Blood in Grandpont

by Peter Tickler

  Lawson got the message, and hurried to collect Jack Smith’s personal possessions and get out of the room. She was no mug, and had already wondered about her boss and Dr Pointer. Not that she had voiced her suspicions to anyone. But she was human enough – and nosy enough – to wonder what things Holden still had to discuss with the pathologist, and in private. Her guess was that it wasn’t police procedures or new developments in post-mortem techniques.

  However, by the time Holden had joined her in the car several minutes later, her idle speculation on her boss’s private life had long since gone out the window. For all her attention had been hijacked by what she had seen on Jack Smith’s mobile.

  ‘We’ve got another one, Guv!’

  Holden wrenched her mind away from the conversation she had just had with Karen Pointer. ‘What was that?’

  ‘There’s a photo on this mobile too, Guv!’

  ‘What? Of a naked Jack Smith?’

  ‘No, Guv. It’s a painting. You know, like an oil painting.’

  Holden’s interest shot up several points. ‘Well, let me have a look then!’

  It is not easy to appreciate the quality, or even the subject matter, of a painting on a screen approximately three centimetres square. Holden had to squint, and then to move the mobile’s face around before she could get a decent grasp of what it was. Lawson’s estimate that it was an oil painting seemed to be a good one. There were two figures. In the centre was a woman, lying back against a rock. She appeared, as far as Holden could see, to be in distress. Although clothed, her diaphanous dress was dishevelled, and her left breast uncovered. To the viewer’s right, a male figure could be seen, moving away from the woman, but casting a glance behind him, though whether the expression on his face was mischievous or triumphant, evil or embarrassed, Holden could not divine.

  ‘What do you think, Guv? Do you think it’s the picture that he found?’

  ‘No,’ Holden said flatly. ‘That one had two women and a prone man, according to Jack.’

  ‘Maybe he was lying.’ The words shot out of Lawson’s mouth. Quite why she uttered them, she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t as if she had mulled the idea over for even a second.

  ‘Why on earth should he be lying about the subject of the painting?’

  Lawson pursed her lips, and said nothing. She felt foolish for not having remembered Jack Smith’s description of the painting. She hadn’t been there – Fox had been with Holden – but she had seen the notes of the meeting, and she really should have remembered.

  ‘Well, come on, Lawson.’ Holden was not going to let her off. ‘Why? Give me a possible reason why Jack Smith might have lied. You’re on my team, so I want you thinking, not playing the village idiot. Why might he have lied?’

  ‘To mislead us, Guv.’ Lawson’s idea was only half-formed, and maybe only half-baked, but if Holden wanted ideas, she’d ruddy well give her one.

  ‘Any chance of you fleshing that idea out, Detective Constable?’

  ‘Yes, Guv,’ she replied sharply. ‘To make sure that we wouldn’t recognize the painting if we came across it.’

  ‘Hmm!’ Holden leant back and shut her eyes briefly as she considered the idea.

  Lawson, pleased that her suggestion hadn’t been dismissed out of hand, decided to follow up. ‘In fact, that seems to me to be the obvious solution.’

  Holden’s eye opened – an owl wakened from its reverie, or more likely a hawk. ‘Obvious!’ she repeated with sarcastic emphasis. ‘Well, well, well, Constable. Aren’t you the clever clogs! The only problem is I don’t see Jack Smith as being the smartest cookie in the jar. When Fox and I interviewed him, if he was lying, he was very good at it.’

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t his idea,’ Lawson riposted. She was flying by the seat of her pants now, but there was no way she was going to bail out. ‘Maybe it was the idea of his killer.’

  Holden was sitting forward now, and her eyes were looking at Lawson with an intensity that made the constable uneasy. Eventually, she smiled. ‘You’ll make a good detective, Jan. A very good detective.’

  Lawson, uncertain of her ground, smiled nervously back. ‘Thank you, Guv.’

  ‘But just for the sake of argument, Lawson, let’s suppose Jack wasn’t lying. Let’s suppose there are two different paintings. What would you make of that?’

  Lawson frowned. She was so set on her own idea that she found it hard to switch her thinking.

