Death of a Painter

by Matthew Ross

  I went back indoors to shower and dress for the day ahead. Through the kitchen window I saw a sparrow hop across the lawn with hungry expectation He’d have to wait, I had a couple of calls I needed to make first.

  Suspecting he’d still be at home, I phoned Disco. After a lot of swearing and complaining about being woken up at ‘the filthy bleeding arse crack of dawn’, I told him to get something to write on, and threw out a few biscuit crumbs to the sparrow while listening to Disco’s further volley of very imaginative profanities in between bangs and thumps as he hunted for a notepad.

  After muttering something particularly inventive and disgusting, he was at last ready. I recited a list of names and what they owed, telling him, ‘They’re all drinkers at the Lamb. I need your obvious charm and diplomacy to get them to pay up. Woo them, shame them, harangue them, bully them, I don’t care, just get them to pay what they owe. Tommy was our friend, he’s got a family, we all know it’s the right thing to do, so if you can get them to play fair it’d be much appreciated, okay?’

  Disco assured me he would do his best.

  ‘And what are you up to later? Can I borrow you for an hour?’

  Cue more complaining, but I persisted and explained about the Quentin purchase orders. ‘Fair bit of work, and good rates too if you’re up for it?’ That caught his attention. ‘I need you to come with me, we can walk around the job, see what’s needed and then I can order it all up for when we start.’

  ‘Okay, fine with me. Where is it?’ See, told you he was interested, it’s amazing how eager to please people become at the promise of good money.

  ‘Queen Mary’s? Really?’ he sounded surprised. ‘I thought Old John had that buttoned up nice and tight? You remember Old John?’

  ‘Hadrian’s hod-carrier? I’ve not heard his name mentioned for ages, I’d assumed he’d retired years ago. Maybe he has, maybe that’s how Tommy got a foot in the door? Anyway, I’ll come and pick you up later.’

  The phone jiggled about in my pocket like a burrowing hamster. I looked at the name on the screen and wanted to go back to bed and hide – just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse.

  ‘Mark, it’s me.’

  The voice was unmistakeable, to be fair Sally had warned me, but her text had gone straight out of my mind. I adopted my politest telephone manner.

  ‘Hello Uncle Bern, how are you?’ And how much is it going to cost me, I wondered.

  ‘Good, good as gold. Look, I’m coming back day after tomorrow—’

  Here it comes. What’s he after this time?

  ‘Got any work for me? Anything I can do?’

  ‘Funnily enough, I’ve had some painting jobs come up – interested?’ I said, filling him in on what had happened to Tommy and my role in closing out his jobs.

  ‘I don’t know, Mark, sounds dangerous. What if they come after me?’

  ‘Oh, don’t talk wet, why would anyone want to kill you?’ I said realising what a silly question that was as soon as I said it, you’d only need to spend a few minutes with Uncle Bern before you noticed your fingers limbering up for a spot of light strangulation, ‘Look, if you don’t want it, fine, I’ll get someone else. Good rates though.’

  A moment of silence passed, just enough to weigh up the money against his perceived murder threat, ‘Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll need some T-shirts.’

  ‘Bloody will you now? Don’t you have any T-shirts of your own?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But, you live in Spain, you spend all day every day in T-shirts and flip flops, haven’t you packed any?’ I asked, knowing full well he’d bought another bargain flight for two quid: the sort with no food or water, six-hour delays, double booked seats and hand baggage only.

  ‘Espadrilles, not flip flops, it’s the Costa not bloody Margate,’ said Uncle Bern rising to the bait. Sometimes it’s too easy. ‘And I don’t mean the kind of T-shirt you wear on the beach. If I’m working for you, I’ll need T-shirts, you know, uniform.’

  ‘What happened to the ones I gave you last time you were here?’

  ‘Them? I took them back with me.’

  ‘To Fuengirola? To wear on the beach?’

  ‘You bloody well know it’s Marbella! They were knackered, you need to buy better quality fabric – after a couple of washes they’re only any good for taking to the beach.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll set aside a couple of T-shirts for you.’

