The Last Detective (13 page)

I'll send someone out for sandwiches if you tell them what you'd like. Would you care for a warm drink or a beer?'

'I thought you served bread and water to people like me.'

PETER DIAMOND REMOVED HIS JACKET and draped it over a filing cabinet, slipped his hands under his braces and fingered the sweat on his shirt front. The questioning had not developed as promisingly as it should have done. This professor was turning out to be a stronger adversary than he had first appeared. There was progress of a kind — some of the replies were less guarded now - but Jackman was still mentally well-defended. By declining to incriminate anyone else, he had resisted the lure that most guilty men would have accepted gratefully. Anyone in his position should have seized the opportunity to unload suspicion on to one of those names in the address book.

Far from discouraged, Diamond relished the challenge. At this stage, a tactical shift was indicated, a shift that might test the mettle of somebody else, as well as the professor. Without looking up from a copy of the evening paper that was on his desk, he told John Wigfull, 'I think we should make this more of a two-hander from now on. You take him through the events and I'll catch him off balance when I see a good opening.'

How satisfying it was to see the jolt this gave to Wigfull, who had been quite resigned to a passive role. Diamond had always run his own show up to now, regardless of the fact that Wigfull had led at least two murder inquiries of his own before being assigned to this dubious role as understudy. It wasn't because he had a low opinion of the inspector's ability, rather the reverse. According to Wigfull's personal record, he had joined the police at twenty-four, transferred to the CID in his second year and worked his way swiftly through the ranks. He was the bright lad everyone had tipped for high office, the possessor of a degree from the Open University. He had swanned through the promotion exams and made the rank of inspector at a disgustingly early age. Then had the temerity to clear up a couple of domestic murders in Bristol. Bad luck for him that the Missendale Report had exonerated Diamond, or he would certainly have been heading this inquiry by now.

'How are you holding up?' Diamond asked the professor solicitously when they returned to the interview room-and then spoilt it by showing that he had no interest in the answer. 'The hours leading up to your wife's death: are you ready? Inspector Wigfull will be putting the questions.' He rested an elbow on the table and sat chin in hand, like Nero in the Colosseum, prepared to be entertained by the contest.

Wigfull had taken the chair opposite Jackman. His curly moustache and widely-set brown eyes made him appear less formidable than Diamond. He started in a tone that was mild to the point of diffidence, nodding briefly before saying, 'If I have it right, sir, you said that you last saw your wife alive on Monday, 11 September.'

'Yes.'

'Have you been able to recall anything at all of that weekend?'

'I'm unlikely to forget it,'Jackman answered, but without irritation. 'The
Jane Austen in Bath
Exhibition was officially opened by the Mayor on that Saturday. I was racing around like the proverbial blue-arsed fly.'

'Last minute panics?'

'One, anyway. I'll come to that. In fact, everything was in place by Thursday evening. I don't suppose either of you managed to see it, but I think it was a reasonable show. I won't say we filled the Assembly Rooms, but by some artful use of display stands and video equipment we managed to do interesting things with the space. There was some gratifying comment in the national press, and we made the local TV news programmes. But you don't want to hear about the exhibition.'

'If it had any conceivable bearing on what happened .. .' said Wigfull.

There was a harsh intake of breath from Diamond and some ostentatious squirming on his chair. He could see the interview being sidetracked.

'I can't imagine how it could have played a part,' Jackman admitted, keeping his eyes on Wigfull, 'but Gerry's death is inexplicable to me, anyway. Shall I go through the weekend, as you asked? On that Friday, I spent most of the day at Heathrow meeting a weekend guest.'

Wigfull's eyes widened. 'You had a house guest that weekend?'

Jackman answered casually. 'He was Dr Louis Junker, an American academic from the University of Pittsburgh. He's a specialist on Jane Austen, which is more than I can say about myself. Junker has published a number of papers on the novels and he's doing the research for a major biographical study. He got to hear about the exhibition and arranged his vacation around it. We corresponded through the summer and I invited him to spend the weekend of the opening with us. Unfortunately his plane was delayed six hours. Instead of arriving about 10 a.m. on Friday, it came in at 4 p.m. Good thing the exhibition was all set up the night before.'