  ‘Well?’ The prompting was gentle, but insistent.

  ‘Two different paintings?’ Lawson spoke slowly, trying to buy some time while she thought of an answer. ‘To be honest, I would have to say if they are two different paintings, then’ – she struggled for the words – ‘then it’s one heck of a coincidence.’

  ‘Is it?’ came the reply. ‘Is it really?’

  Lawson shivered as a childhood memory resurfaced. It was one of those defining moments of growing up, which mark the progress from innocence to knowledge. She had been watching her cat, Flossie, playing with a mouse in the garden. She was lying on the lawn, and Flossie was toying with the mouse as she sometimes toyed with a ball of wool. Occasionally she would touch it, allowing it to move this way or that, but never once taking its eyes off its helpless playmate. Jan remembered feeling intensely uneasy. The cat was playing, but this was no toy she was playing with, this was a live, harmless little mouse. She did not fully understand what she was seeing, and yet she felt anxious almost to the point of fear. She called Flossie by name, but the cat ignored her. The mouse ran a little way to the left, and Flossie pranced effortlessly into its path, so it stopped, mesmerized. It was a bright sunny day, but at that moment a cloud drifted over, and a shadow passed across that familiar patch of grass, and next door’s Jack Russell began to bark, and – all in an instant – Flossie the cat had pounced and snapped the mouse’s neck with a single bite.

  ‘What about Dominic Russell?’ Holden said, her face a picture of innocence. ‘He’s got lots of oil paintings.’

  ‘You think he did it?’

  ‘Hey! That’s a mighty big leap. But there’s a painting or paintings at the middle of this business. And Maria had, at the very least, a business relationship with him. So I’d say Dominic Russell seems an obvious place to start looking.’

  Two unmarked cars pulled up outside D.R. Antiquities just after 2.00 p.m. that afternoon. Dominic Russell, who was preoccupied with labelling a couple of garden statuettes he had just acquired, looked up, his hopes briefly raised that this might herald a serious bit of business. God knows, he needed it. But when the passenger door of the leading car opened and DI Holden got out, he knew it was not to be.

  ‘You’re not, by any chance, here to buy a retirement gift for the Chief Superintendent, because if you are I am sure I can do a very good deal.’ He grinned as he said it. Mr Bonhomie himself.

  ‘This is a search warrant.’ Holden held up a piece of paper in front of his face. ‘My colleagues and I would appreciate it if we could have your cooperation.’

  ‘A search warrant?’ Dominic Russell spoke with apparently genuine surprise. ‘What on earth are you looking for?’

  ‘I am not required to answer that question, Mr Russell,’ Holden replied. ‘But we would like to see every single painting you have on the premises.’

  ‘Well, you’d better be bloody careful! If you damage them—’

  ‘We won’t damage them,’ Holden assured him.

  The big policeman, whom Dominic remembered from their previous visit though he couldn’t for the life of him recall his name, stepped forward in his role of polite enforcer. ‘All the more reason to cooperate with us, sir.’

  For an hour they searched, Holden and Fox in one team, watched by Dominic, and Lawson and Wilson in the other, escorted by Sarah Russell, who had again been working in the office. It didn’t take long to see that the painting they sought was not on display, but Holden had hardly expected that it would. One of the two smaller buildings turned out to be an area for storage and repair, but carefu
l examination of it proved fruitless. The third building stored mostly furniture, and despite Lawson and Wilson assiduously opening every door and drawer, no paintings were found.

  ‘So that’s that, is it?’ Dominic said. ‘Such as shame we couldn’t help you find whatever it is you are looking for.’

  The mocking tone of his voice did nothing to improve Holden’s mood. She hadn’t liked him on first acquaintance, and she liked him even less now, the patronizing self-satisfied git. But she wasn’t ready to give up yet. They were back in the office, and she looked around again, scanning the room for inspiration. ‘You have catalogues of your paintings, do you?’

  ‘Nothing current.’

  ‘When did you last produce one?’

  ‘Well,’ he said warily. ‘I suppose that would have been a couple of months ago.’

  ‘Can I see a copy, please.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘And maybe we could have four coffees, too?’

