Peter Lovesey: The Vault

"And he went missing?" Halliwell prompted her.

"Yes. When did I say? I looked it up in my diary and told the young lady on the phone."

"September 10th, 1982."

"I know I was devastated at the time. Heartbroken. Jock was going to take me to one of the best hotels in Edinburgh for the weekend. God knows what they would have thought of us. He'd had a bit of luck, he said. Some money was coming his way. Bread, he called it."

Diamond latched onto that at once. "Did he say where from?"

"Something to do with work, I think. He was a casual at the Roman Baths, on the extension. I thought it sounded an interesting job, but he said it was boring. My best guess is that he dug up something Roman, a piece of jewellery or some coins, and smuggled it out to sell somewhere. He didn't say and I didn't ask."

This was more useful than they had dared to hope. A possible motive for violence in the vault.

"So you arranged to go away for the weekend?"

She laughed at her youthful folly. "I stood on Bath Station with my overnight bag for hours. It was a Friday, and really cold for September. Jock didn't turn up. I caught a chill and spent the rest of the weekend in bed shivering and crying. I never saw him again."

"Did you ask around at the places where you met? Clubs? Pubs?"

The hair quivered. "I had my pride. Friends asked me about him. Nobody seemed to have seen him anywhere. I just assumed he'd gone off with his money to start up in some other town. I cried buckets, but you get over it eventually, don't you?"

Diamond caught a significant glance from Halliwell. The crucial question still had to be asked.

He prolonged the moment, sipping his tea. Then: "Did he ever talk about the people he worked with?"

"Only that they were brain dead, or words to that effect."

"Yes, but did he speak of them by name?"

"If he did, I don't remember. Between ourselves, Jock wasn't much of a communicator."

"I'm thinking of one man in particular," Diamond tried again, "one he was teamed with, mixing cement for the bricklayers."

Briefly, it seemed she hadn't taken in the suggestion, for she said, "Shall I take that cup and saucer now? You look as if you aren't used to it." And after rescuing her china, she surprised them both with, "Would he have been a college boy called John?"

"I'm asking you, ma'am."

"Jock called him a college boy anyway. I suppose he was a student on vacation work. They skived off for a smoke sometimes. That's about all I remember."

It was all they were destined to find out from Celia Warmer-dam. They tried, and she tried too, for a surname, or the name of the college, or some physical description. If she had ever known such details, they had sunk into oblivion with her thigh-length boots and faded denims.

Outside in the car, Diamond asked Halliwell which year it was that sexual intercourse began.

Halliwell stared at him.

"Some time early in the nineteen-sixties. Dates are not my strong point. I thought you might know it," Diamond tried to explain. " It's something I heard a few days ago, in a poem by Philip Larkin. Hold on, the words are coming back to me:

'Sexual intercourse began

In Nineteen Sixty'Three

(which was rather late for me) -

Between the end of the Chatterley Ban

And the Beatles' first LP.'

That's all I wanted to know. Sixty-three."

"Right," said Halliwell, still mystified.

"A man born in sixty-three would have been-what, nineteen?- in 1982, when Banger disappeared? That's about right for a college boy called John."

The Diamond system of mental arithmetic was too occult for Halliwell to follow.

"Check the graduation lists for 1983,84 and 85. Start at Bath. Then try Bristol. Then the polytechnics. It's a chemistry degree."

"You want me to do this now, sir?"

Diamond had forgotten that Halliwell was supposed to be on his way home. "Soon as we get back to the nick. Get on the phone to the universities."

"John who, sir?"

"Sturr."

"Councillor Sturr?"

"Of the Bath and North East Somerset Police Authority. And may the Lord have mercy on our souls."

JOHN STURR had been awarded a B.Sc. in chemistry at the University of Bath in 1984, the registrar's office confirmed. Triumphant at finding gold at his first strike, Halliwell informed Diamond.

"Right," came the response, so low key that it sounded to Halliwell like a putdown. "Now we need to know if they keep records on their students. Well, of course they must. Try the chemistry department. See if there's anything in Sturr's file about vacation work."

Unfortunately there was not.

"Let's think a bit," said Diamond. "There's another way to find out if he worked on the Roman Baths. There must be."

"We've been through this before, sir," Halliwell reminded him. "We tried the Trust, the building firms. No joy at all."

Diamond stared ahead.

Halliwell waited, consoled only by the knowledge that in this sort of impasse, his obstinate, boorish boss was capable of brilliance.

"Okay," the big man said after some time. "Get on to the chemistry department again. Ask about references."

"I already did," said Halliwell, disappointed. "The professor did write a couple for him when he applied for jobs, but there's no mention of holiday work."

"That isn't the point, Keith. Who were the references for?"

Halliwell frowned.

"If we find out who he worked for," Diamond went on, "they may have his job application on file. A student applying for his first job had damn all to put down except exam results. Work experience would help pad out the form."

Halliwell grinned, liking it. "I'll try them again."

And Diamond's persistence paid off. In August, 1984, the chemistry department had supplied a reference on John Sturr for a stone-cleaning firm called Transform. The records showed that he had got the job and stayed with them for three years. Better still, Transform were still in business. They had kept Sturr's records, and his original application listed various vacation jobs, among them construction work at the Roman Baths in July and August, 1982.

"Got him!" said Halliwell, flinging up his arms like a golfer at the eighteenth.

Diamond shook his head. "Not yet, Keith."

PROMPTLY AT FIVE TO seven John Sturr arrived at Manvers Street spry and smiling for the recruitment interviews. He was welcomed by the Assistant Chief Constable and introduced to Julie Hargreaves. "This should be straightforward, shouldn't it?" he said. "How many are there?"

Julie said she thought there were eight candidates. It was agreed that about ten minutes would be sufficient for each interview. Before going in, Sturr asked Georgina if what he had heard was true: that a man had just been brought in for questioning about recent serious crimes.

"I'm happy to confirm it," Georgina said, "and we've charged him."

"So soon?"

"He confessed."

"To everything?"

"To assaulting DCI Wigfull. It's enough for us to hold him. There's a lot more to come out."

"Did you discover why…?"

"He's an art forger. It all stems from that."

"Forgery," said Sturr, flushing at the word and then recovering his composure with several nods of the head, as if to confirm a melancholy truth. "Now I understand. I was able to provide some crucial evidence from my own collection."

"We appreciate your help, John."

"Little enough. Be sure to pass on my congratulations to your man Diamond."

"Diamond? I don't know where he is at this minute," said Georgina. "Probably down in the cells with the suspect."

But he was not. Unknown to Georgina or anyone else except Keith Halliwell, who was with him, Peter Diamond was on his way to Sturr's house in Lansdown Road.