Grief Encounters

by Stuart Pawson

  ‘It was a good stunt, though,’ Richard admitted.

  ‘What happened?’ Tristan’s wife, Fiona, asked. She’d heard the story a dozen times before but her attention span rivalled that of a tadpole and she found it fresh and funny with every telling. It was Saturday night, and she was looking forward to finishing the evening with a snort of coke and rough sex with her best friend’s husband, as they had done every weekend for several years. To her, all else was filling in time. She stroked the back of Richard’s hand as it rested on her thigh, and smiled at his wife.

  ‘Old Leachy took us for Latin,’ Tristan began.

  ‘Greek,’ Richard corrected him.

  ‘Was it? They were all fucking Greek to me.’ He laughed again and burped. ‘Anyway, old Leachy had this little dog. Horrible thing it was, fat as a barrel, always scrounging food. We used to sneak stuff out for it and it would eat everything and anything. Then, about once a week, we’d give it a load of laxative chocolate and it’d be crapping all over the place, inside and out. The stair used to stink of dogshit and disinfectant.’

  ‘I thought you drowned it,’ Fiona stated, her voice tinged with disappointment. The dog-drowning story was her favourite.

  ‘That was later, after we started the Moonlighters Climbing Club. One night we’d been up the South Tower. Hillary Stoneleigh-Palmer was leading. He’s a friggin’ neurosurgeon at St Bart’s, now. Anyhow, the clumsy sod dislodged this bloody great gargoyle and it fell to the ground. It was like a force seven earthquake going off. The whole place shook. Nobody came, so we climbed down and wondered what to do with the gargoyle. It was a griffon’s head; something mythical like that, except it was as real as anything could be. We decided to dump it in the fountain and hope nobody would notice it was missing. So we lugged it across the lawns and were just about to roll it into the water when Leach’s bloody dog arrived on the scene, wagging its tail and hoping for food, scaring the living daylights out of us. Without a second’s hesitation Stoneleigh-Palmer hooked its collar over one of the griffon’s ears and rolled them both into the water. It never made a sound. Just a plop, and that was that. We thought we were safe, but things looked different in the cold light of day. We’d left a trail of footprints from the tower to the fountain and to our stair and there was a bloody great hole where the gargoyle should have been. Old Leach blamed me and gave me six of the best. Then he added four more because I didn’t admit it. I tell you, he laid them on with all the venom he could muster. I couldn’t sit down for a week.’

  He stopped talking, the memory of those cane strokes almost as painful as the real thing had been.

  ‘But we got our own back, didn’t we, Trist?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Ricko old boy, we got our own back.’

  ‘And the game was born.’

  ‘Yes, the game.’

  Teri said: ‘But you were expelled.’

  ‘I was,’ Tristan admitted. ‘But it was a relief. Best thing that happened to me. What about you, Teri? You were playing the game before we met you.’ He reached across the table with the wine bottle and poured the last few drops into her glass.

  ‘I suppose I was,’ she agreed. She’d been seventeen, making her way in a tough business, and had just started a sexual relationship with a potential business partner. Except that when he met one of Teri’s trainee beautician colleagues he decided to pursue her, too. Teri realised she was being exploited and the business deal was going down the pan so she casually remarked to him that Debra, the girl he was hoping to seduce, was upset because she’d been told that she could never have children. To Debra she confided that Guy, the wayward partner, had been rendered sterile by a dose of shingles.

  ‘The twins will be, what, ten or eleven years old, now,’ she told them as she finished her story. ‘Another six and he might be able to stop paying child maintenance.’

  A waiter caught Tristan’s eye and indicated that their taxi had arrived. As they filed out he said to Richard: ‘We haven’t talked about your schoolmistress friend, yet. Have you thought any more about her?’

  ‘You bet,’ Richard told him. ‘I saw her last Tuesday for a quick drink, just keeping up the acquaintance sort of thing. I’ve worked it all out. I’ll give you the nitty-gritty at home, but keep next Thursday free. It’s her birthday, and I’m planning a little surprise for her.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  I definitely need less sleep than I used to. I’ve always been an early riser, but when you have a blackbird in the garden that greets each new dawn with a fanfare to rival anything Aaron Copland wrote, plus a family of collared doves in the rhythm section, sleep is difficult to achieve. Add the bloke down the street who works Sundays and has a dodgy exhaust, and difficult becomes impossible. Never mind: like I said, I don’t need much sleep.