  ‘We’re not a branch of Starbucks, you know.’ The arrogance was back in his voice, an arrogance which suggested he felt less threatened now. Maybe, for him, the danger had passed. Publicly available catalogues held no incriminating secrets.

  ‘Would you rather my sergeant did it? I wouldn’t. Because number one he’s very clumsy, and number two he makes bloody lousy coffee.’

  Dominic turned towards his wife who had taken up her guard dog position behind the desk. ‘Sarah, would you mind?’

  ‘Actually, I’d like to talk to her. Why don’t you make it yourself? Constable Wilson will come and advise you on our milk and sugar requirements.’

  For a moment it looked as though he was going to object. Agrunt of disgust emitted from his mouth, and Holden prepared to resist, but his bluster was just that, and he turned and left the room, trailed by Wilson.

  Sarah Russell meanwhile had stood up, and had removed a slim publication from the shelves behind her. ‘Here you are!’ She slapped the catalogue down on the desk.

  Holden picked it up and passed it to Lawson. She had already given up on it as being of use, but you never knew. In the meantime, she was more interested in Sarah.

  ‘You must be a very busy woman, Mrs Russell. We come here, and you’re here. Sergeant Fox goes to Cornforth and you’re there. We return here, and lo and behold here you are again.’

  ‘Dominic is short-handed at the moment.’

  ‘Yes, I remember you saying that last time we were here. A French-Canadian, wasn’t it? Minette?’

  ‘You’ve a good memory.’

  ‘Her parents were visiting, weren’t they?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to her.’

  ‘Why?’ Was there was a note of anxiety in her reply?

  ‘That’s my business.’ Holden was giving nothing away, but something told her Minette was a sensitive spot. ‘Can you give me her address and phone number.’

  Sarah did something with her mouth that was half-way between a smile and a scowl. ‘I could. But it may not be much use to you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because at this very moment she’s on a flight back to Quebec.’

  This time it was Holden’s turn to be disconcerted. ‘I thought you said her parents were just visiting.’

  Sarah Russell smiled her broadest, most self-satisfied smile. ‘I think seeing her parents made her homesick. Suddenly she realized what she was missing in Quebec – families, friends, the French language – so she insisted on going home with them. Rather touching, don’t you think?’

  Holden didn’t say what she thought. Instead she turned to Lawson. ‘Have you found anything of interest, Lawson.’ It was a futile question. Lawson would certainly have interrupted if she’d found the painting. Holden knew it, and she knew too that she was running out of options. She could surely track down Minette’s phone number in Quebec and ask her over the phone if she had seen the painting, but it was a long shot. Can the girl really have got homesick just because her parents had visited?

  ‘Can I make a suggestion, Guv?’

  Holden turned to Fox, absurdly pleased at his intervention. God only knew what he was going to suggest, but anything was better than nothing.

  ‘Have you ever seen the Mona Lisa, Guv?’

  Holden shook her head.

  ‘Me neither. But my sister went last year. And you know what most surprised her?’ Fox paused, though not because he expected an answer. He wasn’t above wanting a bit of attention. ‘It was so bloody small. She’d always thought it was this huge great canvas, and in reality it was tiny. So what I’m saying is, maybe this painting we’re looking for isn’t so big.’

  Fox was pleased with himself, and even more pleased with his boss’s reaction. She was nodding like one of those dogs that people put on the back of their cars. Like that Churchill dog. Almost dementedly. ‘Right!’ she said.

  ‘So, my point is that it could be almost anywhere in this office. In Mrs Russell’s desk drawers, for example, or up on those book shelves, or maybe tucked behind the catalogues, or.…’ and then he stopped talking, for his eyes had alighted on some flat brown paper packages on the desk to Sarah Russell’s right. He moved over and stretched out an arm.

  ‘They’re waiting to be picked up,’ Sarah Russell said calmly, her hand moving protectively on top of the pile, as if daring Fox to touch them. ‘In fact, if DHL don’t arrive very soon, I’ll have to ring them.’

  ‘We’ll have to open them first, madam,’ Fox said bluntly.

  She turned in appeal to Fox’s superior, but Holden merely smiled. ‘Lawson,’ she said cheerily, ‘perhaps you can help Sergeant Fox.’

