Soft Summer Blood

by Peter Helton

  ‘A week ago you wanted me to move in with you; now that you’re buying the flat, you didn’t even think to mention it.’

  ‘I just did.’

  ‘After you’ve already made an offer on it.’

  ‘You didn’t answer any of my texts, remember?’

  ‘I’d have answered them if they’d been about the flat. I can tell you one thing: I’m not setting foot in the place until you have central heating fitted.’

  ‘It’s seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit out there, even though it’s’ – he checked his watch – ‘half past nine in the evening. What do you want heating for?’

  ‘Yeah, like that’s going to last. Half past nine? It’s Sherlock!’

  ‘What?’

  She fetched the remote from the coffee table and pointed it at the prominently positioned TV set. ‘It’s a Sherlock Holmes series but it’s done tongue-in-cheek and quite funny. You’ll like it. And you never know,’ she said, settling into her corner of the sofa with her glass of wine, ‘you might pick up some tips.’

  McLusky found it hard to keep his eyes open. He had had an afternoon of interviews, phone calls, report writing and a case conference, after which he had found more forms to fill in on his desk. Sherlock Holmes, it appeared, never had to deal with those. And if he felt that everything was getting him down, he simply took some cocaine and got his violin out. McLusky was just glad it wasn’t a Miss Marple movie and dozed through most of it.

  Eventually, he drifted off into a dream where DS Austin, sunbathing fully clothed next to a naked Jennifer Longmaid, was using Sherlock’s voice from the soundtrack to tell him: ‘And where is the best place to hide a letter, Watson? Why, in a letter rack, of course!’ McLusky started awake to see the credits rolling on the screen and hear Laura calling from the kitchen, ‘We haven’t had our dessert yet; do you fancy it now?’

  McLusky grabbed his jacket and made for the front door. In a bloody letter rack. He stuck his head in at the kitchen. ‘Sorry, hon, got to go. Loved the meal. I’ll call you.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ She waited for the front door to close then ripped the lid off the family-sized tub of tiramisu and, armed with a tablespoon, returned to her corner on the sofa just as the next programme started.

  McLusky drove with the windows open through the sticky, humid night. The town centre was full of young people in summer clothes, girls in shorts and skimpy dresses, young men without their tops, showing off tattoos and sunburn, moving noisily between drinking venues around the harbour area. McLusky saw them and saw through them as he drove south out of the city.

  Once again, he parked out of earshot of Woodlea House, just as the killer might have done. After the brightness of the car’s headlights, the countryside felt very dark. Heavy rain clouds had crawled across the sky all evening and not a single star lit his way down the lane. He used his mobile phone for illumination, but having little charge left on it, he used it intermittently, like a giant firefly. He flicked the light off when he came to the tall wrought-iron gate. There were lights showing at the house and silhouetted against the ground-floor windows he could make out David Mendenhall’s BMW. He saw no movement. He stood for an hour, staring at the house in the cricket-chirping darkness, before walking back to his car and driving out to Chew Valley.

  He left his car in front of the gate of Bybrook View. He was carrying the keys to the house but the gate had been secured with a D-lock by the Chew Valley police. He climbed the wall and let himself drop into the courtyard. The smell of the burnt-out car and garage was still strong as he crossed to the house. At the front door he pulled down some of the Crime Scene Do Not Enter tape that warned unauthorized persons to stay out, found the right key and let himself in. The main fuse had been tripped. He restored electricity to the property by throwing the main switch in a cubbyhole in the utility room, then flicked on the lights in the kitchen. A quick search produced a long-handled coffee pot, cup, coffee and sugar, and, remembering with bitter clarity how Poulimenos had done it, he brewed Greek coffee on the camping stove in the dead man’s kitchen. He poured it carefully into the little cup and carried it on its saucer to the sitting room, flicking on lights as he went. In the sitting room, the aroma of his coffee competed with the chemical smells of reagents and other chemicals used by the forensics technicians. McLusky was not sure whether the smells were really there or whether they were just a memory. He brought the little cup to his lips, took a sip of its sweet froth and the smells disappeared and did not return. He stood very still.

