Authors: Peter Lovesey
Presently she got up and tapped the wall to the right of the oven and had the satisfaction of a hollow sound. An early example of the fitted kitchen unit. The water was simmering, the kettle singing in the soothing way that only old-fashioned kettles in old cottages do. She went back to the door and looked out. They hadn’t finished, but the light was going. Sergeant Miller was hip-deep in the pit he had dug, a mound of soil beside him.
She went to look for more cups.
When they came in, Diamond looked in a better mood than was justified by the treasure-hunt. ‘Tea? That’s good organisation, Julie. It’s getting chilly out there.’
‘No luck?’
‘Depends what you mean by luck. We didn’t find you a Saxon necklace, if that’s what you hoped for.’
‘I wasn’t counting on it.’
‘But Sergeant Miller dug up a horse-brass.’
‘Oh, thanks.’
‘Finally,’ said Miller as he slumped into the chair.
‘It proves that the two-box works. And it also tells us that there ain’t no Saxon treasure left in the ground.’
‘Do you think any was found where the digging took place?’
‘Don’t know. My guess is that they used a two-box just as I did and got some signals. They could have found a bag of gold, or King Alfred’s crown - or more horse-brasses.’
Julie poured the tea and handed it around. ‘Just because a sword was found here fifty years ago, is it really likely that anything else would turn up?’
‘You do ask difficult questions, Julie. I’m no archaeologist. Let’s put it this way. I understand that people in past centuries buried precious objects like the Tormarton Seax for two reasons: either as part of the owner’s funeral or for security. A grave or a hoard. Whichever, it’s more than likely that other objects would be buried with them. So there’s a better chance here than in some field where nothing has turned up.’
‘Don’t you think old Gladstone, or his father before him, would have searched his own land?’
‘I’d put money on it, Julie, but let’s remember that metal detectors weren’t around in 1943, not for ordinary people to play with. They started going on sale in the late sixties. By that time the Gladstones must have dug most of their land many times over and decided nothing else was under there.’
‘They missed the bloody horse-brass,’ said Miller, with feeling.
‘And they could have kept missing a Saxon hoard,’ said Diamond. ‘A ploughshare doesn’t dig all that deep. There are major finds of gold and silver in fields that have been ploughed for a thousand years.’
‘You’re beginning to sound like a metal detector salesman,’ said Julie.
A high-pitched electronic sound interrupted them.
‘What’s that?’
‘My batphone,’ said Sergeant Miller. He had hung his tunic on the back of the door. He picked off the personal radio and made contact with Manvers Street.
They all heard the voice coming over the static. ‘Message for Mr Diamond. We have a reported sighting of a woman he wants to interview in connection with the Rose Black inquiry. She is called Doreen Jenkins. Repeat Doreen Jenkins. She was seen in Bath this afternoon.’
‘Give me that,’ said Diamond. He spoke into the mouthpiece. ‘Who by?’
‘You’ve pressed the off button, sir,’ said Miller.
He re-established contact. ‘This is DS Diamond. Who was it who saw Doreen Jenkins in Bath?’
‘Miss Ada Shaftsbury. Repeat Ada—’
He tossed it back to Sergeant Miller and said to Julie, ‘Ada. Who else?’
‘Where?’
‘Rossiter’s,’ said Ada. ‘That big shop in Broad Street with the creaky staircases.’
‘What were you doing in Rossiter’s?’ asked Julie, thinking that Bath’s most elegant department store would have been alien territory for Ada.
‘Looking for the buyer.’
‘You had something to
Sell
them?’
‘Postcards. Two thousand aerial views of Bath I’m trying to unload. Rossiter’s have all kinds of cards. The ones I’ve got came out kind of fuzzy in the printing, but the colours are great, like an acid trip. A swanky shop like that could sell them as arty pictures, couldn’t they? Anyway, it was worth a try. I went into the card section and I was running an eye over the stock, checking the postcards, when I heard this voice by the till. Some woman was asking if they sold fuses - you know, electrical fuses, them little things you get in plugs? This young assistant was telling her to go to some other shop. Telling her nicely. He was being really polite, giving her directions. I was pottering about in the background, not paying much attention.’
‘Your mind on other things?’ said Diamond, meaning shoplifting.
‘If you want to hear this…’
‘Go on, Ada. What happened?’
