Still Life

by Val McDermid

  ‘This is Alasdair Darnley,’ a slow sonorous voice intoned. ‘I believe you wanted to talk to someone who knew the late David Greig.’

  ‘I do, sir. Thanks for calling. I wonder if we might meet?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. Are you in Edinburgh?’

  They settled on the Perk branch on George IV Bridge, midway between his Marchmont flat and her office. Having something to do energised Karen. She grabbed her coat and her bag as Jason looked up. ‘Are we going to Stockport? Only—’

  ‘Later, Jason. I’ve got to go and talk to a man about a painter. And then you and me are going to Glasgow.’

  ‘Not Stockport?’

  ‘It’s on the way. Well, kind of. Two birds, one stone, sort of thing. Trust me, Jason.’

  As if he’d have done anything else.

  33

  Karen emerged from the dystopian fluorescent gloom of the Gayfield Square station into sparkling sunshine on Leith and the rest of the city. Even though the trees were still bare and the weather crisp, it almost felt as if winter was on the retreat. It was enough to lift her spirits in spite of what felt like an amassing of information without any forward movement on either case. She took so much pleasure in the day that she was entirely oblivious to the man who kept pace with her all the way across North Bridge, up the High Street and on to George IV Bridge. When she turned into the coffee shop, her pursuer cut across the street and found a window seat in a café opposite.

  Anders the barista greeted Karen with a friendly smile and finished making an espresso for a painfully thin young woman clutching an armful of textbooks. Then he turned his attention to Karen. ‘Flat white?’

  ‘As usual. You busy?’

  ‘So-so. Hamish isn’t in, if you were looking for him?’

  One of Hamish’s virtues was that he wasn’t the kind of boss who hovered. He hired people he trusted and if they let him down, there were no second chances. All his team understood that, but because he treated them like adults and paid better than the going rate elsewhere, it seemed to work, if the low turnover of staff was anything to go by. ‘No, I’m meeting somebody,’ Karen said, looking around and failing to spot anyone who looked like her idea of an art teacher. ‘I’ll go and sit in the window and try to look like a cop.’

  She’d barely made a start on her coffee when a little barrel of a man waddled in. He was the epitome of a certain Scottish type: short, rotund, bald, with a face that looked like it had been formed from modelling clay – button nose and double chin, round cheeks and fleshy brow. A pair of gold-rimmed glasses dug into his nose. He was wearing a fisherman’s smock straining at the seams under a voluminous raincoat. He looked around with the air of a man attempting to act as if this was his natural environment. He caught Karen’s eye and frowned. ‘Are you waiting for me?’ he asked. ‘I’m Alasdair Darnley.’

  Karen stood up. ‘And I’m DCI Pirie. Can I get you a coffee?’

  He bustled into the seat opposite her, bellying up to the table. ‘An Americano with soy milk, please. I’m lactose intolerant.’

  Karen ordered the drink then returned to her seat. ‘Thanks for meeting me.’

  ‘I’m intrigued,’ he said. ‘David Greig. Now there’s a name from the past. Why would a detective chief inspector be interested in talking about the late David Greig?’

  There was a condescension in his manner that she found irritating, the more so since she’d have to disguise it. But that was the nature of the job sometimes. ‘As I said on the phone, I’m with the Historic Cases Unit and David Greig’s name has come up in connection with a case I’m currently reviewing.’

  ‘That sounds very tantalising. Is he suspected of having committed some heinous crime?’

  Karen hoped her smile didn’t look as weary as it felt. ‘Nothing so exciting. Following up some loose threads.’

  ‘Well, David could certainly be loose,’ he said archly. Anders came over with his coffee. Darnley didn’t even thank him. ‘Perhaps you’d give me a clue as to what precisely interests you?’

  ‘I’m trying to find out what he was like. Since I’m based in Edinburgh, I thought I’d make a start here. You taught David painting, is that right?’

  He gave an affected chuckle. ‘I don’t teach artists like David to paint. I point out the deficiencies in their work and suggest directions they might choose to take in order to make it better. But yes, David was one of my students.’

