‘You aren’t in the habit of giving presents?’ Charlie asked gently. There was a story here, and she found herself wanting to know what it was. Where was the garden Mary had mentioned? Where did she live before Megson Crescent?
‘No presents,’ said Mary. ‘I’m not giving you a picture for free, and I won’t sell you one. I only gave Ruth one as a form of apology.’
‘For what?’
‘I lost her her job. It’s a long story, one I’m not going to tell you. It doesn’t show either of us in a good light.’
‘You mean her job at the Spilling Gallery?’
‘What does it matter?’ Mary asked warily.
A woman with a lot of boundaries, thought Charlie. Too many for life to be easy for her. ‘I just wondered. That’s where Ruth worked before she worked for Aidan Seed.’
Charlie had never seen a person’s face shake before, but Mary’s did. It was as if she’d suffered an internal electric shock. ‘Ruth . . . Ruth works for Aidan Seed?’ She tucked her hair behind her ear, repeating the action, three, four times.
‘They also live together,’ said Charlie. ‘As a couple.’
All the colour drained from Mary’s face. ‘That’s not true. Ruth lives alone. In the lodge house at Blantyre Park. Why are you lying?’
‘I’m not. I don’t understand. Why does it matter? You say you don’t know Aidan.’
‘My picture. I gave Ruth my picture.’ She bit her lip. ‘Where are my cigarettes? I need a cigarette.’ She made no attempt to look for them. Her eyes were blank, moving to and fro, not settling on anything for long. ‘What’s Aidan Seed done? I need to know. Why are the police after him?’
Not knowing if it would prove to be the key that unlocked everything or a disastrous error, Charlie said, ‘As far as we know, Aidan’s harmed nobody. But he’s telling us different. He’s saying he hurt someone, badly, and he says that person was you.’
Mary’s chin jutted out. Charlie guessed she had resolved to show no more emotion after her brief lapse. Another shock, then.
Charlie took a step towards her. ‘Mary, believe me, I know how odd this sounds. Aidan Seed came to us voluntarily, wanting to confess to a crime. He described you—your appearance, where you live, your work . . .’
Mary wrapped her arms around herself, hugged herself tightly.
In for a penny, thought Charlie. ‘He seems to have got hold of the idea that he killed you,’ she said.
‘Not me.’ Mary let her head fall back, then straightened up, her eyes locking on Charlie’s. ‘Not me.’
5
Monday 3 March 2008
I’m cutting glass when I hear footsteps on the path outside. I look up, see a man’s face through the window. I don’t recognise him. Aidan stops what he’s doing. His foot is on the pedal of the mitre machine, but he doesn’t push it down. Normally he stops work only when he has to, when a customer is standing in front of him, and to pretend not to have noticed for a second longer would be too rude even for Aidan to get away with. A lot of the people we frame for dislike him, but they don’t go elsewhere. When I first started here, he told me, ‘You can be friendly to clients if you want to, but friendliness takes time. Your job, our job, is to protect the art people bring in. Remember that. Think of a picture as being in danger until it’s properly framed. Protection is at the heart of picture-framing. That’s why we do it—it’s not for decoration.’
The wooden door scrapes along the ground as it’s pushed open. ‘Hello?’ a deep voice calls out.
I’m about to answer when I see another face at the window and my breath turns solid in my lungs. Charlie Zailer. What’s she doing here? Are she and the man together?
‘You must be Ruth Bussey. DC Simon Waterhouse, Culver Valley CID.’ He opens a small wallet and shows me his police identification. He’s a heavy, rough-faced man with big hands and too-short trousers that don’t quite reach the tops of his shoes.
Sergeant Zailer smiles at me. She says nothing about my coat and I don’t ask. She hasn’t brought it with her. When she tells Aidan her name, I will him not to look at me, not to let his surprise show. ‘Okay if we have a chat?’ she says.
‘I’ve got work to do.’ Aidan doesn’t sound surprised, only sullen.
‘It won’t take long.’
‘I talked to him on Saturday.’ Aidan jerks his head in Waterhouse’s direction. ‘I’ve got nothing to add to what I said then.’
‘Have a guess where I spent most of this morning?’ Charlie Zailer’s tone is soothing and teasing at the same time.
