Blood in Grandpont

by Peter Tickler

  ‘That’s a bit of a loaded way to put it.’ Lawson didn’t like her ideas been abandoned quite so obviously. ‘To say that she couldn’t be bothered.’

  ‘I know, Lawson. But the bottom line is we have to make some judgements. Anyway, let’s put Fox and Wilson on the spot. What do you two think of the scenario Lawson has proposed. Probable, possible, or unlikely?’

  ‘Possible,’ Fox snapped back. ‘But on the unlikely side.’

  ‘I agree,’ Wilson chimed. ‘I wouldn’t want to put too much weight on it.’

  ‘So Wilson, suggest an alternative scenario.’

  The young man shifted in his chair. He didn’t like being the centre of attention, but he had had more warning of Holden’s thinking than the others, and he knew the answer because she and he had already discussed it. He spoke softly. ‘Perhaps, when she was rung, she didn’t have the phone with her.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Holden leant back in her chair, and sipped slowly at her coffee. She felt elated. She wasn’t sure when the idea had first formulated in her brain, but she felt sure the seed must have been sown when she almost missed the call from Karen that morning. At any rate the idea had materialized by the time she’d pulled into the station car park, so she had been able to slip it into her briefing of Wilson. And now it was out there in the ring, fighting its corner.

  She put the cup down, and looked around. ‘Well? It is the obvious answer. Maria didn’t answer the call because she never knew it had been made. We can’t prove it, but let’s run with it as an idea. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Lawson nodded, though there was reluctance in her voice. ‘So the next question would be where was the phone when Geraldine rang, and how come you found it in her coat pocket in St Clement’s car park?’

  ‘I agree. But let’s look at it from a different perspective, with a long lens and not a microscope. What, from the point of view of the investigation, is the importance of Maria’s mobile phone.’

  Lawson, typically, jumped in again. ‘The photo of Jack Smith. It put us on to his affair with Maria Tull.’

  ‘To call it an affair may be an exaggeration,’ Holden said, remembering what Geraldine had said about Maria’s attitude to sex. ‘He claimed it was only a one-off, and I’m inclined to believe him. She wanted to get her hands on the painting, so she did what she felt she had to do to achieve that, and she took a photo to make sure he cooperated.’

  ‘There was a photo on Jack Smith’s mobile too.’ Three pairs of eyes turned towards Wilson. ‘Of a painting that had passed into Dominic Russell’s hands.’

  ‘And now Dominic Russell’s brains have been blown out.’

  ‘With the painting which Jack Smith handed over to Maria lying by his dead body.’

  ‘Slashed with a knife, the same knife that killed Maria and Jack.’

  ‘Whoa! Just a minute.’ Holden raised her hands to emphasize her words. Her team were in danger of careering out of control. ‘First of all, there is no certainty that the knife that damaged the painting is the weapon that killed Maria and Jack. We need to wait for Dr Pointer to confirm that. And second, you’re jumping forward mighty fast. Maria’s phone had a picture on it that pointed to Jack Smith. He is murdered and his mobile had a picture that pointed to Dominic Russell. Then Dominic is murdered or commits suicide, only there’s no mobile, but there is a painting with him that we know Maria and Jack took possession of. So question one is: are these two mobile phone pictures part of the same pattern or are they coincidence?’

  There was a silence. Holden’s desk phone rang, but she ignored it. ‘Well?’

  Lawson volunteered again. ‘I doubt it’s a coincidence.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘They’re clues. Deliberately left by the killer.’ Lawson’s words were emphatic. ‘Maybe to taunt us, maybe to lead us off the track.’

  ‘So to go back to my earlier question, how come Maria didn’t answer the mobile, yet we found it in her pocket in the car park?’

  ‘It was planted,’ Fox interrupted. He had just caught up. ‘By the killer.’

  ‘Quite. So where was Maria’s phone when she rang? The answer is: in the hands of the killer, who naturally didn’t want to answer it when it rang.’

  ‘But if someone had stolen it and Maria had noticed, she’d have reported in stolen.’

  Holden turned towards Wilson, who had now become the expert on Maria’s mobile phone. ‘Well? Was it reported Wilson?’

