but can't be proved as one of his works. So I got it for a few hundred, and I consider I got a bargain. The chance of anyone else producing something like this in Blake's style is remote. He's out on his own as a painter. Very difficult to imitate.'
'Do you know who put the picture into the auction?'
'Good point. I could look it up.'
'Were any others up for sale?'
'Blakes, you mean? I'm certain they were not. I would have bid for them, you see.'
Sturr replaced the picture in the line-up along the wall and offered to go off and look up the details of the sale. Each of his pictures had its own file, he said, and it should be easy to find out. He could not have been more obliging now he was on the trail of the unknown Blakes. It was a re-run of the enthusiasm he had shown the evening he had dragged Diamond around his collection.
Left in the room with Leaman, Diamond picked up the picture that had caused so much excitement and examined the flaking brown paper on the reverse. Nothing was written there. 'I'd like to show this to Ellis Somerset, see if he thinks it looks anything like the other two.'
'Will he let you borrow it?'
'I can ask nicely.'
'Where's this leading us, sir?'
'To a plausible motive for murder. You've just seen the grip it can get on a man, this passion for collecting. They hear about something and they have to possess it. It's an addiction.'
'Is he the killer? If he is, he would have known about the other two Blakes. He's a bloody good actor if he did.'
'Let's not jump to conclusions… yet.'
'Nobody else around here collects Blakes, do they?'
Diamond didn't answer. Sturr's tread was sounding across the hall. When he came in, he was carrying a dark red pocket file. 'I'm afraid I can't tell you the previous owner of my Blake,' he told them, still fired up. 'The catalogue lists vendors for some of the other lots, but not this one.'
'A secret seller?'
'Anonymous. It's not unusual for a vendor to want his name kept off the catalogue, and you'll find that all auctioneers guard people's privacy if requested. You said these others were owned by someone from Camden Crescent.'
'Simon Minchendon.'
'Who died last week? Good Lord, I knew him. Visited his house. I had no idea he was interested in Blake.'
'Maybe these were not on view.'
'I would certainly have noticed them if they had been. It was a fine house, filled with interesting things. This is so tantalising. You say they were stolen from Noble and Nude?'
'No, I said they disappeared on the day the owner was murdered. She could have sold them. We're trying to get a picture of her last hours.'
'That's why you came to me?' The Councillor's features creased into a smile. 'I wish you'd mentioned it first. Do you know, I was beginning to think you suspected me of murder?'
twenty-eight
DIAMOND LET HIMSELF IN, not expecting to find Steph still up. They had an understanding that if ever he got home late, she would be in bed. So he took off his shoes by the front door and padded through to the kitchen to see if she had left anything in the oven. Some hours had gone by since his visit to the canteen, though the half- price lamb was not forgotten. Bad meals have ways of lingering on the palate that good meals do not.
Under his arm he had Councillor Sturr's Blake, cocooned in bubblewrap. Easing the picture from its owner had been a triumph of persuasion. The lure: the chance to have it examined by forensic scientists specialising in art works, who, using the latest technology, would surely confirm it as genuine-or so Diamond had suggested. Sturr could then announce to the art world that he possessed an accredited Blake, and moreover that it was one of a previously unknown series illustrating
No one excelled the big detective at exploiting a suspect's vanity.
He switched on the light, put the picture in a place of safety on top of the fridge and looked for Steph's note about supper. It wouldn't be like her to go to bed without leaving a note.
No note this time, but there was a chicken dinner on the table covered in clingfilm. Steph had not let him down. Roast potatoes, runner beans, peas and carrots. It was still slightly warm. He would give it a whirl in the microwave and shortly expunge the memory of the lamb.
An ice-cold lager would go down nicely with the chicken. He reached for the fridge door and was surprised by a sudden movement at the edge of his vision that made him lean sharply to the left and put up a protective arm. Something dark leapt up from the floor. Warm fur brushed the back of his hand, Raffles, expecting to be fed.
A cat will judge the minimum effort required to make a leap, and will always succeed unless the unexpected happens. Nudged in mid-air by Diamond's flailing hand, Raffles lost some momentum, got the front paws up, but not the rest. Two sets of claws caught in the bubblewrap covering Councillor Sturr's Blake. The hind paws scraped frantically against the side of the fridge, trying for a purchase that was not there. The package was dragged inexorably to the edge and tipped over. Cat and picture crashed to the tiled floor. There was the sickening sound of glass breaking.
Diamond shouted, 'Bloody hell, I'll skin you.'
Raffles bolted out of the kitchen and upstairs, all prospect of a late supper gone.
So unfair. Diamond was notorious for being clumsy, but this time he'd taken special care. You'd think the top of a fridge would be a safe place.
He picked the package off the floor. It chinked. He placed it on the kitchen table and untied the string.
'What was that?'
He jerked again. His nerves were bad. Steph had come in, as silent as the cat.
He explained the accident, while she watched him ease aside the bubblewrap. The splintered glass was mostly still in place, but a few pieces had fallen out of the frame. Steph warned him not to touch. They upended the picture and let the loose fragments fall onto the wrapping.
'The worst thing is it doesn't belong to me.'
'Thank God for that,' Steph commented.
'Why do you say that?'
'It's not the sort of thing I'd want on the wall, that's why. It's a Blake print, isn't it?'
'It's an original.'
'Oh, Pete!'
'Well, I can't see that it's damaged.' He let out the tension with a long breath. 'Where did you come from? I thought you'd gone up.'
'I was dozing in my armchair in the back room. You gave me a proper shock.'
'The cat did.'
'It wasn't the cat that shouted. All right,' she said, lifting a hand to pacify him. 'You've had one hell of a Sunday. Did you find who attacked John Wigfull?'
'Not yet.'
'They say there's a slight improvement. He's drifting in and out of consciousness. I phoned a friend at the hospital two hours ago.'
One of Steph's network. Nothing happened anywhere without her hearing about it.
'They won't let us near him,' he said. 'They never do.'
'He won't remember anything,' she said.
'You're probably right.'
She put the dinner in the microwave and pressed the reheat pad. 'It isn't obvious, then?'
'What isn't?'