‘It was her voice. Sort of familiar, la-de-dah, going on about fuses as if every shop worth tuppence ought to have them.’ She stretched her features into a fair imitation of one of the county set and said in the authentic voice, ‘“But it’s so incredibly boring, having to look for electrical shops.” The penny didn’t drop for me until she was walking out the shop. I went in closer, dying to know if I’d seen her before, and stone me I had, and I still couldn’t place her. You know what it’s like when you suddenly come eye to eye with some sonofagun you’re not expecting.’
‘Did she recognise you?’
‘She almost wet herself.’
‘When did you realise who she was?’
‘Just after she left the shop. She was off like a bride’s nightie. Jesus wept, that was the Jenkins woman, I thought. I turned to follow her, and I was almost through the door when the young bloke came round the counter and put his hand on my arm and asked to look in my plastic carrier.’
‘Too quick,’ said Diamond, who knew the law on shoplifting. ‘He should have waited for you to step out of the shop.’
She glared at him. ‘Listen, can you get it in your head that I wasn’t working? I told you, I was there to sell stuff. Told him, too. Showed him the cards in my bag. He got a bit narked and so did I and by the time I got outside, she was gone.’
Diamond sighed.
Ada said, ‘Look, she could have gone ten different ways from there. I had no chance of finding her. No chance.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Around four, four-fifteen. I came straight here.’
‘You’re positive it was the same woman who claimed to be Rose’s stepsister?’
‘No question. Look, I may have form, Mr Diamond, but I’m not thick.’
She seemed to expect some show of support here, so he said, ‘No way.’
‘She’s supposed to come from Twickenham, so what’s she doing in Bath?’
He reached for a notepad. ‘Let’s have a description, Ada. Everything you can remember.’
She closed her eyes and tried to summon up the image of the woman. ‘Same height as me, more or less. Dark brown hair. Straight. The last time I saw her, she was wearing a ponytail. This time it was pinned up, off the neck, like some ballet-dancer, except she was a couple of sizes too heavy for the Sugar Plum Fairy. I’d say she’s a sixteen, easy.’ She opened her eyes again. ‘Big bazoomas, if you’re interested.’
If he was, he didn’t declare it. ‘Age?’
‘Pushing thirty. Pretty good skin, what you could see of it. She lashes on the make-up.’
‘Eyes?’
‘Brown. With eye-liner, mascara, the works.’
‘And her other features? Anything special about them?’
‘You want your money’s worth, don’t you? Straight nose, thinnish lips, nicely shaped. Now you want to know about her clothes? She was in a cherry-red coat with black collar, black frogging and buttons. A pale blue chiffon scarf. Black tights or stockings and black shoes with heels. Her bag was patent leather, not the one she had when I saw her in the Social Security.’
As descriptions go, it was top bracket. He thanked her.
‘So what are you going to do about it?’ she demanded to know when he had finished writing it down.
‘Find her.’
She regarded him with suspicion. ‘You wouldn’t farm this out to whatsisname with the tash?’
‘DCI Wigfull? He’s busy enough.’ He got up from behind the table, signifying that the session was over.
But Ada lingered. ‘When you find her, you’ll put her through the grinder, won’t you? She’s evil. I don’t like to think what’s happened to Rose by now.’
‘We’ve appealed for help,’ he told her. ‘Rose will be all over the front page in the paper tomorrow.’
‘God, I hope not,’ she said, misunderstanding him.
After Ada had gone, muttering and shaking her head like a latter-day Cassandra, Diamond commented to Julie, ‘Don’t ask what we’re going to do about this. It’s a terrific description, but next time the Jenkins woman goes out she’s not going to be in cherry-red, she’ll have her hair down and be wearing glasses and a blue trouser suit. She won’t go within a mile of Rossiter’s.’
‘Because Ada recognised her?’
He nodded.
Julie said, ‘It’s a definite sighting - and in Bath.’ She hesitated over the question that came next. ‘Do you think Rose could still be in the city?’
‘Hiding up?’ He pressed his mouth tight. His eyes took on a glazed, distracted look.
Julie waited, expecting some insight.
Eventually he sighed and said, ‘Rossiter’s. I haven’t been in there since they closed the restaurant. Steph and I used to go for a coffee sometimes, of a Saturday morning, up on the top floor. Self-service it was. You carried your tray to a deep settee and sat there as long as you liked, eating the finest wholemeal scones I’ve tasted in the whole of my life.’
