'Terrific,' said Diamond. 'Would you like her to dust the picture frames as well?'
Chapter Six
On Friday, the paper had a News in Brief item at the foot of page two about the murder of the Saltford bank manager and the magistrates' court appearance of the chief clerk. Stephanie Diamond spotted it by chance when she was looking for the weather forecast. The Guardian's layout always defeated her. Peter wasn't mentioned by name, but now she understood why he was working so late these evenings. He'd muttered something about a meeting as he'd climbed in beside her the wrong side of midnight. Most of his time at work seemed to be spent in meetings or filling in forms.
She timed his breakfast to perfection, lifting the two lightly coated eggs from the pan and placing them on the slice of fried bread beside the bacon and tomatoes just as he came downstairs. The pampering he got at breakfast helped him through the day. She reckoned it was a fair trade for the cup of tea he brought her in bed these chilly October mornings. She couldn't move a muscle without her fix of tea. And he often cooked dinner when he was home.
He reached for the paper and glanced at the football results. Missed the item on page two. Then he yawned.
'Any chance of an easier day today?' she asked him.
'Every chance,' he said bleakly.
She felt a stirring of concern. 'You haven't done anything rash?'
'Like what?'
'Like resigning again?'
He smiled faintly. 'No. It's just gone flat.'
'What do you expect in Avon and Somerset? The Himalayas?'
He cut into a fried egg. 'I'm not ambitious. I'd settle for the Mendips, but all I see is the Somerset Levels. Take that murder that happened on Monday. The genius who did it walked up to me, shook my hand and confessed.'
'That must have helped your clear-up rate.'
He didn't answer. Statistics had never appealed to him.
'You can't have it all ways,' Stephanie remarked. 'We live in a gorgeous old city. It's going to be quiet. If you want serious action, you'd better start applying for jobs in Glasgow or Manchester, but don't ask me to come.'
'Thanks.' He put some more food in his mouth. 'But you're wrong, Steph. Avon and Somerset isn't short of villains.'
'You mean they're all in the police.'
He grinned.
Stephanie said, 'Which villains, then? Local farmers protesting about the bypass?'
'Professionals, I'm talking about. The smartest piece of shoplifting I ever heard of happened in my patch.'
'In Bath?'
'Bristol. Didn't I ever tell you? They did one of those ultraexpensive dress shops.'
'A boutique?'
'Yes, in Southmead. It was a night job. I don't know how many thousand quids' worth of designer gowns. They didn't break in, didn't smash anything, didn't leave any prints, didn't even set foot on the premises. We never caught them. Took us a long time to work out how it was done.'
'If they didn't break in, they must have had a key,' Stephanie guessed.
'No.'
'Then it was some kind of inside job.'
'It wasn't.'
'Didn't set foot in the shop, you said?'
'Didn't need to.'
'I give up. How was it done?'
'They worked through the letterbox with a twelve-foot boat hook. Dragged the display racks across the floor and tugged out the dresses one by one. Even the owner said she had to admire their cheek.'
The kettle boiled, and he made instant coffee for them both, his thoughts on the day ahead. There were still three or four hours of form-filling for the Crown Prosecution Service. The chore couldn't be delegated. All his best people were on Operation Bumblebee now.
Stephanie turned up the volume on the radio. Diamond finished his breakfast in silence.
On BBC Radio Bristol some harbinger of gloom was wittering on about the traffic. If Steph was first downstairs she generally switched on the local station. When Diamond was forced to listen to anything at all in the morning he found it easier to tolerate the more pofaced Radio Four.
The short interval after he'd eaten and before he got up from the table was when Steph found it easiest to broach things she was planning. This morning, it was more of a confession she had in mind. 'I don't think I told you,' she began, not entirely honestly, because she knew for sure that she hadn't raised the subject until now. 'A few weeks ago, soon after we moved in properly, when you were at work and I was trying to get some more of those damned teachests unpacked, I heard a noise behind me. Gave me a fright. It was this little cat, no more than a kitten really, playing about with the newspaper we'd wrapped the plates in. You'd think he belonged here.' Steph saw an ominous look in her husband's eye and talked on rapidly. 'I'd no idea where he came from. Naturally I asked around. Pete, he was a dear little thing with enormous ears and feet for his size and just a few stripes in the middle. I tried the people who were here before us, but they didn't know. In the end I did the right thing and took him up to Claverton.'
'The home for strays?' Diamond said. 'Yes, you did the right thing, Steph.'
She nodded. 'They get a lot of animals brought in. I didn't like leaving him really, being so young.'
'Too young to care, probably.'
'Oh, I don't know about that. Anyway, the young girl there said she'd let me know if he was claimed.'
'And was he?' Diamond asked hopefully.
'Er, no.'
'And where is he now? Still there?'
'I went to see him yesterday.'
'To Claverton? What did that dingbat say?'
She swung around defiantly. He'd gone too far this time.
But Diamond wasn't insulting the people who took in strays. He got up from the table and reached for the radio. The speaker was well into some item: '… so if any of you geniuses listening out there can make better sense of it than we can, call me now. I'll give you the number presently. Is there something we ought to know? Is it like a Valentine message? Is it in code? Is it a cryptic crossword clue? I tell you one thing, for sure. It had better not be some wise guy trying to slip a commercial into BBC local radio or we're all in shtuck. No, my money is on a good, old-fashioned riddle. I understand we're not the only radio station to have received it. And the same message was sent to the local press. The whole region is going to be racking its brains over this. Let's prove that Radio Bristol has the most intelligent audience. We can crack this together.'
'Give it to us again, then,' said Diamond, and you would think he had been heard, the response was so quick.
'I'm going to give it to you one more time before we move on to the sports news. Make sure you have something to write it down. Ready? ''J.M.W.T.
Surrounded by security.
Victoria, you challenge me,
I shall shortly come to thee.'
'Got it? Chew on that for a bit. Must move on now. Sports news coming up next. But I kid you not, listeners, the message was received this morning, early, but early, and we have no idea what it means, or who sent it. What
