by William Shaw
‘Never, actually,’ Astrid Miller answered. ‘Real artists understand the system. That’s not how it works. Really. That freak literally turned up out of the blue.’
Cupidi interrupted. ‘But you agreed to meet him?’
‘I’m a sucker for artists, in case you haven’t noticed. I don’t want to miss anyone who might have something to say. He had gone to the effort of finding me. So yes, I gave him a little time. He came to our office with his portfolio and took out all these photographs of his work. Screeds of it. I had to tell him to leave. It was rubbish.’ Astrid Miller’s mouth dropped. ‘Is he involved in this?’
‘Again. We can’t say.’ But Cupidi made a mental note; Clough had not mentioned that he had been to the Millers’ estate previously.
‘Oh God. It would make sense. He was such a misogynist. He seemed utterly self-obsessed, convinced of his own worth. People like that are of no interest to me.’
‘I thought all artists were self-obsessed and convinced of their own worth,’ said Ferriter, trying to make a joke.
‘How very English of you.’
‘No. I like art. I love it.’ Ferriter looked stung.
‘I’m being mean. And a total snob.’ She smiled at Ferriter for the first time. ‘And if there’s anything I hate, it’s art snobs.’
‘Me too,’ said Ferriter.
Cupidi interrupted again. ‘You gave him the time of day, though?’
‘Of course. You can’t hurry these things. You have to be patient and try and understand them. To allow it to speak to you. But really, his work has nothing to say except ego, ego, ego. He has a crippling sense of male entitlement.’
‘Yeah,’ said Ferriter.
‘Are you done? I’m very tired. I usually sleep now. I don’t want to be rude . . .’
‘Will you be at Dungeness for long?’ Cupidi asked.
‘Is this the police telling me I need to stay in touch?’
At the open door, back to the wide beach, Ferriter paused and said, ‘One thing I meant to say . . .’
Astrid Miller frowned. She had said she was tired. She wanted these people out of her space now. ‘What?’
‘Just . . .’ Jill Ferriter coloured a little. ‘I really wanted to say . . . thanks.’
‘What for?’
‘All that stuff you used to say about women being whoever they wanted to and not giving a crap, you know. When you were a model. In interviews.’
‘I was young and very gobby.’
‘When I was growing up . . . I had it pretty rough when I was younger. It meant a lot to me.’
The frown turned into a soft smile. ‘Really?’
‘Me and loads of girls. Yeah. Big fan.’
Cupidi stood between them, looking from one to the other, feeling that she was somehow in the way. ‘Did you get to where you wanted?’ asked the millionaire.
‘Still going through some serious bloody crap now.’ Ferriter’s smile was thin and brittle.
‘Me too.’ Astrid Miller’s face softened. ‘Is there a man involved?’
‘Not like that, but yeah. Kind of. And whatever you’re going through . . . I just want you to know that you helped me through a lot, you know?’
‘The main thing is that you should never let them stop you doing whatever it is you want to do,’ said Astrid Miller. ‘Fuck them all. That’s what I used to say.’ She looked directly at Cupidi. ‘Still do as a matter of fact.’
*
Outside, Ferriter cupped her hands over her mouth and said, ‘God I am so embarrassed. Did I make an absolute gold-plated tit of myself?’
‘Gold-plated. It was kind of sweet though.’
‘When I stopped at the door, I was just going to ask her for a selfie, but I couldn’t. I bottled it. So I just sort of blurted that other stuff instead. I can feel myself blushing now. It was like I was at confessional. You can probably see the glow for miles.’
‘Better than a selfie,’ said Cupidi.
Ferriter frowned. ‘A selfie would have been brilliant. Nobody’s ever going to believe me when I tell them I was with her. For like, ages. Want me to drop you home?’
‘No. It’s not far.’
‘When Astrid Theroux was twenty-five she was on magazine covers all around the world. She was being photographed by Mario Testino and Rankin. Bet she didn’t get drunk in a shit wine bar in Ashford and end up in bed with a loser who lives with his mother. You’ll come out with us, won’t you, on my birthday tomorrow? Stop me doing something stupid again.’
*
Cupidi took her time walking back home.
