The Stone Wife (41 page)

“And now you want your office back?”

“That’s the plan.”

“If six guys can lift her, this’ll do the job, no problem. What have you got to do the towing? Not your old banger?”

“Probably not.”

“Day after tomorrow?”

Diamond nodded, looked behind him and saw Ingeborg fidgeting with her ponytail. “I doubt if her Ka is suitable either. Let me think about this. I may need one of your Land Rovers.”

“You will, by the sound of things. Also ropes and a tarp,”
the fleet manager said. “We can supply them. How about a motorcycle escort?”

“Are you being sarcastic?”

“Only jesting.”

“I could take you up on this. If robbers can ambush an auction, they can hijack a trailer.”

“Do they know you’re making the trip?”

“Not yet, but they could find out. A couple of outriders aren’t such a bad idea. Put me down for the Land Rover and trailer and I’ll let you know what else I need.” He walked across to Ingeborg. “In case you’re curious, I’ve decided to take the wife back to where she belongs.”

“Bridgwater?”

He nodded. “The museum is still the owner. They should take responsibility now. I’m there on Saturday for the scattering of the ashes. Monica doesn’t know where the Chaucer house stood. I promised to show her. She wants company. I know how she feels.”

“That’s very noble, guv.”

“Not entirely. It’s a chance to kill two birds with one stone.”

“Hasn’t the stone done enough damage already?”

This earned a broad grin. The prospect of unloading the wife on to someone else made him feel as if he’d got out of jail. “Okay,” he said. “There’s a certain look in your eye. What staggering news have you got to tell me?”

Strange how one decision changed everything. It was as if the
Wife of Bath
, faced with the prospect of being sent back to the museum, decided the game was up and she would end her sport with Diamond. Little had gone right from the moment she had been dumped in his office, but the stubborn old cuss had refused to accept that he was jinxed. It was only a lump of stone, for God’s sake. Bad luck was just that and nothing more.

In the course of the next hour, he made calls to the auction rooms, followed by Bridgwater, Bristol and Reading. When he finally put down the phone, the truth about the killing
of John Gildersleeve had become as obvious to him as how he would deal with it. He was at peace with himself, quietly elated. At this stage he said nothing to the team. The right moment would come.

Instead, he got out of his chair, rounded the desk and stood facing her. Since her return from the photo session she had been left at an oblique angle, so that she seemed to be riding towards the door. Pure chance? Much against his lifelong insistence on commonsense behaviour, he started speaking to her in a low voice inaudible to everyone in the CID room. “I don’t accept for a moment that you had any influence over me or anyone else. I’m not superstitious. Every case I’ve ever investigated had a rational explanation and I’ve proved it over and over. Just because you were the start of all this, it doesn’t mean you ran the show. You were the start and I’m allowing you also to be the finish, but that means nothing. Nothing at all. I think we understand each other, don’t we?”

Let’s not give the
Wife of Bath
any credit for what occurred next. Diamond didn’t, then or later. The former US Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld could have been speaking for Diamond when, in another context, he uttered the immortal words, “Stuff happens.” At least ten minutes passed before any stuff did happen. It was an incident in the incident room. There was a shout of surprise followed by a scream overtaken by an outbreak of shouting and shrieking the like of which Manvers Street had never experienced.

Diamond moved fast and flung open his door.

Everyone was in a huddle at the far side. The noise level wouldn’t have disgraced Epsom on Derby Day and mercifully they were sounds of joy. At the centre of the crush, smiling, shaking his head, at a loss as to how to accept such an outpouring, was Paul Gilbert, alive and back with the team.

Diamond went forward, wrestled his way through, grabbed the lad and hugged him. He couldn’t find words, there was such a huge lump in his throat.

The team insisted Gilbert come for a drink in the Royal, even though he should have been seeing a doctor. All he wanted was a bottle of water, he told them. He’d been given a shower and fresh clothes in Bristol and plenty to drink, but he was still dehydrated. The rest of them celebrated until Diamond put his arm around the young man and steered him out.

Much of Gilbert’s story had been extracted piecemeal in the pub, but not in any connected way. In the sanctuary of Diamond’s office, with only the stone carving for company, a more coherent version emerged.

“It’s like I was two different people, guv,” he explained. “There’s what I remember before I was hurt and there’s what happened after, with a gap in between that’s a total blank. I’ve been trying to remember, but it won’t come back.”

“It never will,” Diamond said. “It’s the way concussion affects you. I had it more than once in my rugby playing days. Could never be sure which thug from the other team knocked me out. Retrograde amnesia. With all the knocks I took, it’s a miracle I can remember that. Give me the story in sequence, from when you were up the tree at Nathan Hazael’s place.”

Gilbert took a swig of water first. “I felt like such a wuss, stuck up there with the dog waiting underneath, but it would have had me. I know those Dobermanns. They don’t take prisoners. They go for your throat.”

“No one’s blaming you for staying where you were.”

“But you can blame me for being there. I exceeded orders and what happened was all my stupid fault. If I’d done what I was asked and just checked the state of Ingeborg’s car at the dockside, I’d have saved everyone a load of hassle.”

Diamond shrugged. The lad had got the message. It didn’t need repeating.

Gilbert went on, “I spoke to someone who told me about this video shoot on the
Great Britain
and it was obvious Ingeborg must have been there. I was talking to the local security lads, getting all the information I could, and one of them was on about a bit of a fight nearby involving a blonde and the director of the video. They said he was a local guy
called Marcus Tone and it sounded nasty, so I thought I’d better follow it up. But when I spoke to Tone at his house in Clifton I found he’d been doing his best to help her meet the pop star from the video and both women had been snatched and driven off by Nathan Hazael and his thugs.” He sighed and shook his head. “I was in a real sweat about her. We all know Nathan’s reputation. I thought someone needed to get there fast and report back to you.” He rolled his eyes upwards. “I’ve only just learned she was your undercover cop and it was all part of her plan to get inside the place. What a mess.”

