The Art of Murder (Harriet Quigley Mystery)

by Nicola Slade

  ‘She was a pest about Avril,’ Sam said slowly, ‘but she was well-intentioned and the herbs and crystals probably wouldn’t have done any harm. I should have made more effort with her but it made me angry at the time but then …’ he hunched his shoulders ‘… everything made me angry then. I don’t know her well, but I can’t imagine why she’d want to play nasty little mind games. It wasn’t her style.’

  As they approached the bridge over the river they slowed down beside a temporary barricade now firmly attached to the fence to make sure nobody could fall through the vandalised gap.

  ‘It would be hard to see anyone lurking in the shadow of the wall at night, but I can’t believe anyone would shove you in here,’ Sam stopped and looked down at the river. ‘It’s not very deep so what would be the point? It would be possible to drown but not guaranteed.’ He shook his head. ‘Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, whether Fiona’s right about Linzi inventing it all. There’s only her word for it.’

  ‘I wondered about that,’ Harriet exclaimed. ‘Those bruises were real, Sam; she’d certainly damaged herself somehow. Why not here, where she said?’ She sighed: ‘I suppose she could have been drunk.’

  They walked on in silence, turning left on the bridge and past the statue of King Alfred, making for a café.

  As she spooned froth off her cappuccino, Harriet thought about her former neighbour. ‘I admit I’m biased against Clare Yarrow but although she’s a total pain in the bum, not to mention quite obsessive about Linzi’s big house and pots of money, I don’t see that you’d stalk somebody just for that. George nobbled me yesterday evening and it’s clear his heart is divided between his Spitfire models and his vegetable plot, but he really has it in for Linzi. I got chapter and verse. She winds him up about the garden, and did you spot that nasty moment when he overheard Linzi’s remarks about him? I don’t know though; he certainly glares at her, but I’d have thought most of his available hatred was aimed at his wife.’

  ‘Don’t remind me,’ Sam groaned. ‘He caught me at coffee time, grumbling about his wife, and then he started to lecture me about planes. Did you know that R J Mitchell wasn’t the only designer on the Spitfire project as we’ve always understood? No, me neither.’ Sam’s grin was rueful. ‘I escaped at that point so I couldn’t tell you the other designers. Mostly he just sits and seethes and I ought to be more tolerant when he does utter, but the level of detail gets so tedious.’

  ‘That just leaves the owners of Tadema Lodge,’ she commented as they watched the Saturday crowds pass the window. ‘What do you think of Hughie and Eve?’

  ‘Hardly spoken to them,’ admitted Sam, ‘apart from saying hello. They seem pleasant and professional. The house is comfortable and if I hadn’t been distracted this morning, breakfast would have been a treat. Hughie’s clearly an accomplished cook so I’m looking forward to tonight’s dinner.’

  ‘Hughie does seem benign but I’ve barely heard a word from him, though I did spot him staring at Linzi last night. No surprise there. She’s stunning but Eve seems ultra-protective of him so perhaps he’s fragile. Life in the City is tough; maybe he had a breakdown. However, she’s efficient and pleasant and desperately anxious that everything should go well, but that’s not surprising; she’s a businesswoman. I doubt she’d waste time playing—’ Harriet stopped in mid-sentence. ‘Hang on though – could the City be a clue? I wonder if Hughie knew Linzi’s errant husband.’

  Sam raised his eyebrows. ‘Pretty far-fetched,’ he shrugged. ‘The City’s a small world, but would you expect a middle-aged, retired City broker to push people into the river or scatter dead wasps around? Or make scary phone calls?’

  ‘That’s the trouble,’ she sighed. ‘I can’t see anyone in their right mind doing any of these things.’

  ‘All right,’ Sam set his mug down on the table and leaned forward, his eyes brightening with interest. ‘let’s do this logically – if you can call it logic. We’ve got three suggestions about what’s going on.’

  She grinned and nodded. Memories of Sam calling her Miss Marple sprang to mind but she squashed them and forbore to point out that he was doing a reasonable impersonation of Hercule Poirot, practically twirling an invisible moustache.