‘No, thanks.’
‘Fifteen Megson Crescent.’
This is followed by a long silence. DC Waterhouse and I look at one another, wondering if one of us will have to break it; at least, that’s what I’m wondering.
‘Fifteen Megson Crescent is where Mary Trelease lives. That’s who I spent the morning with: Mary Trelease.’
Aidan gives her a cold look. ‘How can a dead woman live anywhere?’ he says. ‘I killed her.’
Sergeant Zailer nods. ‘Simon—that’s DC Waterhouse—he told me you’ve convinced yourself of that. I can assure you, you’re wrong. I met Mary Trelease, spoke to her, saw her breathing and moving around.’
Aidan pulls the underpinner towards him, takes two mitred frame edges and puts them in the machine. Back to work.
‘Do you think I’m lying?’
I can’t stand the stifling tension in the air. ‘Aidan, answer her!’
‘If you hop in the back of my car, I’ll take you to her house so that you can see for yourself that she’s fine.’
‘No.’
‘How did you meet Mary?’ Sergeant Zailer’s voice is gently insistent. ‘You didn’t tell Simon the full story, did you? Will you tell it to me?’
‘No.’
‘Mary says she’s never met you. Which, if she’s telling the truth, means you’ve never met her.’
He looks up, angry to have his attention taken away from his underpinning. ‘If I killed her, I must have met her. It’s simple logic.’ How can he be angry? How does he expect the police to react?
‘Okay,’ says Sergeant Zailer. ‘So tell me about meeting Mary.’
Silence. I stare at him, silently urging him to answer, knowing he won’t. My last hope is disintegrating and there’s nothing I can do. Nobody can help if Aidan won’t talk, not even the police.
‘Aidan? How many times did you and Mary meet before you killed her?’
‘He hasn’t killed anybody,’ I say, starting to cry.
Sergeant Zailer turns her attention to me. ‘Did he tell you he strangled Mary when she was naked? That he left her body in the middle of the bed, in the—’
‘Shut up,’ Aidan snaps.
A violent, sick feeling tears through me, making me gasp. Strangled. Naked.
‘I don’t think he told her,’ says Waterhouse. ‘Something I don’t understand: you did tell Ruth that you killed Mary Trelease years ago. And you told me I’d find the body in the bed if I went to 15 Megson Crescent. Did you really think a dead body might lie undiscovered in a house for years?’
Aidan measures a length of nylon hanging cord and cuts it, as if no one has spoken. He isn’t ignoring Waterhouse—it’s more than that. He’s pretending to be alone in the workshop, wishing us all away. ‘Say something, Aidan!’
‘Why don’t you, if he won’t?’ Charlie Zailer asks me. ‘You lied to me. You said you didn’t know Mary Trelease, but she knows you. She told me she lost you your job, then felt guilty about it and gave you a painting. That true?’
I nod, forcing myself not to look at Aidan. I have no way of knowing how much of the story Mary told her.
‘So you first met Mary when?’
‘Last June.’
‘June. So when Aidan told you in December that he’d killed her years ago, you’d in fact met her six months previously. Presumably you told him he was mistaken. Ruth? Did you tell him that?’
‘I . . .’
‘She told m
e,’ says Aidan. ‘I told her she was wrong, same as I told DC Gibbs and DC Waterhouse.’
‘Mary Trelease is an artist,’ Waterhouse takes over, and I release the breath I’ve been holding. He isn’t interested in the Spilling Gallery, my run-in with Mary. No one can force me to talk about it if I don’t want to. ‘Your work must bring you into contact with lots of artists. What do you think of them?’
‘Some are all right.’
‘The ones who aren’t—what’s wrong with them?’
Aidan sighs. ‘They treat me like a skivvy.’ He raises his hands. ‘Manual work. It can’t be a skilled profession if you get your hands dirty, that’s what some of them think. You meet them in a restaurant in town and they stare at you blankly—they don’t recognise you clean. When you say hello to them and they make the connection, you can see the shock on their faces: a common labourer in a posh restaurant—who’d have believed it? Then you get the ones who paint the same picture over and over again and think they’ve got a unique style, rather than only one idea, and the ones who only paint in their favourite colours, the same ones they buy all their clothes and carpet their living rooms in.’
