by John Harvey
‘Possibly not.’ With a quick smile, Hadley got to her feet, Alice following suit. ‘Thank you for agreeing to talk to us, thank you for your time. Because of your presence in the studio, we will need to take your fingerprints. Just for the process of elimination.’
‘Yes, I understand.’
‘If you could pop into the station at Shacklewell Lane later today? Or we could give you a lift down there now if you’d like?’
‘I’ve got to go that way anyway, it’s fine.’
‘Good. I’ll make sure they’re expecting you.’
‘And if there’s a mobile number on which we can contact you? Should we need to again?’
‘Of course.’
Alice noted it down and at the door first Hadley and then Alice shook Katherine’s hand. ‘I’m sorry it’s all been so upsetting,’ Hadley said.
Katherine smiled weakly in return.
Neither Hadley nor Alice spoke till they were out on the street.
‘Did you notice?’ Alice said. ‘When we were shaking hands?’
‘The scars on her wrists, you mean?’
‘Yes. Self-harm, you think?’
‘Most likely. Unless it was something more serious.’
‘Hospitals, we could check, couldn’t we?’
Hadley nodded. They were back at the car. A woman in full burqa went slowly past on the opposite side of the street, an orange Sainsbury’s bag in each hand.
‘You think it could be relevant?’ Alice asked. ‘To do with Winter somehow?’
‘A stretch, perhaps, but yes, possibly. A misunderstanding between them, is that what she called it?’
‘Yes. And personal, she said that too. Didn’t want to go there.’
‘Maybe she’ll have to, we’ll see.’
They got into the car, Alice switching on the engine, checking the rear-view mirror, indicating.
‘You did well in there,’ Hadley said. ‘Handled it very well indeed.’
‘Thank you.’
Looking over her shoulder before pulling out into the traffic, Alice held the position for longer than was strictly necessary in order to hide her smile.
22
By the time Elder had driven back across the peninsula, Penzance to Zennor, he’d calmed down sufficiently to be regretting the hastiness of his actions and much of what he’d said besides. Challenging a detective sergeant from the Met to arrest him for his possible involvement in murder, not the most judicious move. But what’s done was done. If they wanted to take it any further, he’d wait for them to come to him.
He wondered how Katherine was faring, assumed someone from the same team would be questioning her too. If he hadn’t behaved like such an arse, he could have asked the DS – Phillips, was that his name? – about the inquiry, found out who was in charge. Not impossible, even after all this time, that it was someone he knew from his days in the Met, someone he’d worked with, a junior officer who’d moved up the ladder.
Or someone like Karen Shields.
Just the thought of her name made him smile.
The last he’d heard of Karen, five or six years ago it would be now, she had been a detective chief inspector in Homicide and Serious Crime Command. An investigation she’d brought to a satisfactory conclusion had garnered quite a bit of publicity at the time: the murder of a Moldovan youth whose body had been found trapped beneath the ice covering one of the ponds on Hampstead Heath.
The last time he’d seen her, more or less the last time they’d spoken, had been several years earlier, an occasion he didn’t think he’d ever forget. They’d spent the night together, Karen and himself, the first time and the last, both high on the adrenalin that came from a difficult job well done, the case cracked, investigation over, or so it seemed – dinner at Moro in Clerkenwell, wine, brandy – as they were saying goodnight outside his flat, the taxi idling, meter ticking over, she’d kissed him on the mouth. In the early hours of the morning he’d woken suddenly, the space beside him empty, a gun pointing at his head.
Then Karen, stark naked, had come hurtling through from the kitchen, stainless-steel kettle in her hand, swinging it high and wide until it smashed into the centre of the intruder’s face as he turned towards her, splintering bone, the flesh either side of the now broken nose splitting open like an overripe plum.
Elder himself a matter of seconds from almost certain death.
It was too much to hope that Karen’s team was involved in Winter’s murder, that she was SIO. She was still on his mind when he heard Cordon’s car draw up outside.
