has lost six-nil to San Marino.

  They went into the garden, opened the sheds and found only tools, deckchairs and grass-seed.

  "I've seen all I want of this sodding place."

  They returned to the car. "Where to, sir?" Leaman asked as they got in.

  "Just get us
out of here," said Diamond. "No. Hold it." He stared along the gravel drive. The automatic gates had opened and a black sports car was entering. It braked. There was a moment's hiatus. Obviously the driver had spotted their car in front of the house. Then he reversed with a screech of tyres and headed back along the road.

  Leaman didn't need to be told what to do next.

  thirty-three

  "FEAR NOT THAT I shall be the instrument of future mischief. My work is nearly complete."

  But he approached the end with reluctance.

  thirty-four

  "I KNEW IT. I bloody knew it!"

  The gates were closing and there was no chance of getting through in time. The black sports car powered off in the direction of Larkhall, gears forced through a series of rising notes.

  Diamond flung open the door of their car and ran back to the house to tell Linda the cleaner to press the gate control. She was slow in responding.

  He got back in and slammed the door. The other car would be out of sight by this time. "It doesn't happen like this in the movies."

  "Yes it does, sir. The baddies always get a head start. We catch up."

  The gates moved apart and Leaman put his foot down.

  "Christ, you don't have to kill us both. That isn't in the script." He hated being driven at speed and this was only a CID car without light and siren. There had to be a more intelligent way. "What make was it?"

  "Couldn't tell you, sir. I only caught the front view."

  "Did you get the number?"

  "Too far off."

  So it was no use radioing for assistance. If orders were issued to stop every black sports car on the roads of Bath, there would be chaos.

  Diamond was running out of ideas. "You're overdoing it," he complained again. "I can't think at this speed."

  "The A4's up ahead, sir," Leaman informed him.

  "What's that in English?"

  "The London Road. Shall we go up the new by-pass? If he went that way, we might get a sight of him."

  The big man sat on his hands pressing his fingers into his fleshy thighs. "Might as well, then," he said with an air of doom.

  Presently they were in the outside lane overtaking everything.

  "It says fifty."

  Leaman smiled. He thought Diamond was joking.

  They passed a black Porsche being driven sedately by an elderly man in a turban.

  Diamond said, "We don't know for sure if the guy coming through the gates was Uncle Evan."

  "He used a remote control to open them," Leaman pointed out.

  "True. Ease off a bit. We can get through to Sally-in-the-Woods up here."

  "The 363?"

  "One thing you should know about me, sergeant, is that I don't think in numbers."

  "Except speed limits, sir?"

  Diamond lifted an eyebrow. After a promising start, this sergeant was beginning to give some lip.

  "Sally-in-the-Woods, then. Have you got a plan, sir?"

  "I'm full of plans. That's something else you should know."

  This winding road through trees along the eastern scarp of the Avon valley would take them past Bathford in the direction of Bradford on Avon and Trowbridge.

  Diamond made yet another appeal for moderation. "You can cut the speed now. We're not chasing any more."

  "Have we given up, sir?"

  "We're using our brains."

  Not much was said in the next twenty minutes. Whether this was because brains were in use was open to question. At Bradford, he told Leaman to drive through the town centre and along the Frome Road.

  "To Little Terrors, sir?"

  "No. In about a mile you'll come to a set of traffic lights. Take a right there."

  "Stowford-where he stores his puppets?"

  "That's my best shot."

  Leaman put his foot down just a little more. They left the road at Stowford Farm and swung left onto the dirt track. And Diamond's best shot seemed to have scored. A low black Mercedes sports car with dark windows was standing on the space behind the workshops. They drew up beside it.

  No one was inside, but the engine was still warm. Leaman tried the doors. Locked.

  "Want me to radio for help, sir?"

  "We can handle him."

  Diamond was on his way, striding around the farm buildings towards the copse at the edge of the mill stream. High in the branches above them, a colony of rooks had been noisily disputing the best roosting places. At the sight of Diamond in motion they took to the air.

  Beyond the derelict water mill stood the cottage where the puppets were stored. Diamond pulled up, breathing hard, and put out his hand to stop Leaman. "The padlock is still on the door. He can't be inside."

  "Is there a back way?"

  "Boarded up, if I remember. We can check."

  They skirted the building without going close enough to be obvious to anyone inside. The rear door had planks nailed across it. The only possible way in was from the front.

  "Crafty bugger," said Diamond. "Where's he hiding? One of the workshops?"

  "We're going to need extra men, sir."

  "We'll try the mill." He wasn't waiting for reinforcements. He was energised.