  ‘And a sweatshirt, actually, you got a fleece? I bet it’s bloody freezing over there, I don’t know why I bother coming back this time of year, it’s always bloody miserable.’

  Well don’t bloody come then, no-one asked you to, I thought, but instead took a deep breath and said, ‘I’ll see what I’ve got left.’

  ‘Thanks Mark, you’re a good lad,’ said Uncle Bern. Then, after letting his compliment hang just long enough, ‘If you could find me some tracky pants too?’

  We chatted for a moment about mutual friends and what had been happening here since he was last home. Bern’s worse than Disco when it comes to gossip, and after I’d had enough, I started saying my goodbyes.

  ‘Actually, Mark, I’ve an idea, you still got the key to my flat?’

  I confirmed indeed I did.

  ‘Then why don’t you let yourself in, drop off the T-shirts and stuff there before I get back, that way you won’t need to make a special visit will you?’

  That didn’t sound like a bad idea, it’d still be a special visit, but at least if I let myself in when he’s not there I wouldn’t have to see him, so I agreed.

  ‘Good. Makes sense, doesn’t it?’ A pause. The pause became a long pause, a longer pause, then: ‘So, seeing as you’re going to the flat, can you get me some milk and bread, and bacon, and teabags and—’

  Schoolboy error, I should have seen that one coming, now I have to do a grocery shop for the sneaky old git. I really needed to get off this call before he gets me declared bankrupt.

  ‘Before you go, you didn’t say what time you’ll be picking me up for work.’

  ‘I won’t be picking you up, I’ve got my own work to be getting on with,’ I lied, but I wasn’t in the mood for enduring dark early mornings trapped in the small cabin of the van with the smell of Bern’s farts and his constant moaning.

  ‘Well can I have a float then? I’ll need to get taxis in that case.’

  How did this happen? I thought I was doing him a favour, chance to earn a bit of cash in hand, now it looks like it’s going to cost me simply for the privilege of offering him work. A quiet few seconds passed, I could hear him breathing, and could picture him in his hacienda puffing and panting like an asthmatic mole.

  ‘You still there? This call’s costing me money. Still there?’

  ‘Look, I can’t imagine Jen’s got any use for Tommy’s van. I’ll see if I can borrow it for a few days, maybe sell it for her.’

  ‘I’m not driving a dead man’s van, it’s unlucky, it might be haunted.’

  ‘Oh, shut up. Look, tell you what, if she lets me have it, I’ll use it and you can use mine. How’s that sound?’

  ‘Thanks Mark, you’re a good lad. Listen, my flight lands at eighteen twen––’ but I cut the call before he could rope me into a three-hour round trip to Gatwick.

  Jen was happy to let me use Tommy’s van – well, I say happy, she sounded so spaced out I doubt she really knew what she was agreeing to. Her mum stood over her like a bodyguard in pastel waterproofs. She made me write a receipt on the back of a golf club scorecard she found in her handbag to say that I’d taken the keys to Tommy’s van. I told Jen that I’d try to sell it, raise a bit of cash, but her mum had already run her eye over Tommy’s estate it seemed.

  ‘That van’s worth at least five grand, I’ve checked, so don’t you go robbing her, Mark Poynter.’

  The vultures are circling close to home it seems.

  A mini-cab dropped me off outside the Wilkes house. Blue-and-white tape fluttered across the front lawn. A bored female police office
r stood on the doorstep, her thick, padded fluorescent jacket unable to keep out the cold it seemed from the way she shuffled from foot to foot, clapping her gloved hands in front of her.

  The officer, grateful for someone to talk to, told me that the house was still closed off as a crime scene, waiting for the men in the white paper suits to turn up and find that crucial flake of dandruff to trace the killer. I told her I was a friend of the family here to take the van, and then lost all feeling in my toes and fingers while she had a conversation on the radio attached at her shoulder. Just when I’d lost all sensation in my lips, she told me that the van could be released, and not wasting any time I opened it, hopped in and fired up the heaters.