  ‘No, Guv, it wasn’t.’

  She turned back towards the others, but her gaze settled on Lawson. ‘How long would it take you to notice if your mobile was missing, Lawson?’

  The features of her face tightened on concentration. ‘It depends. A few hours at most, I’d say. Unless I’m really busy, and then I might not get time to check it. But normally, I’d maybe check it at lunchtime, and as soon as I get home, so I’d notice then if I couldn’t find it.’

  ‘So let’s assume the killer took Maria’s mobile off her sometime on the day of her death, either in the afternoon or early evening.’

  ‘Damn!’ Wilson, who had been scrabbling through the file of papers on his lap, swore as they suddenly slipped from his grasp and descended in a shower on to the floor. ‘Sorry!’ he said, the compulsive apology springing to his lips. Down on his knees he grabbed one piece out of the pile, and held it aloft. ‘I was just checking. Maria’s last call out on her phone was 13.35 that day. To Dominic Russell. So she had the mobile then for sure.’

  ‘Not absolutely for sure.’ It was Lawson again. ‘Wilson is probably right, and I’m not saying he isn’t—’

  ‘Get to the point, for God’s sake.’ Holden had had enough of ifs and maybes and buts. They had to make assumptions somewhere along the line.

  Lawson lifted her hands, palms upwards, as if in supplication. ‘It’s just that there’s no certainty that the killer didn’t make that call.’

  Fox, conscious he was in danger of being sidelined, broke in. ‘Well, we can’t ask Dominic, can we!’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant.’ Holden’s reply was heavy with sarcasm. She sank her head in her hands and tried to think. Don’t panic, don’t let it overwhelm you! She could hear her heart pounding, reverberating between her hands and her temples. Faster than it should be. Don’t let me be overwhelmed, she pleaded, getting as close to prayer as she ever did. Please don’t!

  She raised her head, and spoke. ‘The people who most obviously had access to her mobile are her family. Namely Alan Tull, Lucy Tull, and Joseph Tull. Any one could have pocketed it in the house. None of them has a watertight alibi. So we could start with them, but we also need to find out what she did and who she saw that afternoon. Did she have any work appointments? If she rang Dominic Russell at lunchtime, maybe it was because she wanted to see him in the afternoon? Did she go to the dentist or the hairdresser, or to the Ashmolean for a last-minute piece of research on the art of Venice? Did anyone visit her at home that afternoon and pocket her mobile then? Otherwise, we’re looking at the Tulls.’

  She scanned the faces of her three colleagues. Wilson and Lawson shone with excitement, with the sense that they had made a breakthrough and the hunt was truly on. Even Fox had jettisoned his natural look of surly diffidence, and when her stare remained focused on him, he took the hint and responded: ‘So we’re going to interview them again?’

  ‘Yes and no. I don’t want to alert them. I’ll give Dr Tull a ring and suggest I need to chat, make it sound more an update on the case than an interview. I can ask him what his wife did on that day easily enough. I can ask if she kept a diary or wrote appointments on a calendar? We play it as casually as we can. But I want us to turn up there with a search warrant in our proverbial back pocket. Because the bottom line is we need to check computers, hand-held devices, pen drives, mobiles, whatever they’ve got, for the photo of Jack Smith and the painting we found on Jack Smith’s mobile, not to mention anything to do with Maria. So if the good doctor objects, out comes the warrant. Any other questions?’
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br />   ‘Yes,’ Lawson said hurriedly. ‘What about the Judas painting?’

  ‘Ah, good point,’ Holden said. ‘Thank you for reminding me.’ She turned towards Fox and Wilson. ‘I assume you’re up to date on this?’

  They nodded.

  ‘Any thoughts? It just that Lawson and I had a long chat yesterday and. …’ She faded to a halt. Her right hand, Lawson noticed, was pulling at her collar again. ‘Come on, Wilson. Any ideas?’ It was unfair, she knew. If she was going to apply pressure, apply it to Fox. Hell, he was much more experienced.

