The Vault (2 page)

‘I must have that,’ said Anne. ‘Imagine that replacing that hideous old pot.’

‘You have it,’ Martin said. ‘Why not? So long as you don’t try getting it on the flight.’

The shop sent it, carefully packed in a huge crate, and it finally arrived in St John’s Wood in May 2009 by some circuitous route not involving aircraft. A local nursery agreed to plant it
with agapanthus and sedum spectabile, but before this was done Martin emptied the plants and soil out of the wooden tub, placed the remains of the tub into a black plastic bag and put it out into the mews for the rubbish collection.

‘I’ve often wondered what’s under that lid thing but never bothered to have a look.’

‘Now’s your chance,’ said Anne, uninterested.

‘It’s probably too heavy to lift.’

But it wasn’t too heavy. Martin lifted the manhole cover to disclose a large dark cavity. He could see nothing much beyond what appeared to be a plastic bag or sheet of plastic lying in the depths. Better get a torch, he thought, and he did, thus wrecking his life for a long time to come.

An exaggeration? Perhaps. But not much of one. By shining that torch down into the dark cavity, he gained a place for his wife and himself and his home on the front page of every daily newspaper, put an end to his and his family’s peace for months, attracting mobs of sightseers to the street and the mews, reducing the selling price of his house by about a million pounds and making Orcadia Place as notorious as Christie’s home in Notting Hill and the Wests’ in Gloucester.

C
hief Inspector Wexford, who was no longer a chief inspector or a policeman or a permanent resident of Kingsmarkham in the county of Sussex, sat in the living room of his second home in Hampstead reading the Booker Prize winner. He was no longer any of those other things, but he was still a reader. And now he had all the time in the world for books.

Of course, he had many interests besides. He loved music: Bach, Handel, lots of opera. Walking he found a bore when he always walked the same route in Kingsmarkham, but London was different; London walks were a never-ending source of interest and excitement. Galleries he visited, usually with his wife Dora. It was a mild winter and he went on the river with her, took the canal trip with her from Paddington Basin to Camden Lock and back. They went to Kew Gardens and Hampton Court. For all that, for all this richness, he missed what had been his life. He missed being a policeman.

So the chance encounter with Tom Ede as he was walking down the Finchley Road changed things. They had first met years ago when Tom had been a very young police constable and Wexford staying with his nephew Chief Superintendent Howard Fortune in Chelsea. Wexford had taken an interest in one of Howard’s cases and Tom had come to his attention
as exceptionally bright and persevering. That had been more than thirty years ago, but he had recognised Tom at once. He looked older, of course, but it was the same face if overlaid with lines, the same hairline if grey now instead of brown. Must be because he hasn’t gained weight, Wexford had thought at the time, rueful about his own increased girth.

He’d looked at Tom, hesitated, then said, ‘It’s Thomas Ede, isn’t it? You won’t know me.’

But Tom did – just – when he had taken a long look. He was Detective Superintendent Ede now, based at the new Metropolitan Police headquarters in Cricklewood. They had exchanged phone numbers. Wexford had gone on his way with an extra spring in his step and now he was hoping Tom would phone. For what? To arrange to meet on some social occasion? No, don’t deceive yourself, he thought. You want the improbable: that he’ll ask for help. He went back to last year’s Booker winner, enjoying it but with maybe a small fraction of his mind thinking about the phone and how Tom had said he would ring ‘around lunchtime’.

It was six months now since he had retired and been presented with the pretty carriage clock which, on the coachhouse (how appropriate!) living room mantelpiece, told him that the time was well into what he called lunchtime. He had eaten the lunch Dora had left him, the meat and ciabatta and ignoring most of the salad. Still, even now, his mind went back to what might have happened,
would
have happened, if Sheila hadn’t offered them this place.

‘Of course, we don’t want rent, Pop. You and Mother will be doing us a favour, taking on the coachhouse.’

The real meaning of retirement had come to him the first day. When it didn’t matter what time he got up he could stay in bed all day. He didn’t, of course. Those first days all his interests seemed petty, not worth doing. It seemed to him
that he had read all the books he wanted to read, heard all the music he wanted to hear. He thought of closing his eyes and turning his face to the wall. That was on the first days and he put on a show of enjoying having nothing to do for Dora’s sake. He even said he was relishing this slack and idle time. She saw through that; she knew him too well. After about a week of it he said how much he wished they could live in London. Not all the time, he loved their Kingsmarkham house, neither of them would want to give that up.

