Vintage Crime

by Martin Edwards

  He took the cigarette down like an outfielder gulping water. I lit him another. “Ta, you sure you got enough? Ta, then.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police? After the accident, I mean.”

  Norman shook his head, as if to dislodge the shame from his face. “I’d been made redundant three times in five years. Company I was with then, they’ve got this policy – you have an accident and you’re out. Doesn’t matter if it’s your fault or not. I couldn’t allow it, do you see that?” He nodded towards the open grave. “If I’d lost that job just then, the debt would have buried us. I’m not kidding, me and my mother, we’d have been buried alive.” He laughed. “Got the push a year later, anyway. Rationalisation. It’s just me and my old van now.”

  “So you put him here.”

  “Not straight off. I kept him in my shed for a while, but then when Jackie handed in the keys to this place – well, it belongs to my mum, you see. And I knew we’d not be able to let it again in a hurry, not with the way things are.”

  I was still holding the phone, and I still couldn’t make sense of it. “I thought you were going to kill me, Norman. I thought that was what the spade was all about.”

  “Jesus!” Norman threw his cigarette away. “Bloody hell, man, where could you get an idea like that? I’m not a nutter!”

  “Of course not,” I said, quickly. “It’s only that—”

  “It was you asking questions, see? I mean this –” again he nodded towards the grave – “this was never intended to be permanent. Just until, you know…my mum. But then you came down, looking for Alan.”

  “I don’t get it.” What I meant was: I don’t get why you’re not going to kill me. Always assuming you’re not.

  “I knew Alan and Jackie a bit. More than what I said earlier in the pub. We weren’t real mates or anything, but when I came round to get the rent sometimes we used to have a drink, like, bit of a smoke, bit of a chat. So I knew Jackie wouldn’t miss him, see what I mean? Even if she hadn’t kicked him out, she’d just have thought he’d walked out. He would have sooner or later, too.”

  True, I thought. Alan wasn’t one for sticking at things.

  “And I knew there was no one else gave a shit about him, dead or alive. No family, nothing like that. So I thought – well, bit hard on him, bit hard on me, but no point in making matters worse. It wasn’t as if I was causing anyone else pain, do you see? By keeping quiet.”

  “But then I showed up.”

  Norman nodded, and tears appeared on his cheeks. “At first I thought maybe you were a debt collector. Child Support, whatever. But debt collectors don’t go looking for bodies in gardens. See, if he had someone who cared about him enough to come looking…well, that changes everything, doesn’t it?” He gave a huge, rasping sigh, and sat down on the wet earth. “You call the police, then, will you?”

  The mobile phone still didn’t make sense. It did to Norman, perhaps, but not to me. I gave it back to him. I gave him the spade, too.

  “You can fill in,” I said. “I’ve done enough digging for one lifetime.”

  * * *

  When I got home, there was a Christmas card waiting for me. Just one. It had a return name and address on the back: Jackie Peters (Hallsworth), Cardiff. I read it without taking my coat off.

  “Sorry not to have been in touch for so long,” she wrote, “but it’s taken me a while to sort myself out. Hope you’re still at the same address! I hope also that things are OK with you, and that you might drop me a line some time.” Then she came to the point. “Are you in touch with Alan at all? I don’t have an address for him. If you hear from him, could you give him my address? Tell him not to panic, nothing heavy, it’s just that I feel we have some unfinished business.”

  I got myself a drink, opened a new packet of cigarettes. Finally I took my coat off, and switched the central heating on.

  It had occurred to me during the drive home that the only reason Alan got out of my car on the night he died was that he was being driven mad by my silent nagging. So he’d got out, walked along a country road in the dark, and got himself killed.

  “Dear Jackie,” I wrote. “It’s good to hear from you. I have often wondered what became of you. I’m afraid I can’t help you regarding Alan. I haven’t spoken to him since the night you and he parted. I have come to believe, Jackie, that it’s not always possible to make sense of death—”

  I swore, screwed up the letter, and started again.

  “…not always possible to make sense of loss, and that sometimes it’s best not to try. It sounds like you’ve got yourself a life there in Wales, and I truly believe that you should concentrate on the present, not the past. I hope you don’t find my advice impertinent. And I do hope you’ll keep in touch. There’s not many of the old crowd left, we should stick together! With love from Jerry.”

  I hadn’t bought any Christmas cards, so I put the letter in an ordinary envelope, addressed it and stamped it and went out to post it before I had a chance to do a lot of useless thinking.

  Interior, With Corpse

  Peter Lovesey

  Her chestnut brown hair curved in an S shape across the carpet, around a gleaming pool of blood. She was wearing an old-fashioned petticoat, white with thin shoulder straps. The lace hem had been drawn up her thigh, exposing stocking-tops and suspenders. The stockings had seams. Her shoes, too, dated the incident; black suede, with Louis heels. One of them had fallen off and lay on its side, close to the edge of a stone fireplace. The hearthstones were streaked with crimson and a blood-stained poker had been dropped there.

