inquiries of his own before being assigned to this dubious role as understudy. It wasn't because he had a low opinion of the inspector's ability, rather the reverse. According to Wigfull's personal record, he had joined the police at twenty-four, transferred to the CID in his second year and worked his way swiftly through the ranks. He was the bright lad everyone had tipped for high office, the possessor of a degree from the Open University. He had swanned through the promotion exams and made the rank of inspector at a disgustingly early age. Then had the temerity to clear up a couple of domestic murders in Bristol. Bad luck for him that the Missendale Report had exonerated Diamond, or he would certainly have been heading this inquiry by now.
'How are you holding up?' Diamond asked the professor solicitously when they returned to the interview room-and then spoilt it by showing that he had no interest in the answer. 'The hours leading up to your wife's death: are you ready? Inspector Wigfull will be putting the questions.' He rested an elbow on the table and sat chin in hand, like Nero in the Colosseum, prepared to be entertained by the contest.
Wigfull had taken the chair opposite Jackman. His curly moustache and widely-set brown eyes made him appear less formidable than Diamond. He started in a tone that was mild to the point of diffidence, nodding briefly before saying, 'If I have it right, sir, you said that you last saw your wife alive on Monday, 11 September.'
'Yes.'
'Have you been able to recall anything at all of that weekend?'
'I'm unlikely to forget it,'Jackman answered, but without irritation. 'The Jane Austen in Bath Exhibition was officially opened by the Mayor on that Saturday. I was racing around like the proverbial blue-arsed fly.'
'Last minute panics?'
'One, anyway. I'll come to that. In fact, everything was in place by Thursday evening. I don't suppose either of you managed to see it, but I think it was a reasonable show. I won't say we filled the Assembly Rooms, but by some artful use of display stands and video equipment we managed to do interesting things with the space. There was some gratifying comment in the national press, and we made the local TV news programmes. But you don't want to hear about the exhibition.'
'If it had any conceivable bearing on what happened…' said Wigfull.
There was a harsh intake of breath from Diamond and some ostentatious squirming on his chair. He could see the interview being sidetracked.
'I can't imagine how it could have played a part,' Jackman admitted, keeping his eyes on Wigfull, 'but Gerry's death is inexplicable to me, anyway. Shall I go through the weekend, as you asked? On that Friday, I spent most of the day at Heathrow meeting a weekend guest.'
Wigfull's eyes widened. 'You had a house guest that weekend?'
Jackman answered casually. 'He was Dr Louis Junker, an American academic from the University of Pittsburgh. He's a specialist on Jane Austen, which is more than I can say about myself. Junker has published a number of papers on the novels and he's doing the research for a major biographical study. He got to hear about the exhibition and arranged his vacation around it. We corresponded through the summer and I invited him to spend the weekend of the opening with us. Unfortunately his plane was delayed six hours. Instead of arriving about 10 a.m. on Friday, it came in at 4 p.m. Good thing the exhibition was all set up the night before.'
'Had you met Dr Junker before this?'
'No, we'd merely corresponded. It's not uncommon for academics to offer to put colleagues up. I've enjoyed hospitality myself on my visits to America.'
'Was he with you for the entire weekend?'
'Until Sunday. He attended the opening and stayed all afternoon. Said a lot of generous things. I was run off my feet that day doing interviews and showing VI Ps around, so I had to leave him to his own devices. Well, not quite. Gerry escorted him. She volunteered, much to my surprise, because she doesn't usually show much interest in what goes on at the university. She seemed to hit it off with Junker. I don't know what they found to talk about - she never opened a serious novel in her life.' she never opened a serious novel
'Was she acting normally?'
'Depends what you mean by normally. She could turn on the charm with other people. Her crazy outbursts, when they came, were mostly directed at me.' A sigh escaped from Jackman's lips, as if to chide himself for the bitterness he had just revealed. 'Anyway, by Saturday evening, we were all exhausted. The exhibition closed at six and the three of us had a pub meal and came home. Sunday morning we spent quietly with the papers and then went to the local for a pint and a sandwich.' then went to the local for
'You and Dr Junker?'
'Yes. Gerry lingered in bed as usual. She was up in time to see our guest leave. I drove him to the station about 3.45.'
'You said something just now about a panic'
He nodded. 'That happened later the same evening.'
'On the Sunday?'
'Right. I can't say whether this has any connection with Gerry's death. As a result of all the publicity in the run-up to the exhibition, I'd been offered a number of items with Austen connections – a model of a ship once captained by Jane's brother Frank, some silhouette pictures of characters from novels, early editions with special bindings and so on. Most of it was unsuitable for my purposes, but on the eve of the exhibition I was made a present of two letters dating from the year 1800 that, if genuine, could cause a sensation in literary circles. They were apparently written by Jane Austen to her Aunt Jane, who lived for some years in Bath.'
'Some present!' Wigfull commented.
As if concerned that he might have overstated the importance of the letters, Jackman said, 'They were quite short and they said nothing very startling, but their interest to scholars would be considerable. Obviously I couldn't put them on display without authentication. However, I was mightily excited about them, as you may imagine, and keen to add them to the exhibits if they proved to be genuine. Naturally I showed them to Dr Junker. He knows Jane's handwriting better than I, and his opinion was that she had written them.'
'Really? And how did you say you came by them?'
'They were handed to me by somebody who had seen me plugging the exhibition on TV. The donor didn't want any publicity, and I promised to respect that wish. I believe they were part of a batch of old letters sold by a philatelist for the postmarks. This was before postage stamps came in. Before envelopes were used. Letters would be written on one side of a sheet of paper, addressed on the other, then folded and sealed. The Post Office would frank them. People collect them for the postmarks, but they're not so sought after as are letters bearing Penny Blacks and other early Victorian stamps, and you can sometimes pick them up for peanuts.'
'Unless they happen to have been written by a world-famous novelist.'
Jackman permitted himself a fleeting smile. 'You mean unless the seller is smart enough to know what he is selling. These were signed 'Your affectionate niece, Jane'. Janes were pretty thick on the ground in 1800. You'd need to know that Mrs Leigh Perrot was Jane Austen's maternal aunt.'
'What sort of price would a Jane Austen letter fetch?'
'Hard to say. There are about a hundred and fifty letters extant, and they rarely come up for sale. I think one could be sure of a five-figure bid in a London auction.'
'I wonder if the donor had any idea of the value,' Wigfull mused.
Jackman shook his head. 'Highly unlikely. I intended to offer them back if they proved to be genuine.'
His use of the past tense prompted Wigfull to say, 'Something went wrong?'
Jackman looked sheepish as he admitted, 'They went missing from my desk drawer. I should have had them under lock and key. Foolishly, I didn't. That Sunday evening, when I happened to go to the drawer, they weren't there. Of course I took everything out and went through all the papers. I pulled out the drawer to see if they had fallen behind it. I asked Gerry if she'd taken them out for any reason. She said she hadn't.'
'She knew of the letters' existence?'
'Oh, yes. She was present when Junker examined them. Gentlemen, I felt sick to the stomach. I was damned sure somebody had been to that drawer and taken them. Of course I went through the house searching-1 was at it until well after midnight – but there was no reason why those letters should have been anywhere but in the desk. Finally, I had a blazing row with Gerry and accused her of stealing them. It was bloody ironic – I must have sounded just as paranoid as she had when she'd accused me of tampering with her car and things like that. Quite a head case.'
Diamond had contained himself admirably. Now he couldn't resist coming in with, 'A blazing row? What do
