The Company of Fellows

by Dan Holloway

“Police say he killed himself.”

  “Damn, that’s no good. He only had some kit from me the weekend before last.”

  Which answers the question perfectly, thank you. Tommy wondered about Laszlo’s slightly odd semi street slang, “Kit?”

  “Yeah, moulds for ice spoons. He used them for caviar. Ordered six, I think.”

  “Moulds. So he didn’t buy them ready-made?”

  “Shit no, might as well make your own with something like that. Even a professor couldn’t get it wrong. And all you pay for is regular postage. He usually ordered them for parties but not this time.”

  “Why not this time?” Tommy asked.

  “He only ordered six, so it wouldn’t have been much of a party.”

  “So I guess you couldn’t reuse the moulds?”

  “Not if you want them to look perfect.”

  “When, by the way? Sorry, when at the weekend did Charles have the moulds?”

  “Saturday morning. I posted them Friday. He called to say he’d got them the next day.”

  “I don’t suppose,” Tommy added in hope more than expectation. “He mentioned what he wanted them for?”

  “Sure. He said he fancied a Tuesday treat.”

  Tommy breathed in sharply. If he’d told his ice sculptor when he was planning to use them then goodness only knows whom else he’d told.

  “Thank you.”

  “Sure. Give my sympathies to his family. I think he said he had a daughter, right?”

  “Yes,” said Tommy. “I will.” As an afterthought he added: “I don’t suppose anyone else ordered moulds recently?”

  “No, it’s a cast I kept for him. I don’t advertise them.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  So whoever put poison in the ice had been at Shaw’s sometime around Tuesday morning, legitimately, or through an open door, and had known he was having a banquet for one on Tuesday. Which could be most people he knew. The list was getting smaller, but not small enough yet to rule out anyone on a suspect list.

  As he clicked his mobile shut he felt it vibrate. New message. Unknown number.

  Let it rest. Now.

  ____

  57

  Tommy almost dropped the phone as it vibrated again and started pumping out Wagner “Tommy,” he fired off.

  “Hey, man, you sound like you’re mainlining coffee. You should stick to roll-ups.”

  God it was good to hear the deep Spanish accent, “Damn, I’m glad to hear you.”

  “Well I don’t think I’ve got particularly good news for you.”

  “Not to worry. Thanks for getting back to me at all. Look, I’m sorry, I seem to be completely wired every time we talk these days. How about you bring Juanita over in November? We can chill out, maybe go and see the fireworks at Blenheim.”

  “Sounds great.”

  “So what’s the bad news?”

  “Not really bad news, more no news. I spoke to the old faces at the main ports, Cadiz, Algeciras, Tarifa, Huelva. A couple said they might have seen an Englishman matching the description at the right time, but he never shipped anything except a few cases of wine.”

  “Wine. That sounds like Shaw. I guessed he didn’t live off sherry for two years. Any idea what?”

  “A mixture, all reasonable quality, none outstanding. Let’s have a look. Chateau Musar from Lebanon, Nektar from Samos, Mavrud from Bulgaria, Chardonnay from the Dalmatian Coast.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a rich man’s taste.”

  “Maybe that’s what he served to his neighbours.” Tommy heard a throaty laugh down the line. “No way of telling what he drank for best, or if he drank for best.”

  “Not if it came from France or Spain, or Germany, I guess.”

  “Exactly,” said Angel. “This is all stuff it makes sense to ship through the Mediterranean and land in southern ports. If he brought anything in from the north you’re going to have to try and find the dealers yourself. I’m sure you could do it but it wouldn’t be a quick job.”

  “Hey, thanks, Angel.”

  “Take care of yourself.”

  Tommy looked around Cornmarket. It seemed more crowded than usual, an oppressive throb of people. He felt eyes catching him in their crossfire. He didn’t fight the anxiety, just moved to the side to lean against the window of Lush and take in the fresh smells of handmade cosmetics being piped into the street.

  As he relaxed he couldn’t help a little smile. The wines might not have been a rich man’s taste, but as mid-budget wines went you could hardly do better.