“Not entirely your fault,” Diamond said. “I should have briefed you more fully.”

“Well, I left my car a short way off and climbed over the wall. I got to about a hundred and fifty yards from the house before the dog found me. I was up that tree like a squirrel, I’m not kidding. After a bit the damn thing stopped barking, but it didn’t go away. I can’t tell you how useless I felt. I was there most of the night.”

“You still had your phone, didn’t you?”

“At that time, yes, but after the bollocking you gave me I didn’t dare trouble you again. You told me to use my initiative.”

Diamond felt a stab of guilt. “I remember.”

“I thought the sensible thing was to stay up the tree and wait for the dog to go away. My best chance would be if it was used to being fed in the morning. Nothing much happened, but at one point I saw someone in the moonlight. They were on the roof.”

“That was Ingeborg.”

“And not long after that the bloody dog started barking again and all hell broke loose. An alarm went off at the house and people came out with guns and started running towards the tree.” Gilbert opened his hand. “That’s the last thing I remember.”

“Lee Li thought you fell from the tree. That’s what she was told.”

“It’s possible.”

“But unlikely. Did you have any injuries apart from the head wound? You’d have been badly bruised at the very least.”

“Nothing like that.”

“My best guess is that they forced you down at gunpoint and clubbed you with a rifle butt. As far as we can tell, you were out to the world for some time after. It appeared you were dead. Then they shoved you into the back of a limo and slammed down the lid. We expected to find a body somewhere in Leigh Woods. The place was searched from end to end. Bristol deserve medals for the efforts they made to find you.”

Gilbert put his red, weathered fingers to his mouth. “I know. They told me at the Julian Trust. I’m gutted to have caused so much trouble to everyone.”

“Like us, they’ll be mightily relieved you were found alive. I’m fascinated to know how it happened.”

The young man took a moment to collect his thoughts. “This is the other me, the idiot found wandering the streets of Bristol.”

“Is that the first memory?”

“No, when I came to, I was in woodland, feeling terrible. I was cold and sick. Disgusting.”

“Any idea where?”

“On the Leigh Woods side of the gorge. They must have dumped me. I don’t know if they knew I was alive. I got up and staggered along for a bit. It’s amazing I didn’t fall right down the side. I have a memory of walking across the suspension bridge.”

“Didn’t you try and stop a car?”

“I couldn’t think of a reason to stop one. I didn’t know who I was or how I’d got there. They’d emptied my pockets. My phone had gone. I was filthy. I can’t believe any driver would have stopped for me. Eventually I met up with some other rough sleepers. I hung about with them until this afternoon when my head began to clear.”

“Something triggered your memory?”

“They got to talking about stone pillows and made some sort of joke about me needing a stone wife, and I remembered
this.” He leaned over his chair and rested a hand on the
Wife of Bath
. “She’s not all bad, guv. Once I got the picture of her in my head, other stuff started to come back as well. I remembered your name and Ingeborg’s. I could picture this place. The guys I was with had become friendly by then and they took me to the dosshouse.”

“The night shelter.”

“Right. The brain was ticking over again and I told the people at the shelter who I was. This was outside the hours they operate but they took me in as a special case and let me take a shower and get into some less disgusting clothes. They’d been told to look out for me as a missing person. I believe they phoned the local police and told them I was alive and basically okay. Then they arranged for one of their outreach people to drive me back here. I won’t forget the reception I was given.”

“To say we were worried is an understatement.”

“Did anyone speak to my mum?”

“She’s been away all week. She has no idea.”

“I’d forgotten. Thank God for that.”

Diamond got up from his chair. “You should get that head wound checked. It seems to have dried up, but it may need some kind of attention. Take the rest of the week off, catch up on some sleep and we’ll expect you in on Monday. Oh, and it might be a nice idea to write a letter of thanks to Bristol Central for all the man-hours of searching.”

“A bottle of wine?”

“Not unless you can afford twenty cases of the stuff.”

32

The motorcade that set out from Manvers Street on Saturday morning didn’t, in the end, have outriders, but its status was not in question. At the front, a Land Rover with Avon & Somerset police markings contained Peter Diamond, Denis Doggart, the auctioneer, and George, the driver. They were towing a trailer bearing the
Wife of Bath
, stoutly roped and covered with a tarpaulin. Next, Ingeborg’s red Ka, with Keith Halliwell as passenger. And at the rear a white Volvo driven by Erica, Monica’s sister. Beside her was Monica, clutching the plastic urn containing John Gildersleeve’s ashes.

Diamond had chosen the route: the A39 across country by way of Wells and Glastonbury rather than using the motorway. “No speeding,” he told George. “We’re on a sensitive mission here. Let’s do it with respect.”

In his tweed suit and salmon pink tie, Doggart brought some sartorial quality to the occasion. Diamond, even more domineering than usual, had browbeaten the auctioneer into making the trip by insisting over the phone that he was still the custodian of lot 129. Although the Blake Museum at Bridgwater remained the owners, the
Wife of Bath
had been brought to Morton’s for a sale that hadn’t been completed, so the auctioneers had a duty of care and if they had any doubts they should speak to their insurers. The fact that the carving had been parked for a couple of weeks in the police station was immaterial. Until she was handed back to Bridgwater she was Morton’s responsibility. The police were doing them a massive good turn by arranging the transportation. The least Doggart could do was witness the handover.

But a cloud of unease hung over the Land Rover as it cruised across Churchill Bridge and along the Lower Bristol Road. Doggart must have suspected there was more on the agenda than he’d been told. Diamond waited until they joined the Wells Road at Corston before saying any more.