The structure was mainly crunched chicken wire, old video boxes, empty plastic bottles and egg cartons. I saw no artistic connection. What had Waz said? Something about the key to the safe at the bank… I had thought she was joking. But apparently not. Someone had wanted the key back.
Unless Waz had destroyed “Ruin” herself. Not up to her usual standard. I poked around the kitchen, hoping to find something crucial. But it was useless. The fingerprint team would have to take a month’s sick leave if dealing with this lot. I moved into the hall, silent as a shadow. Cat followed me, like a ghost host, showing me around politely.
I slipped on some thin latex gloves out of habit. The cat viewed me with suspicion. Perhaps he had recently been taken to the vet’s and submitted to having his temperature taken in an unspeakable manner.
The front sitting room was depressingly dismal. No one ever sat there. The room wasn’t used. Plastic tulips graced a graceless vase. Peter Scott reproductions merged with the wallpaper. A brown and orange patterned carpet argued with a burgundy uncut moquette three-piece suite. The chairs looked so uncomfortable, I bet the cat wouldn’t even sit on them. I was right. He stalked past, tail high.
I searched everywhere, down the back of seat cushions, behind and through untouched books, under edges of the carpet. There was nothing. No safe behind a picture, no letters inside books, no safe keys sellotaped to the underside of shelves.
The dining room showed a few signs of life. A television set sat in a corner with a current TV program magazine. Two upright fireside chairs flanked an imitation gas fire; their worn arms showed plenty of use yet I was having a hard time imagining either the wacky Waz or the immaculate Leroy sitting there.
I began to feel I was on a stage set. The house was not natural. It did not relate to the people who supposedly lived there. It was as if a different cast inhabited the rooms.
Leroy Anderson occupied the front bedroom, that was obvious from the load of trendy clothes and make-up. Talk about an outfit for every day of the week. She was a walking calender. A flowered duvet with pink cushions sitting like strawberry marshmallows covered her bed. Fashion magazines littered the floor. She had an expensive taste in undies and plenty of boyfriends. One drawer was full of postcards and letters, gift tags and show programmes. I scanned them quickly but nothing was signed Love Adrian or Forever A.
I was beginning to get bored. There was nothing here, apart from the chaotic kitchen which I dreaded searching. I would not know where to start. How could I tell which junk was rubbish and which junk was art?
Then came my first surprise. Bedroom number three was a narrow, single room with a 2 foot 6 inch bed and worn candlewick cover, a chest of drawers and a row of hanging hooks behind the door. It was occupied by a man. Striped pyjamas were folded on the pillow and a couple of dark suits and boring shirts hung behind the door. On the chest of drawers were a brush and comb, a bottle of hair restorer and some brilliantine. Leslie Fairbrother, senior manager of the Sussex United Banking Corporation, it seemed, had been banished to the spare room.
Waz’s eccentric artistic talent was not their only problem. Perhaps Leslie’s lovemaking was limited to cheerless three-minute thrills while Waz yearned for romantic passion and tenderness that time did not measure. I shut the door on Leslie’s celibate nights, remembering the obsessive hand-washing.
The bathroom was marginally interesting. Slimy soap, wet flannels, damp towels, par for the course. The last occupant had not wiped round the bath. Someone had recently dyed their hair Raisin Brown. The wall cabinet held no medication, not even an aspirin. The house was all contradictions.
The back bedroom had to be the one occupied by Waz, if she lived there at all. Maybe she slept downstairs in the kitchen guarding her masterpieces. I pushed the door open slowly, wondering what to expect, a replay of the clutter downstairs, feminine chaos or nunnish austerity. Like someone whose personality departed on the way upstairs.
I did not expect to see a shape in the bed. I froze. I thought the house was empty. No one had answered my knocking.
The flowing hair extensions on the pillow told me that the occupant of the bed was Waz. I crept forward, alerted by the stillness.
