Banks had loved the smell of old bookshops ever since he was a child, and Leslie Whitaker’s Antiquarian Books and Prints, in the maze of cobbled alleys at the back of the police station, was no exception. It stood in a row of particularly ancient shops with low, crooked beams and mullioned bay windows thick as magnifying glass. On one side was a tobacconist’s, with its wooden bowls of exotic pipe tobaccos, and on the other, J. W. Allen, apothecary, with the antique blue, green and red bottles in the window. Purely for the tourists, of course.
The bell jangled over the door as Banks entered. It was hard to define the smell, a mix of dust, leather and paper, even a spot of mildew, perhaps, but its effect was as comforting to Banks as that of freshly mown hay, or bread straight from the baker’s oven. Something to do with a childhood spent in the children’s library and many days as a teenager spent browsing in secondhand bookshops. He paused on the threshold to inhale and savor the sensation, then presented his warrant card to the man shelving books across the room.
“A chief inspector, indeed,” Whitaker said. “And on a Saturday afternoon, too. I am honored.”
“We’re short-staffed,” Banks said. While this was partly true, it was not the real reason he often made such routine calls himself. Most chief inspectors spent their careers behind desks piled high with paper, or in meetings thrashing out details of budget and manpower, paper clips and databases, cost-effective policing, flow charts and value assessments. While Banks had plenty of that to do, he also liked to keep his hand in, liked to stay close to the street policing he had grown up with. It was partly a matter of solidarity with the troops, who appreciated that their boss would often carry out the same tedious, dead-end tasks as they did, even get his hands dirty; and partly selfishness, because Banks hated paperwork and loved getting out there and sniffing out the lie or the possible lead. Some of the young turks who had come up through accelerated promotion schemes didn’t understand why he just wouldn’t settle down to “administrative” duties, which was what many of them aspired to in the long run.
Banks’s instincts as a working detective had developed enough over the years, and his success rate was high enough, that neither Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe nor Assistant Chief Constable Ron McLaughlin stood in his way. And if Banks also chose to interview a suspect – a task usually carried out by a lowly DC, or DS at the highest, and one which most people above the rank of inspector had forgotten how to do – then that was fine with his bosses, too, as he had a knack for the thrust and parry, or the subtle persuasiveness of a good interrogation.
All Banks knew so far was that Leslie Whitaker had taken over the business from his father, Ernest, who had died two years ago. There was a framed photograph of what Banks took to be the two of them on Whitaker’s desk. He didn’t correspond with Banks’s mental image of an antiquarian book dealer, though the picture of the wispy-haired man in the ill-fitting sweater was a bit of a stereotype. Whitaker was in his early forties, dressed in a light-gray suit, white shirt and maroon tie. His short dark hair was thinning a bit at the temples, but the look suited him. He looked fit and well muscled. Banks supposed that, with his strong chin and clear blue eyes, women, and perhaps even men, found him handsome. He had no criminal record, and DS Hatchley, who knew everything about these matters, hadn’t been able to unearth any gossip about him.
“What can I do for you?” Whitaker asked. “Do please sit down.”
He sat behind his ancient polished desk at the rear of the shop and gestured Banks to a hard-backed chair. Banks sat. “It’s information I’m after, really,” he said.
“Some crime in the book world?”
“Art world, actually. Or so it appears.”
“Well, that would certainly make more sense. The art world’s rife with crime.”
“I suppose you’ve heard about the fire on the canal boats?”
“Yes. Tragic. Terrible business.”
“We have reason to believe that one of the victims was an artist called Thomas McMahon. I believe you knew him?”
“Tom McMahon? Good Lord. I had no idea.”
“So you did know him?”
“Tom? Well, yes, vaguely. I mean, I’d no idea where he was living or what he was up to, but I know him – knew him – yes.”
“From what context?”
“I sell his work. Or rather, I liaise between Tom and the various craft markets, shops and boutiques throughout the dale that sell the landscapes he paints. And a few years ago, when he was regarded as an up-and-coming artist, I collected a couple of his paintings and even managed to sell a few.”
“What happened?”
“He just never took off. It happens more often than you’d think. The art world’s brutal, and it’s very difficult to break into. He had a big exhibition at the community center, and I thought maybe he had a chance, but… in the end he just didn’t make the grade.”
“Was he talented?”
