Peter Lovesey - The Vault

Abruptly, Joe opened his eyes wide. "What are you saying exactly?"

"A woman was found."

"You mean in the river?"

"By the weir." Wigfull tried to soften the remark by adding, "Do you know Pulteney Weir?" Even as the words left his mouth, he realised how crass they sounded, like some conversation-piece at a cocktail party.

Joe gripped the arms of his chair. "She's dead?"

"It may not be your wife. This woman wasn't wearing a raincoat."

The detail made no impression on Joe. He covered his face and cried out, "Oh, Jesus, I can't believe this."

Wigfull looked down at the table and wondered what to say next.

Joe said, more to himself than Wigfull, "What have I done? So help me, what have I done?" When he opened his eyes they were streaming tears.

Wigfull was in turmoil himself. He didn't know how to react, whether to say something reassuring or lean harder on the man in the expectation that he was about to confess to murder. Finally he blurted, "I'll get you a coffee," got up and quit the room.

"WHAT'LL IT BE.MrD?"

What else could it be after the morning's breakthrough? "Bangers and mash."

Pandora, the catering assistant known as Pan to everyone who used the police canteen, gave Diamond a beguiling smile and picked up the largest, gleaming sausage with her tongs. "Does this one look like yours?"

"How did you guess?"

"Inside information, Mr D. Another one?"

He held up three fingers.

She heaped sausages and mash onto his plate, winked and said, "One thing I always say about a big man. He's no use if he can't keep it up."

"Talking from experience, Pan?"

"His strength, I mean. Isn't that a fact? Next."

He took the tray to a table. Nobody would be joining him. His spiky personality was enough to ruin anyone's digestion. So he sat alone, making short work of the meal and wondering if, after all, the mystery of the hand in the vault was capable of solution. It would please him immensely to crack it.

He went back for jam roly-poly-setting Pan off on a whole new flight of innuendo-and shortly afterwards, needing to dispose of some calories, stepped outside and took a walk along Manvers Street. Still the heat-wave persisted. He was over- dressed in his suit and soon had the jacket slung over one shoulder.

He had not gone far when he was conscious of a blonde head bobbing at his side. Ingeborg, the newshound, songbird and partygoer, was dressed more sensibly than he, in what he old-fashionedly thought of as running-kit and gym-shoes.

"Any progress, Superintendent?"

"You haven't given up, then?"

"Why, have you?"

He caught some extra inflexion in the words that made him turn to look at her. "Should I?"

"Just that it was obvious yesterday you didn't share in all the excitement about the vault. It made me wonder if you're going to switch to another case."

"It doesn't work like that, unfortunately."

"I meant in view of the body found this morning."

His face was flushed already from the heat. Now it caught fire. "What did you say?"

"The body. Haven't they told you? Some poor woman dragged out of the river at Pulteney Weir. Your Chief Inspector Wigfull seems to be handling it."

"Oh, that body," Diamond extemporised, completely in the dark.

"Do you happen to know if she's the missing American?"

Instead of giving her the satisfaction of asking which missing American, he said, "I've been flat out on other things."

Ingeborg laughed. "Don't tell me you got lucky at the party."

It was a cheap joke and he ignored it.

She said, "I wouldn't have mentioned it, but as the woman in the water seems to have been the wife of that professor who talked his way into the vault the other day, I thought there might be some overlap."

"Not necessarily," he managed to say quite smoothly, "but we follow everything up, as you know."

They had stopped at the top of Pierrepont Street. Diamond had stopped, anyway. Manvers Street was exerting a powerful pull now he knew what was going on there. Your Chief Inspector Wigfull seems to be handling it. Indeed.

"Any time you need the woman's angle, you only have to ask," Ingeborg told him. "You're missing Julie Hargreaves by now, I'll bet."

"No one is irreplaceable."

"I couldn't agree more, Mr Diamond. I wouldn't be any great loss to journalism if I joined the police."

"Still on about that, are you?" he said mechanically, his mind more on Pulteney Weir than Ingeborg's next career move.

"I picked up some forms yesterday." She hesitated. "You wouldn't give me a reference, would you?"

"Mm?" Her request penetrated slowly. "I don't know enough about you."

"We could remedy that." She must have realised as she spoke that it sounded like a come-on that she didn't intend. She gave a laugh that-unusually for her-betrayed some nervousness.

He shook his head. "Get someone else. What about your friend the councillor?"

"John?" She frowned. "I slept… I can't ask him for a reference."

"He's on the Police Authority."

"Oh, God. He is, isn't he?" She turned pink. "I could end up being interviewed by him."

He was anxious to be off, but it was obvious that she really did have this ambition. He was not too old to remember being passionate himself about joining the police. If she was willing to sacrifice the high fees she earned from journalism and face a couple of years in uniform, she ought to be encouraged. In this warm-hearted spirit, his mind took a devious route. "This choir you belong to."

"The Camerata?"

"Yes. How long have you been singing with them?"

"A couple of years, maybe three."

"The choirmaster. Does he know you reasonably well?"

"Reasonably." She frowned. "Do you think he would do as a reference? If I couldn't get you, I was going to ask my bank manager or a solicitor, or someone like that."

"Go for the choirmaster. I can't think of anyone better placed to swing it for you."

Her eyes shone as she realised what he was driving at. The Assistant Chief Constable-Georgina-would turn somersaults to become a permanent member of the Camerata. She could hardly ignore a reference written by the choirmaster. "Thanks!"

He nodded, turned and marched briskly back to the nick.

WlGFULL HAD just left for the mortuary with the American professor, so Diamond got the story of the body in the river from Sergeant Leaman, his deputy, who had sat in on the interview. Leaman was a keen young detective, unlikely to have missed any of the salient facts.

When he had heard it all, Diamond asked, "What does your boss think?"

"About what, sir?"

"The dead woman."

"He's keeping an open mind."

"I should have saved my breath, shouldn't I? John Wigfull's mind is so open you can see daylight through it. How is the husband bearing up?"

"Professor Dougan? It's difficult to tell, sir. He's obviously in a state of shock, but you've got to remember he's missing a night's sleep."

"Did he have any explanation?"

"For his wife's death? Not really, sir. Seems to blame himself for leaving her alone in the hotel last night. Says he had no idea she would take it so badly."

"Was she neurotic? Depressed?"

"Mr Wigfull didn't ask."

"There must be more to it than the husband going out for a couple of hours."

"I expect you're right, sir."

"If that was cause for suicide, the river would be teeming with dead wives."

"Perhaps it was the last straw."

"Perhaps." Diamond didn't sound convinced. "How is she supposed to have done it? Walked out of the hotel, found her way to the river somewhere above the weir, a fifteen-minute walk, easy, taken off her coat and jumped in? I don't see it, sergeant."

"I'm only reporting what I heard, sir."