The Stone Wife (37 page)

“He saved them some embarrassment, not to mention a vast amount of money.”

“And naturally he basked in the publicity.”

“Yes, you said it made the national press. Do you remember when?”

A little gasp of impatience. “I have more important things on my mind than Gildersleeve’s five minutes of fame.”

“He’s a lot more famous now he’s dead. No matter. We can check the date.”

“Why would you need to?”

“Because it wasn’t only a triumph for Gildersleeve. It was clearly a disaster for the person who was selling the drawing.”

Poke shrugged, not interested in someone else’s misfortune.

“What would a new portrait of Chaucer have fetched?” Diamond went on. “A six-figure sum? More? I don’t suppose Thomas Chaucer rates more than a few hundred—and I doubt if the National Portrait Gallery would want to buy it. All of which leaves us with a pissed-off seller and a possible motive for murder.”

“That’s stretching it.”

“Not at all. People can hold grudges for a long time, particularly if they don’t seem to be getting the breaks themselves.”

You could have guillotined a man with the look Diamond got from Poke.

Untroubled, the big detective added, “I expect an art dealer was involved. Was the owner’s name made public?”

Leaman said, “We can easily check the report now.”

“On Dr. Poke’s computer? What a good idea.”

Back in Poke’s office, with Diamond at his side and Poke with hands on hips looking like the kid whose toys are being played with, Leaman downloaded a newspaper report from April 2004 in a matter of seconds:

PORTRAIT IS NOT POET, EXPERT SAYS

An ink drawing believed to have been of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, likely to have been purchased for the nation by the National Portrait Gallery, has now been identified by an expert as the poet’s son, Thomas (c1367–1434). The drawing was discovered on parchment
used as backing for a fifteenth century treatise on crop management. The name Chaucer clearly appears above a coat of arms at the side of the portrait and the drawing—a full-length study—was sent to be authenticated by Professor John Gildersleeve of Reading University, who has made a lifetime study of Chaucer.

‘There is a distinct resemblance to other well-known portraits of the poet,’ the professor reported. ‘However, the coat of arms establishes it quite certainly as his son Thomas, who later in life preferred to use his mother Philippa de Roet’s family arms. Philippa had noble connections in her own right. Her sister was the third wife of John of Gaunt. So it is understandable that in the hierarchical society of the time, Thomas preferred to be linked to his mother rather than the author of
The Canterbury Tales
. Thomas was a significant figure, Chief Butler of England and a long-serving Speaker of the House of Commons. His tomb in Ewelme Church bears the de Roet arms.’

The new identification makes a substantial difference to the value of the drawing. The National Portrait Gallery was thought to have been ready to buy the drawing for as much as a million pounds. It is now valued at about £3000. A representative of Matlock & Russell, the art dealers selling the drawing, said, ‘Our client is understandably disappointed and prefers to remain anonymous.’

“ ‘Understandably disappointed’ was on the tip of my tongue when I said ‘pissed off,’ Diamond said. “Sorry about that. With my language I doubt if I’d get the job as Chief Butler of England. Can you print it?”

Leaman did so without even asking Poke. “I don’t see it, guv.”

“Don’t see what?”

“How the client could blame Gildersleeve, who was just doing his job.”

“You’d feel like kicking someone, wouldn’t you? Gildersleeve’s name is the only one here.”

Leaman stayed unconvinced. “It’s like blaming an expert witness in court.”

“Suppose a few years later you discovered the same Professor Gildersleeve was dead set on buying another piece of Chaucer memorabilia. Wouldn’t it be sweet to hijack it from under his nose?”

He nodded. “I can see the appeal of that.”

“What do you say, Dr. Poke?” Diamond asked.

The lecturer was saying nothing.

Diamond pressed for an answer. “I was thinking you’d have an opinion, as someone forced to work with a colleague who was a pain in every way.”

“That’s unfair,” Poke said. “You shouldn’t stigmatise me for being honest. Most of the people at the funeral this morning would have agreed with me if they had any integrity. Have you finished with my computer now?”

“I’d like to know who the disappointed client was,” Diamond said. “Won’t the all-powerful computer tell us?”

Leaman said, “I doubt it, if he chose to be anonymous.”

“The dealers would know. Can you get their phone number?”

He worked the keys again.

And again.

And again. “Looks like Matlock and Russell have gone out of business, guv. This is a directory of all the art dealers in the UK.”

“I wonder if the National Portrait Gallery know the name.”

“I can get a contact number for them.”

The speed of the computer gives the impression that information is always instantly on tap. Twenty minutes on the phone with various individuals at the gallery was a salutary corrective. Finally everyone was forced to conclude that anonymous meant anonymous and even if some trusted high-up had known the name at the time, no record or memory of it had survived.

“I’ll think of a way of winkling it out,” Diamond said.

“He probably will,” Leaman said to Poke. “That’s one of his strengths, winkling things out.”

Poke seemed unwilling to be impressed.

Before leaving the campus, Diamond wanted to winkle out something else. He called at the registrar’s office and asked if they kept records of students who were sent down. They referred him to the alumni office, who talked about data protection until he said who he was and that he was investigating the shooting of one of their own professors. They agreed to allow him access but said it would involve making a special search of files that hadn’t been computerised. The archives were stored in another part of the university known as the Old Red Building. He said he would make the check himself if someone would show him where the records were.

His persistence paid off. One of the staff was freed to help him make a physical search. They drove down to the Old Red Building, where he learned that no file existed of excluded students. The only way of finding the names was to compare the records of thousands of enrolled students with the lists—almost as many—of thousands who had gone on to complete their degrees. Anyone who didn’t feature in both lists could be assumed to have dropped out. However, the dropouts would include students who had left the university voluntarily, transferred to other universities, failed the first year exams, or became too ill to continue, or died.