  He flipped his mobile open to call Becky.

  “Hi, Tommy,” she answered. “You’re going to blow me off, aren’t you?”

  “You’re not bad at reading people yourself, you know.”

  “No, I just know men.” She laughed.

  “I really need a few hours just now. I’m sorry. I think I’m getting close, though.”

  “Yeah, well in that case you can make it up to me tonight.”

  “I will.”

  “I know you will. Come and cook for mum and me at ours. You do the travel, you do the work.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “And Tommy.” Becky had quit the playful-angry act. Her voice was soft but deliberate.

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t cancel tonight. I need to speak to someone before I have to try and get to sleep again.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Take care of yourself, Tommy.”

  “A lot of people have said that to me, recently.”

  “Well perhaps there’s a reason for that,” she said, slipping back into her playful voice. She blew him a kiss and hung up.

  ____

  58

  Tommy headed through town, threading through the scaffolds that fronted the city’s great buildings like a forest of spider legs.

  He rounded the tunnels and tarpaulin of one major works and drew level with St Vitus College, he saw that there was a large skip outside Number 37. That was new since he went to Spain, he thought. There was a van parked up outside with H Milligan, Interior Decorators in reverse writing across the front end of a shiny silver Mercedes Sprinter. It was a company that he’d used many times. Harry Milligan had been a decorator since the 1960s and had worked on the renovation of most of Oxford’s most prestigious houses almost as long. He knew every quirk and habit of these houses, like an attentive lover. Tommy always paid whatever premium it took to have him on board an Oxford job.

  The front door of Number 37 was open and Tommy could hear the sound of working coming from the basement. He wondered where, and when, the wine had been shipped.

  The rugs and runners had been replaced with plastic sheeting, laid out equally neatly in the hall. “Harry!” Tommy called out. No answer. He went to the top of the basement stairs and called again. “Harry!”

  He heard muttering, the sound of tools being put down, and the lithe skipping of feet. Harry Milligan’s straggly mullet appeared, it seemed, a few seconds before Harry did. He was a tiny man, no more than five foot six, and so thin he looked like he hadn’t eaten for a week, but his taut tanned arms were immensely strong. His gaunt figure did no favours to his drawn face, which looked every one of his 59 years. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?”

  “Well, I’m actually here to ask you the same thing, Harry.”

  “Since when have you been interested in College work?”

  “Since I knew the owner of this house,” said Tommy. “Who died last Tuesday. They don’t believe in letting the grass grow, do they?”

  “That’s a bit creepy,” was all Harry said. When Harry was on a project, he worked as many hours as noise bye-laws would allow, and usually got around those by painting at night and banging by day. He always worked in silence with no stereo or radio. His only distraction was the books that he read in tea breaks, so he wouldn’t have seen anything about Charles’ death in the papers, seen it on the news or heard it on the radio. He pointed Tommy
up the stairs and into the kitchen where he put on his portable kettle for some tea.

  “So how did they get you to do the work at this notice?” Harry normally had a calendar backed up in months rather than weeks.

  “Top whack.” He smiled, revealing an immaculate set of white teeth, courtesy of several Christmas holidays in the Philippines.

  “Any reason for the urgency? Other than greed.”

  “No idea. Getting ready for term I imagined. It’s none of my business as long as they pay. I had the Warden himself on the phone, though, giving me instructions.”

  Tommy was sure his eyebrow must have hit his curls on the way up, but Harry said nothing, just drank his scalding hot tea. “What instructions?” Tommy asked.

  “Start in the basement. Rip the shelves out, then take the paint off layer by layer, careful not to miss one. Leave plenty of each exposed and call him straightaway.”

  “Didn’t that seem strange?”

  “You know me, Tommy. I work, I don’t ask. There’s a lot of people like it that way. Besides, lots of those academic places have the archaeologists in before they refurb. Just to make records. They probably thought I’d do the job just as well and ten times quicker.”

  “And have you called him back?”

  “Give us a chance.”

  Tommy stared at him. He knew Harry would be ahead of any schedule that had been set.

