Soft Summer Blood

by Peter Helton

  But not until he had talked to Gotts, whom he found in the garden, sitting on a rustic bench near the greenhouses, smoking. He was sitting hunched forward, studying the ground by his feet. At McLusky’s approach, he briefly looked up, then returned his gaze to the ground. McLusky joined him on the bench. He crossed his legs, leant back against the backrest so that when he spoke he was addressing the back of Gotts’ head. ‘You didn’t tell us you had form, Mr Gotts.’

  Gotts took a while to answer. ‘And why should I do that? I knew it wouldn’t take you long to drag that up. I’m used to it. Anything happens anywhere near me, from petty theft to murder, sooner or later you lot knock on my door.’

  ‘But you are going straight now, of course. After what? Four decades of crime?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Don’t tell me – you found Jesus while you were inside.’

  ‘Nope, I found something better than him. Gardening. We did some with the Eden Project while I was inside. Then when I was moved to Sudbury, I got a chance to do some actual training and get a qualification. Never looked back. I used to be a right narky git but gardening has calmed me down.’ He stretched out one hand in front of him, holding it steady. ‘See that? I feel I want to smash your smug face in, but look: not a tremor. I’m grounded. Literally.’ He tapped a short drum roll with the tips of his heavy work boots, then turned towards McLusky without meeting his eyes; instead, he held up the end of the cigarette he had been smoking. ‘Look at this. That’s how far it goes. I now smoke only filterless cigarettes because …’ With a soil-blackened thumb, he eased out the glowing end then crumpled the remainder in his fingers, letting it scatter by McLusky’s shoes. ‘Before, I would have flicked a fag end, filter and all, just anywhere. Not anymore. Wouldn’t dream of poisoning the ground with synthetic crap now.’

  ‘Very commendable. The victims of your past crimes would be thrilled to know that, I’m sure.’

  ‘You can’t change the past, only the present.’

  ‘How did you come by your assistant?’

  ‘Emm? I got involved in a project with ex-drug users. They’d given them an allotment at St Werburgh’s. The most hopeless bunch of waifs. Acting like they was tough as nails but couldn’t do five minutes of digging without needing to stop and roll a fag. Half of them dropped out after the first day when they realized there was more involved than scattering seeds. But not Emm. She never wanted to stop. She went at it like her life depended on it. Which it did. I needed help with my work so I took her on.’

  McLusky could see Emma pushing a loaded wheelbarrow on the far side of the gardens. ‘How long has she worked for you?’

  ‘Just over a couple of years now.’

  ‘Stayed off the drugs?’

  ‘It hasn’t all been plain sailing,’ said Gotts. ‘But I’ve not regretted taking her on. Not once.’

  McLusky walked off towards where he had last seen Emma and her wheelbarrow but stopped halfway there under a large oak and lit a cigarette. Night fell around him. Charles Mendenhall came jogging up from the house, breathing loudly. Emma Lucket stepped out from behind the tree. She was holding a revolver. Mendenhall stopped running. Emma?

  Yes, it’s me. I’ve had enough of gardening and have come to kill you for some strange reason.

  McLusky shook his head and walked off towards the front of the house. Before he reached it, he had finished his cigarette. He pinched off the glowing end and put the remaining filter into the pocket of his leather jacket. As he did so, his knuckles hit something unexpected, hard and cold. He closed his hand around the object. He did not need to pull it out to know it was the black Derringer he had confiscated from Longmaid but forgotten to hand over with the rest of the guns.

  For a while he sat behind the wheel of his car pondering this discovery, then he called the ballistics department. When he finally got to talk to the right man, he asked him about the guns he had sent in.

  ‘We haven’t even had time to look at them yet. I expect we’ll examine them tomorrow and then do a test fire. But don’t hold your breath.’

  ‘I won’t. Another question: what calibre is a Derringer? Is it a thirty-eight?’

  ‘Could be, they come in all kinds of calibres.’

  McLusky pulled out the gun and read the legend on its grip. ‘How about a Bond Arms Snake Slayer?’

