‘Does Ned want me to go across to the Gazette offices?’
‘He said he’ll meet you here tomorrow after work, four-ish.’
Markham wondered if there was time to call his friend.
‘He’s at some event in Birmingham tonight, sir,’ Burton said, anticipating him. ‘Heading off straight after he spoke to me.’
Whatever Ned had discovered, it would keep.
‘Fine,’ he announced. ‘I’ll catch up with him tomorrow. In the meantime, let’s refresh ourselves before we lock horns with Mr Armitage and Ms Watson.’
* * *
The little café at the rear of the entrance lobby was totally deserted.
‘I suggest we use the vending machine,’ the DI said gesturing to the back of the seating area. ‘That way we don’t need to be waited on.’
Noakes didn’t look particularly enthralled at the prospect but lumbered over with Burton and Doyle to get the drinks sorted.
In the meantime, Markham browsed the shop display. There was a preponderance of glossy overpriced books on the Matchstick Man, he noted with a wry smile. Clearly Noakes was not alone in his admiration for that particular artist.
It was very peaceful in the marble-tiled alcove with, again, a feeling of being in church, so that he half expected to see winking lamps of gold and silver or kneeling figures dotted about in prayer before confessionals, wreathed in the mist and scent of incense. Then, there was that echoey deathlike stillness, as though the gallery was some kind of submarine dwelling, withdrawn from the shores of the upper world, its waves and breakers reduced to the subdued murmur of a lullaby.
It was all somehow disturbingly unreal, he mused, his eyes sweeping the dark corners. The weight of centuries seemed to fill the air, paralysing all that was living and warm-blooded.
His attention was caught by the Old Testament tapestry of Jael and Sisera suspended over the front entrance, its colossal figures looming up menacingly in the gloom like the representatives of some sinister ancient priesthood avid for human sacrifice.
Well, they had their human sacrifices, he thought with an involuntary shudder. Two of them. Gone to that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returned . . .
Doyle was about to summon the DI to join them, but Noakes put a hand on his arm.
‘Give him a minute, lad,’ he said gruffly.
One of the mysteries of the enduring bond between the DI and his uncouth subordinate was the latter’s intuitive respect for what he privately called Markham’s ‘mystical side.’ If the guvnor wanted to commune with dead folk, then that was all right by Noakes. To the dispassionate observer, Markham was the blue-eyed boy of Bromgrove CID destined for dizzying heights (DCI Sidney’s machinations notwithstanding). But his sergeant knew that this was all dust and ashes to the DI when weighed in the balance against the souls of those whom he had been unable to save. As though there was an eternal ledger in which he would always be found wanting. This only made Noakes respect his boss all the more, though he would rather have died than admit it.
Finally, the DI walked over to his colleagues and for a few minutes they sat companionably sipping their drinks.
‘Actually, that’s not bad,’ Doyle commented, savouring his frothy cappuccino.
‘Better’n that stewed sludge we get in CID,’ agreed Noakes.
‘What are the arrangements for Helen Melville’s funeral tomorrow, Kate?’
‘Twelve noon at Our Lady of the Angels, sir.’ Burton shot a wary glance at Noakes. ‘She was RC.’
‘Oh yeah,’ her colleague put in. ‘I remember that church from the Hope Academy case. The one with them spooky statues in the front garden.’
‘Representations of the crucifixion aren’t generally intended to be all-singing, all-dancing, Sergeant,’ Markham pointed out caustically. ‘I trust you’re not building up to an outburst of “No Popery.”’
Nothing abashed, Noakes grinned. ‘All a bit OTT for me, boss.’ He brightened with remembrance. ‘They did a decent spread at The Halfway House once all the caterwauling was over.’
Burton shifted uncomfortably, doubtless recalling her colleague’s tendency to treat such occasions as an all-you-can-eat contest. ‘Yes, well they’re coming back here after the Requiem Mass, sarge. It’s just next of kin at the burial . . . her brother’s over from Australia.’
‘They’re having the wake here?’ Noakes sounded positively affronted.
‘Why not? It would seem like the logical choice in the circumstances, Sergeant.’
