A Bed of Scorpions

by Judith Flanders

I raised my hands to pause him. ‘I know nothing about guns. In the vaguest possible way I know the difference between a machine gun and a pistol, but that’s it.’ I revised that. ‘Truth be told, whatever I know probably comes from World War I movies – I think I’m visualising Erich von Stroheim carrying one – so it is unlikely to have any relationship to something used this century.’

  For a moment, the ‘unexplained death’ vanished. He laughed, happy to be with someone who thought anything that went ‘bang’ was an all-purpose ‘gun’. ‘All you really have to know is that handguns have been illegal in this country since 1996, after Dunblane. So we have an illegal handgun, which even before 1996 was never registered in the UK. It’s a Soviet make, and it has a fixed sight.’ He saw my incomprehension. ‘Makarovs with fixed sights were only sold in the Soviet bloc; Makarovs manufactured for export had adjustable sights. The feature itself doesn’t matter, it’s just an indication as to where it came from.’

  ‘You say “Soviet”. Do you mean that the gun is old? From Soviet Union days? Or is it just a way of speaking?’

  ‘Old. Our people say the serial number dates it to the early 1960s, which means there are a lot of years to account for.’

  He returned to the present. ‘Frank Compton has never had any sort of firearm registered to him, he is not known to have ever had any interest in firearms, and as far as both his partner and his colleagues are aware, he never travelled in the Eastern bloc. So where he came by a semi-automatic is an open question.’

  ‘Isn’t that what the serial number will tell you?’

  ‘We’ve sent a request to our Russian counterparts. But the handgun was Soviet Army issue. There’s not much point in finding out the name of the soldier it was registered to in 1962. It’s not going to clarify how it got from there to here. We’ll try.’ He didn’t look like he expected much. ‘Then there’s the note.’ He rubbed his face again. This part was troubling him. ‘The note is … It’s not in his handwriting, and it’s not addressed to anyone. He may have typed it, but even if he did, it may have been the beginning of a note to say he couldn’t attend a meeting, for all we know. IT have confirmed the time the page was opened, and that and the time the automatic save was first generated are both consistent with the estimated time of death from the scene, but that adds very little. And opening a computer document to write two words is unusual.

  ‘So.’ He was summarising, although I wasn’t sure if it was for me, or for him. ‘On one side, the GSR, the weapon’s provenance, the unusual nature of the note. We’ll get a report later today confirming time of death and letting us know if there are any other anomalies. Forensics are looking at the splatter pattern’ – he saw the expression on my face and put his hand on mine, but continued – ‘and we’ll know more about that in a couple of days. We’re auditing the books and looking at Compton’s financial situation. We’ll speak to Stafford again. And to his friends.’

  I hesitated. ‘I understand why you would automatically concentrate on Toby. But what did you mean when you said Frank and Toby’s relationship was volatile?’

  He was in interview mode again in an eye-blink. ‘What did you think of it?’

  ‘I didn’t. Think of it, I mean. I don’t think I ever saw them on their own.’ I considered. ‘No, I’m certain I’ve never ever seen them on their own. It’s always been at a party, or at least a group of friends for dinner.’

  ‘And they’ve never fought?’

  ‘Fought? Seriously?’

  ‘So you’ve never seen it?’

  ‘Never. Do you mean physically?’

  He nodded, watching, but there was nothing for him to see. I’d had no idea.

  ‘According to neighbours, they fought a lot. Lots of shouting and raised voices, according to the people on either side of them, some violence. And a spectacular row two days ago. Even neighbours across the road heard that one, including Compton walking out before dawn, shouting at Stafford that he’d have to clear his things out of the house in the next twenty-four hours. We’ve had a look. It was Compton’s house, and Stafford’s salary as a civil servant wouldn’t begin to support him the way he lived there. He inherits the house and any cash.’

  ‘But … but …’ I was speechless.

  ‘But what?’

  He waited. I tried again. ‘That’s not evidence of anything.’

  To my surprise, he agreed. ‘It’s not. Stafford says they did fight, and that the neighbours reported accurately. He also says that they’d been threatening to leave each other for the entire seventeen years they’d been together, and if we spoke to the neighbours again they’d tell us that too.’ He shrugged. ‘There’s nothing at the moment to say one way or the other.’

