Death of a Painter

by Matthew Ross

  I entered the living room and found Perry. She was on her knees, eyes wide, clearly terrified by the enormous knife held to her throat. Gripping the knife in one hand, Perry’s hair in the other stood Kate Fuller.

  ‘Hello Mark,’ she said beckoning me in.

  ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘You know. Don’t insult my intelligence. You know very well what this is about,’ said Fuller, her eyes bulging with fury, her nose flushing even redder.

  About Rob? But how did she know about me, I was convinced that I was in the clear, I knew Hamlet wouldn’t talk and I was sure Nick Witham wouldn’t have, how could she know I was responsible?

  Perry wriggled in resistance, but Fuller tightened her grip on her hair, I could see her knuckles whiten and the roots of Perry’s hair straining at the tension.

  ‘Leave her alone,’ I said. ‘If it’s about Rob, it’s me you want.’

  ‘What about Rob?’ she said, ‘What’s he got to do with anything?’

  ‘I had to tell the police, I had to, he’s a killer.’

  ‘What?’ she laughed. ‘What are you talking about? He’s a useless streak of piss, doesn’t have the balls he was born with.’

  ‘He killed my friends.’

  Fuller laughed again, ‘He’s a loser. A lazy, freeloading loser.’

  ‘No. He’s a murderer.’

  ‘You’re off your head. I’ve never heard so much rubbish in my life, stop talking crap, it won’t work.’

  ‘Your husband is a drug dealing murderer.’

  ‘Shut up! He used to do a bit of weed, but he put that behind him years ago when he became Daddy Daycare.’

  ‘Do you know where he is today?’ I asked, and saw a flicker of uncertainty cross her face. ‘He’s been arrested by Essex Police in a drug bust worth tens of thousands.’

  ‘Rubbish!’

  ‘It’s the truth. It was going to be the big pay-off he needed so he could leave you.’

  ‘He’d never leave me, I’m his meal ticket. I’m the bread winner in our family.’

  ‘He was only waiting for this big money deal and then he would have left you, taken the boy and gone.’

  Fuller laughed, a nasty derisive laugh as though she knew something I didn’t. ‘Rob doesn’t have any big deal planned, he’s an idiot. He was waiting for my big deal.’

  That surprised me, perhaps she did know something I didn’t after all.

  ‘Your big deal?’

  ‘Eighteen months I’ve been working on this, kowtowing to cretins like Charlie Quentin and his family of inbreeds. Eighteen months, working hard, putting it together, driving it through. And then you come along. You will not fuck it up.’

  ‘Right, now I have no idea what you’re talking about. How about you tell me, it’d be nice to know before I knock you out. Just because you’re a woman don’t think I won’t hurt you to protect my girlfriend.’

  ‘Get back,’ she jabbed the point of the knife straight at me. ‘“Just because you’re a woman” – listen to yourself.’ She laughed her snide laugh again.

  Perry twisted, but Fuller tightened her grip and pushed the knife hard up under Perry’s jaw, I held my breath in reaction, if she pressed any harder Perry would bleed.

  ‘I’ve had to listen to pricks like you for years. I got a first at Cambridge, I worked my way up to this point, listening to patronising arseholes like you. It’s not because I’m a woman. It’s because I am better than you. I am better than your grubby friend, the painter. I am better than the Quentins. I am better than any of you!’

  I’d surprised myself so far by staying reasonably calm, but Fuller appeared totally deranged. Her grey woollen suit strained at the seams, she was in danger of going full Hulk at any moment.

  ‘I’ve worked so hard for this deal. The sale of Queen Mary’s will go through at the end of the month, there’s no question about that, I won’t let you spoil that now. I’ll be free of the Quentins, I get a place on the board of a FTSE100 company, a big bonus, six figure salary, it’s so close and I will not fail. I do not fail.’

  ‘How’s it going to be? All happy families with your old man doing ten years on drug offences?’

  ‘I’ve only your word for that. I don’t believe you. This deal will go through and I will win, I always do.’

  ‘No. Rob was going to leave you and start a new life somewhere else, away from you.’

  ‘Liar.’ Her face looked damp and sweaty, her eyes wide and unblinking. ‘What would he want a barmaid for? I am better than a barmaid.’