  ‘I’ll summarise.’ Sam’s eyes narrowed as he observed her quiet amusement. ‘Proposition One is that Linzi is an hysterical fantasist and has made up the whole rigmarole to keep herself in the limelight or – and this is a late entry – she has no idea what she’s doing at the time but that later she realises there’s a blank period she can’t account for, which would certainly be terrifying. Agreed?’

  She inclined her head, looking demure, and Sam continued. ‘Proposition Two is that it’s the errant husband in search of his millions.’ He counted off on his fingers. ‘Proposition Three is that – given that some of the incidents suggest opportunity and, er, proximity – the perpetrator of these tricks is at present resident at Tadema Lodge.’

  Harriet abandoned her meekly attentive attitude and nodded eagerly. ‘I agree with all of that, Sam, but although I’d dearly like to go for your first suggestion I can’t. Linzi was frightened out of her wits by that anonymous note and the scary text, not to mention the episode with the wasps; and however she injured herself, her leg is definitely damaged. I quite see that it would be frightening to think you were doing it unconsciously but I can’t … I don’t know, Sam,’ she added uncertainly. ‘Can we leave that one for the time being and think about the alternatives?’

  ‘Okay, let’s set that theory aside,’ he agreed without further comment, glad to see her interest aroused.

  ‘I can’t make up my mind about the husband,’ she confessed. ‘It would be much simpler if it were, and if she would be sensible and tell the police about him.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I can’t get away from the wasps. Yes, we all know it’s a bad year for wasps – I found a couple on my windowsill this morning – but how could a couple of dozen wasps get into her washbasin by accident? I’d swear she was genuinely horrified and I don’t see how that could have been planned and executed by an outsider.

  ‘Besides that,’ she warmed to the discussion, ‘I suppose trading on the Stock Market is all about risk but I don’t see a former City trader faffing about with all the theatrical stuff. I suppose he might go as far lurking in a menacing way or the odd phone call perhaps, but not a silent one. Most people would surely want their threats clearly articulated. Anyway, Hughie’s too busy for all this other stuff, it’s play-acting, spiteful, a drama queen’s delight. Even shoving her in the river could just about be seen as a prank, albeit a pretty horrible one.’

  Sam looked at his watch and Harriet picked up her bag. ‘I suppose we’d better get back for the afternoon session. I’m going put all this out of my mind and let the police get on with sorting out Linzi’s problems.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Sam followed her outside and they turned in the direction of the Cathedral. ‘That is, of course, provided she hasn’t been stringing Fiona along about that.’

  ‘What?’ she looked back at him, frowning. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Not sure really.’ He hunched his shoulders, echoing her furrowed brow. ‘I was just thinking that if this is a genuine case of stalking or harassment or whatever, you don’t really know if she’s reported it.’

  Their eyes met and Harriet took a deep breath as Sam went on: ‘You only have Linzi’s word that she’s actually told the police.’

  Chapter 7

  Saturday afternoon

  ‘Hello again, everyone. Come on in.’ Donald’s affable smile suggested that he had enjoyed his lunch with Madeleine who also looked more relaxed while Tim and Seren were positively chatty. Harriet glowed as she basked in the success of her match-making until she caught Sam’s smirk, whereupon she poked out her tongue at him. She blushed and looked away when Tim’s startled expression showed that he had spotted her.

  ‘We had a good shake-down this morning,’ Donald was looking confident as he addr
essed the class. ‘You’ve all had a go at something outside your usual experience and I hope it’s made you receptive and raring to go on to something different.’

  He waved a hand at the central table. ‘You’ll see I’ve set up a couple of arrangements of pots and bottles, one for each end of the room so you’ll all get a fair crack. It’s a still-life, what used to be called ‘picture-making from objects’ which exactly describes what I want you to do.’

  There was a murmur of interest as people found their seats, filled water jars, and took out paints, brushes and pads. Linzi cast a pained look at the table but forbore to comment as she sat down looking thoughtful.

  ‘I want you to make a composition based on these objects,’ Donald told them. ‘Doesn’t have to be an exact picture of what you see in front of you, though you can do that if you want. If you feel adventurous, juggle it about in your mind and see where that takes you. Let your imagination take flight.’