  Eventually, they found the painting, though not in the pile of packages that were due for collection. It was located by Fox on the topmost of the shelves, inside a plastic supermarket bag and wrapped in hessian. He reached it down just as Dominic Russell and DC Wilson walked through the door bearing coffees.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Dominic asked rather pointlessly. Given that four detectives had arrived with a search warrant, the answer was obvious. No one made any attempt to respond, however, for at that moment all their eyes and attention were on the painting that Fox had just unwrapped on the desk. ‘Bingo!’ he said, when he saw it.

  ‘Is that what you were looking for?’ Dominic tried again to elicit information, but again there was no answer.

  ‘I presume this belongs to you, sir, does it?’ Holden asked, ignoring his question, but asking her own.

  ‘Well, sort of.’

  ‘I’d like you to explain what you mean by that, Mr Russell. But I’d like you to do that down at the station in a more formal setting.’

  ‘Is that really necessary?’ This time the question came from Sarah Russell, riding belligerently to her husband’s aid. ‘He has a business to run. We’ve been very cooperative so far, and I really cannot see why—’

  But Holden’s patience was at an end. ‘Enough!’ She spat the word out like the exasperated teacher of a class of 11-year-olds, suddenly desperate for silence. ‘Mrs Russell, your husband has three minutes to get himself ready, and then he will be leaving with us in order to help us with our enquiries. In the meantime, we will drink the coffee he has so kindly provided.’

  ‘And while you are drinking our coffee,’ Sarah riposted, ‘I will ring his solicitor.’

  ‘Perhaps you can explain to my client and to myself the precise reason why you have called him in for questioning.’ James Turley, solicitor at law, spoke with a clipped diction that spoke volumes of his background. Public school certainly, Oxbridge probably. In fact his tie would have told Holden that he had attended Queen’s College, Oxford, had she been interested in such collegiate details. But Holden had no interest in his tie, or his expensive suit, or his ostentatious gold cufflinks or even his rather poncy manner. They served only to irritate her.

  ‘Certainly,’ she smiled. ‘Sergeant,’ she prompted, briefly turning to DS Fox, sitting to her right at the table. Fox responded by r
emoving the painting from its package and placing it on the table in front of Turley and Russell.

  ‘We found this on the premises of D.R. Antiquities, the business run and owned by your client. When asked if it belonged to him, he replied: “Well, sort of.” A photograph of this painting was found on the mobile phone belonging to Jack Smith, a plumber who was found dead yesterday in a house in South Oxford. He had been murdered.’ She paused, for at this moment she was more interested in watching the face of Dominic Russell than engaging in verbal fisticuffs with Turley.

  To be fair, as Fox later said, either Russell was genuinely shocked by this news or he was a bloody good actor. Certainly, his habitually flushed face seemed to pale, and his mouth gaped open in an impressively convincing display of surprise. His first verbal reaction was to address his solicitor: ‘This is ridiculous, James. Quite ridiculous!’

  ‘So if you don’t mind, Mr Turley,’ Holden said, determined to keep the momentum going, ‘I’d like to ask your client some questions. And then we can rule him out of our investigations, unless, of course, his answers lead us to rule him in.’

  Turley shrugged at Russell, and then turned back to Holden. ‘I am sure my client is happy to assist the police in any way he can.’

  ‘In that case, Mr Russell, can you explain what you meant when you said you sort of owned the painting?’

  ‘Well.’ The fingers of his hands, which had been face down on the table, began to tap a rhythm on the table. It was the beat of something that Holden vaguely recognized, but couldn’t place. Was that what he did, she wondered, when under pressure or playing for time or maybe telling a lie? Or all three together. ‘I’m the temporary owner, if you like. The intermediary.’

  ‘You mean, like a fence?’

  Russell flushed back to his more normal colour. ‘What are you implying?’

  ‘There’s no need to be alarmed,’ Holden said with a smile. ‘I’m implying nothing. I’m just trying to understand what “sort of” ownership means. Because of the job I do, I’m familiar with how a fence operates, and so I was merely seeking to clarify your terminology.’