Peter Lovesey - Upon A Dark Night

‘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.