“Missed me indeed.” He tried to laugh off her words. “I bet you haven’t thought about me once.”
“Of course I have.” She stopped walking to gaze up at him. “Haven’t you thought about me?”
“Now and then.” He gave her a smile, but he refused to go down that route. “So how did Prue get hold of a valuable painting?”
Wide-eyed, laughing and looking more relaxed now, she punched him on the arm. “Stop changing the subject.”
“Am I? Perhaps I am. But I’m curious. Where would anyone buy such a thing? Well, no, she couldn’t have bought it. She studied art and design though, didn’t she? It seems as if I’m the only person on the planet who hasn’t heard of Jack McIntyre so I bet she knew exactly what it was.”
“She couldn’t have. She would have sold it.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
They walked past the small lake and to the children’s play area. Maddie pushed a swing back and forth, a wistful expression on her face. He wondered if she wanted children. Perhaps she had a couple. She hadn’t mentioned any and none had attended Prue’s funeral, so he’d assumed she didn’t. He wasn’t going to ask. He wanted to keep things as impersonal as possible.
“I put the meter readings from Prue’s house in the mail to you,” he said, changing the subject yet again. “The landlord signed everything to say the property was in an acceptable condition.”
“Isn’t he a miserable git?”
“Perhaps he has a right to be. He was telling me how some tenants up sticks and leave with rent outstanding. One couple even took all the doors with them. Perhaps it gets you like that.”
“I only spoke to him on the phone and he gave me the creeps.”
Dylan had to admit that Windsor wasn’t the most amenable bloke he’d ever met. “It’s all done and dusted so you won’t have to speak to him again.”
“Thanks. I mean, thank you for dealing with him.”
“It was no problem and I wanted to meet him. Your sister had complained about him. You remember Danny Thompson? The chap with the ponytail who was at Prue’s funeral?”
“Got him. What about him?”
“He was telling me that Prue didn’t like her landlord. Apparently, he used to turn up at the house with no warning. She had to keep reminding him that things needed fixing and he never did anything about it.”
Maddie shuddered. “God knows how she stood living in that hovel.”
“It wasn’t so bad. The house next door is lovely.”
“Yes, but Prue’s wasn’t. It was cold, damp and dingy. The carpets were disgusting.”
He couldn’t argue with that. “Come on,” he said, nodding up at heavy black clouds. “Let’s get back before the storm hits.”
“Shall we have dinner together this evening?” Her tone was pleading.
“Sorry, I can’t. As I said, I’m heading back to London.” As she looked set to argue, he rushed on, “I have plans that I can’t get out of. Sorry. Some other time, okay?”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Dylan would have preferred to walk more quickly to the hotel but Maddie refused to be rushed. As she was hanging on his arm, he could hardly drag her along behind him. He wanted to be alone, to make sense of his thoughts.
Uppermost at this moment was that he could easily have dinner with Maddie and end up in bed with her. That was so unbelievable that his brain refused to do anything but mull it over and over. Bev wasn’t expecting him, Maddie was needy, and there was no reason why he couldn’t stay in Dawson’s Clough for one more night.
He pushed the thought away and tried to convince his brain to think about Prue and valuable paintings.
Prue’s owning a painting by Jack McIntyre didn’t make sense. It had been valued at a minimum of sixty grand. Minimum. If she’d sold it, she could have put down a deposit on a very nice house. She wouldn’t have needed to be beholden to her scumbag landlord. Of course, if she’d had no idea of its worth—
“What about lunch then?” Maddie asked.
“Sorry, I can’t.” He could, but he wasn’t going to. He didn’t trust his reactions to her. Besides, he wanted to be alone and put his thoughts in some sort of order. “I need to check out of my hotel and get moving. If only you’d called me, Maddie, I could have told you I was heading south.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I wanted a break so I’ll book myself in at the spa and treat myself to a couple of days of luxury.”
