by Carola Dunn
“I shall.” Nick grinned. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil your exclusive.”
“Ta muchly. And by the way, congrats on achieving an international reputation!” He disappeared.
Nick turned to Eleanor. “A what?”
“I had to tell them something. They were besieging me. It’s true, after all. Land of Hope and Glory isn’t the first American commission you’ve had.”
“The last one was enlarging a landscape to match a sofa!”
“But still, it’s true. And I can’t see why you should object.”
“I don’t. I’m just a bit stunned. It was the national dailies you told?”
“Yes. And I told them about Alarian’s Gallery, too,” Eleanor confessed.
“Ye gods!”
“They went off muttering about Arts Page editors.”
“Ye gods! You know, I think Alarian had better be warned, just in case someone actually goes to talk to him, or writes about it without talking to him. Would you mind ringing him up for me?”
“No, of course not.”
“And now I come to think of it, it might be just as well to warn him that he’ll probably be asked to give me an alibi.”
“Don’t you think you ought to do that yourself?”
“No,” Nick said firmly. “It’s a perfect mission for your diplomatic skills. Besides, I have a painting to finish.”
“And there goes the bell. I’d better get back to the shop.”
“Sell a few more three-figure pictures for me, will you? Let me know when the place is empty again and I’ll hang a replacement.”
So Eleanor returned to the shop. The locals were beginning to filter in now, most having read about the murder and Nick’s arrest in the morning papers or heard it on the wireless news, but not yet aware of his release. A few pretended to look at pictures, but most were simply avid for information. Eleanor fed them a selection from what she had told the national reporters and what Nick had said to David Skan.
Most went away empty-handed, tut-tutting about false arrest and police misconduct. However, three bought paintings, two from sympathy and one shamefaced at being one of the inquisitive masses.
Two miniatures—the cheapest things in the gallery—and one landscape: Eleanor was quite pleased with herself. It wasn’t till she put up the closedsign at lunchtime that she realised she hadn’t done her weekend shopping and now the shops were shut till Monday. Oh well, she had leftover sausages and several tins at home, and there was always bread and cheese, or fish and chips if she felt extravagant. However, she had also forgotten to telephone Alarian to warn him of the impending visit of the police—which very likely was no longer impending.
TWENTY-NINE
In the meantime, Megan had risen at an ungodly hour, picked up the 1100 without falling into any verbal traps set by the sergeant—if she dodged often enough the sneaky bastard just might give up trying someday—and picked up Scumble as instructed.
The previous evening he had stayed late in Bodmin and been driven straight home from there, so she hadn’t seen him. He had not read her reports and she hadn’t heard the results of the various house-to-house enquiries. The first thing he wanted was an oral report on her meeting with Stella Weller. He listened with his eyes closed. He looked tired, Megan noticed, taking her eyes from the road for long enough to glance at his face. Again she wondered whether he had bitten off more than he could chew.
But when she finished, he said, “Not bad, Pencarrow. You’re learning. We’ve a long way to go yet, but things are beginning to come together.”
They were? Megan was surprised enough almost to voice her surprise. She managed to stop herself in time to say instead, “Did the children in Port Mabyn confirm Aunt—Nick Gresham’s story.”
“Yes, of course,” he said impatiently. “Your aunt may forget to tell me things, but when she remembers, I believe her. Usually. All the same, there are ways Gresham could have faked the Paddington phone call. We should be able to get phone records from the GPO, but we still need a signed statement from the art bigwig in London that he was there that morning. We have to dot all our i ’s and cross all our t ’s on this one.”
Megan’s heart sank. “You want me to go up to London, sir?”
“No, no, I can’t spare you just now. You’re the one with the contact at the Yard, though. You’ll have to ring the boy wonder and talk him into doing it for us.”
Not good, but a big improvement on having to see Ken face-to-face. And nice to know the gov’nor couldn’t spare her, although she wondered what exactly he needed her for.
