Bloodhounds pd-4

by Peter Lovesey

  In the car he took a call from Keith Halliwell, reporting that Miss Chilmark wasn't at home. The old lady upstairs in the Paragon house had said that she might have gone away. She'd seen her the previous evening getting into a taxi-a black cab-and carrying a small suitcase.

  "Miss Chilmark did a runner?" Diamond piped in amazement.

  "It seems so."

  He told Halliwell to start checking with taxi firms and heard the faint sigh of despair.

  He drove to Orange Grove, left the car in front of the Empire Hotel, and walked the short distance up the High Street to Northumberland Place. A.J., unflustered, welcomed him to the gallery and offered him a coffee. Jessica, he told Diamond, should not be long. She was with a dealer upstairs. "If your business can wait a few minutes, Superintendent, I'm sure she'll be immensely grateful. It isn't often she gets a chance to do business with the big boys from London."

  "I'll start with you, then."

  "With me? I shouldn't think I can help much."

  "You can save Mrs. Shaw from some tedious questions about things that happened last week."

  "Is that all?" AJ. was reassured. The smile was reinstated. "Fire away, then. I thought this must be about the frightful business this morning in Sydney Gardens."

  "You heard about it?"

  "From Shirley-Ann Miller a short time ago. Of course, we know nothing firsthand."

  "She was quickly onto it," said Diamond, slightly deflated.

  "The jungle telegraph works well in Bath. I think she works in public relations, doesn't she?"

  "Tourism."

  "Well, she's pretty hot at public relations as well. Did you say you'd like a coffee?"

  "No, thanks."

  He was shown to the tall-backed Rennie Mackintosh chair. After making up his mind that it really was a chair, though unsuited to his physique, he tried his weight on it, perched awkwardly, and then got up saying, "I'm happy to stand. You knew Rupert Darby, sir?"

  "A slight acquaintance only," said AJ. "Jessica invited him to the preview we had here. Rather a carrying voice, which can be an asset at a party, because everyone else then raises the volume, and it all sounds wildly successful."

  "You hadn't met him before that?"

  "No. I'd seen him around in Bath. Easy to recognize from Jessica's description. The beret, the voice, the dog."

  "Was the dog at the party?"

  "No, I'm speaking of seeing him in the street. You want to know about the party. He and I didn't exchange more than a few passing words as he came in. He isn't the sort who waits to be introduced to people. He was in there straightaway. I wouldn't have thought he was the suicidal type."

  Diamond gave a shrug. His thoughts were no longer on Rupert's personality. At this minute AJ. interested him more. He might have stepped out of a holiday brochure with his welcome-to-paradise smile and designer shirt and jeans. Barnaby had spoken of a private income, and some of it must have gone on the teeth, which were as even as computer keys. Was this young buck likely to be content with "intellectual flirting"?

  "I understand you have a large stake in the gallery, Mr. er…?"

  "AJ. will do."

  Diamond was shaking his head. "Not any longer, sir. I'm gathering evidence, you see. I have to insist on full names."

  AJ. frowned. "Does it really matter? The A is for Ambrose. I cringe each time I have to own up to it."

  "And the J?"

  "Jason. Hardly much better."

  "That isn't your surname, is it?"

  "No. That's"-he cast his eyes upward-"Smith. Ambrose Jason Smith. Now can we talk about something more important, for pity's sake?"

  This business over the name had quite upset AJ. All the more incentive for Diamond.

  "Are you a local man… Mr. Smith?"

  A glare. "No. Born in Devon, but the next twenty years I spent in and around Winchester. I went to school there."

  "The public school?"

  "Yes. If you want the whole sordid truth, I was not a credit to them. Got expelled eventually. Went to art college and then had a few poverty-stricken years in Paris."

  "And now you're stricken no longer?"

  "That is correct."

  Diamond waited.

  AJ. explained, "The family forgave me."

  "To come back to my question, you have a large stake in the gallery. Is that so?"

  "I help out with the overheads. I'm also a regular exhibitor. I wish you would tell me what this has to do with the police."