“Talented?” Whitaker frowned. “Yes, of course. But what does that have to do with anything?”
Banks laughed. “Well, I’ve seen enough squiggles on blank canvases selling for thousands to know what you mean, but it was a genuine question.”
Whitaker pursed his lips. “Tom’s technique was excellent,” he said, “but derivative. When it came right down to it, he just wasn’t very original.”
That was exactly what Maria Phillips had said. “Derivative of whom?”
“He was all over the map, really. Romantic landscapes. Pre-Raphaelites. Impressionism. Surrealism. Cubism. That was the problem with Tom; he didn’t have any particular distinctive style, nothing you could point to with any amount of certainty and say that’s a Thomas McMahon.”
“So the paintings you bought…?”
“Worthless.”
“Doesn’t his death change that?”
Whitaker laughed. “I see what you’re getting at. Many artists didn’t get famous until after they were dead. Van Gogh, for one. But he was an original. I don’t think death is going to make Thomas McMahon’s works immortal, or valuable. No, Mr. Banks, I’m afraid I have no motive for getting rid of Tom McMahon, and I didn’t exactly pay a fortune for the paintings in the first place.”
Again, it was much the same as Maria had told him. “I wasn’t implying that you had a motive,” said Banks. “I’m simply trying to get at who might benefit from his death.”
“Nobody I can think of. It can’t have been easy for him, though,” mused Whitaker.
“Why not?”
“Failure’s never easy to handle, is it?”
Banks, who had missed nabbing more than one obvious villain in his career, knew how true that was. He remembered the failures more than the successes, and every one of them galled him. “I suppose not,” he said.
“I mean you head out of a successful exhibition thinking you’re Pablo Picasso, and the next day people don’t even bother reading your name in the bottom right-hand corner of the canvas. Then all you’ve got left to give them is nothing more than a sort of glorified photograph to remind them of their holiday in the Dales. So much for artistic vision and truth.”
“Is that how McMahon felt?”
“I can’t say for certain. He never talked about it. But I know it’s how I’d feel. Forgive me, I’m just extrapolating.”
“But you sell these ‘glorified photographs’ – or at least you help to.”
“For a commission, yes. It’s a business.”
“I understand McMahon was also a customer of yours?”
Whitaker shifted in his chair and glanced at the top shelf of books. “He dropped by the shop from time to time.”
“What did he buy?” Banks looked around at the leather-bound books and the bins of unframed prints and drawings. “I’d have thought your fare was a bit pricey for the likes of Thomas McMahon,” he said.
“They’re not all expensive. Many books and prints, even old ones, are hardly worth more than the paper they were printed on. It’s actually quite rare to come across the sort of find that makes your pulse race.”
“So McMahon bought cheap old books and prints?”
“Inexpensive ones.”
“Why?”
“I’ve no idea. I suppose he must have liked them.”
“What did he buy the last time you saw him?”
“An early-nineteenth-century volume of natural history. Nothing special. And the binding was in very poor shape.”
“How much did it cost?”
“Forty pounds. A steal, really.”
Yes, Banks thought, but what was a man squatting on a narrow boat doing spending forty pounds on an old book? He remembered the wet, charred pages he’d seen on the boat with Geoff Hamilton. Well, McMahon was an artist, and perhaps he just loved old books and prints. “Can you tell me anything about his state of mind?”
“He seemed fine whenever I saw him. In very good spirits, really. He even so much as hinted that things might be on the up for him.”
“Was he specific?”
“No. It was just when I asked him how he was, you know, as you do. Well, you don’t really expect much more than ‘fine, thanks’ as a reply, do you? But he said he was thriving and that they might think they could grind old Tom down but he’d still got a trick or two up his sleeve. He often referred to himself in the third person.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
Whitaker shrugged. “Didn’t say. The world in general, I assumed. The ones who refused to recognize his talent and buy his masterpieces.”
“And what trick did he have to show them?”
“No idea. I’m merely reporting what he said. Tom always tended to talk a good game, as they say.”
“You think there was any truth to it, that his fortunes were improving?”
“Who can say? Not from sales to the tourists, they weren’t.”
“So you hadn’t noticed any decline in him? In his appearance or mental state?”