  ‘Let me bring that info up for you, Inspector. That’s a modern gun, and it’s a forty-five. Fires two rounds, lower barrel fires first. Is there a connection with that case?’

  ‘No, not at all. Just something I came across.’

  In that case there was no point in handing it in to forensics. Was there? He idly cracked open the gun. The shiny brass ends of two bullets glared back at him. Longmaid had kept a loaded gun in his locker. McLusky slipped it back into his jacket pocket and started the engine.

  FIVE

  The place echoed too much. It was just too modern. For DI Fairfield, Spike Island was too contemporary, too bright, too industrial. Artists’ studios ought to be cosier, more mysterious and should not have strip lighting. North-facing skylights, wood floors, Belfast sinks and wood burners for heat was how Fairfield imagined her perfect studio. Seeing the students at work made her yearn to be in her life drawing class where once a week she got to draw for two and a half hours. Every time she went to life drawing she felt she was entering a different, more exciting world, while in here these kids took it for granted. The many unattended painting spaces convinced her that some of them were wasting it. While she walked around looking for Fulvia Lamberti’s disgruntled ex-boyfriend, DS Sorbie beside her gave a running commentary on this alien world, damping down her own ambiguous feelings.

  He called into one room, ‘Training hard for a life on the dole, kids?’ Three girls with earphones ignored him while they stood in front of their paintings. ‘I mean, look at this stuff,’ he said to Fairfield. ‘Would you pay money to have that on your wall? Any of it? I could do a better job than that. Is this Bristol’s answer to Picasso?’ He stuck his head into another work space. ‘No, can’t see the next Van Gogh in this lot, either.’

  ‘Give it a rest, Jack,’ said Fairfield, then asked a girl with a streak of sky-blue paint on her forehead where she might find Marcus Catlin.

  ‘Cat? The door at the end of the corridor. Not sure he’s there, though.’

  Marcus Catlin was there, standing in front of a canvas taller than himself, a loaded brush in one hand, an e-cigarette in the other. He was working on an abstract painting in earth colours and greys that immediately made Fairfield think of autumn, wood smoke and freshly baked bread, though the predominant smell in the airy studio was of turpentine. There were two other painters working at the other end of the brightly lit room.

  ‘Here.’ She handed the list of first-year painting students she had been given to Sorbie. ‘See if any of them have opinions on Fulvia. Or him,’ she added more quietly.

  At the mention of Fulvia, Marcus looked over his shoulder at the departing Sorbie and at Fairfield. ‘Help you?’

  ‘Are you Marcus Catlin?’

  ‘I could be.’

  ‘Your tutor described you well.’ Marcus was tall, broad-shouldered and handsome. He had turned his hair into an ink-black mess with the help of dye and gel and had pierced his right eyebrow to counteract the extreme youthfulness of his face and the puppy-dog brown of his eyes. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Fairfield, Bristol CID.’ She offered up her ID for inspection.

  ‘Oh, what?’ Marcus lobbed his brush into the mess on his painting table where it spattered its load of dark paint over paint tubes and jars of white spirit.

  ‘I’m here about Fulvia Lamberti, whom I believe you know well.’

  ‘I can’t believe they’re sending the police after me. I apologized. Profusely. And sincerely. I was pissed and angry.’

  ‘And in love. But that’s not why I’m here. Fulvia has disappeared.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And we are trying to locate her.’ Marcus sucked fur
iously on his e-cigarette. Fairfield had a ten-a-day small-cigar habit and watching Marcus smoke stirred her nicotine cravings. ‘Are you allowed to smoke in here?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps we could find a place where we could both have a smoke and then have a chat?’

  Armed with coffees from the Spike Café, they found a place to sit at one of the tables outside where Fairfield lit a small cigar from a tin of Café Crème. All the other tables were occupied. Not everyone looked like a student, but Fairfield thought that all of them looked more interesting than a group of CID types would.

  ‘You don’t look like a police officer,’ Catlin said accusingly.

  ‘Oh?’ Fairfield blew a surprise cloud of smoke skywards.

  ‘You’re too good-looking, like American TV detectives.’