  "You're a close friend of Mrs. Shaw's."

  "That's a sinister-sounding phrase. She's a married woman, Superintendent. If you're inferring what I think you are, you'd better have a care what you say."

  "Some words were sprayed on the gallery window on the night of the preview party."

  A.J.'s reaction was less dramatic than Barnaby's. He was still well in control. His brown eyes looked into Diamond's and then toward the window. "How did you hear about that?"

  "The words, I was informed, were 'She did for Sid.' "

  "So?"

  "You were one of the people who decided to remove them without reporting the matter."

  "To put it in context," said A J., adopting a lofty tone, "it was obviously a piece of misplaced fun. We were having a party. People have a few drinks and do daft things. We thought it was in bad taste and wiped the window clean. If that's a crime, you'd better arrest us all."

  From above came the sound of footsteps. Jessica was about to descend with her dealer.

  "Another question," said Diamond. "Where were you last night from seven onward?"

  "God, you really are taking this seriously. In the bar at the Royal Crescent Hotel and afterward at the Clos du Roy Restaurant, where I dined alone. But if you wish to make inquiries, a dozen bar staff and waiters can vouch for me."

  "And after you'd eaten?"

  "I went home and watched television. Would you like me to tell you what the program was?"

  Jessica's black-stockinged legs and blue strappy shoes appeared at the top of the spiral stairs. She led down a small silver-haired man in a black overcoat and a bow tie. Quick to sense that the deal she'd been doing upstairs might be undermined if she introduced a policeman, she said smoothly, "My dear Mr. Diamond, how good of you to call again. This is quite a morning. If you'll forgive me for a moment, Mr. Peake has come specially from London, and he has another gallery to see. I'll just point him in the right direction, and then we'll do business, I promise."

  Diamond nodded, allowing the subterfuge to pass, before starting up with AJ. again. "You live in Bath?"

  "Queen Square."

  "Nice and central."

  "Yes."

  "Is there anyone…?"

  "I am a bachelor."

  "Did you go out at all last night?"

  "I went home to sleep, Superintendent, and sleep is what I did."

  Back came Jessica. "Wonderful. He wants seven, including that big one of yours, AJ. We've got to celebrate. Is there any bubbly left over from the party?"

  "Before you do-" Diamond began.

  "You're to join us," said Jessica. "It isn't every day we do three grands' worth of business."

  "Sorry, but you're joining me," said Diamond, "and there's no bubbly on offer. We might run to coffee in a plastic cup, but that's the best I can promise."

  "I don't think I understand."

  "I'm taking you in, Mrs. Shaw. For questioning."

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Out of consideration for his passenger, he drove to the back of the central police station, and they entered through a side door. Even so, several heads swiveled when he escorted Jessica, teetering high-heeled along the corridor in the pale blue Armani suit she'd put on for the London art dealer.

  In Diamond's office the phone was flashing like a burglar alarm. He pulled out a chair for Jessica and asked if she wanted that coffee tasting of plastic. She requested water.

  He read the written messages left on his desk. Julie Hargreaves had spoken to Shirley-Ann Mi
ller and confirmed that she had a good alibi for the previous night. Halliwell had traced Miss Chilmark to Lucknam Park, the country house turned hotel at Colerne, and was on his way there; lucky bastard, he wouldn't be drinking out of plastic cups. And Jack Merlin, the pathologist, couldn't, after all, get to Bath next day; the postmortem on Rupert Darby would have to be postponed unless someone else took over.

  After collecting tea for himself, Diamond sat opposite Jessica, observing her, deciding on his strategy. She was drumming her fingers on the desk. There didn't seem much advantage in gentle sparring.

  "Mrs. Shaw, why did you write those lists of words on the paper bag?"

  The finely shadowed eyes narrowed, but there was nothing else to register the body blow this was meant to be. This lady wasn't simply going to roll over and tell all.

