“Allegedly? I’ve seen the photos,” said Julie.
“Well, if they struck you as erotic, fine.”
She colored.
“I mean, it’s all in the mind, isn’t it?” Diamond teased her.
She stayed staunchly with the story she was reporting. “The family were extremely obliging. Prue Shorter took any number of photos while Britt got the interview with the Viscount and wrote the story. The press made a great splash out of it. She did some very big deals with continental magazines. Anything out of the ordinary about the British aristocracy sells well in Europe.”
“Out of the ordinary? Yes, I think that sums it up.” Privately he thought the Longleat story unlikely to have influenced the murder. “You said there were three stories Prue Shorter photographed for Britt. The Longleat portraits, the Mountjoy scam and what else?”
“The other was Trim Street.”
“Really?” He leaned forward in the chair.
“Well, you found this out yourself,” said Julie. “The crusties got into one of the empty houses and declared squatters’ rights. Britt got to know them and succeeded in getting Prue inside to photograph the place.”
“When?”
“She couldn’t pin down the date, but it was only a week or so before the murder. Britt’s story never got written. Prue Shorter has some excellent shots of the crusties inside the place. She showed them to me.”
Diamond examined his thumb again. Every so often it gave a twinge and his face prickled as if he were sitting in a draught. “I can’t think what she hoped to do with the story. There are homeless people all over Europe occupying empty houses.” Recalling a comment of Pinkerton’s, he said, “Did she say what the angle was?”
“The angle?”
“The point the article was making.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Maybe I should meet this woman. Steeple Ashton, you said? Is she likely to be there this morning?”
Julie thought so. She had gathered that Prue Shorter worked from home these days. She had given up the photography.
They drove there together, Julie at the wheel of the Escort. So far, he was glad he had asked her to act as his assistant. The decision hadn’t been taken out of any strong conviction that women deserved a better deal in the police. He judged people on their merits, and Julie was a good detective. John Wigfull was also a good detective, much more experienced than Julie, but a pain to work with.
Steeple Ashton lies west of Bath, across the county border, in Wiltshire. Strictly, he should have informed the Wilts Constabulary that he was pursuing inquiries on their patch, and Wigfull would have reminded him of the fact, but Julie had the good sense to say nothing.
Prue Shorter’s cottage was stone-built and thatched, south of the village, up a lane much used by cows. There were some ancient apple trees in the garden.
“Is she friendly?” Diamond asked.
“I think you’ll find her so. With that sore thumb of yours, I wouldn’t shake hands. She’s big.”
“Hearty?”
“Yes.”
Smoke was coming from the chimney, a promising sign. The hearty occupant must have heard the car because she opened the door before they reached it. “You again, love?”
“This is Mr. Diamond, my boss,” said Julie, sidestepping the trifling matter of rank. “He won’t shake hands because he was stung by a bee this morning.”
“Poor lamb!” said Prue Shorter. “Have you put something on it?”
He didn’t care to start that again. “It’s under control, thanks. I wanted to meet you because you worked with Britt Strand, the woman who was murdered. I don’t know how much Inspector Hargreaves told you.”
“I know Mountjoy is on the run,” she said. “I can relax. He never met me. Doesn’t even know I exist. Are you coming in? I’ll get the kettle on.”
When she opened the door wider and turned, she made Diamond feel undersized, a mere tug beside an ocean liner. Such encounters were rare. She had to ease her way into the kitchen, where something rich was cooking.
Left in the living room, which was the greater part of the ground floor of the cottage, he looked around for signs of the work Miss Shorter did from home, and saw none. Maybe she had an office upstairs, he speculated, because this room was furnished for relaxation, with a chintz sofa and armchairs, a music center and a television set. It also contained the stone hearth and a log fire. The framed pictures of Redoute roses, the vases and ornaments and the cut chrysanthemums in a glass vase were arranged with a bold sense of design. Large as she was, Prue Shorter was not ham-fisted. A violin in a white alcove was elegantly displayed.
“You’re a musician, I gather?” he said sociably when she returned with a laden tray.
“What makes you say that? Ah—the fiddle. It’s not full-size. It belonged to my daughter. She died.”
“Sorry—I wouldn’t have ...”
“It’s all right. I’m thick-skinned. And I like to listen to music. I play things most of the time—CDs, I mean. The recorder was the only instrument I mastered, and there’s not much joy playing that.”
“Music is nice as a background, if it doesn’t interfere with your work,” he ventured. This was subtle stuff, and he hoped Julie was taking note.
“Oh, it’s just the thing for what I do,” Prue Shorter said. “I make and decorate cakes. There’s one in the oven right now.”
“It smells irresistible. No more photography, then?”
“Only pics of the cakes.” She set down the tray. “You can sample one I made for myself.”
“I’d love to.”
“That’s the kind of man I like,” she said, raising her fist in tribute. “Sod the calories, forward the cakes.” She cut a generous slice of iced fruit cake and handed it to him. “How about you, Inspector? Do you good.”
“Thanks, but it’s a little early in the day,” Julie said.
