The Stone Wife
- Автор: Ловси Питер
- Серия: Peter Diamond #14
- Год: 2014
- Язык: английский
- Год: Sphere
- ISBN: 978-0-7515-5405-2
- Жанр: Полицейские детективы
Электронная книга - «The Stone Wife». Краткое содержание книги:
‘She stopped seeing him?’
‘Totally. I’m sure of that.’
‘So how did she meet the professor?’
He sighed and shook his head. ‘This was the real kick in the teeth. I only found out the truth of it when the divorce was going on. It happened like this. After she left the Diphthongs, she had this gap in her life to fill, so she joined a fund-raising group for the local hospital. They were all women and some of them had been through college like her, so she enjoyed the company. I encouraged her. She liked talking about it. They put on a charity swim and a painting exhibition and all kinds of money-making stunts. One of these was what they called a literary lunch, with some jerk from the television talking about his latest book. All sorts of guests were invited and she was supposed to take care of Gildersleeve, sitting next to him, but, being Monica, she was all gooey-eyed at chatting up a real live professor.’ He sighed and shrugged. ‘Same old story.’
‘Except this time it ended in divorce,’ Diamond said.
‘Two years it went on, under my nose. Other people knew — I still don’t know how many — and I only found out when I was laying into one of my business rivals, a dickhead who gazumped my offer for a brownfield site, a power station in London. We were having this up-and-downer and he says you’re so thick you don’t know what’s going on — your own wife having an affair with some poncey professor. I thought he was dragging up the thing with Poke until he told me he was on about heavy sex going on right then. Broke me up, it did.’
‘You faced her with it?’
He nodded. ‘Turned out she started seeing Gildersleeve the same year I forgave her for the other affair. We was finished. Anyway, she’d had enough of me. She wanted the divorce and she got it. I’m not a saint. I’ve had one-night stands, but nothing you could call a relationship. And she knew I was like that.’
‘She says you treated her savagely when you found out.’
His expression didn’t alter. ‘If you want to pull me in for that, it’s a fair cop. In the world I come from, she got what was coming to her. I lost all respect for her the day I learned the truth.’
There was a silence, broken only when Tess said, ‘What happened?’
Bernie said, ‘You don’t want to know, darling.’ He turned back to Diamond. ‘There’s nothing else I can tell you.’
The two detectives were driven the short distance into Marlborough by the pilot, who borrowed Tess’s four-by-four. He would be staying the night in one of the best hotels in the high street.
Halliwell’s car stood alone in the approach to the field. You wouldn’t have guessed that the street had been lined with vehicles from end to end only an hour before.
As they left the town and headed for Bath, Diamond said, ‘What did you make of all that?’
‘It’s like any witness statement — one side of the story,’ Halliwell said. ‘You heard Monica’s side of it. I didn’t.’
‘She tells it differently, but they don’t disagree on the basics. What you heard from Bernie doesn’t conflict with what I got from her, except he added some detail. They both behaved badly — really badly — and they admit it. The bit that was new was Monica sleeping with Poke. It brings another dimension to the case.’
‘In what way?’
‘Come on, Keith. The rivalry between those two shoved together in adjoining offices in Reading University. We knew Gildersleeve had the professor’s job — the only one going — and was a block on Poke’s career. Now we have another issue altogether.’
‘But she’d finished with Poke before she met Gildersleeve.’
‘Yes, and she despises him. He shopped her. He told Bernie she invited him to sleep with her. But we haven’t heard Poke’s take on it. He may still carry a torch for Monica. Imagine how he felt when he learned his arch-rival was seeing her.’
‘Even more of a motive.’
‘Conceivably.’ Diamond waited while they overtook a rider on horseback and then said, ‘It’s funny.’
‘What is?’
‘Bernie’s marriage could be straight out of Chaucer.’
19
While Halliwell was negotiating the series of roundabouts at Chippenham, Diamond checked his phone yet again for a text from Ingeborg.
‘Did it beep?’ Halliwell asked.
‘I’m wondering if the damn thing is broken,’ Diamond said. ‘It’s turned on, but nothing has come through all day.’
‘There won’t be a problem. She’ll be in touch when she’s ready.’
‘She’s a compulsive texter. It’s been a couple of days.’
Halliwell smiled.
‘What’s amusing you?’ Diamond asked.
‘Just a thought. When it finally comes through, will you understand it? Texting is like another language.’
‘She knows my limitations. She’ll keep it simple. I just wish she’d send something, so we know she’s okay.’
‘Infiltrating the enemy takes time. Shouldn’t be rushed. What’s she going to text, anyway? “I’m all right, guv. Don’t fret.” ’
‘Sarcastic bugger.’
But he understood the point. Ingeborg herself had told him he sometimes sounded like her father. The responsibility for sending her undercover was hard to live with. He’d pressured her into doing this because she seemed the right choice at the time, and now her initial reluctance kept coming back to torment him. But he had to keep reminding himself that she’d said she might not be in contact for some time. He’d taken that to mean twenty-four hours maximum. She must have meant longer.
She was no babe in arms. She’d worked as an investigative journalist, taking on tough assignments. Treating her as a raw recruit did her no favours, but deep down he had an old-fashioned instinct that women needed protecting.
He said to Halliwell when they were on the long stretch to Corsham, ‘Am I out of touch?’
‘How do you mean, guv?’
‘In that field, if you remember, we were talking about endangered species.’
‘The dormouse.’
‘Right.’
‘No way are you a dormouse,’ Halliwell said.
He seemed to have missed the point and Diamond wasn’t going to labour it, so he went back to staring out of the window.
They had almost reached Batheaston when Halliwell picked up the conversation as if it was continuous. ‘There’s the great-crested newt, but I wouldn’t compare you to that.’
‘Thanks.’
‘And then there are butterflies. When I was growing up I was into butterflies in a big way. Some of them are protected. Do you know what the rarest butterfly in Great Britain is called?’
‘No idea.’
‘It’s so rare, it may be extinct.’
‘Tell me. I can’t stand the suspense.’
‘The large copper.’
His phone finally beeped when they reached Bath and were parking in the reserved area in Manvers Street police station. He snatched it from his pocket.
‘It’s a text.’
‘There you go,’ Halliwell said.
‘But not from her. It’s Paul Gilbert.’ He’d almost forgotten sending his eager DC to check on Ingeborg’s parked car.
The message raised more questions than it answered:
CAR STILL HERE. NO DAMAGE. I WAS ON GB FOR NIGHT VIDEO SHOOT. PRODUCER MARCUS TONE AND BLONDE MAYBE I SEEN FIGHTING BRIDGE NEAR ARNOLFINI. G2G SEE TONE CLIFTON.
He handed the phone to Halliwell. ‘Impress me. Make sense of that.’
‘Tricky. “GB” must mean the Great Britain.’
‘But he says he was on it for a night video shoot. He couldn’t have been. He only went this morning.’