Local Artist

by Paul Trembling

  We sat in silence for a while, thinking through the implications, while the road wound its way through damp woodland. Autumn was reaching its height, all the trees ablaze in shades of orange and yellow that shone even under the overcast sky. But the leaves were falling fast, drifting across the road and being turned into mush under our wheels. Glory was a fleeting thing, I thought, and the very process that gave the leaves their brilliant colours also killed them.

  “OK. Let’s agree that that investigation was dodgy. But how’s it connected to this one?”

  “You remember I was talking about coincidences? You finding both bodies is the first. The second one is that someone is trying to close this investigation down as well.”

  “You’re joking!” I glanced at him and saw at once that he wasn’t. He sounded calm enough, but he looked furious. “No, you’re not,” I corrected myself. “But who’s doing that?”

  “Not sure. But it started after Sergeant Henshaw and I went to visit Sir Arthur Templeton. Only, we didn’t. His nephew – Carr – met us at the door, refused us entry without a warrant, told us that Sir Arthur was unwell and couldn’t talk to us. So we left, and the next day I’m called in to the divisional commander, who wants to know why I think Sir Arthur is of interest in the case. And of course, my reasons aren’t good enough, Sir Arthur is an important and respected local citizen, good connections, blah blah, reputation of the force, blah blah, not to be bothered without reason and if I had reason I was to speak to him first.”

  “I didn’t know that could happen. I mean, even a senior officer shouldn’t be interfering in your case, should they?”

  “No, they should not,” he said tightly. “And I told him that. Which didn’t go down well, and by the time I got back to my office my own boss is sitting on my desk, telling me to play along, not a good time to rock this particular boat, etc. So I can’t go near Sir Arthur. And then my request for an art expert to look at that painting is turned down. I thought that it might give us a possible ID for the painter, but apparently the budget won’t stretch that far.”

  “Always a good excuse for not doing something.”

  “That’s right. And not something I was happy with. But then there was a new factor. Do you remember a cigarette end found at the scene?”

  “Yes. PC – um – Newbold? He saw it.”

  “That’s right. Well, it went off to the lab, and came back with a hit. Full DNA profile.”

  “Well, that’s good news!” I looked at his face, and revised my statement. “Or is it?”

  “The person who smoked that cigarette is a local man. Lives within half a mile of your library, in fact. Vincent Doddridge. And he’s got a bit of a record. Tried his hand at a few things, has Vince – bit of burglary, bit of car crime, that sort of thing. The last thing he did was receive and sell stolen car parts, and that got him a short stretch. He’s only been out a few months.”

  “A career criminal, then?”

  “Aye. And on the face of it, well in the frame for this job. But he didn’t do it.” Macrae spoke with absolute confidence.

  “How can you be so sure?” I asked.

  “There’s no history of violence. And if you saw him you’d know why. He’s a wee, skinny man – shifty, for certain, you’d not want to buy a car off him, but he isn’t the sort to smash a man’s face in. Or to be stealing paintings either.”

  “So you think he had an accomplice?”

  “I don’t think he was ever involved at all.”

  “But – the cigarette end? Isn’t that conclusive?”

  Macrae smiled grimly. “Oh, aye, that’s what everyone thinks. Say ‘DNA’ and that’s case closed. But then it’s not that simple. A cigarette end, for example – that’s a moveable object. And here’s an interesting fact for you: Vince Doddridge does his drinking at the Royal Lions, which is a pub no more than five minutes’ walk from the library. He was there the evening before the murder – he’s said so, and witnesses confirmed it. Stayed for a few hours, had a few drinks, went outside for a smoke.”

  He glanced at me, to see if I’d made the connection.

  “You think that the cig end came from the pub.” I thought it over. “Whoever did it was in the pub that evening, and took Vince’s cig end to leave in the library?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go that far. It could be that they just took the cigarette from one of the bins behind the pub where all the ashtrays get emptied.”

