Peter Lovesey - The Vault

Only now did he accept that he was a willing slave to Frankenstein and his monster.

DIAMOND WAS IRRITATED BY Halliwell's talk of brickies, chippies and sparks, as if one morning on the phone had turned him into a master mason. "Let's see these names."

"The brickies?"

"All of them." He ran a glance over the top sheet. "What use is 'Taff to anybody?"

"Welshman, sir."

"That narrows it down to about a million."

"These are only my rough notes. I jotted everything down. Any scrap of information might jog someone else's memory."

" 'QPR supporter.'?"

"Football."

"I didn't think it was underwear. There's no need to grind your teeth, matey. I'm just as brassed off as you are. We're going to have to do the rounds of the builders' yards asking questions."

"When you say 'we'…"

"I know, Keith. You're going to ask me where the manpower is coming from. I'll pull a few strings. It's a job for Uniforms."

"It isn't easy tracing workmen, sir. There's so much sub-contracting. A brickie and a sparks may work side by side and belong to different firms."

"I don't care who employed them. These herberts all know each other."

"Yes, but after twenty years-"

"Don't exaggerate, Keith. It's more like fifteen." He grinned and softened enough to explain his theory about the victim. If she had been a student volunteer helping with the dig, her name might be on some list kept by the people in charge.

Halliwell threw in casually, "The Bath Archaeological Trust."

"Come again."

"The people in charge."

"Go to it, then."

AT TWO, he phoned the Roman Baths and asked if the pathologist, Jim Middleton, had arrived yet. He had not.

"So is all work in the vault suspended?"

The senior SOCO confirmed that it was.

"The skull still waiting to be lifted?"

"Yes, sir."

"Leave it with me," he said with menace. "Just because this skull has been buried since 1983, that idle bastard thinks he can take all day over his lunch."

He called the Royal United Hospital. It turned out that Middleton was having trouble with his car and had taken it into the garage for repairs.

He slammed down the phone. Immediately it rang. He snatched it up. "Jim?"

"No." A woman's voice. "No. This is Ingeborg Smith."

He emitted a sound combining a groan and a growl. "Look, I'm waiting for a call."

"Would that be from the pathologist?"

He was caught off guard. "What do you know about that?"

She said in a calm tone that only added to his stress, "I'm at the Roman Baths. I know Dr Middleton is supposed to be here, and isn't. This skull they uncovered last night is female. Do you have any idea who she might be, Mr Diamond?"

He had to draw in a long breath to control himself. "Did somebody let you into that bloody vault?"

Ingeborg said coolly, "I told you I was interested in this case, and I have an idea on the subject."

"If you know anything at all pertaining to this investigation, Miss Smith," he said with heavy formality, "you'd better tell me now."

"An idea, I said."

"Just a theory, then?"

"You don't have to sound so disparaging. It could save you a lot of time. Can we meet? Are you coming over here?"

"I'm far too busy-"

She butted in with, "I could give you the name of a postgraduate in ancient history who got a job as a guide at the Roman Baths in 1982 and disappeared the following year."

"A woman?"

"Of course."

"How do you know this?"

"Like your people in the vault, I've been digging."

"What's the name?"

"I'd rather not say down the phone."

"Don't piss me about, Ingeborg."

"I mean it. This is sensitive information."

She was going to get her interview now. Tamely, he offered to see her at the Baths in half an hour.

JOE DOUGAN and his long-suffering wife Donna stood just inside the swing doors at the Pump Room entrance having a difference of opinion.

"But I don't need the rest room," Donna repeated.

"We established that a moment ago," Joe ground on in his professorial style. "All I'm asking is that you step inside there and look around. It's not a place I can go myself."

"You can go to the men's room."

"Donna, I don't need the men's room."

A moment's silence underlined the lack of contact between their imaginations.

Donna knew she would cave in. She always did. "It's easy for you to say 'look around'. I'm going to get some strange looks."

"Yes, but would you do this for me?"

She said with deliberate obtuseness, "What am I supposed to look at? I've seen a ladies' rest room before now. There isn't anything to interest me in places like that."

"So you will go in?"

"What makes this ladies' room so special? What do you want to know about the place?"

"Just tell me if everything is on this level, or if you have to go downstairs. If it is in the basement, examine the walls."

"Go figure," murmured Donna. "He only wants me to read the walls in a rest room."

"Don't you follow me? It could be part of the original Frankenstein house."

Shaking her head, Donna walked to the door of the Ladies' Room and disappeared from view.

Joe waited, tapping his foot.

Donna came out again after only a couple of seconds. "No basement. It's all on this level and totally modern. Now can we go?"

Frustrated, Joe looked around, orientating himself again. Without answering Donna, he stepped along the corridor.

Her patience snapped. "Stay here if you want. I'm going shopping."

Joe was preoccupied. A short way ahead, he had spotted some stairs down to a door marked "Staff Only".

Without giving him another look, Donna walked out of the building.

Joe was not deterred by the sign on the door. He went down the curved stone stairs. Inside the staff room, two men in black overalls were sieving earth into a wheelbarrow.

"You don't mind if I go through?" he said, pointing across the room. He was already on his way.

"Who are you?" one of them asked.

"Professor Joe Dougan."

The title made enough of an impression to allay suspicion. "Mind how you go, professor," said the workman. "It's muddy."

Joe pushed open the second door and was astonished. Below, at the foot of some steps, arc-lamps on stands gave a brilliant view of what was clearly a vast ancient cellar, with arched vaulting above solid pillars of stone. His mouth went dry and a pulse beat in his head. He had surely found what he had hardly dared hope would still exist-the basement to number five. The Pump Room extension must have been built over this. They had not demolished the original vault when they cleared the rest of the old house at the end of the last century.

The presence of the lights was odd, and so were the flagstones stacked against the walls, but he was so excited that he thought little of it until someone dressed entirely in a white overall appeared at his side and asked, "Do we know you, sir?"

"I don't believe you do," Joe answered, still euphoric at this discovery. "I'm Joe Dougan. Professor Joe Dougan." He shook the man's hand.

"Andy Mills. You see, we were expecting Dr Middleton at two."

"I don't know about that," said Joe.

"We were told he had some trouble with his car."

"That would explain it, then," said Joe affably.

"You're here in Dr Middleton's place?"

"Suits me," said Joe. "I'm just delighted to see all this."

"I have a spare oversuit if you'd care to use one, Professor."

Joe thanked Andy Mills. His own linen suit was liable to get dirty down here. They had taken up the flagstones and the floor appeared to be under excavation.

He pulled on the oversuit. They even had gloves and overshoes for him.

"It's there, against the wall," Andy Mills told him. "The access is not marked as well as it should be, so would you follow me?"