The Vault

by Peter Lovesey

  "You've been working some time on these?"

  "Five or six years. A long-term project. 'The energy of my purpose alone sustained me'. Thirty-six paintings, and I'm a slow worker."

  "Unlike William Blake."

  He swung round, reacting sharply. "Who's talking about Blake? I didn't say a word about Blake."

  So that's your get-out, thought Diamond as he changed emphasis. This was not the moment to pursue the link with Blake. "You've sold some of them already."

  "Yes."

  "Trying to make it cost-effective?"

  Evan gave a nervous smile and brushed some hair from his face.

  "But you're not short of a few pence, going by your car and your house."

  "Is that a crime? My grandfather was a colliery owner in Merthyr before the war and my Dad inherited half a million and invested wisely. It all got left to me when he died. I don't need to work, but I don't like being idle either."

  "You're not compelled to sell the paintings."

  "Not compelled, no."

  "Perhaps you wanted to test the market, see what collectors would make of them?"

  "That's no crime either."

  "Since you keep mentioning crime," said Diamond with a smooth transition, "what about assault on a police officer?"

  Evan wrapped his arms across his chest and lowered his head, eyes closed.

  Diamond waited.

  The man was groping for the right words. "I'm, I'm… ashamed of what happened Saturday. I got in a panic, you see. He was following me, that cop."

  "You knew he was a cop?"

  "He had to be. He came to watch my show in Victoria Park- you know I have this puppet theatre-and I could see him sitting alone in the audience."

  Wigfull at a puppet show? It was so bizarre that it had to be believed. Rapidly Diamond constructed a scenario. There had been a copy of the local paper in Wigfull's car. He must have seen an advert for the fair in the park, spotted Uncle Evan's name there and decided it was a heaven-sent opportunity to take stock of one of the key witnesses.

  "He had no kids with him," Evan was saying. "Just this man in a suit with the big moustache taking no interest in the show. All he did was watch me. I thought, Evan boyo, he's got your number. You've had a wonderful run, but it's coming to an end. He had this look like a tiger after its prey. I can't describe it."

  No need to try, Diamond found himself thinking. 'Tyger! tyger! burning bright.' I know Wigfull's predatory stare.

  Uncle Evan had not paused. "And after the show ended and I packed everything away, he was still there watching. It was giving me the creeps, I tell you. I got in the van and drove off, meaning to come back here to Stowford. Somewhere along the road I looked in my rearview and he was following. The same bloody great moustache. What could I do? I didn't want to lead him straight here. He'd find this place for sure and put me in deep trouble. My best bet was to abandon the van and take the footpath across the fields. I hoped he might give up."

  "Not Mr Wigfull," Leaman commented with undisguised admiration for his boss. "Mr Wigfull wouldn't give up."

  Evan heard that and pressed on. His face was mobile, sensitive to the events he was recalling. "I managed to put a bit of distance between us, enough for me to get out at Westwood and leg it into the field, where I couldn't be seen if I ducked down with my head below the crop. Like you say, he didn't give up. Stopped his car and came after me. Terrible. I happened to put my head up just as he was facing my direction. There was no question he'd seen me and was coming after me. I bolted like a bloody rabbit, right across that field and over the gate." He took a couple of shallow breaths, remembering. "There was a bit of open ground ahead near a pond. You know where I mean. You must have been there. I panicked. I got on my hands and knees and tried to hide in some bushes. My last hope was that he would go by and lose me. I was scrambling out of view of the footpath and my hand happened to touch something solid."

  "An empty bottle?" asked Diamond, with touching faith in his own theory.

  "A piece of metal tube. You know what I'm going to say, don't you? He came looking for me in the bushes. I guess it was obvious where I was. When he got level, I sprang up and struck out with the tube. It was an automatic action really. I can't tell you what it's like being hunted down. I cracked him on the head a couple of times and he went down. In all my life I've never done anything violent before. He was out cold. I chucked the tube in the pond and ran back to the van and drove off." Evan paused, and his breathing was as agitated as a dog's. "I'm really sorry now."

