by John Harvey
‘And the gallery takes how much?’
‘From a picture sale? Fifty per cent.’
Hadley emitted a low whistle. ‘That much? I’m amazed.’
‘Well, it’s okay if it’s commission they’re doing something to actually earn. But if they’re not … Which is why I arranged for Anthony to move to Hecklington and Wearing. Young, trendy, the right place at the right time.’
‘Poor old Rupert, as you called him, he wasn’t happy.’
‘Practically burst a blood vessel. Threatened to sue, though of course he didn’t have a leg to stand on. Anthony never as much as signed a piece of paper. Gentlemen’s agreement, that’s all it was.’
‘And you’re no gentleman.’
‘Exactly.’
There was something about Rebecca Johnson’s eyes, Hadley thought. Did they change colour when she smiled? She reached for her water and almost drained the glass.
‘So all of this manoeuvring,’ she said, ‘has left Morland-Davis more than a little aggrieved, not to say seriously out of pocket.’
‘It has indeed.’
‘At the time, I assume he’d have done his best to persuade Winter to change his mind?’
‘There were a number of heated conversations, I believe. In the end, Anthony refused to speak to him directly, said everything had to be done through me.’
‘Which could have made him angrier still?’
‘I’m sure it did, but not …’ She smiled. ‘Not enough to kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking. More of a hissy-fit kind of temper, Rupert. Vicious words at fifty paces.’ A smile creased her face. ‘He’ll be even more put out now, of course. Callous as it might sound, a good dead artist can be worth more than a good live one. The existing canvases take on a special value once it’s clear there won’t be any more.’
‘And Winter’s share of the profits? What happens to those now?’
‘It depends upon the contents of his will. Assuming there was one. His solicitor would know. Other than that, once I’ve taken my commission, the rest, presumably, stays in the bank.’
‘This solicitor, I don’t suppose you have a name.’
‘Name and number.’ Rebecca reached for her phone. ‘Let me have an email address and I’ll send them to you now.’
That done, Hadley looked at her watch. ‘I really should be going. It’s been helpful, filling in the background. I’m grateful for your time.’
She was halfway out of her chair when Rebecca reached out a hand. ‘You don’t suppose we could meet again some time? Just for a drink perhaps?’
It took Hadley a moment to answer. ‘No, no, I don’t think so. Nice idea, but no.’
Rebecca smiled, withdrew her hand. ‘I understand.’
24
Katherine sat slumped on one of the benches by the path leading to the tennis courts, leather jacket pulled tight around her shoulders, bottle within close reach. How long she’d been there she didn’t know. A pair of women went by talking loudly in Polish, pushing buggies, someone else’s kids. A gaggle of schoolgirls, swearing freely, skirts rolled high. Joggers. A white-haired man pulling a small dog along on a lead, its belly scraping the ground.
Chrissy had phoned on her behalf again, a little reluctantly, the third time she’d cancelled a class in as many days. The thought of anyone looking at her, even fully clothed, never mind naked, was more than she could stand.
‘You’ve got to pull yourself together,’ Chrissy had said sharply. ‘You realise that, don’t you? You look a mess.’
Tough love, Katherine supposed.
She glanced up at the woman walking across the grass towards her; thought for a moment she recognised her, decided she was mistaken.
‘Katherine? Kate?’
She looked up again on hearing the voice, surprised. Padded jacket, black trousers tucked down into silver boots, blue beret covering most of her dark hair.
‘V? What are you doing here?’
‘Looking for you.’
Katherine shook herself, rubbed her hands across her face.
‘Okay if I sit?’
Katherine nodded.
For some moments neither of them spoke, Katherine conscious of the bottle of vodka at her feet.
‘London Fields,’ Vida said. ‘I used to come here all the time. Long time ago now. I was little more than a kid. That novel had just been out. Amis? Martin Amis?’ She laughed. ‘All changed a lot since then. Trendy now, I suppose. Hackney, the hipster’s delight.’
‘How did you know I’d be here?’
‘Chrissy. Chrissy told me. She’s worried about you.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘No?’ Vida looked pointedly at the bottle between Katherine’s shoes. ‘What is it? Close to a bottle a day now?’
‘V, don’t …’
‘Pills, too, I dare say.’
‘V …’
Reaching down, Vida seized the bottle and, fending off Katherine as she tried to grab it back, upturned it, spilling the remaining vodka down on to the grass.
‘What the fuck you do that for?’ Katherine said angrily.
‘I thought you’d had enough.’
‘None of your business, is it?’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘All right then, my mistake.’
She was into her stride before Katherine called her back.
‘V, I’m sorry.’
‘Okay.’ Vida sat and proceeded to roll a cigarette. ‘He was a bastard, you know that?’ she said. ‘Just a wonder someone didn’t kill him sooner.’
‘Don’t.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘Why not? It’s true. Never gave a moment’s thought for anyone but himself. Mind you, bloody artists, most of them, they’re all the same. Selfish through and bloody through. Anthony, if he didn’t think there was something in it for him, some way he could use you, he wouldn’t give you the time of day.’