  "The bag you used to treat Miss Chilmark's hyperventilation. I have it here." He opened his desk and took it out, enclosed in a transparent cover. "They happen to rhyme, these words. 'Jack, flak, knack, mac'… It looks like working notes for a poet-or at least a writer of verse. In this case, they rhyme with 'black.' There's a second column rhyming with 'motion' and a third with 'room.' I could be wrong, but those are words that feature in the case under investigation: Penny Black, Milo Motion, and Locked Room. Working notes?"

  Jessica's only response was the merest movement of the padded shoulders.

  "You did write them yourself, didn't you?" he pressed her. "Sid Towers had nothing to do with it."

  Not even a flicker this time.

  "It can't have been Sid because of the fresh riddle in verse that was published yesterday. Sid is dead. He couldn't have been our poet." He watched her minutely. This wasn't achieving anything. "I'll be frank," he said. "Until this morning I still wasn't certain. You know what happened this morning?"

  No answer.

  "Mrs. Shaw?"

  A sigh. "Yes, I heard what happened."

  "Another death," he said. "Rupert Darby's death."

  She said calmly, "You're not telling me anything I don't know."

  Encouraged that there was two-way traffic now, he said, "Let's go back to the riddle for a moment:

  'To end the suspense, as yours truly did,

  Discover the way to Sydney from Sid.'

  "In style, it was not dissimilar from the other two. It was on similar paper, in an identical typeface, and distributed in the same way to the local media. That wasn't some publicity seeker messing about, Mrs. Shaw. 'To end the suspense'… It was written in the knowledge that a man would shortly be found hanging from a bridge in Sydney Gardens. Isn't that plain?"

  "If you say so."

  "You must have read the riddle in the paper."

  "Yes."

  "Did you write it? — that's the question."

  "I did not."

  "Did you write the others?"

  "No."

  He paused, letting the gravity of her situation take root. He studied the paper bag as if he hadn't seen it before. Then he looked up and started again, but less abrasively. "Until yesterday afternoon, I was taken in by these lists. Thought they were written by Sid. Had to be."

  She held his gaze with her dark brown eyes.

  He said, "If Sid wrote them, it was natural to assume that he was our poet, the composer of the riddles, the joker who stole the Penny Black and magicked his way into a locked boat. They looked like working notes, the first notes for a riddle that never appeared, because Sid was killed before he completed it." He spread his hands. "I boobed. We all make mistakes. But what am I left with?"

  He took his time. Passed his hand around the back of his neck and massaged it. "What I'm left with, Mrs. Shaw, is the alternative. You wrote the lists." Another pause. "Do you follow my thinking? The bag was Sid's. He handed it to you. You handed it to me. True?"

  She sighed-a reluctant admission. Yet the logic of what he had said was inescapable.

  "We call that continuity of evidence, Mrs. Shaw. That's why it's clear that if Sid didn't write the lists, you did." He leaned forward, hunched over his desk, watching her. "Makes you my prime suspect." An exaggeration, but he had to find some way of getting through. "I'm trying to give you every chance. This isn't a formal interview. If there's an explanation, now's your opportunity."

  She looked down at her fingernails, not persuaded, it seemed.

  He said, "The postmortem hasn't been done on Rupert yet, so this may be premature, but I expect it to confirm that he met his death by foul play."

  She caught her breath-the first unguarded response. "He hanged himself."

  "He was found hanging."

  "I don't follow you."

  "I think you do. We took a blood sample. The man was well tanked up, some way over the limit, probably incapable of rigging up a noose."

  She said, "This is in the realm of speculation." Fair comment, too.

  He found himself analyzing his performance so far. This isn't the approved interviewing technique, he told himself. It isn't an interview at all yet. I'm laying out all my cards while she sits there denying everything.

  He picked up his cup and did damage to the inside of his mouth. Tea from the machine was always too hot or tepid. "Could I have a sip of that water? I'll get you some fresh."

  She pushed the beaker across the desk.

  He said, "It may be speculation now, but we'll know soon enough. The postmortem will show if there was a struggle. You can't string a man from a bridge without handling him roughly."

  Jessica drew herself up in the chair and said scornfully, "You're not seriously suggesting that I did this to Rupert?"