‘You really don’t like artists,’ says Sergeant Zailer.
‘Let’s have one thing clear: I didn’t kill Mary Trelease because of anything to do with her being an artist. I didn’t know she was one until Ruth told me.’
‘Where’s the painting she gave you?’ Waterhouse asks me. ‘Can we see it?’
Pressure builds in my head. ‘I haven’t got it any more.’
‘How come?’
‘I . . .’ I look at Aidan, but he turns away, lines up two more lengths of glued moulding. Why should I lie to protect him when he won’t tell me what I’m protecting him from? ‘I gave the picture to Aidan,’ I tell Waterhouse. ‘I haven’t seen it since.’
Aidan shoves the underpinner away. ‘Mary Trelease is dead,’ he says through gritted teeth. ‘Dead people don’t paint pictures. Ruth brought home a picture by somebody—it was ugly, so I took it to a charity shop.’ He’s lying.
Charlie Zailer takes a step forward. ‘The front bedroom at 15 Megson Crescent is full of Mary’s paintings. So full I could hardly get in. You say you didn’t know she was an artist. Weren’t the paintings there when you were, when you killed her?’
‘He didn’t kill her!’
I’m surprised when he answers. ‘No. No paintings, nowhere in the house.’
I catch the look that passes between Sergeant Zailer and DC Waterhouse. They’re about to give up.
‘I have to go out,’ Aidan says.
‘Where?’ I ask, at the same time as DC Waterhouse is saying, ‘Do you believe in ghosts, Aidan?’
‘No. I believe in the material world: facts and science. I don’t believe dead women come back to life,’ he says quietly.
‘Then, in your opinion, who is the woman that Sergeant Zailer, DC Gibbs and I have all met at 15 Megson Crescent? If you’re certain you killed Mary Trelease, then the woman who looks like her and owns her home and paints her paintings, who has her passport, driving licence and other documents—she must be a ghost, surely—a very well-equipped one at that.’
‘I told you: I don’t believe in ghosts.’ Aidan walks over to the small basin in the corner and turns both taps on hard. The workshop’s plumbing is ancient; there’s as much noise as there is water. ‘The next time you come looking for me, be ready to charge me, or I’ll have nothing to say.’ He washes and dries his hands.
‘You didn’t answer Ruth’s question,’ says Waterhouse. ‘You volunteer that you killed someone years ago, but you won’t tell her where you’re going this afternoon.’
‘Get out.’
‘I think we’ve overstayed our welcome, Simon,’ says Charlie Zailer.
‘You did that when you crossed the threshold,’ Aidan tells her. She gives him a contemptuous look on her way out.
Waterhouse lingers. ‘You came to us, remember? Or does your memory wipe out things that have happened as well as inventing things that haven’t?’
He’s gone. They’re both gone. Aidan slams the door, leans his head against it. Once he’s breathing steadily again, he says, ‘You said you went to the police. You didn’t tell me you went to Charlotte Zailer.’
I haven’t got the energy to pretend it was a coincidence that she turned up. Let him think what he wants.
‘She’s not your friend, Ruth. She might mean something to you, but you’re nothing to her.’
‘Where’s the picture? Abberton—what have you done with it? Tell me what’s going on.’
‘Do you believe what Waterhouse said? That my memory’s inventing things that haven’t happened?’ He starts to come towards me. ‘If it hasn’t happened, it’s not a memory. Do you think it’s possible to see the future?’
‘No. What do you mean?’
‘A clear image—like a photo, or a film—of something that hasn’t happened yet but is going to happen.’
‘No! Stop it! You’re scaring me.’
‘Me strangling that bitch Trelease—putting my hands round her throat and squeezing . . .’
‘Don’t.’ I back away from him. He looks determined and, at the same time, terribly afraid. Like a man walking into a fire.
‘They say she’s alive. You say she’s alive. Maybe you’re all right. If you’re right, then what I’m seeing in my head can’t be the past. What if I haven’t killed her, but I’m going to?’
‘Aidan, don’t do this,’ I beg, putting my arms round him. He’s rigid, like stone. ‘What you’re saying’s not possible.’
