EQMM, June 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  She watched as he scrolled down further.

  "But here's the kicker, Mary,” he said. “Seems her old man was a right mean type. Known for it in the area. And guess where he kept all his money?"

  "Under the bed?"

  "You got it, love. In an old suitcase, apparently. Like a bloody cliché, isn't it? But yeah, he stashed his cash under the bloody bed. Thousands of it. Your demented friend Annie Morgan even admitted as much in court.” He read on. “Now, according to her confession, she comes back from the cleaning job early, catches her old man and her sister in the bedroom, does the deed, then calmly walks away from the blaze and goes back to the big old country house to confess to some copper that was always hanging around up there.” He turned to her. “S'weird, isn't it?"

  "Maybe she knew she'd get caught,” Mary suggested, trying to picture the bizarre scene. “Perhaps she wanted to make a clean break of it. Couldn't bear to go on the run."

  "But guess what the forensics people discovered when they went through the ruins of the fire?"

  Mary shrugged.

  "Underneath the burnt-out bed, they found the charred remains of the suitcase. And inside and surrounding it? Newspaper. Little bits of neatly cut and bundled newspaper. The same size as the old ten-pound notes."

  "I don't follow you."

  Steve rubbed his forehead, exasperated. “God's sake, Mary, how dense are you? Think about it. Annie Morgan comes home early, kills her husband and sister in an insane jealous rage—then gets the cash from under the bed and replaces it with cut-up newspaper, hoping it would be destroyed in the blaze. But the fire brigade put the fire out too early, so the suitcase and some of the newspaper still remained.” He turned to her, looked her intently in the eyes. “She nicked the money. Don't you see? Killed them, then up and offed to the manor house to hide it somewhere before turning herself in to this copper that used to hang round there. It's flamin’ obvious, isn't it?"

  Mary tried to think. “But in her trial—they must have mentioned the missing money? I mean you said she told everyone about it. She confessed to killing them, setting the fire. How did she explain the money turning to newspaper?"

  Steve scrolled back up, reread the relevant section. “She told them that her husband must have found a new hiding place for it, worried someone would find it. She told the court he must have been giving a fair whack of it to her sister during their affair."

  "That's possible, isn't it?"

  Steve gave up. “God, Mary, you're just so . . . bloody naive, woman! Think about it! Why bother setting fire to the bodies if she was going to confess to killing them anyway? The reason she torched the place was to try and burn the suitcase, make it look like the cash had gone up in flames, too.” He took a large, loud slug of tea. “I reckon she thought she'd get ten years max by confessing, playing the spurned wife. Then when she's released, she nips back to the manor house and retrieves the loot. Simple as that."

  Mary turned, walked away from the computer, muttering, “Maybe it's not me that's the naive one round here."

  He was up from the seat and on her in an instant, whirling her round to face him. “Listen, love. Do you see how big this is? Just say I'm right, and she stashed all that cash—what a story, eh? All you have to do is find out."

  She was aghast. “What?"

  "You know, get the old girl's confidence through that arty stuff you do. Get her to tell you where she hid it."

  "If she hid it in the first place."

  "It's the only explanation that makes sense,” Steve insisted. “Why go back to the manor house after setting the fire? I reckon she buried it in the grounds or something. Then she goes looking for this copper to turn herself in, thinking the evidence back at her house is destroyed. But the fire brigade get there quicker than she expected, so she makes up this cock-and-bull story about her husband giving money to her sister.” His grip tightened on her forearms. “But if he's really done that, why bother putting bits of cut-up newspaper in the suitcase? From the sound of it, he was a right git—he wouldn't have given a stuff if his own wife had discovered there was money missing. See what I'm saying—it had to be your Annie Morgan who switched the money."

  "And you want me to find out?"

  "Makes sense, doesn't it? You're the woman's therapist, for God's sake."

  Mary's head began to swim. The whole thing was bloody ridiculous! “Steve,” she insisted, “I've only met the woman once. And I really didn't think she took that much of a shine to me. Besides, it's all wrong. Morally and professionally wrong. Can't you see that? God's sake, I can't use my job to discover inmates’ secrets. It's unethical. I'd be fired."

