The Vault

'So you will go in?'

'What makes this ladies' room so special? What do you want to know about the place?'

'Just tell me if everything is on this level, or if you have to go downstairs. If it is in the basement, examine the walls.'

'Go figure,' murmured Donna. 'He only wants me to read the walls in a rest room.'

'Don't you follow me? It could be part of the original Frankenstein house.'

Shaking her head, Donna walked to the door of the Ladies' Room and disappeared from view.

Joe waited, tapping his foot.

Donna came out again after only a couple of seconds. 'No basement. It's all on this level and totally modern. Now can we go?'

Frustrated, Joe looked around, orientating himself again. Without answering Donna, he stepped along the corridor.

Her patience snapped. 'Stay here if you want. I'm going shopping.'

Joe was preoccupied. A short way ahead, he had spotted some stairs down to a door marked 'Staff Only'.

Without giving him another look, Donna walked out of the building.

Joe was not deterred by the sign on the door. He went down the curved stone stairs. Inside the staff room, two men in black overalls were sieving earth into a wheelbarrow.

'You don't mind if I go through?' he said, pointing across the room. He was already on his way.

'Who are you?' one of them asked.

'Professor Joe Dougan.'

The title made enough of an impression to allay suspicion. 'Mind how you go, professor,' said the workman. 'It's muddy.'

Joe pushed open the second door and was astonished. Below, at the foot of some steps, arc-lamps on stands gave a brilliant view of what was clearly a vast ancient cellar, with arched vaulting above solid pillars of stone. His mouth went dry and a pulse beat in his head. He had surely found what he had hardly dared hope would still exist-the basement to number five. The Pump Room extension must have been built over this. They had not demolished the original vault when they cleared the rest of the old house at the end of the last century.

The presence of the lights was odd, and so were the flagstones stacked against the walls, but he was so excited that he thought little of it until someone dressed entirely in a white overall appeared at his side and asked, 'Do we know you, sir?'

'I don't believe you do,' Joe answered, still euphoric at this discovery. 'I'm Joe Dougan. Professor Joe Dougan.' He shook the man's hand.

'Andy Mills. You see, we were expecting Dr Middleton at two.'

'I don't know about that,' said Joe.

'We were told he had some trouble with his car.'

'That would explain it, then,' said Joe affably.

'You're here in Dr Middleton's place?'

'Suits me,' said Joe. 'I'm just delighted to see all this.'

'I have a spare oversuit if you'd care to use one, Professor.'

Joe thanked Andy Mills. His own linen suit was liable to get dirty down here. They had taken up the flagstones and the floor appeared to be under excavation.

He pulled on the oversuit. They even had gloves and overshoes for him.

'It's there, against the wall,' Andy Mills told him. 'The access is not marked as well as it should be, so would you follow me?'

Joe followed, not entirely sure what this was about, but happy as a cat in a creamery. His one regret was that Donna had not shared this moment. She would take some convincing when he told her about it.

Mills asked, 'Didn't you bring your kit?'

'Just what I'm dressed in,' said Joe. 'What are you going to show me?'

'Didn't they tell you?' The man stopped and crouched. 'It's right here.'

Joe did likewise and found himself looking at a human skull at the bottom of a shallow excavation trench. 'Well, isn't that something?' he said. 'Is it real?'

Andy Mills gave an uneasy laugh.

Joe stood upright again. It was uncomfortable squatting. 'Got anything else?'

'That's it,' said Mills, increasingly perplexed.

'I'll just take a look around, if you don't mind. This chance is too good to miss.' He stepped across the lumpy floor to the opposite wall.

'Don't you want to lift the skull?' said Mills.

'No thanks.'

There was an uneasy pause.

Mills eventually said, 'You think it should remain here?'

'To give it to you straight,' said Joe, 'the skull doesn't interest me. The cellar doesn't need dressing up. For me, it has great atmosphere without the extras.'

After another interval Mills said, 'Excuse me asking, professor. You are from the Royal United?'

'No, from the Royal Crescent, if you want to know. Is this important?'

* * *

INGEBORG SMITH was hovering near the Pump Room entrance when Diamond approached, looking as usual as if he had escaped from an old black and white film in his trilby and striped suit. He asked her graciously if she would mind waiting a few minutes while he checked with his people inside.

The men sifting the rubble in the staff room were not the pair he had met in the morning. They told him someone had come in earlier and gone into the vault through some misunderstanding. Dr Middleton had still not arrived. And nothing new had been discovered in the sieving.

He returned upstairs.

He and Ingeborg sat in the open at one of the tables outside Monks Coffee House, opposite the Pump Room entrance. From there, Jim Middleton would be seen arriving, if he appeared at all.

The Abbey Churchyard was quite a sun-trap this August afternoon, and they ordered ice-cream rather than tea. Diamond loosened his tie and kept his jacket on. Too many police officers were coming and going. Out here he felt conspicuous looking relaxed with the blonde journalist.

'I may get up at any time,' he cautioned her.

'Leaving me to pay?' she said.

He took a five-pound note from his back pocket and pushed it under an ashtray. 'This student you mentioned over the phone-who is she?'

Ingeborg was reluctant to come to the point-that point, anyway. 'What are the chances of someone like me joining the police?'

He almost needed the question repeated. 'You mean this seriously? You have a career already.'

'People switch jobs. Could I work in CID?'

'Not right off. You'd go through training school first, Probation. Two years on the beat.' He was unsure if this was a serious enquiry, or some debating point she was leading up to.

She asked, 'Isn't there a fast track?'

'Accelerated promotion? That doesn't apply until you're qualified, and then it's mainly for graduates.'

'Two years in that gruesome uniform?'

'We've all been through it.'

She smiled. 'Skirts and black tights?'

'You know what I mean. After that, you might get transferred to CID if you're promising-and lucky.'

'How soon?'

'Depends.'