‘Abberton,’ he mutters. ‘It’s part of a series. She hasn’t done them all yet—maybe only that one, the first. But she’ll do more. I can tell you how many there are going to be: nine. I can tell you what their names will be.’ He pushes me out of the way, pulls the lid off a blue marker pen and starts to write on the side of a cardboard poster tube. He reads aloud as he writes, like someone in a trance. ‘Abberton, Blandford, Darville, Elstow, Goundry, Heathcote, Margerison, Rodwell, Winduss.’
I stare at him, wondering who he is, who he’s turning into. He’s sane. When I told Charlie Zailer that, I believed it. ‘Aidan, you’re making no sense,’ I say shakily.
He grips my arm. ‘Go back to Megson Crescent,’ he whispers, his face close to mine. ‘If it’s the future, it can change. It has to change. Tell her not to do the other paintings—make her stop. Tell her to get out of Spilling and go somewhere I won’t find her . . .’
‘Stop it!’ I scream. ‘Let go of me! It’s not true. It’s not possible to see the future! Why won’t you tell me the truth?’
‘Why won’t you tell me the truth? What happened at Hansard’s gallery that made you leave? What happened between you and her? You’ve never told me, not really. You want to know what I’ve done with Abberton? You want to know where I’m going when I walk out of here now? Tell me the story!’
‘There’s nothing to tell!’ I sob. No questions; we agreed. Does he remember how we used to be, how easily we understood each other?
He pushes me away as if he can’t stand to touch me any more, and heads for the door, grabbing his jacket on the way out. Alone in the workshop, I lock the door and turn off all the lights. I huddle in the corner by the electric heater and whisper to myself, ‘There’s nothing to tell,’ as if by saying it I can make it true.
I first noticed the Spilling Gallery because of a painting that was in the window. I’d only lived in the Culver Valley for eleven days at that point, though I regarded it as my home in the sense that I had no plans to go elsewhere. On the day I’d left Lincoln, I’d opened my road atlas at the page that showed a picture of the whole of Britain, closed my eyes and brought my index finger down on a random spot that turned out to be Combingham, a soulless town twelve miles west of Spilling, all precinct centres and roundabouts. I drove there and hated it on sight, so I got back in the car and drove away, with no idea where I was going.
I didn’t go b
ack the way I came; I took random turns, drove random distances before turning again. All I had with me apart from my grubby VW Passat was one hold-all containing a toothbrush and other necessary items; everything else I owned was in storage, and I was prepared never to see any of it again.
I took a left, then a right, then drove straight on for a mile or so. Eventually, when it dawned on me that I would have, at some point, to stop, I set myself a limit: I would drive in any direction that took my fancy, and wherever I found myself after thirty minutes was where I would stay. As long as it wasn’t Lincoln or Combingham it would be all right.
I ended up on Spilling High Street, parked on a double yellow line only metres from Saul Hansard’s gallery and framing shop, though I didn’t notice it then. I don’t know if there were different pictures in the window, or whether my picture was there and I wasn’t paying attention, but as I walked up and down the road looking at my new home town, the Spilling Gallery didn’t register with me at all. At that point I hadn’t thought about paintings or art for more than about twenty seconds in total in my entire life, and most of those twenty seconds had been forced on me by the radio or the television, usually prompting me to change channels.
I noticed a wool shop called Country Yarns, lots of expensive boutiques selling clothes—separate ones for men, women and children. Those selling ‘ladies’ wear’ mostly had long, elegant names that sounded as if they belonged to princesses. I made a point of not looking at the tiny maternity-wear shop with its pistachio-green-painted front, knowing it would never be relevant to me. It was unlikely I’d ever be able to have a baby; I didn’t deserve one, in any case. There were three or four pubs that couldn’t have looked more traditionally English if they’d tried, each with a more elaborately worded sign than the last, advertising the landlords as ‘purveyors of fine quality fayre’. An independent bookshop caught my eye, and I decided I’d pay it a visit as soon as I’d got some accommodation sorted out; I didn’t know anyone in Spilling and planned to avoid all forms of socialising, so I would be doing a lot of reading, and the four books I’d packed in my black hold-all wouldn’t last me long.
The Dead Lie Down: A Novel Page 12