“Good idea.” They were almost back at the hotel. “How well did you and Prue get along?”
“Fine. Why?”
“Oh, I’m just curious. Thompson, the chap with the ponytail, didn’t think you were close. He was under the impression you didn’t get along too well.”
“That’s ridiculous.” She was irritated now whereas she had been looking more relaxed. “Just because we didn’t see much of each other, people assume we weren’t close. Why did she phone me, hmm? Why would she do that if we weren’t close?”
She let go of his arm and ran both hands through her hair. “We were just normal sisters, okay? We had the usual love/hate relationship. We were close but we didn’t live in each other’s pockets. She had her life and I had mine.”
Dylan nodded, surprised by her outburst. “I get the picture.”
They walked up the hotel’s driveway just as the first fat raindrops fell.
“Right, I’m out of here,” Dylan said. “Enjoy your time at the spa and I’ll call you as soon as I come up with anything.”
“Okay.” She slid her arms around his waist and leaned in close. “Next time, I won’t let you escape so easily. You’ve been warned, Dylan Scott.”
Next time, he might not try to escape...
Chapter Twelve
It was after six o’clock when Dylan finally walked into his house. And it was manic.
“I didn’t think you’d be back tonight,” Bev said. “Lucy’s coming round. We’re having a girly night in. I’ve got the wine and the ice cream—everything.”
“Pardon me for living here.” He was tempted by the idea of a boys’ night out, but he had work to do. “Why don’t you have a girly night out then? I’ll be chief babysitter.”
“I can’t, can I?” She looked in dismay at her jeans and tugged on her shirt. “Or perhaps I can. Yes, great idea. I’ve got enough time to change. Thanks, Dylan. I’ll phone her.”
Luke was supposed to have been enjoying a sleepover at Tom’s but Tom had the flu.
“Your dad’s here now,” Bev said in her jolly voice, “so you can ask Jamie if he wants to stay the night. Give him a call. Tell him your dad will pick him up.”
“Just hand me my chauffeur’s cap,” Dylan said, but no one heard him. Bev was racing around with a mascara wand in her hand and Luke was reaching for the phone to call Jamie.
Freya was sniffling and grumbling and, as everyone was having fun or about to have fun, and ignoring her, Dylan decided she was entitled to be moody. Grand plans were in place for her first birthday, but she wouldn’t know that.
This summed up family life, he supposed. Everyone wanted to be part of a unit, but they also craved their own space. It was give and take, with everyone having to fit in around everyone else. Dylan knew he should be grateful that his family were well, happy and busy, but he couldn’t help wishing he had a more exciting way to spend an evening than chauffeuring kids around and babysitting.
That persistent nagging inner voice reminded him again that he was forty years old. Hot sex in blue bedrooms with big smiley faces watching on was for kids, not forty-year-olds.
It was nine o’clock before he managed to pour himself a drink and switch on his computer. Freya was asleep, Luke and Jamie were upstairs making enough noise for fifty kids, and Bev was out getting drunk with Lucy. He had peace of sorts.
He forgot blue bedrooms and smiley faces, tried to forget the hot sex, and threw himself into finding out all he could about the artist Jack McIntyre. He was surprised by how m
uch information was available.
His art was a mix of landscapes and portraits. Experimental, the experts called it. Crap, Dylan called it.
No, he was being unfair. It was okay. At least it was easy to see what it was supposed to be. It simply wasn’t worth the money. Any of the art students at the local college could come up with something as good.
As Maddie had said, his paintings were large. Some were vast. He only found two mentions of miniatures. One was a story about two that McIntyre had given to a friend and that had later been auctioned. Few people, including the article’s author, knew much about his miniatures. The other story told how a miniature had sold at auction last month for a staggering eighty-two thousand pounds. If Dylan lived to be a hundred and forty, he would never understand how anyone could hand over so much cash for something so small and useless.