‘In front of all them creepy pictures and things.’ The DS waved a meaty paw at the tapestry and other gloomy baroque masterpieces. ‘Enough to put me right off my grub.’
Doyle looked at Burton. That’d be worth seeing.
‘This is a café, Sergeant,’ Markham continued patiently. ‘Visitors and staff eat here every day of the week.’
‘Yeah, but a funeral’s . . . well, different,’ Noakes persisted stubbornly. ‘It ain’t decent.’
The DI scrutinized him closely.
‘Not going all superstitious on us are you, Noakes?’
‘It jus’ don’t feel right somehow, guv.’
The other two were looking at him curiously. He glared back at them defiantly. ‘I’m not being a big girl’s blouse, but it ain’t . . . fitting.’ Groping for the words, he ploughed on,
‘Look, Helen Melville and her poor sod of a boyfriend copped it right under their noses.’ He gestured balefully at the epic figures looming out of the surrounding canvases. ‘It don’t seem right to have them peering down an’ gloating . . . after seeing what they’ve seen.’ Then he delivered the coup de grâce. ‘I’m a verger, so I know what’s proper.’
Markham felt a strong inclination to laugh at the bizarre blend of pagan and Christian sentiment. But Noakes’s clumsy words struck a chord somewhere deep within him. He too strongly disliked the thought of those frozen forms presiding over the funeral feast.
‘Why don’t you bring Mrs Noakes with you tomorrow for moral support, Sergeant,’ he suggested emolliently. ‘Nobody could ever suspect her of being inappropriate.’
The last thing he needed was Muriel Noakes and her ghastly faux gentility, but if it helped keep his wingman on an even keel then he was prepared to grit his teeth. Cunningly he added, ‘Olivia will be there too. Between the three of us, we’ll pull you through.’
It was a masterstroke. Noakes’s florid colour began to subside, his Sancho Panza-like susceptibility to Olivia the clincher.
‘Well, if your Olivia’s there . . .’
The DI smothered a smile. ‘You can swap impressions of Lowry and the Pre-Raphaelites,’ he said.
Noting that Burton was looking distinctly po-faced, Markham returned to business.
‘Right, anything I need to know before the trustees are upon us?’ he enquired briskly. Face darkening, he added, ‘First impressions weren’t exactly prepossessing.’ Armitage had thrown his weight around, while his sidekick had all the allure of a female Kim Jong-un.
‘Well actually, there is something.’
‘I’m all ears, Kate.’
‘A few years back, a couple of paintings by minor artists went missing. The art cops investigated but didn’t get a result. I did some digging, but looks like the whole thing ended by being hushed up.’
‘Any of the staff implicated?’
‘It was probably an inside job but CID didn’t nab anyone.’
‘What about the trustees?’
‘In the clear, sir, though they took some flak in the local press.’
Markham felt uneasy. Murder, abduction, and now fraud in the mix.
‘D’you think there’s a link with Melville and Randall, sir?’
‘I don’t know, Doyle,’ the DI said slowly. ‘There could be a direct connection with the secret Ms Melville claimed to have discovered in the archives, but it seems unlikely.’ He glanced apprehensively around the atrium which suddenly seemed to have become darker. ‘On the other hand, we might
have a significant clue to our killer’s character.’
An inside job. Like the abduction of little Alex Carter.
‘What were the paintings, Kate?’
‘Nothing all that special, sir.’ A quick rustle of the ubiquitous notebook. ‘One was a copy of an American painting called The Secret Room. The other — oh, that was a copy too — same artist who did that picture Helen Melville was so struck on, The Soul’s Prison House . . . Not especially valuable, both bequests to the gallery . . . p’raps that‘s why there wasn’t more of a hoo-ha when they went missing.’
Again, Markham felt uneasiness stir.
Room. House. Secret. Prison.
There was a theme emerging. Sequestration, confinement and concealment. Hidden spaces . . . like that eerie Pre-Raphaelite painting of figures emerging from the tomb — the one which held Helen Melville in thrall.
Did this motif hold some special significance for someone at the gallery and, if so, where might it lead? Was someone within these walls consumed by sick fantasies of imprisonment and suffering? Could those missing paintings somehow unlock the mystery?
