by James Green
‘No.’
‘What was there other than the gun?’
‘Nothing. Just the body and the gun.’
Jimmy was disappointed. He’d hoped for more. ‘I see.’
‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’
‘Odd?’
‘Yes. How did he get to the bench carrying a shotgun and nobody noticed anything?’
Damn, another question he should have been asking.
‘It was a secluded part of the university.’
Liu ignored Jimmy’s response and Jimmy agreed with him.
‘He still had to get there from his room or wherever. A student walking around with a shotgun over his arm and nobody notices?’
‘Under his coat?’
‘He was wearing a light sports jacket. He had it on when he pulled the trigger. Who puts their jacket back on before they blow their brains out?’
‘And nobody asked the question?’
‘Like I said, it wasn’t properly investigated. It must have been the same with you sometimes. You don’t have the time or the manpower so you take what’s on offer. It looks like suicide so it’s suicide. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…’
‘It’s a duck. But even if the police decided it was suicide from the word go, the question of how the gun got there had to be asked?’
‘It was, but not properly answered. Brinkmeyer got the gun there somehow, maybe like you said, under his jacket. How didn’t matter. What he did with it when he got there, that mattered.’
‘But now you think the how matters?’
‘Now it matters.’
‘To you or to Brownlow?’
‘It matters to Brownlow. But like I said, you’re a civilian, he doesn’t want you near any police investigation.’
‘I gave you the information you needed to take a second look at the suicide. Doesn’t that get me some of the way in?’
‘No. It puts you further out. If he lets you help he won’t get all the credit, but if you cause problems he’ll definitely get all the blame. You see, Brownlow has a problem. He thinks he deserves promotion so he wants results, but he doesn’t want to point the finger at any of his colleagues and say “screw-up” where the suicide is concerned. That isn’t the way people get to climb the ladder. As far as he’s concerned it will stay suicide and no further questions will get asked. Not officially anyway.’
‘And unofficially?’
‘You were a detective, you know how these things work. He wants a result in the Gray case to help his promotion, but he’s still a good officer. If, on my own initiative, I ask questions, he’ll listen to the answers, but my questions have to be connected to the investigation in hand, the Gray killing. We know that Brinkmeyer was linked to Sr Gray through the chaplaincy. We followed up the faxed copy of the letter you gave us and checked with your Professor McBride who, like you said, is a very highly rated lady with impeccable friends and absolutely above any suspicion. She confirmed that Gray had told both her and your London nun Sr McCarthy she thought Brinkmeyer hadn’t killed himself, which was why you got called in to come and poke your nose around. Gray dies and your nun dies. That means we now know all three deaths have something else in common.’
‘They were all linked to Laura Lawrence.’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t see how, but I think Lawrence engineered Brinkmeyer’s death.’
‘Look, get this into your head: all Brownlow wants is a result in the Gray killing. If anything you bring helps in that, fine. If not then forget it.’
Jimmy wasn’t sure what to do. He could add Thurlow Somerset’s disappearance to the body count but that would give them the stolen art. He wasn’t ready to do that yet. He tried to edge a bit further.
‘Anything concerning Laura Lawrence, including the suicide and the London hit-and-run, should help. She’s your best bet for the killer. Anyone of her description seen near the suicide?’
‘No one asked. They had the two who found the body and when they told their story as far as the police were concerned that was that.’ Liu paused, he knew Jimmy wasn’t going to like what he was about to tell him. ‘I checked though, I tried to find out where Lawrence was at the time of Brinkmeyer’s death.’
‘And?’
‘And there is no one at the university among staff or students called Laura Lawrence. I checked with two or three people who went to the chaplaincy who had met her. They all told the same story, Lawrence was a friend of Marvin Brinkmeyer and was a postgraduate student at the university. They all gave the same description, which fits the one you gave and the one in your London nun’s letter. The little we know about her was what she told people, and it all leads nowhere. It’s all phoney.’ Liu could see that the news had gone down badly, so now was the time for the question he’d brought Jimmy here to ask. ‘What’s your real interest in this?’
