Bones Under The Beach Hut (17 page)

    To
Carole's mind instantly came a quotation from G.K. Chesterton that one of her
former colleagues at the Home Office had been fond of: 'The artistic
temperament is a disease that affects amateurs.' But she didn't say anything,
just let the self-appointed genius maunder on.

    'There's
a common misconception that, if one has a talent to produce work quickly, that
must mean that it comes easily. But no, art is never easy. Art is a very hard
taskmaster - or taskmistress is perhaps more accurate.' He gestured across the
explosion in a paint factory to his own tidy little creations. 'Each one of
those watercolours is torn from my soul, you know.'

    This
time Carole felt she had to say something. 'Well, they look very nice.'

    '"Nice"?
"Nice"!' Gray Czesky flung a hand up to clutch at his forehead.
'"Nice" is the accolade of the bourgeoisie. And of course the aim of
the artist is to
épater le bourgeois.
Call my work anything you wish -
challenging, controversial, incompetent even - but never condemn it to the
mediocrity of
"nice"'.'

    'All
right, I won't say it again,' said Carole through tightened lips.

    Wishing
to move the conversation into less hazardous waters, Jude observed that the
studio had a splendid view.

    'Yes.
Though of course I never look at it. An artist does not look outside himself.
The art is inside. The art has to be quarried out from within, like a rich seam
of ore.'

    'But
surely,' said Jude, reasonably enough, 'when you're painting a landscape you
have to look at it, don't you?'

    'I
don't look while I'm painting. I look before I paint. I memorize, I store the
image within my mental gallery. For me the act of composition is always an act
of recollection.'

    Carole
hadn't liked the lie that had brought them into Gray Czesky's studio, but she
reckoned it was time to play along with the subterfuge. 'So have you ever
memorized Fethering Beach?'

    'No.
Why should I have done?'

    'Oh,
of course Sonja Zentner didn't mention the subject of the commission I'm
thinking of. I'm looking for someone to do me a watercolour of Fethering Beach.'

    'Ah.
Well, no, I haven't memorized Fethering Beach, but it would be a matter of
moments for me to do so. I could go along with my camera any day.'

    'Oh,
so you take photographs of the views you're going to paint and work from them?
Is that what you mean by "memorizing"?' asked Jude.

    This
did rather dilute the magic of the creative process that the artist had
described, and Gray Czesky seemed to acknowledge that he'd lost ground as he
mumbled a yes.

    'Well,
I've seen examples of your work, which I like a lot,' Carole lied, 'so the
question really is: how much would I have to pay to commission you?'

    Now
it came to money, Gray Czesky was suddenly a lot less airy-fairy. He reeled out
a list of prices which seemed to vary according to the size of the picture
required. And the smallest option would cost over two thousand pounds.

    Carole
disguised her real feelings - that if she had a spare two thousand pounds she
could think of many things she'd rather spend it on - and said she'd have to
mull over her next move. 'I will be checking out the rates of some other
artists.'

    'Other
artists? Other
so-called
artists, I think you mean. I know the work of
most of the so-called artists in the area, and there are few who aspire to
being above competent draughtsmen. If you are looking for a mere wallcovering,
you would do better to buy a poster or a reproduction than one of their
efforts. If you want your wall to have a work of art hanging on it, then you
need to commission Gray Czesky.'

    Jude saw
an opportunity to move the conversation in the direction of their
investigation. 'You say you know all the local artists. Do you know Mark
Dennis?'

    'Yes,
of course I do. Good bloke, Mark. Not much talent as an artist, I'm afraid, but
still a good bloke. He didn't buy into all the bourgeois crap you get in a
place like Smalting any more than I do.'

    'I
gather he's left Smalting,' said Carole.

    An
expression of crafty caution came into Gray Czesky's face as he responded,
'Yes, I'd heard that.'

    'We
know Philly, his girlfriend,' said Jude. 'She's terribly cut up about Mark
leaving.'

    The
artist shrugged. 'Man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Can't be tied down by
bourgeois morality if you're an artist.'

    Carole
bit back her instinctive response to that remark, instead asking, 'I don't
suppose you have any idea where he went?'

    Gray
Czesky grinned roguishly. 'There is a kind of freemasonry among men, you know.
We support our mates, but we don't get involved in their love lives. If a bloke
splits up with a girlfriend, not our problem. Doesn't matter whether we like
the girl or not, we know where our duty lies. We'll support him, go out for a
few drinks, help him forget, but we won't offer advice or comment. He's done
what he wants to do, he no doubt had good reasons for doing it, it's his
business.'

    'You're
saying you don't know why Mark walked out on Philly?'

    Another
shrug. 'Presumably he didn't want to stay with her any more.'

    'You
don't know if he'd met someone else ... or gone back to someone?' asked Jude.

    'No.
And if I did know I wouldn't tell you. As I say, there's a freemasonry among
blokes about that kind of thing. We leave the Mills and Boon stuff to the
gentler sex. Me and Mark were just good drinking mates. We got healthily
smashed from time to time and we didn't talk about
relationships.'
He
put a heavy, doom-laden emphasis on the word.

    'And
you haven't seen Mark Dennis since he left Smalting?'

    'That's
another of those things where if I had I wouldn't tell you.'