  The last words may have been sincerely meant, but they were too much for Sergeant Leaman, who suddenly turned vengeful. "Sorry? That's easy to say now. We don't take crap from bastards who lay into unarmed coppers. John Wigfull was my guvnor. 'Never done anything violent before'! Bloody liar." He caught Evan by the arm and swung him against the wall.

  "Leave it out," Diamond snapped.

  "He's all wind and piss, sir."

  "I said leave it. Are you deaf?"

  Leaman put his face close to Evan's and said, "Scumbag." Then he took a step back.

  The outburst was understandable but unexpected from the man who had given the impression nothing would make him lose his rag. Later, they would talk it through. Diamond was far from blameless in the treatment of suspects, but even as a youngster he wouldn't have cut loose with a suspect who was singing like an Eisteddfod winner.

  Now Evan was cowering against the wall, terrified. It was a real setback.

  Diamond tried again, and felt the scorn of Leaman as he said almost apologetically, "You've been frank about John Wigfull. Now I want you to tell us about Peg Redbird."

  Evan seemed not to have heard.

  "Miss Redbird, the owner of Noble and Nude," Diamond had to repeat.

  "What about her?"

  "What about you, the evening she was killed."

  "That wasn't me," he answered, his voice shrilling, close to hysteria. "You can't pin that on me, for pity's sake."

  "We know she phoned you at seven forty-three and had a six minute conversation with you."

  "You know that?"

  "She tried the Brains Surgery first. It was about the paintings she'd just acquired, wasn't it, two watercolours in the style of William Blake?"

  "If you know it all, why are you asking me?"

  "It's up to you, my friend," said Diamond. "You can tell it to me now and I'll listen. You're the one with a lot to explain. Or you can go back to the nick with Sergeant Leaman and see what he can do."

  Evan found that unappealing. The words began to flow again. "Peg and I knew each other pretty well. I won't say I was a regular in the shop, but I looked in from time to time. You could find useful things there. Once I bought a Victorian paintbox from her in beautiful condition. Five pounds. Treasure for me. Well, Peg phoned me Thursday evening, as you know. She'd put two and two together, of course-my interest in art materials. Remembered selling me a certain sketchbook years ago, an old one, almost unused. I can't tell you exactly when it was. Ten years? Fifteen? I don't know. I bet she knew exactly. Peg was nobody's fool. And she sold me an old book about the same time, the poems of John Milton. I wanted it for the blank sheets inside. Proper paper made from rags. Lovely for the style of painting I do. Got rid of it after. I only mention the book because someone came into the Brains Surgery with that book a few days ago."

  "An American?"

  "Tourist, wanting to know who owned it before him and willing to buy drinks to find out. You see how this all ties up? He asked me where I got the bloody book and I told him about Noble and Nude. He must have jogged Peg's memory. Well, on the phone to me she wasn't on about Milton. She wanted to know about the sketchbook, if I still had it. She was mighty keen to get it back, whatever the state of it."

  This made sense to Diamond, who was adding a subtext of his own. That Thursday evening when she made the call to Evan, Peg had just discovered she had Mary Shelley's writing box in her shop. Little wonder she was desperate to recover the sk
etchbook it had once contained. Those drawings would create massive interest in the literary world, regardless of their competence. Marketed right, with maximum publicity, they would bring in a small fortune.

  "I wasn't keen," Evan said. "Actually, I'd cut out all the blank sheets already, getting on for fifty, I reckon. When they're as old as that they need sizing before you can paint on them, and you don't mess about with single sheets. You do a batch of them together. So the sketchbook was in tatters really. The only sheets left were four or five used ones drawn on by the original owner, pencil sketches, rather dull still-life studies." He paused and something new crept in, a catch in the voice that promised bigger revelations. "Except one. This was right at the back, the last sheet in the book, as if the artist kept it for something special, unconnected with the boring old still life. An amazing page. I don't know what you'd call it. An elaborate doodle, I suppose, the paper totally covered in thumbnail sketches of mountains, snow scenes, little houses, forests, sailing ships, all interspersed with a strange mix of faces, men and women, some of them normal enough, others horrific, corpselike. The drawing was not good in a technical sense, but the effect of the whole thing was striking. It appealed to my imagination, anyway. I kept returning to it and finding new things. Actually it was inspirational. I really think it turned me onto fantasy, the great gothic horror themes of the nineteenth century, and led me to embark on this Frankenstein series."

