Peter Lovesey - The Vault

Joe followed, not entirely sure what this was about, but happy as a cat in a creamery. His one regret was that Donna had not shared this moment. She would take some convincing when he told her about it.

Mills asked, "Didn't you bring your kit?"

"Just what I'm dressed in," said Joe. "What are you going to show me?"

"Didn't they tell you?" The man stopped and crouched. "It's right here."

Joe did likewise and found himself looking at a human skull at the bottom of a shallow excavation trench. "Well, isn't that something?" he said. "Is it real?"

Andy Mills gave an uneasy laugh.

Joe stood upright again. It was uncomfortable squatting. "Got anything else?"

"That's it," said Mills, increasingly perplexed.

"I'll just take a look around, if you don't mind. This chance is too good to miss." He stepped across the lumpy floor to the opposite wall.

"Don't you want to lift the skull?" said Mills.

"No thanks."

There was an uneasy pause.

Mills eventually said, "You think it should remain here?"

"To give it to you straight," said Joe, "the skull doesn't interest me. The cellar doesn't need dressing up. For me, it has great atmosphere without the extras."

After another interval Mills said, "Excuse me asking, professor. You are from the Royal United?"

"No, from the Royal Crescent, if you want to know. Is this important?"

INGEBORG SMITH was hovering near the Pump Room entrance when Diamond approached, looking as usual as if he had escaped from an old black and white film in his trilby and striped suit. He asked her graciously if she would mind waiting a few minutes while he checked with his people inside.

The men sifting the rubble in the staff room were not the pair he had met in the morning. They told him someone had come in earlier and gone into the vault through some misunderstanding. Dr Middleton had still not arrived. And nothing new had been discovered in the sieving.

He returned upstairs.

He and Ingeborg sat in the open at one of the tables outside Monks Coffee House, opposite the Pump Room entrance. From there, Jim Middleton would be seen arriving, if he appeared at all.

The Abbey Churchyard was quite a sun-trap this August afternoon, and they ordered ice-cream rather than tea. Diamond loosened his tie and kept his jacket on. Too many police officers were coming and going. Out here he felt conspicuous looking relaxed with the blonde journalist.

"I may get up at any time," he cautioned her.

"Leaving me to pay?" she said.

He took a five-pound note from his back pocket and pushed it under an ashtray. "This student you mentioned over the phone-who is she?"

Ingeborg was reluctant to come to the point- that point, anyway. "What are the chances of someone like me joining the police?"

He almost needed the question repeated. "You mean this seriously? You have a career already."

"People switch jobs. Could I work in CID?"

"Not right off. You'd go through training school first, Probation. Two years on the beat." He was unsure if this was a serious enquiry, or some debating point she was leading up to.

She asked, "Isn't there a fast track?"

"Accelerated promotion? That doesn't apply until you're qualified, and then it's mainly for graduates."

"Two years in that gruesome uniform?"

"We've all been through it."

She smiled. "Skirts and black tights?"

"You know what I mean. After that, you might get transferred to CID if you're promising-and lucky."

"How soon?"

"Depends."

"On who you know, I suppose."

He was careful not to return her faint smile. "That can be a factor. You're not serious about this, Ingeborg? It's not a bit like journalism."

"Do you think I could do it-detective work?"

"You have some of the qualities."

"But…?"

"But could you put up with the discipline? Can you handle routine as well as stress? Stupid colleagues? Coarse remarks? Idiot people doing idiot things? I have problems myself."

"With coarse remarks?"

"I'm trying to see it from your point of view."

"Don't try. If you're on about women being given a hard time, that's not unique to the police. You're not selling it very well, Mr Diamond."

"That isn't my mission, Ingeborg. If you choose to join, don't ever say I talked you into it."

Her eyes glittered amusedly. "No fear of that."

"Now can we talk about this student who disappeared?"

She nodded. "When I heard about the skull being female, I asked around. My ex-landlady is a whiz with anything like that. She's convinced we're all going to be raped and murdered one of these days, and she memorises every case of violence and abuse that supports her thesis. Unsolved cases, missing girls. Her recall is amazing. She reels them off like the football results. I'd back her against your computers."

"She remembered this case?"

"I didn't tell her what it was about. I simply asked her about women who went missing during the nineteen-eighties. She gave me upwards of a dozen names. This one fitted the best."

"So who is she?"

"Violet Turner, known unofficially as Tricks."

"Any reason?"

She turned her large shrewd eyes on him. "Tricks Turner. If you can't work that out…"

"She was on the game?"

She shook her head.

"Generous with it?"

"After three years reading Ancient History at Durham, wouldn't you be?"

"I thought Ancient History was full of that sort of thing. So when did she come down here?"

"She was a postgrad at Bristol. Topped up her grant by working one day a week as a guide at the Roman Baths. I checked all this in the local press, and my landlady had the details right. In February, 1983, Violet Turner went missing. Never completed her course. Hasn't been heard of since."

"Was it given much space in the papers?"

"Very little. There was never a time when they were certain she was dead. People assumed at first that she'd taken off on a trip with some bloke. When she didn't come back after two or three months, the alarm was raised. Her parents, up in Newcastle, knew nothing and heard nothing from her."

"Was there a man in her life?"

"At least four."

"They would have been questioned," said Diamond. "There should still be statements on file. Did they publish a picture?"

"Yes, in black and white. She was dark, apparently. Large eyes. Reminded me a bit of that girl who played Tess."

"Nastassja Kinski? No wonder she was popular." Up to now, he had only the image of the skull in the vault with its earth-filled eye-sockets.

"Is that helpful?" Ingeborg asked.

Wary of her agenda, he played it down. "One thing you'd learn if you ever joined CID is that the most promising leads aren't always the right ones."

"If it is her, when do you expect to announce it?"

"You want to scoop the others?"

"It's my job."

"There are tests-once I finally get a pathologist to the scene. We're unlikely to get an identification for some days. Dental records may help. I can't see us going public on a named individual until we're sure. You'd be unwise to rush into print yet."

"So what shall I write-that you haven't yet linked this with the disappearance of Violet Turner, who worked in the Roman Baths and disappeared in 1983?"

He almost snarled, "Don't bait me." As he was saying it, he spotted Jim Middleton striding across the yard. "Stay in touch," he heard himself tell her unnecessarily as he got up, but it softened the last remark.

He caught up with Middleton in the corridor. "What happened?"

The pathologist swung around. "Jesus Christ, Peter, you shouldn't creep up on people like that. I nearly dropped my guts-bag."

"We expected you at two."

"Sorry, old friend. The gearbox went on my Ultimate Driving Machine."