Питер Ловси - The Stone Wife

Junior blinked several times. ‘I know a stone woman.’

One-Eye may have winked again. ‘Tell us about her.’

He looked eagerly to each of the others, as if they could unlock the memory for him. ‘Hold on. It’s coming back to me. About this size.’ He stretched his arms like a fisherman describing his catch.

‘That’s wide,’ Shakes said. ‘Too wide for me.’

‘Was that her waist or her bust?’ One-Eye asked.

‘She’s carved on a lump of stone and she’s not just a woman, she’s a wife.’

‘What’s he on about?’ One-Eye said.

‘A stone wife,’ Junior went on, digging deep through the layers of his concussion, trying to connect with the image. ‘My boss brought her back to the office. Him and her together was kind of comical. I can see her now. I can see him. If only I could remember his name.’

‘Is he back from Melksham?’ Ingeborg asked John Leaman, still on duty in the incident room he thought of as his own.

‘He was.’

‘I’ve got something urgent to tell him. Has he gone out again?’

‘He’s down in the yard with the fleet manager.’

‘Transport? What’s that about?’

‘He didn’t say. He’s more restless than ever. You’ll have to ask him.’

Deep in the bowels of Manvers Street where the vehicles were kept and maintained, Diamond was examining a two-wheeled trailer. He gave one of the tyres a kick. ‘It’ll need to be strong.’

The fleet manager, a civilian, said, ‘It’s meant to take loads. How much weight are we talking about?’

‘It takes six strong men to shift her. She was too heavy to carry down to the evidence room, which is why she ended up in my office.’

‘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.’