‘A right bollocks you made of that,’ Cordon said at the door.
‘You don’t have to tell me.’
‘Somebody should.’
‘I know.’
‘Anger-management course, that’d be my advice.’
Elder nodded. ‘Phillips, where’s he now?’
‘Last I saw him, on the phone to his guv’nor.’
‘Deciding whether to arrest me, take me at my word.’
‘Serve you right if he did.’
‘Apology in order then, is that it? Humble pie?’
‘Double helpings, I’d say.’
Elder shook his head.
‘What got you so riled up anyway? Wasn’t as if anything he said was out of order. Poor guy just doing his job.’
‘I know, I know. It’s just this whole business with Katherine …’
‘That time she was taken, you mean, held prisoner, that’s what you were thinking of?’ Cordon knew the outline of what had happened when Katherine had been abducted; not the details, little more than the basic facts. He didn’t want to know any more.
‘That’s what it comes down to, yes,’ Elder said. ‘And this now with Winter, it brings it all back.’
‘It was you who found her, wasn’t it? Where she was being held?’
‘I got there first, yes. Just ahead of the rest.’
‘Stuff like that,’ Cordon said, ‘never mind how much help you get, it doesn’t go away.’
‘She’s been in therapy, had treatment, a short spell in hospital. I’m not sure how much good it’s done.’
‘I wasn’t thinking about her.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Maybe you’re the one who needs to get some help. Talk to someone, at least.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘That episode earlier? Flying off the handle the way you did.’
‘Phillips. He was goading me.’
‘How about up in London? That hoo-ha at the gallery?’
Elder fixed him with a look. ‘I lost my temper, okay. But I’ve got no regrets about that. Far as I’m concerned, he got what was coming to him. Same circumstances, I’d likely do it again.’
‘I shouldn’t go shouting that from the rooftops. Not with a murder inquiry ongoing.’
‘Don’t worry, I don’t want the Met breathing down my neck any more than I dare say you do. Get me back to the station so I can give a DNA sample, get my prints taken, send Phillips back to London happy. Hope he accepts my apology for anything I said.’
That night he had the dream again. Woke sticky with sweat. Stumbling to the window, he threw it open and breathed in the cold night air. The sky was black, clouds shuttering out the moon. Downstairs he poured whisky into a glass, switched on the stereo, rooted through the small pile of CDs.
The music started quietly, just strings and woodwinds, and then the choir …
Elder closed his eyes.
Saw Katherine. Katherine’s face. Pale, drawn: afraid.
Before leaving Penzance he’d rung her mobile, but it had been switched off; called the flat and asked if he could talk to Kate.
‘She’s not here right now,’ Stelina had said. ‘She’s just popped out. I’m not sure exactly when she’ll be back.’
‘Okay,’ Elder said. ‘Ask her to give me a quick call when she gets in.’
‘Of course.’
He heard nothing. Katherine didn’t call. For all he knew she’d been
there the entire time, gesturing no with her hand and shaking her head. Mouthing, tell him I’m not here.
When the Requiem finished, the best part of an hour later, the first vestiges of light were just beginning to show faintly above the horizon, grazing the edges of the sea.
23
‘This guy’s paintings,’ Rachel said.
‘What about them?’
Hadley was at the stove, the coffee just starting to bubble, Rachel halfway through some kind of evil-looking smoothie, kale, spinach and nettles, her iPad propped up alongside the toast.
‘This one here, for instance. If one of my clients brought that along after a session of art therapy, I’d be more than a little concerned.’
‘Better out than in, surely? I thought that’s what those sessions were all about?’
‘It depends whether they’re getting it out of their system or fashioning some kind of blueprint for something they’re going to put into practice later.’
‘You think that’s what he could have been doing? Winter?’
‘It’s got to be possible. And if you don’t take that coffee off the stove it’s going to taste like stewed cat piss.’
‘If you can make a better job of it, in future do it yourself.’