Astrid Miller, Ferriter’s idol, had charmed Ferriter, but she had been lying. She had been avoiding them. Her phone had been on, for all the talk of a digital detox. Because the Millers’ marriage was in trouble? Possibly. Evert had gone out of his way to conceal that too. It wasn’t just Evert Miller who liked to be in control; Astrid was the same.
The spring air had gone cold. Out at sea, a fog bank was forming out over the Channel, blocking the horizon. The greyness seemed to suck the spring light out of the sky. She took the long route home, along the steep bank of stones that dropped towards the sea.
*
The fog-horn started just as she was drifting off to sleep; a low blast, repeated three times every minute. She had always found sleep impossible when the horn was sounding. It made such a lonely sound out here on the edge of the land. She lay awake, unable to sleep, but also unable to think clearly about what it was that was bothering her. When she last looked at the clock it was six in the morning.
Next thing, Cupidi’s daughter was shaking her. ‘Mum!’ When she opened her eyes, Zoë was beside her bed, holding her mobile phone.
‘I’m awake,’ she mumbled.
‘Your phone has been going off.’
‘What’s the time?’
‘Gone eight.’
She groaned, took the phone and looked at it. A London number.
‘Sergeant Cupidi?’ It was the pathology laboratory. ‘Well,’ said the voice. ‘At least we know who that arm belonged to now.’ She knew immediately what they were going to say.
‘Tell me.’
It was now, finally, a conventional murder inquiry, with a real victim.
THIRTY-SEVEN
The arm was definitely Abir Stein’s. This morning’s email had brought more news. Crime Scene Investigators had found traces of blood throughout Abir Stein’s flat. Somebody had cleaned the place well, but you could always find it. There had been traces in the piping too, in the U-bend beneath the bath in which, almost certainly, Stein had been dismembered.
Though she was late, Cupidi paused on the way to work, parking by Astrid Miller’s cottage. It looked deserted just as it had before. She got out, rang the bell, knocked on the door. There was no answer, so she walked round to the seaward side and banged on the window.
‘Astrid. It’s me. Alex Cupidi. I need to talk. I’ve had some bad news.’
Still no answer.
‘Astrid. This is important.’
She tugged on the back door. It was locked.
She opened the side lean-to again and pulled out the bin. Behind it was an old kitchen door. The frame was old, the lock was loose.
‘Astrid?’
She leaned against the door and it gave way easily.
‘Astrid. It’s just—’
The air was filled with loud noise.
‘Shit.’
She had triggered an alarm, a ululating electronic squeal that pulsed so hard that her ears hurt. Hands clamped against the side of her head, she went to inspect the alarm box.
It was just inside the front door. She took the number of the company that operated it and made her way outside the building. It seemed only marginally quieter there.
‘Shit, shit, shit.’
A man emerged from a nearby cabin, looking towards her, concerned.
‘It’s OK. Police,’ she shouted, above the noise.
The man didn’t budge, stood looking at her,
still suspicious. She stepped far enough away to be able to make a call without her voice being drowned out and called the alarm firm.
‘There’s a response vehicle already on its way,’ someone told her.
‘How long will it take?’
‘He’ll be with you in forty minutes. We have to ask you to remain on the site until the vehicle arrives.’
‘Forty minutes? I have to be at work.’
The man apologised. Ended the call.
The alarm was deafening. Pretty much anyone who still lived on the beach had come by, some faces Cupidi recognised, some openly hostile about the day’s peace being destroyed. When it stopped after twenty minutes, the silence it left seemed at first huge, until the quiet crackle of sea on the stones reasserted itself. Eventually a Prius pulled up next to her old Micra. A man in his forties got out, looked her up and down. ‘You the one that triggered the alarm?’ he said.
She got up off the front step of the shack, where she had been sitting.
‘Name?’
‘Detective Sergeant Alexandra Cupidi.’
The man raised his eyebrows.
‘I was asked to remain on the premises till you arrived and secured the building, and being a good public citizen, I did.’
The man looked sceptical. He was fit-looking, the kind of man who spent time in a gym, but not out of vanity. ‘What were you doing, breaking in, as a good public citizen?’