  I still couldn’t get to grips with this. ‘People fight all the time. People break up all the time. They don’t kill each other.’

  ‘Stafford was away for work, and we’re checking the details. In London, at the moment, door-to-door hasn’t found anyone who heard the gunshot, but that’s not surprising. Merriam says Compton was dead when he came in at seven. It would be more surprising to find many people in the surrounding offices at that hour.’

  My eyebrows went up at ‘Merriam says’, but I waited a beat before responding. ‘Don’t you believe him?’

  Jake may have attempted not to look exasperated, but without success, because he looked exasperated. ‘What Merriam told us fits within the onsite time limits for his death. Immigration have confirmed that his passport was scanned at Heathrow at 5.45; his Oyster card was used at Paddington tube station just after 6.30, so that does too. I said “he says” because that’s what he says. I have no reason to disbelieve him right now.’

  Or believe him, I mentally added. I knew that what Jake was doing was Detective 101, but I still felt protective.

  He was watching me, but now it was a considering look, as though he were trying to work something out. ‘He didn’t tell me he knew you.’

  I’d been worried and upset about Aidan. Now my sense of grievance with Jake rushed back. ‘I could say the same to you.’ I wanted not to sound snotty, but failed. Spectacularly. I fought the urge to cross my arms and give him my librarian-handed-an-overdue-book stare in addition.

  He knew, damn him, and I could see him working hard not to smile. So the hell with that. I crossed my arms. He took a careful sip of his wine. ‘I only found out you knew him last night. You were in his diary for lunch, but just as “Sam”, and the PC going through it was, not unnaturally, trying to match it to a man’s name in his contacts. It was only when it was all being collated later that the DS recognised it. From the previous investigation, not from—’ he waved his glass at the kitchen and, I suppose, general togetherness. ‘She rang me at lunchtime. As far as I’m concerned, it’s an unexplained death, and it may very well go no further. I didn’t know how well you knew him – I still don’t, for that matter. Your name’s in his contacts, and it crops up very rarely in his appointment diary …’ He wasn’t asking me, except, of course, he was.

  ‘I’ve known him a long time. Since I first moved to London.’ He didn’t need a rundown on my two-decade-old love-life, I decided.

  Casually – far too casually – he drank again before asking, ‘How did he know you and I were … ?’

  ‘It’s not a secret that we’re …’ I mimicked his pause. ‘I saw Anna, I don’t know, a month or so ago, at a friend’s house for dinner. Aidan was away. Someone probably mentioned it then – we’re fun gossip.’

  ‘We are? Why?’ His voice was sharp. But this was nothing to do with Frank’s death. I think his feelings were hurt.

  I tried to make light of it. ‘Come on, “Sam’s shagging a cop.” Who could resist?’

  His mouth smiled, but I don’t think he thought it was funny. ‘Most people I know are shagging cops.’

  ‘You must be office gossip too. “Field’s shagging a publisher, or a professor, or something.”’ Nope. Not funny. I went back to the sink, and started to lift the washed spinach into th
e drainer.

  Jake moved behind me again. ‘We have to make some decisions.’

  I didn’t turn around, but asked the spinach, ‘Do we? What are they?’

  ‘If I’m going back to the office, I won’t be finished until the early hours, so I’ll go back to my own flat. We have time for only one activity before I go. We can quarrel. Or we can have dinner. I suppose, if we’re ruthlessly efficient, we can quarrel over dinner. Or we can go to bed.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said, reaching behind me and drying my hands on the back of his trousers. ‘Tough call.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  WHEN I GOT to work the next morning, before I did anything else, I wrote to Toby. It was short, and more than slightly awkward, but then, when were condolence notes anything else? I didn’t know him well, but I didn’t want him to think people were avoiding being in touch because of the circumstances.

  And so I emailed. My mother would kill me if she knew. That’s what pen and paper were invented for – I mouthed the words for her – if you can take the trouble to write, you can take the trouble to write properly. I’m sure she was right, but I wanted him to hear right away.

