Peter Lovesey - Bloodhounds

"Marlowe. The dog. Rupert Darby's dog. I took him on. Remember?"

He said in amazement, "You're calling me about the dog? What's it been up to now?"

"Nothing. He's done nothing wrong."

"Well?"

"I'm here at the Sports Center to interview Bert Jones, Shirley-Ann Miller's partner."

"I know that, Julie."

"Yes, but before going in, I thought I'd better give the dog a chance of a walk, if you know what I mean. I walked him around the edge or the car park at Manvers Street, but he didn't seem to get the idea, so I thought I'd give him another opportunity here."

"Of lifting his leg, you mean? Do we have to go into all this, Julie?"

"Yes, Mr. Diamond, we do," she said earnestly, "because as we were walking about, I happened to look closely at his coat. Marlowe has this dark brown hair, as you know, but I noticed that one area of it seems to be going white."

"He's an old dog, you mean? You'd rather not take him on at this time of life?"

"Please listen, Mr. Diamond. The white bit is only on his left side. It isn't natural. When I looked at it closely, I saw it was lots of little points of white. It's paint from an aerosol spray."

He was stunned into a brief silence. He'd been reluctant to give his full attention to Julie's fussing over the dog, and now this was hard to take in. "Are you sure?"

"Certain. I scraped some of the specks off with my fingernail."

"Julie, Rupert didn't have the dog with him at the gallery party."

"That's the whole point. Do you see what it means? If the dog was sprayed with the aerosol, it must have been done at some other time."

He was ahead of her now. "Right. It means we can't be certain when the paint got on the beret."

"Exactly. We've been assuming it was done when the gallery window was sprayed. We can't anymore."

He was silent for a moment, pondering the significance. The evidence of the beret, linking Rupert to the graffiti, was undermined. The spray had been used elsewhere, and Rupert's dog had got a burst of paint. Rupert could have been trying out the aerosol, practicing.

Diamond was humble enough to say, "You've had time to think about this, Julie. What do you make of it?"

She started to say, "I'm as confused as…" Stopping in midsentence, she began again. "There may be a way of finding out whether there was spray on the beret before Rupert got to the gallery that evening. If you remember, he was supposed to have arrived with some people he met at the Saracen's Head."

"Right, and if they happened to have noticed… What the devil was their name? Shirley-Ann gave it to us."

"Volk. They're from Bradford on Avon."

"I'll get someone onto it. Have you finished with Bert Jones yet?"

"I haven't even started. I wanted to catch you first."

"You did the right thing, Julie." Before putting down the phone, he added, "Sorry I was short with you. Thought you wanted advice about the bloody dog. How is Marlowe, by the way?"

"He's not a bloody dog, Mr. Diamond. He's great. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that Roger accepts him."

"Your husband?"

"No, Roger is one of my other dogs. He's rather unpredictable."

"So is Marlowe, by all accounts."

He made a call to Manvers Street and dispatched a car to Bradford on Avon. After replacing the phone, he stared blankly around the elegant entrance hall with its enormous fireplace and portraits; after the brain-stretching session on the paint spray, a conscious effort was required to remind himself why he was here.

Keith Halliwell was with Miss Chilmark in a spacious guest room overlooking the croquet lawn. Clearly in a state of some embarrassment, if not distress, the lady didn't even look up from the chintz armchair where she was seated. Her appearance had undergone a change that Diamond couldn't immediately define, until he realized he was meeting her without makeup. The green eye shadow and orange lipstick and foundation had created a different woman from the one he was presently seeing. Of the two images, he thought he preferred this paler, more vulnerable version.

He took note of a plate of canapes and a half-empty glass of what looked like whiskey on the occasional table in front of her. He also noted the glint of a second whiskey glass on the floor and partially obscured by a fringe around the base of the armchair Halliwell must have been using, and was informed, "I sent for something to calm her down, sir. A drop of Scotch is supposed to be good for the nerves."

"And was it good for yours?"

Halliwell gave a twitchy grin.

Diamond turned to the matter at hand. "You gave us a fright, Miss Chilmark, disappearing like that."

She said nothing.

"How long have you been here?"

Halliwell said, "Since yesterday, sir."

"Control yourself, Keith. I'd rather hear it from Miss Chilmark. You remember who I am, Miss Chilmark? I visited you in the Paragon. Nice place. Nice address. I'm surprised you left it." He lowered himself into another armchair opposite her. The furniture here was built for people of his size. He usually had to back into chairs like a carthorse easing between the shafts. "I was getting worried about you. Two of the Bloodhounds are dead. Did you hear about Rupert Darby?"

She nodded, still without looking up.

"Caught it on TV West, did you?" Diamond pressed on, with a jerk of the head toward the appropriate section in the wall unit. "They filmed me standing on the bridge over the canal where it happened. Sydney Gardens. Do you know the place? You must do."

Another nod.

"Can't expect you to waste much sympathy on Rupert Darby," he said. "He was no friend of yours, was he?"

She looked up, which was some encouragement, even if her broad, colorless face was registering nothing.

"I said he was no friend of yours. You don't have to stand on ceremony with me, ma'am. It's good riddance as far as you're concerned, isn't it? He made your life a misery."

She found her voice. "You've no right to put words into my mouth, Superintendent."

"In the absence of any words from you, ma'am, I was having to speak for both of us. I said Darby made your life a misery. Isn't that so?"

She gave him a distrustful look. "What are you suggesting?"

He said on a quieter note, "Simply helping you to get started, ma'am. There are things to be explained, aren't there?"

She shifted in the chair, nervously rubbing her hands. She sighed.

Generally, Diamond preserved a formal neutrality when interviewing. It seemed unlikely that this old dowager with her tendency to hysteria would evoke any sympathy at all from him, yet curiously she did. Her life was narrow, her values based on little else but status and snobbery. Everything she espoused had been undermined. Here she was, ashamed, discredited, being questioned by the police. To restore any self-respect was probably beyond her.

She closed her eyes at first, as if it made speaking less painful. "I'm not at my best. I don't know what to say about him-Rupert Darby. Since I heard about his death, I've been trying to understand him, if not forgive him. At the time of the various incidents at the meetings, I was incensed by his behavior. I felt sure he really set out to persecute me. Now that, em-"

"Now that he's dead?"

"Yes. I'm less certain. I can't be sure. Possibly what happened with the dog was due mainly to negligence on his part."

"Failing to control the dog, you mean."

"Yes. He couldn't really have known that it would run straight to me and leap on me. So I'm trying, I'm beginning, I'm wanting… to take a more charitable view of what happened. Do you understand?"

By Miss Chilmark's lights, this was a turnaround on a par with Count Dracula turning out to be the tooth fairy. Was it Rupert's passing that had prompted it? Diamond wondered. Or had a much larger crisis put the incidents into a new perspective?