The Vault

Frankenstein series.'

'You sound doubtful.'

'It doesn't chime in too well with the rest. Mostly he illustrated religious subjects, or the classics, or his own mythology.' He put the picture down. 'On the other hand, the theme is a moral one that might well have appealed to Blake. As I recall it, Mary Shelley told a story distinctly different from the versions the cinema has given us. The monster is not inherently evil, not the result of spare parts surgery gone wrong. The mistakes come after he is created, when Frankenstein abandons him and treats him badly when they meet again. It's about rejection. The monster is sensitive, intelligent and innocent-innocent in the way Blake used the word. He becomes violent as a response to the way he is treated. Blake would have approved of the theme.'

'Enough to illustrate it?'

'That's the nub of it. 1818, you said?'

'There's another thing,' said Diamond. 'I discovered that only five hundred copies of Frankenstein were printed and most of them went into libraries. It wasn't exactly a bestseller. You have to wonder if Blake had heard of the book.'

'Perhaps it was reprinted soon after.'

Diamond shook his head. 'After Blake was dead.'

Locked in thoughts of his own, Eastland bent over the picture again with his eye-glass. For some time he didn't speak. Finally he told Diamond, 'I'd like to believe this is genuine. The draughtsmanship is exceptionally fine. Unknown Blakes have been known to turn up.'

'But…'

'But the ink has not behaved as I would expect it to after a hundred and eighty years or so. Under magnification you can usually spot some disintegration, not so obvious as the cracks in old paint, but discernible. These lines are still surface marks. Nowhere has the ink amalgamated with the paper. I wish we could compare it with an undisputed Blake. I think we would notice a difference.' He looked up. 'I presume you'll send this for scientific tests.'

'Yes, but I was hoping for a quick opinion.'

He peered through the glass at another section. 'I wouldn't testify to this in court, not without scientific backing, but I'm increasingly confident that I've detected the flaw. It's beautiful work, exquisite, only the artist hasn't aged the ink.'

'It's a modern ink?'

'No, no. It's old-or made with genuine old ingredients such as oak galls. That's only half the battle. The marks have to be given the effect of ageing.'

'How would he do that?'

'They distress it with a combination of heat, moisture and mild corrosives. There's a terrifying risk of overdoing it and messing up many hours of painstaking work. Probably he thought he'd done enough to get by.'

'It is a fake?'

'It still needs to be analysed,' Eastland hedged.

'But…?'

'I now believe it is.'

'Brilliant.'

'Brilliant is the word. Do you know who did it?'

Echoing the statement, Diamond answered, 'I now believe I do.' In his head he added, 'And another one bites the dust.'

thirty-two

JOE DOUGAN WAS ABOUT as livid as a mild Midwestern professor can get at being brought back to Bath. 'This is the end,' he complained to Diamond. 'I should be halfway under the Channel by now. What am I doing here?'

'Helping the police with their inquiries.'

'Is that sarcasm?'

'It's only a form of words we use.'

'Oh, yeah? Coded words for the third degree?'

Diamond put on a pained expression. 'Haven't you been treated with courtesy?'

'By the cops who brought me back? No complaints. My quarrel is with you, sir. You fixed this.'

'Did they let you phone your wife?'

Joe gave a nod. 'To Donna, it's another day's shopping.'

'Don't bill us,' said Diamond, trying to defuse the bitterness a little. He preferred dealing with Joe in his good tempered mode. 'Coffee?'

'How long do you figure this will take?'

'I wish I knew. I have things to do, the same as you. Would you mind opening your suitcases?' Two vast cases had been brought back with Joe from Waterloo and now lay on a table against the end wall.

This triggered Joe into another protest. 'What do you think is in there? For crying out loud, you don't think I have Mary Shelley's writing box in my baggage?'

'The keys, professor.'

Muttering, Joe felt in his pocket and handed over a small leather key-case that Diamond passed to the constable brought in to conduct the search.

Joe said he would have a black coffee.

A pink nightie lay folded on top of the other things in the first suitcase, surrounded by glittery shoes padded out with panties. Joe had done a reasonable job of packing Donna's things. Methodically the constable lifted layer after layer of women's clothing and made a stack on the table. Then he started on the second case: more skirts and blouses, the overspill from Donna's shopping and, some way underneath, Joe's things. None of it brought Diamond from his chair.

'Now your hand luggage.'

This was a shoulderbag with an array of zips and pouches. 'Careful,' Joe warned as he lifted it off the back of his chair and onto the desk. 'Some of the stuff in here is fragile.'

'Empty it yourself, if you like.'

Joe co-operated. One of the first things out was the edition of Milton's poems.

Diamond reached for it, but Joe's hand curled over it first. 'You know what this is?'

'That's why I want to examine it. The last time I was given a sight of it, you held onto it.'

'You bet I did. Would you mind using both hands? The spine is weak.' He handed the book across.

After the accident with Councillor Sturr's picture, Diamond was only too willing to take extra care. He glanced at the finely inscribed M.W.G., 5, Abbey Churchyard, Bath on the cover. Tentatively opening the book, he looked for the place at the front where the fly leaves were missing. The job had been neatly done. He would not have noticed unless it had been pointed out. The remnants of three sheets, tucked between the board cover and the title page. The cut was straight, sharp and as close to the hinge as you could get.

'I know all about that,' said Joe. 'The book is mutilated. If I were looking for an investment, I'd be worried, but the missing endpapers don't bother me. To me the value of this little property is who it belonged to, not the state it's in.'

'I appreciate that,' said Diamond, transferring the book to his other hand to look inside the back cover. 'I see they've been cut from here as well. I was speaking to someone only this morning, an art historian. He was telling me forgers do this. They buy old books and cut out the blank sheets to get paper of the right age.'

Joe's eyebrows twitched. 'You think a forger damaged the book?'

'I wouldn't bet against it.'

'In recent times, you mean?'

'I'd need a microscope to answer that.'