The Gentle Art of Murder

by Jeanne M. Dams

  They’d changed the shelf arrangement since I’d been there last. It took me much longer than it should have to whittle my list down, and then there was a long line at the till. And just as I had packed the bulging bags in the boot, in driving rain, and was about to climb into the shelter of the car, my phone rang.

  ‘Dorothy? Penny. How are you?’

  ‘Wet. It’s pouring here. Let me just unlock the car.’ Of course I dropped the keys and then couldn’t get the push-button thing to work, and Watson, who had been pent up in the car, greeted me enthusiastically, which didn’t help. But eventually I landed safe in the driver’s seat. ‘Whew! Sorry about that, but I’m at the supermarket and had to get myself organized. And how are you, my dear? We haven’t talked in a long time.’

  ‘I’m fine, and I was about to call you even if you hadn’t phoned. You see, I’m in Sherebury, or nearly.’

  ‘You’re what? Sorry, this line isn’t too good. Watson, hush! I thought you said you were in Sherebury.’

  ‘But I am. Or at least in Bellehurst. A friend of mine lives here, and we’re going to an art exhibit at the Royal Academy day after tomorrow. And since I’m so close, I thought I might drop in, if it’s all right with you.’

  ‘It’s perfect! Come as soon as you can, and stay as long as you can. Lunch? Tea? Dinner?’

  Penny laughed. ‘My friend expects me for dinner, as we’re leaving quite early tomorrow morning. But lunch or tea would be lovely.’

  ‘Come to lunch, then, and if we’re still talking at teatime you can stay for that, too. I promise I won’t stuff you so full of pastries you can’t do justice to your friend’s dinner. Actually, you could bring her along if you like. Or him, that is.’ I sometimes forget that Penny is an attractive woman who has so far avoided marriage, but that doesn’t mean there are no men in her life.

  ‘Oh, no, it’s her. It’s she? Anyway, Louise is an old friend, and loves good painting as much as I do. But she’s busy with various things today, so I’ll come alone. Now, tell me how to get there. This part of England is a lot trickier to travel than North Wales!’

  ‘I’m hopeless about directions. Call Alan.’ I gave her the number. ‘He may not be home right now either; that’s his mobile. Oh, and tell him, if he’s still at the station, I’ll pick him up. It’s way too wet to walk. I’ll see you soon!’

  Well, that added a couple of items to my shopping list, but I could get them at Sainsbury’s. It was nearly next door to the police station, so if Alan was still there, I could easily swing by and get him.

  He was standing in the shelter of the front door waiting for me, and sprinted for the car as I stopped in a clearly marked ‘No Stopping or Standing’ spot. ‘Thank you, love,’ he said. ‘The Burberry would never have stood up to this. I understand we’re having a guest for lunch.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it lucky? But tell me what you learned from Derek and Guy.’

  ‘Complications. They’ve traced Chandler, to a point. He was booked on a BA flight from Heathrow to Athens on July nineteenth. That was a Saturday, three days after that famous end-of-term meeting. And he caught that flight.’

  ‘But … but then when was he killed? We thought it must have been just at the end of term. Or did he turn right around and come back, for some reason?’

  ‘We don’t know. He certainly left Heathrow, and arrived at ATH. Athens International Airport,’ he added in response to my inquiring look. ‘But we have no record of him after that. He did not pick up his luggage. He did not check into his hotel. He did not use the tickets for any of the island cruises he had booked. From the moment he presented his passport to the Greek authorities, he vanished into thin air.’

  ‘But people don’t vanish these days! All the security provisions, passport control … it’s just not possible!’

  ‘Nevertheless, it happened. And it’s causing Derek and co. a good deal of consternation, I may tell you.’

  ‘I’ll just bet it is! It’s giving me a headache. How in the world did he get back to England?’

  ‘We don’t know that, either. Not by any of the airlines or shipping lines. He could, just possibly, have travelled by rail. Within the EU the regulations are fairly lax. Derek is having the rail lines checked now, but there are so many of them, in so many countries, not all of them especially friendly to British authorities.’

