Paint a Murder

by Lily Ashton

  “That would be amazing. Just let me know when he’s available and I’ll fix something up. Do you know him yourself?”

  “Yes, a little. I met him at his degree show in London about ten years ago. Really good work, I thought. Afterwards, Mark brought him to stay with us and he did that watercolour here. He gave it to me and Alistair as a thank-you present, so sweet of him.” Julia smiled and her small brown eyes almost disappeared under heavy lashes. “Alistair hung it, one of his fishing friends saw it and asked Courtney to paint something for his wife’s birthday. Courtney got more commissions after that and he’s since had exhibitions in Germany and Denmark. So, in a way, we helped to get him started.”

  “What a lovely story. I’d like to put it in the exhibition catalogue if you and Courtney don’t mind.” Alice licked lemony crumbs off her fingers. “Roddy Rafferty is helping me with research. He knows more about the local area than I do and he’s good at picking up gossipy— I mean, interesting, stories.”

  Julia’s face dropped. “I understand that you need to sell the things, Alice, and Roddy’s early work was marvellous, But he’s better known for his drinking now than his art. Which, sadly, is almost a good thing, as his recent work has been a bit shoddy.” She threw a morsel of cake to one of the terriers. “Being part of this project though – do you really think that’s wise?”

  The words felt like a slap.

  “Yes, I do think so. He’s painting again, something completely different this time, which is a good sign. An artist of his stature has a great deal to contribute to this exhibition and to the gallery. I’m sure this job will keep him occupied and positive.”

  “I admire your thinking, but he’s so unreliable. A pity as he’s such a talented artist.”

  Alice followed her finger as she ran it around the rim of her empty coffee cup. She had expected some resistance to Roddy’s involvement – from Duncan Jones for sure. But it was disappointing that normally warm-hearted Julia was not more supportive. Roddy had been through a tough patch after his girlfriend’s death. But recently he had seemed more optimistic and Alice wanted to support him.

  “If we can encourage him to finish the painting, a new work by Roddy would be front page news.”

  “Well it would certainly be better news than this morning’s front page,” said Julia. “That poor man. Drowned, they say.”

  “Yes, I saw him myself yesterday morning, in the river. So horrible. I don’t know the details, though. What happened?”

  Julia reached for a laptop on the table and spun it around. A photo of the River Nare was captioned, ‘Man drowned in river’.

  “Nobody seems to know …” Julia jerked around to face Alice. “He was just found in the river. As you know.”

  “Who was he?”

  “His name was Jason Marley. Oddly enough I met him recently. He knocked on my door and asked me to sign a petition, opposing the new shopping centre on Dunn Road.” Julia ran a blue pendant up and down a silver chain around her neck. “There’ll be trucks going in and out all day, the traffic will be dreadful. And do we really need more shops? There’s already everything you want on the high street.”

  Jason Marley; JM. Alice’s heart sprinted. It had to be the same person. But no wonder JM hadn’t turned up for their meeting. The man was dead! Blood rushed to her ears and she felt light-headed.

  “The land is next door to Alistair’s golf club.” Julia rambled on, though Alice was only half-listening. “And the members are furious about it. So I was happy to sign Jason’s petition. I wanted to know more about his opposition, so he invited me to a meeting at The Three Bells the night before last. I couldn’t go, but I think Jason must have been on his way home from there when he died.”

  Alice grabbed the edge of the table.

  “Are you alright, Alice? You look a bit pale. Would you like a glass of water?” Alice nodded and Julia disappeared inside the house.

  Questions crowded her mind. What did JM know about Beach? Why did he arrange such a cloak-and-dagger way of telling her? And what did he want to tell Alice, anyway? What did he think she could do?

  She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and waited for her heart to slow to something approaching normal.

  “There you go.” Julia handed her a glass of iced water. “Probably the heat, it’s making me feel a bit woozy myself.”

  The water cleared her head. “Those demonstrators in town yesterday,” Alice said. “They were opposing the shopping centre weren’t they?”

  “Yes they were. They caused chaos but I thought, good for them. If the councillors won’t listen, you have to take things into your own hands.”

  “I know all about councillors that don’t listen.” Alice grimaced. “I wonder what will happen to the petition now?”

  Alice could just see her friend Livvie relishing the opportunity to stick it to the council, and with more than just a petition.

  “I hope it doesn’t all fade away now that he’s gone. I did admire his passion.” Julia leant across the table and pulled over a pile of leaflets. “Actually, I’ve decided to get involved myself. Jason gave me these, so I could see what his group were doing. Perhaps you can take one back to the office and get the staff to sign the petition.”

  Julia handed over a leaflet and Alice took in the shouty save our town! headline. She tucked the leaflet in her bag, thanked Julia for her time, and left.

  Joe had still not called, though she ignored that for the moment. She had questions that needed answers and she hoped to find them at the Great Wheaton Courier.

  As Alice stumbled along the road, she revisited in her mind the scene from the previous evening. Alone on the bridge, waiting for the person she had seen floating in the river the same morning. She had been stood up by a dead man.

