‘Not while Seed worked there. Later. Later still, she switched to a London gallery, the same one that hosted Seed’s solo exhibition in February 2000: TiqTaq, on Charlotte Street. That’s where Zailer is now, am I right?’
‘Think you’d have got as far as you have without our help?’ Simon asked her.
‘Where have I got? Two thirds of the way down a dead-end street, if you ask me.’
‘Did Hansard tell you Bussey and Trelease met at his gallery, and had a row that ended in a physical attack? Seed killed Gemma Crowther as revenge for what she did to Ruth Bussey. He’s going to kill Mary Trelease for the same reason. Maybe Stephen Elton too, unless Elton’s guilty plea and the fact that he didn’t actively participate in the attack on Bussey in Lincoln . . .’
‘You know about that?’ Milward smiled. ‘You didn’t know this morning.’
‘You didn’t tell me,’ said Simon, trying to keep his anger down.
‘So who did? See, the trouble I’m having is that you seem to know a fraction too much. If I find out you’ve had contact with Bussey, Seed or Trelease and not told me . . .’
‘I haven’t. Sounds like you haven’t either. What’s being done to find them?’
‘You should be pleased it’s not your problem,’ said Milward. ‘My problem is that I’ve got a chief suspect—’
‘You mean Seed?’
‘No. I don’t mean Seed.’
‘There was no break-in, right? Narrows your suspects down to Seed or Elton.’
‘I’ve got a suspect and a motive,’ Milward continued as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Nothing in the bag yet, but I’m hopeful. Meanwhile, on the fringes of my investigation, I’ve got your little mess: Seed, Trelease, Bussey, Hansard.’
‘The fringes?’ Simon couldn’t believe it. ‘You’re wrong. I don’t know what’s going on, not yet, but I know one thing: my mess, as you call it, is centre stage. You’ll get nowhere unless you treat it as such.’
‘You’re an arrogant turd, Waterhouse.’
‘So I’ve heard.’
Milward looked as if she’d like to take a swipe at him. ‘I’ve got motive,’ she told him again. ‘Motive’s where I’m strong. What have you got? Phantom stranglings, pictures disappearing from art fairs, mysterious predictions: Seed naming a series of nine paintings Mary Trelease hasn’t done yet—you expect me to take all that seriously?’
‘No,’ Simon told her. ‘I expect you to bury it because it confuses you. And it’s not nine, it’s eight—the paintings Mary Trelease hasn’t done yet.’
Milward frowned. ‘Nine,’ she said, looking at her notes.
‘The first,
Abberton
, she’s already done.’
She slammed her file shut. ‘I don’t like all this . . . clutter around my investigation. I
really
don’t like it. How did Zailer know a picture went missing from Gemma’s flat the night she was killed? How did she know it was
that
picture?’
‘She didn’t know. She was guessing.’
Milward let out the breath she’d been holding in several short bursts. ‘We found it in the boot of Seed’s car,’ she said. ‘
Abberton
. It’s too weird for my taste, but it’s got something to it—not like most of the rubbish that’s peddled as art these days.’
Simon shook his head, trying to take it in. No, that couldn’t be right. Seed might abandon his car—Simon had told Milward this morning why he’d do that—but not the painting, not once he’d removed it from the house after killing Crowther, knocking her teeth out with a hammer and replacing them with picture hooks.
Abberton
was crucial. It had to be. No way he’d have left it in the boot.
Think
. Seed gave Crowther the picture—he must have done. Then he killed her and took it back. Why? That part had never made sense, not really. Why had Simon allowed himself to overlook it for so long?
‘Stephen Elton says there’s no way
Len
, aka Aidan Seed, would have killed Gemma.’ Milward’s voice seemed to come from a distance. ‘Says the three of them were close friends. Seed slept on their sofa regularly rather than drive home late—and no, he and Gemma weren’t having an affair, before you ask. Elton was adamant Gemma would never be unfaithful—saw it as being beyond the pale. As opposed to nearly torturing a woman to death,’ she added tersely, ‘which doesn’t seem to have troubled her conscience unduly. I’ve seen Elton lie and I’ve seen him tell the truth, and he was telling the truth when he said that.’
‘I never thought Crowther and Seed were having an affair,’ said Simon. He’d seen the way he’d looked at her as they walked down the street together. It wasn’t how a lover would have looked at her; Simon knew that for sure, despite never having been anyone’s lover.
Are you a virgin, Simon?