  But what really shocked was the location. Beyond any doubt, this was Wing Commander Ashton’s living room. Anyone who had been to the house would recognise the picture above the fireplace of a Spitfire shooting down a Messerschmitt over the fields of Kent in the sunshine of an August afternoon in 1940. They would spot the squadron insignia and medals mounted on black velvet in the glass display cabinet attached to the wall; the miniature aircraft carved in ebony and ranged along the mantelpiece. His favourite armchair stood in its usual place to the right of the hearth. Beside it, the old-fashioned standard lamp and the small rosewood table with his collection of family photographs. True, some things had altered; these days the carpet was not an Axminster, but some man-made fibre thing in dark blue, fitted wall-to-wall. And one or two bits of furniture had gone, notably a writing desk that would have been called a bureau, with a manual typewriter on it – an Imperial – and the paper and carbons under the platen. It was now replaced with a TV set and stand.

  DI John Brandon stared at the scene in its gilt frame, vibrated his lips, stepped closer and peered at the detail. He had to act. Calls had been coming in all morning about the picture in the window of Mason’s Fine Art Gallery. Some, outraged, wanted it removed. Others, more cautious, inquire d if the police were aware of it.

  They were now. Brandon understood why people were upset. He’d drunk sherry in the Wing Commander’s house many times. This oil painting was a near-perfect rendering of the old fellow’s living room. Interior, with corpse.

  Brandon wasn’t sure how to deal with it. Defamation, possibly. But defamation is usually libel or slander. This was only a picture. Nothing defamatory had been said or written down.

  He went into the gallery and showed his ID to Justin Mason, the owner, a mild, decent man with no more on his conscience than a liking for spotted bow-ties.

  “That painting in the window, the one with the woman lying in a pool of blood.”

  “The Davey Park? Strong subject, but one of his finest pieces.”

  “Park? He’s the artist?”

  “Yes. Did you know him? Local man. Died at the end of last year. He had his studio in that barn behind the Esso station. When I say ‘studio’, it was his home as well.”

  “Did he give the picture a title?”

  “I’ve no idea, inspector
. He wasn’t very organised. It was left with a few others among his things. The executors decided to put them up for sale, and this was the only piece I cared for. The only finished piece, in fact.”

  “How long ago was it painted?”

  “Couldn’t tell you. He kept no records. He had some postcards made of it. They’re poor quality black and white jobs, nineteen-fiftyish, I’d say.”

  “You realise what it shows?”

  “A murder, obviously. You think it’s too gory for the High Street? I was in two minds myself, and then I remembered that series of paintings by Walter Sickert on the subject of the Camden Town murder.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” Brandon admitted.

  “I only mention them to show that it’s not without precedent, murder as the subject of a painting, I mean.”

  “This is a real location.”

  “Is it? So was Sickert’s, I believe.”

  “It’s Wing Commander Ashton’s living room.”

  Mason twitched and turned pale.

  “Take my word for it,” said Brandon. “I’ve been there several times.”

  “Oh, good Lord!”

  “People have been phoning us.”

  “I’ll remove it right away. I had no idea. I’d hate to cause offence to Wing Commander Ashton. Why, if it weren’t for men like him, none of us would be living in freedom.”

  “I’ll have to take possession of it. You can have a receipt. Tell me some more about the artist.”

  “Park? A competent professional. Landscapes usually. Never a big seller, but rubbed along, as they do. Not an easy man to deal with. We expect some eccentricity in artists, don’t we?”

  “In what way?”

  “He drank himself to death, so far as I can make out. Was well known in the Crown. Amusing up to a point, and then after a few more beers he would get loud-mouthed and abusive. He was more than once banned from the pub.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a chum of the Wing Commander’s,” Brandon commented. The Battle of Britain veteran, not far short of his ninetieth birthday now, was eminently respectable, a school governor, ex-chairman of the parish council and founder of the Town Heritage Society. He’d written Scramble, Chaps, reputed to be the best personal account of the Battle of Britain.

  “They knew each other in years past, I believe, but they hadn’t spoken for years. There must have been an incident, one of Davey’s outbursts, I suppose. I couldn’t tell you the details.”

  “I wonder who can – apart from the Wing Commander?”

  Brandon left soon after with the painting well wrapped up. Back at the police station, he showed it to a couple of colleagues.

  “Nasty,” said DS Makepeace.

  “Who’s the woman supposed to be?” said DC Hurst.

  “A figment of the artist’s imagination, I hope,” said Brandon. “If not, the Wing Commander has some awkward questions to face.”

  “Have you spoken to him?”

  “Not yet. It’s difficult. He’s frail. I’d hate to trigger a heart attack.”

  “You’re going to have to ask him, guv.”

  “He’s a war hero. A gentleman through and through. I’ve always respected him. I need more background before I take this on.”

  “Try Henry at the Crown. He knew Davey Park better than anyone.”

  Henry Chivers had been landlord for most of his life, and he was seventy now. He pulled a half of lager for the inspector and gave his take on Davey. “I heard about the painting this morning. A bit of a change from poppy fields and views of the church. Weird. Davey never mentioned it in here. He’d witter on about most things, including his work. He had an exhibition in the old Corn Exchange a year or so before he died. Bloody good artist. None of that modern trash. It was outdoor scenes, mostly. I’m sure this one with the woman wasn’t in the show. The whole town would have talked.”