  He nodded. “Perhaps. But say she tells you where she stashed it. I mean, we're made, aren't we?"

  Mary laughed at this. “Oh, I see. Annie Morgan tells me she buried the lot underneath the bloody croquet lawn, and we pop round later that night and dig it all up? Christ's sake, Steve, this is really lame, even for you. That money's got to be nearly twenty-five years old. Even if it was there, the notes have all changed. How the hell do you think we'd spend it?"

  He released his grip, smiled. “We're not going to spend her money, love. Oh no. We're going to spend the money we get from selling the story to the papers. Just imagine, they'll pay thousands for the exclusive. TV cameras will be there to film it being dug up. Christ's sake, it could even be a bloody movie—Morgan's MissingMillions." He gave her a short hug. “Like I say, love, I reckon we've hit pay-dirt here. You simply need to dig around a little bit, then we unearth the big one."

  * * * *

  Regardless of her own distaste and scepticism, Mary couldn't deny that Wednesday afternoons took on a curious new significance from that point on. Annie Morgan continued to attend, always sitting solo at the same corner table, always painting the same picture.

  "All her sentence she's been working on it,” the warder quietly informed Mary. “Paints the thing, then whites it all out and starts all over. She's never used another canvas as far as I know. I think it goes back to her time in the psychiatric unit, the staff only permitting her the one canvas that she had to reuse. Sad, I guess. Just a sort of habitual behaviour, now, endlessly repetitive. Like one of those big old bears you see in a zoo, always pacing over the same sorry circuit."

  Gradually, however, as weeks progressed, Mary found herself able to get a few steps closer to Annie before being halted by the familiar icy glare, as if the distance was being controlled by the older woman, as if Mary's progress into her territory was a result of Annie's tolerance, rather than any of the “therapy” Mary offered other inmates.

  "She's learning to trust you,” the warder observed one afternoon. “Very few of us have got as close as you have without Annie kicking off. You've obviously got the gift, Miss Collins."

  It's true that Mary felt empowered by these words, and also honoured to be allowed within six feet of the woman. For, repulsed as she was by the crime, Mary was also drawn to Annie Morgan—the conundrum of her existence, the many unanswered questions that surrounded this huge, unkempt, yet meticulously painting woman. For she did paint continuously, regardless of the noise and commotion in the room. And by the look of it, had indeed been doing so for years, on the small canvas now layered nearly an inch thick with built-up paint. Picture after picture, Mary supposed, laboriously slaved over, then, the moment she considered a piece finished, out would come the chalk-white oil paint, and Annie Morgan would obliterate the work, allow it to dry, and begin again on the fresh surface.

  Steve, of course, had his own theories about the painting. To him, the case of Annie Morgan had become something of an obsession, so convinced was he that a fortune lay buried somewhere deep within it.

  "Just think,” he said one night as they lay in bed together. “All those pictures painted on the same bloody canvas by some nut-job. I mean, it's got to be some sort of confession. Like, maybe, clues as to where to find the money. That's all she does, is it, just paint?"

  "Yeah,” Mary answered
, sick and tired of his speculation. “Because she enjoys it."

  "But over and over—on the same bloody canvas? That has to be significant, doesn't it?” He rolled over, thought for a while, then said, “I want you to get it, bring it home."

  "What?"

  "Tell her you need it for a course or something. She's nuts, she won't know the difference. Get it, bring it back here. Then get the mad old crone a new one. Say the old one got spoilt or something. Just get the thing here. I'm willing to bet everything we have that there's some kind of clue in it."

  "No way!” Mary protested. “And besides, she takes it everywhere, even back to her cell."

  "Exactly—which just proves she's obviously got something to hide, eh? Just be a good girl, Mary, and get that bastard painting. We can sell it to the papers. They've got these infrared cameras that can see through paint layers. It'll make us a fortune."

  "No. It's hers. It's private."