“Yes, sir.” Her concentration split between driving and thinking out what she needed to know, she had no attention to spare for the moorland scenery she usually enjoyed. “Have Jeanette Jones and Tom Lennox’s alibis been checked?”
“Not yet. There’s still plenty of work to be done on the statements we took yesterday.”
“What about Leila Arden? I heard she was found.”
“Yeah. Pity she hadn’t made a run for it. We’d have known who we were looking for at least. She claims she stayed at the farm working till three. She didn’t see or talk to anyone. Not the sociable kind, if you ask me. Then she walked down to Padstow to buy glue and varnish.”
“Couldn’t one of the others have picked them up for her?”
“She says she’s tried that before and they’ve bought the wrong kind.”
“If she’s so particular, the shop people might remember her. But that’s too late, anyway, and she could have gone down earlier.”
“Top marks, Pencarrow.”
Megan had long ago stopped wincing at his sarcasm. “Any suggestion of a motive, sir?”
“She hated his guts, that much was obvious if unstated, but I didn’t find out why. That’s one of your jobs.”
“Yes, sir. Did anything useful come out of the house-to-house in Padstow?”
“Not much. A couple of local people think King Arthur’s Gallery had the closedsign up all day, but couldn’t swear to it. One got sarky”—Scumble was a fine one to talk!—“about having better things to do than stare at his neighbour’s door all day, as reported verbatim by some idiot constable. No one noticed anyone going in or out.”
“There must have been a lot of tourists passing.”
“Yes, the place is swamped with holiday people already. Must be sheer hell in August. But I’m not ready to put out a call in the press for casual passers-by who might have seen one of our suspects going in, not until we’ve got it narrowed down.”
Requests for assistance from the general public tended to bring a response from countless cranks, would-be detectives, and other equally imaginative citizens. In most circumstances, winnowing the few grains of wheat (some of which would prove to be weed seeds) from vast quantities of chaff was apt to absorb more police time than it was worth.
Megan pulled out to overtake a lorry loaded with bales of hay. The inspector closed his eyes tight and went on talking, rather fast, as if to take his mind off the manoeuvre. “We do know the artists’ co-op shop was open all day except for the lunch hour. That doesn’t help much, though, as Clark may well have been killed between one and two. I had another word with Rudd, who now claims he stayed inside, ate a sandwich, and sketched out some new pictures. He’s got the sketches to show for it, which proves nothing, of course.”
“And Port Mabyn’s house-to-house?” Megan asked.
“Now there’s a proper village, where people mind each other’s business! Not just a tourist trap. Gresham’s place was open until shortly after noon. Then an ‘artistic-looking bloke’ walked down the hill from the north and went into the gallery. The way Clark dressed left little doubt of his profession! A few minutes later, the sign was turned to closed. Shortly after that, he came out again and walked back up the hill. After he’d gone—How long after is anyone’s guess; we don’t have actual times for most of this—the woman came out and went over to the bakery to buy a couple of pasties. She didn’t go back to t
he gallery but waited a couple of minutes outside the bakery till Clark came down in his MG and picked her up.”
“It all fits in with what she told me, sir.”
“That’s my impression from what you’ve told me. Surprisingly accurate recall for someone who imagined she saw Gresham stab Clark.”
“Very different circumstances, sir!” Megan protested. “It must have been a nasty shock seeing Clark destroy Gresham’s paintings, but nothing compared to seeing her lover lying dead with a dagger in his back.”
“Very true,” Scumble conceded. “Now, if you’ve got any more questions, save ’em till you’ve read the reports. Concentrate on your driving!”
The advice was quite unnecessary. It was still early enough for little traffic to be about, and once Megan had turned right off the A30, they went straight down the Launceston Road towards Bodmin town centre. She didn’t even have to negotiate the centre itself as the police station was on the side of their approach. She drove round behind the building and parked.
As they walked back to the steps, the inspector glanced at his watch. “All right, you can read the reports while I tackle the Super.”
“You don’t want me to go with you, sir?”
