seen a camera until that moment. I was furious. The whole thing had been set up like an ambush and Mat and I appeared to he parties to it.
Professor Jackman said, 'What the hell is going on?'
'Hold it like that. One more,' said the photographer, a tall and bearded youth in a pink shirt.
The professor moved fast. He stepped forward, reached across the bookcase that the photographer was standing behind, grabbed him by the wrist and told him to open the camera and expose the film.
'I can't do that.'
'If you can't, I will.' He forced the hand and camera upwards.
'You'll damage it!' the photographer said.
'Do it, then.'
Molly Abershaw said, 'Hey, you've no right -'
'Correction,' the professor said without relaxing his grip. 'You had no right. Bloody nerve you people have got. This is a party for Mr Hughes, not a football match.'
Heads were turning and conversation had ceased around us.
'All right, let go of my arm,' said the photographer.
Professor Jackman released his grip.
The photographer pulled the release to open the camera.
'Take out the film and give it to me,' the professor ordered. 'Yes, I want the film.' He pocketed it and turned away, looked at some people, said, 'Incident closed', and returned to the group with whom he had been in conversation.
He had his back to us. I couldn't possibly speak to him now and nor could Matthew. I was mortified and angry, more for Mat's sake than my own. It was a horrid outcome to Mat's decent wish to express his thanks, and Molly Abershaw was to blame. Not the professor. His angry reaction was understandable. We had been cynically used, all of us.
I glared across to where Molly Abershaw was conferring with the photographer.
'Leave it, Ma,' said Mat.
He was right. There wasn't any point in another scene. We left it.
PART FIVE
A Pain in the Head
Chapter One
IN MANVERS STREET POLICE STATION, Diamond handed Dana Didrikson a mug of coffee and told her that a message had just come through about her son. Young Matthew had been delivered to his school boarding-house by a police patrol and they had left him watching the Benny Hill Show with some of his friends. 'So now you can relax,' he told her with a slight smile that conceded the absurdity of the suggestion, even if it was kindly meant.
She didn't respond, except to pass a slow glance around the interview room, its acoustic walls stained with coffee, cigarette-burns, hair-grease and undetermined substances. Over the past hour she had given a fair impression of a co-operative witness, recalling her first encounters with the Jackmans in a frank, dignified manner, as if the escape bid earlier in the evening had never happened, and it had always been her prime intention to talk to the police. Looking at her childishly small left hand as it rested quite flat on the wood table, apparently free of tension, Diamond was encouraged to think that Dana Didrikson was at peace with herself. Was it too much to hope, he wondered, that she had now resolved to confess to the murder and would presently explain in her unruffled style exactly how and why she had done it?
'Shall we go on?' he said, impatient to bring the interview to its climax.
Another tape was switched on, and John Wigfull, observing the letter of the law as usual, went through the ritual of assigning it with its number and stating the time and date.
'Let's take it from the party at Waterstone's, then,' Diamond cued her. 'You were obviously embarrassed by what had happened there.'
'Mortified.' She shook her head, remembering, and then explained how later that same day she had plucked up the courage to phone Jackman at home. He had been out, and Geraldine had answered, been perfectly charming and invited her over the same evening to a barbecue. It had seemed a good opportunity of speaking to the professor, without any obligation to stay for long. Better still, when she had got there she had been met outside by Jackman himself. He had suggested driving to a pub and over a couple of drinks they had ironed out all the misunderstandings.
Wigfull, chose to comment, 'So you two got on well when you were one-to-one?'
She declined to answer, and no wonder, Wigull's interruption, in Diamond's estimation, was about as well- judged as three cheers at a funeral. This wasn't the time to probe her relationship with Jackman – not when she was just getting into her narrative stride again.
Leaving a distinct pause as the remark sank away, Mrs Didrikson continued, 'He told me about the exhibition he was organizing in honour of Jane Austen, and the problems he was having collecting exhibits. Somehow the talk led on to Jane Austen's aunt, who was had up for shoplifting in Bath. Greg told me the story and funnily enough that rang a bell in my head, although I said nothing at the time. Oh, and he generously said he'd like to meet Mat again. He offered to take him swimming in the university pool.'
This time Diamond himself interrupted her, flagrantly doing the very thing that had caused him to glare at Wigfull.'Tell us about Jane Austen's aunt.'
'The shoplifting episode?'
'No. The reason it rang a bell.'
She took a sip of coffee first, and still the hand was remarkably steady. 'Well, you have to know that her name was Mrs Leigh Perrot. I think I told you about Mat and his history homework, and how I took him to the library to look up the famous residents of Gay Street.'
'The aunt lived there?'
She shook her head and betrayed some slight irritation. 'I'm trying to tell you, if you'll give me a chance. We started in the local history section in the basement at the main library, as I mentioned. The shelves were stuffed with books about Bath and Bristol and the towns round about, as you would expect, and while we were looking along the titles my eyes lighted on one that looked as if it had strayed from the zoology section. At a quick glance, I thought the title was In Search of the Parrots. When I picked it up, I realized my mistake. The word was Perretts, and it was by a George Perrett, a local man who had written this book about his family history. It didn't help our Gay Street researches, so I returned it to the shelf, but later, when Greg told me the story of Mrs Leigh Perrot, I privately decided to go back to the library and have a closer look at the book. It was just possible that I might discover something of interest to him… and I thought how marvellous it would be if I could find out something he didn't know, something that might be of use in the exhibition, just as a mark of thanks for rescuing Mat.'
'You didn't say anything to Professor Jackman at the time?'
'No, there was no certainty that the book would mention Mrs Leigh Perrot.' And then Dana Didrikson pressed her hands together, locking her fingers tightly, slipping the reins of her composure as she recalled the moment. 'But it did,' she said with satisfaction. 'Tucked away in the middle was a paragraph pointing out that many of the Perrett family weren't considered worthy of mention in the various archives and what a pity it was that they had been so law-abiding, or they might have rated a mention somewhere, like a certain Mrs Leigh Perrot, who had been tried at Taunton in 1800 for shoplifting.' Her eyes dilated like a baby's. 'The name leapt out at me. It had to be Aunt Jane! And – even more exciting – the author added that there was a bundle of papers in the Wiltshire County Record Office containing an account of the trial and a letter signed by one of the Leigh Perrot family.'
'The Wiltshire CRO. That would be Trowbridge,' Wigfull put in stolidly, just to air his erudition, so far as Diamond could judge, but it sounded like a real dampener.
Thankfully Mrs Didrikson was too hyped up by the memory of these events even to pause. She went on to describe how she had gone to Trowbridge at the first opportunity and put in her application for the papers. To be