“Quite the opposite, really. I mean, Tom was never the model of sartorial elegance – he was always a bit paint-stained and disheveled – but his clothes sense seemed to have improved. He’d also lost a bit of weight. And mentally, I’d say he was in good spirits.”
“Was he ever married?”
“I think he might have been, once upon a time, but if he was, it was long before he fetched up here in Eastvale.”
“Womanizer?”
“No, not really.”
“Men? Little boys?”
“No, don’t get me wrong. Tom wasn’t that way inclined. He liked women, even had the occasional girlfriend, but nothing lasted. There was only one love for him, and that was art. It was always his art that came first – came even before such mundane matters as punctuality and thoughtfulness, if you see what I mean. And it was such a damn shame that his art wasn’t really worth much to anyone else.”
Banks nodded. Whitaker might as well have been describing a policeman’s lot. He’d forgotten his share of dates and anniversaries because he’d been too involved in a case. That was partly why his marriage had ended. The miracle was, he realized only later, that it had lasted so long in the first place. He had assumed everything was fine because Sandra was an independent spirit and got on with her own life. And so she did – ultimately to the extent of taking up with Sean, dumping Banks and getting pregnant in her mid-forties. And now she was a mother again. “Any particular girlfriends you remember?” he asked.
“Well, he was rather taken by young Heather. Can’t remember her second name. Worked in the artists’ supplies shop down York Road. I can’t say I blame him. She was quite a stunner. Real page-three material. I don’t think she’s there anymore, though the owner might know where she is. Much too young for Tom, of course. He was asking for grief, there.”
“How old was he?”
“It was about five years back, so he’d have been in his late thirties.”
“And Heather?”
“Early twenties.”
“Serious?”
“On his part. He was quite broken up when she traded him in for a more successful artist. That was one of the few times I saw him pissed. I think it really depressed him, you know, feeling all washed-up as an artist, and then his girl chucks him for someone more successful. That was about as low as I ever saw him.”
Well, that would do it, thought Banks. “Who did she leave him for?”
“Jake Harley. Glib bastard, I must say. Up-and-comer at the time, but I’m happy to report that he went nowhere, too. He didn’t have the guts to live with his failure, though. He committed suicide about eighteen months ago down in London. Of course, he’d split with Heather ages before then.”
“And you don’t know where she is now?”
“Sorry. Haven’t clapped eyes on her in about three years. Sam Prescott might know, though. He still runs the shop.”
“You don’t know of any more recent girlfriends?”
Whitaker shook his head.
“Was he ever with anyone when he came in here, male or female?”
“No. He was always alone.”
“Did he ever mention anyone, any names at all?”
“No, not that I can recall. But he was always a bit of a loner, especially after Heather.”
Banks stood up and stretched out his hand. “Well, thanks very much, Mr. Whitaker. You’ve been a great help.”
“I can’t see how, but you’re welcome, I’m sure.”
“Can you think of anyone else we might talk to about McMahon?”
Whitaker thought for a moment. “Not really.” He mentioned a couple of artists whose names Banks had already heard from Maria Phillips. It sounded to Banks as if McMahon had shed his earlier life and friends and cut off all contact with the old world, the world that had burned him, had refused to recognize his talent. Whether he had found new friends or adopted the life of a recluse, the way it seemed, remained to be seen. And why had he been buying worthless old books and prints from Leslie Whitaker?
Annie had been around enough artists in her time to recognize the type. Baz Hayward had adopted the persona of the suffering, world-weary, misunderstood, dissolute genius, justifying all his excesses and his total lack of talent and social graces by his devotion to art – right down to the beard, the ragged clothes and the body odor. Whether he really did have any talent or not, she didn’t know. Some of the most obnoxious people she had ever known possessed immense talent, though many of them squandered it.
Hayward bade her wait for a moment while he finished off some essential brushstrokes to a painting he was working on. Smiling to herself over the pathetic arrogance of his need to seem important, Annie wandered over and looked out of the window. She knew she could play the heavy if she wanted, but luckily she was in a good mood because she was going to dinner with Phil tonight, all being well.
Hayward lived in a converted barn on the high road between Lyndgarth and Helmthorpe. It was an isolated spot with a spectacular view down the slope past the stubby ruins of Devraulx Abbey to the drizzle-darkened flagstone roofs of Fortford, where Phil’s cottage was. Smoke from chimneys drifted slowly eastward on the faint breeze, bringing a hint of peat to the air. On the steeply rising slopes of the south daleside, beyond the clustered cottages of Mortsett and Relton, Annie could see the imposing symmetry of Swainsdale Hall.