Maddeningly, with the trustees’ arrival imminent, there wasn’t time to marshal all the thoughts teeming through his mind.
‘I want full details of those two paintings, Kate. And I need you and Doyle to ask around tomorrow. Talk to the staff. See if anyone remembers a colleague being unusually interested.’
‘Is it likely we’ll get anything after all this time, guv?’ Noakes was sceptical.
‘You never know. They’re on edge, off-balance what with everything that’s happened. It might trigger something.’
Something to break open this case.
‘Inspector!’
The tone was peremptory.
‘Mutt and Jeff are here.’ Noakes glowered across the foyer.
‘Right, here goes.’ Markham rose to his feet. ‘With luck, we might learn something to flesh out those HR files.’
‘Sex, drugs and rock and roll, if Traherne’s got anything to do with it, guv.’
Noakes hoisted his belt over his paunch like a grizzled gunslinger.
‘Let’s see if we can keep things civil, shall we, Sergeant.’
‘Oh aye, boss.’
The three detectives walked towards the new arrivals.
And the painted eyes followed where they went.
9. Appointment with Death
‘Well that was a big fat zero,’ Noakes groused an hour later as the team sat in the incident room reviewing progress. ‘Them two were like they’d taken a vow of silence or summat.’
It was correct, thought Markham gloomily. The trustees might as well have been Trappists for all the information they volunteered.
‘We didn’t get anything new.’ Burton’s biro jabbed viciously at her notebook.
Doyle piped up. ‘Armitage had a shifty look about him.’ The young DC shuddered. ‘And one of those dreadful clammy handshakes. Like haddock on a slab.’
The DI smiled recalling how his colleague had surreptitiously wiped his hands down the trousers of his Hugo Boss suit after being introduced.
‘True, Constable. But I don’t think Mr Armitage’s body language is enough to take him into custody.’
‘The dreary sidekick didn’t say a word.’ Another stab of Burton’s pen. ‘He’d obviously told her to keep it zipped and leave the talking to him.’
‘There was something, though, boss.’ Doyle’s tone was speculative. ‘When Armitage was talking about Donald Lestrange having had Alzheimer’s or dementia . . . it sounded almost like he was warning us off . . . you know, when he said we shouldn’t take too much notice of anything in the old guy’s papers . . .’
‘Must have heard we were interested in the missing file and that map,’ the DI said thoughtfully. ‘But why would he want to steer us away from them?’
‘Protecting someone, sir? Out of self-interest? Maybe whoever it is has something on him?’
Markham thought back to the fleshy, almost vulpine face with its curiously flat eyes, like black pebbles. ‘It’s one possibility, Kate.’
‘Didn’t seem all that bothered about Traherne using the place as a knocking shop,’ Noakes pointed out. ‘’Cept to keep it out of the papers.’
‘He and the DCI will be of one mind in that regard, I have no doubt.’ There was an edge to Markham’s voice.
‘What’ll you do about Traherne then, guv?’
‘I’ll let them bury the mess six feet deep, Noakes.’ The DI sighed. ‘Otherwise it means us going off on a tangent.’
‘You don’t think Traherne’s connected to the murders, guv?’
‘He’s a sly seedy character who may know something.’ Markham began his characteristic restless pacing. ‘Or it could be someone is manipulating him.’
‘D’you think Armitage’s got his snout in the trough, guv?’
‘Such felicity of expression, Sergeant! I certainly want to see the gallery’s accounts. See to that please, Kate.’
‘Will do, sir.’
‘There was a flicker when I mentioned the stolen paintings. Yes,’ said Markham thoughtfully, ‘a definite flicker.’ He brought his hands down on the conference table with a resounding thump. ‘Let’s get their inventories, databases, whatever . . . See if that leads anywhere.’
Burton was scribbling furiously.
‘Right.’ Markham gestured towards the door. ‘Enough for today. We’ve got Helen Melville’s funeral tomorrow at twelve noon sharp. Best bib and tucker for that please.’ He looked meaningfully at Noakes who was all airy unconcern. ‘And review all your notes.’ He leaned in, his voice low but intense. ‘We need a break in this case. Badly.’