  The ancient mill clothed in ivy and Old Man's Beard stood at the side of the sluice from the River Frome. The water wheel had long since been dismantled; only the old hub-ring was visible among the weeds.

  Diamond tramped through the long grass. He hadn't the patience or skill to look for signs of someone going before. The only sign he noticed was the one screwed to the wall warning that the building was dangerous. He put his hand against the door and felt a slight frisson at how easily it opened.

  "Hold on, sir." Sergeant Leaman pressed a cigarette lighter into his hand.

  As a source of light in the dark interior it was better than nothing. It showed them an iron face-wheel about five feet in diameter that must once have transmitted the power from the waterwheel to the machinery. The main vertical shaft rose like the mast of a ship to the floor above. It looked reasonably stable up there; down here, the damp had got to the foundations. The floor sagged and the boards were rotten in places. Some living thing, probably a rat, scuttled across the floor and disappeared into a gap. Diamond held the lighter higher and saw the outline of a figure lurking to his left. He jerked into a defensive posture before finding he was fooled by the weird shapes of fungi growing up the walls. Recovering his dignity, he gave Leaman a look that did not invite comment, and moved on. He was interested in a vertical ladder to an upper level by way of an open trapdoor. He tried his weight on the first rung. It was iron and supported him well.

  Leaman offered to go up first. Diamond shook his head and told him to hold the lighter.

  Considering what had happened to John Wigfull, this was a rash move. Anyone up there could take a swipe at him the minute his head showed through the trap. He had this thought too late to make a difference. He was already above the level of the floor straining to see.

  He asked for the lighter again and Leaman passed it up. The flame was now burning tall and yellowish. He wasn't sure if this meant that the fuel was running out; he was just grateful for the extra light, treating him to a sight he had not dared to expect in this place.

  This storey had been renovated and furnished. There were two modern office desks, a plan-chest, stools and a table. He climbed the last rungs and stepped onto a carpet made of sisal squares. He could now see more equipment, a viewer for looking at slides, a magnifying lamp and a photocopier. On the larger of the desks under an angle-poise lamp was a draughtsman's drawing-board with a sheet of paper fixed to it with masking tape. Ranged along the side were numerous tubes of paint and several jam-jars, some holding brushes, some filled with water. The other desk was covered in books, many of them open. No question: he had found the forger's studio.

  He said aloud, "Where the hell does he get his electricity?"

  Leaman called up, "What's that, sir?"

  "Come up and see."

  Th
en the lights came on, dazzling Diamond, and a voice said, "Got my own generator, see?"

  He swung around. The speaker was behind him, half hidden by the hatch of the trap-door: the thin, long-haired man in glasses he was so curious to meet. Evan Tanner-Jones, alias Uncle Evan, stood with his palms facing forward as if to make clear that he wasn't holding a weapon.

  Leaman heard the voice and was up that ladder like a fireman.

  Diamond gestured to him with a downward movement of the hand that no threat was being made.

  "The rozzers?" said Evan-an expression Diamond had not heard in years.

  He lifted his shoulders a fraction in a way that was meant to reassure as well as confirm.

  Evan said, "I thought I'd lost you back in Bath."

  "You did," Diamond admitted. "I had to think where you would hide up. This is where you turn them out, then?"

  Evan didn't care for the choice of phrase. "It's my studio, if that's what you mean."

  "Is it safe to move around?"

  "Worried about the floor, are you? There's no damp up here. You want to see the size of the timbers."

  "It's your work I want to see." He walked over to the drawing board. The painting taped to it was in the early stages, outlined, with only a few sections lightly tinted. Unschooled in art as Diamond was, he could still tell it was superbly draughted. The subject was melodramatic: a wild-eyed, long-haired figure loomed over a corpse lying in an open coffin. "Frankenstein again?"

  The eyes behind the glasses opened a little wider.

  "I've seen one before," Diamond explained without a hint of censure. "You're good at this."

  "This is out of the final chapter. Do you know the book?" Evan responded, his voice becoming animated as he realised he was free to talk about the painting. Years of secrecy must have been hard to endure. "We're on board the ship here looking at the scene from Captain Walton's point of view. That's Frankenstein lying dead in the coffin. And that's the monster, desolated." He began to quote from memory, " 'I entered the cabin where lay the remains of my ill-fated and admirable friend. Over him hung a form which I cannot find words to describe-gigantic in stature, yet uncouth and distorted in its proportions.' Have I done it justice, do you think? Soon he'll leap off the ship onto the raft and be 'borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance', and that will be my final painting. God knows when I'll get the chance to do it."