Indelible

by Peter Helton

  ‘Yes, what a time for the thing to malfunction,’ agreed Dan. He was already covered in ash and dust again and so were his two students, but it’s fair to say that potters don’t mind getting their hands dirty. And these three at least seemed happy in their work. They shifted the mountain of broken pottery from inside the kiln, discussed the repairs needed, discovered an overgrown woodpile and generally danced around the thing with noisy enthusiasm. Because it had been me who showed him the kiln, Dan seemed to think that I wanted to be kept informed about every bit of progress while I tried to draw the place. They also had an amazing knack of standing just in front of what I was trying to sketch. I almost regretted not having kept the kiln a secret until after I had finished with it, but Dan’s transformation from depressed adult to excited kid had been worth it. I was relieved when they ran out of steam before I did, though the light was beginning to fade a little by then. I carried on. There was plenty of rain forecast and while I had played the hard-nut painter for the benefit of my students, I couldn’t really see myself doing much drawing in the wet. The wind was driving dark clouds across the sky with the odd startling flash of brightness when the sun found a gap in the clouds, golden as it approached the western horizon. It was in one of those sudden, golden moments of sunlight that I looked up and saw him: my wild man of the woods. His white skin too just caught the sun, some hundred and fifty yards into the forest. His body looked streaked with mud. He was standing quite still, facing me, with both arms lifted shoulder-high, palms towards me. The figure stood too far away for me to be sure, but my first thought was that I was looking at Hiroshi, except that this creature’s hair and beard were wild and matted and Hiroshi was always immaculately groomed. It looked as though he was praying, or perhaps meditating. Whether his eyes were open or closed I couldn’t see. I stood up, sketchbook in hand, intending to draw him. No sooner had I put pencil to paper than my mobile started to chime. Immediately the figure bolted like a startled deer, running in full, headlong flight, jumping obstacles in its path. I could see that the man’s feet were bare too and winced at the thought of running barefoot across the forest floor. I could not be sure that it was Hiroshi, but of one thing I was absolutely certain: the wild man of the woods was not carrying a knife with which to carve signs into tree trunks. I answered the phone.

  ‘I’m here, where are you?’ said Tim’s voice.

  ‘Deep in the woods where the Yeti roams. Stay where you are, I’ll be there in five.’

  Tim was standing in the car park, drumming his fingers on the roof of his black Audi. There was no sign of the police now but no arrest or announcement had been made, which meant that possibly there were certain police officers out there still thinking that I might be behind Rachel’s death and the fire at Landacker’s. Tim dug a tiny piece of paper from his jeans pocket, which he now unfolded and unfolded and unfolded – it turned out to be A4. ‘You asked me to look into some of your folks up here?’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Do you realize, some of these people have never left school? They went from playschool to primary to secondary to university and straight into teaching at art school, like Catherine Stott. Institutionalized, I’d call that. They probably couldn’t survive outside the school gates.’

  ‘Yeah, that happens.’

  ‘The sculptor, Kroog, too, she’s been here forever but at least she’s exhibited her work all round the world. Some I couldn’t find anything on at all, like the administrator, and your potter, Dan Small? I doubt he could survive anywhere else because he doesn’t have any qualifications.’

  ‘Must be a mistake. It says in the school’s brochure he did an MA in ceramics in Stoke-on-Trent.’

  ‘Never went there, I checked with them. So I dug around a bit more. Turns out he has no qualifications of any kind, not to teach and not in ceramics.’

  ‘That could make life quite tricky if he were forced to leave here. No wonder he was doom-struck when he was told his department might get the chop.’

  ‘Are you going to tell them?’

  ‘What would be the point? If Birtwhistle and Kroog thought he was doing a good job, who cares about the MA? Any other revelations?’

  ‘Everything else checks out. I can’t find anything incriminating on your cheating husband, he’s just an ordinary overworked IT chap like me.’

  ‘Right, let’s get the gubbins installed and catch ourselves a phantom before Hufnagel starts digging Heffalump traps all over the lawn.’