‘You mean have somewhere in London as well?’

‘I suppose that’s what I do mean.’

‘Could we afford it?’

‘I don’t know.’

A studio flat, he had thought. That was an elegant term for a bedsitter with one corner cut off for a kitchen and a cupboard turned into a shower room. Gradually learning how to use the Internet, he found estate agents online and looked at what they had to offer. Dora asked her question again.

‘Could we afford it?’

An unqualified ‘no’ this time.

They said nothing about it to either of their daughters. Saying you can’t afford something to a rich child is tantamount to asking for financial aid. Their elder, Sylvia, was comfortable but not rich. Sheila, the successful actress on stage and TV, had an equally successful husband. Their large Victorian house on the edge of Hampstead Heath, if it were up for sale, would be one of those that estate agents’ websites offered as ‘in excess of eight million’. So they said nothing to Sheila, even pretended how happily their lives had been transformed by his retirement. But Sheila knew him almost as well as his wife did.

‘Have the coachhouse for a second home, Pop.’

That was what it was called, a kind of garage for a brougham
when people possessed such transport, with a stable for the horse and a flat over the top for the coachman. Carefully converted, it was now a small house with two bedrooms and – unheard-of luxury – two bathrooms.

‘I still can’t really believe it,’ Dora said on their first evening.

‘I can,’ said Wexford. ‘Don’t forget, I’ve lived in a world where the improbable happens all the time. What would you rather do tomorrow, go by train to Kew Gardens or have a boat up the river to the Thames Barrier?’

‘Couldn’t we do both?’

During those months they had twice been back to Kingsmarkham for a week at a time and that, too, had been enjoyable, like coming home from a holiday while still wanting to resume that holiday later. But it was a mixed pleasure; this was his manor, this was where he had been the law incarnate for so long. It brought home to him how much he missed being that law.

He walked such a lot in London that he was losing weight and was beginning to know his way around without the satnav of the London
Guide
. He had his car with him and he drove it, but not often. Driving and being driven he didn’t miss. Being a policeman was what he missed. Would he always?

He picked up the Booker winner once more and as he opened it at the marked place, the phone rang. Pleasantries were exchanged, the ‘how are yous’ that no one really wanted an answer to, but seem to be requisite at every meeting. In spite of his fantasy, Wexford couldn’t quite believe it when, after replying that he was very well, Tom said it was help he wanted.

‘In what capacity?’

‘Well, I was thinking. I mean, you may not want to do this at all. You may not want anything to do with it. You’ve retired and no doubt thanking your stars you have but … If you did,
if you’d just think about it, you could be an adviser. Expert advisers are very popular these days, not to say trendy. And I do see you as an expert. Maybe I’m kidding myself but years and years ago I think you spotted some sort of aptitude for police work in me and now – well, I’m remembering a real talent for it in you. If you were my adviser you could come anywhere with me, have access to anything – well, almost anything. I expect you’re busy now, but if not …’

‘I’m not at all busy,’ said Wexford.

‘It’s the Orcadia Place case I’m talking about and if …’

‘Are you at your new HQ in Cricklewood?’

‘That’s it. Mapesbury Road. Strike while the iron is hot then.’ Tom paused, said with slight embarrassment, ‘There wouldn’t be any – er, emolument, I’m afraid. We have to tighten our belts in these hard times.’

Wexford wasn’t surprised.

He meant to walk all the way, but it was longer than he thought and carefully buying a ticket from a machine, he got on a bus. It was a beautiful day, June as it should be but seldom was, the sky a cloudless blue, the sun hot but cool in the shade of the trees. To think that before he came here, in spite of numerous visits, he had believed there were no gardens in London or if there were a few they would be arid plots of dry grass and dusty bushes. The flowers amazed him. Roses were everywhere, bush roses, standards, climbers and ramblers dripping blossom over ancient moss-grown brick walls.

Even Shoot-up Hill had its share of flowers. The bus stopped near the end of Mapesbury Road where the new Met headquarters was a huge glass ziggurat in a street of big Victorian villas, and he felt glad he would be visiting and not working there. That word ‘working’ stimulated a rush of adrenalin and he speeded up his pace.