Most stories concerned McIntyre’s tragic death last November at the age of sixty-two. Until then, it seemed that, having stopped painting around five years earlier, McIntyre had been living the life of a beach bum, albeit a very wealthy beach bum. Home had been a tiny cottage on the French coast.
One journalist had managed a rare interview with McIntyre and had asked why he’d stopped painting. McIntyre had claimed that his muse had abandoned him. Why did artists always have to trot out crap like that? Blame it on the muse. Everyone else had to drag themselves out of bed and do a day’s work but artists, the wealthy ones at least, could pound their foreheads, sit around doing nothing all day and blame an uncooperative muse. It was complete bollocks.
On the day of the tragedy, McIntyre’s agent, Jeremy Collins, paid him a visit, presumably to persuade McIntyre to pick up a brush again. A painter not painting must be any agent’s worst nightmare. Whether Collins was successful on this occasion would never be known because they took McIntyre’s boat out and neither lived to tell the tale.
Other stories about McIntyre centred on his art, and especially how the value of his work had increased after his death.
Most images showed a smiling, confident man. McIntyre looked relaxed and at ease as he mingled with guests at one or another of his exhibitions. In many photos, he was holding a glass of wine or champagne. He stood beside huge canvases, smiling for the camera and probably laughing all the way to his Swiss bank account. There were no pictures of miniatures.
Dylan wished he had a couple of those large paintings to sell.
McIntyre and his wife had lived apart for years, and there were rumours that they’d been seeking a divorce. Dylan would bet that Mrs. McIntyre was relieved she hadn’t gone down that route as his last will and testament must have made interesting reading.
McIntyre had come from a privileged background so money had probably meant very little to him. He’d been used to it all his life. Education had been at an exclusive boarding school, so exclusive that Dylan had never heard of it, followed by a couple of years at Cambridge studying the classics. He never actually graduated because he dropped out, deciding he’d like to concentrate on his art instead. Nice if you could afford it.
Dylan’s research was interrupted by the banging of the front door as it opened and closed. He glanced at his watch and was surprised to find that it was almost midnight. He was surprised, too, that Luke and Jamie had finally stopped making a racket.
He closed his laptop and went to investigate.
Bev was kneeling on the floor, gathering up the contents of her handbag.
“I dropped it,” she said unnecessarily.
“So I see. Did you have a good night?” Dylan bent down and picked up three hairbrushes, two small mirrors, enough paracetamol to see an elephant through an amputation, cinema ticket stubs and loose change.
“The best. We had a lot of laughs. Although we might have had a bit too much to drink.”
There was no might about it.
“What about you?” she asked. “Everything all right here? Are my babies okay?”
God, save me from drunken women. “Yes. Everything’s fine.”
Clutching her full bag, she stood, looked around her, swayed alarmingly and gave him a smile. “I think I’d better go on up to bed.”
“Good idea, sweetheart. I’ll be up myself in a couple of minutes.” Not that she’d know anything about it.
She swayed toward him and he gave her a quick kiss.
Once she was safely up the stairs, he went to the kitchen, poured himself another drink and switched on his laptop again.
Prue Murphy had lived in France until last November. Jack McIntyre had lived in France until last November. Coincidence?
Prue couldn’t have bought that miniature, she wasn’t the type to steal anything, and it was highly unlikely that she’d found it on a dusty shelf in a charity shop. The only other option was that it had been a gift.
Maybe she’d had a rich lover. Prue had been a fan of art, and a gift like that would have won her heart forever. Dylan hadn’t known her, but he’d guess she’d been too sentimental to sell a gift, even such an extravagant one. It seemed unlikely that Maddie wouldn’t have known of any wealthy boyfriends though. The sisters hadn’t been close, at least they hadn’t seen much of each other, but rich friends would surely have cropped up in conversation.
Maybe a friend of McIntyre’s had given it to her? She’d lived in France, McIntyre had presumably had friends there. It was possible, Dylan supposed, but it seemed such an odd and extravagant choice of gift.