  Fairfield knew what he meant. If TV series were to be believed, then the American police departments were recruiting almost exclusively from modelling agencies. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment, then. I think.’ She was tempted to tell him that they shared nicknames, Cat and Kat, but stopped herself in time. ‘Where is Fulvia?’ she asked instead.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘You must have. You went out with her.’

  ‘She dumped me.’

  Fairfield waited but no more was forthcoming. ‘You didn’t take kindly to that, did you?’ Catlin lowered his eyes and sipped coffee. ‘You wouldn’t take no for an answer.’

  ‘I couldn’t.’

  ‘In fact, you attacked her work and destroyed one of her paintings. You wanted to get back at her. You wanted to hurt her.’

  ‘No! Not hurt her, never hurt her. You don’t know her. You couldn’t understand.’

  ‘Try me. Explain it to me.’

  Catlin broke eye contact and looked past her at the building. ‘I can’t really. She was too beautiful for me anyway. You haven’t seen her.’

  Fairfield patted her jacket. ‘I have seen a picture of her.’

  ‘You have a picture? Show me.’ Catlin sat up straight, expectant. ‘That’s an ugly picture of her,’ he said when Fairfield held the photograph up for him.

  ‘Is it? She does look pretty, I grant you.’

  ‘She’s not pretty. Fulvia is beautiful. She’s the kind of beautiful that makes you feel scared. Straight away. From the moment you first set eyes on her, you’re scared to lose her, scared she would turn her back on you.’

  ‘But she did just that. Why was that?’

  Catlin fiddled with his e-cigarette for a moment before putting it down on the table and folding his hands, slouching forward. He suddenly looked much younger. ‘She said it was all nonsense. Everything: my painting, her painting, us, the art course. She said I was only with her because of the way she looked and she was sick of me going on about how beautiful she was.’

  ‘You adored her.’

  ‘That’s what she said: she didn’t want to be adored. She was looking for something real. She wanted someone to look beyond her beauty. I was looking beyond it. I told her I did, but she didn’t believe me.’

  ‘When did you last see her?’

  ‘Two weeks ago. They were going to throw me out of college for the vandalism thing. Then they said I could stay if I apologized to everybody. I did. I apologized to the whole group – we were at a lecture – and to her. That was wrong, too, apparently. She stormed out. That was the last I saw of her. I don’t think she’s been back to college since.’

  ‘We went to her place in Clifton Village …’

  ‘She hasn’t lived there for ages. Her family got her that place, but she thought it was too bourgeois. And too boring. Almost straight away she moved into a shared place in St Pauls somewhere.’

  ‘Somewhere? You must know where, surely.’

  ‘She never told me. I was never allowed there, even when things were OK. She’d come to my place – I’m in a shared house in Bedminster – or I saw her here or we’d meet in town, but never at her place.’

  ‘You never walked her home?’

  ‘She wouldn’t let me.’

  ‘You weren’t tempted to spy on her?’

  ‘I didn’t dare.’

  ‘How did she get around? Did she drive?’

  ‘When she first came here, she took a lot of taxis everywhere. Her parents send her a lot of money. But just before she disappeared she bought a scooter.’

  ‘Very Italian. You wouldn’t know the make and registration, by any chance?’

  ‘No, but it was black and chrome – new but retro. She looked heroic on it.’

  After getting a detailed, painter’s-eye description of how Fulvia dressed, Fairfield asked to be shown to Fulvia’s studio space. The studio was on the same floor as Catlin’s. The room was deserted of students. Fulvia’s painting space was a mess of paint tubes and tins, used brushes crammed into jars of white spirit, pencils and crayons, bits of paper and canvas. On the wall next to her table hung a three-foot square canvas, primed a brilliant white, across its pristine surface a single splash of bright cadmium yellow that looked accidental.

  ‘This mess …’ Fairfield begun.

  ‘That’s normal,’ said Catlin. ‘That’s how she worked. She created beautiful chromatic wonders out of complete chaos.’ He picked up one of a dozen small canvases that had been stacked facing the wall. He turned it around for her to examine, so she might agree with him.

  It was a square of admittedly glowing colours, a pleasing abstract jumble, but it meant nothing to Fairfield. ‘Very nice,’ she said.