  “Almost finished the stripping, though.” Harry grinned.

  “Can I have a look?” Tommy wondered how far his friendship with Harry stretched. He also paid top whack, but he didn’t have the constant drip of Oxford work that St Saviour’s could supply.

  Harry finished his tea and looked as though he were sizing Tommy up. It was the way he’d looked at him the first time Tommy had asked him for a quotation. He’d given Tommy a rate that was top end but absolutely fair, exactly what his work was worth. Tommy had shaken hands on it straightaway. They’d established a strange mix of trust and respect based on the fact that although they were different in every other way they were perfectly matched in their ability to size each other up.

  Harry got up and motioned with his head for Tommy to follow. He took him through into the wine cellar. Without the shelves it was huge. Tommy could feel the tills ringing in the Domestic Bursar’s head.

  “They’re not keeping the wine cellar, then? Probably a wine bar instead.”

  “It’s hardly like they’re destroying a historic monument.” Harry always sounded matter of fact. He loved these houses but he had little time for the people who lived in them and whatever imprint they decided to leave or take away. “It’s only been a wine cellar for a few months at the most.”

  “I’m sorry?” Tommy’s mind started flying. No wonder the shelves were so clean. No wonder there was no dust down here. Why on earth would Shaw move his whole wine cellar?

  “Come here.” Harry took Tommy to a piece of wine rack he’d sawn in two. It was still bracketed to the wall. The racking was painted the same off-white colour as the wall. Where it had been sawn away there was a different paint underneath. Harry put his finger on the sawn-off joint.

  “See this?” he said.

  Tommy nodded.

  “Painted after the racking was put up, right?”

  Tommy nodded again.

  “See this paint underneath? This is all over. Whole room was painted in it, no bits missed.”

  “OK.”

  “Well this.” Harry pointed to the undercoat. “It’s a Farrow and Ball paint, OK? Good taste, the owner. It’s tough stuff, totally washable, totally durable – look how some of the new paint’s chipping easily because it can’t get a grip. Didn’t bother to strip it back or prime it.”

  “Like it’s not a permanent job?”

  “Exactly.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s only been there a few months,” said Tommy. “Charles was very careful, and you can hardly get to the walls through racking. There’d be no need to go the whole hog.”

  “True, but that’s not the point. The point is this paint underneath. The finish is called exterior eggshell. It’s only been in the range for a few months.” Harry stood back allowing Tommy to take the information in. Tommy could see the pride on his face. Harry knew his stuff. Which is why Tommy always used him. And why Sansom had used him.

  ____

  59

  Tommy’s mind was running too quickly to catch up. What did Shaw have down here? Whatever it was, it was what Sansom wanted to know. It was what Sansom was keeping from him. He tried to slow his mind down. Let him catch up. Let him ask the right questions. OK, Harry, just how good are you at this?

  “Any idea what was down here before?” Tommy asked, trying to make it sound off the cuff. He could see by Harry’s smile that it didn’t. But Harry was enjoying himself too much to stop telling.

  “Well,” he said. “It’s hard to tell from the exterior eggshell. Funny paint to use, though, proper belt and braces job. You’d have to be doing something pretty messy. Nice colour, though.”

  “Very nice,” said Tommy. “It’s called eating room red.”

  “I know. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t, though.”

  “No, I can’t imagine Professor Shaw eating in his basement.” The thought had crossed his mind that it might have been Shaw’s idea of humour. Perhaps it was, but he couldn’t help thinking of reasons why someone would want a tough, washable red paint in their basement.

  “The coat underneath is another Farrow and Ball.” He took Tommy to the far wall, where he had stripped back what looked like a dado, a three-foot high wash of pale blue-green.

  “Arsenic.” Tommy felt Shaw’s mischievous hand giving him a series of gentle pushes on the shoulder. The colour was familiar. It was one Tommy had used many times, but that wasn’t it. He had seen it somewhere else. Damn, he wished his head would stay still.

  “See how the colour’s not even.”

  “Yes. Those are outlines.”