  Hufnagel and Dawn both greeted Tim’s camera installation with interest. ‘Is it in colour?’ Dawn asked. ‘Will we be able to watch it live over the internet?’ Hufnagel wanted to know. The answer, disappointingly, was no to both questions because apparently Aqua Investigations’ boss was too stingy to invest in decent, up-to-date equipment and software.

  ‘We’ll lock the laptop in the cupboard and we can check it in the morning, that’s early enough,’ I told them. ‘I don’t know, young people today, always wanting instant results …’ I stood outside to smoke and distract any potential visitors until Tim had finished setting it up. It was getting dark by the time it was done and we all left together. It occurred to me that if the mere installation of the cameras put a stop to the phantom then it probably was Dawn after all and she had added that bit of rose madder to her own canvas to throw me off the scent.

  When we four walked out into the little car park it suddenly seemed crowded. Stottie’s immaculate boyfriend Matthew was waiting by his immaculate car to pick her up, and Anne Birtwhistle burst out of the front door, on some kind of mission, followed by Stottie herself.

  Anne marched past us, fuming with indignation. ‘It is after dark and the gates are wide open! Does nobody – nobody – bother to look at the noticeboard? It says quite clearly …’

  Anne never finished the sentence; instead she shrieked. So did Matthew, and I might have too, because the arrow that whistled through our group missed me, him and Anne by inches before slamming into the door of Hufnagel’s car where it stuck fast.

  Hufnagel’s rage was instantly rekindled. ‘Oh great! What next, a meteor strike I suppose!’

  ‘Where the hell did that come from?’ Dawn yelled. She was taking shelter behind my car now and everyone else was joining her there.

  I guessed the trajectory from the way it had missed us and hit Hufnagel’s car door. ‘It came from those trees on the edge of the lawn, near Kroog’s cottage,’ I said. ‘I’ll have a look.’

  ‘Are you mad? You could get shot!’ Anne called from behind my car.

  ‘I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure that it’s the bow and arrow that vanished from our studio and there was only one arrow.’

  Relief spread through the group and they came out from hiding. ‘Still, be careful,’ Dawn warned.

  ‘I will,’ I said and started jogging towards the trees, hoping to get a whiff of the assailant, or at least hear his footfall. Which one of us had he aimed at? One in particular? Or the entire group?

  The second arrow came whistling out of the dark and slammed into my left shoulder. The impact was so hard I staggered sideways. Then my legs decided I should sit down on the grass and yelp with pain for a bit. So I did.

  ‘He’s been shot! Oh my God, oh my God!’ I could hear Dawn shouting.

  ‘Someone call an ambulance!’ Anne demanded in a voice that sounded more annoyed than frightened.

  Next thing I knew it was Tim kneeling next to me. He was talking on the phone, calling an ambulance. ‘Someone’s been shot. Bow and arrow. So send the police too. Hang on, I’ll ask.’ He turned to me. ‘Do you think you’re about to die?’

  ‘Die, no. Scream, yes.’

  ‘Not life-threatening; he was hit in the shoulder.’ He terminated the call. ‘They’ll be here pronto. That looks nasty. Did it go far in?’

  ‘I’ve no idea but it hurts like hell.’ The arrow had gone through the leather of my old motorbike jacket, through the double thickness of the shoulder pads and the padding inside into the shoulder mu
scle. ‘I wonder if I can pull it out?’

  Dawn had come over too, walking in a crouch in case any further arrows came flying over. ‘You’re not supposed to do that! It can do more damage.’

  ‘The arrow Kurt painted had quite a simple point. I mean, no barbs, or anything.’

  ‘Still, I wouldn’t touch it. Let them take it out in hospital. They’ll carefully cut away the jacket around it and take it out under anaesthetic.’

  ‘Cut away the jacket? My jacket? This jacket? No way!’ I gritted my teeth, grabbed the shaft of the arrow and gave it a good pull.

  Ouch.

  ‘You madman!’ Dawn shrieked.

  It came out much more easily than I had imagined and from the blood on the tip it looked as though it hadn’t gone in all that far. Far enough to bleed quite a lot, as I discovered when I reached inside my jacket. Dawn handed me a whole packet of tissues, which I pressed against the pain. Perhaps it had been stupid to take the arrow out myself but I felt better. The sight of the thing sticking out of me had made me feel quite weak at the knees.

