by John Harvey
“What is it, then?”
“It’s Vincent, it has to be. You think somehow he was involved with those murders—those women.” A firm shake of her head. “It’s absurd, absolutely absurd, but I can’t think what else it can be.”
A couple came and stood close by them, looking at the paintings, and Anna edged Elder away.
“Claire Meecham...” Elder said.
“The woman who sent the card?”
“Yes. No matter what Vincent says, she was in his class at the university. I checked. Just last year. An introduction to photography. Two hours a week for eight weeks. And yet he claimed not to know her, not even to know her name.”
“Is that so surprising?”
“Yes, I think so. Twelve students? We’re not talking large numbers, after all.”
Anna smiled. “You know Vincent a little. You know what he’s like. Bound up in himself. When he’s teaching, he’s even worse. All he can see is the subject. The photography. The work. He could be lecturing to a row of cardboard cut-out dummies and it wouldn’t make any difference—just so long as he was able to stand there and talk.”
“What about questions? There must be questions. He must pay some attention to them then.”
She smiled again. “I’m afraid Vincent’s style doesn’t exactly encourage participation. He’s as likely to treat questions as annoyance as much as anything else.”
“Don’t the students complain?”
“Occasionally. Some of them. But, for the most part, they love it. They love him. Sit there hanging on his every word.”
“Is that what you did?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I wondered if that’s how you first met.”
“At one of Vincent’s lectures?”
“Yes.”
“Actually, it was one of mine. Here at the castle. ‘Cézanne and His Influence on Late Nineteenth-century British Painting.’” She laughed. “Vincent came up to me afterward and told me all the things I’d got wrong.”
They walked through into one of the smaller rooms, pausing here and there to look at a painting. Early in the day, there were relatively few other visitors, and those there were moved quietly and spoke, when they did, in hushed, almost reverential tones. Somewhere between visiting an old-fashioned library, Elder thought, and being in church.
They stopped by a picture of blue sky, clouds, saplings on a rocky hillside torn by the wind. Elder liked it: the life in it. It seemed real to him.
“The weekend of April the ninth and tenth,” he said, “you don’t happen to know where Vincent was?”
Anna looked at him. “Is that the weekend Claire Meecham disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s what? Four weekends ago today?”
“Yes.”
“In which case, I do. He was with me. In Dorset. A cottage, it used to belong to his family. Just outside Lyme. We go down there sometimes. Just for a break. Occasionally Vincent goes down on his own. If he has a lecture to prepare, an introduction to a book.”
“And you were both there that weekend? Vincent and yourself?”
“Yes. We drove down early on the Saturday. Game back, oh, after lunch on Sunday.”
Elder nodded.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“What for?”
“Now you’ll have to come up with another theory. What is it? A different line of inquiry.”
“Don’t worry,” Elder said. “There are always plenty of those.”
She walked him through the gallery and down the stairs. Outside, they stood for a moment, looking out toward the city, the sun just beginning to edge its way through the clouds.
“Thanks for your time,” Elder said. “And for showing me the paintings.”
“It was my pleasure.”
Had he looked back as he descended the path, he might have seen the shiver that ran through her body, causing her limbs to shake.
Chapter 27
WALKING DOWN THROUGH LACE MARKET, ELDER chanced to glance at what, at first sight, he thought was a regular bookshop, before noticing the Oxfam sign. Fancy for a charity shop, he thought. Regular shelves with everything neatly arranged: books, CDs, videos, DVDs. At the back, clothing, Fair Trade coffee and the like were also for sale. World music playing. A good number of browsers, many of them young. Younger than Elder, at least.
Fiction was ranged along one wall. Now that he’d discarded The Fox in the Attic, he was in need of a new book. An old new book. Why pay more than necessary when there were all these going cheap?
Among the selections placed face out on little metal stands was a copy of Sons and Lovers: an orange and white Penguin, the kind Elder thought you didn’t see much anymore other than in places like this, a phoenix rising from the ashes on the cover and below that the original price, five shillings. Out of interest he checked the date of publication: 1966. Weighed it in his hand.
What had Blaine said about Lawrence? That he had fallen out of fashion? Maybe it was time to give him another chance after all. After reading the first few sentences, a description of a small mining village on the outskirts of the city, he took the book to the counter.
“That’ll be three pounds, then,” said the assistant. “It’s in good nick. Well looked after. Must be forty years old, at least.”
Well before you were born then, Elder thought.
Book snug in his coat pocket, he continued on his way. He was crossing toward the ice centre when his cell started to ring. It was Maureen Prior, her voice oddly tinny and distant, though, in all probability, she was no more than a mile away.
“Frank, what are you doing?”
“Not a lot. Not now. I thought I might try and meet up with Katherine later.”
“I’ve turned up some interesting stuff on Wayne Johns.”
“Where are you?”
“At the office.”
Elder turned on his heels.
MAUREEN PRIOR WAS DRESSED IN WHAT ELDER NOW ASsumed was her usual weekend wear, blue jeans fraying at the bottom, gray T-shirt, loose-fitting cotton jacket, trainers that had seen better days.