Jimmy wasn’t ready for it. Liu had intended he wouldn’t be.
‘What do you mean, real interest?’
‘I don’t buy you coming here to look into a suicide just because some old friend asks you to. Nobody goes to all that trouble to do someone a favour. My guess is you knew how Brinkmeyer died before you came and from the way it was done you’d be sure it was suicide, so why come? But you do come and while you’re here Sr Gray, the one you’re supposed to be helping, gets herself murdered. Then your nun friend in London is killed. You turn up here in Vancouver to ask questions and suddenly bad things happen to the people you’re involved with. And you’re still here, pushing harder and harder. What is it you’re pushing for, Mr Costello?’
‘I told you, I think Laura Lawrence killed Philomena and I intend -’
‘To pin your nun’s death on a woman who it turns out is a phantom. See what I mean? It all happens round you. People die and people disappear.’
Jimmy gave up, his story of why he was in Vancouver was dead and buried. Liu didn’t just have all the aces in this game now that Laura Lawrence had gone phut, he had the whole fucking deck of cards. Jimmy waited to see which way Liu would jump.
‘This is all about something else, something you were working on before you came over here because you came here looking. You know what it is you’re looking for, Mr Costello, and we don’t.’
Liu was wrong, but he was only wrong in the small print, other than that he was dead right.
‘So?’
‘So that’s my deal. You tell me what this is all about and I share any information I get with you.’
‘Is that your own idea or did Brownlow suggest it?’
‘I told you, he wants a result. If you have information that can help, fine. But he doesn’t want you -’
‘Near the case. I know, I heard you tell me. So the idea is that Brownlow puts you at arm’s length where the suicide is concerned and you put me at arm’s length where any information in the Gray case is concerned.’
Liu nodded. ‘Right on the button.’
‘And I finish up so far away from any investigation you couldn’t see me with a telescope, but I’m supposed to give Brownlow what he wants right up front. Somehow it doesn’t sound so very even-handed.’
Liu had the good grace to smile.
‘My advice is to take what he’s put on offer. Either you do it his way or it doesn’t get done at all. Take it or leave it.’
‘I’ll pass, thanks.’
Liu hadn’t expected that, at least not so quickly. He’d expected Jimmy to try and deal himself closer in.
‘You sure?’
‘Don’t worry, if Brownlow is the good officer you say he is, then it’s what he would expect me to say. But I can see how he had to try.’
‘We could take you down to the station and do it that way.’
‘On what charge?’
‘Withholding information. Obstruction of the police.’
Now it was Jimmy’s turn to smile.
‘Forget it. I co-operated fully at the hotel and I came to you straight away when I had some ne
w information. As for this idea that there is some secret thing behind all of this, you’re the only one I’ve heard float that bright idea. You have nothing. Of course you could always fit me up. You do still occasionally fit people up over here? Or would that be thought too bad-mannered for such a friendly town?’
Jimmy waited. He’d gambled that Liu had been given some wiggle-room. The question was, how much?
‘What do you suggest?’
‘I suggest that if I knew anything, which I deny, and told you, that would be the last I’d see of you. It’s what I would have done when I was in the job and it’s what any copper worth spit would still do. Get all the info that’s on offer then kick the punter into the long grass. However, if what you mean is, can I suggest a way we could go on meeting, seeing as how both of us have taken such a liking to each other? If that was the case, then I might say, find out if Brinkmeyer was going to become a Catholic and was he interested in becoming a priest? The university Catholic chaplain would know.’
Liu pretended to think about it so Jimmy waited.
