Death of a Painter

by Matthew Ross

  ‘You aren’t welcome here, piss off before I call the police.’

  ‘Hey,’ a weak voice called from a room out of sight. ‘It’s okay Mum. Let him in please.’

  I made to step forward, but she refused to budge, she had no intention of letting me past. She may be a lady in her sixties, but she is still very active, she probably figured she could hold me back if it came to it – she was probably right.

  ‘Mum, that’s enough. Let him in.’

  She rolled back and walked off with all the grace of a sulking pit bull, leaving the door swinging open.

  I ventured into the lounge – it looked great – one of the benefits of living with a decorator I suppose. Jen sat alone in the middle of a huge leather sofa, looking like she’d been cast adrift in a lifeboat. She really looked a mess, understandable given the circumstances, but nonetheless it was a shock to find her this way. She looked up at me with hollow red eyes, held my gaze for a couple of seconds and then, with effort, rose from the sofa with her arms outstretched.

  ‘Mark, I’m so glad to see you.’ She hugged me. ‘So glad.’

  ‘Jen, I’m so sorry, so sorry, are you okay?’

  ‘Of course she’s not okay, you dick,’ came Old Mother Faldo’s pleasant tones from behind me. ‘I’ve given her some of my Temazepam to calm her down.’

  Strange, I never imagined her mother – that spitting, hissing demon of the sand traps – to be one for the tranquilizers.

  ‘What do you want?’ It’s funny isn’t it how, even when you can’t see them, you somehow know if someone’s sneering at you.

  ‘I just wanted to make sure Jen’s ok. Can I do anything for you Jen? Or Chloe?’

  ‘They’re fine! We don’t need anything from you. Go!’

  ‘Okay, okay, I’ll be off.’ I knew there was nothing to be gained from having a row.

  ‘Uncle Mark!’ squealed a cheerful voice from the other end of the room.

  Chloe sat at the dining table; paper and crayons spread out in front of her. The world outside the large patio doors had been lost in the evening’s early darkness, but as I turned to face her, the garden became awash with bright light. It backlit her, adding an almost angelic glow through her straggly blonde hair. In the garden, a woman paced up and down. Karen – Jen’s sister: by going out for a vape, Karen had triggered the external lamp. She didn’t move her eyes off the ground before her, lost in her own thoughts as she puffed and paced with equal fury.

  ‘Hello, my darling,’ I said to the charming little girl who, judging from her enthusiastic scamper towards me and tight hug around the thighs appeared oblivious to what had happened to her family, ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  I reached in my pocket. I pulled out a long thin orange balloon and gave it a couple of stretches, letting it snap back against my knuckles, ‘Ouch!’ and a quick shake of the hand to show the pain – always gets a laugh from the kids and did again this time – then a big long puff and the balloon inflated. As I knotted the end, I asked her what she wanted, and a few twists later handed over a balloon dog to squeals of delight. My adoring audience of one demanded an encore, and using two balloons, one green one yellow, I handed her a daffodil.

  ‘Mummy, look, I’ve got a flower, and a doggy.’ Jen smiled and we heard the garden door click shut. ‘Auntie Karen, look,’ said Chloe running out to the kitchen to show off her new gifts.

  ‘Right, I’ll be off then,’ I said to Jen. Her mother stood beside her glowering. ‘But Jen, remember, anything I can do, anything, just let me know.’ And with that I turned to leave. As I reached the threshold Jen called me back.

  ‘Please, Mark…’ with genuine concern in her voice. ‘There is something.’

  ‘Sure,’ I replied. ‘What?’

  Jen rose with even greater effort this time, and, dazed, shuffled across the lounge to a sideboard against the opposite wall. She moved with such uncertainty I wondered how much Granny Ballesteros had doped her up.

  ‘Tommy’s jobs,’ she slurred on the ‘s’ sounds, the meds having taken hold.

  Jen was trying to pull something out of the cabinet, something her muddled fingers couldn’t grasp. I knelt beside her and saw she was reaching for two small metal filing chests. I reached in, pulled them out and sat them on the sideboard. They were nothing special, just ordinary home filing chests that I knew would have a few hanging files inside for paperwork.