Elder had picked up coffee and a couple of raisin danishes on the way.
“Johns,” Prior said, the moment he set the coffee down, “we only asked him about Claire Meecham. Nothing about the earlier murder.”
“And we should have?”
“I’ve been doing some checking. It was his company that supplied the hotel with all the equipment for the conference.”
Elder saw the brightness in Prior’s eyes; felt a small quickening of his pulse.
“Frank, he was there that weekend, he had to be.”
“Then maybe we should talk to him again,” Elder said.
“He’s got one of those penthouse flats by the canal,” Prior said.
“Now there’s a surprise.”
WAYNE JOHNS OPENED THE DOOR WEARING AN undershirt and shorts, the shirt dark with sweat. Behind him, on the broad stained boards, was a rowing machine, and, behind that, a treadmill. A leather settee with squared-off arms sat facing a large TV. Speakers hung from the walls. To the right, the kitchen area was separated by a work surface topped with solid wood. There was a low, wide bed at the far side of the room, and, alongside that, a door leading, presumably, to the bathroom.
“Lucky to catch me,” Johns said. “Meeting friends for lunch. A quick shower, then I’m gone.”
“We’ll try,” Prior said, “not to keep you too long.”
Johns gave her a “fair enough” shrug and walked over to the red, double-sided fridge.
“Water?” he asked, pulling open one of the doors. “Juice?”
When they both declined, he snapped the top from a bottle of some doubtlessly healthy drink and swallowed half of it down. “Thirsty work,” he said, “keeping in shape.”
Picking up a towel, he rubbed vigorously at his hair.
There was scarcely, Prior noticed, more than an ounce or two of surplus fat on him.
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��So,” Johns said, flicking the towel into a corner. “What can I do for you?”
Prior gave him one of her second-best smiles. “Stop lying to us, for a start.”
“Lying?”
“Withholding information.”
“Is that the same thing?”
“Close enough.”
Johns’s turn to smile. “Sins of omission,” he said. “These people I was farmed out to when I was a kid. Used to drag me off to church every chance they got. Figured it was my only chance of salvation, I think. When they weren’t beating the shit out of me, that is.”
“It worked?” Prior asked.
Johns laughed. “Look around...” Gesturing broadly with both hands. “Clean in thought, word, and deed. And worth a quid or two in the bargain.”
“So what was it? The church or the beatings? Which worked best?”
“And made me what I am today? Who knows? Both, I shouldn’t wonder. You know, the carrot and the stick. Cruel to be kind.”
He wiped some small residue of sweat from his forehead with the inside of an arm.
“No, I’ll tell you what it was. Being dragged through a succession of care homes, foster homes, right till I was old enough to get out on my own. No brothers, no sisters, no real family to speak of, I was never in one place long enough for that. What was it that poet bloke said? ‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad.’ Well mine, they never got the chance, whoever they were, and bless them for it. Stand on your own two feet, look after number one. Only one person in this world going to do a damned thing for you and that’s yourself. Lesson learned.”
Finishing his drink, he pitched the empty bottle into the bin.
“I must remember to recycle,” he said.
“September 1997,” Prior said, “a conference here in the city, organized by the DTI. You remember that?”
“One other thing you learn in foster care,” Johns said with a quick grin. “Never admit to anything.”
“Until you’re caught.”
“Until you’re caught.”
He went over and perched, half-leaning, half-sitting, on one corner of the settee.
“It was one of our first big contracts. The one that made me think I was going to be able to make it happen here. In Spain, somehow, it had been different, I’m not sure why. I suppose because there I had somebody else to set out the lay of the land and grease the wheels. Here I was starting off again after what? The best part of ten years? It was always going to be tricky. But then, that conference, everyone was pleased with how it went...”
“The small business of a dead body aside,” Elder said, getting a little tired of Johns’s self-justifying tone.
“Well, that was bad, of course, but, you know, in the end no skin off my nose. A one-off. Out of all control. Nothing for which we could be blamed.”
“Irene Fowler,” Prior said. “The woman who died. You knew her?”
“Me? No.”
“You didn’t meet her that weekend?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“But you were there? At the hotel?”
“Of course.”
“The whole time?”
“More or less.”
“Supervising, making sure things were running smoothly.”
“Yes. And like I said...”
“Checking with the participants, I dare say. Getting their take on things. Any problems you could help them with, anything to improve the way things were running.”
“Not really, no. That’s not the way it works, not for me, anyhow. The management at the hotel, yes, liaise with them. And whoever’s responsible for running the actual course. But otherwise, no way. Keep your head down, out of sight, if nobody knows you’re there at all, that’s the best way. Means it’s all going smoothly, like you said.” He smiled at Prior. “Like silk.”
Prior looked away.
“In the evening, though,” Elder said. “You’d relax in the bar, a drink and a chat, not business, social. Winding down.”