  ‘Maria got it off Jack Smith because she thought she could make money on it.’ Wilson had clearly been thinking about it a lot, for he spoke carefully, as if he was recalling lines he had just learnt for a school play, but without having the confidence to apply any variation in tone or emphasis to them. ‘She gave it to Dominic because she thought he could help her get the best price. The killer murders her, then Jack Smith, and then arranges to meet Dominic. Dominic realizes too late that the person he is meeting is the killer, and damages the painting to make it worthless and save his own life. But the killer shoots him because he knows too much.’

  ‘Impressive, Wilson,’ Holden said. ‘And possible. However,’ she continued, taking great care in how she phrased her misgivings, ‘I do wonder if someone would have killed three people for a painting that might fetch at best ten thousand pounds.’

  ‘Why not?’ Fox countered with sudden force. ‘If you need the money enough, why the hell not?’ And he slurped noisily from his cup, as if the matter was well and truly settled.

  ‘Why does it have to come down to money?’ The question – or perhaps it was a challenge – came from Lawson.

  Fox laughed dismissively. ‘Money or sex. It’s nearly always money or sex.’ And he laughed again, ridiculing the young woman’s idea.

  ‘Constable Lawson.’ Holden deliberately looked directly at her protégé, ignoring Fox totally. ‘Perhaps you can explain your thinking. Sergeant Fox doesn’t have a monopoly on good ideas, at least not in this office.’

  Lawson began slowly, feeling her way. ‘Maybe what we should be focusing on is the painting’s subject. It may not be of great artistic merit, but it is very unusual. Mary the mother of Jesus going round to visit the mother of Judas after he has betrayed her son. Now if that had been the work of an even moderately well-known painter, it might have been hugely valuable to someone. But even though it’s by an unknown artist, who’s to say that there aren’t people out there who might want it very much, so much so in fact that they’d pay over the odds despite its technical limitations?’

  ‘Ah!’ Fox jumped in again, apparently unaffected by his superior’s rebuke. ‘So it is all about money.’

  ‘Shut up, Sergeant.’ This time she looked at him, and the acid in her voice and the thunder on her face finally caused his smirk to fade.

  Lawson plunged on. ‘I don’t mean they would necessarily want to hang it on their walls. Maybe just the opposite. Maybe they’d want to destroy it because it contradicts the Bible. Do you know how Judas is described in St John’s Gospel?’ She paused, and realized that she’d got the attention of all of them, even the dismissive Fox. ‘“Satan entered into him.” That’s what St John wrote. The same John who sat at the table with Jesus and Judas at the last supper. “Satan entered into him”.’

  ‘So what the hell does that prove?’ Fox interrupted.

  Lawson looked unflinchingly into his eyes. ‘There was an artist who created twelve stained-glass windows of Jesus’ disciples for a church in Dorset. He insisted on including Judas along with all the others. I’m not sure exactly what his point was, maybe to underline the fact that they all betrayed their Lord, and not just Judas, but the parishioners refused to allow Judas’s image into their church. My point, Sarge, is that Judas is, and always has been, a controversial figure. Maybe Maria and Dominic realized that, and reckoned it might be worth a lot more than it deserved on artistic merit alone.’

  Fox grunted cheerfully. ‘So when push comes to shove, it is about money.’

  ‘For Maria and Dominic, maybe,’ Lawson conceded. ‘But. …’ She paused, determined to ensure she had all their attention for what she was about to say. ‘For the killer, maybe the money was irrelevant. Maybe it was all about getting hold of and destroying a painting he or she saw as blasphemous.’

  CHAPTER 10

  They had to park some distance beyond the Tulls’ house and walk back. Even at this time of day, when those who work are at work and the decreasing band of ladies who lunch are still prolonging their outings with a drawn-out coffee, there were few available parking spaces. The sky above was a uniform grey – cloud as opposed to clouds – a blanket of dampness that offered no hope of relief. Holden put her hand up to see if she could feel any actual rain, then touched her cheek. She grinned to herself, recognizing a behaviour left over from childhood. Please let it not rain today.

  Dr Alan Tull opened the door. The smile of greeting on his face evaporated as soon as he saw them. ‘Gosh, you have come in numbers.’