  ‘So the man walked out of Athens airport and was next seen under an elevator at Wolfson College of Art and Design.’

  ‘So it appears.’

  We were home by that time, so Alan helped me get the groceries into the house and then put the car away. Our garage is tiny and not connected to the house, so we both got pretty wet, and so did Watson. I tried to keep him in the hallway while he shook himself dry, but he was hungry and thirsty and headed straight for the kitchen, so the first thing I had to do, after putting the perishables away, was wipe down a good many surfaces. I tried to catch him to wipe off his paws, but he eluded me. The cats told us all what they thought of these proceedings, and I thought it was just as well we don’t speak Cat.

  ‘Oh, and I almost forgot,’ I said as we were stowing away the rest of my purchases. ‘Did Guy make any headway tracking down the obscene caller?’

  ‘Dead end. He checked every number that had called Gilly’s phone for the past month. There were several with blocked numbers, but the police have ways of retrieving those. All but one of them were telemarketers.’

  ‘And the one?’ I put some food down for the animals, though they didn’t need it in the least. Anything for peace.

  ‘The one had made calls on the right dates, and at about the right times. And when Guy tried it, he got a ‘not a valid number’ message. The man has chucked his phone!’

  ‘But that means he must have known it was being checked. How?’

  ‘Search me. The fellow’s clever, Dorothy, damned clever. And is that Penny just pulling up in front? You look after her. I’ll organize lunch.’

  After we’d hugged and exchanged greetings, Penny said, ‘Now before we do another thing, I want you to show me your house. You never told me you lived in such a wonderful old place!’

  ‘Old, certainly. And wonderful when the windows aren’t leaking, or the plumbing hasn’t had a temper tantrum, or—’

  ‘And you wouldn’t trade it for a dozen lovely new homes.’

  I laughed. ‘You’re right. I wouldn’t. Let me just slip something into the oven, and then I’ll take you on the grand tour.’

  Our house was built early in the seventeenth century, intended to be the gate house for the great manor that was to be built on the grounds of the old abbey. Henry VIII, after closing all the abbeys, had sold some of them and given some to loyal followers. There was some dispute about exactly what had happened to Sherebury Abbey, but for whatever reason, the manor house was never built and the abbey was allowed to lie in peace, gently mouldering for over a hundred years until after the English Civil War, when it was restored and designated a Cathedral. The might-have-been lord of the manor had lived in a modest house, now demolished, somewhere in Sherebury and housed some of his servants in our house. They took good care of it, hoping perhaps to live there permanently themselves.

  ‘So,’ I concluded to Penny, ‘the place is really in pretty good shape, considering its age. So far the leaks in the roof and windows and doors haven’t damaged that gorgeous ceiling in our bedroom, which is probably the most vulnerable feature of the house.’

  ‘I love the diamond-paned windows.’

  I groaned. ‘So do we, but they’re murder to wash, and at least two of them have to be replaced. This is a listed building, so the repairs have to look authentic and use authentic materials as far as possible. It’s going to cost us an arm and a leg.’

  ‘Old houses do.’

  ‘All houses do,’ I said, thinking back to my World-War-Two-era house in Indiana. ‘The difference is that old ones are worth the money and trouble. At least I think so. They have soul.’

  ‘And they were
well made to begin with.’

  ‘Which reminds me. After lunch, if you have time, I want to take you over to the art college. There’s a building that’ll give you nightmares!’

  Alan called us to lunch just then, and we spent the next hour catching up. We hadn’t seen each other since Alan and I visited Wales some time ago, and we both had a lot of news.

  ‘Now,’ said Penny in businesslike fashion, ‘you had some questions for me. Am I wrong, or is there a hint of something mysterious in the air?’

  ‘A good many very mysterious things, and I think you can help me sort them out, because they all revolve around art and artists. Do you happen to know anyone who teaches at Sherebury?’

  ‘I don’t know. Give me some names.’