She was lost for a comment. This vignette of the Diamond domestic routine had no bearing on the case that she could see.
‘That was bad news, Julie,’ he said.
She looked at him inquiringly.
‘When Rossiter’s restaurant closed.’
It seemed to signify the end of his interest in Ada’s sensational encounter. Maybe it was his way of telling her not to expect insights.
They returned to the incident room to find that a message had been left by Jim Marsh, the SOCO. He had collected no less than seventeen hairs from Imogen Starr’s Citroën Special and the lab were in process of examining them. There was no indication when a result might be forthcoming.
‘Seventeen sounds like a long wait to me.’
‘Most of them belong to Imogen, I expect,’ said Julie.
‘One of Rose’s would be enough for me.’
He ambled over to Keith Halliwell and asked what else had been achieved.
‘You asked us to check on the neighbouring farm at Tormarton, the one that wanted to swallow up Gladstone’s little patch.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s owned by a company called Hollandia Holdings Limited.’
‘We know that already, Keith.’
‘We checked with Companies’ House and got a list of the directors. It’s here somewhere.’ He sorted through the papers on his desk. ‘Four names.’
Diamond looked at them and frowned.
Patrick van Beek (MD)
Aart Vroemen (CS)
Luc Beurskens
Marko Stigter
‘Dutch?’
‘Well, it is called Hollandia—’
‘Yes. And we’re all in the Common Market and the Dutch know a lot about farming. What are the letters after the names? Is van Beek a doctor?’
‘Managing director.’
‘Ah.’ He grinned self-consciously. Abbreviations were his blind spot and everyone knew it. ‘Do we have their addresses?’
‘Just the company address, a Bristol PO number. PO - short for Post Office,’ said Halliwell.
The grin faded. ‘Thank you, Keith.’ He turned to Julie. ‘What’s your opinion, then?’
She said, ‘They’re not locals, for sure. Can we check if they own other farms in this country?’
‘We already have. Two in Somerset, one in Gloucestershire,’ said Halliwell. ‘The company seems to be kosher.’
The two of them looked to Diamond for an indication where the inquiry was heading now. He stood silent for some time, hunched in contemplation, hands clasped behind his neck. Finally he said, as if speaking to himself, ‘There was just this chance that the neighbours were so set on acquiring the farm that they did away with Gladstone. We know he was made an offer more than once and refused, but that’s no justification for blowing the old man’s head off. It was a piddling piece of land. There had to be a stronger motive. The only one I can see is if they believed more Saxon treasure was buried there. The Tormarton Seax was well known. There might have been other things buried, but Gladstone was an obstinate old cuss who wouldn’t let anyone find out. That’s the best motive we have so far.’ He paused and altered his posture, thrusting his hands in his pockets, but still self-absorbed. ‘The idea of some faceless men, a company, greedy to grab the land and dig there, had some appeal. Now I’m less sure.’
‘Somebody did some digging - quite a lot of it,’ Julie commented.
He said sharply, ‘I’m talking about the company, this Hollandia outfit. We know who they are now. Not faceless men. Keith gets the names from Companies House without any trouble at all. Mr van Beek and his chums, a bunch of Dutchmen with holdings in other farms as well. We can check them out - we
will
check them out - but I don’t see them as killers. If they went to all the trouble of buying the farm next door, employing locals to work the land, if that’s the planning, the commitment, they made to acquire this treasure, would they be quite so stupid as this?’
‘It almost got by as a suicide,’ said Halliwell.
‘But it didn’t. And we know their names. Check their credentials, Keith. Find out if the other farms they own are going concerns, how long they’ve been investing here. I think we’ll discover these Dutchmen are more interested in turnips than treasure.’
‘Now? It’s getting late to phone people.’
‘Get onto it.’ Next it was Julie’s turn to feel the heat. ‘You just brought up the digging. Have you really thought it through?’
Experience of Diamond told her he wouldn’t need a response.
‘I said, have you thought it through? Has it crossed your mind at any point that the digging could be one bloody great red herring? People all around Tormarton knew about the Saxon sword. It was common knowledge that old Gladstone wouldn’t let anyone excavate his land. He was lying dead in that house for a week and we’re given to believe nobody knew. But what if some local person did find out, looked through the farmhouse window, saw the body and thought this is the chance everyone has waited fifty years for? Do you see? Your enterprising local lad comes along with a metal detector and spade and gets digging. If so, the murder and the digging are two separate incidents.’