  "You probably couldn't have done it alone," he conceded.

  "Why should I do it at all?"

  "That's no mystery," he said. "We recovered his beret, and it has traces of sprayed paint."

  Another sharp intake of breath. The wall of indifference was crumbling.

  He told her, "I know all about the graffiti sprayed on the gallery window. Mean."

  She started to say, "How-"

  "I've discussed it with your husband and your friend AJ."

  "They told you?"

  He moved relentlessly on. "Rupert was at the party with paint on his beret."

  She said, "Are you sure of this?"

  "I can show you the beret if you like. The real point is that it gave you, and possibly someone else, a clear motive for silencing Rupert. He would have exposed you."

  "I didn't know it was Rupert."

  He got up, walked to the window and looked out.

  She repeated, with more fervor, "I didn't know it was Rupert."

  He let a few seconds pass. Then, without turning from the window: "Do you still deny writing the riddles?"

  "Of course I deny it," she said passionately. "I didn't write them. I didn't kill anyone."

  "But you wrote those lists of words on the paper bag."

  "It doesn't mean I'm a killer."

  He said, "But you wrote the lists. You will admit that much?" By now, he reckoned, she ought to be ready to admit to the lesser crime.

  She showed she had spirit. "Is this going to take much longer? — because I have things to do. I assume I can walk out whenever I wish. I'm not under arrest, or anything?"

  He said in sincerity, "Mrs. Shaw, I brought you here so that we could talk in private, away from the gallery. I'm giving you the opportunity to explain your actions."

  Coolly, she asked, "What actions? I've done nothing illegal."

  "At the very least, fabricating evidence."

  "How can you say that?"

  "Look, if you didn't write the lists as notes for a riddle, you wrote them for another purpose. You were taking a considerable risk, of course, but it was-what's the term bridge players use? — a finesse. The winning of a trick by subtle means, playing a low card. And you played it with a skill anyone would admire. You didn't volunteer the bag. You waited for me to ask if it was still in your possessioh. And when you handed it across, you didn't draw my attention to the lists. You l
et me find them myself and conclude that Sid wrote them. You conned me and my team. Why? Why mislead the police? You must have had something to hide."

  She shook her head.

  "Someone to shield, then?"

  The color rose to her face.

  He said mildly, "A.J.?"

  A jerk went through her like an electric shock.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Lucknam Park, an eighteenth-century mansion at Colerne, northeast of Bath, and latterly converted into a four-star conference hotel, might not have been the obvious choice for a bolthole, but it was Miss Chilmark's. No backstreet hideout for milady, thought Diamond with amusement, as it became obvious that the drive through the grounds would add another half-mile to the six he had just completed.

  On arrival, he was welcomed like a paying guest and given a phone message. It was from Julie. Would he call her urgently? He didn't recognize the number.

  He found himself talking to a switchboard operator at the Sports and Leisure Center who told him Inspector Hargreaves was waiting for his call.

  "Mr. Diamond?" The note of relief in Julie's voice was gratifying and disturbing at the same time. "I'm so glad I've caught you."

  "Trouble?"

  "It's about Marlowe."

  "Who?"

  "Marlowe. The dog. Rupert Darby's dog. I took him on. Remember?"

  He said in amazement, "You're calling me about the dog? What's it been up to now?"

  "Nothing. He's done nothing wrong."

  "Well?"

  "I'm here at the Sports Center to interview Bert Jones, Shirley-Ann Miller's partner."

  "I know that, Julie."

  "Yes, but before going in, I thought I'd better give the dog a chance of a walk, if you know what I mean. I walked him around the edge or the car park at Manvers Street, but he didn't seem to get the idea, so I thought I'd give him another opportunity here."

  "Of lifting his leg, you mean? Do we have to go into all this, Julie?"

  "Yes, Mr. Diamond, we do," she said earnestly, "because as we were walking about, I happened to look closely at his coat. Marlowe has this dark brown hair, as you know, but I noticed that one area of it seems to be going white."

  "He's an old dog, you mean? You'd rather not take him on at this time of life?"