Waz was no longer Waz. She had reverted to being Mrs Cordelia Henrietta Fairbrother, even though she was daubed from head to foot in gaudy sloshes of paint. Thick paint covered her legs, arms, fingers, face, neck. The cavities of her face were Tilled with fast-setting molding clay. Her lashes were spiked with glue, her eyes pools of milky blindness, her mouth a setting well of PVA glue, under which, her teeth looked like submerged pearls.
She was deceased. Very deceased. No pulse. Suffocated by a mixture of paint and plaster and glue. She had become her own tribute to modern art. She might have approved of that. The bedclothes and walls were splashed with paint. I touched a splodge tentatively. It was still glutinous.
A strong smell of acetone hit me. Paint thinner. I should report this. I should look for clues. I should act like a responsible citizen, except this responsible citizen had been snooping in their house. Instead, I went into the bathroom and was horribly sick. Violently but briefly since I hadn’t eaten. My stomach heaved. I leaned on the basin and slapped cold water over my face, cleaned up, wiped round with a towel, threw it on the floor.
Somehow, I got myself downstairs. I took the phone off the hook and dialed three nines. It began ringing. As I left the room I could hear a female voice asking which service did I require? Fire, police, ambulance? I let her talk to the air.
It didn’t matter which service they sent. They would soon discover poor Waz in Ruin, connect her to the vanished bank manager and the official wheels would start rolling.
The cat looked at me with trust. Without thinking, I picked him up and tucked him inside my anorak. I couldn’t leave him in this house with the mummified Waz upstairs. The air outside was as chilling as a walk-in freezer. Half of my brain remembered to check that I had left nothing behind and relocked the door. The other half couldn’t think of anything.
The cat sat composed on the passenger seat, no roaming or peering out of the window. It was as if he knew this was not the time for attractive feline behaviour. I drove back to my shop, parked in the back yard, went inside, washed again in hot water, changed my clothes. By the time I had made a pint of scalding coffee, the cat was fast asleep, curled up in a filing tray, tail hanging over the end like a black exclamation mark.
“You can’t stay,” I said. “You’re evidence.”
But he wasn’t listening.
I sat down on my chair and put my head in my hands. I was in for real trouble if the police discovered that I had been anywhere near No 12.
Nineteen
Doris didn’t sell varieties of cat food, nor was I sure I could buy it from her if she had any. No one must know I had the Fairbrothers’ cat. I could say it was a stray. A cat lie. Meanwhile I bought three tins of sardines.
“Extra Omega 3,” I explained.
“For what?” she asked.
“Builds bones.”
“Haven’t you got enough?”
Surely, DI James knew about the body by now. The three nines call might have gone anywhere but I couldn’t let poor Waz liquefy beneath the weight of paint, glue and quick-setting plaster. Even though I could think up a legitimate reason for calling on the Fairbrothers, it did not explain how I got in. I needed a tank of air.
The sea had disappeared. Low cloud gathered on the shore having forgotten that it was supposed to be attached to the sky. It felt like wet net. In minutes my hair was hanging in tendrils like a heroine from a Jane Austen novel, my anorak was glistening and my gloves dampened. Lowry people appeared on the edge of my vision and vanished.
It wasn’t exactly raining. I was walking through cloud that hid both the sea and the shore in a swirling haze. Dim lights flickered yellowy rays from the road above, occasionally shot with the luminous beam of headlights. The sea was reduced to a distant roar, halfway to France for duty free. Seagu
lls fluttered like sodden paper, flapping their wings, searching for thermal lifts, scanning the sand for scraps of washed-up fish heads.
The sand was forced into ridges, dark fissures, deeper than they looked. I fell down gullies where water nearly topped my boots. This beach changed character every time the tide went out. New lagoons materialized, new stretches of rocks and pools tricked the unwary, new streams wandered and cleaved the sand. I only knew where I was by the roof line of the houses and flats beyond the promenade. The pier straggled out of sight.
More cloud lowered itself on to the beach, wearied with weight, drifting like a lost being in an alien atmosphere.