  ‘Tommy’s jobs,’ Jen repeated. ‘Please help, Mark.’

  I could see what was coming. I knew Tommy had a few current jobs on the go, a lot recently finished, and according to him several ready to start. But something like that could be a treasure trove to anyone a bit sharp. Picture the scene: they get invited to finish off the job, and lo and behold they begin finding problem after problem with the work already done, the client starts panicking because their job has already been held up what with losing the first guy and then having to find the new one, they want it finished and will throw money at the new guy then they simply deduct it off the first guy – we call this holding the job to ransom, because they know they will get paid whatever they want to get the job done. A convincing ransom contractor would clean the client out and ensure that the original contractor won’t be left with a penny.

  I knew what Jen was asking. She wanted me to complete Tommy’s jobs and collect his debts on her behalf as she knew I wouldn’t rob them.

  ‘Of course,’ I whispered, I put my arm around her and guided her back to the safety of her sofa, and then picked up the filing chests, ‘I’ll take a look and we’ll talk again in a few days, is that ok darling?’ I don’t think she understood what I was saying by that point, so I kissed her lightly on the forehead and left.

  I placed the two filing chests beside me in the van – like I say, they didn’t look anything special. If only I’d known, I’d never have gone near them. Her mother glowered at me from the window as I drove off, but I was beyond caring by that point. However, looking back I should have taken it as an omen.

  9

  The evening clear and crisp, the fresh dusting of frost crunched underfoot as I parked the van and headed home. Two paces and then – d’oh! – my Dad was the same, always forgetting what he’d come into a room for – I spun on the balls of my feet, back to the van to retrieve the filing chests, and then finally, I was unlocking my front door.

  The new incoming neighbour still hadn’t cleared their pile of cardboard from the front path, if anything they’d added to it. I kicked some of the spillage back to their side.

  Another evening unable to sleep and nothing on television to distract my thoughts. To waste some time I decided to look through Tommy’s files. I’d promised to protect Jen and mitigate any risks on Tommy’s business from sharks and chancers, and I fully intended keeping my promise. I reached for the nearest chest and snapped open the chrome buckles.

  Inside, as expected, were a series of hangers. I flicked through them seeing loose papers and correspondence, quotations on his headed paper and his build-up calculations stapled behind them. There were invoices from merchants and suppliers, bank statements and a half-used cheque book, there were letters from accountants and returns to the Tax Man. The chest didn’t yield any surprises, it was nothing more than a snapshot of an ordinary small business, no more no less.

  In the final hanger, I found what I wanted: Tommy’s invoices for works complete. I took them out, then flicked through again looking for the bank statements – a quick reconciliation of the two would soon reveal how much money he had outstanding waiting to be paid. The hardest part, I feared, would be getting people to pay up once they’d heard he was dead, so it was something I needed to chase quickly. Leaning into the chest for the statements I noticed an envelope I hadn’t spotted on my first rummage. It was an ordinary large white envelope, used, with a window for the address and blue inked postage marks with the sender’s logo, which I recognised as a local builder’s merchant. I get these in the post almost every day stuffed full of unwanted promotion
al rubbish – vouchers for this and discounts on that. Mine go straight to recycling unopened, so it seemed a little strange to me Tommy would want to keep anything like that. I assumed he’d reused the envelope to keep certain paperwork together. That made me curious. I didn’t want to miss anything.

  I removed it. It contained a wodge of loose papers held together by a clip. I slid them out and saw a stylish grey and green letterhead for Quentin Property Holdings. Reading on I realised it was a purchase order, nothing complicated, nothing onerous, just a bog-standard set of terms and conditions employing Tommy for a small maintenance job at an address I knew at once: Queen Mary’s Retirement Home, a private sheltered housing complex for senior citizens.

  I don’t remember him saying he’d worked there, but right away I could picture Tommy in his element, the centre of attention for the frisky old land girls and bobbysoxers, using his charm and innuendo to transport them back to giddy young things when they spent hot sunny days in Kentish hop fields and warm summer nights in American nylons.

  I knew the place because it was no more than two minutes from Tommy’s house: to the bottom of the road and around the corner. I leafed through the contents of the envelope, there must have been thirty or forty purchase orders all from Quentin Property Holdings. It made sense for them I suppose, why not have a pet contractor on call nearby to handle all your repairs. I put them back in the envelope and then back in the chest.