It was odd to see the hall from this perspective, she realized. Only last summer, she had spent some time there, heading the search for a missing boy. Today, no smoke came from the high chimneys. Annie guessed that ex-footballer Martin Armitage was in Florida or the West Indies with his wife, ex-model Robin Fetherling. Well, good for them. There wasn’t much left for them at Swainsdale Hall now.
Hayward’s loft was chilly and Annie kept her greatcoat on. The cold didn’t seem to bother Hayward himself, though, who was prancing around waving his paintbrush, wearing torn jeans and a dirty white T-shirt. If he’d been at the Turner reception, Annie didn’t remember him.
She had been surprised to hear from Banks that Thomas McMahon had also been there, and when she cast her mind back, she thought she remembered a short, burly fellow with a glass of wine in his hand chatting to some of the center’s committee members. It had been a crowded room, though, and she had been there partly to keep an eye on the painting in the adjoining room, so she could easily have missed both McMahon and Hayward.
Annie had met Phil Keane at the reception. He was there in his professional capacity as an art researcher to help authenticate the find. They hadn’t talked much that evening, but Phil had phoned her a few weeks later and asked her out to dinner. She’d been busy – it wasn’t an excuse – but he had phoned again a week later, as she suggested. That time, she accepted. They had seen each other only four or five times since then, because of the pressures of their work, but each time Annie found herself becoming more and more attracted to his charm, his consideration and his intellect – not to mention his graceful and finely honed body. She was also inordinately pleased to find that Phil had heard of her father’s work.
Finally, she heard Hayward throw down the brush and play himself a brief fanfare. “Finished.”
“It’s a wonderful view,” Annie said, gesturing toward the window.
“What?” Hayward looked confused. “Oh, yes,” he said, catching on, “I suppose it is, if you like that sort of thing. Personally I think landscapes are vastly overrated, and landscape painting died with the invention of the camera. It just hasn’t had the decency to roll over and accept the fact. A good digital camera can do anything the Impressionists ever did.”
“That’s an interesting way of looking at it,” said Annie, perching on the edge of the only uncluttered chair. Discarded clothes littered the floor and mold grew in a half-empty coffee cup on the low table. She was glad he didn’t offer her tea or coffee. But it was the walls that disturbed Annie most of all. They were covered with what she could only assume to be Hayward’s own sketches and paintings, all looking like Rorschach tests painted by Francis Bacon on drugs. The whole effect was dizzying and disturbing, and it made her vaguely queasy, though she wasn’t at first sure why. Still, they must sell, she thought, or he wouldn’t be able to afford this place.
“It is, isn’t it?” said Hayward, waving his hand dismissively. “I try to break free from conventional ways of thinking and living. Anyway, it’s the isolation I like. I keep the curtains closed most of the time.”
“Good idea,” said Annie. “Thomas McMahon. You were friends once. What happened?”
“Tom? Friends?” He ran his hand through his lank, greasy hair. “Yes, I suppose we were, in a way.”
“Did you have a falling-out?”
“I disagreed with his artistic direction, or lack of one – the kind of abstract effects he was working on went out with the Cubists, and then there were those dreadful landscapes he churned out for the tourist trade.”
“To pay the rent?”
“I suppose so. But rent’s not that important in the grand scheme of things, is it?”
Annie felt glad she wasn’t Hayward’s landlord. “When did you last see him?”
“Must have been four, five years ago.”
“Not since?”
“No. He just sort of dropped out of the scene. What scene there is.” Hayward scratched his crotch. “I saw less of him. He became more distant and moody. In the end, I didn’t even know where he was living. I thought he’d left town.”
“You didn’t bump into him at the Turner reception last summer, then?”
Hayward pulled a face. “Do me a favor. Turner? You think I’d waste my time with that sort of tripe?”
“Of course,” Annie said. “Forgive me. I should have known. Despite the fact that you didn’t approve of McMahon’s art, did you have any sort of personal falling-out?”
“No. We were always on good terms. Polite terms, at any rate. And whatever it was he did, it wasn’t art.”
“But you’ve no idea what he was up to more recently?”
“None at all.”