  He grinned at the murmurs that arose and gave them no time for discussion. ‘I know some of you are itching to get on and paint so this is your chance, but to make it just a little more thought-provoking …’ he paused mischievously, ‘… I want you to use a limited palette. That means I want you to use three or four toning colours, no more, and see what you come up with. It sounds restrictive but you’ll be surprised. Instead of dithering about which colours to choose you can concentrate on the picture itself.’

  He had himself well in hand as he cast a glance round at the blank faces. ‘Tomorrow,’ he added, ‘I promise you can go mad with colour, use as much as you like, really let yourselves go. Today though, I want you to be disciplined. We’re not talking about strictly monochrome though if you’d like to try that, go for it. I’ll give you an example of what I mean by a limited palette, but I want you to think about what colour means to you personally. For example, you could have something like Ultramarine blue, Titanium White, a tiny dab of Payne’s Grey and one of the umbers or ochres – colours you might find in a sea- or cloud-scape, but today I want you to do a pot-scape!

  ‘Most of you are happy with acrylic paints,’ he added, ‘but if anyone prefers watercolour, that’s fine, as long as you have fun. In your own time …’

  *

  Bonnie stared blankly at the tubes of paint in her box as a memory forced itself on her. Once upon a time and far, far away – she shivered at the fairytale words and braced herself to confront the past as it crowded in on her. Why now?

  Donald’s phrase: ‘in your own time…’

  The inquest.

  The coroner’s voice, quiet and sympathetic, determined to find the truth.

  ‘In your own time,’ he had said, his words dropping slowly into the hushed room. ‘Was he was driving with due care and attention?’

  And the answer, in a choked whisper riven with sobs. ‘He’d been drinking, a – a lot. I tried to stop him …’ The face buried in trembling hands. ‘I can’t remember … I think he swore, then he swerved and it all went …’

  The warmth of the sun on her face as it streamed into the garden room window brought Bonnie back to the present. She glanced round but nobody was staring at her, the coroner’s court decades gone.

  She stared at the paints again and wondered whether Donald would be horrified if she took him at his word and did the whole thing in monochrome: black and white and grey to suit her despair. Probably not, she thought, sneaking a look at his face currently bent in kindly concentration over Seren’s picture. She looked at the arrangement of pots with a sudden interest, her mood lightening, and decided that grey and black and white, with a splash of scarlet would make a dramatic effect.

  *

  Linzi was going through the motions. A sufficiently talented artist to be sure of producing a good picture, her heart was not in it. She had shoved the disgusting incident with the wasps into the back of her mind but there was something else. During the short time she was downstairs for lunch, which she ate in solitary state in the garden, her attitude too forbidding for company, someone had slipped an envelope under her bedroom door.

  With a shiver she had opened it, to find inside a single sheet of paper. Not one of the anonymous letters that had so disturbed her, but a photocopy this time, of an old newspaper cutting. The photograph caught her attention. She stared at the older man who radiated pride in both the young girl at his side and the vintage three-wheeled classic car in which they were sitting.

  As she added a slick of cadmium yellow to the curve of a jar her hand shook, so she carefully laid down her brush and pretended to look out of the window until she felt calm.

  *

  Madeleine was feeling oddly at peace. Surrounded by people who were polite, kind and interested in their work, she began to relax. Even Linzi was no longer issuing those sugar-coated commands disguised as requests, so Madeleine was slowly learning to enjoy this new adventure, now that Donald was paying her particular attention. She smiled at him, remembering their walk at lunchtime. It had been a delight to sit on a bench in the sun, talking about this and that, never straying into dangerous territory but always aware of the sympathy that lay between them.

  As they threw crusts for the ducks Donald had turned to her.

  ‘Can we do this again, do you think?’

  ‘Feed the ducks?’ She was puzzled at first then blushed deeply as she realised what he was asking. ‘Oh. Oh, I see. Um, do you really want to?’