'Had you met Dr Junker before this?'

'No, we'd merely corresponded. It's not uncommon for academics to offer to put colleagues up. I've enjoyed hospitality myself on my visits to America.'

'Was he with you for the entire weekend?'

'Until Sunday. He attended the opening and stayed all afternoon. Said a lot of generous things. I was run off my feet that day doing interviews and showing VI Ps around, so I had to leave him to his own devices. Well, not quite. Gerry escorted him. She volunteered, much to my surprise, because she doesn't usually show much interest in what goes on at the university. She seemed to hit it off with Junker. I don't know what they found to talk about -she never opened a serious novel in her life.' she never opened a serious novel

'Was she acting normally?'

'Depends what you mean by normally. She could turn on the charm with other people. Her crazy outbursts, when they came, were mostly directed at me.' A sigh escaped from Jackman's lips, as if to chide himself for the bitterness he had just revealed. 'Anyway, by Saturday evening, we were all exhausted. The exhibition closed at six and the three of us had a pub meal and came home. Sunday morning we spent quietly with the papers and then went to the local for a pint and a sandwich.' then went to the local for

'You and Dr Junker?'

'Yes. Gerry lingered in bed as usual. She was up in time to see our guest leave. I drove him to the station about 3.45.'

'You said something just now about a panic'

He nodded. 'That happened later the same evening.'

'On the Sunday?'

'Right. I can't say whether this has any connection with Gerry's death. As a result of all the publicity in the run-up to the exhibition, I'd been offered a number of items with Austen connections - a model of a ship once captained by Jane's brother Frank, some silhouette pictures of characters from novels, early editions with special bindings and so on. Most of it was unsuitable for my purposes, but on the eve of the exhibition I was made a present of two letters dating from the year 1800 that, if genuine, could cause a sensation in literary circles. They were apparently written by Jane Austen to her Aunt Jane, who lived for some years in Bath.'

'Some present!' Wigfull commented.

As if concerned that he might have overstated the importance of the letters, Jackman said, 'They were quite short and they said nothing very startling, but their interest to scholars would be considerable. Obviously I couldn't put them on display without authentication. However, I was mightily excited about them, as you may imagine, and keen to add them to the exhibits if they proved to be genuine. Naturally I showed them to Dr Junker. He knows Jane's handwriting better than I, and his opinion was that she had written them.'

'Really? And how did you say you came by them?'

'They were handed to me by somebody who had seen me plugging the exhibition on TV. The donor didn't want any publicity, and I promised to respect that wish. I believe they were part of a batch of old letters sold by a philatelist for the postmarks. This was before postage stamps came in. Before envelopes were used. Letters would be written on one side of a sheet of paper, addressed on the other, then folded and sealed. The Post Office would frank them. People collect them for the postmarks, but they're not so sought after as are letters bearing Penny Blacks and other early Victorian stamps, and you can sometimes pick them up for peanuts.'

'Unless they happen to have been written by a world-famous novelist.'

Jackman permitted himself a fleeting smile. 'You mean unless the seller is smart enough to know what he is selling. These were signed
'Your affectionate niece, Jane'.
Janes were pretty thick on the ground in 1800. You'd need to know that Mrs Leigh Perrot was Jane Austen's maternal aunt.'

'What sort of price would a Jane Austen letter fetch?'

'Hard to say. There are about a hundred and fifty letters extant, and they rarely come up for sale. I think one could be sure of a five-figure bid in a London auction.'

'I wonder if the donor had any idea of the value,' Wigfull mused.

Jackman shook his head. 'Highly unlikely. I intended to offer them back if they proved to be genuine.'

His use of the past tense prompted Wigfull to say, 'Something went wrong?'

Jackman looked sheepish as he admitted, 'They went missing from my desk drawer. I should have had them under lock and key. Foolishly, I didn't. That Sunday evening, when I happened to go to the drawer, they weren't there. Of course I took everything out and went through all the papers. I pulled out the drawer to see if they had fallen behind it. I asked Gerry if she'd taken them out for any reason. She said she hadn't.'