“This could take days,” he said. “All I want is the name of one bad egg sent down by the dean for dealing in drugs.”

Leaman came to the rescue. “Can’t we narrow it down?”

“Good thinking. They were studying English and History.”

“In the session two-thousand to two-thousand and one,” Leaman added.

The task was still daunting, but more manageable. The helpful admin officer said she thought she could compile a list of all the dropouts by next day.

Diamond told her she was a star.

Outside the Old Red Building, Leaman said, picking his words with tact, “Are you thinking someone held a grievance
all these years and hired professional hitmen to kill Gildersleeve? To me, it doesn’t seem likely.”

“Me neither,” Diamond said. “It’s a loose end I wanted tidied up.”

“Well. I hope that woman doesn’t lose much sleep over it.”

On the drive home through Reading at the rush hour, he kept making audible intakes of breath.

“You all right, guv?” Leaman asked.

“I wish you wouldn’t drive so close to the car in front, that’s all,” he said. “This isn’t the Defender, it’s a little old Honda with bodywork that buckles on impact.”

“It’s my car.”

“It’s my body you have in the passenger seat.”

“We’re crawling.”

“Try creeping.”

As they approached the motorway on the A33 everything came to a complete stop.

“What’s up now?” Diamond said.

“Someone up there heard your prayer.”

“That’s a first, then.”

“Do you feel more comfortable now?”

“Don’t get snarky with me.” He took out his phone.

“Are you going to check what’s happened?”

He nodded. But it wasn’t the traffic hold-up he was checking. He got through once more to Bristol and asked if there was news from the search in Leigh Woods. Nothing had been reported. Neither had there been a sighting of Nathan’s two limos.

“Are we checking the CCTV footage at the suspension bridge?” he said into the phone.

They were, and it was still going on.

“I want to be informed as soon as—”

The line went dead. He didn’t like to think they might have cut him off deliberately.

Leaman found the local radio station and learned that the westbound section between junctions 11 and 12 had been
closed because of an accident and was unlikely to be opened again for two hours.

Ahead, cars were making U-turns. Leaman checked his mirror and started to do the same.

“Where are we heading now?” Diamond asked.

“Back through the town to find the back way to the next junction.”

To keep his mind off the driving, he tried to think of the positives from the funeral. Basically, he’d got what he came for, the interviews with Monica Gildersleeve and Archie Poke. And there was an intriguing new lead to pursue. Who was the anonymous seller of the Chaucer portrait who had missed out on a fortune when John Gildersleeve gave his expert opinion?

29

Ingeborg arrived early at Manvers Street next morning to find Diamond already there making waves, on the phone to Bristol, asking if the search of Leigh Woods had resumed, firing a series of questions at the hapless inspector on the line. How much of the woods had they covered? Were they still using the dog team? How many dogs? How many men? He went on to ask about the camera footage at Clifton suspension bridge. The check had been completed, a long, laborious process, and it emerged that one of Nathan’s limousines had definitely crossed the bridge in the Bristol direction at 5:50
A.M
. on the day Nathan’s body was recovered from the river. The second limo had not been spotted.

“They split up, then,” he said, talking to the Bristol inspector as if he was up to speed on every detail of the case. “It makes sense. The car caught on camera must have been carrying the gun collection to some secret lock-up in the docks area. The other was used to dump the body somewhere in the woods. Then that second car crossed the river by another route, most likely using Brunel Way and Avon Bridge. Nathan will have known every patrol car in the county was looking for those limos. He will have got them off the road and out of sight as soon as they’d shed their loads. Then he’ll have told his men to disperse and lie low. He’ll not have told them he was about to make his way on foot to the bridge to commit suicide.”

There was a short pause in Diamond’s flow when the inspector got a few words in.

Then: “I don’t know if you’ve got the manpower, but somebody needs to search for the weapons and the cars. I’m
strongly of the opinion that you’ll find them in the docks area. But the search for DC Gilbert has priority over everything. Do you understand me? Top priority.”

Then he put down the phone and sighted Ingeborg, calm and groomed again, with her blonde hair in the ponytail she usually wore and her lightly pencilled eyes giving no clue as to the tough time she’d been through.

“Rested now?”

“Rested and ready to go.”

“How did Lee Li take the news of Nathan’s death?”

“Like I expected. Shock. Some tears. She felt responsible, she said, and I soon knocked that on the head. She’s now come round to the view that she was lucky to escape when she did. He could easily have turned angry and
she
might have ended up dead in the river. Now she can get on with her life and her singing career without looking over her shoulder every minute.”

“Is she still at your flat?”

“Only until this afternoon. She’ll be staying with a friend.”

“You like her, don’t you?”

A shrug and a smile. “She’s sweet, but not empty-headed. She’ll have more success, I’m sure.”

“When she collects her Brit Award, you’ll get a mention in her acceptance speech: ‘And finally Ingeborg Smith who rescued me from the clutches of a major crime baron.’ ” He updated her on the Reading trip. “So you see, there’s a lot happening,” he concluded. “I’m off to Melksham presently to waylay Bernie Wefers.”

“Want me to come?” she offered.

He needed her instead to get on the trail of the mystery seller of the Chaucer drawing. “I have a strong hunch it’s worth finding out,” he said. “We know the dealers were Matlock and Russell, who seem to have gone out of business. But it was only ten years ago. Someone must know the inside story.”