‘Look on the bright side, man. You got out of the office for a change, didn’t you?’
‘Much good it did me,’ Leaman said as if the whole thing had been devised to frustrate him. ‘The terrace has been a slum for years. It’s hopeless trying to get the names of people who lived there before the squatters moved in. Tenants came and went: students, illegals, street musicians, runaway spouses.’
‘Who was the landlord?’
‘Some letting agency called Up Your Street had it last, known locally as Up Yours.’
‘Where did it operate from?’
‘Oldfield Park. They charged fees upfront, over and above the rent. This is standard practice and it’s out of control because of the demand for cheap housing. Anyone can set up as a letting agency and there’s hardly any regulation.’
‘I know it’s tough out there.’
‘Horrendous. With the housing shortage any number of scams have grown up. You find your tenancy agreement was only for six months and they demand another fee to renew. This lot got reported and did a runner overnight.’
‘For keeps?’
Leaman nodded. ‘I feel sorry for these people scraping a fee together and being ripped off. I’ve had bad experiences myself renting in Bath. Right now I’ve got a landlord I can rely on, I think, but you can never be certain.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Diamond said. ‘I rented in London in the eighties. Got suckered more than once. It’s a minefield.’
‘These days it’s a whole lot worse because of internet scams,’ Leaman said. ‘You’d think it would be easier making a search for a place online than flogging around from agency to agency, but there are crooks who pose as landlords and ask you to pay a fee in advance for a property that doesn’t exist or is already rented. They catch a lot of overseas applicants that way.’
‘Any idea who the actual owner of the terrace was?’
‘Lived abroad is all anyone seems to know. I’m not sure if there was one owner or a string of them.’
‘The council must have dealt with someone when they condemned the place. You can’t knock down a whole terrace without consultation.’
‘I’ve been concentrating on the tenants.’
‘Get the name of the owner and we might get a handle on it. We might also do well to talk to some of the local housing charities. They may have dealt with some of the people who rented.’
‘When you say “we”...?’
‘I mean you, John.’
‘Thought so. I’m going to need help. This is a pig of a job you’ve handed me.’
‘It ain’t all glamour. I’ll see if I can spare another plod.’
‘What do you mean, another plod? It’s me working on this.’
‘Sorry. Another super-sleuth.’
Leaman muttered something inaudible.
‘Speaking of plods, was the fingertip search in progress out at Twerton?’ Diamond asked.
‘Waste of time. They don’t know what they’re looking for.’
‘Anything, tell them anything, but best of all would be the murder weapon,’ Diamond said. ‘What Dr. Waghorn insists on describing as a sharp implement. Could be some sort of dagger or a kitchen knife or a chisel, I suppose.’
‘Sword?’
‘That was suggested at the autopsy, but not by Waghorn.’
‘By you?’
‘One of the students. There’s always one.’
‘Is it so far-fetched?’
‘In a poky loft in Twerton? You couldn’t draw a sword, let alone use it.’
‘Doesn’t Waghorn have an opinion about what was used?’
Diamond shook his head slowly. ‘He’s leaving it to us to find out. And he’s right.’
‘Well, nothing sharp has surfaced at the building site yet, not even a cocktail stick.’
‘I doubt if the good people of Twerton are into cocktails.’
They were joined by Keith Halliwell looking as if he’d won the lottery. ‘Significant dates, guv.’
‘What about them?’
‘Those years you and I were talking about — 1974, 2000 and 2002. There’s another one: 1909.’
‘Too far back for us.’
‘Hold on. I’ve been checking the papers. 1909 was huge in Bath. Don’t ask me why, but they put on a pageant, and not just a few people dressing up, but three thousand of them, with acting, music and dancing, all in costume. It went on for a week and was the biggest blast the city has ever seen.’
‘Where did you find this?’
‘It was all over the papers at the time. There are books, postcards, lantern-slides. Visitors came from across the world. Every city called Bath wanted to be there. That’s twelve in the US and two in Canada. The Lord Mayor of London in his coach. The king couldn’t be there because his health was failing by then, but he sent his brother, the Duke of Connaught. Every building along the procession route was decorated.’
‘Was Beau Nash part of this shindig?’
‘As a main character, yes. They covered the entire history of Bath from Prince Bladud and his pigs to the modern age of tourism, and Nash was the star performer in one big scene depicting a royal visit that really took place in the 1750s. A big procession, a gun salute, music, singing and dancing. Nash comes on and greets the princess.’
‘Are there pictures of this?’
‘I can show you some online. Better still, I can tell you the name of the guy who played Nash.’
‘Really? A name at last.’
‘A local doctor, Leslie Herbert Walsh. I’m sure he’s our man.’ Halliwell had taken out his phone. Up came a shot of a good-looking man in frock coat, brocade breeches, white silk stockings and black buckled shoes and holding a white tricorne.
‘Are you sure?’ Diamond said. ‘The wig’s wrong. This is white. Beau Nash wore black.’
Halliwell shifted the picture a fraction and some writing came into view: Beau Nash, Episode VII. ‘So they got the wig wrong. Doesn’t matter, does it?’
‘It matters to us. The skeleton was wearing a black wig. And I’m not sure the coat is right, either.’
John Leaman was still in the room and now he joined in. ‘There’s a bigger problem with this.’
‘What’s that?’ Halliwell asked, irritated.
‘Like the boss said, he can’t be our man because 1909 is too far back. Nobody in your pageant could have been wearing Y-fronts.’
‘Not my pageant.’
‘Y-fronts weren’t invented.’
Halliwell refused to be downed. ‘Ingeborg just did an internet search on Dr. Walsh.’
‘Ingeborg is supposed to be working on something else.’
‘She was at her desk so I told her what I found and she was excited and got the facts straight away. Leslie Walsh was born in Croydon in 1867 and came to Bath after he qualified as a doctor, a single man living first in Walcot, then Gay Street, and later Great Pulteney Street. At the time of the pageant he was 42, but — here’s the bottom line — he didn’t die until 1949, when he was 82 and Y-fronts definitely were around.’ He didn’t actually push Leaman in the chest and say, ‘So there,’ but the message was clear.
Leaman said with barely disguised sarcasm, ‘And he didn’t have a tooth in his head. Is that on the internet as well?’
Halliwell snapped back, ‘It’s perfectly possible at his age.’
Diamond was weighing the hard information. ‘Do we know where this doctor was living at the time of his death? Twerton is quite a comedown.’
‘He must have retired there.’
‘Pure supposition,’ Leaman said.
Halliwell wasn’t quitting now. ‘Private doctors have always had rooms in Great Pulteney Street, but they don’t live there after they stop working. They move out.’
‘To a two-up, two-down in Twerton? A doctor? Give me a break.’