  Thinking about my mother made me realise I needed to tell her: she’d known Aidan nearly as long as I had. I checked my watch. Not quite eight, but she’d be at work. As always, she picked up on the first ring. Just one of her many annoying habits.

  ‘Have you written to Toby?’ she asked. No hello, no nothing. Honest to God, sometimes I want to smack the woman.

  I put on my you-are-very-tiresome-but-see-how-patient-I’m-being voice. ‘Yes, Mother, you brought me up well. And I’m forty-three years old. If I haven’t learnt by now, it’s no longer your responsibility. I was ringing, in fact, to make sure you’d heard.’

  ‘Of course I have,’ she said absently. ‘Aidan rang yesterday to ask who he should use as an accountant.’

  ‘He rang you? Why?’

  There was a pause. ‘I’m his solicitor, Sam. I have been for twenty years.’

  Helena’s a corporate lawyer, but when we were just starting out she’d helped several of my friends. Aidan must have been one of them.

  I moved on. ‘Do you think there’s anything I can do? Anything anyone can do?’

  Helena paused, which was unusual. I paid attention. ‘Did you know Matt Holder when he worked for Aidan?’

  ‘I remember him, but no more. Why?’

  ‘He’s a disgruntled ex-employee. They’re always worth thinking about.’

  ‘Thinking about?’

  ‘If Frank killed himself for personal reasons, there’s nothing I need to do. If there were problems at the gallery, they will affect Aidan, whether he knew about them or not. So I’m looking to see what those problems might be.’

  ‘I remember Matt, and I remember, kind of, when he left. A year ago? More? Aidan said he barely sold anything, and since that was his job, they got rid of him. Was there something else?’

  ‘Holder took them to an employment tribunal, claiming he’d been sacked after he started seeing an ex-boyfriend of Frank’s.’

  ‘I definitely never heard that.’

  Helena’s silence suggested that the list of things I had never heard was endless. Since I was fully aware of that, I ploughed on. ‘Ex-boyfriend of Frank’s? Before Toby, or during? Jake said that they quarrelled a lot.’

  Helena was calm. ‘That’s what Aidan said too. That they quarrelled. About everything, not about this man. And the ex was before Toby’s time.’

  ‘That’s really ex. Why would Frank care if someone dated a man he’d split from nearly two decades earlier? Why would he care if the man dated the entire trumpet section of the Grimethorpe Colliery Band?’

  ‘They weren’t mentioned in the suit.’ I could hear her smile, but she wasn’t going to be distracted. ‘The man was named Werner Schmidt. Have you met him?’

  ‘Me? No, why would I? From where?’

  ‘He’s the restorer the gallery uses when they need one.’

  I shrugged, a useful thing to do on the phone. ‘Why would I know a restorer? Aidan and I were together before he even set up Merriam–Compton. I vaguely know some of the gallery staff, but only vaguely.’

  ‘You mean, you should know them because you’ve been introduced a dozen times, but you never pay attention.’

  That was a low blow. Especially because it was true. But we were talking about Frank’s death, not my social inadequacies. My phone would run out of charge before we got halfway through those. It wasn’t often I could say this, so I took particular pleasure in it. ‘Mother, concentrate, please. Matt Holder. Frank. Employment tribunal. What happened?’

  ‘Holder claimed he was sacked because Frank didn’t like him dating this man. There was absolutely no evidence to prove that Frank had ever mentioned it to him, or to anyone else.’

  ‘So he lost?’

  ‘No. Merriam–Compton, much against my advice, settled before the hearing. Holder agreed to withdraw his claim in return for a year’s salary and a non-disclosure agreement.’

  I sat, thinking. Helena isn’t one of those lawyers who loves a big brawl. She’s pragmatic, more the do-you-need-the-trouble-and-expense-of-legal-action type. If she’d wanted the gallery to stand up to Holder, it was not only because she thought they could win. It was because she thought they should win. And yet, for whatever reason, Aidan and Frank hadn’t thought the same.

  ‘Goodness,’ I said feebly.

  ‘Goodness, as Mae West said, had nothing to do with it, dearie.’ And she hung up. My mother was channelling Mae West? I squinted at the phone, as though that would help. Then I hung up too. Frank’s death and Aidan’s involvement seemed much more important, but there was really nothing I had to contribute. And I was supposed to be earning a living. Time to get down to some work.