  Leonidas Poulimenos was sitting on the sofa under the pale patch left by the missing Bomberg painting. He was smoking, sharing a bottle of wine with his visitor. One by one McLusky conjured them into the armchair opposite: Elaine Poulimenos – having left him for a younger man, she had come back carrying a gun to make sure she would inherit her husband’s wealth; Jennifer Longmaid – having killed her own husband, she thought she would make sure her friend Elaine stayed rich by shooting Leonidas; Ben Kahn – dripping wet from the sea, come back to avenge himself; his son Elliot – covered in paint spatters, come to avenge his father’s death; and finally David Mendenhall – holding a thirty-eight and a petrol can. David had a sound alibi for the time of the torching of Rosslyn Crag: he had been watching a football game at a pub near his home. The petrol can disappeared from David’s hand. McLusky drained his cup too far and ended up with a mouthful of coffee grounds. He washed up in the kitchen and dried and returned the cup to its rightful place.

  The presence of his car at the gate had triggered the outside lights, illuminating the courtyard and part of the garden. McLusky locked the front door and turned his attention to the studio. It pained him to see so many of the paintings damaged. He had almost liked the man. It was clear that the disappearance of Ben Kahn on that sunny Cornish day had blighted his life, but had it also brought about his death? McLusky stared into the office at the back of the studio. Many of the articles had been taken away for forensic examination, but the framed Nazi flag remained on the wall. What had been taken from the display case by the intruder? Had it been valuable? There were many valuable things at the house that had remained untouched. Had the killing been about that object and been unconnected with the other deaths after all? McLusky dismissed it and turned away. The best place to hide a sodding letter.

  When he stepped outside, rain began to fall and a cool wind drove it across the lake at him. He climbed out of the place and returned to his car. As he drove off, the security light turned itself off and Bybrook View fell into sepulchral darkness in his mirrors. Just over half an hour later he let his car crawl slowly past Stanmore House. Jennifer Longmaid’s little sports car stood in the rain with the roof down. There was no light showing at the house. McLusky drove back to Bristol with his headlights on full beam and a squeaking windscreen wiper, occasionally swearing out loud at the night. ‘Bloody Sherlock! Bloody Sherlock bleedin’ Holmes!’

  Having found that none of the available ingredients in his house amounted to the kind of breakfast he felt he deserved, McLusky made sure he was the first customer through the door at the Bristolian in Picton Street. He ordered English breakfast and took a cup of black coffee with him to one of the tables outside. Every sip produced a small rebellion in his stomach but he persevered. When the waitress put his breakfast in front of him with a flourish, he was no longer sure he could eat it: eggs, bacon, a sausage, beans, black pudding, tomatoes and fried potatoes, arranged around a dollop of spinach leaves. McLusky eyed spinach at breakfast with suspicion and warily began to work his way through the cholesterol feast that surrounded it.

  There are two kinds of drivers who can afford to park their cars on double yellow lines: police officers and the rich. McLusky did not register the blue Rolls Royce Silver Shadow that had crept up on the bumper of his car until Roy Hotchkiss left the driver’s seat and walked towards him. He was wearing a dark suit, black T-shirt and very shiny black shoes. Hotchkiss inserted himself into the bench opposite McLusky. ‘Yes, I do hear
the canteen food at Albany Road isn’t up to much.’ McLusky speared a roundel of black pudding and stuffed it in his mouth. ‘Fortifying yourself before another round of wrangling with red tape and the complexities of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act? Can’t say I blame you.’

  ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘Didn’t. I was driving past and saw your motor. Came round for another look and there you were, stuffing your face.’

  ‘What do you want?’ McLusky said through a mouth full of beans.

  ‘Want? Me? Nothing. It was you who wanted something, remember? You’re not eating your greens. You must eat your greens, Inspector.’

  ‘Not for breakfast.’

  ‘Then I’m having them; they’re cooked with sesame oil.’

  ‘You’ll have to wait until I’m finished.’

  Hotchkiss swiped the teaspoon from McLusky’s saucer and dug into the spinach leaves in the centre of the plate. ‘I’m not good at waiting; that’s one thing you should know about me.’

