by John Harvey
‘Chance’d be a fine thing,’ Mitchell said, half under his breath.
‘Wouldn’t it just. Meantime, Mark …’
‘Thought you’d forgotten me, ma’am.’
‘Could I ever?’
Mark Foster blushed.
‘You started a history degree, didn’t you? Chance to put all that research work into practice. See what you can dig up on Winter’s private life, family, relationships, anything nasty lurking in the woodshed.’
‘Will do.’
‘Okay, everyone, as you all know, we’re understaffed and overstretched and about to be even more so, which means working all the hours it takes without as much as a whisper of overtime. But then, I know that would be the last thing on your minds …’
Groans, laughter …
Hadley stepped outside into the corridor just as a call came in on her mobile. ‘Yes, sir. Sorry I missed you earlier …’
17
Katherine had slept in late, vaguely aware of movement around her, sounds from other parts of the flat: voices, the opening and closing of doors. Until the drawing class in Walthamstow that afternoon, there was little she had to do, few demands on her time. Somewhere around ten-thirty she rolled over, looked at her phone and lay back down. Just five minutes more and then she’d get up, take a shower, wash her hair.
The next thing she knew someone was gently shaking her shoulder, telling her she needed to wake up.
Stelina.
A quarter to twelve.
‘Sorry, I must have dropped off again.’ She drew her knees back so that Stelina could sit on the bed, read the concern on her face.
‘What is it?’
‘There’s something …’
‘What?’
‘Something’s happened.’
‘What? What kind of thing?’
‘Winter. Anthony Winter.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s … he’s dead.’
‘Don’t be stupid! He can’t be.’
With a sigh, Stelina clicked on her phone and passed it across. Katherine blinked, stared at the screen, unable to believe. But there it was. The words. Irrefutable. Body discovered. Exact circumstances as yet unknown. She dropped the phone, threw aside the covers and, brushing past Stelina, rushed for the bathroom and slammed the door.
The white enamel cold against her forehead. Hands pushing her hair away from her face. Eyes clenched tight, clutching the sides of the bowl, she retched stale air, retched again, raw on the back of the throat, and brought up a thin veil of yellow vomit, vile to the roof of the mouth, the tongue.
‘Kate, are you okay in there?’
Vision blurred, broken by tears, Katherine leaned slowly back till she was sitting on her heels.
The world continued to spin.
‘Kate …’
‘It’s okay, I’ll just be a minute.’
Cautiously, she levered herself to her feet, ran water from the tap and splashed it on her face; flushed the toilet and lowered the lid. Her legs were still unsteady as she opened the door and stepped out into the main room.
‘Here,’ Stelina said, reaching out to take her arm, ‘come and sit down. I’ll get you some water. There now, just sit there.’
Katherine shivered and clutched her arms across her chest, stared at the floor.
‘I’ve got this class this afternoon …’
‘I’ll call them.’
‘The number, it’s on my phone.’
She sipped the water, set the glass back down, covered her face in her hands. A brutal attack. Circumstances unknown. Quietly, almost soundlessly, she began to cry.
It had been a sunny morning, the first after several overcast days, the sun so bright through the high windows she had to shield her eyes as she moved into position.
Anthony, some small impatience in his voice, asking her to turn her body a shade more to the right. ‘That’s good, now straighten your back just a little. No, no, too much. That’s it. That’s right. Hold that – can you hold that? Yes, yes. There. Good. There. Just don’t … don’t budge. Not one inch, okay? Good girl. Not one fucking inch!’
A smile in his voice when he swore. A laugh, almost. Not angry, like sometimes. Angry at himself always more than with her. Pleased even, she thought. Pleased with what she was doing, the pose she was holding. Obeying his instructions to the letter.
Blinking into the light, head turned away, she saw him without really looking. Black trousers, loose at the waist, black shirt open at the neck, two buttons, no, three. Chest hair, dark, tightly curled. Bending towards the easel, then straightening, stepping away, stepping back. Looking. Always looking. How many days had she had lain bare for him like this? Open, on display. A muscle, somewhere in the small of her back, was beginning to ache. Ache sharply. Touching her tongue to the underside of her lip, she controlled her breathing, absorbed the pain.
Good girl. Not one fucking inch!
He was beside her before she realised. The smell of paint and tobacco strong on his fingers; his breath, as he leaned towards her, warm on her skin.
18
Elder had taken it reasonably easy over the weekend, relegated his usual morning run to a walk and a slow one at that, his ribs still sore from the kicking they’d received. The bruising was gradually darkening into several distinct shades of brown. Vicki was off with the band on a brief tour of south Wales – Cardiff, Swansea, Newport – and Trevor Cordon was visiting friends in Redruth, so social engagements were few. An hour or so in the local pub, the Tinners’ Arms, a chat with a neighbour and that was about that. Not for the first time he fell asleep in front of the TV.
Come Monday, encouraged by a brightening sky, he pulled on his running gear, but after jogging for no more than half a mile, he shook his head and walked slowly back home. The rest of the morning passed aimlessly: loading up the washing machine, dislodging leaves from the guttering; a little reading, a quick drive into Penzance to replenish supplies.