  There were no more arrows coming out of the dark but a figure staggered drunkenly towards us from between the trees. I thought I recognized the blonde-haired figure as Phoebe. She stopped to vomit on to the lawn, then sat down heavily.

  ‘Do you think it was her?’ Tim asked. ‘Looks like she’s drunk as the proverbial.’

  ‘Go grab her,’ I urged. Tim loped across. ‘And see if you can find the bow!’ I called after him but shouting made the pain in my shoulder worse.

  ‘Do you want to get out of that jacket?’ Dawn asked.

  I did, only I didn’t relish the prospect. I supposed that once the ambulance arrived they would drag me out of it anyway so I might as well yelp in relative privacy. ‘Okay, give me a hand with it.’ I found my legs had firmed up again as I stood up.

  ‘I’ll be really careful,’ she promised.

  Now that the arrow was out, moving didn’t hurt half as much, which I found was still quite enough for me. The packet of tissues had turned into one scary wad of blood-red sogginess and more blood trickled down my t-shirt. Hufnagel appeared by my side with a nearly clean torn bedsheet that hadn’t yet been cut into oil rags and Dawn, even while tutting over the dubious hygiene of the thing, tore it into strips like a movie heroine and bandaged my shoulder with them.

  Tim came over from where Phoebe was sitting on the ground, head in hand. ‘She’s not drunk. She’s concussed and dizzy and her head’s bleeding. Says someone hit her over the head while she was trying to take pictures for some project.’

  ‘Damn, that’ll be my project.’

  Ambulance and police arrived together. By that time I was surrounded by a mob of people; Kroog being concerned, Alex fascinated, Hufnagel morose, Stottie and her boyfriend whispering to each other, Dawn fussing with my bandage that was slipping, Dan the potter looking shocked and Claire trying to make a gangway for the ambulance men.

  But it was Anne’s voice I heard above all the others. ‘That’s it, that’s the last straw. This place is a complete madhouse and someone here is killing people.’

  ‘I’m not dead yet,’ I pointed out, but Anne didn’t hear me.

  ‘That’s it,’ she said again. ‘This school is closing. I’ll sell this madhouse, no matter what it says in the will.’ She stomped off towards the flashing blue beacons of the ambulance and police.

  The paramedics both went to work on me but I directed one of them to Phoebe who was now just a dark lump on the grass. More and more police arrived in the grounds, including an armed response unit, waving torches. They started fanning out across the grounds and towards the area I pointed out to them as the most likely place that the arrows had come from. They soon returned with the bow and after that people visibly relaxed. The PC who had found it slipped it into a large evidence bag and waved it proudly at Superintendent Needham, who had just walked on to the lawn.

  ‘It was you who was shot!’ Needham said as he found me sitting in the ambulance.

  ‘Yes, it’s marvellous,’ I told him. The paramedic was undoing the bandages and was slicing away at my t-shirt.

  ‘Marvellous, is it?’ Needham studiously avoided looking at my messy shoulder by keeping his eye on what was happening elsewhere.

  ‘Yes. Plus I have witnesses that will swear that I didn’t do it. Being the victim appears to be the only way to convince you lot one isn’t the perpetrator and I managed it. Ow!’ The paramedic was doing things to my shoulder. Since I wasn’t looking I don’t know what; I can only report that it was properly painful.

  ‘Will he be all right?’ Needham asked.

  ‘It’ll need stitches and the shoulder will need to be x-rayed but I’d say he was very lucky. A few inches either side would have been a different story.’

  ‘Oh no, does that mean I’ll have to go to the hospital?’ I moaned. I do hate hospitals.

  It turned out Phoebe wanted hospitalization too, for severe concussion, and she needed stitches in her scalp. She ended up on the stretcher next to me in the ambulance with an oxygen mask over her face, holding on to a kidney dish in case she needed to puke some more. She was lying down with her head sideways, facing me. Her eyes were wide open but not focussed on anything much.

  ‘Any idea who hit you?’ I asked.