“Not this time. Egerton’s going to start out unhappy about us having proved his man doesn’t know his arse from his elbow, so I’ve got to make him happy about the progress we’ve made.”
Megan’s mind boggled at the very notion of Scumble smoothing ruffled feathers. “Yes, sir,” she said doubtfully.
Halfway up the steps, he turned and glared at her. “I know tact’s not my strong suit, but I managed him before, when we had practically nothing to go on, didn’t I? We’re a lot further on now. In fact, if you ask me, we’ve done bloody well for just one day. It’s just a matter of maybe smoothing the edges of a few speculations to make them look more like facts. I don’t need you standing there looking as if I’ve gone out of my mind. I do need you to bring yourself up to date on everything we’ve got so far.”
“Yes, sir.” Megan decided to seize the opportunity to talk to Ken without the gov’nor listening in. The chance of catching him actually in the office at the Yard at any given moment was pretty slim, but eight o’clock in the morning was as likely a time as any, and she could make a case for having tried before he went out on some job.
The stacks of folders on the battered desk in their borrowed office had grown to impressive proportions. The two wooden chairs had reproduced—there were now half a dozen—and a long metal table as battered as the desk stood against one wall. On another wall were drawing-pinned a street plan of Padstow, with coloured pins marking various spots, and a map of the area, including Padstow, Trevone Bay, and Upper Trewithen Farm. The latter showed public footpaths as well as roads and farm tracks. A second telephone had been added to the one on the desk, and two more stood on the table. The ancient biscuit tin was gone; in its place were boxes of brand-new pencils, biros, and varicoloured drawing-pins.
“It looks as if you’ve already made quite an impression, sir.”
“Oh, the Super’s got them cooperating, I won’t say he hasn’t.”
Scumble went off to work his flim-flam on Egerton. Megan sat down in the swivel chair behind the desk and pulled a telephone towards her.
“This is DS Pencarrow. Get me Scotland Yard, please. I want to speak to DS Faraday if possible.”
Waiting for the connection, she turned the chair to look out of the window. She hadn’t had time to even glance that way before. Now she realised that the lucky coppers who had a window on this side of the building had a view over the town, across the valley to the obelisk on top of Beacon Hill. Perhaps the unlucky souls on the other side got new desks to compensate.
“DS Pencarrow? I have DS Faraday on the line. I’m putting you through.”
Taken by surprise—she hadn’t really expected to get straight through to him—Megan hadn’t worked out what she was going to say. Ken beat her to the draw.
“Meggie! Sorry, Megan. What a pleasant surprise. I hope this means you’re coming up to town. We must make a date for dinner.”
The public-school accent was more pronounced on the phone, the charm slightly diminished but still there. Megan wondered what his current leggy blonde model would think if she could hear him turning it on for a fellow police officer. She was glad Scumble didn’t expect her to go to London herself. As long as she could win Ken’s cooperation …
“’Fraid not. Strictly business. The gov’nor’s hoping you can check an alibi for us.”
“I expect so. We’ve just wrapped up a big job. If it’ll give me an excuse to postpone writing up reports, I’ll do my best to talk my gov’nor into it.”
“Yes, we’d like you to call in person, or we could have phoned ourselves.”
“Where is it? Whitechapel or Wimbledon?”
“Oh, a cut above Wimbledon. Much posher. At least, that’s my impression. It’s an art gallery in Albemarle Street.”
Ken whistled. “Alarian’s.”
“I knew it was right up your street.”
“Caters to the cognoscenti. The rich cognoscenti. He’s a cagey bloke, and the art business is rife with fraud, but as far as I know we’ve never had any hint—”
“We’re not suggesting he’s not on the up and up. We just need to make sure our man was there on Thursday morning and what time he left.” She gave him the details. “Be tactful. Alarian’s taken a couple of Gresham’s pictures to sell, which I gather is a big deal. We don’t want to give the impression he’s in trouble with the law when we’re ninety-nine percent certain he’s not. But we’ve got a delicate situation here and we need a hundred percent, including a signed statement.”
