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:
‘This wasn’t the reason why you and he had difficulty working together?’
Poke rebutted the suggestion with a sniff. ‘Not at all. That went back years. It may seem churlish of me to say so after that toe-curling eulogy we sat through this morning, but the truth is that Gildersleeve was a pathetic figure, unpopular with his students, delivering dull lectures and writing dull books. There, I’ve done it, speaking ill of the dead, but I want to make clear that sexual jealousy didn’t motivate me. The man was a pain in every way.’
‘When you say it went back years, was there some incident that caused the falling out?’
‘I wouldn’t say we were ever friends. We tolerated each other rather better in the early years than recently. He had this personal crisis you and I discussed before.’
‘The dig that didn’t deliver?’
‘Yes. The experience soured him. He was never the same after that ridiculous misadventure. You wouldn’t get me under canvas with a bunch of disaffected undergraduates for a single day, let alone a whole summer. Is it any surprise that when nothing was found after weeks of scraping, they took to sitting around smoking weed? He took it personally, stupid fellow.’
‘Monica told me one of them was sent down.’
‘For a later offence on the university premises, yes. The last straw, as far as Gildersleeve was concerned.’
‘The final spliff.’ Dr. Poke’s high-handed manner was bringing out the jester in Diamond.
‘Do you remember the name?’ Leaman asked.
‘Of the student? It’s difficult enough to hold in one’s head the names of all one’s present intake.’
Becoming more flippant by the minute, Diamond couldn’t resist saying, ‘Jack Flash?’
Poke looked out of his depth, and was.
‘Rhyming slang for hash.’
‘Oliver Reed,’ Leaman said, taking up the theme.
‘Not now, John.’ Two jokers on the team was too much. ‘You said the professor was a pain in every way, as if there were other defects we haven’t covered.’
‘How much time have you got? Personal habits, lack of professionalism, dangerous driving.’
‘Let’s do the driving.’
‘The man was a menace on the roads. He drove as if he was drunk, frequently having minor collisions. I don’t think he was capable of giving proper attention to the task.’
‘Did he injure anyone?’
‘He wouldn’t have told me if he had, and I’m certain he wouldn’t have informed your lot. But I saw him once attempting to park in Redlands Road, shunting back and forth. He owned a thing like a tank, known as the Defender.’
‘Land Rover,’ Leaman murmured.
‘He dented the cars either side of the space and then got out and walked away as if nothing had happened.’
‘Wouldn’t it have been obvious to the other owners?’
‘They would have noticed the damage to their own cars, but the Defender was already a mass of dents. He’d deny any memory of it.’
‘Did he drink?’
‘Not to excess. He drove badly because his head was filled with more important matters.’
‘Such as Monica?’
A shake of the head. ‘Some trivial point from The Canterbury Tales, more likely.’
‘With the damage he did to other cars, he must have had a reputation around the university.’
‘And in the town. Whenever he was caught, he paid up. He preferred to cover the damage himself. No insurance company would have done business with him if he’d claimed every time.’
All this was new information, to be followed up. ‘I wonder if he had a record,’ Diamond said to Leaman.
‘For his driving? I doubt it,’ Poke said. ‘He didn’t speed. He poodled along, but with his mind on other things.’
Leaman had his phone out and was checking the police computer. ‘He poodled over a pedestrian crossing with people about to step on it, three penalty points, and a set of traffic lights, three more points.’
‘Didn’t I tell you?’ Poke said, hands outstretched.
Diamond prised himself out of the chair. ‘I need another look at his office.’
‘There’s nothing in there,’ Poke said. ‘It was emptied, ready for the new professor — whenever he may be appointed.’
‘Emptied?’ Riled, Diamond asked, ‘On whose authority?’
‘Mine. Nobody said we should preserve the room as a morbid shrine. You took away the items you were interested in, the computer and some of the books. I had the rest boxed and put in storage for Monica, when she gets back from her sister’s.’
‘We should have sealed the place,’ Diamond said to Leaman as if it was his fault.
‘I wasn’t here, guv. This is my first visit.’
‘I’d still like to look at it,’ Diamond said, advancing on the connecting door.
‘As you wish,’ Poke said in a world-weary way, becoming used to Diamond’s cussedness.
Emptied it was. Not a stick of furniture remained. Even the carpet tiles had been taken up. The void seemed to affirm Poke’s triumph over his old adversary. Although the shape of the office was identical to his own, he planned to shift his things inside as soon as he got the go-ahead.
‘It’s in need of some redecoration,’ Diamond said.
‘That’s been arranged.’
‘I’m sure.’ He stepped closer to a cream-coloured oblong on the wall defined by the fading emulsion around it. ‘This was Chaucer on the stunted horse, the Ellesmere portrait.’
‘You have a good memory,’ Poke said.
‘I need it. When we talked before, you told me about another portrait, a drawing thought at first to be of Chaucer, but identified by Professor Gildersleeve as Thomas, the son.’
‘What of it?’
‘Quite a coup for Gildersleeve, I imagine, being consulted by the National Portrait Gallery.’
‘It’s not unusual to be asked for our professional opinion.’
‘He saved them some embarrassment, not to mention a vast amount of money.’
‘And naturally he basked in the publicity.’
‘Yes, you said it made the national press. Do you remember when?’
A little gasp of impatience. ‘I have more important things on my mind than Gildersleeve’s five minutes of fame.’
‘He’s a lot more famous now he’s dead. No matter. We can check the date.’
‘Why would you need to?’
‘Because it wasn’t only a triumph for Gildersleeve. It was clearly a disaster for the person who was selling the drawing.’
Poke shrugged, not interested in someone else’s misfortune.
‘What would a new portrait of Chaucer have fetched?’ Diamond went on. ‘A six-figure sum? More? I don’t suppose Thomas Chaucer rates more than a few hundred — and I doubt if the National Portrait Gallery would want to buy it. All of which leaves us with a pissed-off seller and a possible motive for murder.’
‘That’s stretching it.’
‘Not at all. People can hold grudges for a long time, particularly if they don’t seem to be getting the breaks themselves.’
You could have guillotined a man with the look Diamond got from Poke.
Untroubled, the big detective added, ‘I expect an art dealer was involved. Was the owner’s name made public?’
Leaman said, ‘We can easily check the report now.’
‘On Dr. Poke’s computer? What a good idea.’
Back in Poke’s office, with Diamond at his side and Poke with hands on hips looking like the kid whose toys are being played with, Leaman downloaded a newspaper report from April 2004 in a matter of seconds:
An ink drawing believed to have been of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer, likely to have been purchased for the nation by the National Portrait Gallery, has now been identified by an expert as the poet’s son, Thomas (c1367–1434). The drawing was discovered on parchment used as backing for a fifteenth century treatise on crop management. The name Chaucer clearly appears above a coat of arms at the side of the portrait and the drawing — a full-length study — was sent to be authenticated by Professor John Gildersleeve of Reading University, who has made a lifetime study of Chaucer.