Питер Ловси - The Stone Wife

‘How many did he write?’

‘Twenty-odd that we know about — and some of those are incomplete. The tales we have aren’t even in Chaucer’s hand. Nothing has survived that shows us how he worked. They are all copies by fifteenth-century scribes, up to eighty of them, but it’s generally agreed that two manuscripts are the earliest and most reliable, one now in the National Library of Wales and the other in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.’

‘Professor Gildersleeve was an expert on all this?’

‘No question of that. He’d written some of the standard commentaries. I expect he visualised the Wife of Bath gracing the cover of his next volume.’

‘She’s no Gwyneth Paltrow.’

Light-hearted comments from anyone else passed Dr. Poke by. ‘But the finding of this unknown likeness would guarantee good publicity, especially as it seems to have been carved in the fourteenth century. The international press make hay with a story like this. Hardly a year passes without some report of a new Shakespeare play or an undiscovered portrait of Jane Austen. Why shouldn’t the father of English poetry get his share of the limelight?’

‘Why shouldn’t Professor Gildersleeve?’

Dr. Poke got the gist of that remark and appreciated it with a scythe-like smile. He wasn’t without envy.

‘So you seriously believe it was a sound investment for him?’

‘He acted as if it was. As you just pointed out, he was willing to put up twenty-four thousand of his wife’s money.’

‘Were they very well off?’

‘Monica came into millions when she divorced. I thought you’d met her. She travelled to Bath to identify him.’

Halliwell cleared his throat. ‘I should have told you, guv. She was at the mortuary first thing this morning, doing the ID before the autopsy.’

Diamond’s eyes rolled upwards. The drive from Bath had been a perfect opportunity to mention this. He wondered if Halliwell was losing his grip. He’d never known him so silent. ‘Did you speak to her?’

‘No, guv. She’d come and gone.’

‘A resourceful woman,’ Dr. Poke said. ‘Her second marriage. John’s first.’

‘How long were they together?’

Dr. Poke said primly, ‘Only the lady herself could tell you and I doubt whether she will.’

‘Why?’

‘They had what used to be known as an adulterous relationship for some time — I would say at least two years — before she obtained her divorce. They only tied the knot last autumn.’

‘We’ll need to speak to her.’

‘That shouldn’t be a problem. She’s staying in Bath with her sister, getting over the shock. It sounds as if you have her contact details.’

A glance towards Halliwell confirmed this much. ‘I presume Monica will tell us why the professor put such a high value on the carving.’

‘I wouldn’t count on it.’

‘If it was her money he was bidding with, she must have wanted a say in the deal.’

Poke released a long sigh, as if in despair at how little these so-called detectives knew. ‘It was a trifling amount to Monica. She brought a fortune to the marriage. Her ex is a property developer who floated his company on the stock exchange and trousered millions. She made sure she got her legal entitlement when they divorced.’

The high bidding at the auction was more understandable now. ‘Have you spoken to Monica since the shooting?’

‘I sent a sympathy card.’ Said without any sympathy at all.

‘Is her ex-husband still about?’

‘Bernie Wefers? He’s everywhere.’

Diamond blinked at that.

Poke said, as if to a dull first-year unlikely to make it to the second, ‘You see his name on boards all over the south of England. He’s been scarring the green belt with his affordable housing for years.’

Diamond recalled seeing the surname.

‘Was the professor popular with his colleagues here?’

‘Popularity isn’t a concept we’re familiar with. The faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Science is not a working man’s social club. We’re academics. He wasn’t overtly disliked, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘Eccentric?’

‘Come now, we’re not all like that. I’d call him colourless.’

‘But capable of excitement?’

‘Admittedly, going by what happened at the auction, but it didn’t manifest itself in his professional life. It was obvious to all of us that the prospect of acquiring the Wife of Bath lit some kind of fuse. I’ve seen it with other people. A cloistered existence can be very dull. We need the occasional pick-me-up.’

‘Was he sure the piece was genuine?’

‘Supremely confident. They’re reputable auctioneers, aren’t they? And he wasn’t the only one prepared to bid high.’ He hesitated. ‘Don’t tell me it’s actually a fake. That would turn a tragedy into a fiasco.’

‘It’s real,’ Diamond said. ‘I tripped over the damn thing in my office yesterday and you can take it from me it isn’t polystyrene. It’s solid Bath stone.’

‘Fitting.’

‘Why?’

‘The Wife of Bath in Bath stone.’ From the look Dr. Poke gave Diamond, this conversation had become a pain.

‘Got you,’ Diamond said, unperturbed. ‘Let’s explore that. We know Chaucer got around a bit. Did he ever live in the West Country?’

‘He may have done, but it’s far from certain. I can’t give chapter and verse without checking the textbooks.’

‘Let’s do it now. There’ll be some in the professor’s office, won’t there? You said you’d show us.’

‘Did not,’ Poke said. ‘You announced that you’d be taking a look. It’s not for me to invite you into a colleague’s office, even if he’s dead.’

‘I can’t be bothered with the niceties. We’re on an investigation.’

The office next door was similar in layout to Poke’s, but with more evidence of its user, with poster-size maps of medieval Britain and Europe and behind the desk a small framed print of a figure on horseback reproduced from some medieval manuscript.

‘Geoffrey Chaucer,’ Poke said with a flick of the coiffure. ‘The Ellesmere portrait, from the manuscript I mentioned, now in California.’

‘Either the horses were small in those days or the artists were piss-poor at proportion,’ Diamond said. ‘This is like the poor old nag in the Wife of Bath sculpture, no bigger than a large dog.’

‘A miniature pony?’ Halliwell suggested.

‘The figure of the poet is exaggerated to give him status,’ Poke said. ‘It’s a good likeness.’

‘How do you know? You didn’t meet him.’

Dr. Poke was unamused. He reserved his smiles for his own wit. ‘It’s one of several portraits in existence. The National Portrait Gallery has another, an oil painting on a panel, a standing figure, without the horse, and there are at least two others in manuscripts.’

Diamond stepped closer to the picture. Chaucer was wearing some kind of head dress. Sharp brown eyes, a straight nose with a strong bridge and a moustache and beard trimmed at the edges to leave the side of his face clear of whiskers. A modern face, intelligent and with a sense of destiny. If you want to know more about me , the poet seemed to be saying, you’ll have to work harder than this. I don’t give up my secrets easily .

‘I can assure you, gentlemen,’ Poke added, ‘that John Gildersleeve knew what Chaucer looked like. He was the leading authority in this country and probably the world on portraits of the poet. A few years ago he was asked by the National Portrait Gallery to authenticate a newly discovered drawing said to have been of Chaucer. They were proposing to buy it for some ridiculous amount. He was able to demonstrate that it was of the poet’s son, Thomas, and thus saved the gallery a great deal of money.’