  ‘Barmaid? You know about Sally?’

  ‘Of course I do. He can’t keep any secrets from me, I own him. That was the deal. He gives me a baby before I’m forty, and I support him. I own his phone, I own his devices, I own him.’

  ‘She was pregnant, they wanted to be a family,’ I said.

  ‘Lies! She wasn’t pregnant. It could have been anybody’s, she was a loose slag. Losers like him don’t leave me, especially not for trash like that. He knows that now.’

  She was sounding crazier by the minute. I was losing control of the situation. I tried to get on her side hoping it would pacify her: ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘He came to me, said he’d met the barmaid, but I already knew, I’d seen his phone and his messages, I didn’t care, she wasn’t his first bit on the side, probably wouldn’t be his last, but he always comes back. I own him. But then he said he wanted to be with this one. He was wrong, he knew he was wrong.’

  ‘How did he know he was wrong?’ asked Perry engaging her caring professional voice, trying to get the rational part of Fuller to listen.

  ‘Because he knew it would kill me. If he tried to leave me it would kill me, and Joseph.’

  ‘Wait, you threatened to kill your own son to teach him a lesson?’ somehow Perry still managed to retain her soothing tone of voice, but my head was reeling at the very suggestion Fuller was making.

  ‘It would be his own fault, and he knew it. That’s why he changed his mind and apologised to me. But she wouldn’t take no for an answer and kept texting him, telling him to go with her. I’m not afraid of trash like her, I don’t lose to her kind. So, I went to see her.’

  It was dawning on me where this was headed and I was frightened for Perry, she shouldn’t have been dragged into this. I looked at Perry pinned behind the blade, and prayed she wouldn’t get hurt because of me and this horror show I’d created.

  ‘I told her to leave Rob alone, but she was pathetic, said she loved him, that they wanted to be together, stupid bitch. I tried slapping some sense in to her. She went all melodramatic, started talking nonsense like something from a bad movie: “Do you know who I am? I’m protected. I can get you killed” and so on, absolute rubbish, carrying on like she was in the Godfather or something. She came at me with her claws, so I let her have it. I play to win. Always. I don’t lose. I knew I was better than her.’

  ‘That wasn’t pretending,’ I said, ‘Didn’t Rob mention it?’

  She tilted her head as she looked at me, there was a sense of confusion floating across her fury-contorted face. Then it dawned on me, of course, it was obvious. I began laughing. Fuller stared at me, her teeth bared and gritted, she still looked demented, but for the first time she looked defensive with it.

  ‘Of course, he didn’t,’ I said, laughing. ‘He hasn’t got the balls to leave you, but he’s got the brains to get you killed. Suicide by Police, you know what that is? That’s when someone deliberately provokes a lethal response from the police because they don’t have the stamina to kill themselves.’

  Fuller looked blankly at me and shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t understand the point I was making. I only hoped it would be enough to make her realise she’d gone too far and to give up.

  ‘Only instead of Suicide by Police, he’s gone for Widowed by Gangster. Sally was protected, very much so – you’ll know who her kiddie’s granddad is if I say Hamlet, yes, you’ve heard of him haven’t you. And right now, he’s on a
mission to get his hands on Rob to take his own form of justice as he thinks Rob killed Sally.’

  She paused, thinking, then, ‘So, let him have the silly bastard in that case, I don’t care.’

  ‘Well,’ I said ‘I’m no marriage guidance counsellor but I’m guessing he won’t cover for you, especially if he knows you killed his unborn child. Hamlet will be coming for you very, very soon. Anyway, your Rob deserves everything he’s got coming to him, he killed my friend Tommy.’

  ‘Jesus you’re stupid. No, he didn’t. Why would Rob want to kill your grubby painter?’

  ‘For the money?’

  ‘I killed him. I’ve told you. Eighteen months I’ve spent, day and night, putting this deal together and I’m not having it ruined in the due diligence when the accountants discover you cowboys have been fiddling the books just to give Charlie Quentin some pocket money. I told him, the painter, to give the money back. He laughed at me. I told him I’d go to the police, he just laughed like it was all some big joke to him, and then he starting making filthy propositions. I put him straight there, and as he turned his back on me thinking himself the great comedian, I picked up a hammer that was lying on the side and swung at him. I didn’t mean to kill him, but when I realised I had, I didn’t care.’