  ‘Matthew Thomas, printmaker. Sam Andrews, photographer. Dennis Singleton, sculptor. William Braithwaite, painter. Those are all the full-time people.’

  ‘W.T. Braithwaite?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t know him. I’ve certainly heard of him.’ Her voice was neutral. Carefully so, I thought.

  ‘You don’t like him.’

  She made a disparaging gesture with her hands. ‘As I say, I don’t know him. I can’t say I care for his work, and I’ve heard he’s rather … full of himself.’

  ‘Hmm. So other artists don’t like him, either.’

  ‘You’re leading the witness, Dorothy,’ said Alan, smiling.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’ve heard. Mind you, I don’t know many professional artists, so most of this comes from amateurs like me. They say he’s not popular in the profession. Part of that could be jealousy, of course. He’s climbed right to the top of the tree and made pots of money. But the scuttlebutt is also that his sales are going down, that people are losing interest in his style and turning more and more to representational work.’ Again the gesture. ‘I don’t know, personally, how true any of this is.’

  ‘I’ve heard some of it before, so it may in fact be true. At least it’s a prevalent rumour. And you don’t know anything about any of the others? The other teachers, I mean?’

  ‘Not by name. I might recognize their work. Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘Let’s go over to the college, and we can talk on the way. Alan, do you want to come along?’

  ‘Oh, yes. In view of what’s been going on over there, yes, indeed. No, Watson, you can’t come this time.’

  The dog flumped down on the hall rug, the picture of an unloved, forsaken animal. The moment we left, I knew, he would go climb on our bed, muddy paws and all. I found umbrellas for the three of us, and we ventured out into the rain.

  SIXTEEN

  On our way, Alan and I gave Penny a brief version of what had been happening. When we’d finished she said, ‘One murder, or presumed murder. One worrisome disappearance. One incidence of hideous vandalism. A possible case of blackmail. Along with assorted threats and obscene phone calls. Goodness, is that all that’s been worrying you? No fires? No terrorist threats? Sherebury is certainly a quiet place, isn’t it?’

  Alan couldn’t find a place to park anywhere near the Fine Arts building. Term had begun, and the campus was teeming with students and faculty, the latter walking huddled under umbrellas, the young ones with a fine disregard for colds and flu, running bareheaded and often bare-legged as well. It made me cold just to look at them.

  He drove as close to the main entrance as he could. ‘I’ll let you out here and find a place for the car. Where shall I meet you?’

  ‘The best thing would be if we left a trail of breadcrumbs, I suspect. I still have a hard time finding my way around that place. But I think we’ll try the sculpture studios first, because I want Penny to meet Gillian, and see her work. And then if she’s free for a while, she can show us around. But we’ll wait for you in sculpture.’

  Penny took a moment, standing under her umbrella, to gaze at the building. ‘And you say the late head of this institution was an architect?’ It was her only comment, but it spoke volumes.

  ‘An award-winning one at that. Of course he didn’t design this building.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that.’

  ‘I think you’ll like the work of most of the faculty, though. Some of it is brilliant, to my untutored eye, anyway.’

  ‘Your eye may be untutored, but your taste is good, if your house is any example. Goodness, this place is confusing! That hallway doesn’t seem to lead anywhere.’

  ‘A lot of them don’t. It’s been remodelled so much over the years that nothing makes much sense. But I do know how to find the sculpture studios.’

  I remembered that Gillian was teaching a class today, but I couldn’t remember if it was scheduled for morning or afternoon. In fact, it had apparently been in the morning, for the main studio had, in one corner, a litter of platforms with twisted bits of metal on them.

  ‘Oh, dear! I thought she was going to work with clay, but I guess the supplies ran out.’

  ‘Dorothy, those are armatures. You have to have something to hold the clay in place. I’m not a sculptor, but I do know that much.’

