The Vault

'She didn't want me coming to the shop. You know the old horse trough in Walcot Street, the one built into the wall? It's just a short walk from the shop. I drove down there and she got in the car. She had no transport of her own. She was carrying the pictures.'

It chimed in neatly with Ellis Somerset's version, the conversation that had so upset him, about the meeting that sounded like a heavy date. 'I'm expecting an offer tonight, if that doesn't sound indelicate.'

'Did you make the exchange?'

'I tried. I had the remains of the sketchbook with me. I'd removed one drawing.'

'The one you just described to us, with all the detail?'

Evan nodded. 'I didn't think Peg Redbird knew it was in there, but she did. By God, she did. I told you she was smart, didn't I? When she first had the sketchbook in her hands she must have flicked through and found it at the back, same as me, and she remembered. She asked if I still had that crowded page from the back. Believe it or not, I find it difficult to lie. I said yes, but I wasn't willing to part with it. She could take the other drawings.'

'She wouldn't agree?'

'No way. She called me a cheat. Said she knew enough to put me away for years. That drawing was part of the deal, she said. If I didn't produce it, she would have me exposed as a forger.' He shook his head miserably. 'What could I do? She wouldn't leave the car until I drove her out here, to Stowford, and collected it.'

'Is that what you did?'

'Yes. I wasn't happy, I can tell you. It was blackmail, wasn't it? But I had no remedy.'

At this, Leaman said with heavy sarcasm, 'Oh, no?'

The muscles tightened at the side of Evan's face. 'I drove her back to Bath and set her down where I met her.'

'What time?' demanded Diamond.

He gave it some thought. 'It was by eleven, I tell you that. She had to be back by eleven, she said. I didn't do bad, getting her there on time, allowing for all the wrangling, and the drive out here and back.'

'Was it much before eleven? Did you look at the clock in the car?'

'I was too bloody angry to look at the time.'

'You set her down in Bath and that was the last you saw of her?'

'Correct.'

'Was anyone around, anyone who might have seen you?'

'Not that I noticed.'

'What did you do after?'

'Drove home and went to bed. I was shocked when I heard what happened to her.'

'You didn't come forward as a witness.'

'Would you, in the circumstances? I was bloody terrified.'

'Can you produce these paintings she exchanged with you?'

He went to a drawer of the plan-chest and took them out, still loosely covered in bubblewrap. At Diamond's suggestion, Evan himself uncovered them and lay them on the desk for inspection. The ham-fisted detective wasn't risking another accident.

They were the scenes from Frankenstein just as they had been described by Ellis Somerset, dramatic images, skilfully drawn and painted. Peg Redbird must have been a shrewd judge to have spotted them as fakes.

Evan was talking aloud, but to himself, quoting Mary Shelley. ' '… the figure of a man, at some distance, advancing towards me with superhuman speed. He bounded over the crevices in the ice, among which I had walked with caution; his stature, also as he approached, seemed to exceed that of a man.' '

Diamond said, 'They're remarkable.'

Evan turned to him. 'Everything I told you is the truth. I hit out at the copper in a panic, and I'm sorry. I swear to God I didn't touch Peg Redbird. I'm not a killer.'

'Don't count on it,' said Diamond. 'John Wigfull is still on the danger list.'

thirty-five

AFTER SO MANY YEARS in the police, Peter Diamond was not surprised by much, but he was rendered speechless when he walked into the Manvers Street control room and recognized an elegant young woman in a dove grey suit chatting to one of the sergeants.

She turned and smiled.

He eventually said, 'Well, who would have thought it?'

DI Julie Hargeaves, his much-missed deputy, said, 'It hasn't been all that long.'

She was supposed to be on attachment to Headquarters.

'What brings…?'

'Interviewing duty,' she explained. 'They're taking on new recruits, some women among them. I had an evening off, or so I thought. I haven't now.'

He was disappointed. 'I thought for a moment…'

'No,' said Julie firmly.

'Are you doing the interviews alone?'

She shook her head. 'Someone has to represent Joe Public. Regulations. I'm teamed up with Councillor Sturr. Have you met him?'

'Him? God help us if the rest of the public is anything like him.'

'He's on the Police Authority,' said Julie. 'A sledge-hammer to crack a nut, if you ask me, but I gather he insisted.'

'Typical,' said Diamond, thinking of the shock Ingeborg was going to get.

Julie shrugged and said, 'How's it going here? I heard about John Wigfull, poor old lad.'

'He's getting over it.'

Her lips shaped into the beginning of a smile. 'Shouldn't I waste my sympathy?' She well knew of Diamond's feud with the injured chief inspector.

He made an effort to sound upbeat. 'I just got the latest from the hospital. They're saying there's been a big improvement in the last hour. He's fully conscious. All the signs are that he'll make a full recovery.'

'That's wonderful. And you phoned up to ask how he was doing?'

He gave the honest explanation. 'I needed to know in case he was dead. We just nicked someone for the assault.'

'Reliable?'

'Cast iron. He confessed. Runs a puppet show. Calls himself Uncle Evan.'

'Did he also murder the antiques lady?' Julie, as he would have expected, was well up on the case.

'He had the motive. He had the opportunity.'

'Going by the tone of your voice, you don't think he did.'

At this point, the Assistant Chief Constable steamed in like the royal yacht, straight towards Julie. 'Inspector Hargreaves?'

'Ma'am.'

They shook hands and Georgina-who didn't go in for small talk-started explaining how the interviews were arranged. Diamond, sidelined by all this, left them to it. He'd missed his chance to put in a good word for Ingeborg. He just hoped Julie would remember her from press conferences as a bright young prospect ready to take on the world. With Sturr on the panel, Ingeborg's chances had taken a nosedive.

Annoyed with himself, he went over to talk to Halliwell. The hapless inspector had been beavering away on the bones in the vault case for days. Now he had a new stack of paper on his desk, the first telephoned responses to the appeal for help in identifying Banger and Mash.

'What's the story, Keith?'