  "You know who the artist was?"

  "Artist?" Evan smiled. "Artist isn't the word I would use. I haven't the faintest idea."

  Diamond chose not to enlighten him at this point. "You wanted to keep the sketchbook because of this one drawing?"

  "Exactly. I told Peg the truth, that the paper in the book was all used up now, and that was a mistake, because it was pretty clear I'd used it myself. She was getting very excited. You know how voices on the phone give away more than they realise. She was eager to know if I'd kept the old drawings, the ones already in the sketchbook. I said I thought I still had them somewhere. She wanted to come and see them. That night. I tried to put her off, but she wasn't having it." He looked down, his face still strained, as if he needed to gather himself before going on. "And then she shook me rigid. She told me about these two pictures she'd bought that afternoon. They were in the style of Blake. Clever fakes, she called them. She said she was planning to blow the whistle on them, get an expert to expose them. She asked me if I'd heard of the fraud squad. I was pissing in my pants. She didn't say so, but it was obvious she knew it was my work. She offered them to me in exchange for the remains of the sketchbook, with a promise that the deal would be confidential. Neither of us would speak of it again." Evan groaned at the memory. "She'd got me over a barrel. She could expose me as, em…"

  "A forger."

  He didn't like the word. "I've sweated blood over these paintings, getting them right. I study the text, immerse myself in the words. I'm not ripping people off."

  "You're turning out fakes."

  "They're originals. I haven't copied anything."

  "Come off it," said Diamond. "You go to all the trouble of finding antique paper and covering it with size and backing them with paper that crumbles in your hands. You're passing them off as something they're not."

  "I've never claimed they're Blakes. If people want to make that assumption, so be it. Look, I'm a painter. For years I did better things than these in my own style, miles better, and got no bloody recognition for them."

  "But these are in demand. That's how you get your revenge, is it? When some expert thinks he's found an unknown William Blake?"

  "That's out of my control."

  Diamond found the reasoning specious, but he wanted to hear the rest of what happened, so he didn't pursue it. "Peg threatened to blow the whistle on you and you agreed to meet her?"

  "What else could I do?"

  "That evening?"

  "Yes."

  "What time?"

  "We agreed on nine-thirty. First I had to drive out here and collect the sketchbook. I kept it in the plan-chest, see?"

  "Where did you meet?"

  "She didn't want me coming to the shop. You know the old horse trough in Walcot Street, the one built into the wall? It's just a short walk from the shop. I drove down there and she got in the car. She had no transport of her own. She was carrying the pictures."

  It chimed in neatly with Ellis Somerset's version, the conversation that had so upset him, about the meeting that sounded like a heavy date. "I'm expecting an offer tonight, if that doesn't sound indelicate."

  "Did you make the exchange?"

  "I tried. I had the remains of the sketchbook with me. I'd removed one drawing."

  "The one you just described to us, with all the detail?"

  Evan nodded. "I didn't think Peg Redbird knew it was in there, but she did. By God, she did. I told you she was smart, didn't I? When she first had the sketchbook in her hands she must have flicked through and found it at the back, same as me, and she remembered. She asked if I still had that crowded page from the back. Believe it or not, I find it difficult to lie. I said yes, but I wasn't willing to part with it. She could take the other drawings."

  "She wouldn't agree?"

  "No way. She called me a cheat. Said she knew enough to put me away for years. That drawing was part of the deal, she said. If I didn't produce it, she would have me exposed as a forger." He shook his head miserably. "What could I do? She wouldn't leave the car until I drove her out here, to Stowford, and collected it."