  I pulled on jeans and shirt and opened the curtains. The sun was shining and had driven away the morning mist. It looked like being a scorcher, which was good news for the organisers of the gala. I breakfasted on flakes and banana, with copious tea, and loaded the paintings into the car. A tentative touch with a finger told that they were dry enough. They looked good in the bright sunlight. I was pleased with them. I’d suggest a price of about £50 and donate any proceeds to the Lord Mayor’s appeal. If they didn’t sell I’d hang them in the hallway and probably paint over them for next year’s show. They usually sold. £50 isn’t much to ask for a modern masterpiece.

  At ten o’clock I drove to the showground and off-loaded them. A woman I’d seen before was taking a collection out of a battered transit and arranging them on the scaffolding erected to display the paintings. I left mine in the hands of the organiser, who said words of approval when she saw them. She gave me a programme and I drove into town. Sainsbury’s do a decent brunch, so I had one to set me up for the day, and I called in the nick to tidy up a few loose ends.

  When I was up to date with the reports I pulled the programme from my pocket and looked for the important bit. There I was. It said:

  THE GHOST OF ELECTRICITY ONE C Priest

  THE GHOST OF ELECTRICITY TWO C Priest

  Fame at last. I looked down the list of entries and saw all the usual suspects. One or two of them do cracking watercolours; a sergeant at HQ specialises in Western art, all injuns and horses; a PC does portraits of rock musicians and another does pencil drawings of old street scenes. I’m always amazed by how much talent there is, where you don’t expect it. Another list was new. The Association for Prisoners’ Art was there in force, with twelve exhibits by unnamed artists. I’d look forward to seeing them but knew what to expect: crucifixion scenes and pictures of Mum.

  I had a snooze at my desk, luxuriating in the familiarity of my own domain while nobody else was there and the phones were silent, then went downstairs to chat to the duty sergeant for half an hour. When we’d put the force to rights I went back to the gala.

  The horses were being paraded and the dogs were impatient to do their stuff. I watched for a few minutes before wandering over to the art section. My pictures had two red dots on them, indicating they’d been sold. I was chuffed to bits. Next year I’d put up the price.

  The prisoners’ contributions were better than I expected, and I made a silent apology to the artists. There was the usual maudlin stuff, but what can you expect from someone who’s banged up for years on end? Two were a revelation. They were abstracts done in the style of Paul Klee. They didn’t quite work for me, but they were brave attempts, obviously both painted by the same person. I looked closely at one of them to see if there was a signature. There was. It said Ennis.

  Never heard of him, but maybe I’d see what he was in for. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t. The woman who brought the paintings was nowhere to be seen, so I wandered back to the main arena, looking for Dave and his family. A police German shepherd was wrestling with a handler with a padded arm, and a five-aside football match was just starting in the next field. All around me small boys, and a few girls, were thinking that they’d like to become policemen. Sadly, it w
ouldn’t last.

  Monday morning the phone interrupted my breakfast. It was Mad Maggie. ‘Are you going in to the office this morning, boss?’ she asked.

  ‘That was my intention, Maggie,’ I replied. ‘Unless you are about to make some revelation that will take me elsewhere.’

  ‘No. I want to see you at the nick. I’ve a present for you. Bought it at the gala yesterday.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Can’t say. I want to see your face.’

  ‘I’m intrigued. It’s not a leaving present, is it? Have you heard something that I haven’t?’

  ‘When you leave, Chas, we’ll push the boat out. You’ll know all about it.’

  ‘OK. I’ll see you after morning prayers.’

  Morning prayers comprised of me confessing to Mr Wood that we were at a standstill with the Magdalena case and were hoping for some revelation about the MO from our serious crime analysis section, which wasn’t forthcoming. He pointed out, unnecessarily, that our time was up and HQ would take over the investigation if we didn’t make some progress soon. He was wearing his funeral suit, because later that morning our ex-MP, Ted Goss, was being remembered in a service at the cathedral. Gilbert knew him through various committees and was a fellow-Rotarian with the MP’s local agent.