Charlie had asked him once, years ago. He didn’t give her an answer, still hadn’t.
His phone rang in his pocket.
‘Go ahead,’ said Milward. ‘If it’s Zailer . . .’
‘It isn’t.’ Simon was relieved to see Chris Gibbs’ name on his screen instead of Kombothekra’s. Surprised too. He listened to what Gibbs had to say, keeping his replies to the absolute minimum, aware of Milward’s eyes on him.
‘Everything all right?’ she asked, seeing him put his phone back in his pocket.
Simon’s best ideas always arrived in a rush, like a shot of adrenalin to the brain. This one was no different. ‘What came first, Crowther’s death or the mutilation of her mouth?’ he asked.
‘The removal of the teeth was post-mortem. Why? What are you thinking?’
‘What about the weapons: gun, hammer, the knife used to cut back her lips? Have you found any of them?’
Milward shook her head, as Simon had known she would. The killer was hanging on to them, planning to use them again. A killer who knew how to stage a production, who liked melodrama, who had perhaps killed before . . . ‘You come across the name Martha Wyers?’ he asked.
‘The writer?’ Milward frowned. ‘What’s she got to do with anything?’
‘You’ve heard of her?’
‘Only since about an hour ago. She and Seed were part of a promotion that
The Times
and
Vogue
jointly—’
‘I know about that,’ Simon cut her off. ‘Mary Trelease did a portrait of Martha Wyers dead, with a noose round her neck.’
Incredulity flickered in Milward’s eyes. Then she said, ‘You’re not joking, are you?’
‘No. Kerry Gatti was part of the same promotion—a comedian. He can’t have been very funny, because he gave it up and became a private detective. He’s been following Ruth Bussey.’
Milward’s eyes narrowed. ‘On whose behalf?’ she asked eventually.
‘No idea. Tell Proust to lift his ban and I’ll go back to work and find out.’
‘We can find that out,’ Milward said through clenched teeth. ‘I’ve got to think this through: Mary Trelease painted a portrait of Martha Wyers? How did they . . .?’
‘Have you interviewed her?’
‘Mary Trelease? We’re working on it.’ Simon took this to mean that wherever Trelease was, she wasn’t at 15 Megson Crescent.
Milward leaned forward. ‘The witnesses who saw you outside Crowther and Elton’s flat say they saw an old woman there, too, after you’d gone. Unfortunately they were too busy making notes about you to pay much attention to her, but the one thing they were certain of was . . .’
‘Wrinkles and lines all over her face?’ said Simon quickly.
Milward nodded. ‘We’ve spoken to a bucketload of Mary Trelease’s reprobate neighbours at Megson Crescent. All any of them wanted to talk about was how old she looks, how much older than her real age.’
So Trelease had been at Gemma Crowther’s flat the night she was murdered. ‘I don’t think Martha Wyers’ suicide was suicide, ’ said Simon.
Milward threw her pen down on the table. ‘I don’t know whether to have you lynched or offer you a job,’ she said.
Neither option appealed. Simon didn’t want to work for Coral Milward. He wanted to work for that treacherous bastard Giles Proust. ‘Put me back where I belong,’ he said. ‘Let me help you as part of my team, helping your team—I know that’s what they’re doing, about a quarter as effectively as they would be if I was with them.’ He hadn’t meant to threaten Milward when he opened his mouth, but that was the way he seemed to be heading. Time to make it explicit. ‘It’s up to you,’ he said. ‘If you want anything else from me, you know what you need to do.’
Jan Garner didn’t smile when Charlie walked into her gallery. ‘I preferred it when the police didn’t turn up every five minutes,’ she said. ‘None of you ever buys anything.’ She was standing in the window, arranging artificial roses in a green glass vase— pink, yellow and white ones. They had tiny clear beads stuck to their petals and leaves: fake drops of water.
‘Any other police who’ve been here are nothing to do with me,’ Charlie told her. ‘They’d have been Met.’
‘Can you tell me what’s going on?’
‘They’ve probably told me less than they’ve told you.’ Charlie didn’t stop to give Jan Garner time to dwell on the subtle dishonesty of her answer. ‘The artist you told me about, the talented one who gave up painting after his first show sold out—was his name Aidan Seed?’
Jan nodded.
‘That’s why Mary Trelease chose you, this gallery,’ Charlie told her, aware that she didn’t have to.
‘Mary knew Aidan?’ Jan’s shock appeared to be genuine.