  ‘What was he like? As a person?’

  ‘Full of himself and convinced he was God’s gift to painting. Loud, opinionated and ambitious. But he was also handsome and funny and charismatic. He was popular with most of his fellow students, which naturally made him very unpopular with others. And of course he was flamboyantly gay, which was not unproblematic in the days of Section 28.’

  Karen knew Darnley was fishing for a reaction but she couldn’t be bothered. She didn’t know what she was looking for but she was pretty sure its roots didn’t lie in Greig’s student days. ‘And as a painter? What was your opinion of him?’

  Darnley sipped his coffee and pursed his lips. ‘I’ll be honest. At first, I wondered whether we’d made a mistake in admitting him.’ A self-satisfied smirk. He was like a puppy, performing for the next treat. Or in this case, the next prompt.

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘In his first year, his work was startlingly derivative. He could copy any style, from Bellini to Bacon. For the first term, in the life class, his draughtsmanship was superb but there was nothing original about it. One week he sketched like Dürer, the next like Picasso, then like a Michelangelo cartoon. Whatever he’d been looking at most intently in the immediate past, there it was on his easel. But when we sought his own creativity, there seemed to be a vacuum. It was worrying, Detective Chief Inspector. We’re a college of art, not a college for copyists.’

  ‘Something obviously changed?’

  ‘He had a Damascene moment.’ He paused, assuming she’d have to ask for a translation.

  ‘And what was his revelation on the road to Damascus?’ All those Scottish Presbyterian Sunday mornings did sometimes pay off.

  ‘He went to an exhibition where they were showing some works by the German collage artist Kurt Schwitters. Something in those works spoke to him and he came back halfway through his third term fired up with enthusiasm for the form. It was a complete transformation. As if someone had flicked a switch marked “imagination” in his head. He brought all that technical skill to bear on this revelation.’

  ‘So that was when he came up with the idea of making a portrait collage from the landscape?’

  ‘Not quite that specific at first. He started with a more conventional approach. He made portraits from magazine clippings. But at some point over that first summer break, he hit on what he called “Mode: Landscape to Portrait”. A kind of pun, you see? From the idea of computer printing, which of course was still in its early days back in the early nineties. I thought it was a remarkable idea.’ He peered over his glasses and pursed his lips again. ‘It was the only original idea he ever had. But people loved it and he milked it. Every celebrity, every politician wanted a David Greig portrait. They didn’t all like the end result, though. He became very good at seeing past surfaces.’

  ‘So when did he take off, in terms of reputation and collectability? When did the money start rolling in?’

  ‘Not for a few years. Not till after he went down to London to the Royal College and was taken up by the patrons of the Brit Art phenomenon. No, David was like the rest of his crowd, a poor student. But he did manage to avoid having to take holiday jobs in places like this.’ He waved an insouciant hand towards the counter.

  Karen bit back the obvious retort about the skills involved in making what she considered a good cup of coffee. ‘How did he do that?’

  ‘He used his skills as a copyist to produce versions of famous paintings with face
s chosen by the people who commissioned him.’ Again, the pregnant pause.

  ‘I’m not sure I understand,’ she admitted reluctantly.

  ‘If you were getting married, he’d do you a version of Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait but replacing the original faces with those of you and your bride. Only, probably not pregnant . . . Or if it was your wife’s birthday, he’d do you a version of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. Your husband in his rugby kit in the style of Holbein. A Gainsborough family portrait including the family dog. He knocked them out with alarming speed. There are probably dozens scattered round the bourgeois drawing rooms of Edinburgh. All very tongue in cheek, of course. But what can this possibly have to do with whatever it is you’re investigating? I mean, you do know that David has been dead for nearly ten years?’

  Karen gave him a long hard stare. ‘Were you surprised to hear that David had committed suicide?’

