The Art of Murder (19 page)

‘I’d be happy to assist if you have any questions of an artistic nature. Anything I can do to help catch the person who killed my friends.’

Pendragon felt surprised for a second, then glanced at his watch. ‘Would later this afternoon be okay?’ he asked. ‘Say two o’clock?’

At that moment the funeral carriage started to move off slowly towards the cemetery two hundred yards along the road.

‘Do you know Alberto’s on Pandora Lane, off Stepney Green?’

‘I’ll find it,’ Pendragon said, and watched the artist turn away into the throng and descend the stairs carefully.

‘I was terribly shocked,’ Gemma said, staring straight into Pendragon’s eyes as she lifted a coffee cup to her mouth. She took a sip and settled the cup back in its saucer. ‘We all were. Kingsley could be a pig … a tough negotiator. There were times I wished he represented me,’ she added with a laugh. ‘But, deep down, he was a nice man and absolutely committed to the cause of art.’

‘I’ve heard others say that,’ Pendragon replied. ‘But I’ve also heard the opposite.’

‘Oh, don’t tell me … Francis.’

Pendragon nodded and drank some coffee.

‘I imagine you have him high on your list of suspects.’

‘We did. Brought him in for questioning, as a matter of fact, but he has a water-tight alibi.’

‘He’s also a baby, Inspector. Hardly the type to kill anyone, especially in the way these people were killed.’

‘Can you help fill out some details about Berrick and Thursk?’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Did you know Mr Berrick had underworld connections?’

Gemma Locke looked surprised and was about to say something when she seemed to change her mind. There was silence for a moment, then she said, ‘I didn’t know that. But actually, come to think of it, it’s not that unexpected.’

‘It isn’t?’

‘No. I think that on some level the world of the art dealer and that of the gangster are not so far apart. I think you’d be surprised just how seedy things can be on the art scene.’

‘Illuminate me.’

‘Argh! I don’t have precise facts and figures, Inspector,’ Gemma laughed, and took another sip of coffee. ‘I’m an artist. Oh, God! That sounds pretentious, doesn’t it?’

It was Pendragon’s turn to laugh. ‘Not really. You
are
an artist.’ And he drained his cup.

‘I just hear stories. We all do. I think it takes a specific type of person to sell art. It’s a difficult business at the best of times – shark-infested waters.’

‘Yes, I can imagine.’ Pendragon nodded to her cup.
‘Another?’ He called the waitress over and ordered two more coffees.

‘What about Noel Thursk? Can you imagine any connections between him and Berrick, apart from the obvious?’

‘What would you call obvious, Inspector?’

‘Look, if I’m going to call you Gemma …’

‘You must be Jack?’ She laughed, and Pendragon nodded and found himself giving the woman a flirtatious smile. He only realised after he had done it and felt suddenly ridiculous. But then he concluded that Gemma Locke hadn’t noticed anyway.

‘Noel and Kingsley had known each other a long time. I think they were occasional lovers. But then, if I tried to work out the labyrinthine sexual relations between all the gay men I know, I would soon be lost. I know they had frequent fallings-out. But again, nothing unusual in that. They were on friendly terms when I saw them last …’ And her voice trailed off as though she had suddenly remembered that the two men were dead.

‘Did they clash over the book Thursk was supposed to be writing?’

Gemma looked up sharply. ‘What book?’

It was Pendragon’s turn to be surprised. He had assumed Thursk’s associates would have known about it. ‘His projected book about Juliette Kinnear?’

‘Oh, that!’ Gemma shook her head dismissively. ‘I’d forgotten about it. But then, I think Noel had too, bless him. It was a bit of a joke, wasn’t it?’

Pendragon shrugged. ‘You tell me.’

The coffees arrived and Gemma Locke leaned forward
to blow gently across the foam on top of her latte. ‘He started it years ago,’ she went on. ‘Interviewed everyone. All very serious. He never stopped spouting off about his big book deal. But then everyone seemed to lose interest, Noel especially. I assumed the whole thing had been quietly dropped.’ She stirred the coffee and lifted the cup a few inches above the saucer. ‘Anyway, Jack, I thought you wanted to ask me some more technical questions.’

‘Yes,’ Pendragon said. ‘I’d love to pick your brain, learn some more about contemporary British art. But somehow I’m not convinced it will bring me any closer to the killer.’

