There was a light tap on the door and PC Rosie Green showed in Lionel Forbes and then left. Immediately he strode over to her and took her in his arms. She stiffened in his embrace, and he drew back at once, regarding her quizzically.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘We can’t,’ she said, feeling unwanted heat rise in her face. ‘It’s not appropriate.’
‘That’s not what you said last night,’ he said, with a wicked grin.
There was another knock at the door.
What now? thought DI Moore, striding over to open it. Mhairi stood in the doorway.
‘I wondered if I might sit in, ma’am?’ she asked.
‘Yes, of course, in you come,’ Moore said, not sure whether to be relieved or sorry.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ said Mhairi.
Her unaccustomed formality told DI Moore that she didn’t like him. Well, she barely knew him.
Business-like now, she motioned them round the table further into the large room.
Even Lionel Forbes looked shocked when he first beheld the paintings, but then he spied the image painted by Moretti and laughed out loud.
DI Moore glared at him.
‘Sorry,’ he said, clearly struggling to compose himself, ‘it’s just so clearly meant to be a send-up of that idiot Hugo Mortimer. If this got out, he’d never recover. He’d be a laughing stock!’
DI Moore was now tight-lipped with anger. What had got into him today? She glanced at Mhairi, whose expression was studiedly neutral.
‘The reason I invited you to come here was to ascertain whether the paintings of the foal and the digital image beside them could feasibly have been painted by the same person.’
Forbes cleared his throat and took out a magnifying glass from his briefcase. He sat down at the table in front of the first painting in the sequence. Then he flipped open a notepad and, without saying another word, got to work. He didn’t seem particularly repelled by the subject matter, thought Moore; but presumably, in his line of work you became accustomed to seeing all sorts.
Moore glanced at Mhairi. This was clearly going to take some time.
Eventually, just as both women had reached the outer edge of their patience, Forbes looked up.
‘Well, I can say one thing categorically. The same artist did not paint the pictures of the foal and the picture of Hugo Mortimer. Obviously, I would’ve preferred the original painting to work from, rather than a digital image, but I’d be prepared to stake my reputation on it nonetheless.’
This was not what they wanted to hear. DI Moore looked at Mhairi in consternation.
‘How do you know?’ she asked.
‘Well, the brushwork, for starters. Artists tend to have little tells in their style if you know what to look for. Both extraordinarily talented, however.’
‘Whatever floats your boat,’ muttered Mhairi, earning a glare from DI Moore.
‘Is there any possibility you could hazard a guess at the identity of either of these artists? There’s a strong likelihood that they’re local to the area, so you might possibly have come across their work before,’ said Moore.
For the first time, Forbes’s eyes slid away from hers. He knows something, she thought, digging her nails into her palms. But, if he does, why doesn’t he say anything? The pause lengthened.
As if becoming aware he had waited too long, Forbes cleared his throat.
‘Sorry, I’ve been standing here racking my brains, but nothing is coming to me. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve not seen the work of either of these artists before.’
Mhairi was staring at him through narrowed eyes.
Maybe he didn’t want to share any unsubstantiated suspicions in front of a junior detective. After all, his own professional reputation was on the line if he got it wrong, thought Moore. She was uncomfortably aware that she was starting to make excuses for him.
‘Which is the more talented of the two?’ Mhairi asked, her stance challenging.
‘I couldn’t possibly say without having the principal canvas from Moretti in front of me.’
‘Doesn’t the subject matter bother you at all?’ asked Mhairi.
‘It’s not something I would choose personally,’ he replied. ‘However, the degree of skill in the execution is extraordinary. Art is meant to shake you out of your comfort zone. If you want pretty pictures, then go to the likes of Mike Halliday.’
‘Thanks so much for coming in,’ said Moore. ‘We won’t take up anymore of your valuable time. Let me show you out.’
Mhairi looked close to losing her temper. She really could be most intemperate at times, thought DI Moore, giving her a severe look on the way out of the door.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Mhairi pelted along to Farrell’s office and stood fidgeting with impatience in the doorway, until he glanced up from what he was doing and noticed her.
He smiled and motioned her in. He was looking a little frayed around the edges, she thought. His near breakdown last year had affected her more than she had let on and she had kept a beady eye on him ever since.
‘Mhairi, come in and tell me what’s on your mind, before you blow a gasket,’ he said.
How to begin? She didn’t want to cast any aspersions on DI Moore, that’s for sure. Farrell cleared his throat and stared at her.
‘Come on, Mhairi, spit it out. I haven’t got all day. What’s bothering you?’
‘I don’t think that Lionel Forbes is on the level, sir,’ she said.
‘How so?’ asked Farrell, putting down his pen and sitting back in his chair.
‘I think he knows something he’s not letting on in relation to Moretti’s competition entry. I think he’s seen his work somewhere before, so he might know his real identity.’
‘If that was the case then why wouldn’t he simply say?’ asked Farrell. ‘He could always hedge his bets and indicate he wasn’t entirely sure.’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘There’s something else. I’m worried he’s somehow targeted DI Moore and inserted himself deliberately into the forgery investigation.’