  *

  Walking round the room to offer advice where needed, Donald felt a rare moment of self-worth. Madeleine, he thought, meeting her gaze; it’s because of Madeleine that I feel good.

  Her timidity inspired him with an unaccustomed protective urge because she seemed even more lost and in need of comfort and affection than he was himself. Harriet’s suggestion that they should walk to the river and feed the ducks had surprised him but it was a good idea and he had braved rejection by asking Madeleine out.

  ‘I do want to,’ he told her gently. ‘I think we could be friends.’

  The colour in her pale cheeks deepened and he realised, to his astonished delight, that she understood the subtext and that yes, they could be friends, perhaps more than friends.

  *

  Harriet thought about her garden. She had a sneaking preference for deep pinks and purples and crimsons but that was always at odds with her love of the spring yellows of celandines, primroses and daffodils. Lilac and lavender, she decided now, and maybe a lovely deep violet, plus the tiniest hint of pink.

  Sam stared at the arrangement of pottery with deep concentration and reached for the box of acrylic paints. On the Friday morning, Harriet had bought a beginner’s set of acrylics, some brushes and a watercolour pad for the two of them to share. With only 12 tubes in the pack she had wondered whether it would be enough, but Donald reassured her.

  ‘You’ll be fine, Harriet,’ he’d explained earlier. ‘It’s all too easy to be spoiled for choice.’

  ‘I’ll have brown and cream, I suppose that means yellow and white?’ Sam was muttering, then he turned to her. ‘What’s that black one? Payne’s Grey?’

  She nodded, puzzled, but Sam had a mischievous twinkle in his eye as he sorted out brushes and took a sheet of watercolour paper.

  ‘Chocolate and cream, of course,’ he grinned, then rolled his eyes theatrically as she continued to look mystified, ‘Great Western Railway standard coach colours. Do keep up, Harriet.’

  ‘Oh, dry up, Sam,’ she groaned and went back to her palette, looking up in surprise as Tim let out a hastily stifled expletive.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he sounded flustered. ‘I squeezed too hard and I’ve got a huge dollop of Cadmium Red on my palette. Never mind,’ he dipped his brush into his wate, ‘I’ll dilute it a bit.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ It was Nina Allison, who had hardly volunteered a word so far but now the unhappiness that Harriet suspected manifested itself in a sour face and sharp tongue. ‘The way it’s dripping now, it looks like blood on your paintbrush. I wonder if it’s an omen.
’

  There was a sharp hiss, a breath sucked in, but without sitting up and openly staring round at the group Harriet had no way of telling who had been shocked into making the sound. Heads were suddenly bent in general embarrassment at Nina’s crack, and silence reigned.

  Casually, Harriet ambled over to Tim and scooped up a dollop of the Cadmium Red. ‘Just what I need,’ she said with a nod. She mixed it carefully with the intense ultramarine and tried the result on a scrap of paper. She approved the result and reached for the white; now for a paler version. While she mixed and dabbed hopefully, Harriet’s mind was working overtime as she recalled that brief snatch of conversation with Linzi Bray just before the class began.

  *

  ‘Harriet? Could I have a quick word?’ Linzi looked unusually sombre and her eyes darted around the entrance hall, ‘in private?’

  The dining room door was open so Harriet slipped inside, followed by Linzi who carefully closed the heavy oak door.

  ‘I don’t want anyone to hear,’ she explained.

  Harriet waited.

  ‘Your cousin, he’s a vicar, isn’t he?’

  It was unexpected and Harriet simply nodded.

  ‘Do you – could he, Sam, can he hear confession?’

  Harriet blinked. Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t this. ‘You do realise he’s not a Roman Catholic? It’s certainly possible for an Anglican priest to hear confession but I’m not sure how Sam would feel about it.’

  ‘But he might do it?’ The other woman was frowning anxiously and biting her lip as she stood irresolute.

  Harriet thought about it. ‘I suppose so,’ she agreed. ‘It’s not something we’ve ever discussed but Sam’s quite high church so he might. He’s kind too,’ she added. ‘If you’ve got something on your mind, he’d be a good person to consult anyway. No need to call it confession; it would be in complete confidence, of course.’