  Darnley had the grace to look abashed. ‘Yes, I was,’ he said after a moment, his voice soft. ‘If you’d asked me, I’d have said David was not a man plagued by self-doubt. He came back to the college a couple of years before his death to give a lecture, and he seemed much calmer and happier than I remembered. His work had become highly collectable, his critical reception was generally good. He used to be what I’d term a risk-taker, but by then he wasn’t even drinking. He told me he’d had a dose of Hepatitis B and it had been a wake-up call. So yes, I was shocked when I heard he’d committed suicide.’

  ‘When he came back to give his lecture, did he say anything about being in a relationship?’

  Darnley shook his head. ‘Not a word. A group of us went out to dinner afterwards and someone asked in a jokey sort of way about his love life. He closed right down and said his private life was exactly that – private. So we all moved on to other gossip.’

  Karen couldn’t think of anything else to ask. Alasdair Darnley had filled in some of the blanks in her understanding of David Greig, but his knowledge of the man had been neither intimate enough nor close enough to when he’d died to be of any more use. To wind up, she said, ‘Does his work still command high prices?’

  ‘Oh yes. Most artists get a positive bounce when they die because there’s not going to be any more work. But David has benefited from two things. There was a fire at the Goldman Gallery in Brighton a few years ago that destroyed a whole swathe of YBA works, among them some of David’s portraits.’

  ‘And that bumped up his value?’

  ‘Correct.’ He gave her an indulgent smile.

  ‘And the other thing?’

  ‘Yes. There was a private collector who amassed a substantial number of David’s paintings. He – or indeed, she – has been releasing them on to the market at a rate of one every fifteen months or so. They’re previously uncatalogued, so there’s always a lot of excitement when one comes up at auction.’

  ‘So if they’re unknown works, buyers presumably have to rely on something else for proof of provenance? I read about David’s thing with the nail clippings, does the dealer actually certify the DNA?’

  ‘I believe so. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery bought his portrait of Gordon Brown back around 2015 and they were satisfied that it was the real thing. One of the curators told me it came with an original bill of sale signed by David. I’ve spent some time looking at the work, and I’m in no doubt at all that it’s an authentic David Greig.’ He drank some more coffee and pulled a face of distaste. ‘Why are you interested in this?’

  ‘I’m naturally nosy,’ she said. ‘You never know when a random bit of knowledge will win the pub quiz.’ She pushed her chair back. She wasn’t sure what she’d hoped for from their encounter, but at least she now had more of a sense of the man Iain Auld had fallen for. ‘I won’t take up any more of your time. I do appreciate it.’

  He shrugged one beefy shoulder. ‘You’re welcome. Though I’m still none the wiser as to what you were after.’

  She stood up and smiled. ‘That makes two of us.’ She was still enjoying his look of befuddlement as she walked briskly down George IV Bridge.

  She was also still oblivious to the man who had emerged from the café opposite Perk and was following in her wake. He stayed on her tail as she crossed the Royal Mile and cut through St Giles’ Street to the steep descent of the News Steps. Lost in thought, she took her time, gazing out over the city as she went. Then, at the turn of the stairs, where there was a kind of landing, she heard a scuffle of footsteps at her back and looked round just in time to realise she was trapped.

  34

  Adrenaline fizzed and surged through her body, amping up as Karen realised this was no random encounter. Merrick Shand loomed over her, unshaven, hair tousled and breath a blast of decay. Automatically, she was on the balls of her feet, her hands curling into fists.

  ‘Step away,’ she barked, not a tremor to betray the fear making her heart pound.

  He held up his hands, palms facing her. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you,’ he said, taking a step back. ‘I’m not here to give you a fright.’

  ‘Then why are you creeping up on me like a fucking assassin?’ Karen raised her voice, hoping someone coming up or down the cut-through would hear her and show their face.

  ‘I wanted to speak to you. I wanted to say sorry I reacted like I did in the pub. It was a knee-jerk.’

  ‘Like all the knee-jerk times you slapped your wife around?’ Karen’s fear had changed gear to rage and she inched closer to him. ‘You don’t scare me, Merrick Shand. I’ve never been scared of bullies.’