‘I thought you were his friend.’
‘As long as it suited him, yes. Oh, he’d deign to come into my classes once in a while, sprinkle a little praise and bonhomie. But only for what he could get in return.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like you.’
Katherine stared at her, disbelieving, struggling with the implication of what she’d heard; Vida reached out a hand towards hers and she pushed it away.
‘Girls, that’s what he wanted. Girls he could use for a while and then discard when he was finished with them. With you, though, it was different. At least, for a time that’s what I thought. He saw something different in you. And it shows. It’s there in the paintings, the work.’
‘What do you mean?’
Vida drew hard on her cigarette. ‘I asked him once, what he saw, what it was that made you special, and he said pain.’
Katherine arched her back as if she’d been struck.
Vida reached out her hand again. ‘I feel responsible, guilty. For what happened.’
‘But surely …’
‘Not for what happened to him, what happened to you. I was careless, thoughtless. I should have seen you’d suffered enough already. It was there, there in the eyes. And Anthony knew. It excited him. I could tell.’
Katherine hunched her body, turned her face away and cried. After a while, Vida slid an arm round her shoulders and rested her head against the nape of her neck.
‘It’s all right,’ she said softly. ‘It’s all right.’
‘I loved him,’ Katherine said. ‘At least, I thought I did.’
‘I know.’
‘And I thought …’
‘I know, I know.’
25
The sun hung low over the harbour, a disc of pale yellow thinly veiled in mist. Anchored, small boats tilted this way and that on the incoming tide. Gulls swooped and screamed overhead. Elder had walked into St Ives along the Coffin Path, passing small farm after small farm, low stone wall after low stone wall, climbing stile after sti
le. Burs clung to his trouser legs, mud to his boots.
At Wicca a black-and-white sheepdog ran warning circles around him, barking noisily, harrying his heels along the lane towards Boscubben before dropping back content, job done. It was close to here, where an arm of the path forked down towards the sea, that Elder had first made his home, years back now, in the wake of the breakdown of his marriage and his retirement from the Nottinghamshire force.
Originally a farm labourer’s cottage, walls of bare stone save for one unevenly plastered room, in its barrenness and austerity it had suited his mood perfectly. The farm to which it had formerly belonged had stood dilapidated and abandoned, sacking covering the windows, rough hasps and padlocks on the doors – the sad result, Elder had heard, of a family feud that had turned brother against brother, cousin against cousin, father against son.
Only gradually had he felt the need for more company than that of the beasts other farmers paid to pasture in the surrounding fields and the hail-and-well-met of occasional ramblers passing by. Now, both the farm buildings and the cottage had been restored, the farm itself with new owners who had found turning over their fields to the cultivation of maize as fodder for livestock more profitable than keeping the animals themselves, and the cottage was in its second season as a successful holiday let.
Times changed. Some people went under, others survived.
Both he and Joanne had made new lives for themselves, neither perfect, but then whose life was? As his own father had been so used to saying, look around you, lad, there are plenty others one hell of a lot worse off than you.
Which was doubtless true, and amongst those he knew it was Katherine, always Katherine that he worried about most. Now especially, when she had seemed to be getting herself together again after a myriad setbacks: a flat share in London with friends, genuine friends; enough work, almost, to keep the proverbial wolf from the door. Cheerful, almost, on the rare occasions they spoke, the even rarer occasions they met.
Till now.
Those bandaged wrists. Winter’s sudden death.
She was still avoiding his calls, not responding to his texts.
Elder had phoned Joanne to see if she’d heard from her and apparently they’d spoken briefly the day before. Aside from feeling a bit under the weather, Katherine had assured her she was okay, possibly coming down with a cold but nothing more. Nothing to worry about though, basically she was fine.
‘Are you going to go down and see her?’ Elder had asked.
‘Are you?’ Joanne snapped back.
Elder thought perhaps not: it was a long way to go to have the door slammed in your face as had happened in the past.
It’s my life, Dad. Why don’t you let me fuck it up whichever way I choose and then you can sod off and find a life of your own. Fuck that up. It’s what you’re good at, after all.
He pushed his coffee cup aside, folded the paper he’d been sporadically reading, and went inside the café to pay. He’d take a walk around to the other side of the bay, stroll around the island, and then head for home. Vicki was back from what sounded as if it had been a successful trip to South Wales and he’d promised to meet her in Newlyn later.
They had supper at Mackerel Sky – scallops and monkfish helped down with a bottle of decent wine – Vicki keen to tell him about the highlights of their tour. Audiences had been small, she said, but enthusiastic, and there’d been cash in hand enough at the end of the evening to cover expenses, plus the money made from the sale of the band’s new CD. Added to which, it had been a laugh. Even when the van they were travelling in broke down on the way from Cardiff to Swansea at three in the morning.
They went for a stroll along the front, the lights of Penzance hazy in the distance, Vicki’s hand in his. It didn’t have to be true love, not at their age, that was what she’d said. Nor was it. The truth was he felt comfortable in her company, was happy to listen to her stories, laugh at her jokes, liked to hear her sing. In bed, where she took the lead, he was pleased to follow. Her need, he guessed, roughly equal to his own.