  ‘Oh. Goodness, I do feel ignorant! Anyway, I want you to see what Gillian’s working on just now. Well, it’s almost finished, actually.’ I knocked on the door of what I thought was the room where Summer was being completed, and was surprised when Dennis opened it.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry! I just remembered Gillian said she was having a conference with you this afternoon. I just wanted to show her sculpture to a friend of mine, but we can come back later.’

  ‘No, no, we’ve finished, don’t worry. Come in and admire. Cheerio, Gilly.’ He left, and with some trepidation, I led Penny into the room. If the conference had gone badly, if there’d been no good news about the sculpture program, Gillian would be in no mood to deal with a couple of visitors.

  But she rose to greet us, all smiles. ‘Dorothy! I was just going to call you with some good news!’

  ‘Well, that’s a welcome change, I must say. Good news has been in short supply of late. Gillian, I want you to meet my friend Penny Brannigan. Penny, Gillian Roberts. And Penny, this is Summer.’

  The two women shook hands, and then Penny turned to look at the sculpture, and the look on her face told Gillian all she needed to know about public reaction to her work. She said nothing, just stood and looked.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ she said at last. ‘But of course you know that.’

  Gillian laughed. ‘I know it isn’t. I can spot every flaw, and of course it’s still not quite finished. But it seems other people like it quite a lot. That’s my good news, Dorothy. A London gallery wants it, and wants more of my work as soon as I can get it to them. Isn’t it amazing?’

  ‘It’s wonderful, but there’s nothing amazing about it! You’re in a class by yourself, you know. And speaking of classes, how did yours go today? Penny had to tell me what those bits of twisted wire were for. I thought you were having to abandon clay for the beer can and chewing gum school of sculpture.’

  Her smile faded a little. ‘Well, we still don’t know what we’re going to do about supplies for the students. My parents are willing to keep me in clay and bronze for my own work, until the fees start flowing in, if they do, but the college is another matter. Dennis is working himself up to go and talk to Braithwaite about the budget situation, and if he doesn’t get any satisfaction, he may go over his head. The situation is untenable as it stands. But you didn’t come to hear me moan! Penny, are you interested in art?’

  ‘I paint a bit, and I enjoy all the arts. All the media, I should say. I’m not wild about the use some of them are put to these days.’

  Gillian tilted her head to one side, as if listening. ‘Are you American?’

  ‘Canadian,’ she said, and I could hear her suppressing the slight annoyance that Canadians always feel at that question. ‘But I’ve lived in Wales for years.’

  ‘Ooh, where in Wales? We did a holiday in Anglesey one summer, when I was young, and I’ve always longed
to go back.’

  Penny glanced at her watch. ‘Do you have time to show me around the rest of the school? We could talk about Wales as we go.’

  ‘Of course. There are three more storeys. Do you share Dorothy’s anxiety about the lift?’

  ‘She’s told me what happened, but I don’t think lightning’s apt to strike twice. The lift by all means. Unless it really terrified you, Dorothy?’

  ‘I’ll stay here. Alan promised to join us soon.’ And besides, I wanted Penny’s impression of the whole set-up, untainted by my comments.

  While I waited, I took a look around the studios. Nothing was happening yet in the carving area, apparently, for it was as clean as a sculpture studio can well be. Dennis’s spiral of clay was taking shape, an elegant shape with sharp edges and smoothly curved planes, and still that odd look of anger. I had no idea how an abstract form could be made to look angry, but I knew now the source of that anger.

  I thought about that, uncomfortably. Dennis had so many reasons to be angry with Chandler, and now with Braithwaite. Was it at all possible that he had done something about it? Even in my mind, I shied away from the word murder. And, I reminded myself, Dennis worked in clay, not any material that required a chisel. And anyway, the chisel had nothing to do with the case.

  I was humming Gilbert and Sullivan when Alan found me.

  ‘You sound cheerful.’

  ‘Just a stray thought that reminded me of “The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring”.’

  ‘“Tra-la.” Where’s Penny?’

  ‘Off on a tour with Gillian. I wanted her to see the place with her own eyes, not just through mine. She’s already commented on the architecture.’