  “They’re talking now. He must have been inside the Wing Commander’s house, to paint it so accurately. It’s remarkable, the detail.”

  “In years past they knew each other well. I’m talking about the Fifties, now, half a century ago. They had interests in common – cricket, I think, and sports cars. Then they fell out over something pretty serious. Davey wouldn’t speak of it, and whenever the Wing Commander’s name was mentioned in the bar, he’d look up at the beam overhead as if he was trying to read the names on the tankards. Davey had opinions on most subjects, but he wouldn’t be drawn on the Wing Co.”

  “Could it have been a woman?”

  “The cause of the argument? Don’t know. Davey had any number of affairs – relationships, you’d call them now. The artistic temperament, isn’t it? A bit saucy for those days. But the Wing Co. wasn’t like that. He was married.”

  “When?”

  “In the war, to one of those WAAFs who worked in the control rooms pushing little wooden markers across a map.”

  “A plotter.”

  “Right.”

  “She must have died some years ago, then. I don’t remember her.”

  “You wouldn’t. They separated. It wasn’t a happy marriage. He’s a grand old guy, but between you and me, he wouldn’t move on mentally. He was still locked into service life. Officially he was demobbed in 1945, and took a local job selling insurance, but he wouldn’t let go. RAF Association, British Legion, showing little boys his medals at the Air Training Corps. And of course he was writing that book about the Battle of Britain. I think Helen was suffocated.”

  “Suffocated?”

  “Not literally.”

  “What became of her, then?”

  “Nobody knows. She quit some time in the Fifties, and no one has heard of her since.”

  “That’s surprising, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe she emigrated. Sweet young woman. Hope she had a good life.”

  “Dark-haired, was she?” Brandon asked. “Dark, long hair?”

  “Now don’t go up that route, inspector. The old boy may have been a selfish husband, but he’s no murderer.”

  Brandon let that pass. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “All right, she was a brunette. Usually had it fastened at the back in a ponytail, but I’ve seen it loose.”

  “You said Davey Park was a ladies’ man. Did he ever make a pass at Helen Ashton?”

  Chivers pulled a face. “If he did, she wasn’t the sort to respond. Very loyal, she was. Out of the top drawer.”

  “That’s nothing to go by,” said Brandon. “So-called well-brought-up girls were the goers in those days.”

  “Take my word for it. Helen wouldn’t have given Davey the come-on, or anyone else.”

  “She couldn’t have been all that loyal, or she’d never have left the Wing Commander.”

  “I bet it wasn’t for another man,” said Chivers. “You’ll have to ask the old boy yourself, won’t you?”

  Brandon could see it looming. How do you tell a ninety-year-old pillar of the community that half the town suspects he may have murdered his wife? Back at the police station, he studied that painting again, trying to decide if it represented a real incident, or was some morbid fantasy of the artist. The detail was so painstaking that you were tempted to think it must have been done from memory. The index and middle fingernails of the left hand, in the foreground, were torn, suggesting that the woman had put up a fight. The rest of the nails were finely manicured, making the contrast. Even the fingertips were smudged black from trying to protect herself from the sooty poker.

  Yet clearly Davey Park couldn’t have set up his easel at a murder scene. The background stuff, the Spitfire picture, aircraft models and so on, could have been done from memory if he was used to visiting the house. The dead woman – whoever she was – must have been out of his imagination, unless Park had been there. Was the picture a confession – the artist’s way of owning up
to a crime, deliberately left to be discovered after he died?

  If so, how had the killing gone undetected? What had he done with the body?

  The interview with the Wing Commander had to be faced. Brandon called at the house late in the afternoon.

  “John, my dear fellow! What a happy surprise!” the old man innocently greeted him. “Do come in.”

  The moustache was white, the hair thin and the stance unsteady without a stick, but for an old man he was in good shape, still broad-shouldered and over six feet. Without any inkling of what was to follow, he shuffled into his living room, with the inspector following.

  The room was disturbingly familiar. Little had changed in fifty years.

  “Please find somewhere to sit. I’ll get the sherry.” He tottered out again.

  Brandon didn’t do as he was asked. This would be a precious interval of at least three minutes at the old man’s shuffling rate of progress. With a penknife he started scraping at the dark strips of cement between the hearthstones. If any traces of dried blood had survived for half a century, this was the likely place. He spent some minutes scooping the samples of dust into a transparent bag and pocketed it when he heard the drag of the slippers across the carpet.

  He was upright and admiring the dogfight picture over the fireplace when the Wing Commander came in with the tray.

  “My, this is a work of art.”

  “Don’t know about that, but I value it,” said the old man. “Takes me back, of course.”

  “Did you ever meet the artist?”

  “No, it’s only a print. There are plenty of aviation artists selling to dotty old critters like me, nostalgic for the old days. We had a copy hanging in the officers’ mess at Biggin Hill.”

  “I suppose it comes down to what will sell, like anything else. There was an artist in the town called Park, who specialised in landscapes. Died recently.”