“His work hasn’t appeared anywhere?”
“Thank God, no.”
“Would it surprise you to hear that we think he was squatting on a boat on the canal, a boat that was set on fire on Thursday night, killing him and the girl on the neighboring boat?”
If Annie had any hopes of shocking Hayward into some sort of decent human reaction, they were soon dashed. “No,” he said. “Nothing really surprises me anymore. Except art. And even that doesn’t surprise me as often as it used to. As Diaghilev said to Jean Cocteau, ‘Étonne moi.’ Ha! If only.”
“Do you have any idea why anyone would want to kill Tom McMahon?”
“For painting bad pictures?”
“Mr. Hayward.”
Hayward grinned. “A bit too brutal for you, that, was it? Too close to the bone?”
“You seem to be very aware of the effects you’re striving for,” Annie said. “I’d be careful that it doesn’t give a sort of stiff, wooden aspect to your art. That kind of arrogant, straining self-consciousness can be quite counterproductive, you know.”
“What would you know about it?”
“Nothing. Just an opinion.”
“Uninformed opinion is about as interesting as a Constable landscape.”
“Ah,” said Annie, who thought Constable landscapes quite interesting. More interesting than what was on Hayward’s walls, anyway. She was getting nowhere here, and Hayward was clearly far too wrapped up in himself to be capable of noticing anyone else’s existence, let alone killing anyone. It was time to go.
“Look,” said Hayward, when Annie got up to walk to the door, “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help to you, but I really haven’t seen Tom in years, and I’ve no idea what he did with his life. He just wasn’t a very original painter, that’s all.”
“That’s okay,” said Annie. “Thanks for your time.”
Hayward stood in the doorway, leaning on the jamb and blocking the exit. “Maybe your visit wasn’t entirely wasted, though,” he said.
Annie felt her breath tighten in her throat. “Oh?” she said.
“No. I mean, there are often other purposes, aren’t there? Hidden purposes. You do something for one reason, at least on the surface, but it turns out there’s an underlying, deeper reason you just weren’t conscious of. A more important reason. Fate, perhaps.”
“Speak English, Baz. And get out of my way.”
Hayward stood his ground. “I’d like to paint you,” he announced, beaming, as if offering her a place on the Queen’s honors list.
“Paint me?”
“Yes. We could start now, if you like. Perhaps some preliminary sketches?”
Annie looked around at the walls. She knew now what it was that disturbed her about the artwork hanging there. Every piece, either charcoal sketch or color painting, was of a gaping vagina. It was hardly an original idea – the flower-like symmetry and individuality of female genitals had excited artists for years – and Annie was open-minded as far as most things were concerned. But being in this room, surrounded by garish paintings of them, and knowing that the odious Baz Hayward was now quite openly staring at the inverted V of her jeans between her legs, where her greatcoat gaped open, gave her the creeps.
She grabbed his wrist so quickly he had no time to stop her, twisted his arm behind his back and pushed him into the room. He stumbled into the easel, knocking the painting he had been working on to the floor. Then Annie pulled her coat tight around her waist, fastened the belt, said, “Fuck off, Baz,” and left.
When Banks walked down the front steps of Eastvale General Infirmary, it was already dark, and the drizzle had turned into a late-afternoon mist that blurred the shop lights on King Street. For some reason, he was overcome with a vivid memory of a similar afternoon when he was fifteen or sixteen, when he’d been upstairs on a bus coming home from town, a copy of the Fresh Cream album and the latest Melody Maker tucked under his arm. Looking out at the yellow halos of the streetlights and the hazy neon signs, he had lit a cigarette and it had tasted magnificent, by far the best cigarette he had ever smoked. He could taste it now, and he automatically reached in his pocket. Of course, there were no cigarettes in his pocket. He looked across King Street at the light in the newsagent’s window, bleary in the late-afternoon mist, strongly tempted to dash over and buy a packet. Just ten. He’d smoke only the ten and then no more. But he got a grip on himself, turned his collar up and trudged up the hill to the station.
Christine Aspern’s body had been in far better shape than Tom McMahon’s. In fact, the skin that had been covered by the sleeping bag was not charred, but pale and waxy, like that of most corpses. It was only her face and hands, where she had suffered second-degree burns, that had been at all blackened or blistered by the fire. The blisters were also a sign, Dr. Glendenning said, that the victim was probably alive when the fire began, though a small amount of blistering can occur after death. Given the other evidence, though, he would surmise that the blistering in Tina’s case was postmortem.
