Peter Lovesey - The Vault

IN THE spirit of Saturday, he took Halliwell across the street for a beer and a bite of lunch at the Bloomsbury, that unique watering-hole that combined Virginia Woolf, fried scampi and a pool table. Under a "Duncan Grant" mural, they talked football and the prospects for the coming season. They were into their second beer before Halliwell looked out of the window and remarked that the press people seemed to have quit the front of the nick.

"It's Saturday, isn't it?" said Diamond. "They file their stories early for the Sundays. I was giving them nothing, so they shut up shop. They'll be back tomorrow."

"Did you speak to Ingeborg?"

"I did."

"She was pleased, no doubt."

"Mote 'I told you so' than pleased, but you were right, Keith.

She earned her scoop."

"She wants a job on the force."

"Don't I know it!"

"She's bright."

He eyed Halliwell amusedly. "Has she recruited you as her agent?"

"She'd fit in all right, that's all I'm saying."

"Squeezed into your corner of the office?"

"No problem."

Diamond's mood had improved. Regardless of whether Ingeborg claimed credit for the morning's work, it had given a boost to the inquiry. "We've moved on, haven't we?" he said. "We're looking for someone who dismembered his victim and disposed of the parts in more than one place. Someone with transport, probably in the building trade. A van, maybe. Someone who thought he'd got away with it until the news broke a couple of days ago. That will have come as a shock. He'll be even more shaken if he reads Ingeborg's report in the paper tomorrow."

"A bloke?"

"Almost certainly. Dismembering is hard work. The way the bones shattered, my guess is that he used an axe or something like it, heavy as well sharp."

"We're still looking at these two brickies, then? Banger and Mash."

"One of them. Or bits of him, or bits of his victim." He looked expectantly at Halliwell. "Any progress?"

He wouldn't yet be shouting for drinks all round, if Halliwell's sigh was anything to go by. "I called everyone-well, everyone we traced-and there isn't much to report. I think they were only in the job a few weeks. Apart from that plasterer who put us onto this, just one other man had any memory of them."

"And…?"

"Similar descriptions. Banger's long, messy hair and leather."

"Did he notice the Motorhead ring?"

"No. But he gave us a better description. Banger was lanky. Well over six feet tall and thin as a streak of chewing gum, as he put it."

"That may help. What about Mash?"

"He was more like average height. Went in for jeans and tee-shirts."

"No clue as to their real names?"

Halliwell shook his head. "One thing he does remember is that the vault was used for storing bags of cement."

"That's good. We know their job was wheeling the cement to the brickies working on the extension. Did you ask how these two got along?"

"Were they buddies, do you mean? He seemed to think so. They took some verbal from the older men, being inexperienced, and they got treated as a pair and stood up to it together."

They finished their drinks and crossed the street again. John Wigfull drove out of the police station as they approached and didn't even give them a nod.

"He's on the case," said Diamond.

"Which one?"

"Peg Redbird."

"Has he taken it over?"

"To all intents and purposes. I'm nominally in charge, but I've been told to keep at arm's length."

"I thought he looked pleased with himself."

"He thinks he's the dog's bollocks."

Unable to resist stoking up the old rivalry, Halliwell commented, "He's worked it well if he can get away as early as this."

"Not that bugger," Diamond said. "He's a workaholic. He's off to have another go at Joe Dougan if I'm any judge."

"The American professor?"

"Yes. He'll keep wearing him down."

"If I was the professor, I'd check out of that hotel and get back to wherever I came from," said Halliwell.

"Ah, but his wife is missing. If he hops it, he'll be revealed as callous and uncaring, which is what Wigfull wants."

"So it's cat and mouse," said Halliwell.

Diamond rolled his eyes.

Back in the office, he put through a call to his friend the evidence sergeant at Chippenham. "Thought you'd like to know we scored a hit. That plaster cast fitted the hand at Chepstow."

"Congratulations, sir. I dare say Chepstow will want to see the bones, then?"

"No doubt-in due time and through official channels and without violating the rules of evidence. Tell me, sergeant, when they first came in, those bones, I expect you got a forensic report on them. They weren't just put in the box and filed away."

"There's a report for sure, sir."

"I knew you'd say that, sergeant. The minute I saw you, I thought here's a man who misses nothing. You probably know what I'm going to ask next."

"You want to know if forensic were able to tell us anything about the deceased, sir."

"Right on."

"I'll check the report and call you back directly."

"Directly" was an under-estimate. The call came back a good forty minutes later, but it was worth waiting for. The deceased, according to the expert who had measured the bones, was likely to have been over six feet in height and below the age of twenty-five.

"So it was Banger who bought it."

"I beg your pardon, sir."

"No need, sergeant. I was talking to myself. How do they tell the age?"

"It's to do with the growth centres at the lower ends of the limb-bones, sir. If you remember this set of bones, they included a complete femur. The ends are soft-well, relatively soft-during the growing period. They harden as you get older, and by the time you're twenty-five they form solid bone and fuse with the rest of the skeleton."

Before the end of the afternoon, Diamond decided to go public on Banger and Mash. He would harness the media interest and appeal for information on the two young men who had worked in the vault in the spring of 1983.

"And that," he said to Keith Halliwell, "can wait till Monday. You and I are taking tomorrow off. I've been a lifelong supporter of the Lord's Day Observance Society."

JOHN WIGFULL, too, was using his Saturday afternoon profitably. Among the junk mail Diamond had handed him at Noble and Nude had been a flyer about a major antiques fair in the Assembly Rooms at the weekend. It was still on the back seat of his car. A real bonus. These fairs were big business in the antiques world. This one was sure to attract the local dealers and collectors-a marvellous chance for him to stroll about unnoticed doing surveillance, listening to unguarded gossip and perhaps getting information that would lead to an early arrest. It mattered to him more than anyone else could guess to get one over Diamond and make a favourable impression on the new Assistant Chief Constable. So he was playing this close to his chest. He hadn't even entered it in the diary. If it led to nothing, he lost nothing. He looked up last night's Bath Chronicle and, as he hoped, found an article describing some of the pieces on sale. He could pose as a genuine visitor.

He paid his entrance fee and went in, and spent some time in frustration, overhearing nothing at all of use. Eventually he identified Peg Redbird's helper, Ellis Somerset, a flamboyant character who didn't mind talking, and gave some useful information about what had happened in Noble and Nude on Friday. Nothing dramatic, but helpful. Somerset would make a good witness, he decided, intelligent, articulate and observant. The only cause for regret was that nothing he said conflicted with Professor Joe Dougan's statements.

The antiques fair had disappointed. Fortunately, John Wigfull had a back-up plan.

From there, he drove the short distance to Victoria Park. Earlier, whilst checking the Bath Chronicle, he had spotted a notice for a "Grand Day Out" for charity organized by the Bath Rotarians and featuring a traditional merry-go-round, dog obedience competition, pony rides and-the main attraction for Wigfull- Uncle Evan's Puppet Theatre. His sharp eye had spotted the words as if they were printed in red. Uncle Evan definitely existed, then. Joe Dougan had not invented the name.