  Chapter 10

  Alice expected the newspaper office to be filled with buzz and urgency, but the Great Wheaton Courier’s buzz was inaudible. She followed Claudia Rowan through the main office, where staff at functional work stations sat seduced into silence by computer screens. Claudia had swapped her strappy dress for a pair of navy linen trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt. Her glossy chestnut hair pulled back into a ponytail, she looked younger than her thirty-five years.

  In a small room at the back of the building, an open laptop lay on top of an uneven table.

  “Here she is,” said Claudia. “This little lady holds a copy of every weekly paper we’ve published over the past hundred and twenty years. You should find what you’re looking for amongst that lot.”

  “That’s brilliant, thank you, I’ve been looking forward to this.” Alice pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “So, what did you think of Vivien Taylor’s little do earlier? Do you like her drawing?”

  “I love it and I’m delighted to have it in the show.” Alice settled in front of the laptop. “Everything else about Vivien was amazing too, including her house. That’s some pile she has.”

  “Isn’t it just? By the way, did you find Walker’s bedroom?”

  “I did. Unfortunately, he caught me red-handed before I had a chance to see the paintings properly.” Alice’s cheeks burned as she pictured Walker’s grinning face.

  “Well at least he let you out unscathed. Lucky for you it was broad daylight.” Claudia winked.

  “Even luckier, I didn’t see him again. He said he had to work. What does he do anyway?”

  “He used to work in the City, hedge funds or something, I gather he made a fortune. He used the money to fund his hobbies, and art dealing is one of them. He started by selling off some of his family’s stuff, apparently. Now, let me show you how this works.”

  A folder with Alice’s own name popped up in the middle of the screen.

  “Are you keeping secret files on me?”

  “Should I be?” Claudia giggled. “No, I dug out a few pieces to get you started.” S
he clicked on the folder. “Though I wasn’t sure what you were looking for.”

  “I’m not exactly sure myself. I want some quirky stories, on what’s been going on at the gallery since it opened. But I haven’t produced a catalogue from scratch before, so I was hoping that something would just leap out at me.”

  “Sometimes that’s the best way to start. Anyway, it’s all yours, shout if you need anything.”

  Alice sped through the first few documents, recently published stories about Gregory’s House, written by Claudia. They were perfunctory pieces, though she did find some winning photos, capturing the gallery and its exhibitions over the last century.

  She decided on an introduction that would include a piece on the Gregory family and Ann Gregory in particular, whose home became the art gallery bearing the family name. Alice found Ann’s obituary in the 8 June 1915 edition of the Courier and read about the childless young widow who had died of tuberculosis, leaving her house and most of her possessions to the community she said had so warmly embraced her. Alice tagged the piece and jotted down notes about the councillors who had overseen the project that saw the residential home become an art gallery.

  Alice wondered what the database held on Vivien Taylor, so she typed the name in the search box and a list of close on 1,500 entries appeared. The ubiquitous Vivien had been involved in a wealth of local organisations, from kindergartens to funeral parlours, in her twenty-five year career as a Great Wheaton district councillor. In the process, she had built up a prominent profile.

  Alice scrolled through pictures of Vivien opening charity fetes and handing out prizes at school sports days. She noticed that Vivien was accompanied, if at all, by Julian de Havilland rather than her husband.

  Eating scones at church fetes, Alice concluded, was not Walker Hampton’s idea of a fun day out.

  The councillor’s ownership of the Augustus John drawing played on her mind. It would allay her doubts about its authenticity if Vivien could produce a credible provenance. In the past, Alice had seen beautifully bound provenance books; receipts for every time an artwork had changed hands, together with signed notes from previous owners stating how and when they bought it. A complete record that traced a line right back to the artist and definitively proved its legitimacy.

  Alice was not expecting a detailed provenance, but she needed to see a record of how the drawing came into the possession of Vivien’s friend and his aunt.

  She tapped away, exploring every variation of the words ‘Vivien Taylor’ and ‘Augustus John’ she could think of, but the database revealed squib. On a whim, she looked up the Tenby art gallery she had visited as a child. It still held some Augustus John works, but the drawing of the girl was not amongst them.

  Alice tried the word ‘beach’. That brought up articles on blue flag beaches, beach parties and beach towels. But nothing on the Beach painting.

  Music drifted in from The Bull’s courtyard and Alice pictured herself sitting under an umbrella, a cool beer in her hand. An appealing idea at that moment. She thought of the first time she had been to The Bull. Joe took her to celebrate landing the assistant curator job at Gregory’s House and they ate dinner in the main restaurant. The walls were packed with pieces by Brazilian artists as part of the town’s cultural festival. Joe hated the paintings – too bright, too garish – but Alice loved them, their vim and splash reflecting the optimism she felt for her new job, new home and the new phase of her fledgling relationship with Joe.

  They spent the rest of the balmy evening under the stars, planning summer days on the river, bankside picnics and evening drinks on Daisy’s deck. She was relieved to have moved away from London and the job that had gone so horribly wrong. Thankful that she had ended up in this delightful town, with a man she liked and a clean slate for another attempt to climb up the greasy corporate pole. For the first time in ages, she felt safe.