  ‘Attacking another man’s breakfast ought to be an arrestable offence.’

  Hotchkiss scraped around in the middle of the plate until the last bit of spinach had disappeared, flicked the spoon back on to the saucer and took a gold biro from an inside pocket of his jacket. He scrawled a name and address on to McLusky’s napkin. ‘Just an educated guess. And, naturally, at your own risk.’ Hotchkiss slid from the bench. ‘Stay healthy. It’s your annual fitness test soon.’

  McLusky watched as Hotchkiss walked to his car and drove off. He resented the man’s insinuations that he knew all about his affairs, from the state of the canteen breakfasts to his upcoming fitness test. He waited until the car had disappeared down the street before he turned the napkin around. He was not familiar with the name: Jamie Fife. It was a St Pauls address. He called Austin about it. ‘See if he’s known to us.’

  ‘How did you get the name?’

  ‘Never mind that. We’ll check him out later, when I get back.’

  ‘Is it allowed to ask where you’ll be this morning? In case Denkhaus is prowling around.’

  ‘If Denkhaus is asking, you’ve never heard of me, OK? I’m going out to Stanton Drew again to have another chat with Elliot Kahn. You know what sounds a lot more like a Beetle engine than a Porsche? An old VW camper van, which is what Elliot drives. Or it could have belonged to the girl he was painting.’

  ‘Do you want me to do a quick DVLA check?’ Austin offered.

  ‘Nah, I can ask him myself when I get there. Elliot has recently shown interest in the circumstances of his father’s death. He quizzed the skipper’s son about it. And when I was at his place, something seemed odd, though I couldn’t have said what it was. It’s been nagging at me.’

  Halfway to Stanton Drew, McLusky’s stomach began to rebel. A sharp pain developed under his solar plexus and it came and went even while he bumped along the unmade track to the house. Why on earth had he opted for the giant plate of fried food when his usual breakfast consisted of toast and marmalade or a Danish pastry from Rossi’s? It was frustration with the investigation, he decided, rather than greed, that made him eat, drink and smoke like this, just when his AFT was coming up. He wondered how Hotchkiss knew that his annual fitness test was due? Who was feeding him gossip from inside Albany Road station?

  He had made no appointment to see Kahn. If possible, he liked to turn up out of the blue when quizzing suspects, since their reaction to the intrusion could be telling: unreasonable anger and complaining often hid a guilty conscience, but over-friendly eagerness to cooperate was also sometimes employed. Often criminals believed that most police officers were a bit thick and could therefore be deceived; in McLusky’s experience the ratio of thick to bright in the police force broadly matched that of the general population.

  The orange camper van was parked in front of the house and there was again loud music, only this time it was pop, not classical music that was playing. The loud music and open door meant that he was able to surprise Kahn in his kitchen; he was on his knees using a large chef’s knife to attack the ice that completely encased the door to the freezer compartment in his fridge. ‘The damn thing is frozen shut,’ Kahn said as casually as though McLusky was a neighbour who had just wandered through the door. ‘I suddenly had the idea that there might be a pack of lamb chops inside it and I thought I’d test that theory.’ He resumed his stabbing and scraping. All around him on the floor, shards of ice were quickly melting into puddles. ‘You’ve not found the killer yet?’

  ‘You’re aware that now all three of your father’s painter friends have been shot dead?’

  ‘Yes, very. Are you suggesting this painter could be next or do you have some notion it might have been me?’ McLusky asked him where he had been on the night in question. ‘I was here. All night. You can ask Berti.’

  ‘Your model? Presumably more than just a model, then.’

  ‘Much more. She is a lover first, model second.’

  ‘Then your alibi would not carry much weight in the eyes of the court.’

  ‘The court? What court?’

  McLusky shrugged his shoulders as though it didn’t matter. ‘Your camper van – use it much?’

  ‘As little as possible. It’s a thirsty old thing and I prefer to spend my money on my own thirst. I have an electric bicycle for most journeys. Why? Do camper vans come into it somehow?’

  ‘Just an engine noise. Probably from a Beetle.’

  ‘Ah, yes, same stupid engine.’ A large piece of ice broke loose. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’ He lobbed the frozen lump into the empty sink where it shattered.