‘But with the third murder, it’s obvious there’s a strong link.’

‘Well, yes, but that was already pretty clear after Thursk’s body was found. I don’t think there are any clues to the murderer’s identity in the choice of painting or even artist, other than the fact they’re all modern painters. I suppose you could vaguely label the three of them – Magritte, Dali and Bacon – Surrealist, couldn’t you?’

‘Yes, but those tableaux were all particularly gory examples, weren’t they? Not all modern artists paint such striking themes. There are plenty of calmer, more peaceful images.’

‘But they would not be so readily adaptable by our murderer.’

‘It might still be early days.’

‘Oh Lord! Don’t say that!’ Pendragon exclaimed.

‘I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me. It’s just …’

‘Just what?’

‘Well, the sheer violence of this killer. I get the feeling
that whoever they are, they’re motivated by some deep-rooted fury. It must have taken an awful lot of effort to create the tableaux described in the newspaper. The murderer is either driven by a manic sense of revenge and hatred, or else they want to make a big point with the killings.’

‘Showing off?’

‘I guess so.’

‘And your suggestion is that, either way, it doesn’t look like they’ve finished the job just yet,’ Pendragon concluded grimly, drinking down his coffee and pushing away the empty cup. He beckoned the waitress so he could get the bill, and started to rummage in his pocket.

‘Let me,’ Gemma said.

‘Certainly not. You’ve been offering useful information to the police – definitely my shout!’

She laughed. ‘Well, if you put it like that.’ Then she paused for a second, clearly weighing up whether or not to say something.

‘What?’

‘How about I return the favour?’

Pendragon gave her a questioning look.

‘I have two tickets to a concert – tonight, at the Barbican.’

Pendragon could not disguise his surprise. ‘Well, yes …’ he stumbled.

‘Don’t you want to know what’s on first?’ Gemma laughed.

‘No … well, yes.’

‘It’s a theremin performance.’

‘Oh … interesting.’

She gave him a sceptical look, tilting her head to one side.

‘No, really,’ Pendragon said quickly. ‘I like all sorts of music. And the theremin is … unusual.’

Gemma clapped her hands together. ‘I never know when to believe you,’ she said. ‘I quite like that. Okay, how does seven-thirty sound? I’ll pick you up at your place if you give me the address?’

‘Sounds good to me.’

Pendragon was staring into space, his feet up on his desk, chair tilted back. Outwardly, he might have been recalling a favourite holiday or reliving some other fond memory, but in fact his mind was churning over the facts of his current investigation. For him this was a pleasurable exercise, in spite of the gruesome details. Naturally, he wanted to solve the puzzle as quickly as possible. He had Superintendent Hughes breathing down his neck for a start, and she would have her boss, Commander Ferguson, breathing down hers, but Pendragon had become a policeman primarily because he loved solving puzzles. For him the thrill of what he did lay in the intellectual exercise, the chase. But there was no denying that this case was proving frustrating, to say the least.

Three murders, each incredibly contrived … the most contrived he had ever experienced, in fact. In spite of what he had said to Gemma Locke about the choice of paintings, he couldn’t get out of his head the idea that there was some sort of message in the way the bodies had been arranged. Why would anyone do this? That was the question underlying the whole investigation. But all he had to go on were scraps, a few of the jigsaw pieces, and so many others were still missing. The solution seemed to
be receding rather than becoming clearer. The first two murders had been linked in more ways than their gory scenarios. The two victims had known each other, intimately. It had even seemed possible then that the killings were somehow linked to the personal relationships within the relatively small group of artists and dealers in the East End. But then Pendragon had been thrown two curveballs. The first was the fact that Kingsley Berrick had gangland connections, and then, more importantly perhaps, the fact that the third victim, Michael O’Leary, had been a priest with seemingly no connection whatsoever to the art community.

Pendragon pushed back his chair and swung his legs off the desk. He leaned forward and punched in the number of a local pub, the Duke of Norfolk. It was Sammy Samson’s favourite and he could usually be found there at most times of the day. Jack spoke to the landlord, Denny West, who had always been civil towards the DCI, and in a few moments Sammy was on the other end of the line.

‘Jack, old boy. What may I do you for?’

‘A little more digging, Sammy. If you’re up for it?’

‘Always happy to help.’

