Peter Lovesey - Bloodhounds

"Yes, that's how we got to know each other. His work sells quite well. Life studies, rather different from the usual thing. I'll show you presently."

"Of women?"

Jessica shrugged. "What would you expect? Male nudes don't sell unless they're by Michelangelo."

"Is that so?"

"Think about it. Would you like one in your sitting room, however well hung?"

In a more relaxed situation Shirley-Ann would have giggled. She wasn't sure if the image she received was intended, so a smile did for an answer. She let her eyes travel to the far end of the gallery. "It's bigger in here than I imagined."

Jessica showed her around. Her policy, she explained, was to specialize in the work of a select group of artists. By refusing to crowd the walls with everything that was offered, she was putting her judgment to the test. Early on, she had made a decision not to show abstracts, not because she disliked them, but because she found that the sorts of people who called at her gallery wanted something that gave them a way into the artist's vision. None of the work was slavishly representational. Each image from real life was enhanced by exciting and original use of color and design. All this was said with conviction. The people of Bath might be unadventurous in their taste, but Jessica wasn't knocking them.

They were large canvases, many priced in four figures, and Shirley-Ann thought with amusement of the shock it would give Bert to see her being escorted around this gallery. Her devoted partner had it firmly in his mind that she only ever bought pictures from charity shops, and it was true. The pictures of elephants and dancers in the flat they shared in Russell Street had cost under a pound, every one. She'd had to brighten up the walls with something, and quickly. All they had when they moved in was a collection of framed James Bond book jackets dating from Bert's days as a student at Loughborough College. He was quite fixated on Bond.

Up a white spiral staircase were more paintings, including A.J.'s nudes, which weren't the crude or flashy things she had expected. The figures were painted with subtlety and draftsmanship, posed against strong light sources that cast much of the form into heavy shadow, letting the spectator's eye make sense of the areas exposed to the light.

"He's good," said Jessica. "I have to admit he's bloody good."

"Who are the models?" Shirley-Ann asked, and heard herself saying, too late to hold back, "Have you ever posed for him?" It was a tactless thing to have said, and she felt like slapping herself.

Jessica's large, shrewd eyes widened, but there was no obvious embarrassment. She answered coolly, "No. Why should I? They're professional models, I imagine."

They moved on to a view of a village church that Shirley-Ann was profoundly glad to recognize as one she knew. "Oh, Limpley Stoke! It is, isn't it?"

It was, and the moment passed.

Downstairs, they made fresh tea. The evening paper had been pushed through the door, and the headline was about a million-pound stamp theft in the city. It had pushed the story of the murdered bank manager off the front page.

"I don't approve of theft, but you've got to admire anyone bold enough to put a ladder against a window in broad daylight and climb up and nick the thing," said Jessica after briefly studying the report. "That's what happened, apparently. They're appealing for witnesses, of course, but they think people must have taken him for a window cleaner. The guys with the squeegees are out in force before the shops are open. Scores of them. I have mine done every morning. It's essential. You wouldn't believe the state they're in sometimes."

"The window cleaners?"

Jessica smiled. "The windows, lovey."

"I saw the police looking up at the Postal Museum window this morning," Shirley-Ann said. "I happened to be having coffee outside the French cafe, with Polly Wycherley, as a matter of fact." For the second time in a few minutes she wished she had guarded her tongue. The way Polly had spoken of Jessica should have made her more careful.

Jessica picked up on the remark at once. "You were with Polly?"

"Just for a coffee, yes:"

"You knew her already, then, before the other evening?"

"No." She thought of saying that she met Polly in Shires Yard by chance, but she had never been a convincing liar. "She phoned me this morning when I was in the shower. She must be an early riser. I think she felt as chair of the Bloodhounds that she ought to follow up on the meeting and find out if I was coming again."

"Probably," said Jessica.

"We couldn't have known that a real mystery was unfolding in front of us."

The real mystery had ceased to interest Jessica. "Did she have any advice for the new member?"

"Oh, I think it was just a friendly gesture," said Shirley-Ann, resolved to stonewall.

"Polly is good at giving advice," remarked Jessica, and it didn't sound like a compliment.

"Well, I'm grateful for all the friendship. I feel as if I belong already. I'm certainly going to come again."

"Good-we can do with you," said Jessica more warmly. "It was getting polarized between the whodunit readers and the blood-and-guts lot. There's so much else we could talk about, but we hardly ever do."

"Apart from Umberto Eco."

Jessica smiled. "Apart from him. They're charming people, but they will insist on taking up positions, and it's only because they don't read widely enough. If Rupert were to try a Peter Dickinson for a change, with that fertile imagination thinking up the most amazing plots and settings-"

"Oh, yes!"

"— and still worked out as puzzles, with clues and a proper investigation, he'd be jolted out of the rut he's in. And I'd love to get Milo reading American thrillers. I know the way in for him. It's through the Fletch books."

"Gregory McDonald."

"Yes. He'd adore the humor, and he'd appreciate the logic of the plots and he'd soon be into Westlake and McBain and Block and ultimately Ellroy."

"There is a way in through women writers," Shirley-Ann pointed out.

"True." Jessica laughed. "True in theory. But you don't know Milo."

Shirley-Ann raised her eyebrows, and Jessica nodded.

Much more gossip about the Bloodhounds would certainly have emerged, but Shirley-Ann didn't want to appear overcurious. She turned the conversation back to the art and was rewarded with an invitation to a private view on Wednesday of the following week.

"I won't pretend it's anything amazing," Jessica explained. "Rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, A.J. calls it. The same people tend to come each time, but it does pull in a few dealers, and I sell enough to cover the cost of the buck's fizz and Twiglets. You'll see a couple of faces there you know. And don't, for God's sake, feel under any obligation to buy."

When John Wigfull emerged from his press conference Diamond was in the main office reading the poem-if that isn't too grandiose a description of the four lines of verse that had misled everyone, including himself.

"Was it grueling, John?" he asked, with a matey grin.

"I didn't expect an easy ride."

"You took. my advice, I hope?"

"What was that?" said Wigfull in a hollow, preoccupied tone. "Look, no offense, Peter, but I don't have time to talk. There are urgent things to attend to."

"Like a strong coffee? The throat does get dry, answering those damn fool questions."

Whatever the state of Wigfull's throat, his vocal cords had no difficulty in projecting his growing impatience. "I'm heading a major inquiry. This is the world's most valuable stamp. It's far more serious than your shooting in Saltford."

"Not in the eyes of the law, it isn't, and not to the bloke who was Jdlled. So you're calling for reinforcements, no doubt?"