  Tommy’s van was nice to drive. The dry warm air circulated with the smell of paints and solvents trapped inside, and I became pleasantly light-headed as the heat seeped into my bones. The Citroën was based on a proper car, so it was small and low to the ground. It felt nippy and easy to throw around, unlike my high-sided panel van. It was useful to have had a go driving it as I’d know what I’m talking about when I come to sell it for Jen. But Old Mother Faldo was wrong, you wouldn’t get five grand for it. In ordinary circumstances, you might – it was in good condition with quite a low mileage and as a rule a decorator’s van will have a far softer life than, say, a brickie’s van, as the lumpiest thing they ever need to ferry about is a stepladder and they only turn up at the end of the job when the site’s been cleared and the roads are in. However, Tommy had painted it. Don’t get me wrong, it looked fantastic, but for resale value it’s a big no-no. On the side panels and rear doors, he’d hand-painted livery in a style that always made me think of 1930s New York: upright gold and black letters and horizontal lines of differing thicknesses.

  Signwriting was one of his many talents, learned when he started off as an apprentice from an old-timer out the Dockyard that had applied the finishing touches to battleships and submarines for the Arctic Convoys. I think it was one of Tommy’s hobbies, he always kept his hand in. I recall him doing all the boards and signs for Chloe’s school fetes: ‘Tombola’, ‘Coconut Shy’ and the like, all in that beautiful, nostalgic fairground style, and all done properly, they’ll be using them for years, long after she’s moved on to big school. But nobody wants their vans painted any more they want laser-cut vinyl stickers that don’t fade and don’t damage the paintwork and when no longer wanted can be peeled off with a hairdryer.

  Made me a little sad to think an old traditional skill like that had died with Tommy and I felt my eyes start to prickle, although that could have been the warmed-up solvent fumes getting to me. No, a painted van is a nuisance and Granny Ballesteros won’t get her five grand because I’ll need to discount it to cover the buyer’s respray cost. It wouldn’t have been a problem for Tommy though: with his last van, he sold it to some woman starting a florist-cum-coffee shop so he over-painted the panels with her designs and she was delighted, he’d always pop in there whenever passing for a steaming extra-hot flat white – and a cup of coffee too, probably.

  At the traffic lights, and warm enough that I could at last move my fingers without hurting, I punched in the numbers. The phone rang a few times, then a few more. By now I was hoping for voicemail and panicked when I heard a human voice speak after so many rings.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mrs Wilkes?’ I said struggling to remember what to say next. ‘Hello, it’s Mark Poynter. How are you?’

  Mrs Wilkes and I muttered the standard pleasantries back and forth but in the background I could hear, ‘Is that him? Is it? Let me speak to him.’

  ‘Mrs Wilkes, I was just checking in, see what’s happening, whether you know when we can come back and finish off?’

  She told me the police still had her home sealed off as a crime scene, confirming what I’d just encountered, and they were staying in the Holiday Inn for the meantime.

  ‘Give me the phone, Alison,’ said the distant voice.

  ‘Any idea when they’ll be finished?’ I was keen to get back to work but, bollocks, the police had said expect the house to be out of bounds until at least next week. ‘Mrs Wilkes, I know it might be a bit cheeky given the circumstances, but I was wondering if there was any chance of an interim payment, you know, just to keep everything ticking over?’

  ‘Just a moment,’ she said and I heard her repeat everything.

  ‘What!’ said the very angry distant voice, ‘Give me the phone right now Alison.’

  ‘I’ll just pass you over to my husband,’ said Mrs Wilkes.

  Now, I don’t know, call me clairvoyant, maybe it was the mystical magic of the soft warm fumes, but something told me I wouldn’t be getting paid, so I hung up before he could get to the phone.