Perhaps the artist himself had given it to Prue. How could they have met though? A wealthy artist like McIntyre was unlikely to frequent the same sort of places as a girl who waited on tables. The age difference was huge, too, making a meeting between the two even more unlikely. People in their thirties simply didn’t go to the same places as sixty-year-olds.
Perhaps, after all, Prue had taken a liking to the miniature at a car boot sale or an Oxfam shop.
If John Marshall hadn’t arrived to take away Prue’s few items of furniture, Maddie could easily have thrown that miniature in a box destined for a charity shop. Most secondhand furniture dealers wouldn’t know a McIntyre from a Rembrandt. Maybe the painting’s previous owner, not knowing its value, had thrown it in a box for Oxfam too. Staff at the charity shop could have slapped a sticker on it and Prue might have handed over two pounds for it. That seemed a far more likely scenario.
Yet Prue had lived in France until November. McIntyre had lived in France until November. Admittedly, McIntyre had had little choice in the matter of leaving France.
Dylan would chat to a few people who’d known the artist. His wife would be easy enough to find. There wasn’t a great deal of information about McIntyre’s agent—or gallerist, as he was referred to—but his son, Martin Collins, still had the business. Dylan had probably walked past his London gallery many times without knowing it.
He switched off the laptop and leaned back with his eyes closed. It was odd. Bloody odd. Prue had lived in France until November. McIntyre had lived in France until November. Was that significant?
Probably not, because McIntyre would probably still be living there now if he hadn’t drowned.
Chapter Thirteen
Darren nudged Kevin’s arm. “Don’t look now, but she’s heading this way.”
Kevin tugged at his school tie to loosen it. Carly Trueman had sought him out for the second time this week. It had to be him and not Darren she was after, because he’d been on his own on Monday when she’d run to catch him up.
Carly was gorgeous. Some kids teased her for being fat, but she wasn’t. She was more curvy than the other girls, that was all. She had a big smile and an even bigger attitude.
He threw back his shoulders and walked taller. No way was he going to let on he’d noticed her, but he knew she was almost by his side.
Then she was there, her heavy schoolbag knocking against his hip.
“Hiya,” he said, trying to look surprised.
“Hiya.” She fell into step with them as they walked down the school’s drive and out of th
e gates.
“I’m off,” Darren said with a wink for Kevin. “Here’s my dad and we’re going straight to the football. See you tomorrow, Kev. See you, Carly.”
“See you,” Kevin said, feeling awkward now that he was alone with Carly.
“Are you walking home?” she asked him.
“Yeah. You?”
“Yeah. You coming my way, then?”
“Can do.” It was half a mile out of his way, but it didn’t matter. There was nothing worth rushing home for.
He could feel his ears burning scarlet with a mix of embarrassment and pride. He wished he could think of something to say to her, but she made him feel tongue-tied. It had been just the same on Monday afternoon.
According to school gossip, she’d just broken up with Lennon, who was by far the coolest kid in school. Lennon claimed he’d shagged her, and Kevin didn’t know whether to believe that or not. She was only fifteen so he preferred to think that Lennon had lied.
“How are things at home?” she asked.
“Okay.” He shrugged. “The same as ever.”
“Your dad still not working?”
“Only at gambling and supping beer.”
“It’s a shame, isn’t it?” she said. “I like your dad. When he was doing the taxiing, Mum always asked for him when we had to go to the hospital. She said he was reliable, friendly and helpful. And he was. I hated going to that place, but your dad always used to cheer me up. He was a good laugh.”
Kevin couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard someone say a kind word about his dad, and he felt something inside him thaw a little. Before his dad had lost his licence, and long before he decided to spend most of his life alternating between pub and bookies, he had been kind and helpful. He’d made Kevin laugh too.
Dying Art (A Dylan Scott Mystery) Page 9