He was putting things away, contemplating making soup of some kind for supper later – leek and potato? Mushroom and barley? – Radio 4 droning away in the background, the lunchtime news, when he heard Winter’s name. Artist found dead in his studio, victim, according to a police spokesman, of an attack by assailant or assailants unknown.
Elder fetched his laptop from the other room.
Details were sparse and he picked his way between the lines. Some reports were cagey as to the cause of death, others not above taking a punt in the dark. A possible intruder. The result of a struggle. Badly beaten. Bludgeoned. A good old-fashioned word for a good old-fashioned crime. Bludgeoned to death. Dickens, Elder thought. What little Dickens he knew. The copy of Oliver Twist that had spent years beside first his father’s bed and then his own. A version of Bleak House he’d watched on television some years before. Inspector Bucket, he would have known bludgeoned, Elder thought. Bill Sykes, too. The police, the reports said, were currently following several lines of inquiry.
On several of the sites there were reproductions of Winter’s paintings, none, as far as Elder could see, involving Katherine.
He wondered if she’d heard the news; when she did, how she might respond? No reply from her mobile number, the landline at the flat rang out unanswered. He started to send an email and realised anything he might say only ran the risk of making things worse. Better to wait, contact her later. He poured himself a small whisky and set to peeling the potatoes.
Hadley could tell from Chris Phillips’ face when he came into her office that he’d struck some kind of gold.
‘Just spoken to Alice, boss. That set-to at the gallery, a couple of nights before Winter was killed. The man who attacked him, she’s got a name. Elder. Frank Elder. Ran it on the computer. He’s only ex-job, isn’t he? Detective sergeant in the Met. A good few years back now. Transferred up to Nottingham around two thousand and four, five. Detective Inspector, Serious Crime. Took early retirement, six or seven years back.’
‘We’ve got an
address? Current?’
‘Cornwall. Village on the north coast, few miles outside St Ives. Ends of the bloody earth, looks like.’
Hadley smiled. ‘Rachel and I went down there a couple of years back. That part of Cornwall. For some reason I never fathomed she’d taken it into her head she wanted to see Land’s End. Not that, in the event, we need to have bothered. The day we were there you could scarcely make out your hand in front of your face.’
‘I’ve been in touch with the local nick,’ Phillips said. ‘Penzance. No stranger to them, Elder. Seems he’s been helping out once in a while, training, that kind of thing.’
‘Be all the more anxious to help us then. Help you.’
‘Me?’ Phillips’ face was a picture. ‘More one for Alice, surely? Carry on from where she’s started?’
‘I don’t know, Chris. This Elder, what rank did you say he had last? Detective inspector? Don’t want to risk him getting up on his high horse, having to talk to a young DC. Besides which, if you go down, shows Devon and Cornwall we’re treating it seriously. More likely to get the cooperation we need.’
‘No way of me getting out of this, is there?’
Hadley smiled. ‘Chalk it up to experience. Another country down there.’
‘That’s what I’ve heard.’
The wind was getting up, the kitchen window rattling loose in its frame, one of the many small tasks Elder kept neglecting. Fitting a new washer on the bathroom tap was another. Maybe later, maybe not. He’d tried Katherine’s flat again and her friend Abike had answered: Kate was sleeping and she thought it was best if she didn’t wake her. As far as she understood, she’d been upset by the news of Anthony Winter’s death, but not uncontrollably so. She didn’t tell Elder that when she’d looked there’d been a half-empty bottle of vodka beside the bed.
Elder heated up the soup he’d made earlier, toasted some bread, ladled the soup into a bowl and carried it, along with the toast, into the small living room. Vicki had lent him a batch of CDs – Ernestine Anderson, Dianne Reeves – he thought he’d give those a listen while he was eating.
‘Let me know what you think,’ she’d said, ‘make a nice change from that mournful stuff you listen to.’
That mournful stuff, he had informed her, was Mozart’s Requiem and he didn’t find it mournful at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. A woman he’d been briefly seeing at the time, a music teacher from Mounts Bay Academy, had talked him into accompanying her to a live performance in Truro cathedral and he’d gone under sufferance. Only to emerge elated. He’d bought a CD the next chance he got and now it was what he played when he couldn’t sleep.
Dusk settling in, he took a walk down the lane to stretch his legs a little after finishing his supper. He was on his way back when he saw the headlights coming over the hill.
It wasn’t until the car came past the church and turned towards the cottages that he recognised it for certain.
‘Trevor, social call?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘You’ll come inside?’
Cordon followed Elder down the path to the front door, ducked his head and entered, accepted the glass of whisky pressed into his hand.
‘Anthony Winter,’ Cordon said, ‘name familiar?’
Elder nodded.
‘Came to a nasty end, maybe you’d heard?’
He nodded again.
‘Someone’s coming down from the Met. Wants to talk to you. “Person of interest”.’
The expression on Elder’s face didn’t change.
‘You’re okay with that?’
‘Sure. Why not?’ He could tell there were things Cordon wanted to ask and thought he understood why, for now at least, he was keeping them to himself.