  ‘It should be you going to the service, not me,’ he protested.

  ‘How do you work that out?’ I asked. ‘You’re our figurehead.’

  ‘Because he was one of your lot, that’s why.’

  As I was leaving his office he said: ‘And Charlie…’

  I spun round. ‘Yes, boss?’

  ‘Get your hair cut. You look like a travelling Romanian knife-sharpener.’

  First thing I saw in the CID office was that young Brendan had joined the shaven-head brigade. His head glowed like the dome of the Golden Mosque of Samarkand in the desert sun.

  ‘Listen up,’ I shouted, and the hubbub died down. ‘Mr Wood has just had a word with me about haircuts. I see Brendan is the latest to join the bullet-headed boys. It has to stop. You lot are beginning to look like a private army.’

  ‘It’s this weather, boss,’ Brendan protested.

  ‘Not good enough. You’re supposed to be plain-clothes detectives, not a band of mercenaries, so let’s have some variation in styles, eh? No more shaven heads unless it’s on doctor’s orders, in which case you’ll have to have it painted with gentian violet as well.’ I turned to Maggie and put on my best couldn’t-care-less voice. ‘So where’s this present, Maggie?’ I asked. I knew it was some sort of leg-pull and I was due for a disappointment, so there was no point in putting it off.

  ‘Right here, Chas.’ She rose to her feet and reached down the side of her desk, producing what was obviously a painting wrapped in tissue paper. She stood behind it, made a noise suitable for an unveiling and pulled the wrappings off.

  It was the Paul Klee painting, done by one of the prisoners.

  I said: ‘Pour moi?’ and stabbed my chest with a forefinger.

  ‘Just for you,’ she replied.

  I hadn’t a clue what it was all leading up to, but went along with it. She’s not known as Mad Maggie without reason. I said: ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Margaret, but wasn’t there a £125 price tag on it?’

  ‘You’re worth every penny, boss.’

  ‘Have you borrowed it?’

  ‘Commandeered it might be more accurate. I had to do some leaning.’

  ‘Can I ask why?’

  ‘What do you think of it? Is it any good?’

  ‘It has a certain merit,’ I replied, ‘but I thought the other one he did was better.’

  ‘Which other one who did?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘He’s called Ennis,’ I told her. ‘There were two of his paintings in the exhibition.’

  ‘This isn’t by Ennis,’ she replied.

  ‘It is,’ I assured her. ‘The style is unmistakable. I’d gamble money on them being by the same person.’

  ‘This one isn’t signed Ennis.’

  ‘Is it signed?’

  ‘Have a look.’

  I walked over to the painting and stooped to see if anything was written in the bottom right-hand corner. That’s the usual place for a signature. I couldn’t see one at first, because it was green on green, but it soon became apparent to me. In small, loopy letters was a clue to the identity of the man who’d executed the picture while locked up in one of Her Majesty’s prisons for God knows how long.

  He’d signed himself The Pope.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘He’s called Ennis,’ I told them again. ‘Take my word for it, both paintings were done by the same person.’

  ‘So why did he sign them differently?’ someone asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Why not? Maybe it was just a whim. Maybe the pictures were done years apart. I wouldn’t attach any importance to that. What we need to know is who he is and where he is. I’ll make some phone calls. Meanwhile, Maggie, you’re excused from coffee duty for the rest of the day. Brendan can be coffee monitor,’ I turned to him, ‘but don’t get any hairs in it.’

  First stop was the organiser of the art exhibition at the gala. Her number was printed in the programme, which was still in my pocket. Her elderly mother answered the phone and gave me her work number. Eventually I tracked her down – mobiles do have their good points.

  We only meet once per year but she greeted me like a long-lost friend. I said I needed to know about one of the prison artists, and could she give me the name of the person who had arranged for the pictures to be there?

  ‘She’s called Sam Spencer,’ I was told, ‘and she teaches art for the Workers’ Educational Association. She also goes into prisons and does a lot of work with them.’

  ‘Great. Do you have a number for her?’