  “They are indeed. We could go into forensics together, Tommy, if there was more money in it. Looks like they’ve been made by smoke – black, not yellow-brown, probably by years of incense or something like that. I see it all the time when I do bedrooms for middle-aged bohemians in Jericho.”

  Tommy couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. Somewhere just below the surface the picture was forming of where he had seen the paint before. His subconscious already knew the answer would be was too much for him to take.

  “Which is what this is, by the way,” Harry continued, in proud flow. “A bedroom. See that in the middle, four and a half foot wide, that’s the bed, standard double. The lowered bit to the side, that’s the bedside table.”

  He didn’t scream. He didn’t pound the walls and cry. When the image came, he went to the wall and leant his back against it and breathed deeply. He ran his hands through his hair once and breathed again as though he were just a little weather beaten, then his back slid slowly down the wall until he was sitting on the floor. He had no idea how long he was there. All he could see was a glimpse caught on the way to the bathroom. A glimpse of the colour arsenic in a bedroom. A glimpse of the colour in Becky’s room. Exactly the same colour Shaw had painted the cellar that had been Carol’s room.

  ____

  60

  “Hey! Hey, Tommy, what the hell is it?”

  At first he was aware of a noise, then a voice, and finally of Harry crouching beside him wondering what on earth to do. Tommy shook himself. He didn’t know what had pulled him back. No, he did know. It was the pull of the emptiness he had seen in those eyes, an emptiness he had stored within himself like a black heart, an emptiness he saw reflected back every time he saw Becky. It was a vacuum he hoped was strong enough to suck him out of the rankness that he felt all around him. “Sorry?”

  “Well welcome back to the land of the living.”

  “Yeah, look, Harry, can you do me a huge favour, please?” He had to get out of here.

  “Well, I thought I’d just done yo
u one.”

  “You did.” Tommy made himself breathe fully, slowing down his words. “Thank you. Can you wait until tomorrow before you call the Warden over here, please? It’s really important.”

  “God, Tommy, the moment you’ve gone I’m waiting till tomorrow before I come back here myself. You frightened the life out of me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “No, Harry, I really don’t.”

  The cloying Oxford air felt as fresh as a mountain breeze in Tommy’s lungs as he stepped back onto Bane’s Avenue. OK, think. Take a long, deep oxygen hit and think. No, that’s not going to work. There was too much of the dirt and grease and grime of the human soul clinging to the working parts of his mind. He got his mobile out and texted. Two minutes later the phone rang.

  “Thanks for calling. You haven’t told Rosie?”

  “No.”

  “I need to see you. Can you sneak out to the Kings Arms for ten minutes?”

  He could sense she really wanted to tell him it wasn’t appropriate, to yell at him why the hell aren’t you on the phone to Rosie, but that she couldn’t because Rosie was with her. God, she didn’t have to say anything, didn’t even have to sigh with exasperation and he felt told off like he had done all those years ago when she’d torn into him because he’d bought her the nicest cut of venison. He knew that wasn’t fair. He’d put her in a corner, and he shouldn’t have done, but he couldn’t think about that now.

  “OK.”

  “See you in ten minutes.”

  It was strange that he should turn to Em now, he thought, after everything that had happened in the past. After everything that was happening now for that matter. Why not turn to Becky, his partner in crime, for want of a better description of her? Why not to Rosie, his partner in so many other ways that he hadn’t even begun to think about properly? It was a good question, and the only answer he had time for now made him feel patronising and sexist, and everything he hated. It was as though he didn’t want to spoil things between them, to pollute their relationship by smearing it with the detritus that was swimming around his head. That’s something you’ll have to get over, he told himself. She deserves to know at some stage. More than that, she’ll have to know. How else will you explain it when the black fog descends? How else could she be expected to understand the night sweats and the screaming and the days sitting on his Italian leather sofa curled up and whimpering like a puppy, all the things that he knew would come? She would have to know, but not now, he told himself. Maybe that was it. He could only focus on this one thing, couldn’t allow anything else to crowd into his mind and deflect him. He had just enough power in the batteries for this and no more.