  ‘We’ll be quicker that way.’ Holden tried to sound matter of fact, and upbeat. She didn’t want to alarm him. ‘Anyway, may we come in?’ Tull was still standing in the doorway, and had been showing no sign of allowing them over the threshold.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. Even under stress, he was courteous. ‘I do apologize. Come in.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Holden led the four of them in. She felt bad. When she had rung him to arrange their visit, she’d made out that what she was proposing was merely a chat and a clarification of a few details, only one step up from a social visit to see how he was holding up. Now his decency and acceptance of the circumstances made her feel deceitful and cheap. He didn’t deserve it. Unless, a little voice whispered in the back of her brain, unless he had killed his wife and her lover, and indeed her ex-lover if that is what Dominic Russell had been.

  Holden tried to make it as non-threatening as possible. In fact, as they drove over the four of them had discussed where they should sit. When Alan Tull gestured towards the sofa, Holden moved towards it, and Fox joined her. Tull seated himself in an armchair opposite them, while Lawson and Wilson sat to the side, at a distance, in his eye-line if he chose to glance at them. ‘Whatever you do, don’t just hover,’ Holden had insisted. ‘It’ll spook him.’

  Alan Tull leant forward, his interlocked hands twisting slightly as he spoke. ‘So, have you made progress? I take it you haven’t arrested anyone yet.’

  She nodded encouragingly. ‘Yes, we’ve made progress, and no, we haven’t arrested anyone. But there are a few details we need your help with.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Holden looked down at her notes. ‘On the night your wife died, you came home just after six o’clock.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Could you say what time she actually left the house?’

  He scratched the crown of his head. ‘She was finishing off her meal when I arrived. Mackerel salad. She was quite rigorous about what she ate. And about what I ate, in fact.’ He sniffed. ‘I poured myself a whisky and asked her if she was organized for her lecture, and she told me I had spilt some food down my shirt and I should give it a soak in cold water and salt.’ Again, he sniffed. ‘Then I went through to my study to make a phone call. I was still on the phone when she called through that she was leaving, and then the door slammed and she was gone.’ He sighed, a deep, heavy sigh that seemed to Holden almost theatrical in its intensity. She remembered suddenly Sarah Russell’s account of her visit to him on the morning of her husband’s death, and she shivered. Was all this an act? The courteousness, the sadness, the sense of bathos wrung tight. Was he playing them for fools? He was keen on the theatre, after all.

  ‘Could you give a time?’

  ‘Maybe 6.15 p.m. I’m not sure, to be honest. But I do remember thinking she had plenty of time to get there and get organized, so it can’t have been much after that.’

  ‘And do you rememb
er her receiving any phone calls before she left?’

  He shook his head slowly. ‘No, I don’t think so. I’m sorry. I wish I could be more help.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Holden smiled. She too could do polite. A mobile phone rang. Damn. It was hers. She opened her bag, saw it was her mother, and killed the call. Then she powered the phone off. Her mother would only try again. ‘Sorry!’ she said sheepishly.

  Tull smiled sympathetically back.

  ‘Karen, my dear. What a pleasure!’ Geraldine smiled broadly and directed her towards the chair with a wave of her hands.

  ‘Not for me!’ Karen Pointer hated dentists. Not personally. She and Geraldine still got on well when they encountered each other, as they inevitably did, on their social network. But the thought of going to the dentist, any dentist, made her shiver. Literally. There had been Mr Miller. That had been the name of her dentist when she had been a child. Miller the Killer, her brother had called him. For fun. At least her brother thought it fun. After the dentist they would always get a treat, a trip to the cinema or a visit to WH Smith with money to spend, but despite that she could never recall a time when, for her, visiting the dentist had been fun.

  ‘You’ll thank me afterwards,’ came the cheery reply.

  ‘Maybe.’ Karen lay back in the chair and tried to pretend she wasn’t there.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t fit you in at the end of the day, but someone cancelled this spot only this morning.’

  Karen said nothing. As far as she was concerned, the dentist was not the place for small talk.’So how is my favourite pathologist?’ Geraldine pressed a button and the seat began to rise. ‘Up we go!’

  ‘Up we go! What do you think I am? A three-year-old?’