‘Is that it? Just find out if…’
‘I would also say talk to the two who were first at the scene of the suicide and question them properly.’ Jimmy leaned forward to make sure Liu got the full message. ‘You do know how to do a proper police interview on your own, don’t you, without your inspector holding your hand?’ Liu didn’t like it but he also knew there was nothing he could do about it so Jimmy stood up. ‘Go and tell your boss I don’t need you but I’m prepared to keep on talking to you if either of you turns up anything that might be of interest, and that means of interest to me, not Brownlow.’
‘He won’t buy it. Not as it stands. He’d need something more from you.’
‘Alright, here’s a taster and I’ll give it to you for free. Go and see a Mr Felton Crosby, he works for the Catholic diocese and has an office by the Cathedral. I’ve already talked to him. You could go and ask what we talked about. See you.’
Jimmy went out onto the street which was as busy as it had been inside the bar. What the hell were so many people finding to do out on the streets at this time of night? He decided to walk for a while and think, so he headed back towards the bright lights and traffic of the main road.
Crosby would give them the art angle but beyond that he was a dead end for them. The trouble was, all the other leads were dead ends as well, literally. This Lawrence woman was good. She must have the pictures in her sights and had closed down anything that looked like a threat to her getting them. Oh yes, she was good alright, and dangerous, dangerous as they get. But she wasn’t perfect. She’d let him live because she thought he didn’t represent any kind of risk to what she was up to, that he was out of it. But he wasn’t out of it and he still had New York. Lawrence had no reason to suppose news of a missing New York art dealer would get to Vancouver, any more than a hit-and-run victim in London would, that no-one would make the connections so no one should be looking. But the connections had been made and he was looking. If Lawrence’s previous form was anything to go by the art dealer was almost certainly dead, but if he’d shared his bed on a permanent basis then his bedfellow might know something. Please God don’t let him turn out to be a celibate bugger.
Jimmy smiled to himself at the unintended joke and felt better. For the first time in this whole mess, he began to feel that maybe he was ahead of Laura Lawrence. But feeling better only lasted until he came out into the harsh lights and traffic noise of the main street. He was ahead of her only if he was right and she’d crossed him off the list of people who mattered in her life.
If he was wrong and Lawrence was still watching him, then soon his name could be added to the body count.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jimmy hadn’t expected to be impressed by New York because, like everybody else, he had seen too many images of that great, restless city to think it could surprise or excite him. And he was right, New York in the flesh was not so very different to the New York of films and TV. The buildings were as high as he had expected, the canyon streets as busy with noisy traffic, the sidewalks as crowded, the cabs as yellow.
As for New Yorkers, they struck him as pretty much like big city dwellers everywhere, a bustling mass, hurrying, talking, getting, doing, and as meaningful to a stranger as a blank brick wall. No, he wasn’t impressed, surprised or excited. But he liked the place. It had something of its own, like London, Paris or Rome. It had a character, a style, a sense of what it was: different, unique.
Not that he spent any length of time taking in the sights or sampling the life. Before leaving Vancouver he had looked up Thurlow Somerset’s gallery on the internet: Somerset and Tollover Fine Art Dealers, West 24th Street, Manhattan, proprietors Thurlow G. Somerset and Franklyn Tollover. He didn’t care about the G, it had to be the Thurlow Somerset he was looking for.
Jimmy asked the cab driver to run him the length of West 24th Street. To Jimmy it was a strange mix and he found it hard to believe as the cab travelled along it that this was in the heart of one of the world’s busiest cities. Some blocks were dominated by high-rise apartments, but others were made up of large individual houses which stood in their own grounds. There were plenty of shops but nothing mass-market. The whole street was a curious blend, old and new, the brash and the subtle, functional and decorative. It had no real unity except one: all very expensive, and everybody who did business on this street, the salons, bars, restaurants, boutiques and galleries, all catered to money. Somerset and Tollover were top-end and high-class.