  ‘What happened to your father’s paintings after his death?’

  ‘I have quite a few of them. My aunt kept some, but a few of them were lost. I inherited most of my father’s things. Still have a whole trunk of them.’ He pointed towards the ceiling with the knife. ‘Can’t bring myself to throw them out, even though I never look at them.’

  ‘Would it be possible for me to have a look through them?’

  Kahn worked on for a moment before answering. ‘What are you hoping to find? Yeah, OK, just let me do this; I’m nearly there.’ He managed to prise open the door to the narrow compartment and hacked at the insides for a bit before inserting his hands into the icy cavern and freeing a battered carton. ‘Ah. Not lamb chops. Economy fish fingers. Best before … today! They must have been calling to me.’

  McLusky followed Kahn up a narrow wooden staircase to the upper floor and a room at the end of the corridor. It had once been a small bedroom; now, besides a wardrobe and an old dressing table, it housed mainly paintings – a lot of them, all turned to the wall – boxes of books and sketchbooks. There was a school trunk which Kahn freed of the boxes that stood on top. He swung open the lid and stared morosely into it. ‘Look at it. If it wasn’t for his paintings, that would be all that’s left of him. There’s not much to a life, is there?’ The trunk was filled with an assortment of objects: an alarm clock, a stack of LPs, shoeboxes, a few books, an old SLR camera, bundles of oil painting brushes, boxes of charcoal, tins of pencils. The music now thumped under their feet, muffled by distance.

  ‘Many of us feel like that when loved ones are gone. Most people’s possessions can be bundled up in a day or so. But it is the more intangible things they leave behind that really matter.’

  ‘Yes.’ Kahn sighed as though he had been told this a million times and was tired of it.

  ‘These are your father’s brushes and things? You being a painter as well, I’d have thought you would use them. Carrying on the tradition.’

  There were two bundles, a large one consisting of two dozen or so brushes of all sizes, and a smaller one. Both bundles were tied together with string. Kahn bent down and picked them up, one in each hand. Downstairs, the music stopped abruptly. ‘I’m a bit superstitious about that sort of thing. Very superstitious, if I’m honest.’ He lifted them up and scrutinized them, held the hog-hair bristles to his nose and sniffe
d. ‘Still smell of turps.’ He turned the smaller bundle round and round, held it up to the light coming through the narrow window. ‘These are the brushes he used on the boat the day he disappeared. I’d be scared to paint with them.’ He let them fall back into the trunk. ‘I’m quite superstitious about my own painting too. I don’t know where it comes from; it just happens.’

  ‘Surely it comes from your father. You inherited his artistic talent.’

  ‘Oh, that – yes, probably.’ He stuffed the larger bundle under his arm. ‘But that leaves inspiration. Being able to draw and paint – you can learn all that, pick it up. The inspiration that fires it up into a work of art on the canvas rather than some well-painted cliché is the difference. Not many have it. I know I do have it. But I’m scared to interfere with it by scrutinizing it, analyzing it, naming it. It’s like that fairy tale of the poor shoemaker and the elves. You know the one: he only has leather for one pair of shoes left. Overnight, elves come and turn them into exquisite shoes which he sells for a lot of money. He buys more leather and next day there are more shoes. All wonderfully made. And so on. Then one night he and his wife decide to spy on whoever makes them. But the elves notice them and never come back.’

  ‘And you think your inspiration is a bunch of elves that could let you down.’

  ‘Yes, like Cornish piskies. They could disappear like my father did.’

  ‘And yet you went to Port Isaac and asked the skipper’s son about that day.’

  Downstairs, the music started up again, at a lesser volume. It was a classical piece this time. Kahn smiled briefly, looking at his shoes, then up at McLusky. He wasn’t sure whether the question or the change of musical genre had prompted the smile, but it was short-lived. ‘You know about that, do you? That’s impressive. Berti and I were down in Cornwall for a few days. It was Berti’s idea to find Tigur. She thought it was important to know the truth. But it was a mistake. We only found the son and he didn’t really know anything. I don’t want to poke around in it any further; it makes me feel anxious. For myself and for my work.’