‘I’m a police officer. I was trying to contact the owner. Can I go now? I’m due at work.’
‘Did you have a warrant to enter the premises?’
‘No. I did not.’
‘Oh dear,’ said the man. ‘You are supposed to have the paperwork to do that sort of thing. I know. I was a police officer myself.’
‘Of course you were.’
‘Don’t look like that, love.’ He smiled. ‘I was like you once. You’re looking at your future.’
‘Don’t be bitter.’
‘On my wages? Why would I be bitter?’
‘You work for the Millers?’
‘I’m their head of security.’ He pulled out a card. She looked at it. Allan Mulligan.
‘What force were you with?’
‘Same one as you. Kent’s finest. Don’t recognise you though.’
‘I’m still sort of new round here,’ said Cupidi.
‘What did you want with Astrid?’
Cupidi was cautious about what she wanted to share. ‘I’m a neighbour. I was looking in on her. Do you know where she is?’
He shook his head. ‘Even if I did, which I don’t, why would I tell you?’
‘Did you just drive from Long Hill?’
‘What of it?’
‘Couldn’t you just get some local security firm to handle it? There are plenty of them.’
‘You wouldn’t have the pleasure of my company if we did.’ Mulligan smiled. ‘I’ll obviously need to report this. Mr Miller values his privacy.’
‘So all this is Mr Miller’s doing? I thought this was Astrid Miller’s place. Or does he want to keep a special eye on her?’
He went to his boot, opened it and pulled out some tools. ‘You wouldn’t really expect me to answer that, would you, Sergeant?’
‘Where is she then? Astrid Miller?’
‘Haven’t the foggiest,’ he said.
‘She was here last night. I came to see her, then she seems to have vanished. I specifically asked her to stay in touch with me.’
‘I’ll pass on your request.’
‘Of course you will. Is everything all right between Astrid Miller and her husband?’
He stood with a hammer in one hand. ‘I’ll be telling Mr Miller you were asking personal questions too.’
Great, thought Cupidi, smiling, unwilling to give Allan Mulligan the pleasure of knowing how much that would annoy her boss. Though being a former policeman, he probably knew that already.
*
‘Happy birthday, Jill,’ said Peter Moon, holding out a card and a bunch of supermarket daffodils.
‘Oh shit.’ Cupidi had meant to pick something up on the way in.
‘Drink still on tonight?’ asked Moon brightly.
Ferriter looked at him. ‘Maybe. I might not bother.’
‘But it’s your birthday.’
‘Exactly,’ said Ferriter grimly.
‘Oh, come on,’ chided Moon. ‘Celebrate good times.’
He looked from Cupidi to Ferriter and back again. ‘It’s like, every time I come close you two are in this huddle.’ They were both staring at Ferriter’s computer screen. ‘What are you looking at?’
Ferriter had pulled up the photos she had taken of the drawings in Ross Clough’s notebooks.
‘Oh, whoever stabbed Frank Khan,’ said Cupidi, ‘if it’s those two lads involved, it’s not England Rising. Think about it. One of them’s black for a start.’
‘How do you figure that?’ asked Ferriter.
‘Turns out I know an expert on far-right groups.’
‘It was just a line of enquiry,’ said Moon defensively. He leaned in closer to Ferriter’s screen, spotted the drawing of her. ‘Hey! That’s you. You’re way better-looking than that, though, Jill.’
Cupidi could feel Ferriter tense.
‘What’s that written underneath?’
Ferriter pressed the sleep button. The screen went black before he could read the word ‘stupid’.
‘Right. So. See you down the wine bar later, Jill.’
‘Mm.’
‘What happened to “fuck them all”?’ said Cupidi, when Moon was far enough away.
Ferriter chewed on her lip and, after a minute said, ‘Know what? I’m bloody fine. And I’m not stupid.’
‘Course you’re not,’ said Cupidi.
‘Whatever this creep says,’ she said, bringing up the photo of Ross Clough’s drawing once more, ‘he’s the one who’s stupid.’
Cupidi looked at the photos again. The scrawl of the word under her name.
She now examined the sketch closely. ‘Maybe he’s not so stupid after all.’
