The Vault

'The catch,' said Diamond, 'is that it was cooked this morning. It's as dry as Deuteronomy.'

Pandora dipped a formidable ladle into a pot. 'Not when I pour some of this delicious gravy over it. See, you're slavering at the mouth already, Mr D, or is it me you're drooling over?'

'That's a leading question.'

'Lead me anywhere you like, darling. My shift ends at ten.'

He was too wary of double meanings to say anything about Pandora's shift. 'Thanks. I'll see if I survive the roast lamb.'

They spotted Keith Halliwell sitting alone, staring ahead with a look that could have stripped paint. It was quickly apparent that Frankenstein jokes were not the cure. Canteen humour palls after a long, unproductive day.

He said, 'If we can talk shop for a moment, sir, I'd like to put out that appeal tomorrow-for information on the two labourers known as Banger and Mash. I prepared a press release. Would you mind giving it the OK?'

In the last hours the mystery of the bones in the vault had gone as tepid as the half-price lamb, but Diamond somehow conjured up some interest. 'No more progress, then?'

'I don't expect any until someone's memory is jogged.'

'Right you are. I'll run an eye over it before I leave tonight. How are the press treating you?'

'It isn't so crazy as yesterday. They realize there isn't any mileage in this story now we've finished in the vault.'

'There's an unexplained death.'

'Yes, but a nineteen-eighties unexplained death. The Franken-steinconnection doesn't hold up.'

Diamond's thoughts swung back to the other case. 'It's mighty odd that we have links with the killing of Peg Redbird.'

'The writing box?'

'Yes. Apparently Mary Shelley's copy of Milton came out of it, so there's some chance the box actually belonged to her. Joe Dougan seems convinced.'

'What happened to it?'

'The box? Don't know. It was gone from Peg's desk by the time we arrived on the scene. Joe could have nicked it and hidden it, with the idea of taking it back to America. Or someone else may have understood its value and carted it away.'

Leaman reminded him, 'It was still on the desk when Penny-cook came for his money.'

'It was still there when Joe decided to quit at eleven.'

'According to Joe.'

'According to Joe, yes.'

Doubts of Joe's testimony hung in the air.

'Was the box worth killing for?' asked Leaman.

Diamond put down his knife and fork. The lamb had the texture of car tyres. 'To you or me, probably not. To someone who has set his heart on owning it, yes. You had a unique object there. Remember the last Commandment.'

Leaman and Halliwell exchanged an uneasy look. They didn't know which was the last Commandment and they wouldn't have expected Diamond to know, either. This was the second reference to the Old Testament in a few minutes from a man not noted for his piety.

' 'Thou shalt not covet.' They weren't thought up on the spur of the moment, those Commandments.'

Sergeant Leaman was puzzled by the reference. 'Isn't coveting when you get a craving for someone else's property? I thought the writing box was up for sale.'

'Well, yes.' Diamond retreated slightly. 'In theory it was, but she wasn't willing to part with it. And Joe was extremely keen to own it. I call that coveting.'

'I see,' said Leaman in a tone that was not quite convinced. 'It's not the Commandment I would have thought of.'

' 'Thou shalt not kill'?' said Halliwell.

'We could all have thought of that,' said Diamond.

'So is Joe a murderer?' said Leaman.

Diamond answered opaquely, 'I can't at the moment think of anyone with a stronger interest in possessing the writing box. And tomorrow morning, he's off to Paris,' he added in a fatalistic tone.

Halliwell became animated. 'Can't we catch him with it?'

'He'll have arranged for it to be shipped, if he is our man. Unless…' The words trailed away for a moment while a better hypothesis fell into place. '… unless his wife took it with her. Suppose she didn't walk out on him that night. Suppose they planned it together over that meal they had in Brock Street. She would go ahead with the writing box. He would create a smokescreen by pretending she was missing. Days later, he'd announce that she had turned up in Paris and he was joining her.'

'Big thing for a woman to lug about,' said Leaman.

Diamond shook his head. 'It wasn't that heavy. It was a woman's writing case, remember. It was designed to be portable. And she had no other luggage.'

'Sir, are you saying his wife was in on the murder?' Leaman asked in a tone that showed he was not persuaded. He was so new to Diamond's inner circle that he didn't realise the risks he was taking.

'I don't know what passed between them. He could have told her anything.'

'So Mr Wigfull was right to be suspicious of Joe Dougan.'

That was tactless in the extreme. In view of Wigfull's condition, Diamond chose to ignore it. 'Is the ACC about?'

'She was in most of the day,' said Halliwell. 'Wants to be part of the action, by the look of it.'

'I'd better see if she's there.'

He got up, leaving Leaman and Halliwell bemused. For Peter Diamond actually to go looking for the Assistant Chief Constable was about as likely as rocking-horse manure.

SHE WAS dictating letters into a tape-recorder in her office. 'Peter, come in. How's it going?'

The use of his first name still grated. She was so new in the job.

He summarised the day's work: the questioning of Ellis Somerset at the Antiques Fair; the finding of Wigfull's car; the visit to the scene of the attack; the interview with Joe; the news that Donna Dougan was alive and shopping in Paris; and the helicopter trip to Brighton to establish that Ralph Pennycook had visited Peg Redbird on the evening she was killed.

Georgina complimented him, 'You've quartered the ground pretty thoroughly by the sound of it.'

She got up, and for a moment he thought she was about to make a move towards the whisky cupboard, but she only went to the window and closed it.

'Draughty. The days are hot, but have you noticed how temperatures are starting to drop in the evenings now?'

'Yes.' And something to warm our insides wouldn't come amiss, he thought.

'So you've interviewed all the people who spent time with Miss Redbird on the evening she was killed?'

'There was another, I believe.'

'Oh?'

'Peg had an appointment with someone else that evening. 'Other business', Ellis Somerset called it when he told me. She was trying for a quick sale of the Blakes she bought from Camden Crescent. She upset Somerset the way she put it, teasing him about expecting an offer that night.'

She gave a prim tug at her ear lobe. 'An offer of a sexual character?'

'That was the implication.'

'Did Somerset have a relationship with her, then?'

'He says not. He was keen, he admits, but she kept him at arm's length. So he was jealous when she spoke of this other meeting late in the evening.'

'Are you sure he wasn't making this up?'

'Why should he?'

'It's one of the oldest tricks of all, inventing an extra suspect to deflect suspicion.'