“Nicholas Gresham. Wasn’t he involved in that jewelry business?” What a memory! No one could say Ken wasn’t a good detective.
“Peripherally, as a next-door neighbour.”
“What’s he mixed up in now?”
“Ken, I haven’t got time to tell you any more now. I’ve got a stack of reports to read and you have some to write. Will you do it?”
“I’ll put it up to the gov’nor—he should be in any minute now—and ring you back. I imagine the gallery doesn’t open till ten but I might be able to knock Alarian up earlier.”
“Thanks a lot, Ken. I’m sure Nick will be very grateful.”
“Nick? Hey—”
Megan hung up. She had no intention of letting him interrogate her about her use of Nick’s nickname and the degree of familiarity involved. She mustn’t let him revert to the subject when he rang back. Not that there was anything to tell, she thought gloomily. Perhaps she ought to take a serious look at the worthies her mother regularly produced on her monthly visits home, hope springing eternal in the parental breast. But she thought of them collectively as “worthies,” not a good sign.
With a sigh, she turned to the reports.
Like any detective with the ambition to rise through the ranks, she had developed the technique of skimming to a high art. She went rapidly through the stack, pausing now and then to read something in depth, making notes as she went and occasionally scribbling a question mark in the margins. When Scumble returned, she was two thirds of the way to the bottom.
He was grinning. “The Super is delighted with our progress.”
“Well done, sir.”
The grin faded. “Of course, you realise what this means, Pencarrow.”
“Sir?”
“The inquest’s on Monday. The verdict can hardly come in as anything other than murder. Mr Egerton sincerely hopes that it won’t be ‘by person or persons unknown.’ In other words, from now on he expects miracles. So we’d better get down to it and see if we can at least produce a rabbit from a hat.”
THIRTY
At one o’clock, after thankfully turning the sign to closedand locking the street door, Eleanor had great difficulty persuading Nick to stop painting for long enough to eat lunch. He was in the throes of inspiration, but she was tired
and hungry.
“Don’t be silly. You have to eat sometime, and it might as well be now, while you’ve got me to get it for you. Have you got anything edible upstairs?”
“Not a crumb. I was away for three nights, remember, four including my time in clink, and you fed me last night.”
“Well, I didn’t have a chance to shop this morning,” Eleanor said crossly.
“Sorry!” Contrite, he plunged his hand into his pocket, smearing yellow paint on his brown trousers, and pulled out a ten-shilling note. “I hadn’t thought. Here, I’ll spring for pasties. If you don’t mind getting them. I just want to…” He turned back to his easel, already reaching out with his paintbrush.
Eleanor told Teazle to stay, unlocked the door again, and crossed the street, glad that the bakery stayed open at lunchtime once the tourist season had begun. Returning a few minutes later with the fragrant paper bag in her hand, she heard the telephone on the counter ringing before she pushed open the door. She fancied it sounded impatient, no doubt because she suspected it could have been ringing the entire time she’d been gone without Nick taking the slightest notice.
Lifting the receiver, she gave Nick’s number.
“Aunt Nell?” came Megan’s incredulous voice. “What on earth are you doing there? Where have you been? I was about to radio for your local bobby to check—”
“For pity’s sake, Megan, why shouldn’t I be here? Nick’s my next-door neighbour. As it happens, I’ve been taking care of the shop for him so he could paint. I’ve sold several pictures and the cash register has survived intact. I just popped out to buy pasties for our lunch.”
“Nick’s there? Why didn’t he answer the phone?”
“Did you ring just to scold us?”
“No, of course not. Sorry, I’ve been worried. Remember, there’s a murderer out there who might well think you or Nick is a danger to him. After all, you both know all the people involved.”
“Him or her.”
“Or her. I rang to tell you that the inquest will be on Monday afternoon, two o’clock at the village school in Padstow. You and Nick have to be there.”
