Indelible

by Peter Helton

  She couldn’t. Just because you’re a painter doesn’t mean you can teach the stuff. And I had other things to do. Didn’t I say that right from the start?

  The events of the last few days had absorbed me so much I had failed to notice that it was the weekend. Martin Byers would not be at work. Martin Byers was not at his impersonal little studio flat. Martin Byers was never at his little studio flat. You probably got there long before me, but as I said, I had been a little distracted. I drove up the hill towards Bear Flat and Bloomfield Road with a heavy heart. This type of private detective work – and there’s a lot of that – was my least favourite. A good result always meant a lot of pain for someone, often for everyone.

  Byers’ car was parked in front of the pretty house in St Luke’s Road. It was there because that was where he lived. My ringing of the door bell was answered first by a small child’s shout of ‘Door!’, then the door was opened by the woman I had seen open it before. She was about the same age as Susan Byers and there was nothing pink about her.

  She frowned at me. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hi, is your husband in? Sorry to disturb you. I’m from Mantis, just need to ask him something.’

  ‘You can ask him but you’re not allowed to drag him away. We’re about to go out. I thought you were the babysitter.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re glad I’m not.’

  ‘Martin?’ she called back into the house. ‘Someone from work to see you.’ She managed to put quite a bit of danger into her voice.

  Martin came to the door and went pale when he saw me. He pulled the door to behind him. ‘It’s you,’ he said. ‘You’ve been following me. Did Susan send you?’ I nodded. ‘Does she know already?’

  ‘She doesn’t yet. But she suspects you. Care to explain?’

  He walked me away from the door into the front garden so we would not be overheard. ‘Whatever I say now is going to sound stupid to you.’

  ‘I think that’s the least of your worries.’

  ‘It just happened. The long separations because of the job, we had just bought the place in Southampton and had Mel when I was sent here for months on end. And I met Maria. I didn’t tell her about Susan, obviously …’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘And then she got pregnant. Almost straight away, in fact. I couldn’t … I couldn’t bring myself to tell her then, she was so happy about being pregnant and I should have been horrified but I found I was happy too.’

  ‘And you married her?’

  ‘No, we’re not married. We pretend to be for the company’s sake.’

  ‘So now you have two families? Two houses?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, for the last two years. Look, it’s not something I planned, you know, it’s not a frivolous thing, either. One can love two people at the same time, believe me.’

  I could well believe it. My own domestic arrangements weren’t exactly standard issue either, but there was a difference. ‘It’s not about love,’ I told him. ‘You’re allowed to love as many people as you like in as many ways as you like. As long as you have their consent. You might love them but you’re also lying to them. All of them. All of the time. And it won’t work.’

  ‘Can’t you tell Susan you found nothing? Can’t you say you think I am faithful to her? How much is she paying you? It can’t be much. I’ll double it if you don’t drop me in it.’

  ‘You dropped yourself in it. You know this cannot last. It will come out some time. There are other private detectives. You’ll make a mistake and it’ll all collapse around you. You’ll lose all of them. Both women. Both children. I know it’s very late but you have to come clean. To both of them.’ Martin Byers looked past me with a thousand-yard stare. He was plainly terrified. ‘I’ll give you one week to do it. I can’t keep Susan waiting longer than that.’ I handed him my card. ‘Call me. But I warn you, I’ll check up on whatever you tell me.’

  I hadn’t told him that Susan was expecting another child. That was for her to hit the man with. When the week had run out I let it slide a bit, but when I hadn’t heard from him nor from Susan in Southampton another ten days on, I drove up to St Luke’s Road. There were no plastic toys in the front garden but a For Sale sign had been rammed into the little bit of lawn. I didn’t contact Susan Byers either. In the circumstances I could hardly demand a fee from her.

  But I could afford not to. I had some pay coming to me after all and I had been commissioned to paint a large rural canvas by one of the visitors to the Batcombe show, so I was doing well.

  Not as well as Hufnagel, though. It wasn’t just that he had sold the Batcombe painting, he had also been hailed in the press as a new Delacroix for the twenty-first century. His painting of the pugilistic Petronela was likened by the critics to Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People and Hufnagel found himself greatly in demand. Of course, with the sudden retirement of Greg Landacker the art scene was now ready for a brand-new star.

  And Annis was ready for a month of breakfasts in bed.