  “How would they know it was Vince’s, then?”

  “They wouldn’t. But I’m guessing that they wouldn’t need to. They weren’t looking to frame Vince in particular, just trying to confuse the investigation with false evidence. All they needed was a random cigarette end. And that pub has a dodgy reputation. You could pick any cig end at all from there and have an odds-on chance that it would get a DNA hit. Most of the clientele have got themselves onto the police database at one time or another.”

  “But in that case, why arrest Vince?”

  “I didn’t. Not at first. We had the hit back in twenty-four hours, and went to see Vince straight away. He didn’t have much of an alibi, but it was obvious what had happened there, so I didn’t pursue it. Not until yesterday, when I was ordered to arrest him and charge him with the offence.”

  “You were ordered… immediately after you tried to talk to Sir Arthur!”

  “Exactly so.”

  The country lane had taken us over a ridge and down into a grey little village. It looked familiar.

  “This place – it’s Frayhampton!”

  “Aye. Thought you’d know it.”

  We came out into the little square in front of the church. The bus stop where I used to get off to begin my walks was still there, though now with a shiny modern shelter. Macrae made a left turn, and now I knew where we were going.

  “What made you give up searching?” he asked as we drove out of the village.

  “Graham did. My husband.”

  He said nothing, and after a while I carried on.

  “I lost my job. I was a junior reporter on a local newspaper. The Echo. After I found the body, I wrote several articles about it, followed the investigation, tried to get some answers. But then the editor told me to drop it. ‘Old news isn’t news,’ he told me. And of course he was right. There was nothing more to say, even the police inquiry had been wound down. But I couldn’t leave it alone. Kept pushing, kept digging, kept asking questions. Kept submitting stories, which he turned down. Eventually there was a bit of a row. I said some things I shouldn’t have and really he didn’t have a choice but to fire me.

  “I still wouldn’t leave it, though. And Graham – he was another reporter at The Echo – he was the only one who supported me, who stuck with me. Helped me get information, went with me to interview people. When I got too persistent and too rude with my questions, he was the one who rescued me!

  “But after about a year, when there were literally no more questions to ask and no one else to talk to, he was the one who told me it was time to leave it alone. And, because he’d earned the right to say it, I listened to him. And I stopped asking questions, stopped talking to people, stopped sending letters and visiting the police station.”

  “And you got married.”

  I smiled. “Yes. Later that year. It was the only good thing that came out of it.”

  We were getting close to the turn for Coren Hall Village.

  “When I first joined CID, up in Glasgow, I had a case that got to me the same way. A man beat his wife to death. Nasty business. We couldn’t get any evidence on him though. I didn’t want to leave it, but my sergeant told me that I had to learn to walk away from some jobs.”

  “And did you?”

  He looked at me, then signalled and turned off down the new road into Coren Hall Village.

  “Two weeks before I left Glasgow to come down here, I arrested that man. On a different matter, but he knew what it was really about. No, I never did walk away entirely. And neither did you, did you, Sandra?”
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  I said nothing as we drove into the village and past the little green. Macrae parked up on the roadside a bit further on.

  “Here’s another coincidence,” he said, pointing to the large house opposite. It was one of the biggest in the village, and set well back behind ornate iron gates and a fence to match. And a lot of trees. If most of the leaves hadn’t already fallen it would have been nearly invisible from the road. “And one that I definitely don’t like at all. That house is where Sir Arthur Templeton now lives. Just a short spit from the farmhouse where you found that body hanging – which, by the way, is now a restaurant.”

  He was watching me as he spoke, and even though I leaned forward to peer at the house, he understood my reaction. “Ah, but you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  “I knew that Sir Arthur lived in the village. I didn’t know where, exactly.”

  Macrae smiled. “Somehow, I’m not surprised. You would have been an ace reporter – or one heck of a good detective, for that matter.”

  I shook my head. “I’m a librarian. Why are you telling me all this?”