  "Yeah, and it's our chance of a ticket to a better life, Mary. Just you remember that."

  * * * *

  The breakthrough came after eleven weeks. Glorious Wednesday, Mary would later come to call it, the day Annie Morgan finally spoke to her.

  "You enjoy your work, Miss Collins?” were those first six, unexpected words.

  Mary reeled in shock, partly to even be addressed by the woman, but more so at the soft, educated voice.

  "Yes,” she cautiously replied. “I think I do."

  "And you paint yourself?"

  "When I have the time."

  Annie Morgan smiled at this. “Time. Well, I've had plenty of that, Miss Collins.” And with that, she carefully packed up her paints, brushes, and precious, thickly laden canvas and took herself back to her cell.

  Gradually, over the following few weeks, to both inmates’ and prison staff's amazement, an uneasy friendship grew between the two artists, with Mary even allowed the hallowed privilege of having a cup of tea with Annie in her cell after the Wednesday session had finished. It was, Mary realised, very one-sided, the older woman ceaselessly asking questions about Mary's childhood, her home life, her relationship with Steve. And although the cell door remained open, and a warden never too far away, it was, Mary felt, an intensely private experience.

  One Wednesday the prison governor told her why she permitted these “visits.” “Annie has no one,” she explained. “No friends, no family. And although she's technically up for parole later this year, there's severe doubts about her health."

  "Oh?"Mary said.

  "She had two massive heart attacks last year. Refuses to lose the weight, take care of herself. Really, Miss Collins, it's just a matter of time for our Annie. And whilst your visits might be a little unorthodox, I think Annie's earned the right to have tea with a friend every week, don't you?"

  The news came as a shock. “Thank you,” was all Mary could say.

  Mary broke up with Steve just a few weeks later. His continual insistence, insane schemes, and emotional bullying finally became too much, even for previously mild-mannered Mary. After a huge row, he left, vowing to “stay over with a proper girl I sometimes knock about with from time to time.” The revelation didn't come as much of a blow to Mary, more a relief that he'd be out of her life. Mostly, she pitied the “proper girl."

  She thanked Annie when she next saw her, telling the old inmate that she'd never have had the courage to cause the row in the first place if Annie hadn't advised her to do so.

  Annie smiled, nodded, yet seemed older, slower. “Well, he sounded like a right rum lot to me, dear. You're well shot of that sort, believe me."

  And then, without prompting, Mary told Annie of her ex's madcap ideas, the research into the crime he'd done, the obsession with the missing money, the almost daily insistence that she steal Annie's precious canvas.

  Annie gently laughed, looked over at the picture, its pride of place on her small table. “Well, he was one idiot who added two and two and made fifty-five, Miss Collins."

  "Five hundred and fifty-five,” Mary added.

  "He really thought I'd buried my husband's money up at the manor house? Preposterous!"

  Mary nodded. “He wasn't the brightest colour on the palette.” She paused, not knowing whether to ask the next question.

  Annie sensed the hesitation. “And now you have something to ask me?"

  "Is it okay?"

  "Fire away, Miss Collins."

  "Why did you go back there, to the house, after you . . . ?"

  "Killed them?"

  Mary nodded.

  Annie smiled, seemed to drift back through time to a better place. “To see the constable, Miss Collins. The one who was always hanging around. I needed to confess, after all.” She looked over at the ageing canvas, heaped with years of paint, then back to Mary. “Promise me this one thing. If you have the chance, then you'll paint again, Miss Collins."

  "I'd love to, but . . . “

  She put a finger to her lips. “No buts, Miss Collins. Too many of those. I've lived a life of them. I did a truly terrible thing, and have paid the price ever since. Now, I simply want to hear that there's no ‘buts’ from you."

  Mary took a breath. "If Ihad the chance,” she slowly replied, “then there's nothing more that I'd like to do than paint."

  The old woman nodded, her eyes suddenly tired and heavy, yet also seeming to glimmer and shine with something that Mary hadn't seen in Annie Morgan before—contentment.

