33
‘Spot on,’ Diamond said, looking up from his watch.
The museum was at the end of a cul-de-sac in Blake Street and the entire convoy was able to draw up outside. He emerged from the Land Rover as spry as when they’d started, the only traveller free of stress. Everyone else felt as if they’d driven from Inverness.
The building — a converted sixteenth century house named after one of Britain’s more successful admirals, said to have been born there in 1598 — was closed to visitors outside the summer months, but Diamond had arranged to meet one of the curators.
‘This is going to be a doddle,’ he said, rubbing his hands. ‘No steps. We can wheel her straight in.’
Ingeborg was not so upbeat. ‘First we have to find some way to lift her off the trailer.’
‘We need more muscle,’ Keith Halliwell said. Back at Manvers Street, the heavy work had been done by the team of young constables who had got used to humping the stone in and out of Diamond’s office.
‘Don’t look at me,’ Denis Doggart said. ‘I’m not a porter.’ The shredded nerves were showing.
Nothing would shake Diamond’s optimism. ‘Relax, people. I was promised help at this end. Let’s see if anyone’s here yet.’
As if by his force of will alone, the door opened before he stepped up to it. A meaty and bearded man, who might have passed for Admiral Blake himself, thrust out his hand, ‘Tank Sherman. We spoke on the phone.’
Diamond introduced everyone except John Gildersleeve (in his urn and clasped to Monica’s bosom) and they moved into the flagstone entrance hall. Low-ceilinged and with waist-high wainscot panelling, the building left visitors in no uncertainty of its great age. Doors were open to left and right and, ominously for all involved in the heavy work to come, stairs rose to an upper floor.
‘Have the volunteers arrived?’
‘On their way,’ Tank said, matching Diamond in conviviality. ‘We’re all volunteers here. The Blake is entirely run on love, loyalty and donations. We get a modest grant from the town council and that’s it. Would you care to look round?’
‘First, I’d like to see where you want the thing put.’
‘The good wife? You’ll be relieved to learn she’s not going upstairs. The floors couldn’t take the strain. They’re like a switchback as it is. She’s to go in the meeting room, on your right here. A temporary stay, we hope. The plan is to sell her to the British Museum as soon as possible. It’s a shame, a precious local artefact going to London, but an old building like this needs the occasional face lift.’
‘Make sure you get a fair price,’ Doggart said.
‘We intend to, believe me.’
‘Would you like me to value it again? It’s worth considerably more than I originally thought.’
‘Thanks, but we’re perfectly capable of working the price out for ourselves,’ Tank said with a smile that had strength of purpose behind it. ‘We know how the auction went.’
‘The auction didn’t finish.’
‘Exactly. The BM can be pushed up appreciably more and with all the publicity the piece must have acquired extra value since then. Believe me, I didn’t get my nickname for nothing. I’ll be in there with all guns blazing.’
Unfortunate turn of phrase. Diamond exchanged a glance with Ingeborg, who had winced when she heard it. But Tank’s next suggestion, of coffee in the ground-floor office, was enthusiastically approved by everyone.
‘My team will have theirs outside in the street,’ Diamond said. ‘Mustn’t leave the Wife of Bath unguarded.’
‘Oh, terrific!’ Ingeborg said.
Diamond squashed that little insurrection. ‘And it’s the perfect opportunity to brief you on what happens next.’
Communication had never been Diamond’s strong suit. On the rare occasions he had news to impart, it was worth hearing. So while Monica, Erica and Doggart joined Tank Sherman in the office, the police contingent trooped outside to be instructed on the plan of action. What they heard from their boss was no less than the solution to the case, and it was both surprising and unnerving.
The coffee was the instant kind and the milk was long life, but nobody objected, and there were gingernuts on offer to mask the taste. Diamond joined the others after his impromptu case conference in the street.
‘I’d better fill the kettle again,’ Tank said. ‘The reinforcements are due shortly. I asked Tim and his brothers, as you suggested, and they were only too pleased to be part of the team.’
Diamond explained to Monica, ‘Tim Carroll is the local historian, the fellow who knows precisely where the Chaucer house once stood. We met last time I was here.’
‘And will he come with us to Petherton Park?’
‘I feel sure he will.’
Monica tapped her fingers on the urn. ‘Does he know what it’s about?’
‘Not yet. I’ll tell him.’
With nice timing, at the moment the kettle started to whistle, the local helpers arrived. More introductions. Tim Carroll, in a dark green gilet over a denim shirt hanging loose and black tracksuit pants, looked more than ever as if he had stepped out of a fourteenth century manuscript. His brothers, Wayne and Roger, dressed in workmen’s check shirts and blue jeans, were with him. None of them had seen the inside of a hairdresser’s for a long time. Wayne Carroll, the oldest, if streaks of grey in the black thatch meant anything, wanted it known that he managed the house clearance business and employed the other two.
‘So it’s over to the professionals,’ Tank said. ‘They’ll lift the good lady off the trailer.’
‘Not without help, we won’t,’ Wayne said, making clear that the bonhomie wasn’t going to affect him. ‘She’ll be a fair old weight.’
Diamond said they had brought the dolly with them to wheel the stone inside.
‘Better get on with it, then,’ Wayne said. ‘We haven’t got all bloody day.’
‘Coffee first?’ Tank said brightly.
‘Coffee after.’
Wayne’s word was law. Everyone trooped outside again to watch the operation. The parked convoy had been joined by a white van bearing the legend WAYNE CARROLL & CO, HOUSE CLEARANCE, ESTABLISHED FAMILY BUSINESS.
Still in the street, Ingeborg said, ‘We didn’t get our coffee.’
‘The decision is to have it later,’ Diamond said without making eye contact. He turned to Wayne. ‘How many extra hands do you need?’
‘Three pairs.’
‘Looks as if it has to be George the driver, Keith and me.’ He lifted out the dolly and positioned it on the pavement beside the trailer. ‘You’re the foreman, Wayne. Is this where you want it?’
‘It’ll do.’
They unfurled the tarpaulin and loosened the ropes. The stone wife had completed the journey in better shape than the support team. She looked triumphant seated on her amblere. The pale spring sunshine picked out the chisel marks where the sculptor had cleared the background behind the figure all those centuries ago.
‘She’s had a wash and brush-up, by the look of her,’ Tim said.
‘Tell you later. It’s a long story,’ Diamond said. ‘How do we go about this?’
Wayne was definitely in charge. ‘Shift it to this end of the trailer, where we can let down the side. It’s going to be a brute to move, but if we all put our backs into it, we’ll cope.’
‘Then what?’
‘I’ll tell you.’
Four of them prepared to push, two to pull.
For Diamond it brought back memories of being a prop in the front row. He took a firmer hold.
‘Careful where you put your hands,’ Tim piped up in a fit of alarm. ‘Keep them off the figure. You’ll damage her.’
Without a word, Diamond readjusted.
‘On the count of three,’ Wayne said.
At the first attempt they succeeded in sliding the stone a couple of inches. The second try was marginally more. It took six hefty shoves to do the job.