Jimmy paid off the cab a distance from Somerset’s gallery and walked. He wanted a final close-up view. There were several galleries on this stretch of West 24th Street, and they were all the same in that their frontages were understated in the way that serious money likes to be when it’s out there in the open, where the common herd can get close. When Jimmy arrived at Somerset and Tollover he found it didn’t encourage people to walk in and browse, it was a shy place not given to public display. The front window by the door wasn’t very big, and in it there were just two large oil paintings on stands, one a rural scene with lots of very green trees, a vivid blue sky with masses of billowy clouds, and small figures doing nothing in particular. The other picture was a jockey in silks and a long-peaked cap, looking out at you while holding the reins of a racehorse. Neither picture did anything for Jimmy except, with the help of some dark drapes behind them, block his or anyone else’s view of the interior. He went to the door.
To get into Somerset and Tollover you had to press a button, and a young girl with short, very black hair, pale skin and bright red lips looked at you from a desk near the door, where she was currently working hard reading a glossy magazine. If she liked the look of you she pressed a buzzer to let you in. Jimmy pressed the bell and Red Lips tore herself away from the magazine and looked at him. A voice came out near Jimmy’s shoulder.
‘Yes?’
‘I would like to come in.’
‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘No, no appointment. I’m passing through from Vancouver to London. I’m a friend of Thurlow’s.’
Red Lips looked doubtful, but Jimmy’s English accent carried the day - or maybe it was that he wasn’t wearing a balaclava and carrying a gun. She pressed her buzzer and the door clicked. Jimmy pushed it open. He went in and the door silently closed behind him and clicked shut.
Red Lips went back to her magazine, her duty as Guardian of the Door done, she had lost interest. Jimmy looked around. It was as he had expected, pictures on the walls, vases and statues on tables, wall hangings. An art gallery. It went back quite a way, but the lighting was dim so the far end of the gallery wasn’t easy to look into. That seemed odd to Jimmy, why the dim light? People came here to look at pictures, didn’t they? On the other hand he’d looked into the windows of the other galleries he’d passed and some of the offerings he’d seen would definitely, to his mind, benefit from dim light. With some of the stuff the dimmer the better.
&nb
sp; From the back recesses of the shop a woman came towards him. She stopped by the desk, gave him a look then looked down at Red Lips.
‘Who is this?’
The way she said it, it wasn’t so much a question as an accusation, but Red Lips shrugged her shoulders as if to say, ‘don’t ask me, he’s your problem now’.
‘Well?’
Red Lips made the supreme effort.
‘Says he’s a friend of Mr Somerset.’
And went back to her magazine.
The woman turned to Jimmy and erected a sort of wintry smile. When she spoke there was frost on her voice.
‘Can I help you?’
There was to be no ‘sir’ for Jimmy. Judgement had been passed.
Not that he cared. He didn’t like the look of her either. She was too old for what she was wearing, the skirt was too short and too tight, the cleavage too low and the colour of the dress too loud. She had on too much make-up and wore too much jewellery. Other than that she was OK. Jimmy could see she liked him as well.
‘I’m looking for Mr Somerset, Thurlow Somerset. I’m an old friend from Vancouver.’
The frost turned to ice.
‘He’s not here.’
She obviously couldn’t bring herself to believe people like Thurlow G. Somerset had friends like James C. Costello. She moved round him towards the door. If she was going to throw him out things would get awkward, but the way Jimmy felt about her, he didn’t mind awkward.
‘One moment, Cynthia.’ The woman stopped with her hand on the door handle. From some other part of the gallery a slim man in a lemon-coloured shirt, fawn slacks and tan loafers had appeared. He was, for his age, very good-looking. ‘Did you say you were a friend of Thurlow’s?’
‘Yes, from Vancouver.’
‘Vancouver? Then you must know his nephew, Lionel?’
‘No, sorry, no Lionel, no anybody, just Thurlow.’
Jimmy hadn’t hesitated in sweeping aside what the newcomer had obviously thought of as a clever trap, but his answer seemed to be the right one because good-looking turned his attention back to the Wicked Witch of the West who was still, in hope, holding the door handle.