'She knew of the letters' existence?'

'Oh, yes. She was present when Junker examined them. Gentlemen, I felt sick to the stomach. I was damned sure somebody had been to that drawer and taken them. Of course I went through the house searching-1 was at it until well after midnight - but there was no reason why those letters should have been anywhere but in the desk. Finally, I had a blazing row with Gerry and accused her of stealing them. It was bloody ironic - I must have sounded just as paranoid as she had when she'd accused me of tampering with her car and things like that. Quite a head case.'

Diamond had contained himself admirably. Now he couldn't resist coming in with, 'A blazing row? What do you mean by that? Did you knock her around?'

'No. I don't go in for violence.' Jackman glared at him, affronted at the suggestion.

'When was this - Sunday night or Monday morning?'

'Monday, I suppose.'

'You
supposed

'I mean it must have been in the small hours. I told you I spent the whole evening looking for the letters.'

'Where did this row take place - in the bedroom?'

Jackman's expression began to take on a hunted look. 'Yes, as a matter of fact. She was already in bed.'

'Asleep? You woke her up and accused her of stealing them?'

'Hold on,' said Jackman. 'She was still awake,'

'You didn't take hold of her and shake her?'

'Absolutely not.'

'A blazing row, you said.'

'There was shouting. I said

'There was shouting. I said she must have taken them to spite me. I demanded to know where they were.'

'Tell me precisely where you were standing when this exchange took place,' demanded Diamond.

Jackman hesitated, frowning. 'I don't know. I moved. I wasn't in the same position.'

'Moved towards the bed?'

'Possibly. I didn't touch her, if that's what you're still on about. I didn't lay a finger on her.'

'Not at that point?'

'Nor later.'

'The next morning?'

'No.'

'Sometimes, Professor, people have blazing rows and don't remember very much of what they said and did.' Diamond had switched to a more measured tempo. Interrogation ceases to be productive after a few minutes at the rhythm he had struck.

'That isn't the case,' Jackmari insisted. 'I remember precisely what happened. We shouted some abuse at each other and she laughed at me, which only made me more angry. She said I deserved to lose the letters for not having locked them away. She was right, of course, but I didn't enjoy the way she rubbed it in when I suspected her all the time of having hidden them somewhere out of mischief or malice. After a while we just stopped talking to each other.'

'Would you describe yourself as a man with a short fuse?' Diamond asked, reluctant to step down as the interrogator.

'What do you mean - a quick temper? No, I don't often lose control.'

'But you did on this occasion.'

'Only in the sense that I spoke my angry thoughts spontaneously. If I'd attacked her physically - which is what you seem to want me to say - do you think I'd be telling you this?'

Diamond gave a benign smile and commented, 'Sometimes it's a relief to talk about it.'

The response to that suggestion was that Jackman's mouth clamped shut, whereupon Diamond withdrew from the skirmish and gestured to his assistant with a lordly extended hand.

There was a pause. Then: 'Did you consider the possibility,' John Wigfull ventured, 'that Dr Junker had taken the letters?' It was as neat a way as any of restoring communication.

After sustaining his silence a moment longer, the professor consented to answer. 'Of course it occurred to me later. Gerry was the obvious suspect, but I couldn't discount Junker. It's an unpleasant fact that academics aren't above stealing. They become so engrossed in a field of study that they consider it their right to acquire original documents and first editions, dishonestly if necessary. Every university librarian has horror stories of light-fingered researchers. To answer your question, yes, I began to believe that Junker couldn't be ruled out.' began to believe that Junker couldn't

'But he'd left your house by then?'

'Hours before. As I told you, I'd driven him to the station in time to catch the 4.12 to Paddington. He was planning to visit Professor Dalrymple at University College on the Monday, and then he was going on to Paris to begin his vacation. The more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself that I should go after him. So after not much sleep Sunday night, I got up early on Monday and caught a train to London.'

'The 8.19, you told us when you first reported her disappearance.'

This small feat of memory by the inspector clearly impressed Jackman, if not Diamond.