I stopped walking. I couldn’t see a thing. The hotel shapes and blocks of flats had gone, absorbed into the fog. I barely knew which way to turn. It was frightening. If I fell and broke my ankle, no one would find me. Even the police air service helicopter would fail. Its thermal camera was useless in these weather conditions. The tide would sweep in and cover me with seaweed as thoroughly as someone had painted Waz with glue. Yes, I ought to carry a mobile. Shopping list: think about it.
I stood still, trying to orientate myself. But which way was the right way to go? I might walk in circles and get nowhere fast. Nothing was recognizable. I decided to stride in a straightish line. It must take me somewhere.
It did. Straight out to sea. In a few frightening minutes, cold hungry waves were washing round my feet, lapping my ankles. I did a complete turn in a hurry. I know how fast the tide could come in over the sandy wastes. Now I was in a race, stumbling and half falling, as the sea chased me shorewards.
It was flight time. Ever tried running on sand in waterlogged boots? The sea was gaining on me. I tripped on a slippery rock and fell flat on my face. When I struggled to my feet, half winded, my front was wet with patches down to my knees, legs, chest, forearms, face. The salt water didn’t do my cut fingers any good. It stung.
But as I got up, I could see the steep rise of the shingle ahead. It would take the sea a long time to climb that slope. By the time it reached high tide, crashing over the tops of the groynes, I would have been home and dry for hours.
When I got back to my shop, carrying a bag of litter from the pet store, I found DI James about to leave my doorstep. His glance swept over me, taking in my bedraggled state. My clothes had semi-dried on me. I made an attempt to brush off some of the sand.
“Your shop is never open,” he said. “You’ll go bankrupt.”
“Correction. I am bankrupt.”
“What about those substantial cash payments into your bank account?”
“Oh, not that again. Kindly give my brain a rest.”
“I am trying to help you,” he said in a menacingly cold voice, “And against all my professional instincts. I am using valuable resources to unpin your name from the circumstances of Councilor Fenwick’s death.”
Was I supposed to feel humble? I could only look into those eyes and remember the coldness of the sea washing round my ankles. He acted as if he didn’t even like me.
“Thank you for nothing. Detective Inspector. We both know that his flask of coffee had been laced with strong sleeping tablets and he’d been drinking brandy. You can’t pin that on me,” I said sweetly.
“Halcion was found in his bloodstream and the alcohol content was high. And then I suppose he locked the door on the outside himself, before climbing back in through a window to set fire to the place?”
“No, I think Pippa Shaw locked the door. She didn’t want an amorous caller late at night.”
“Have you proof?”
“I’ve a strong hunch Adrian Fenwick was there destroying incriminating papers which linked him to dodgy house sales with a dodgy builder who had got dodgy planning permission with the councilor’s assistance.”
For a second, DI James looked interested but he dumped the look immediately before it could take hold. He wasn’t going to give me any points.
“Oh yes?” he drawled.
“He put the evidence through the shredder, then thought he’d burn the lot to make doubly sure, in case some poor WPC was ordered to stick all the bits back together.”
“She’d need dexterity.”
“And patience beyond human endeavor. But when your brain is befuddled with sleeping pills, brandy and a stress-aroused burst of adrenalin and noradrenaline, it’s not easy to make rational decisions.”
“I do know about the fight/flight syndrome. It doesn’t explain the planting of a can of petrol with your bike. He could have just burned the shredded documents in a bin.”
“Maybe he wanted to make it look like arson, in case his name was ever linked with the builder. Don’t you see? He hadn’t planned on being locked inside. Snow White did that.”
“Now you’ve lost me. Snow White? Are we into fairy tales now?”
“Pippa Shaw. His immaculate daughter-in-law, at one time girlfriend, she of the pure white clothes and pristine flat. Not all as innocent as it looks, a very complicated relationship. Not incest, but close. Women often find older men more to their liking.”
“Money,” he said.
“No, manners,” I whipped back. “By all accounts, Adrian Fenwick was a nice man, even if occasionally weak for a pretty face or accepting a handout. All I’ve ever got in the way of a handout is a basket of mushrooms.”
“I’m getting confused,” said DI James, with a shiver. “Could we go inside and at least I’ll be warmer while I’m being confused.”