Automatic doors, of course, and a huge foyer that seemed to be mostly windows and marble floor. It might have been a hospital or the offices of some large company. The house-plants standing about in black ceramic tubs were the kind you can’t tell are real or artificial unless you actually touch their leaves.

A young woman sat behind the long boomerang-shaped counter, engrossed by the screens of three desktop computers. He was so used to presenting his warrant card that he was feeling in his pocket for it before he remembered that he no longer had it, that he was no longer
entitled
to have it. He gave his name, said Detective Superintendent Ede was expecting him.

‘Take the lift,’ she said, scarcely looking up. ‘Third floor, turn left and it’s the third door on the right.’

While he waited for the lift to come he was transported back in time to when, in very different surroundings, he had started his first day as Detective Constable Wexford with the Brighton Police. Years, decades, had gone by, yet he thought he felt much the same, apprehensive, excited, wondering what the coming weeks would bring.

‘Y
ou’ll have read about it or seen it on TV. God knows it’s had enough media coverage. It’s one of those cases where people start asking if they’ve found any more bodies.’

‘Except that these were all in the same place,’ said Wexford.

‘That’s true. We don’t even know if they were murdered – well, one was. Probably.’

‘Only probably?’

‘Three of them have been there so long we can’t tell how long they’ve been dead, let alone what they died of.’

Detective Superintendent Thomas Ede was sitting in his chair behind his desk in his glass-walled box of an office, the glass being the kind you can see out of but no one can see in. Laminated wood floor with a faux fur rug, the fur looking like the skin of a hybrid tiger and giraffe. Ede was a tall, thin man with a small head and tense, sharp features. He wore a dark grey suit and a white shirt, but no tie, a style of dressing Wexford thought looked fine on women, less ‘right’ on men, though it was becoming universally popular. Wexford sat opposite him in the clients’ seat, the interviewee’s place. This was something new to him, something he had to get resigned to. And he was getting there, it was all right, it was inevitable.

‘I’ve read about it,’ he said, ‘but you tell me. That way I’ll get it right.’

‘Well, as you know, this all started a month ago. We were first called at the beginning of May. The location is a street in St John’s Wood called Orcadia Place, but that detail wasn’t in the papers, was it? You’re looking as if something’s struck you.’

‘I’ll tell you later,’ Wexford said. ‘Go on.’

‘The house itself is called Orcadia Cottage. It’s not a cottage as we know it but a sizeable detached house, very pretty if you like that sort of thing. Front garden’s full of flowers and trees, the back is a kind of courtyard or patio. Orcadia Place is one of those streets in St John’s Wood that are more like country lanes, hedges, big trees, cobbled roadway, that kind of thing. Orcadia Cottage belongs to a man called Martin Rokeby. He bought it about seven years ago for one and a half million. It would fetch four now – or would have before what was found in the coal hole. By the way, we call it the “patio-tomb”. Got to call it something, haven’t you?

‘The set-up is peculiar to say the least. On the face of it, the area, paved in York stone, is quite large and plain with a border round its edges. The way into the patio from the house is by a door from the kitchen and a pair of French windows. A door in the back wall opens into the mews. More or less in the middle of this patio is the manhole cover, circular, which when closed – and it always was closed – lies flush with the paving. A tub stood on it and entirely covered it up.

‘Now Rokeby had never lifted up this manhole cover. Or so he says. He had no survey done when he bought the house as he had no mortgage and distrusted surveys on old houses, reasoning that they were bound to be full of faults but never fell down. It’s a point of view. You can spend a fortune on surveys and most of the time needlessly. Anyway, Rokeby says
he didn’t even know the manhole cover was there. The tub which stood on it was a half-barrel of wood bound in iron, not particularly attractive, and Mrs Rokeby said she’d like a new one. She’s the gardener. Well, the two of them were on holiday in Italy – they went on a lot of expensive holidays, Australia at the time he was planning the underground room – and in a shop in Florence she saw this, I quote, “amazingly beautiful amphora”, whatever that is, that some boat dredged up from out of the Mediterranean. I don’t know about these things. Maybe you do. Anyway, she had to have it – they’re not short of a penny or two, as you’ll have guessed – couldn’t, needless to say, take it home with them on a flight, so she asked to have it sent. Heaven knows what that cost but it doesn’t matter.’