  ‘Let’s see what’s in the other chest,’ I thought, reaching for it, but unlike the first one this was locked. I rattled the buckles, they wouldn’t open.

  ‘I hope this isn’t an old family heirloom, Tommy,’ I said to the empty room, attacking it with a thin-bladed screwdriver. A few minutes later, and with a bit of brute force the buckles popped open. I raised the lid and peered inside.

  Well… it’s fair to say I wasn’t expecting that!

  10

  I fished ‘I love Belgrade’ out of the sink, rinsed it clean and brewed myself a tea. I don’t know what I was doing, perhaps hoping it would have disappeared like a passing mirage, but no, as I walked back into the room it was still there.

  One hundred and fifty-two thousand and seventy pounds in cash, the complete contents of the second chest. I’d counted it twice and laid it out like tombstones in neat regular little rows. All used notes, mainly twenties, a few fifties, even fewer tens. One hundred and fifty-two thousand and seventy pounds. Cash.

  This didn’t make any sense at all. What was Tommy doing with a box full of money? Did Jen know about it? No, of course not, she wouldn’t have given it to me otherwise.

  We’ve all been paid cash in hand once in a while, it would be silly to deny it, but this much? This isn’t right. I didn’t understand this at all, and it concerned me. Believe me, cash is not king, cash is trouble. Anyone who thinks a bundle of cash is a gift from God has clearly never had any. It’s incredibly hard to get rid of large amounts of cash nowadays – new cars every year, lots of exotic holidays, solid gold watches? That’ll be when people begin to notice, and you have to explain to the Taxman how you can afford a champagne lifestyle on tap water earnings. And you most definitely can’t put it in the bank! No, too much cash is a problematic pain in the arse.

  What was Tommy intending to do with it? I’d promised to look after Jen and little Chloe, and all of this must now be theirs so I need to be certain this won’t get them in trouble. But really, what can I do? It was this confusion that made me dizzy enough to get up and leave the room in the first place.

  The Belgrade break had untangled my thinking. I knew what needed to be done. I had to return it. This was Tommy’s money and, knowing him as I did, he would want it to look after his family, so there was no question, Jen would get it. But then, there was also the question of the formalities. The bank and the Taxman would soon be creaming off what they could, leaving Jen to fend for herself. Never mind the newspaper talk about Death Duties being only for rich men, they’ll pick over the bones like carrion whether you’re a billionaire or a bus driver.

  I remembered my Dad’s estate, the resentment flooded back, that conniving bastard of a lawyer: ‘You see, your father died intestate, that complicates things considerably’. My Dad had absolutely nothing when he died and by the time that lawyer had finished there was even less. No, I’d made a promise, they’d be looked after, or else I could never clear my conscience for what had happened.

  But then a new thought crept into my head, and expanded to fill it to bursting point. This was serious, I couldn’t get rid of it and it terrified me: What if this is what got Tommy killed?

  This added a brand-new level of craziness, now I was really worried about creating trouble for Jen. I had to trust my judgement, the best thing all round would be to hold on to it, somewhere safe, and give it to Jen later. Once the dust had settled and the vultures had gone. Once I was sure no-one would come looking for it.

  The money went back into the chest and I at once regretted breaking off the buckles as it wouldn’t fasten shut any more. It would need a secure hiding place, but where? I was struggling to think, my head was starting to ache and a pain screamed behind my eyes in a skull-splitting mix of tiredness, sadness, fear and regret.

  It was two in the morning; any prospect of sleep had long flown. I’d tried, but it was a struggle to get off and when sleep at last came I was awoken by dreams of Tommy, lying glassy-eyed on the floor, looking up at me with his usual dopey grin, his yawning head wound meting out banknote after banknote, each fluttering down like autumn leaves landing in the bloody pools beneath him, their edges curling through contact with the moisture, a crimson red bloom being drawn up through the fibres of the paper.