  “I have a small favour to ask you. And it’s not one I’d bother you with, except that I think this is something you’d want to do.”

  I said nothing at first. I sat back, stared out of the window, and watched the autumn leaves dancing away from their tree in the breeze, never to return.

  Sometimes you find yourself faced with a decision that you know could change your life irrevocably. Usually, you see it coming. You take this course or that, choose this career or another one, get married or not.

  This one had come out of nowhere, yet I felt it could be the most important decision of my life. I didn’t know why. I didn’t even know what Macrae wanted me to do. But in that moment I had the sense of standing on the brink of something. Maybe a precipice, maybe a ladder. Which way I stepped would make the difference.

  I watched the leaves. It wasn’t their decision to leave. It was just their time.

  “What exactly do you want me to do, Inspector?”

  “I asked you before: call me David.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t ask this favour as Detective Inspector Macrae. This isn’t official. This is a personal request, from David Macrae to Sandra Deeson.”

  “OK, then. David. What is it you want me to do?”

  He leaned over into the back of the car, picked up a large envelope from the back seat, and pulled out the painting. The window, the dead flowers, the living one. He put it down in front of us, wedged behind the gearstick and leaning against the dashboard.

  “I’ve had it remounted. The original mount went to the lab for chemical treatment, and that makes a terrible mess of things. They got plenty of fingerprints, but only Emily’s – and the dead man’s. The artist, that is; I’m very sure of that. Oh, and your own, of course.”

  “And?”

  “And I would like to know what Sir Arthur thinks of it.”

  I turned the idea over in my mind. “That’s all? Take the picture in and show it to him? What do you think that will achieve?”

  “Perhaps nothing. But my instinct says that there’s a connection here somewhere. Between Sir Arthur, the painting, what happened in the library a few days ago, and what happened in the farmhouse thirty years past. I can’t pursue that line now. But there’s nothing stopping you, as a private citizen, going to visit a famous local artist to ask his opinion about a painting you’ve recently acquired.”

  I still hadn’t said yes, but I hadn’t said no, either.

  “The thing is, Sandra, I’m running out of leads on this. We can’t find Emily, we can’t identify the artist, and the only forensics we have is that dodgy cigarette end. Somewhere there’s a studio where this artist worked, but we’ve no clues on that either, and I’m being pressured to take this inquiry down the path of least resistance, wrap it up quickly. This connection is the thing I’ve got at the moment, and I can’t even follow up on it myself. I don’t like to be asking this of you – I wouldn’t if I could see any other way forward – but if we let this go, then there’ll be another laddie who died without a name.”

  He knew how to press my buttons. Not that he had to press very hard. I’d already decided; I just didn’t want to look too eager.

  I picked up the painting and slid it back into the envelope. “Is the gate locked?”

  “The main one is. Opens on a remote signal. But there’s a side gate that they leave unlocked during the day. Access for the domestic staff – they have people in to clean and cook and look after the grounds. But they all live off-site. There’s only Sir Arthur and his nephew actually resident there.”

  “If Carr refused you entrance, why would he let me in?” I remembered how he’d looked when confronting the PCSO. Not someone I’d care to be in an argument with.

  “He might not. But as it happens, he’s currently back at Central Police Station, with the art club chairman and one of my DCs, going through the CSI photographs to double-check that no other paintings are missing. A perfectly legitimate exercise, and not something that he could object to. So you should have an hour or so with Sir Arthur. And I’ll be just here the whole time, mind.”

  “You’d better be. I’m not walking back.”

  “Keep your mobile handy. If I’ve any concerns, I’ll call you.”

  “Right.” I opened the door, got out, and reached back to get the painting. A thought struck me as I did so.

  “The roundabout route you took to get here – and getting stuck in that traffic jam: I thought you just didn’t know the area, but it was deliberate, wasn’t it? To give Carr time to get clear?”