  ‘You’ve nothing to fear from me. Look, I’m a different man now. I was shocked the other night, I didn’t expect to see you, I wasn’t ready to face you.’ His hands dropped and his face twisted into an expression of miserable frustration. ‘I didn’t want it to be like this.’ His hands moved over each other as if he were washing them.

  ‘What did you think it would be like? You killed my man. And they took a pathetic three years of your life away in exchange for all of his. What did you expect? Forgiveness?’

  He took another step back. ‘I didn’t want anything from you. I don’t want anything from you. I wanted to apologise. I’ve spent two years in group therapy learning to face what I did to my wife and to your man. To Phil Parhatka.’

  ‘Don’t even speak his name.’ The low throb of anger in her voice.

  ‘I have to. I have to name the people I’ve wronged. I have to own the weight of what I’ve done. I can’t take any of it back, but I can refuse to repeat the wrongs I’ve committed.’

  ‘That’s easy said. I expect the parole board loved that. Recommended your release because you learned to say the right things.’

  He shifted uneasily from foot to foot. ‘I understand why you’d think that. There’s nothing I can say that will convince you that I’m genuinely remorseful for what I did. But I wanted to say it. I’m sorry for your pain, and you can be as angry with me as you like but I’m never going to retaliate. See, the rest of my life? I have to live it like it’s an atonement. I lost my wife, my kids, my home, my business. I’ll never get that back again. I have to rebuild my life from the ground up, and I need to do it in a different way. Maybe if you take a look at me in a few years, you’ll see the truth of that. Not in what I’ve said but in what I’ve done.’

  ‘Nice wee speech. Perfectly calculated to make me leave you in peace. Been practising it, have you?’ The sneer on her face as well as in her voice. ‘Here’s a tip. Don’t creep up on folk in quiet places if you want them to believe you’re Mr Nice Guy. Now get out my road before I arrest you for threatening a police officer.’

  He instinctively recoiled, hands up again defensively. ‘I’m sorry, I only wanted to talk to you privately. Honest, the last thing I wanted was to scare you.’

  ‘Epic fail.’ She pushed past him and moved swiftly down the steps. Two young men in the court uniform of lawyers headed for the
Court of Session were climbing the steps, deep in conversation. Too late for the action, guys. Karen paused and looked back. Shand was leaning against the wall, head in hands. Was it possible he’d been sincere?

  Pushing the thought away, Karen picked up speed and shoved past the lawyers. When she got to the bottom of the flight, the adrenaline deficit kicked in and she found she was trembling. She made it down the hill and dived into the Gordon Street coffee shop. For once, she avoided a blast of caffeine and ordered a hot chocolate instead. A sugar hit was what she needed to get her back on an even keel after the encounter with Shand.

  Taking him at face value seemed impossible to accept. It felt as if he was somehow trying to cheat her out of a legitimate anger. What was she to do with her grief if she had to acknowledge Shand’s remorse as a genuine state? Where could she focus her sense of outrage and loss then? If he was prepared to absorb her pain like he said, there would be nothing to feed it.

  She was truly going to have to find a way past her anger.

  Karen squeezed her eyes tight shut and clenched her fists. She couldn’t deal with this now. She had work to do. Other lives to answer to. She rummaged for her phone and messaged Jason.

  ‘You all right, boss?’ Jason greeted her as she got into the passenger seat. ‘Only, you look kinda pale.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Karen said, sharper than he deserved. She took a breath. ‘I’m fine, really.’

  ‘Where are we headed?’

  ‘Glasgow. We’re going to talk to an actress called Verity Foggo. She’s in a play at the King’s Theatre.’ As they drove out of the city and headed down the motorway, Karen brought Jason up to speed with the James Auld investigation. Doing a briefing always helped her organise the material in her head and often threw up possible avenues to explore. Sometimes, it even prompted links that hadn’t quite joined up previously. Now, as she took Jason through the steps she and Daisy had taken, her voice tailed off mid-sentence.