  Annie Morgan passed away three days later—another prison suicide. At the end, she had decided to take final matters into her own hands and used a bedsheet and gravity to take her from this world into the next. On her bedside table was a sealed, handwritten envelope addressed to “Miss Collins,” together with Annie Morgan's old canvas, both of which were given to Mary by the governor after the funeral.

  "Sad,” the governor observed, handing her both items. “All there is to show for a life is a load of paint on an old canvas. Still, it's yours. She wanted to leave it you as a gift. Not quite sure what you'll do with it, though."

  Mary took the treasured canvas in her hands. The last picture Annie Morgan had painted before her death was a crude likeness of Mary herself, painting in a vast studio, sunlight streaming through wide, imaginary windows. At the bottom, the title—The Gift; for Mary, from Annie.

  * * * *

  Back home, Mary placed the picture gently on the mantelpiece and opened the letter:

  Dear MissCollins,

  Well, dear, here's the picture your repulsive ex-boyfriend wanted so much—together with a few answers he'd have craved even more.

  Strange though it is to admit, however, he did get a few things right. After disposing of my husband and sister, I did indeed take the money from underneath the bed and replace it with torn-up newspaper before setting the fire, then returning to the manorhouse.

  Why did I go there? Not to bury it, but instead to give it to the owner, a sweet and caring old woman who needed it far more than I. One of those classic cases, Miss Collins, a large house doesn't necessarily mean a massive income. She loved the place, couldn't bear to sell it, but was being forced to sell the antiques and old paintings simplyto meet the upkeep. I gladly gave her the money after telling her what I'd just done. Shocked though she was, she reluctantly took it—our secret. Remember, at that time, I was convinced everything would be destroyed in the fire. I had no idea those damned burnt newspaper fragments would be found.

  On remand, whilst awaiting trial, she came to visit me and gave me this small, white, unframed canvas, which I instantly recognised by its dimensions. It had hung in the main hall, largely unnoticed, but was a favourite of mine ever since I'd begun work in the house. She'd taken it down, removed it from its frame, carefully painted over it in white, then passed it on to me as a gift, together with some paints. Seen as harmless by the authorities, I was allowed to keep it, and began a series of paintings from that very day, each one layered over the next, until you see the final bizarre monstrosity that I leave you now
.

  I assume she thought I'd be shown mercy from the courts and receive a much lighter sentence, and could therefore use the painting in the future. However, that was not to be. I got two life sentences, and she died long ago, but always knew I treasured her gift, took it wherever I went, never let it leave my sight.

  And now, Mary—it's yours. My “time” is done. Some will say I took the cowardly option, and maybe they're right, but in our hearts don't we all have choices? Mine is to end my life as and when I see fit. We've talked about yours, Miss Collins. Given the choice, you'd rather paint. Now you have that choice. Do with this gift what you will. However, it might be rather rash to take your ex-boyfriend's advice and sell my story and this picture to the papers. Trust me, there are no maps, there is no money to find. Any money was spent many years ago.

  Although, it might interest you to know more about “the policeman that hung around the manor house” that I was so eager to see on the day of the murders. Like I said, he was a constable. A John Constable—the picture in the hallway, the one you now have, my gift to you.

  Interesting, isn't it, what happens when we peel away the layers and reveal what's underneath? I suggest a very mild turpentine solution to start with. Good luck, Mary, and please: For me, my former employer, and even Constable himself, enjoy your painting.

  —

  In appreciation,

  Annie Morgan

  Copyright © 2010 Phil Lovesey

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  Fiction: PARSON PENNYWICK IN ARCADIA by Amy Myers

  Says Amy Myers of the series character of this story: “Parson Pennywick, being busy with his eighteenth-century pastoral work in the Kentish village of Cuckoo Leas, only appears in short stories, but he is glad to find time for his detective work if it helps his small community.” This time out, the parson is at an entertainment—a garden party at a great estate—when a most unexpected murder forces him to apply his skills at discerning motive. Ms. Myers's latest novel is Murder Takes the Stage (Severn House ‘09).