  As a way to distract myself, I set about working out Tommy’s accounts. It didn’t take too long as, luckily, I found his handwritten ledger slipped within his invoices It was about a month old and only took a quick exercise to bring it up to date. I identified three distinct elements – invoices raised with money due, invoices to be raised for works complete, and works in progress.

  The first category seemed the greatest by number, with around twenty invoices, although the bulk of it was owed by only a few contractors and I knew them, so I made a note to deal with that in the morning. The second category would be the most time-consuming. I’d need to go through a lot of paperwork to sort that out, but the fatigue and the headache made reading too hard so I parked that one for the night. I was most interested by the final category. I made a list of live jobs, and it was complete as far as I knew, although the only way I’d know if I’d missed anyone would be getting their irate complaints later in the week when no-one’s turned up for three days running. I could add them on the list then, if and when it happened. I estimated there would be six, maybe eight weeks work for one man, I’d contact a few decorators in the morning, see if anyone was interested.

  Then I turned back to the Quentin purchase orders, and separated them out. There were forty-four in total and from what I could make out eleven of them were completed, billed and paid; twenty had invoices raised against them but I couldn’t find any payment, and thirteen were all dated only a few days ago. Seeing as he’d been with me all week, I assumed they hadn’t been done yet.

  I flicked through the orders to get an idea of what was required. You’ve done well there, Tommy! Sheet after sheet, the money offered was incredible. Silly little repair jobs that would take anyone sensible all of fifteen minutes were being awarded for half a day’s money. I made a quick estimate – these thirteen jobs would take at most ten days, but the money on offer was well over a month’s-worth. I’d head over to Queen Mary’s tomorrow to see the manager, chase up payment on the outstanding invoices and see what’s needed for the work to be done, so that I can get started with it.

  11

  The morning sun in my eyes woke me just before seven a.m., and after pulling on yesterday’s clothes I hauled myself downstairs, cursing that I should have woken earlier. Sure enough, alongside the sofa sat the broken fi
ling chest. I flipped open the lid and the notes grinned back at me regally. I had a plan, perhaps it was my mind and body shutting down and rebooting in the wee small hours, but I knew how to keep the money safe. I gathered up the chest and headed outside.

  I’d spotted something on the path when I came home last night, and the only advantage of being awake before the binmen was that it was still there: a discarded cardboard box from a new kettle. I looked around, the street was deserted. I took the box and, with the broken filing chest, carried them to my lock-up garage.

  Gentle, ever so gentle. Up went the steel door with great care, no noise to wake up nosy neighbours. Shelving lined the walls, floor to ceiling, and freestanding racking filled the centre. It was stacked with everything I could ever need to run my business, apart from one shelf at the back where three transparent plastic storage boxes sat in a row. They were grimy with dust and cobwebs, their lids snapped shut and unopened since they’d been put there, the contents of Dad’s flat – stuff I don’t have a use for but at the same time can’t bear to part with. Without time to waste getting maudlin, I transferred the cash into the kettle box and pushed Dad’s boxes along to make enough space to squeeze it on the same shelf. A small palm-shaped window emerged in the grime where grey filth transferred from Dad’s boxes to my hands, and as I wiped it off on my jeans I could see Mum’s china Staffordshire Dogs through it. I think Granny Parsons won them at bingo, certainly not an antique, but they meant something to her, and meant something to Mum, so by rights they should mean something to me. Isn’t that how it works?

  Wedged in the dark corner, deep amongst the cobwebs, I was satisfied the kettle box was inconspicuous enough not to catch the eye. Besides, there were lots of lovely power tools at the front of the garage to appeal to your average friendly neighbourhood junkie, should he decide to break in on the off-chance. All my power tools were leading brands, they had to be. If you turn up on site with expensive, branded kit you look like a professional from the off. But also, when you’re working on a price you want reliability, you want to bash the job out as fast as you can, the very last thing you need is being forced to stop because the motor in your cheap, crappy, no-mark drill has burnt itself out, especially if you’re working through the night and everywhere’s closed. De Walt, Hilti, Bosch and the like. Big, chunky cases in their corporate yellow, red and green stood shoulder to shoulder like proud soldiers on the shelf. Any opportunistic thief would see them as an easy win long before they ventured to the back for a kettle. I closed and locked the door, satisfied Tommy’s cash would be safe.