  ‘Nice?’ He returned it reverentially to the stack. ‘It’s as beautiful as she is.’

  ‘Is anything missing here? Any of her painting equipment?’

  Catlin pushed out his bottom lip as he searched her painting table with his eyes. ‘I think it’s all here.’ He lightly touched the table with one finger as if to test for dust. ‘It’s just like the Mary Celeste.’

  Downstairs, Fairfield collected Sorbie from inside the café where he had been talking to some of the first-years. ‘She bought a scooter,’ he announced.

  ‘I know. Get on to DVLA and get us the index number.’

  David Mendenhall’s entire mail-order drinks business was run from a suspiciously small unit at a modern industrial park in St Philip’s Marsh. McLusky parked outside the dispiriting place and fortified himself with a cigarette before walking up to the squat blue-and-grey unit, just as a woman let herself out of a scratched metal door which she pushed shut with her shoulder. She walked off briskly but he stopped her by waving his ID at her.

  ‘Yes, I work for David. I’m his secretary. Well, girl Friday, really.’ Sandra Lucas glanced at her watch before turning around and unlocking the door again. She was a plain-looking woman in her thirties, with a sensible haircut and sensible clothes. Every sentence she uttered had an undertone of disappointment. ‘I was going to take the rest of the day off.’

  ‘This won’t take long,’ McLusky promised.

  The door led straight into a small office, carved out of the warehouse space with plasterboard and corrugated roofing material. A desk, a computer with a bulky old-fashioned monitor, two chairs and a filing cabinet. The door to the warehouse proper was made of raw chipboard and did not quite fit the frame.

  ‘It’s not very glamorous, I’m afraid.’

  ‘It’s bigger than my office,’ he assured her.

  ‘Then you must be a contortionist.’

  ‘You were taking the rest of the day off?’

  Sandra leant back against the desk and crossed her arms in front of her. ‘Yeah, well, I only work twenty hours and really I go when I’ve run out of things to do. Is this about David’s dad? Terrible that. Poor Mr Mendenhall. He was very polite to me. I quite liked him.’

  McLusky noted the emphasis on ‘him’. ‘You met him, then? Mendenhall senior?’

  ‘Yes. Came here a couple of times.’

  ‘In order to do what?’

  ‘In order to have flaming rows with his so
n. But he was very polite to me.’

  ‘What were they rowing about?’

  ‘Money, I think. It was around midday each time and David told me to go to lunch so I didn’t hear the whole argument. I think Mr Mendenhall gave David money for the business and David spent it on other things, like a BMW. There was definitely a row about the car. He said he needed it to impress clients. I mean, he was right. His last car was quite old; it wouldn’t have impressed anyone. But at the time we had irate suppliers on the phone who needed paying, so perhaps he didn’t quite have his priorities straight.’

  ‘How is his business going?’ McLusky pushed open the door to the warehouse. It contained uneven rows of boxed wines, some standing on palettes, and a couple of tables full of packing materials, a franking machine and other paraphernalia. Six feet high and three feet in girth, a monolithic roll of bubble wrap stood some way apart on the concrete floor; it was ghoulishly illuminated by a shaft of light from a small skylight and looked as though it had materialized there from another planet.

  Lucas became more diplomatic. ‘It’ll pick up towards Christmas, I suppose.’

  McLusky closed the flimsy door. ‘It must get a bit chilly here in winter.’ There was no sign of a heater.

  ‘I’ve not been here in the winter. He’ll put a heater in when it gets colder, I expect. Well, he’ll have to or I’m out of here.’

  ‘On the night his father was shot, David called you at home – is that right?’

  Sandra frowned. ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘Do you remember what time that was?’

  ‘Oh, it was after ten. Half past? Something like that.’

  ‘What was the call about?’

  ‘He wanted to find a list of our suppliers in California. It was filed correctly; he was just looking in the wrong place.’

  ‘Is it normal for David to work that late?’

  ‘No. But then there had been trouble with that supplier. Or rather with David paying them, and it would have been a good time to call them. The time difference …’