    It
didn't seem as though their information gathering was going to progress much
further. Carole rose to her feet and said, 'Thank you very much for your time,
Mr Czesky. I'll make my decision about the commission very soon and get back to
you either way. Do you have a card with your phone number on it?'

    'Helga's
got some downstairs.'

    'I'll
ask her as we go out.'

    'Don't
worry, I'll see you down. Don't feel ready to go straight back to the coalface
of my art.' This was so melodramatically pronounced that Jude looked to see if
Gray Czesky was actually sending himself up. But there was no gleam of humour
in his eye. When it came to the subject of himself, he was a man incapable of
irony.

    He
led the two women out on to the landing, and once again they were struck by the
contrast between the manufactured squalor of the artist's workplace and the
middle-class neatness of the rest of the house. Just as Jude started down the
stairs, Carole suddenly said, 'Oh, will you excuse me? I just want to have one
more look at one of the watercolours - to help me make up my mind,' and slipped
back into the studio.

    Gray
Czesky shrugged and followed Jude down to the hall. He called to his wife as though
she were a servant, asking her to bring one of his cards. Moments later Carole
joined them.

    'Thank
you again, Mr Czesky.' She smiled at Helga. 'And Mrs Czesky.'

    'No
point in thanking her,' said the woman's gracious husband. 'She didn't do anything.
Never do much, do you, Hel? Except get under my feet and stop me concentrating
on my art.'

    Carole
and Jude waited for the explosion they reckoned those words must have detonated
in any twenty-first-century woman, but none came. Instead, Helga Czesky
giggled. And then her husband giggled too. Clearly his insulting of her was
some kind of love ritual that seemed to turn them both on.

    Helga
was the first to recover her powers of speech. She grinned mischievously at the
two women and said, 'I am very lucky, aren't I, to be married to a genius -
no?'

    No,
thought Carole and Jude in unison.

    Outside
Sanditon, Carole became very mysterious, hurrying back to where she had parked
the Renault. Jude kept asking what was happening, but she got no reply till
they were both inside the car.

    Then,
milking the drama from her revelation, Carole announced, 'When I went back into
the studio just now, it wasn't to take another look at the water- colours.'

    'Oh?'

    'It
was to pick up this.'

    'What?'
asked Jude, playing along with her neighbour's narrative style.

    Carole
unclasped the handbag on her lap and produced from it a paint-spattered scrap
of cloth. Jude's close inspection revealed it to be a strip of an old tea towel
with a design of ponies on it.

    'This,'
Carole declared, 'is an exact match to one of the pieces of cloth that was used
to set fire to
Quiet Harbour.'

    'So
where do you reckon we stand now?' asked Jude. They had got a takeaway baguette
lunch from The Copper Kettle and were sitting outside
Fowey
eating it.
Although gathering clouds suggested that they'd had the best of the day, Jude
had nonetheless stripped down to her bikini. Gulliver lay panting on the sand,
having accepted there was no point in complaining further about being chained
to a beach hut.

    'I'm
not quite sure,' Carole replied. 'But although he wouldn't tell us, I did get
the strong impression that Gray Czesky had seen Mark quite recently.'

    'As
recently as the early hours of last Tuesday morning?'

    'Hm, it'd
be nice if we could prove that, wouldn't it? Be nice also if we could confirm
that the woman with Mark was his wife Nuala.'

    'Well,
from what Philly said she sounds quite easy to recognize.'

    'Yes,
I'll try to get a description from Curt Holderness of the woman he saw that
night. Give him a call when I get home.'

    'Haven't
you got your mobile with you?'

    'Yes,
I have, but . . .' Carole blushed.

    'What?'

    'I
don't really approve of mobile phones being used on beaches.'

    Jude's
eyes shot heavenwards. Her neighbour always retained the capacity to surprise
her with a new prohibition or neurosis. But she made no comment and asked, 'You
know what Philly thought, don't you?'

    'That
Mark had done away with his wife, and that they were her remains under
Quiet
Harbour?'

    'Yes.
Does it work for you?'

    Carole
screwed up her face as she evaluated the proposition. 'I don't think it does
really. "Human remains" ... it all comes back to the definition of
"human remains". To me that implies that they're from someone who's
been dead quite a while. Wouldn't the media talk about "a dead body"
if it was from a recent killing? And I'm sure they'd give the gender. "The
body of a woman was discovered under a beach hut at Smalting," that's what
they'd say. Not "human remains".'

    'Maybe
not.'

    'I
must say the police are being very slow to give out any more information,
aren't they?'

    'Presumably
the remains are undergoing forensic investigation. When they've identified who
the remains belong to then they'll announce it in a press conference.'

    'Well,
I wish they'd get a move on,' said Carole testily. 'It's been nearly a week.'

    'They
just don't think about the necessities of amateur sleuths, do they?'

    'No,
they don't.'

    Though
the sun was now hidden behind banks of clouds, Jude lay in her lounger as if
sunbathing and it took Carole a little while to realize that her neighbour was
asleep.

    Quietly
Carole detached Gulliver's lead from the hook on
Fowey
and set out along
the shingle with him, following the curve of the beach huts. He gave her only a
token look of reproach, recognizing that a walk on a lead was better than no
walk at all.