‘DI Moore is a very smart capable officer who can take care of herself,’ said Farrell. ‘If his behaviour was as off as you think in the meeting she’ll already be raising the same questions in her own mind.’
Mhairi looked unconvinced.
‘Yes, sir. Please don’t tell her I said anything?’
‘I won’t. I know it came from the right place. Where would we all be without you to keep an eye on us, Mhairi McLeod?’
‘Really, sir,’ she said standing up to leave. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’
She could hear him chuckling as she marched down the corridor.
Once back at her desk, she hadn’t made much of a dent in her paperwork when DS Byers popped his head round the door.
‘Mhairi, we’ve finally managed to track down Nancy Quinn, Monro Stevenson’s girlfriend. I’m about to interview her. You can sit in if you want.’
‘Sure,’ she said, jumping to her feet and putting her jacket back on. ‘Where’s she been hiding herself all this time, Sarge?’
‘Spain, apparently. She was seen in Kirkcudbright this afternoon by PC McGhie, trying to get into the cottage of the deceased. He detained her at once.’
‘There’s something doesn’t add up about this girl,’ said Mhairi. ‘Hardly enacting the role of the grieving girlfriend, is she? Not been near the parents, according to PC Green.’
‘I gave up trying to figure out women a long time ago,’ said Byers.
‘Clearly,’ muttered Mhairi under her breath. Byers smirked. Why did she always let him wind her up like this? Pushing her irritation to one side, she opened the door to the interview room and walked in.
The young woman seated across the table was undeniably beautiful with a golden tan and blonde sun-streaked hair. She looked like she’d stepped out of a surfing ad. Mhairi instantly felt lumpy and dumpy and straightened in her chair.
Byers set up the tape an
d introduced them both and the interview commenced.
‘I must caution you that anything you say will be noted down and can be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you state your name and date of birth?’
‘Nancy Quinn, 5th August 1988.’
‘Please confirm your whereabouts on the evening of Sunday, 6th of January 2013?’
‘I was home alone.’
‘When was the last time you saw Monro Stevenson?’
‘The Friday night before he died. We went out for dinner to celebrate him being shortlisted. He stayed the night at mine. When I woke up in the morning, he was gone.’
‘At 12.15 p.m. today you were discovered round the back of the cottage rented by Monro Stevenson, attempting to break in. Would you care to tell us why?’
‘I would hardly call it breaking in.’
‘You were jemmying the back window with a crow bar,’ said Byers.
‘I was lucky there was one lying nearby. Look, I was simply trying to get my stuff back. There was no one around. It couldn’t hurt Monro, so I decided to give the window a little help.’
‘What items were you looking to obtain?’ asked Mhairi. ‘You weren’t living there. As I recall, you didn’t even have a toothbrush, never mind a drawer.’
A flash of anger, immediately tempered with a phoney smile.
‘Items of an intimate nature,’ she said, sizing Byers up from under her long lashes.
To his credit, Byers remained impassive. Maybe he wasn’t as big a sucker for a pretty face as Mhairi had thought.
‘Please detail the exact nature of the items concerned,’ he said.
‘There were sketches, a portrait he had painted of me … in the nude,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want them to fall into the wrong hands. Monro would have wanted me to have them, I’m sure.’
‘There were no such items in the inventory of contents,’ Byers said.
No, but there was a nude painting of another girl, thought Mhairi. A dead girl.
‘Did Monro ever talk to you about any former girlfriends, people he’d been in love with before the two of you met?’ asked Mhairi.
‘No, nobody,’ she said, but the tightening of her lips told Mhairi she was lying.
‘I heard he had a thing for a beautiful dark-haired girl at one time,’ Mhairi said. ‘In fact we recovered a painting of her from the cottage. Did you ever see that when you were staying over? You did stay over, right?’
‘Of course I did,’ Nancy shot back with narrowed eyes. ‘He was an artist. I didn’t expect him to sit painting a bowl of fruit every day.’
‘How did you meet the deceased?’ asked Byers.
‘At a gallery event in Kirkcudbright,’ she said.
‘Which gallery was that?’ asked Mhairi.
‘The Tolbooth, down the High Street. I was admiring one of his paintings, not realizing he was the artist. He introduced himself and we arranged to meet the following night for dinner.’
‘Could you confirm the date for us?’ asked Mhairi.
‘Yes, around the middle of December last year,’ she replied.
‘What is it you do for a living?’ asked Byers.
‘I’m a postgraduate student at Glasgow School of Art.’
‘Specializing in?’ asked Byers.
There was an awkward pause and, for the first time, she looked cornered.
‘Art restoration.’
Byers didn’t miss a beat and quickly segued into another question, as though her reply had been of no consequence. Mhairi cast about in her bag for a tissue like she hadn’t picked up on the significance either.
‘Is there any particular reason why you haven’t visited Monro Stevenson’s family since he died?’ he asked.
Again, she looked uncomfortable.
‘I didn’t really know them that well. I had a feeling the mother in particular wasn’t that keen on me. It seemed easier for all concerned if I simply stayed away.’
‘In Spain?’ said Byers, injecting a note of incredulity.