  Perry and I exchanged a look. We both knew I’d got it wrong again, only this time the repercussions would be a lot, lot worse.

  ‘Okay, okay calm down. I agree, he could be quite filthy, quite inappropriate, disrespectful. I apologise on his behalf,’ I said, trying to placate her and dampen her fury, hoping the sane part of her was listening. ‘Tell me, why are you here? What do you want from us?’

  ‘What do you think I want? I want the money back. You are not ruining my deal. Pay it back, I want the cheque, give it to me or I will kill her, then you.’

  As I didn’t have a cheque, I needed to find a way to buy some time.

  ‘Okay, that’s fine. I can do that. It’s just over there, in my jacket hanging up over there, see it?’ I said pointing towards the front door. ‘Can I go over and get it, is that okay?’

  She nodded, and we all slowly wheeled around keeping our eyes locked on each other until I ended up with my back to the front door and Perry and Fuller with their backs towards the kitchen. I was hoping somehow, if I could hide my hands inside the jackets by the door I might be able to send a distress text to Nick Witham or someone, Hamlet even.

  Slowly, with my hands raised I stepped backwards, one slow deliberate footstep at a time still thinking inspiration would strike and I could find us a way out of this. As I maintained eye contact with Fuller I could see movement on the very outer edge of my field of vision slightly behind her in the doorway, but it took every ounce of concentration not to break eye contact with her, I couldn’t see clearly what it was.

  ‘Hey, you.’

  Fuller turned and found Disco standing in the kitchen doorway, he held his ratchet screwdriver, his thumb flicked the switch and it shot out to its full three feet length and in one smooth Keith Moon motion he tossed it in the air end-over-end and snatching it by its pointy end swung it like a baseball bat. Its bulbous wooden handle struck Fuller on the side of the head.

  ‘Ow! You fucker!’ said Fuller, her hand shooting up to her face in reaction to the blow. Silly bollocks Disco had failed to put enough force behind his swing and merely annoyed her further. With her grip released, Perry dropped on her side and rolled away.

  ‘Look what you’ve done,’ said Fuller holding her hand out to Disco, ‘I’m bleeding, that’ll bruise. You dozy bastard, what’d you do that for?’

  Fuller’s questioning took Disco by surprise, genuinely bewildered, he began mumbling apologies.

  ‘Hey! Bitch.’

  Fuller turned to follow the voice and as she did Perry drove the narrow end of Dad’s banjo case squarely into her face, her rosy red nose flattened across her face and she went down, her head hitting the floor knocking her clean unconscious. Perry, Disco and I all looked at each other before coming together in a group hug.

  ‘You’ll never guess whose outside – Pervy Ken. He’s here to look at the van,’ said the late-arriving Uncle Bern. ‘What the bloody hell’s been going on in here?’

  57

  Hey Dad, so, that was quite a few weeks wasn’t it? Just taken a few days off to get over it all, went down to Brighton with Perry, met her folks.

  But it all seemed to sort itself out in the end, the police came and took away Kate Fuller who admitted to killing Tommy and Sally, and also clobbering poor old Charlie. The uniform who attended our 999 call was Hamlet’s pet copper Brennan. We had a few private minutes together, and next thing I’d heard was Hamlet’s fancy lawyers had made the club available for a second search, ‘in the spirit of collaboration’, no knuckleheads blocking the way, access all areas, and lo and behold there was Sally’s new red phone in the cloakroom where it had always been. I heard from Nick Witham that Senia was very interested in the texts and messages they found on it.

  I also heard from Nick that Rob Beach had been bailed by Essex Police due to his co-operation in helping Senia build his case against his soon to be ex-wife. Due to his restricted movements whilst on bail he’s entrusted little Joseph to Karen’s childminding service, and Sally’s mum thought continuity would be good for Sophia so she’s with Karen too, the Three Amigos ride again.