“And last night it was too late. When do you eat? Never mind, love.” She went through the maneuver of sitting down, in free fall for the last foot or so, severely testing the frame of the sofa, never mind the springs. “Yes, the press photography suffered in the recession—and without Britt. I was always freelance, you see. Didn’t want to live in London, where the well-paid work is. So I went back to making cakes. I learned it years ago. Won competitions for my icing. The great thing about all this—and I’m not referring to my figure—is that even in a recession people get married and want wedding cakes. Whatever damn-fool things the government does to ruin the economy, babies get christened—that means more cakes—and Christmas comes up every year—and that’s another batch.”
“It sounds like good sense to me,” said Diamond.
“You’re in the same happy position, ducky,” she remarked. “Crime is always going to be around. You’re never going to be short of work.”
He let that pass. “I’d like to ask you a couple of things that could be helpful without going over the ground you covered with Inspector Hargreaves. About Mountjoy. Did Britt say much to you about what she was uncovering at the college?”
“About as much as I needed to know, my dear, and that was all. She was a shrewd operator.”
“She must have admired your work.”
“I was reasonably competent,” she said. “No—why be modest?—I’m bloody brilliant with a camera. When I showed her my book, she hired me.”
“That’s how you met?”
“In that business, you have to hustle for the work, darling. I heard about this top journalist living in Bath, so I turned up on her doorstep one morning and showed her what I did. Getting photographers down from London each time she had a story to cover was a real drag, and as I was on the spot she gave me a dry run with the Longleat story. I got some nifty pics and—bingo! It sold all over the world.”
“Coming back to Mountjoy ...”
“You wanted to know how much Britt let me in on the story, right? I knew she enrolled there as a student to dig some dirt, but I hadn’t the
faintest idea it was about Iraqi spies. She just wanted pics of the exterior, which I took, and she said when the time was right she’d want some of the principal. My best guess was that the old goat was having it away with some princess from a tinpot European state who had come to learn English. Improper verbs, you might say.” She popped most of a slice of fruit cake into her mouth.
“Were you in close touch with Britt in the last days of her life?”
After some rapid work on the cake, she said, “Not unless you count a phone call as close touch. We spoke the day before she died, updating on the projects I was doing with her. She said the college investigation was coming along nicely and I had better stand by to get some pics of the principal as soon as she gave me the word.”
“Did she sound the same as usual?”
“Absolutely. Very calm, with that precise way the Swedes have of speaking English. Always made me sound a blethering idiot by comparison.”
“Did she mention anyone she was planning to see?”
“No.”
“The dinner with Mountjoy wasn’t mentioned?”
“No. She wasn’t one for chatting. It was all strictly business with Britt.”
“Do I sense that you didn’t like her?”
Prue Shorter weighed the question.
“Didn’t like her much?” Diamond pressed.
“I liked the money she paid. We respected each other professionally. As for friendship, she was the ice maiden. Maybe she was only interested in men. She could put it on with them, for sure. I watched her in action.”
There was disapproval in the tone she used. It crossed Diamond’s mind that some sort of jealousy was at work. If he hadn’t heard about the daughter who had died, he might have assumed that Prue Shorter was a lesbian, frustrated in her overtures to Britt. Of course, it wasn’t impossible that she was or had become one.
“Would you go so far as to say that she used her looks to further her career?”
She mocked this with a huge laugh. “What is this pussyfooting ‘would you go so far as to say?” Is this what they call political correctness? Load of horseshit. Of course she maximized her assets, and good luck to her.” She turned to Julie and said, “Don’t you agree?”
Julie reddened and said ineffectually, “Well ...”
Diamond was tempted to point out that “maximized her assets” was pussyfooting, too, but he wasn’t there for an argument. He moved on. “I’d like to ask about the Trim Street job that you did for her. The squat.”
“What about it?”
“How did she persuade them to let you inside with your camera?”
Prue Shorter opened her hands to stress how obvious the answer was. “Like I said, my dear, she exercised her charm. They had a leader. He was called G.B. Don’t ask me why. The crusties all had made-up names like Boots and Tank, even the girls. G.B. used to hang around the Abbey Churchyard— you know, in front of the abbey, right in the center of Bath, and that’s where Britt linked up with him. I don’t know how she could. These people pong like a stable, you know. He had a dog on a piece of rope, a vicious-looking thing, and she would buy meat for it. Just getting G.B.’s confidence. She knew if she could get in with him, he’d square it with the rest of them in Trim Street.”
“But why? What was the object?”
“To get into the house and get some pics.”
“I know that,” said Diamond. “What I mean is that it’s no big deal, some derelict people in a derelict house. As a piece of journalism it doesn’t compare with the story she was doing on Mount joy.”
She nodded. “There must have been something about it that she wasn’t telling. She guarded her secrets, did Britt. I remember wondering at the time if it was worth risking head lice and fleabites for, but she was very insistent. She got us in and I took five rolls of film.”
“Anything of interest?”
“You can see the prints if you want. As pics, they’re bloody good, but I wouldn’t know where to sell them now. Young people with rings through their noses and tattoos and punk hairstyles lying around a gracious Georgian fireplace drinking beer and cider. Rather boring.”
“Were there any objections?”