“Listen,” Johns said, “end of the day, my job, check everything’s ready for the first sessions next morning. By the time that’s done, I’m through. Any winding down I do in my own company, not there.”
Neither Elder nor Maureen Prior moved; Johns shifted his position on the settee.
“Look, to the best of my knowledge, I never spoke to the woman—Irene Fowler, that’s what you said?—never spoke to her the whole weekend. Till I saw her picture in the paper, I never knew who she was. But then, you’re just going to have to take my word for that.”
With an agile movement, he was up on his feet.
“And now, if you don’t mind, I do have to take a shower. If there’s anything else I can help you with, perhaps next time you could call my office. If that’s all the same to you.”
“COCKY BASTARD,” MAUREEN PRIOR SAID. “GOD’S GIFT isn’t in it.”
Elder laughed.
“What?”
“Watching you get more and more uptight each time he flexed his pecs.”
“Arrogant sod.”
Elder laughed again. They were sitting on a bench beside the canal, watching a moorhen marshalling its sole surviving chick in slow circles as she fed it from her beak.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “it’s not a crime.”
“What’s that?”
“Having muscle tone and a million or so in the bank.”
“Well, it should be.”
“Amen to that.”
“I’ve had a couple of people phoning round,” Prior said. “Men Claire Meecham had been seeing. Unless everyone’s being unusually shy, it seems as if, where there was any kind of sexual activity, it was pretty straightforward. No suggestion of S and M or anything like that.”
“So if Johns is telling the truth about what happened between them, it could have really taken her by surprise.”
“In which case, the question is, did it frighten her off or send her back for more?”
A young woman of no more than sixteen went past, wheeling a small child in a rickety pram. The child, little more than a baby, was crying, snot running from its nose down onto the pacifier in its mouth; the mother, lean-faced, dragging hard on a cigarette, stared straight ahead as she walked, blocking out the sound as best she could.
“I’ve made contact with the man Johns was in partnership with in Spain,” Prior said. “He was cagey at first, worried I might be involved in some kind of investigation of his finances, I think. But he’s promised to talk to me again. All the time Johns spent out of the country—it would be nice to know more about that.”
They started to retrace their steps, back along the old towpath to the point where it led up from the canal onto the road by the station.
“You still planning on calling Katherine?” Prior said.
“Probably.”
She gave him a look that said without doubt he should.
“You know who you remind me of,” Elder said, “whenever you give me one of those looks?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“My mother.”
“Thanks very much.”
“She had this knack of making me feel guilty, whether I was or not.”
“Maybe that’s what mothers are for.”
“To make us feel bad about ourselves?”
“Keep us on the straight and narrow.”
“Is that what yours did?”
Prior chose not to answer. “I’m going back to the office for a while.”
“Okay. You’ll stay in touch?”
“Of course.”
At the crossroads, they went their separate ways.
ELDER WAITED UNTIL HE WAS FREE FROM THE TRAFFIC, A small patch of open land off Maiden Lane, benches, shrubs, a few trees. Katherine answered on the second ring.
“You’re up then,” Elder said.
“What d’you mean up? I’ve been up for hours.”
“Just joking, okay?”
“What is it you want, Dad? Only I’m busy, okay?�
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“Doing what?”
“Working, of course.”
Music was playing quite loud in the background.
“I thought we might get together,” Elder said.
“Dad, get real, yeah? I’ve got a project to finish. Exams to revise for.”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
“You do want me to go to university?”
“I said, I’m sorry.”
He took a breath, sensing her impatience at the end of the phone. “How about tomorrow sometime? We could—I don’t know—get a bit of lunch? Go for a stroll?”
“Dad, I’ll ring you, okay? Only I’m not promising. I’ll ring you if I can.”
“All right. You do that.”
Before he could give her his love, she’d gone.
Elder went into the first café he came to and ordered a ham sandwich and a tea, opened his book, and began to read. Living down in Cornwall, the arse end of the country according to some, stuck out in the middle of some fields between the moors and sea with little company other than your own, people thought that must be hard. But they were wrong. That was the easy part.
Chapter 28
UNUSUAL FOR ELDER, AFTER HE ROLLED OVER HE managed to get back to sleep, not waking till close to half past eight. Showered and dressed, he set about making breakfast: scrambled eggs on toast, coffee, more toast with marmalade. Late yesterday he’d made a trip to Sainsbury’s.
Sitting with a view out toward St. Mary’s church, he listened to the news. Another car bomb in Iraq, children dying by the thousands in Darfur; closer to home, a pregnant woman shot and killed as she walked back from seeing friends, a former boyfriend wanted for questioning by the police. If Louis Armstrong came on singing “What a Wonderful World,” he thought he might just throw the radio through the open window.
When the phone rang, he thought Sunday or no Sunday it was most probably Maureen Prior, but he was wrong.
“Listen, Dad, I’m sorry about yesterday. I was in a lousy mood.”
“Really?”
“All right, don’t rub it in. I just called to apologize, okay?”
“That’s fine. No need.”
“So d’you want to meet for coffee or what?”