‘I needed to get away from the memories,’ she said with a not-quite-convincing catch in her voice.
‘Made lots of new ones, in Spain though, judging by your Instagram account,’ said Byers.
‘Look, are you going to charge me with anything or not?’
‘We’ll ready the paperwork and then you’ll be released without charge, on an undertaking not to go near Monro Stevenson’s cottage again,’ said Byers.
‘Thank you,’ she said, obviously relieved.
‘Interview terminated,’ said Byers.
Mhairi and Byers both stood up and left the room. They headed along the corridor until they were out of earshot.
‘I’m afraid your “To Do” list just got longer, Mhairi.’
Mhairi flipped open her notebook.
‘I need you to contact Glasgow School of Art and get information on both her undergraduate and postgraduate studies in restoration. We need The Tolbooth’s CCTV footage from the night of the exhibition in December. Be interesting to see who else she talks to when she’s there, particularly if it’s any of our potential suspects.’
‘What about obtaining a warrant for her phone records?’ asked Mhairi.
‘Eventually, but I think we need a bit more evidence yet. I don’t want to tip our hand too soon. I also need some deep background done on her, with a view to discovering any family or social connections between her and any of our players in Kirkcudbright.’
‘You reckon she was a plant sent to keep an eye on Monro Stevenson, sir?’ asked Mhairi.
‘I think it’s a strong possibility,’ Byers replied.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Lind was feeling the strain. Tonight was his first marriage counselling session with Laura and he knew that if he failed to turn up on time their fragile truce would shatter. Come what may, he had to be there. He flicked through the reports on his desk from Farrell, Moore, and Byers. Things were really starting to hot up on all the investigations. However, they still lacked much of the key information they needed. One of the crucial facts they were missing was Moretti’s real identity. If they could only pin that down, then perhaps the other pieces would start to slot into place. They had removed various items from the cottage to obtain samples of his DNA. Hopefully, he would show up somewhere in the system.
Byers had run into a brick wall when digging into the identity of Aaron Sewell, the signatory of several canvasses in Moretti’s cottage. Apparently, he was very in vogue and making big waves commercially but looked down on by the art establishment. He too was a ghost. No press interviews even. His own agent, a public-school type from Edinburgh, didn’t even know his real identity. Part of the mystique, he had burbled enthusiastically on the phone. Bloody inconvenient more like, thought Lind. His agent paid all sums due into an offshore bank account that prided itself on its discretion. Any contracts or paperwork were sent by email to an IP address for an internet café in Dumfries, but could also be accessed remotely. Lind had put the Tech squad on it hoping the guy might have slipped up somewhere.
Farrell had discovered a common link between the forgery case and Monro Stevenson’s murder. Both had used the same Dumfries-based locksmith and joiner, Neil Benson. He would be detained and questioned tomorrow, depending on the outcome of DC Thomson’s operation in the morning. The biggest decision he had to make today was whether to sanction DC Thomson going into play. It now appeared at least likely that, instead of a forgery, he might be transporting an authentic near-priceless work of art. The restoration unit at the National Trust had said it would take time to determine whether the painting in the safe at Broughton House was a forgery or not. If it was genuine, it was more than valuable enough to kill for and he didn’t want the young officer’s blood on his hands.
There was a light tap on the door.
‘Come in,’ he called.
In walked Maureen Kerrigan.
Lind stood up and invited her to si
t.
‘Thanks for coming down, Maureen,’ he said.
‘PC Green said you’ve got a woman in custody who was carrying around a picture of my sister?’
‘Yes, her name’s Fiona Murray. She’s got an Irish accent. Does the name mean anything to you?’
She shook her head decisively.
‘No, nothing. Do you think she’s involved in the death of my sister?’
‘Highly unlikely,’ said Lind. ‘We’re questioning her in relation to another unrelated matter. I gather you might have been poking around a bit, asking questions?’
Maureen’s pale skin flushed.
‘Well, do you blame me? No disrespect, but the police don’t seem to be making much progress. I need to find out what happened to my sister. I owe her that, at least.’
‘Of course I don’t blame you. However, without going in to detail, things have taken a somewhat sinister turn. Another young woman has been murdered, though we’re not releasing the details yet.’
‘Do you mean Poppy Black?’ she asked.
‘Where did you hear that?’
‘I was in The Smuggler’s Inn with Mike Halliday. That TV reporter, Sophie Richardson, was in there talking to Billy Ryan, the barman.’
‘What was said?’
‘That the girl had been found dead and it looked like an accident, but she had information in her possession suggesting that she had been murdered.’
Lind’s heart sank. Could they possibly have someone leaking stuff to the press?
‘What did the barman tell her?’
‘Nothing. He was as tight as a clam. After she’d gone, a man came in who looked a bit of a hard nut. He wasn’t from round here. I heard Billy tell him Poppy Black might have been murdered and to watch his back.’
‘Did anyone notice you listening in?’
‘No, I was careful. None of that seems to be relevant to what happened to my sister, though.’
‘A person of interest in relation to your sister’s murder has disappeared but could still be in hiding locally. We don’t know what this person looks like. You might even have come across him already.’
Perfect Dead Page 22