‘Perhaps I will.’
‘Whoa!’ Hadley raised a hand in alarm. ‘Lesbian bickering warning!’
Rachel laughed. ‘Okay, fair enough. But seriously, the minute it starts bubbling …’
‘Rachel!’
‘… that’s when you should take it off the heat.’
Hadley grabbed the first thing to hand that wasn’t a sharp implement, an oven glove as it happened, and threw it at her partner’s head.
‘You really think,’ she said a few minutes later, indicating the screen, ‘there’s something seriously nasty going on?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘It’s art, what do I know?’
‘Don’t be naive.’
Hadley tried her coffee. It did taste more than a little overcooked. ‘When we spoke to the young woman who modelled for those paintings, she said most if not all of that paraphernalia, the stuff you’re reacting to, was added later.’
‘Lucky for her.’ Rachel buttered a piece of toast. ‘Even so, it could have been what was in his mind at the time. What he wanted to do but, for whatever reason, didn’t feel quite able to. Not with her, at least.’
‘But possibly in other situations, is that what you’re thinking?’
‘Who knows?’
Hadley grinned. ‘Well, if you don’t …’
Chris Phillips was lurking in the entrance, a take-out cup from Bean About Town in one hand, a half-eaten muffin in the other.
‘Ought to get up earlier,’ Hadley said. ‘Have a proper breakfast.’
‘What? You’re my mother all of a sudden?’
‘Heaven forbid.’
‘She’ll be pleased you said that.’
Hadley had met Chris Phillips’ mother on at least two occasions; a nursing sister, now retired, she had come over from Jamaica as a young woman, met his father, a dance-band musician, and set up home in west London, Westbourne Grove. Formidable would be the word.
‘How was the West Country?’
‘Long way from anywhere else aside?’
‘Aside from that.’
‘Officially, more than helpful.’
‘And unofficially?’
‘Elder and this Trevor Cordon, the DI, they’re drinking buddies. Conflict of interest, no question. Not that I think it’s going to make a deal of difference. Half a dozen people happy to testify to seeing Elder at various times the weekend of the eighth, ninth. Without breaking some kind of land-speed record or chartering a private plane, it’s hard to see any way he could have made it up to London, attacked Winter in his studio and made it back again.’
‘But not impossible.’
‘I guess not. I don’t see how, but you’re right, we can’t altogether rule it out. Not yet, at least. Especially when he’s got the temper for it.’
‘The incident at the gallery, you mean?’
‘Not just that. Lost it under questioning, stormed out. Took Cordon to calm him down, get him to come back in.’
‘Anything in particular that got him fired up?’
‘The paintings of his daughter, that was the trigger. Not hard to understand why, mind you, seeing a kid of yours like that …’
‘Not a kid exactly.’
‘Near enough, as far as he’s concerned. After what happened especially.’
‘What happened?’
‘Sorry, boss. Somehow I thought you knew.’
‘Knew what?’
‘His daughter, Katherine, she was abducted. Six, seven years ago now. Held prisoner. Raped. Tortured.’
‘Why the hell wasn’t I told that before?’
‘I’m sorry. Like I say …’
‘It doesn’t matter. Not now.’ The expression on her face changed. ‘She’d have been just a girl, little more than a child.’
‘Sixteen.’
‘The person responsible …’
‘HMP Wakefield. Life sentence.’
Hadley was thinking about the young woman she and Alice had spoken to, nervous, unsettled, pulling abstractedly at her hair, scars that looked fairly recent on her wrists. A history of self-harm?
‘Changes the picture, doesn’t it?’ Phillips said. ‘In terms of any possible motivation he might have had.’
‘Elder?’
Phillips nodded.
Hadley took a step back, marshalling her thoughts, remembering what Rachel had been saying earlier that morning.
‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘if Winter might have known about what had happened to her, to Katherine, when he made those paintings?’
‘As some kind of inspiration, you mean?’