‘What?’
‘Ross may be weird, but he’s recording everything he sees, everything that he hears.’
‘What?’
‘You said the whole monkey-fist thing was stupid, yes? That’s why he wrote “stupid”. Because you’d called him stupid, not the other way around.’
‘You never called him a pervert though.’
Cupidi thought for a minute. ‘I said he was potentially guilty of perverting the course of justice.’
Ferriter looked at the photo. ‘How do you remember all that?’
‘That’s what we’re supposed to do, Constable. Notice things. Remember them.’
‘I barely noticed that Laughing Boy was in my bloody bed last week . . .’
‘Enough. Stop beating yourself up.’
Cupidi clicked the mouse, looking at the screen shots of the pages of Ross Clough’s notebooks, looking forwards, backwards and forwards again. She noticed the drawing of the man she thought she had recognised. She zoomed in as close as she could before the small drawing started to pixillate.
From the other side of the room, Moon called, ‘Teenage boy. Afro-Caribbean. Spotted on Joyce Green Lane. That’s just by Central Road again. On his own. Anyone spare to come with me?’
‘I don’t want to be that person. The woman who gets drunk and gets taken advantage off,’ Ferriter was saying. Cupidi looked at her.
‘Anyone?’ called Moon.
‘I mean, I was drunk so it was my fault too.’
‘You know that’s not true.’
She smiled thinly. ‘Fuck him. You know what? Happy bloody birthday to me. What Astrid Miller said. Fuck them all.’ She stood and called out. ‘I’ll go with you, Sarge.’
Simultaneously, Cupidi and Moon said, ‘You sure?’
But she was already on her way out of the door, her face hard.
*
Now Ferriter had left, a big birthday card drop
ped onto Cupidi’s desk with a post-it note on it: You’re the last to sign it. Don’t forget to bring it along to the party tonight xxx. Cupidi pulled it out of the envelope. On the front it read ‘AGE IS JUST A NUMBER’; inside ‘IN YOUR CASE A PRETTY BLOODY BIG ONE’. And dozens of handwritten messages: ‘Go girl xxx’. ‘We love you Ferret x’. ‘Don’t get too pissed tonite LOL, gorgeous xxxx’.
She realised someone was standing behind her and shoved it hastily back under the mat and turned.
‘Only me,’ said McAdam. ‘And I’ve already signed it.’ He stood, arms behind his back, awkwardly official. ‘We’ve just received a complaint from Evert Miller’s lawyer about you, Alex.’
‘Quelle surprise.’
‘Apparently Ross Clough isn’t the only person who has been trespassing on his property. Is that true?’
‘I just knocked on the door of Astrid Miller’s bungalow and it kind of opened.’
‘So it is true.’
‘It was just a nudge.’
‘So you were on his property?’
‘Her property. Yes, but—’
‘Without a warrant.’ A statement, not a question.
‘It was just a simple mistake. You know how he knew I was there? Evert Miller has had his own private security man keeping watch over her, a man called Allan Mulligan. Used to be on the force here. Did you know him?’
McAdam sat on the edge of her desk. ‘Mulligan? Yes. Retired about five years ago. Is that what he’s doing now?’
‘You think he’s still in touch with other officers here?’
‘Of course he would be.’
‘I think he’s feeding back details of our case to Evert Miller somehow. He says he’s keeping tabs on us.’
She handed him the pathology report on Abir Stein’s arm. ‘We’ve got to get forensics down to their art storage facility. From what we know of the timeline, it’s where the arm must have been placed into the jar. Whoever put it there signed in as Abir Stein. But CCTV from EastArt shows a man with the usual complement of arms, so we know it can’t have been him.’
McAdam’s eyes were scanning the report. ‘Do you see his face? The man on the CCTV?’
‘Of course not. He knows what he’s doing, this man. Whoever it was who signed in wore a wide-brimmed hat. Like a homburg. We’ll need permission to access the EastArt archive. We need to get a forensic team in there. Because I’m pretty sure whoever put the arm in there is the person who killed Stein. And from his modus operandi, the person who attacked me and Ferriter too. You coming tonight, sir? Jill’s birthday?’