  "Is that what you did?"

  "Yes. I wasn't happy, I can tell you. It was blackmail, wasn't it? But I had no remedy."

  At this, Leaman said with heavy sarcasm, "Oh, no?"

  The muscles tightened at the side of Evan's face. "I drove her back to Bath and set her down where I met her."

  "What time?" demanded Diamond.

  He gave it some thought. "It was by eleven, I tell you that. She had to be back by eleven, she said. I didn't do bad, getting her there on time, allowing for all the wrangling, and the drive out here and back."

  "Was it much before eleven? Did you look at the clock in the car?"

  "I was too bloody angry to look at the time."

  "You set her down in Bath and that was the last you saw of her?"

  "Correct."

  "Was anyone around, anyone who might have seen you?"

  "Not that I noticed."

  "What did you do after?"

  "Drove home and went to bed. I was shocked when I heard what happened to her."

  "You didn't come forward as a witness."

  "Would you, in the circumstances? I was bloody terrified."

  "Can you produce these paintings she exchanged with you?"

  He went to a drawer of the plan-chest and took them out, still loosely covered in bubblewrap. At Diamond's suggestion, Evan himself uncovered them and lay them on the desk for inspection. The ham-fisted detective wasn't risking another accident.

  They were the scenes from Frankenstein just as they had been described by Ellis Somerset, dramatic images, skilfully drawn and painted. Peg Redbird must have been a shrewd judge to have spotted them as fakes.

  Evan was talking aloud, but to himself, quoting Mary Shelley. " '… the figure of a man, at some distance, advancing towards me with superhuman speed. He bounded over the crevices in the ice, among which I had walked with caution; his stature, also as he approached, seemed to exceed that of a man.' "

  Diamond said, "They're remarkable."

  Evan turned to him. "Everything I told you is the truth. I hit out at the copper in a panic, and I'm sorry. I swear to God I didn't touch Peg Redbird. I'm not a killer."

  "Don't count on it," said Diamond. "John Wigfull is still on the danger list."

  thirty-five

  AFTER SO MANY YEARS in the police, Peter Diamond was not surprised by much, but he was rendered speechless when he walked into the Manvers Street control room and recognized an elegant young woman in a dove grey suit
chatting to one of the sergeants.

  She turned and smiled.

  He eventually said, "Well, who would have thought it?"

  DI Julie Hargeaves, his much-missed deputy, said, "It hasn't been all that long."

  She was supposed to be on attachment to Headquarters.

  "What brings…?"

  "Interviewing duty," she explained. "They're taking on new recruits, some women among them. I had an evening off, or so I thought. I haven't now."

  He was disappointed. "I thought for a moment…"

  "No," said Julie firmly.

  "Are you doing the interviews alone?"

  She shook her head. "Someone has to represent Joe Public. Regulations. I'm teamed up with Councillor Sturr. Have you met him?"

  "Him? God help us if the rest of the public is anything like him."

  "He's on the Police Authority," said Julie. "A sledge-hammer to crack a nut, if you ask me, but I gather he insisted."

  "Typical," said Diamond, thinking of the shock Ingeborg was going to get.

  Julie shrugged and said, "How's it going here? I heard about John Wigfull, poor old lad."

  "He's getting over it."

  Her lips shaped into the beginning of a smile. "Shouldn't I waste my sympathy?" She well knew of Diamond's feud with the injured chief inspector.

  He made an effort to sound upbeat. "I just got the latest from the hospital. They're saying there's been a big improvement in the last hour. He's fully conscious. All the signs are that he'll make a full recovery."

  "That's wonderful. And you phoned up to ask how he was doing?"

  He gave the honest explanation. "I needed to know in case he was dead. We just nicked someone for the assault."

  "Reliable?"

  "Cast iron. He confessed. Runs a puppet show. Calls himself Uncle Evan."

  "Did he also murder the antiques lady?" Julie, as he would have expected, was well up on the case.