‘Good. I’m after any information you can find on a company called Rembrandt Industries … Yes, as in the painter. It was the one who rented the warehouse in West India Quay, remember? My lads are doing their bit, but I wondered if you’d heard anything about the firm on the grapevine.’

‘Can’t say I have, dear boy. But that doesn’t mean I won’t … if there’s anything to find out. What sort of thing do you want to know?’

‘Well, they seem to be a fly-by-night operation. I’d be particularly interested if any of your associates had had any dealings with them, anything at all.’

‘All right, leave it with me.’

Pendragon put the phone down and dialled Colette Newman’s number at the Lambeth Forensics Lab.

‘Inspector,’ she said, ‘we must have a telepathic connection. I was just about to call you.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’ve found something I think you might be very interested in.’

‘A DNA trace?’

‘Can you come over?’

‘Absolutely. I’m putting on my coat as we speak.’

Pendragon strode along the corridor. It was quiet and he realised he had lost all track of the time. Glancing at his watch, he was surprised to see it was only five o’clock. He nodded to Terry Vickers who was on duty at the front desk and stepped out into the freezing evening. The traffic was building up, but he felt unusually calm as he drove along the slushy streets. It was good to be alone, without even Turner in the seat beside him. He had always been a private – even occasionally isolated and closed-off – man who enjoyed his own company, but for the past six months, he had been unusually busy and it was only at moments such as this that he realised how claustrophobic and intense his London life was. He suddenly felt the press of people all around him.

He’d had an active, busy professional life with the Thames Valley Police, and had enjoyed his work there, but it had not been quite so full-on. Although he had not
realised it at the time he was working in Oxford, he had been ready for a big change. Then Jean had left him, forcing him into a life-altering situation, and, strangely perhaps, that change had energised him, kick-started something that was long overdue.

He still only vaguely understood his reasons for returning to the place of his birth. Intellectually, it was obvious. He was trying to reclaim the security of childhood, hoping to return to a simpler, more innocent time. But, on an emotional level, he could not quite come to grips with this thought. He was far too much of a rationalist to do that. He could recognise emotional frailty in others, but found it inconceivable that the idea could apply to himself.

The streetlights flashed by; the icy slush off the road slapped against the underside of the car. From far away, he could hear a siren and glimpsed the flashing light of an ambulance down a side street. By the time he reached the Forensics Laboratory on Lambeth Road, he felt himself engulfed in an almost Zen-like calm he had not experienced in years.

‘Inspector,’ Dr Newman said, opening the door on to the corridor outside her office. She waved him to a chair and handed him a read-out. He tried to decipher it as he sat down. Colette Newman perched herself on the edge of the desk. She was wearing an unbuttoned white lab coat with, underneath this, her usual ensemble of knee-length skirt and pristine blouse.

‘We found some strands of waxed cotton and paint that match those from the cherry-picker,’ she told him. ‘Also, samples of blood and tissue from both of the first two
victims, Berrick and Thursk. But the most interesting thing is this read-out.’ She handed the DCI a single sheet of paper that had been lying on the desk. ‘There were half a dozen hairs on the floor close to the metal hole punch in the warehouse,’ she said, coming straight to the point. ‘Long blonde hairs, so clearly not from any of the three victims. It was a bit touch and go getting a usable DNA sample from them, but we managed it.’

‘So it’s a question of hoping we can get a match from the national database?’

‘It’s done.’

‘What?’ Pendragon looked astonished, then shook his head. ‘Fantastic.’

‘Sort of.’ Dr Newman tapped at her keyboard and turned the screen so they could both see it. ‘Here.’ And she positioned her index finger a millimetre from the screen. ‘We have ten matching markers linking the sample from the hairs in the warehouse with this individual on the database, number 3464858r.’

‘Well, that’s pretty conclusive, isn’t it?’

‘Oh definitely. There’s no doubt that the hair belongs to this person. That wasn’t the problem, but the “r” in the designation was. It stands for “restricted”.’

‘Ah.’

‘Yes, ah. Naturally I got on to the database administration centre right away. But they knocked me back. Seems there are levels of “r” ratings in the database designation system. The highest level “r” is given to politicians, senior civil servants and top military brass. But until the rules were tightened up in the late nineties, it was also awarded to a few very wealthy private citizens.’