‘You’ll come back?’ she said, leaning her head on his arm.
‘If I’m invited.’
She thumped him playfully in the ribs.
At her place in Marazion, no need to rush, she made tea, brightened his with a taste of Scotch, poured a small brandy for herself. When she asked after Katherine he shrugged, non-committal, he didn’t really know.
‘You can’t blame yourself for ever, Frank.’
‘Is that what I’m doing?’
‘That’s how it seems.’
‘Then maybe that’s how I feel.’
‘Because you haven’t always been there for her?’
‘That’s part of it.’
She stroked the back of his hand. ‘You’ve been there when it’s mattered, that’s what’s important. When it’s mattered most.’
‘Have I?’
‘That man who took her, when she was just a girl. Keach, was that his name? You were the one to save her.’
‘And if it hadn’t been for me, he might never have taken her in the first place.’
‘If it hadn’t been for you, Frank, she’d likely be dead.’
Elder rocked back, pushed her hand away.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I just don’t like to see you punishing yourself unnecessarily.’
‘It’s okay.’
But it wasn’t, they both knew that.
Neither spoke for some little time.
‘I think I’d better go,’ Elder said, edging back his chair.
He got as far as the main door, the street, a jolt of cold air snapping him to his senses.
Vicki was standing in the centre of the room. ‘Forget something?’
Elder shrugged. ‘I thought I might apologise.’
‘What for?’
‘My quick temper.’
‘Accepted.’
In bed they made spoons, her arms first around his, then his around hers. Closeness, what they both needed then, nothing more. A short while later she was fast asleep, leaving Elder feeling the quiet, settled pulse of her body against his, the night outside vast, unknowable and dark.
26
The atmosphere in the squad room was tense, nervy, slightly charged; a sense that things were at last beginning to move. Outside, the skies were gradually darkening, the storm the weather forecasters had promised finally on its way.
‘At least they haven’t given it another stupid name,’ quipped Howard Dean. ‘Doris. Who’s going to be bothered about a storm called bloody Doris?’
‘Upping the ante, aren’t they?’ Terry Mitchell said. ‘Ever since that bloke went on TV and said there was a zero chance of serious weather and next thing you know one in every dozen trees’ve blown over and half the bloody country’s six foot under water.’
‘Okay,’ Phillips said, raising both hands for quiet. ‘Let’s settle down.’
Black trouser suit, white shirt, boots with a generous heel, Hadley took her place front and centre. ‘First off, I know you’ve all been working hard and so far without much thanks. So, due gratitude from me for all that effort. Let’s make sure none of it goes to waste.’
A few quiet murmurs of agreement, appreciation.
‘The post-mortem, Chris, a summary of the findings?’
‘Straightforward enough. Cause of death, as we suspected, blunt-force trauma to the back of the head. Fractured skull and blood clots resulting in severe haemorrhaging. There were also internal injuries to the upper body, principally a ruptured spleen which had led to considerable internal bleeding. Marks on the skull were conducive to the fatal blows being delivered, again as we suspected, by the manacles that were found in the vicinity of the body.’
He took a moment to check his notes.
‘There was also bruising and lacerations to the ribs and back and legs, some as a result of being struck repeatedly by an implement, in all likelihood a chain, that had been wielded with force, others most likely
the result of being kicked with a heavy shoe or boot. There were also defensive wounds on the victim’s hands. And that’s about it. Copies of the report itself are available at a click of the proverbial button.’
‘Thanks, Chris. Mitch, you’ve got something interesting, I think?’
‘Yes, boss.’ Mitchell clicked on his computer and an image like an abstract painting appeared on the whiteboard to Hadley’s right. ‘Here you can see the victim’s blood trail, the well-defined tails on those splashes indicating that the blood struck the surface at an angle of thirty degress or less. Which means he was, almost certainly, crawling along the floor, attempting to get away, while he was being struck, and if you look carefully, those secondary spatters show the direction of movement, left to right across the studio towards the wall furthest from the door.’
He touched the keyboard and a second image appeared.
‘And this is from close by that far wall, and judging by the amount of blood that’s pooled there, by this point the victim is almost certainly no longer moving, but, again because of the amount of blood, we can surmise that he was still alive.’
Hadley waited a moment for all of that to sink in.
‘So, our attacker,’ she said, ‘our perpetrator, is someone with a considerable temper and the determination to inflict as much damage, as much pain, upon his victim as humanly possible, up to and including the point of death. Which suggests, to me at any rate, that this was not a random killing, a case of someone, say, breaking into the studio and, for whatever reason, carrying out an otherwise random attack on Anthony Winter. I think the attack was purposeful. Almost certainly, therefore, predetermined. I think the victim was known to his attacker and most probably vice versa – there were no signs of forced entry, remember – and … Yes, Mark?’
Mark Foster flushed as all faces turned towards him.
‘I was just wondering, ma’am, not to disagree with what you’ve just said, of course, about it being personal and all, but …’
‘Come on, lad. Out with it.’