  Macrae didn’t bother to look guilty, instead giving me a wink. “And to give us time to have this wee discussion.”

  “You’re devious and manipulative, David Macrae,” I said, taking the painting and shutting the door before he had time to answer. I tucked it under my arm and crossed the road.

  I should have felt apprehensive, at the least. Instead, I was eager.

  I strode up the long drive and felt the way I had in that other life, when every meeting, every interview could hold the answer, could be the clue that would give me the name. I’d told Macrae that it was Graham who persuaded me to give up, but that was only part of the answer. I’d given up when I finally lost hope.

  Now it was back.

  The house was three storeys of pseudo-Georgian red brick. White trims round the windows and white columns flanking the door, which was all black and shiny and wouldn’t have been out of place on Downing Street. There was nothing as commonplace as a doorbell, of course, just a neat brass intercom grille, placed discreetly behind one of the columns.

  There was also a little hemisphere of dark glass set in the ceiling, which reminded me that Rob had been here delivering security equipment. Such as, for example, CCTV?

  CCTV meant that my visit here was probably recorded, and that if someone, such as Jonathan Carr for example, looked at that recording he would know that I’d visited.

  Of course, Macrae hadn’t bothered to mention it.

  I almost turned round and walked away, but it was too late. Leaving now might raise even more questions than staying. After all, I could still give a good reason for being here. And even without the camera, Carr would probably have found out about my visit eventually. Sir Arthur would probably tell him.’

  Nevertheless, I indulged in a futile glare back down the drive to where Macrae’s car was just barely visible behind the trees. And probably even less visible to CCTV, I assumed. He would have thought of that and parked accordingly.

  Glare over, I pressed the intercom button.

  A little red light came on, but nothing else happened.

  “Hello?” I said to the intercom. “Is anyone there?”

  I waited. Nothing happened. I was starting to feel cold. I hadn’t dressed for door knocking.

  I pressed the button again. One more try and then I’d give up, I thought.

 
The light turned green. “Hello?” said the intercom in an old man’s voice.

  “Oh! Yes. Hello – um – is that Sir Arthur? Sir Arthur Templeton?”

  A pause. “Who is it?”

  “Yes, hello. I’m Sandra Deeson. From the library where the exhibition was held. Was going to be held, that is. I was wondering if I could have a word with Sir Arthur Templeton?”

  “The exhibition? That was all arranged by my nephew. Jonathan. I’m sorry – he’s not here just now.”

  “Yes. I understand. But I actually wanted to talk to you. If you are Sir Arthur, that is?”

  Another, longer pause. Then, a little reluctantly it seemed to me, he admitted that he was. “What is it you wanted to talk to me about?” he continued.

  “I was hoping to meet you at the art club exhibition.” Not totally a lie. I had had some mild interest, though I’d been more concerned with making sure everything ran smoothly. Hah! “There’s a painting I have that I would like your opinion of.”

  “Oh. I see. Very well, just give me a few moments.”

  A few moments stretched into a few minutes. The chilly dampness of autumn was seeping into my bones.

  Then there was a click of locks, and the door swung open.

  “Sir Arthur?” I asked.

  He didn’t look much like a “Sir”. He’d probably been tall once, but he was stooped over, which made him about my height. A few strands of grey hair, liver-spotted skin, thin face with a wary expression, thin hands clutching at the door, as if ready to slam it shut at the slightest threat. He was wearing an old blue boiler suit, stained with multicoloured paint and other less identifiable marks. A pencil and a couple of brushes were sticking out of the breast pocket.

  “I’m sorry if I interrupted you working,” I continued.

  He glanced down at himself, as if slightly surprised to discover what he was wearing. “And I’m sorry I’m not properly dressed to receive visitors.” He glanced up again and smiled. A surprisingly warm smile. “Time was that I wouldn’t have dreamed of meeting a young lady in such a state! But now I’m afraid that what you see is what you get.” He stepped back from the door and gestured me inside.