‘Not according to her. Did Aidan ever mention the name Mary Trelease, as far as you can remember?’
‘I haven’t spoken to him for eight years,’ said Jan. ‘I don’t think so, no. Although . . . this’ll sound daft, but when Mary walked in here last year and ordered me to frame her pictures, her name rang a bell. I put it down to one of those spooky
déjà vu
things, but maybe Aidan did mention her. It’s impossible to remember after all this time.’
‘What about Martha Wyers?’ Charlie asked. ‘Did he mention her?’
Jan looked surprised. ‘That was the name of the dead writer Mary painted. You saying it jogged my memory. I don’t remember Aidan talking about her, no. Ow! Thorn,’ she explained, sucking her finger. ‘Not real, but still sharp. People look down their noses at silk flowers, but I love them. They’re not phoney, they’re representations. I’ve always thought it odd that the same people who buy paintings of flowers to hang on their walls wouldn’t give houseroom to man-made roses like these.’ Was there a nervousness to Jan’s chatter, or was Charlie imagining it?
‘A couple of months before Aidan’s exhibition here, he was featured in
The Times
,’ she said. ‘In an article called “Future Famous Five”.’
Jan was nodding. ‘It was a huge coup, publicity-wise.’
‘You don’t remember the name Martha Wyers from that article? ’
‘No,’ she said, after a brief hesitation. ‘You mean . . .?’
‘Martha was one of the five.’
Jan dropped the rose she’d been holding, pinched the skin of her neck between her thumb and index finger. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked. ‘Of course you are. Stupid question. I couldn’t tell you any of the names now, apart from Aidan’s. I didn’t keep the whole piece, only the bits about Aidan and TiqTaq. I keep anything and everything relating to my exhibitions.’
‘Yesterday, you mentioned Aidan’s private view,’ said Charlie. ‘That’s like a private party for the friends and family of the artist, is it?’
‘And of the gallery. Collectors, critics, other gallery owners. We all like to impress . . . Yes.’ Jan stopped. ‘You’re right.’
Charlie had a feeling the question she’d been about to ask would prove unnecessary.
‘A couple of them came to Aidan’s private view, a couple of the future famous five. I remember him mentioning it. I’m not sure how pleased he was.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘There’d been some kind of contretemps when they got together to have their photo taken. I don’t think I ever knew all the details, but it was something to do with one or more of them calling Aidan pretentious. Which he wasn’t,’ said Jan defensively. ‘He could be too intense and earnest at times, but there wasn’t a grain of pretence about him.’
‘So Martha Wyers might have been there, at Aidan’s private view?’
Jan shrugged.
‘Could Mary Trelease have been there too?’
‘I suppose she might have been. It was a bit of a blur that night—private views always are. I was madly busy and the place was packed. I don’t remember individuals, only a big crowd of people, almost too big to squeeze in.’
‘Did anything happen that struck you as out of the ordinary? ’ Charlie asked. ‘Anything at all?’
‘I don’t think so. Two punters had a fairly predictable row about whether to buy a picture or not. A mother and daughter, I think. That’s right, yes. I remember thinking I wouldn’t have dared tell my mother how to spend her money, God rest her soul. It’s amazing how tactless people can be—tussling in front of the artist like that. “It’s not worth two thousand quid!” “Well, I think it is!” Usually I keep schtum, but on that occasion I butted in and told the daughter she was crazy.’
It didn’t sound crazy to Charlie. Two thousand quid? Was there any reason for art to be so expensive?
‘I don’t mind if people genuinely can’t afford it,’ said Jan. ‘But in this case, it wasn’t about money. The daughter said the paintings were cold and unforgiving, that they had a “rotten soul”—I’ve never forgotten that. She was talking nonsense, and her mother looked upset by it, so I gave her a piece of my mind. Thank goodness Aidan didn’t hear her.’
‘Did Aidan talk to you about his personal life?’ Charlie asked.
‘Not really. Apart from jokingly.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He once told me he had a stalker. When we were hanging his exhibition.’
Charlie tried not to look too eager.
‘Oh, he wasn’t worried about it or anything like that. He sounded almost flattered. He wasn’t being entirely serious, I don’t think.’
‘Do you remember anything else he said?’
Jan’s face creased in concentration. ‘Something about having to let her have her way with him because she wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was very tongue in cheek, though. I said something like, “It’s a hard life when you’re in demand,” and he laughed. He referred to fate, too—fate kept throwing them together, something like that.’