He did look cold. No extra layer of waistcoat or pullover despite the drop in temperature. His shirt was regulation white, the third button missing. Hadn’t he got any winter clothes?
“No, I don’t,” he said, reading my mind. “When I walked out, I left everything behind. I need to go shopping.”
“Don’t ask me to come with you,” I said. “I don’t choose men’s clothes.” When he walked out… that told me something I hadn’t known before. The circumstances of his divorce were a mystery to me; he had not volunteered any information. Left everything behind… it was a bleak scenario. A middle-of-the-night act of desperation? I thought only women did that. Men planned everything.
I was mesmerized by the blinding smallness of details: that missing button, the frosted fringe of lashes, the downcast of his mouth. The way he stood squarely like a raging bull containing its wrath, feet not pawing the ground, but his weight shifting as the energy swelled to bursting point.
“You’d probably pick black, black, and then black,” he suggested.
“How do you know that?” I was surprised. My trumpeter always wore black. A jazzman’s gear. Bones melted as I thought of him, desire surged. It wasn’t fair to dehydrate my skin. I’d be getting spots.
“It’s in your eyes,” said DI James enigmatically. “Your eyes are in mourning. What have you lost, Jordan?”
I had to think. What had I lost?
“I’ve lost how it feels to act like a normal woman.”
“It’s your damned profession,” he said, following me into my office.
I sidled ahead but the cat had disappeared the way cats do. The bag of litter had also disappeared, hidden behind the loo door. I switched on the electric fire, hoping there were enough pound coins in the meter for some heat. The fire ate money.
“Much as I appreciate your frankness, Jordan, you haven’t told me anything I don’t already know,” he went on. “I need a fresh lead.”
“And I need to know whether the can of petrol was full or empty. I’m presuming, of course, that the contents have been measured now? Also I’d like to know exactly where my bike was found. Its location could be crucial.”
“I will get that information to you.” He wrote something in his notebook.
I pulled out the specimen envelope that contained the lock of false red hair I had chopped off the wig hidden in Pippa Shaw’s boot. I sniffed it.
“Hardly fresh,” I murmured. “But maybe a lead… hidden in a boot in Snow White’s flat. What do you think of the shade?” I held i
t up to my hair.
“Amateur dramatics.”
“I admit she is a good actress but I doubt if the smell of greasepaint lures her. Too fastidious. Forensic could establish who last wore the wig. Blond hair particles, dandruff, etc… She wore this while riding my bike around Latching.”
He hadn’t asked me what I’d been doing in Pippa Shaw’s flat. I decided not to tell him. Nor could I tell him about finding Waz Fairbrother. My brain stirred random avenues, trying to discover a way of finding out if he knew.
Also I was starting to think I had talked too much. DI James was firstly a professional policeman. He did not do favors for struggling independent private eyes. It might look as if he was trying to help me out of this mess, but who could tell what was going on in that cropped head? He might have a hot warrant for my arrest in his pocket.
But his mobile rang. No irritating call sign. A plain ring. His face did not change expression. He nodded, “I’ll be over right away. Who’s there? What’s the address? And get someone to dig out all we’ve got on the missing husband.”
He switched off the machine. “I have to go, Jordan. Trouble at mill.” He put a pound coin on my desk, in case the meter runs out. And get some dry clothes on. You’ll catch your death.”
“Been nice talking to you.”
He left abruptly, a record departure, due now at the scene of the artistic Waz Fairbrother’s last exhibited still life.
*
Mrs Drury had given me a newspaper cutting about Patcham House. I got it out and smoothed the creases. It was browned and fragile, like a dried leaf. The missing woman was described as a 32-year-old Linda Keates, an Oriental art expert from a London museum, cataloguing the art collection of the house. She apparently went out to buy some materials and never returned.
That same day, the Lancaster crashed into the sand when the tide was out. The two stories were linked curiously. A bystander had witnessed both events. The editor of the paper at that time thought it made a story.
Wave and Die (Jordan Lacey Mysteries Book 2) Page 19