‘I’ll prepare a briefing note for the DCI, shall I, sir?’ Burton enquired with her usual circumspection.
‘If you would, Kate.’ He tried not to grimace. ‘Positive spin if possible.’
‘No problem, sir. I’ll, er, concentrate on the university angle for now.’
‘I think that would be best.’
* * *
Our Lady of the Angels was an unpretentious sandstone church with some claim to architectural merit, boasting features designed by Edward Pugin and John Francis Bentley. Normally its damp-blackened walls had a somewhat lopsided bulging look — as though the building suffered from lumbago — but snow had softened any unevenness and asymmetry, transforming the squat little structure into a confection of crystalline perfection. The minuscule graveyard at the side of the church, reserved for its parish priests, was blanketed in an immaculate white canopy, as though to guarantee that the solemn brotherhood that slept below ground had a sounder and purer sleep than ordinary mortals above it.
Noakes surveyed the scene approvingly, though Markham noted with amusement that he skirted round the Calvary’s snow-mantled statues gingerly as though they represented a snare for the unwary.
‘The missus is waiting inside with your Olivia,’ the DS said with bashful pride as they crunched through the snow.
The DI, who knew exactly how his girlfriend felt about being shanghaied into escorting Noakes’s better half, smiled with as much sincerity as he could muster.
‘It’s very good of Muriel to attend, Sergeant. With her powers of observation, she’ll no doubt be quick to notice any undercurrents or tensions amongst the gallery staff.’
Muriel Noakes was a scandal-detector of unparalleled skill. Oh, she was a finely-tuned instrument all right — able to sniff out the potentially scurrilous coefficients of any gathering within minutes of her arrival on the scene.
In a rare instance of conjugal impotence, ‘the missus’ generally fought a losing battle with Noakes about his wardrobe. When it came to funerals attended as a couple, however, she put her foot down, so that the DS looked almost respectable in his dark suit, replete with Rotary Club tie, albeit with some appearance of straining at the seams.
Unobtrusively, the two detectives slipped into a pew near the back. Burton and Doyle sat three rows in front. There was n
o sign of the DCI or any of the top brass, but that was presumably in keeping with a desire to keep things under the radar. The strategy appeared to have paid off. Markham couldn’t see any stringers from the local press nor any obvious journos. Barry Lynch from the press office was in attendance, but it didn’t appear that there was much for him to do.
Markham spotted Olivia and Muriel on the other side of the aisle. Studying his girlfriend’s stony profile, it was clear that she had already endured a variety of conversational feints aimed at maintaining the fiction that Markham had fallen victim to Olivia’s sexual wiles and under their fatal influence was suffering all kinds of worldly disadvantage. Judging by the complacent expression on Mrs Noakes’s face, she was satisfied at having put the younger woman in her place as an artful schemer and now condescended to be gracious. Markham could only imagine how Olivia writhed in the wonderfully mythical role assigned to her, but he guessed her keen sense of the ridiculous found ample compensation in the bobbing feathers of her companion’s fussy millinery which was of the type more usually seen at a royal wedding circa the nineteen fifties. As though sensing his presence, Olivia turned around and gave a discreet wave coupled with a roguish wink to Noakes who coloured with pleasure before catching his wife’s jaundiced eye. Muriel gave him a meaningful look as though to say his indiscretion was noted in the matrimonial accounts book, before smiling at Markham with the peculiarly arch expression she reserved exclusively for him, patting her stiffly lacquered hair with the air of one whom no social occasion would ever find wanting. Then with regal deliberation, she turned back to face the altar.
The church interior was quite prepossessing, with restrained marble sanctuary, reredos and side chapels. Even the myriad plaster martyrs clutching their respective instruments of torture were somehow rather touching than otherwise. A lapsed Catholic, inhaling the scents of polish and incense, the DI felt as though he had come home. From the stiff-backed posture of Burton and Doyle, he deduced that they felt precisely the opposite and only longed to be out of the place as soon as possible.
Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set Page 114