  As she did not have much to show for her efforts so far, she typed in more search terms. ‘Town hall’, ‘paintings’ and the name of the grey-suited man she met at Vivien’s: ‘Councillor Julian de Havilland’.

  Scandal. The word pulsed out of the screen. She enlarged the headline and then the full article, a small piece, the sort of filler story that ran down the edge of the Courier’s pages. Councillor de Havilland in Election Donation Scandal blared the headline. Alice read on:

  A £1,000 donation to Cllr Julian de Havilland’s election campaign has been declared illegal by the Electoral Commission. The money was donated by disgraced local businessman, George Shaker, who had been struck off as a company director of Shaker & Sons Furniture, before he made the donation to Cllr de Havilland. Neither Cllr de Havilland or Mr Shaker were available for comment.

  Alice searched Julian de Havilland’s name, along with the word ‘donation’. Only one story appeared, another article of similar size, which read:

  Cllr Julian de Havilland confirmed that he had repaid an election donation of £1,000 from George Shaker, once he discovered it breached election rules. He says he has taken steps to ensure that his office has more robust procedures in place to prevent it happening again.

  George Shaker was not a name Alice recognised, so she searched for him and could barely contain an audible “No way!” when she found a recent photograph. It was the curmudgeonly man with the broken leg she met in Vivien’s drawing room.

  Claudia popped her head around the door.

  “I’m going to have to throw you out, I’m afraid. We’re doing an urgent feature and it needs researching.”

  Alice clenched her teeth and sent the folder of cuttings to her own inbox.

  “I hope you found what you wanted. There’s a lot of cool stuff there.”

  “There is, though I didn’t get as much done as I hoped. Can I come back another time?”

  “By all means.” Claudia nodded to the screen. “I see you’re reading about George Shaker and the donation story.”

  Alice waved the story away. “Oh, that just came up while I was looking for material on councillors.”

  “That’s not surprising – Shaker had a cosy relationship with the council at one point.”

  “How cosy, exactly?”

  “Shaker and Julian de Havilland spent a lot of time together, not that that was unusual given their jobs. But when Shaker started getting more than his fair share of contracts from the council, there was speculation about the real nature of their relationship.”

  So Livvie was right about the council’s contracts all going to the same companies.

  “And what was the real nature of their relationship?”

  “I don’t suppose any more than you would expect, for two prominent business people in a small town. George Shaker was an ambitious man who grabbed every opportunity to expand his company and influence. Julian de Havilland was in charge of business and regeneration, so their paths often crossed.”

  “And that’s it? So, what’s behind the speculation?”

  “What’s behind any rumour? Sometimes people choose to see what they want to see, regardless of what’s actually there. I don’t want to get involved with spreading unsubstantiated rumours.”

  “Isn’t that something of a handicap for a journalist?”

  Claudia pulled a look of faux shock.

  Alice persisted. “So, there’s nothing more to the Shaker and de Havilland story?”

  “George Shaker was struck off as a director a few years ago, but he’s done his time. And that’s it.”

  “But the dodgy donation? That must have been something, you wrote a piece about it for the paper.” Alice poked a finger at the computer screen.

  “We did, but in the end, it didn’t prove to be anything.” Claudia shrugged.

  “That’s not what the Electoral Commission thought.”

  “The Commission was right, technically the donation broke the rules. A review of de Havilland’s expenses
exposed the mistake and the donation was declared illegal. De Havilland’s local party association was fined. Really, it wasn’t a big deal.” Claudia looked behind her. “The real question is: Why did the Electoral Commission decide to examine the expenses in the first place?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone tipped them off and we know because the regulators told one of Julian’s staff. But nobody knows who the whistleblower was.”

  Alice was finding it hard to believe that the two respectable looking people she had met that morning, were involved in the scandal.

  “Who are the likely suspects?”

  “The other political parties are the obvious candidates, though they all denied it. But they would, wouldn’t they?” Claudia giggled. “Politics is riddled with plotting and intrigue, just like the art world.”

  A young, bearded man stuck his head round the door, and seeing them still there, started to back out.

  “Apologies ladies, I thought the computer was free.”

  “It is.” Alice gathered her bag. “I’m just leaving. Thank you again, Claudia. Perhaps we can catch up on that story another time.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Alice was on her way out the front door when she stopped.

  “I meant to ask you about the painting the Courier is lending my exhibition. Could I take it with me now?”

  “Heck, I forgot. It’s the lamb dinner in the boardroom, but there’s a meeting in there now so I can’t get it. I’ll send it round tomorrow.”

  “Er, lamb dinner?”

  Claudia clapped her mouth. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. It’s a dreary painting of sheep grazing on the founder’s estate, and the staff nicknamed it ‘Lamb Dinner’. Very un-PC, I hope you’re not offended.”

  “I’m more offended by the ‘dreary’ description. I’m scared of ending up with a gallery full of duds.”

  Alice meandered into Market Square, where she took a breather by the fountain. She had hoped to find some entertaining anecdotes for her catalogue at the Courier, but discovering the election donation scandal was an unexpected bonus.