  12

  A little after one, I collected Disco from Boris The Plastic’s job at a bland boxy detached house built in an era when frontage was more important than character. Fed up with the barrage of abuse I was getting for cutting into his drinking time and bored of having to explain for the third time why I was driving Tommy’s van, I raised finishing Tommy’s jobs.

  ‘Uncle Bern’s coming back tomorrow, I thought I’d offer him some of the painting,’ I said and heard him mutter ‘Useless’ under his breath. It was clear Disco wasn’t impressed by Uncle Bern’s work ethic, but to call him useless wasn’t fair – he was absolutely, totally, double dog-shit useless. But he was family, and I don’t have much of that anymore, honour told me I should fight my corner. ‘He is quick and cheap though,’ I said.

  ‘So’s sticking your arm in a woodchipper for a manicure – and, both of them, you’ll end up scraping lumps out the carpet for months after.’

  ‘I’m only talking about odds and sods, just a touch-up, he should be alright for that,’ I said, and took the low grumble beside me as Disco reserving judgement.

  Putting Uncle Bern’s malingering aside, we drew up outside a substantial piece of Victoriana in one of Rochester’s grand historic avenues. Solid handsome bays extended from the basement to three storeys above with tall elegant double-hung sashes in each window. The ornate stone lintels and burnt orange brickwork radiated warmth and character in stark contrast to the monstrosity I’d found Disco at. They call these old imperial bricks ‘rubbers’ on account of how soft they are, the bricklayers of times past would rub them by hand to straighten out any defects which is why Victorian brickwork is still the best for being straight and plumb.

  Once upon a time, back when Charles Dickens walked these wide leafy streets looking for inspiration, this property would have been home to one of Rochester’s wealthy and respected gentlemen: wife, children, domestics, staunch pillar of the community, faithful servant of the Empire. Now it was owned by a charity and had been sub-divided into flats, only four of them, one per floor, and sympathetically done to provide decent accommodation for people in need, not like Hamlet’s rat-traps.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ said Disco, pulling a manky looking roll-up cigarette from behind his ear, ‘I thought we were going to the old folks’ home.’

  ‘Later,’ I replied as he picked loose shreds of tobacco from his tongue ‘This is one of Tommy’s, a full external redec front back and sides, so we’ve got a meeting about it.’

  ‘Who? Oh jeez, don’t say Bern,’ Disco said between splutters. I don’t know what he’d rolled in that cigarette but it wasn’t agreeing with him.

  ‘Behave. Can you imagine Uncle Bern on this, it’d give him double incontinence? No, I want the Two Ronnies to do it.’

  ‘The Two Ronnies? Yeah, that sounds more like it,’ said Disco. The spluttering had stopped, but a dense black smoke and the smell of burnt hair hung around him.

  Chris and Gavin Roncskevitz set up ‘CGR Decorations’ several years ago. Partly because of their ridiculously unpronounceable surname, and partly because of them being identical twins, but mostly because everyone loves a silly nickname, it was almost inevitable they’d become better known as the Two Ronnies – unusually for a nickname, they
loved it too and had even started using the famous spectacles logo on their letterhead.

  Disco and I looked round to the sound of doors slamming. The Two Ronnies’ van – new, Mercedes, business must be good – was parked up slightly ahead of us on the other side of the road behind a stationary silver Mondeo whose driver appeared to be having a furious row on his phone as the Two Ronnies waddled past.

  ‘Remind me, how do you tell them apart again?’

  ‘It’s easy,’ said Disco. ‘Chris is the hairy one with the beard, and Gav wears glasses.’

  Well that makes it nice and easy, no problem I thought when two smooth-faced, shiny-headed identical clones in matching sweatshirts faced me, not a spectacle in sight.

  ‘Hair … beard … glasses?’ was all I could muster.

  ‘Oh, yeah right,’ said One Ronnie rubbing his face. Could this be Chris? ‘We did a sponsored shave for charity at my boy’s school.’

  ‘I got lasered,’ said the Other Ronnie, I’m guessing Gavin. ‘It’s brilliant, it’s like seeing everything now in HD.’