  Charlie, thankfully, pulled through and was released from hospital within two days, but I did manage to spend five minutes with him in his private room shortly after he came to. Perry managed to sneak me in to see him and we got things straight. Sitting less than three feet apart, I emailed him to say there was a mistake and I’d been overpaid, he emailed back to say he’d misplaced the decimal point and instead of five hundred he’d typed fifty thousand. I emailed back some bad joke about having spent it on a yacht, but finished by confirming the money would be returned, and I did an online transaction bouncing it back to the Queen Mary account. As soon as he was discharged, he destroyed the paperwork and replaced it all to correspond with a small five-hundred-pound order. All done before anyone noticed. I’m confident that when the accountants do their final due diligence for the sale of the business there won’t be any cause for concern.

  Charlie returned all of the cash to me, and I, in turn, returned it to Jen who was naturally delighted by this surprise windfall, and promised it would buy Tommy’s daughter the best education possible. So that’s nice, something positive will come from all of this.

  Weather was nice in Brighton. It was good. Met her folks, all very nice, made me feel very welcome. Met her younger sisters and made some balloon animals and did a few tricks, now they think I’m the coolest boyfriend ever. They loved Fuzzy Duck. I mean, who doesn’t?

  You know what this taught me Dad? I didn’t know Tommy at all. I would have said before all this he was one of my best friends, but it made me realise I was taking people for granted, just because they’re there every day. I lived in the present. Maybe it was a defence mechanism, losing Mum, Adam, you. Enjoy them while you can but don’t get too attached? Who knows? But, I’ve resolved to try and put a stop to it, and to try and open up to people – started last night in fact.

  We went out for dinner, Perry and me, Disco and Helen from Queen Mary’s, did you know Disco travelled the length of Asia north to south by motorcycle when he was twenty? No, nor did I. And she’s actually very nice away from work when you get to know her too. I hope this can be the start of a new chapter for me.

  Oh, and as for Mr Wilkes, his house sold within two days of going on the market, full asking price offer as well. So, they’re buying a new place and he’s asked me to do the kitchen and bathroom for him.

  Things are looking up Dad, onwards and upwards.

  And keep an eye on Adam, will you Dad? Keep him safe. Let him know I’ll never give up looking.

  About the Author

  Matthew Ross was born and raised in the Medway Towns, England. He still lives in Kent with his Kiwi wife,
his children and a very old cat.

  He was immersed in the building industry from a very early age helping out on his father’s sites during school holidays before launching into his own career at 17. He’s worked on projects ranging from the smallest domestic repair to £billion+ infrastructure, and probably everything in between.

  A lifelong comedy nerd, he ticked off a bucket-list ambition and tried his hand at stand-up comedy. Whilst being an experience probably best forgotten (for both him and audiences alike) it ignited a love for writing, leading to various commissions including for material broadcast on BBC Radio 4 comedy shows.

  Matthew moved into the longer format of novel writing after graduating from the Faber Academy in London in 2017.

  Death Of A Painter is his first novel and the first in a planned series of stories featuring Mark Poynter and his associates.

  Matthew enjoys reading all manner of books – especially crime and mystery; 80s music; and travelling and can’t wait for the next trip to New Zealand to spend time with family and friends.

  AUTHOR’S NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  From the very outset, I should make clear that none of my characters are based on real people. Similarly, my Medway Towns in this story is a concoction of fantasy and fiction so I apologise for dropping dead bodies and a crowd of reprobates on it. I’d like to reassure anyone thinking of visiting that in real-life it’s very lovely. I’m proud that it’s my hometown, and to be a Man of Kent.

  It has been a long journey to get to this point, and I am grateful for the help, guidance, collaboration and inspiration of so many people along the way.

  I’d like to thank everyone at Red Dog Press for giving me this wonderful opportunity and having faith in me. Their encouragement, guidance and support has been there in abundance from the very beginning, and I realise I’ve been very lucky to be in their safe hands. It may well be the case that it was the amazing cover that made you pick this book up, and that is thanks entirely to Sean at Red Dog leading the design process with verve and passion. And I’ve truly been touched by the kind words of Chris McDonald and Heleen Kist welcoming me to the Red Dog kennel, it really feels like a happy home.