Peter Lovesey: The Vault

Donna indulged him with a nod.

Joe came to the crux. "So what did they do with number five, Abbey Churchyard? Do you see it?"

Donna turned her head through the limit of its movement. "Honey, I don't believe number five is here."

Joe said with all the authority of Dodge Professor of English at Columbus University, "It has to be here someplace. They wouldn't start with number six if they don't have one through five, would they?"

Donna gave a shrug. "This is England. Maybe they would."

Joe sighed. "Is it possible they lost some buildings?"

"Lost them? How would they do that?"

"The war."

"That was half a century ago. Don't you think after fifty years they'd change the numbers if some shops were taken out in the war?"

"Want a bet?"

Joe seemed to be accepting defeat. Donna took another look around. Behind her, the eighteenth century Pump Room and the entrance to the Roman Baths extended along the entire south side, a grand design of columns, pediments and balustrades. "All these places look old to me."

Joe slumped onto the seat beside Donna and was silent for some time. The activity around them continued. Appreciative screams rewarded an exceptional feat of juggling. A woman holding aloft a walking-stick with a blue scarf tied to it was addressing a group of tourists, pointing out the features of the Abbey front.

Donna said, "You could ask the guide over there."

"I already did."

"And…?"

"She doesn't know-or doesn't want me to know. This is not information they like to give out. Don't ask me why. They don't list it in the guidebooks. It isn't in any of the histories we bought in the book town."

The book town. Remembering, Donna took a solid bite of ice-cream that made her eyes water. Five days before, Joe had insisted they visit Hay-on-Wye, on the border of England and Wales, where he had heard there are more used books on sale than any place else in the world. While her culture-vulture spouse had gone from shop to shop picking up treasures, Donna had ruined her shoes in the rain looking for a hairdresser who would fit her in without an appointment. No chance in Hay. She had passed the rest of that afternoon drinking lukewarm tea in a succession of dark teashops smelling of damp retriever dogs.

Joe was still fretting. "This is something British I don't understand, like they're ashamed of what happened here. If we had number five, Abbey Churchyard back home in Columbus, you can bet we'd have a board outside and a souvenir shop in the hallway."

Donna said with a slow smile, "And a theme park out the back."

"All I want is the satisfaction of knowing which building it is."

"Like a little round plaque on the front?"

"That would be asking too much."

"I guess so many famous people lived in this city that they don't trouble with plaques."

"That isn't so. They put them up for the names they want to honour. Jane Austen, Lord Nelson."

Donna shrugged. "Seems to me they don't want anyone to know what happened in number five."

THE PATHOLOGIST, JIM MIDDLETON, phoned just before Diamond was due to pack up for the day. "About that body part you sent over…"

"Hope you didn't mind," Diamond got in quickly. "We didn't know if you were short-handed."

"Leave it out, old boy. I've heard them all before. You wanted to know if it was Roman?"

"Or later. You heard where it was dug up?"

"Later is the operative word. It's not a carbon-dating job. Those bones are relatively modern."

"Meaning what?"

"Now you're asking. Bones are notoriously difficult to date. Too many variables, you see. But any fool-that is, any fool with medical training-can tell that this hand didn't belong to Julius Caesar."

"Modern, you said," Diamond prompted him.

"If you want an accurate opinion, ask a bones man. From my limited experience, I'd say it's no more than twenty years since that hand was opening doors and using a spoon and doing other things we don't mention."

"As recent as that?"

"Depends. Are the nineteen-eighties recent? I estimate not more than twenty years, but it could be as few as ten. Difficult to be exact. I don't have much experience of post mortem specimens set in concrete. About normal size. Mature, but not old. Chip out the rest of the bones and I'll try and tell you some more."

Diamond mumbled some words of thanks and put the phone down.

Instead of going home, he collected Halliwell and they walked through the still-sunny streets to the Roman Baths, situated in the centre, near the Abbey. Ironically, none of the exterior of the famous complex is Roman, however hard the Victorians tried to make it appear so. Even the statues of Roman emperors glimpsed from the street are late Victorian pieces. The genuine stuff is six metres below street level.

The staff inside were ushering the last visitors from the building. The security guard Diamond most needed to see had finished his shift and left.

"We'll go down and take a look." Just to escape from the clammy heat outside would be a bonus.

"We close in five minutes," said the man in charge.

"Go ahead. I'm not stopping you."

"We can't leave if you're still on the premises."

"That's up to you, squire. Is there any lighting down there?"

A torch was produced. The access was off the main entrance hall, down a curving flight of steps and through a couple of rooms used by the staff.

Someone had pinned a notice on the door stating "POLICE DO NOT ENTER."

Diamond turned to Halliwell. "Abandon hope, then."

The hinges gave a sound that set the teeth on edge. He picked out the structure with the torch. Solid stone steps down. Six massive stone pillars along the centre supporting arches across the top. This was emphatically a vault. You couldn't demean it by calling it a cellar. Dungeon-solid walls without even a skylight. A flagstone floor.

Musty, too.

Halliwell said, "Just the place for a Rocky Horror party."

The two detectives followed the circle of light down the steps. In truth, Diamond felt uneasy. Whether it was the chill down here after the warmth, or the dark, or just the knowledge that there might be other dismembered parts of a body buried in concrete, ice-cold drops of sweat trickled down his ribs.

He flicked the torch beam across the floor, giving nothing away about his reaction to the place. "Can you see the hole, Keith?"

They spotted it on the far side, a space between flagstones, close to a wall festooned with cobwebs thick as fishing nets. A few chips of cement lay around the edge. A pickaxe was propped against the nearest pillar.

"Don't go any closer," Diamond warned. Halliwell had been on the point of stepping forward.

Halliwell turned in surprise. "It's been here twenty years, sir."

"Yes, and some daft bugger put his foot in it. We don't need another."

Upstairs, it was actually a relief to be enveloped by the afternoon heat again.

"Ever done any concreting?" Diamond asked on the walk back along Pierrepont Street.

"Not my thing."

"Nor mine. I'm told it's satisfying work. You shouldn't skimp the preparation. You want to make sure your hardcore really is hard. Shame when it gives way."

As HE was an hour late getting home, he suggested a pub meal. Stephanie said it was a lovely idea and he knew right away from the look on her face that she was going to broach a difficult topic with him. He hoped to God it was not a visit from his strange brother-in-law, Reggie.

In the pub, he had to explain why he preferred plaice and chips to a pizza. Steph heard the story of the hand in the pizza

She asked, "So will I see you on TV tomorrow appealing for information?" (

He shook his head. "I'm in no hurry. It's not as if there s a killer on the run. Well, if there is, he'd be out of breath by now, wouldn't he?"