  She did, and fifteen minutes later Maggie and I were on our way, on the pretext of returning the painting Maggie had commandeered.

  Ms Spencer and her partner were living the good life, or as near as you can get to it up on the moors. They had an end cottage in one of those terraces that are dotted arbitrarily about the place, where toilers in some long-forgotten industry once raised their families in the hostile climate up there. They had an acre of land and were making raised beds in which to grow their own organic produce. I hadn’t the heart to tell them that only potatoes and sprouts would thrive at that altitude, and when theirs were ready to harvest the price in the supermarkets would be down to about fifty pence a ton. No doubt they would have hit back with a diatribe about flavour.

  After a quick look around we left the partner manoeuvring old railway sleepers at the far end of the plot and sat in a garden area while Ms Spencer fetched us iced lemonade. It was idyllic, and I felt a small pang of jealousy, then remembered that the road became blocked by snow every winter, and the wet-fish man probably didn’t deliver up there, either.

  ‘He’s called Peter Ennis,’ she told us, after overcoming her early cautiousness. Part of her mandate was to befriend the prisoners, which put us in opposing camps. I told her about Magdalena, even asked if she’d known her while at college, and she soon decided to cooperate.

  ‘Where did you meet him?’ I asked.

  ‘He was in Bentley prison.’

  ‘Any ideas what for?’

  ‘No. I never spoke one-to-one with him outside the class.’

  ‘You said was.’

  ‘That’s right. He was released about a year ago. He left his paintings behind, said I could have them. I put them in the show for a bit of variety. They were the only abstracts there apart from two done by a policeman.’

  We sat silently for a few seconds, wondering if she was about to make some killer criticism of my work, until I said: ‘He signed one picture Ennis and one Pope. Any ideas why?’

  ‘Not really, except he was probably embarrassed by his name.’

  Maggie and I looked puzzled, until Ms Spencer spelt it out: ‘P. Ennis.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ I said. ‘What did t
he other prisoners call him?’

  ‘Some called him Pete, some called him the Pope. He’s a big man, has a lot of authority. I think he liked being called the Pope.’

  ‘Is he religious?’ Maggie asked.

  ‘Not so you’d notice,’ she replied, ‘but I believe Ennis is an Irish name.’

  ‘Is he Irish?’

  ‘He doesn’t have the accent.’

  I drained my lemonade, which was made by standing a lemon next to a glass of water, but still most welcome, and said: ‘Did you ever feel intimidated or threatened by him?’

  ‘No, never,’ she replied. ‘He was always courteous and considerate.’

  ‘What about his pictures? Was there anything in them to suggest a violent nature?’

  ‘I’m not a psychologist, but I wouldn’t say so. They were the usual stuff, like landscapes. The abstracts were an expression of his mood, but I wouldn’t regard them as having a violent origin. Would you?’

  I shook my head. ‘No.’

  We thanked her for her help and the lemonade. As she saw us into the car I said: ‘Are you still in contact with him?’

  ‘No, Inspector,’ she replied. ‘He wasn’t my type.’

  ‘You’re not on each other’s Christmas card list, then?’

  ‘No.’

  On the way back to the nick Maggie said: ‘Always courteous and considerate. Sounds like a typical manipulating male.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I began, ‘does a woman like Sam get a feeling of power, standing in front of a class of rabid, testosterone-loaded men, knowing that she’ll be fuelling their fantasies as they lie in their bunks that night, and the next, and the next?’

  ‘Touché,’ Maggie replied.

  The nick was buzzing with strangers when we arrived back, and two uniformed officers armed with Heckler and Kochs were guarding the entrance. I told Maggie to write up our morning’s work and went straight to the conference room where Jeff was holding his ID parade.

  He was deep in conversation with Rodway and Clark’s briefs and the CPS solicitors, explaining how he was proposing to run the show, giving them the chance to make amendments. Mrs Dolan, the blind witness, was sitting in a chair with Serena next to her, holding her hand. Jeff introduced me to the briefs and they said they were happy with the arrangements. The whole thing would be recorded on video. Jeff looked at his watch and said: ‘Right, then. Let’s get on with it.’