“From the crusties, you mean? A couple of the girls told me to piss off, I think, but G.B. gave them a mouthful back and they fell into line. No, we had the freedom of the house.”
“This G.B. Is he still about?”
“In Bath? I’ve seen him from time to time in various states of inebriation. They moved out of Trim Street quite soon after we were there.”
“Do you know why?”
She shook her head.
“Since you mentioned it, I’d like to see your pictures of the crusties.”
“All right. Give me a hand, will you?”
She literally wanted a hand to help haul her up from the sofa. He supplied it and got a sense of the weight her legs had to support. He’d been about to take another bite of cake, but he left a piece on his plate.
Their hostess had to go upstairs for the photos. Diamond returned the cups to the tray and carried it to the kitchen. Julie offered, but he shook his head. He wanted to see that kitchen. It was orderly and well equipped, with a solid, square table, a German oven and a set of French saucepans. A cork notice board over one of the work surfaces was covered with the sort of ephemera that people often feel obliged to keep for a time out of sentiment or necessity: a faded drawing that a young child must have done of a stick figure apparently female with a bush of hair and hands like toasting forks; postcards from Spain and Florida; a Gary Larson cartoon; two newspaper cuttings of local weddings; and a couple of business cards. There was also an engagement diary with every Saturday in the month marked as a wedding.
He was back in the living room when Prue Shorter came downstairs carrying a manila folder. She took out the photos and spread them across the coffee table. “Help yourself, folks. I’d better check that cake.”
They were eight-by-ten prints in black and white, mostly of groups of the crusties lounging in rooms, some in embraces, their dreadlocked hair inseparable and suggestive of sheep after a hard winter in the hills; others lolling in armchairs or lying full-length across the floor. There were also some striking portraits of individuals staring at the camera, their pinched faces and joyless expressions testifying to the hardship of life on the streets.
“Which one is G.B. ?” Diamond asked when Prue Shorter came back into the room.
She picked one off the table. “How would you like to share an ice cream with that? Britt did. I wish I’d had my camera with me at the time.”
G.B. had a shaven head and a drooping eyelid. His teeth looked as if he had just eaten black currants. It was impossible to estimate his age. He was in an army greatcoat and he had a leather necklace with pointed metal studs, the kind people used to give guard dogs to wear. In the photo he was holding a beer can in each hand.
“How big is he?”
“Six-three, must be. Terrific shoulders. He must have done some bodybuilding.”
“Did you find out anything about him, his background, I mean?”
“Britt may have done. I’d say he was a Londoner by his accent. Actually he had quite an educated voice.”
“Bright?”
“Brighter than most of that boozy lot. Their brains rot with the stuff they put away.”
“You said Britt worked her charm on him. Was that as far as it went?”
“You mean did she do it with him? What a revolting thought!”
“Did you ask her?”
“I wouldn’t have insulted her.”
“Did they kiss, embrace, or touch at all? You see what I’m getting at? I want to know whether G.B. could have regarded her as his girl.”
“Sweetie, I’ve no idea what was in his mind, but I’d be very surprised if Britt let him get up to anything. She had any amount of dishy men to choose from.”
Diamond wasn’t to be distracted. “When you were in the house in Trim Street, how did they seem wi
th each other?”
“You mean did they go upstairs for some how’s-your-father? If they had, I’d have gone with them. I was feeling very uptight among all those weird people. No, thank God, Britt was supervising me. She asked G.B. each time we wanted to move to another room or have some furniture shifted for a better shot, and he was very obliging, very eager to please. It was all done in less than an hour.”
“Did any money change hands?”
“Not while I was looking.”
“Might I keep this photo of G.B.?”
“Help yourself. I’ve still got the negs if I really want to remind myself of his ugly mug. How about some more cake?”
They got away without more cake.
In the car, Julie put the key in the ignition and said, “Dare I ask?”
“What?”
“Who gets the job of finding G.B.?”
He said, “It never ceases to amaze me.”
“What’s that?”
“A woman’s intuition.”
Chapter Eleven
He swung the door open. Then he stopped.
He had just come back to the storeroom they had given him as an office. On his desk was a bee the size of a walnut.
Anyone could see it was not a live bee.
He felt an idiot to have reacted as he did on first sight, furious at the gooseflesh that covered his arms. Grinding his teeth, he picked up the thing.
Made of black and yellow wool, with wire antennae, gauze wings and Perspex eyes with black pupils that moved, it was basically a soft toy. A ridiculous object. Someone’s feeble idea of a joke. Would Julie Hargreaves have planted it there? Not Julie, he decided, his investigative skills at work on something tangible at last. She hadn’t had the opportunity. She had been with him ever since she’d heard about the bee sting in his thumb and now she was—or should be—in the Abbey Churchyard, inquiring about G.B. the crusty.
Who would have thought it amusing? Any of the bunch he’d worked with in the old days. On arriving that morning, he’d mentioned his misfortune to the desk sergeant—a cardinal error. The story must have been passed around the entire station.
Footsteps were approaching, so he opened the top drawer, slid the bee inside, sat back and faced the door, fascinated to see if anyone came in. It is well-known that the first person on the scene after a crime will often turn out to have been the perpetrator.
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