Peter Lovesey - The Vault

"I don't know what you base that on."

"He was at the scene, wasn't he? He went to the shop the evening she was killed. He admits that now. He coveted that box. It was an obsession with him. You've got to understand the mentality of these people who buy antiques. They spot a bargain and nothing will put them off. But Peg Redbird was a canny dealer. She guessed the value of the box from the way he conducted himself. I expect she made the fatal mistake of trying to withdraw it from sale. He saw the prize being snatched away and he lashed out. If that isn't motive enough, I don't know what is."

"He comes across as a mild character."

"So did Crippen."

They drove directly to Noble and Nude. Walcot, where the shop stood, was one of Diamond's favourite areas of Bath. With its craft workshops, secondhand goods and a market style of shopkeeping, it preserved a link with the medieval traders who had once done business here. The down-at-heel, but chipper character of the place was staunchly defended against the city developers. There was even a guild of sorts that had organized a Walcot Street Independence Day the previous summer.

A uniformed PC stood on duty outside.

"Before we go in," Diamond said, "I'll check how close we are to the river."

"It's only a stone's throw. It runs parallel to the street."

That wasn't enough for the head of the murder squad. "I'll take a look."

Professional competence was at stake here. Not wanting to miss a thing, Wigfull tagged along. There were a couple of passageways through private premises that had gates in front. These, Diamond reasoned, were almost certainly locked at night. He found the nearest open access to the river some sixty yards up the street, through Chatham Row, a cul-de-sac lined with gentrified eighteenth century terraced housing. In silence, the two detectives paced the short distance past the houses to a set of railings overlooking the Avon. A gate gave access to a flight of twenty-two stone steps down to a section of river bank.

"Could she have bashed her head falling down the steps?" Diamond mused aloud.

"You mean by accident?" Going by the tone of Wigfull's voice, it was as likely as abduction by aliens.

"If she did," Diamond went on, "I don't know how she got in the water. She would have ended up on the grassy bit down there."

"He killed her in the shop and dumped the body in the water."

"That little man we saw in the Royal Crescent?"

"Who else?" said the man who usually kept an open mind. No comment from Diamond.

For a few moments they watched the river's placid progress towards Pulteney Bridge. Any current was barely discernible here, along one of the wider stretches. Further on, the course narrowed a little, but not enough to propel a floating corpse against an obstruction with enough force to cause head injuries. Even at the weir, the flow would be minimal in present conditions.

Diamond was working on logistics. "If you're right, he must have brought the body here somehow. He doesn't have a car. He's not a big man. It was a short walk for us, but a fair old distance to carry a corpse."

"She was a small woman."

"Another thing," said Diamond. "He's a stranger to Bath. How did he know the river was so close? You can't see it from Walcot Street."

"He carried a map."

"Do you know that for certain?"

"He told me," said Wigfull with an air of triumph.

Diamond continued to stare at the river.

Wigfull added, "He said he used a map to find a quick way through the side-streets to the hotel."

In a moment Diamond said, "Seen enough?"

Wigfull nodded.

They returned to Noble and Nude.

"Do you collect antiques?" he asked Wigfull before they went in.

"On my salary?"

He gave Wigfull a speculative glance. "You can pick up some useful things quite cheaply. The Victorians made special mugs for people with large moustaches. There was a trough across the top to keep the whiskers from getting soggy. Worth looking out for."

Wigfull's brown eyes above the great friz were a study in hostility.

No trace of amusement crossed Diamond's features. He contained it all.

Inside the shop, the sheer spectacle of bric-a-brac at every level was an immediate distraction. The two detectives stood for a time, taking it in. To Diamond's right was a stuffed grizzly bear, forever up on its haunches with a tray resting across its forepaws piled with what looked like junk mail. Opposite was a Victorian Bath-chair with its black hood.

"You wanted to know how he shifted the body," said Wigfull, pointing to it.

Diamond gave a grudging nod. "It's possible."

They edged past a ship's figurehead, a huge, bare-breasted wooden torso threatening to crush anyone who brushed against it. Suspended over them, by wires to the ceiling, was a model of a Tiger Moth aircraft not much smaller than the real thing. Beyond was an area staked out by grandfather clocks lined up like guardsmen. It was dominated by a leather-topped desk of the sort owned by newspaper barons-except that the leather was torn in places and the wood was crying out for some polish. At one end were three biscuit tins without lids.

"The key collection," said Diamond after glancing into one.

"Where's Mary Shelley's writing box, then? The professor said it was here when he left."

Wigfull eased his way carefully around the desk and looked behind. Peg had a bentwood chair in the peacock design, with velvet cushions. Ranged beside it he found a paraffin stove, a safe, a wastebin and a stack of magazines and reference books.

No writing box.

"Dougan was definitely lying," Wigfull said.

"Stupid, if he was. We were sure to check."

"Stupid he is not."

"So he wasn't lying."

Wigfull glared back, defeated by the logic, or what passed for logic.

"No signs of a fight," Diamond commented. "He was right about that."

"He could have tidied up."

They made a slow inspection of the shop. Necessarily slow. It was difficult in such a warren to retain a sense of where they were. Not only were the rooms small and connected by confusing flights of stairs; the way through was serpentine, dictated by the arrangement of furniture.

The wax woman on the swing gave them a moment's unease, and in another room they found a broken fragment of pottery, presumably from the urn Joe claimed to have smashed, but otherwise the tour was uneventful. On the way out, Diamond scooped the heap of junk mail from the grizzly bear's tray and handed it to Wigfull. "Something to pass the time."

"Thanks," Wigfull said ironically.

"Check it before you chuck it, won't you?"

They returned outside and stood by the car. Twenty minutes of wandering through the shop had brought on symptoms of claustrophobia in the case of Wigfull, and, on Diamond's side, hunger.

"I wonder if there's a chippie round here."

"It looks dead to me."

"I wouldn't mind trying the kebab takeaway in Kingsmead Square."

Resignedly, Wigfull drove them there. It was a no parking zone, but they sat outside in the car. He leafed through Peg Redbird's junk mail whilst Diamond started on a kebab that must have represented everything the shop stocked.

"What size was this writing box?"

Wigfull gave a shrug.

"It can't have been all that large," Diamond developed his theme.

Wigfull continued to look at pamphlets about double-glazing and insurance. There was nothing personal in all this rubbish.

"If it was owned by a woman, it had to be light enough to carry about."

"You're thinking the professor walked out of the shop with it?"

"I'm thinking whoever walked out with it wouldn't have had any trouble tucking it under an arm."

"The professor?" Wigfull repeated, determined to nail the man who had strung him along.

"Who else knew it was worth taking?"