  She pulled the oxygen mask away from her face. It hissed quietly. ‘None. I heard something behind me but before I could turn round – bang. Woke up lying on the ground feeling like shit.’

  ‘What’s it like now?’

  ‘Lying on a stretcher feeling like shit. Never been in an ambulance before,’ she added.

  ‘Were you out there taking photographs?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘For my project?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘See anything suspicious?’

  ‘Not a thing. Sorry.’

  When we arrived at the A & E department of the Royal United, Phoebe was wheeled away on her stretcher and I was invited to sit in a wheelchair. My arm was in a sling to keep it still and I could have walked, but I was suddenly feeling very tired and gratefully sank into the chair. Being carted about in one of those hospital chairs turns you instantly from a person into a patient, with no responsibility for anything, not even self-propulsion. It was only the pain that kept me awake.

  An hour later even that had disappeared under local anaesthetic. I had been x-rayed, cleaned up, had received six stitches and several times been declared ‘a very lucky man’ for not being dead and was released back into the night. Did I need a taxi? I didn’t, because Annis was waiting for me. So was Needham. Such concern; I was touched.

  Annis carefully put her arms around me. ‘I knew it would happen sometime. You could so easily have been killed. You were damn lucky.’

  ‘So I’m told.’

  But Needham wasn’t there to hug me. ‘I need a statement off you before you disappear,’ he insisted.

  I checked my watch; it was after ten. ‘I’m not sure I can manage a statement, too groggy. But if you’re really keen I could possibly manage a chat if you pay for the beers for myself and my accomplice here.’

  Fifteen minutes later we were sitting in a corner of the St James’s Wine Vaults, Needham sipping post-industrial lager, Annis her gin and tonic and I was hoovering up a pint of Guinness. I was planning to drink enough of them to send me to sleep when the anaesthetic wore off.

  ‘Who shot you?’ Needham wanted to know. ‘Did you get some idea of who killed Rachel? Does someone want to shut you up?’

  ‘No idea. And no, I haven’t got a clue who killed Rachel. Tell you who didn’t shoot me, though: Tim, Catherine Stott, her boyfriend Matthew, Hufnagel, Dawn Fowling and Anne Birtwhistle. They were with me. And the girl Phoebe was in the trees taking a photograph. I don’t suppose she hit herself over the head.’

  ‘Why not? We get offered self-inflicted injuries as fake alibis all the time. What was she photographing? Surely it was a bit dark for photography?’

  ‘The hou
se, for an art project. Did you find the camera?’

  ‘No, no camera. If someone was lying in wait with bow and arrow waiting for the opportunity to kill the intended victim then the girl …’

  ‘Phoebe.’

  ‘Thanks, Phoebe may just have been in the way.’

  ‘That’s how I see it. Shame you didn’t find the camera. You might want to look in the pond. I’m not sure the arrow was actually meant for me. The first arrow went right through our group. I then jogged off towards the trees …’

  ‘Like an idiot,’ Annis supplied.

  ‘… just as all the others stood up again. It was already dark. I could just have got in the way.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind. We found the bow. And two more arrows.’

  Annis looked up from playing with her slice of lemon. ‘Two more arrows? Then it was definitely not meant for Chris.’

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘Chris was jogging along and the arrow stopped him running. He would have made a much easier target after that. He was closer and he was stationary. With arrows to spare it would have been easy to finish him off.’ She put a hand on mine and squeezed it. My other arm was in a sling again. Affectionately she held on to my hand while we discussed this new aspect of the events, which meant I now had no hand free to drink with. I left it for what I judged to be a decent interval before wriggling free and going for my drink.

  ‘Okay,’ said Needham. ‘Let’s for a moment assume the arrow wasn’t meant for you. Which one of the others is the most likely target?’

  I didn’t even have to think about it. ‘Anne Birtwhistle. She’s trying to turn the place into a borstal. She’s petty and overbearing. She doesn’t understand that art schools are different from other institutions. They need to be places where people are free to create, dream, experiment, break moulds, and above all, waste huge amounts of art materials until they arrive at some kind of artistic understanding. She’s managed to alienate practically everyone.’