Polly was saying, 'She runs that art gallery in Northumberland Place.'
'She told me. The Walsingham.'
'I think she part-owns it.'
'I' got that impression.'
'We all have a standing invitation to drop in for a cup and a chat.' Polly was still testing the water.
'She did mention it.'
'It's not for me to interfere,' Polly went on. 'It's no business of mine, but I think you should be careful. Jessica is deeper than she first appears.'
'Deeper-what does that mean?'
'I'd rather not say any more than that.' Her gaze shifted away, over Shirley-Ann's shoulder. 'What's going on over there, do you suppose?'
Shirley-Ann turned. A policeman in uniform, rather senior from the look of his uniform, was standing with two other men in the passageway that leads to Broad Street. They were taking a lot of interest in the roof, or possibly an upper window of the building on the right.
'That's the Postal Museum,' said Polly.
'Yes. When you say Jessica is 'deep,' do you mean she has secrets, or something?'
Polly's mind was no longer on Jessica. 'I wonder if there's been a break-in. Some of those stamps are valuable. Have you ever been in?'
'Ages ago.'
'What a shame, if someone has broken in. It's a lovely little museum, entirely staffed by volunteers, I believe.'
'It might be nothing. They could be checking the security.'
'Let's hope that's all it is.' Polly looked at her watch. 'I have enjoyed our chat. And you will come next week, won't you? It's so encouraging to have a new member, especially such a well-read new member.'
'I'll be there if I possibly can.'
'Wonderful. I'll pay for this. I insist, my dear. And I can't help jt-I'm going to ask the policeman what's happened.'
'A case for Inspector Maigret, perhaps,' said Shirley-Ann, but the remark wasn't heard. Polly had dropped a five-pound note in the dish that came with the bill and was striding across the yard.
After their coffee together, Shirley-Ann liked Polly a little less than she had on first acquaintance.
Chapter Eight
An air of urgency was gusting through Manvers Street Police Station when Peter Diamond and Julie Hargreaves returned from Saltford. Constables and civilians carrying faxes, files, and clipboards hotfooted it along the corridors. Phones were cheeping like cicadas. Diamond stopped a chief inspector and asked, 'What's up? Everyone's behaving as if King Kong dropped in.'
'It's the ruddy media,' he was told. 'They won't leave us alone.'
'What media? The Bath Chronicle?'
'The nationals. Mainly the tabloids. Not to mention radio and TV. They're driving John Wigfull spare.'
'Why? What do they want?'
'A statement on the break-in. He's due to give one shortly, but they won't wait.'
'What break-in?'
'Where have you been all day? Someone did the Postal Museum last night and pinched the world's oldest stamp.'
'In Bath? I didn't know we had the world's oldest stamp.'
The chief inspector managed a weary grin. 'We don't anymore.
It emerged that the world's oldest stamp was not normally kept in the Postal Museum, but had been loaned by the owner (whose identity was a secret) for a special exhibition. It was in the city of Bath on May 2, 1840, that the Postmistress mistakenly date-stamped an unknown number of letters bearing the new Penny Blacks four days before the service was due to start. An envelope bearing the famous stamp and date had survived for over a century and a half.
'What's the value?'
'Only two are known to exist. Covers, they call them when they mean the entire face of the envelope. One like it was sold in auction in 1991 to a Japanese collector for one million, three hundred and fifty thousand pounds. It's in the Guinness Book of Records. The biggest price ever paid for a postage stamp.'
'Insured?'
'Their people are here already.'
'What was the security?'
'They have video surveillance and strong locks on the doors. The stamp was on the upper floor in a special cabinet screwed to the wall. The thief got in through a window upstairs.'
'Where was this?'
'You know that passage leading up the side of the building, from Broad Street to Shires Yard? He had cutting gear to break into the cabinet. The SOCOs are saying that he left by way of the window he forced. It was a sash window. He must have used a ladder.'
'And nobody noticed?' Diamond said in disbelief.
'The theory is that he posed as a window cleaner and did it in broad daylight between seven and nine in the morning. As everyone knows who is out early, a small army of window cleaners is at work every day before the shops open, washing the windows. He could stroll up Broad Street with a ladder and a bucket, and no one would give him a second look. He'd have his tools in the bucket covered with a leather.'
'Cool.'
'John Wigfull doesn't think so. We're taking a lot of flak from the broadcast media, and the papers are going to have a field day tomorrow. The point is that we had a team guarding some painting in the Victoria Gallery, and no one seemed to know about the stamp.'
As soon as they were alone, Diamond warned Julie that if asked, she should say she was working flat out on the Saltford bank murder. 'You can't be spared, even for half a day, right? You've got all those statements from the staff to check, and it's opened up several new lines of inquiry.'
'Has it?'
'Well, if you want to spend the day mopping John Wigfull's fevered brow…'
He felt in his pocket for the scrap of newspaper he had tucked away that morning. After reminding himself precisely what he had written, he went in search of Wigfull. The man of the hour wasn't difficult to find in one of the offices on the first floor. All the activity was focused there. Faxes and files were going in at a dizzying rate. The chief inspector was entrenched behind a large desk heaped with paper. His body language- the hunched look as he talked into a phone-said everything Diamond expected. One hand was curled around the back of his head. The big mustache was lopsided, as if it had partially collapsed, the brown eyes glazed and bloodshot. You had to feel sympathy.
A sergeant Diamond scarcely knew said unnecessarily, 'He's terribly busy, sir. We're giving a press conference shortly.'
'That's what this is about.'
Wigfull put down the phone, and immediately it started beeping again. Diamond's hand was on it first, keeping it in place.
'Half a mo, John.'
'I'm about to meet the press,' said Wigfull.
'I know. Have you thought it through?'
'Thought what through?'
'The statement you're about to make.'
'Certainly. I'm not wet behind the ears.'