‘It could be. Consciously recreating the scene.’
‘What kind of sick bastard would want to do that?’
‘I don’t know. And maybe that’s way out of line. But Chris, dig out all the details of the abduction, just in case. And see what’s happening with forensics, will you? Howie was supposed to be chasing them up, but who knows?’
‘How about phone records, anything there?’
Hadley shook her head. ‘CIU, dragging their heels. Richard should be on their case.’
‘I’ll give him a nudge.’
‘Okay, good …’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I’ve got a meeting, shouldn’t be above a half-hour, tops. Till then the ship’s yours.’
Phillips grinned. ‘I’ll try not to run her aground.’
Rebecca Johnson was sitting at a corner table, wearing a pale blue-and-grey dress from Ghost. Hadley had been looking at it online only a week or so before. Exactly why she wasn’t sure. She could barely remember the last time she’d worn a dress.
‘Rebecca, hello. Thanks for making the time.’
‘Not a problem.’ Half-standing, she smiled. ‘You know, I don’t know what to call you. Detective Chief Inspector’s such a mouthful.’
‘Alex. Alex is fine.’
‘All right. Good, Alex it is.’
‘Can I get you anything?’
‘No, thanks, I’m good.’
At the counter, Hadley ordered a double macchiato and helped herself to water from the jug standing off to the side, careful to avoid both the ice cubes and the wedges of lime falling into her glass.
When she had first been stationed at Holmes Road as a young detective constable, about the best you could have hoped for would have been instant coffee from a greasy spoon. Now there were three chain outlets and four independent coffee shops within easy walking distance. The high street was otherwise dominated by charity shops and estate agents. Maybe that was how the world was now divided: those who’d happily fork out close to three pounds for a flat white and those who could not. The yin and yang of capitalism, as Rachel liked to put it.
‘How goes the investigation?’ Rebecca asked when Hadley sat back down.
‘Oh, you know. Early days.’
‘I still haven’t quite got over what happened.’
‘Finding the body especially, it’s no wonder.’
‘You must get used to it, I suppose. Dead bodies. Blood and gore.’
‘Not really.’ Hadley smiled. ‘We just have to make it seem as if we do.’
When her macchiato arrived it looked close to perfect, just the right amount of rich crema on the surface.
‘What I wanted to ask you,’ she said, ‘as I understand it, when Winter changed galleries there was a certain amount of ill feeling?’
Rebecca smiled. ‘A certain amount? That would be an understatement at best.’
‘Somebody’s nose was put out of joint?’
‘More their wallet. Bank account.’
‘There was a significant amount of money involved, then?’
‘Thousands. Millions, potentially.’
‘I had no idea. I mean, you hear sometimes of paintings going for what seem like ridiculous sums at auction, but that’s, I don’t know, Warhol or Picasso or some old canvas by Van Gogh that’s been lingering in someone’s attic for generations. But Winter, I had no idea.’
Rebecca finished her cappuccino, just the foam remaining. A young woman backing her buggy out on to the street managed to get it wedged between a table and the door and a student jumped down from where he was working on his laptop in the window to help.
‘What you have to understand,’ Rebecca said, ‘for years, financially speaking, Anthony was just bubbling under. Not attracting the serious money, the serious collectors, but demanding more than decent sums all the same. Five figures at best and rarely that. Abernathy, they’d been representing him since he left the Royal College. Nothing too pushy, too flamboyant, that’s not their style. But respectable, old-school, steady. Then, when Anthony and I became involved …’
‘Involved?’
Rebecca laughed. ‘Oh, not that way. Wrong side of the fence entirely. No, this was strictly professional. I had contacts poor old Rupert – Rupert Morland-Davis, he owns Abernathy more or less – just didn’t have. New collectors, new money. Russian, of course, Chinese. I went to work on Anthony’s behalf and his prices began to rise. But there’s just so much I can do without help. Meanwhile, Rupert’s sales through Abernathy were growing through no effort of his own.’