‘Eleven-thirty, then? At the station?’
‘I’ll be there.’
Cordon raised his glass. ‘Thanks for this. Keep out the cold.’
‘Any time.’
When the sound of the car had faded away there was nothing but the familiar rattle of the window and, more distant, the trees in the churchyard moving uneasily in the wind.
19
Cornwall, the homeland of the Cornish people and recognised as one of the Celtic nations: Chris Phillips had done a little basic research on the journey. A population of close to 550,000, of whom 95.7 per cent were white British: not much chance, he thought, of bumping into one of the brothers. Living in London as long as he had, thirty-one of his thirty-five years, it was possible to go for days, sometimes, without being reminded of the colour of his skin.
The police station was a long, low, grey building, unattractive and unprepossessing, and when Phillips went to present himself at the front desk he discovered it was permanently closed.
He was about to dial the number he’d been given, when Cordon appeared. ‘Cost-cutting exercise. Either that or toilet paper. Close call.’ Cordon held out a hand. ‘Welcome to Penzance.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Frank’s here already.’
‘Frank?’
‘He’s ex-job, I thought you knew.’
‘Mates, though?’
‘Share a jar or two, time to time.’
‘Conflict of interest then, surely?’
Cordon shrugged. ‘Friendly interview, background, strictly voluntary, that’s what I thought. No way I’m going to interfere. But if it makes you uncomfortable …’
Phillips was already shaking his head. ‘Let’s not keep Frank waiting.’
He followed Cordon up the stairs and along a blank corridor on the upper floor; the room was little different from interview rooms he was well used to, the same fading paintwork on the walls, the same lingering smell of sweat and disinfectant.
Elder was already seated, comfortable enough in familiar surroundings – jeans, roll-neck sweater – rising half out of his seat to offer Phillips his hand.
‘Thanks for agreeing to come in,’ Phillips said. ‘I’ll take up as little of your day as possible.’
‘That’s okay.’
‘And just to be clear, you’re here under your own volition and are free to leave at any time.’
‘Understood.’
‘So …’ Phillips flipped open his notebook. ‘Anthony Winter … I understand there was an argument between the two of you at a gallery opening? The Hecklington and Wearing gallery in Shoreditch. An altercation.’
The hint of a smile crossed Elder’s face. ‘Altercation would be about right.’
‘Can you describe the circumstances?’
‘Easy enough. I lost my temper. Punched him. Twice, hard. Hard as I could. Security grabbed hold of me and stopped me doing any more damage than I already had. Deposited me on the pavement outside.’
Phillips nodded, leaning back in his chair, taking his time. ‘You lost your temper, that’s what you said.’
‘That’s right.’
‘He’d provoked you in some way?’
‘Not directly.’
‘What then?’
‘It was the paintings. His. Winter’s. There on display.’
‘What about them?’ Phillips already knew the answer, or thought he did; Alice had forwarded the images to his laptop on the way down.
‘My daughter, Katherine, he’d used her as a model.’
‘A life model.’
‘I suppose …’
‘She posed naked, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you didn’t approve?’
‘It wasn’t as simple as that.’
‘Perhaps you could explain?’
Elder saw the paintings again in his mind’s eye. ‘You have daughters, Detective Sergeant?’
Phillips shook his head.
‘Any children at all?’
‘Unfortunately not.’
‘If you did, you might not have to ask.’
Phillips nodded. ‘I apologise. I don’t mean to be intrusive. I just want to understand.’
‘Is that important?’
‘I think so.’
Elder looked across at Cordon, who looked away.
‘Your daughter …’ Phillips began.
‘Katherine.’
‘Yes, Katherine. It was the manner in which she was portrayed that you objected to?’
‘Yes.’
‘You thought – and this is only my assumption here – but you thought she’d been – how can I put it? – sexualised? Unnecessarily sexualised?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that made you feel awkward? As a parent especially?’
‘Yes.’
‘Embarrassed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Angry?’
‘God, yes, how many more times …?’
‘I’m just trying to establish …’
‘Establish!’ Elder slammed the flat of both hands down hard. ‘I should’ve thought you’ve got it nailed to the bloody cross!’
‘Frank,’ Cordon said quietly, ‘there’s no need …’
But Elder was already on his feet. ‘I’d have thought there was a fucking need.’
‘Frank, come on. Sit back down.’
Elder waited a few moments until his breathing was under control.
Phillips let the silence settle, keeping his voice even, neutral. ‘Forty-eight hours or so after he was the victim of an angry attack propelled by your own admitted loss of temper, Anthony Winter was the victim of a more sustained and brutal attack which resulted in his death.’
‘And what? Two and two makes fucking four?’
‘Frank …’ Cordon raised a hand in warning.
‘Last Thursday evening,’ Phillips continued, ‘after, as you said, security ejected you from the premises, what did you do?’
‘Do? Made my way to Paddington, caught the sleeper train home.’
‘Since which time …?’
‘Since which time I’ve been down here within a twelve-, fifteen-mile radius of Penzance.’
‘And there are people, if necessary, who could attest to that?’