  The morning was quiet, and quietly productive. I shovelled a bunch of admin bumf off my desk and onto Miranda’s, and there were no meetings because everyone was either officially or unofficially working from home. There was an auction going on for a book I wanted, but nothing would happen on that for hours, because it was a New York agent, so even if she decided to start the action from home as soon as she woke up, it wouldn’t be until noon our time at the earliest. Freakishly, therefore, I found myself with time to read submissions in the office. I pulled out the bottom desk-drawer, propped my feet up on the edge of it, pushed back and read for a couple of hours, only stopping to refill my coffee cup and check emails every now and again.

  I also made a trip down the hall to the office kitchen. I have a coffee-maker of my own, because I drink so much that if I used the one in the kitchen I’d wear a path in the carpet. But there’s an unofficial treat-table in the kitchen that’s always worth checking. Whenever anyone comes back from holiday, they bring some form of edible goody for the office. Remembering to circulate memos, checking holiday leave, consulting colleagues before you buy a book – compared to the iron rule of the treat-table, everything else in the office is negotiable. But just once forget to bring treats back from your holiday, and people will ‘forget’ other things. Not just about work. They’ll forget to tell you about who is sleeping with whom, and watch while you make a disparaging remark to the wrong person. Or that Finance has issued a new diktat, and if your expenses aren’t in by Friday, they won’t be paid for three months. Or that builders are due to renew the wiring on the day you’d booked your most important author in for a meeting. Frankly, if you don’t bring a treat back, you might as well not come back yourself: you’re dead to that second layer of office life that is so much more important than the primary one.

  I wanted to see what was on the table, and I also wanted a break. I wandered into the narrow galley kitchen, and found both Turkish delight, which I detest, and a group of colleagues from marketing. I poured some of the nasty communal coffee as my passport to the group.

  ‘What’s up?’

  Nothing much, apparently. It was a bitch-fest about everyone working at home. Dull. I pre
pared to move away.

  Then Alex, one of the designers, said, ‘I had a drink last night with Jim Reynolds. He said he’s on that CultCo thing with you.’

  I barked out a laugh. ‘“CultCo”. That’s perfect. We’re a messianic-corporate combo. We play weddings, bar mitzvahs and bookfairs.’ He laughed at that, and then laughed again when I admitted, ‘Which one is Jim Reynolds? I’ve been functionally comatose for most of the meetings.’

  ‘He said that what he most liked about you was how obviously you wished you were somewhere else.’

  Eep. I hadn’t realised I was that transparent.

  ‘Red hair, goatee?’ he prompted. Yes, of course. I’d noticed him too, because he contributed almost as little as I did.

  ‘What does he do? Is he a designer?’

  ‘He does installation work.’ Alex must have seen I had no idea what that meant. ‘He designs art exhibitions.’ Still nothing. ‘The layout, the design, the panels, and the showcases.’ I was with him now, and I could see why the Culture Committee panel – I was definitely calling it CultCo from now on – might be something he wanted to be involved with. ‘He also produces what he calls tourist tat for museum shops. Rothko tea towels, Holbein key chains. I think that’s where his company makes most of their money.’

  ‘You can’t have too many Henry VIII mouse mats,’ I agreed as I tipped the rest of my coffee down the sink. I’d come back when people went somewhere where the sweets were nicer.

  When I got back to my desk there was an email from someone named Jeremy Compton. It was Frank’s brother, thanking me on his behalf for my message, and adding that they had no information about the funeral yet, but that friends and family were gathering at Toby’s that evening, and if I wanted to come I’d be welcome.

  I couldn’t think of anything I wanted less, but it seemed the decent thing to do, so after work I went home, changed and headed out again. I’d never been to Frank’s house, but from the address his brother had given me it wasn’t far from where I lived. It turned out to be a mews house in what looked like a conservation area, all antique Victorian street lights, and, in the mews at any rate, cobbles on the road. Hell if you were wearing heels, but I rarely did, so I thought it was charming. I might start a new school of philosophy: selfish aesthetics. Or maybe an Olympic sport.