Dr. Glendenning had approached the autopsy with his usual concern for detail and confirmed that, pending toxicology results that probably wouldn’t be in until Monday afternoon at the earliest, this being the weekend, she had died, like Thomas McMahon, of asphyxiation due to smoke inhalation, and most likely not from a heroin overdose.
As in the case of McMahon, Glendenning had also found thermal injury to the mouth and nose but not lower down, in the tracheal area. He had found only trace amounts of soot below the larynx, indicating that Christine was most likely unconscious when the fire started.
There was always the chance that Danny Boy’s heroin had been unusually pure and that she had died of an overdose before or during the fire, but Banks was willing to bet she was probably just on the nod. Mark had already told him that she had injected herself that evening. She wouldn’t have been the first junkie to lie there in the cocoon of safety and emptiness she had created for herself while the flames consumed her flesh. Either way, there was no evidence of foul play other than the starting of the fire itself, and going by the splash patterns and accelerant tests Geoff Hamilton had carried out, the arsonist had probably not even set foot on Mark and Christine’s boat.
It was late Saturday afternoon and the duty constables were bringing in a couple of drunken Eastvale United supporters when Banks got to the station. Eastvale was hardly a premier-division team, but that didn’t stop some fans from acting as if they were at a Leeds versus Manchester United match. Banks edged around the wobbly group and headed upstairs to the relative peace of his office, grabbing the handful of completed actions from his pigeonhole on the way. He slipped off his raincoat, kicked the heater to get it started and turned on his radio to a Radio 3 special about Bud Powell on Jazz Line Up.
As he listened to “A Night in Tunisia,” he flipped through the actions and found only one of immediate interest.
According to her ex-employer Sam Prescott, Heather Burnett, the girl from the art supplies shop who had left Thomas McMahon for Jake Harley, had later left Harley himself for an American installation specialist called Nate Ulrich, and they now lived in Palo Alto, California. Well, it had been a long shot in the first place, Banks thought.
Because it was the weekend, things were slow. Banks didn’t expect any preliminary forensic results, including analysis of clothing samples and toxicology, until early Tuesday. He still needed to know who had owned the boats, but as yet DC Templeton hadn’t got very far with his inquiries. There was a good chance he might have to wait until Monday or later to find someone who knew, maybe someone from British Waterways.
Then there was the car to consider, the dark blue Jeep Cherokee, or Range Rover, whatever it was, that had been seen parked in the lay-by nearest the boats. It was probably a waste of time, as there would be so many of them to check out, but Banks issued the actions anyway. He also ordered a survey of all the car-rental agencies in the area. There was a good chance that if someone was out to break the law, he might not want to use his own car when visiting McMahon in case he was spotted. Also, if he knew the roads in the immediate area of the boats, he would know that a Jeep was a much better option than an ordinary car, especially in winter.
Banks had no sooner issued the action than his phone rang.
“Alan, it’s Ken.” DI Ken Blackstone, phoning from Leeds. “We sent a couple of lads over to interview that dealer you mentioned, Benjamin Scott.”
“That was quick. Must be a slow day down there.”
“United’s away this week. Anyway, we leaned on him a bit – seems there were small amounts of suspicious substances in his flat – and he’s got a watertight alibi. He was in Paris with his girlfriend when the fire started.”
“How the other half lives. You’re sure?”
“She verified it, and they showed us used tickets, credit card receipts, gave us the number of the hotel. Want me to phone?”
“No, it’s all right, Ken. It was only a vague possibility. Look, do you happen to know anything about a bloke called Aspern, a Dr. Patrick Aspern?”
“I can’t say I do, not off the top of my head. Why?”
“He’s the dead girl’s stepfather, and her boyfriend’s made a rather serious accusation. There might be something in it. Think you could check around, see if there’s anything on him?”
“Can do.”
“And there’s no need to be too discreet about your inquiries.”
“Understood. Where’s he live?”
“Adel.”
“That’ll be Weetwood station. I know a DI there. I’ll get back to you after the weekend. It’s been a while. How’s things?”
“Not bad,” said Banks.
“Sandra?”
“A distant memory.”
“She’s had the baby?”
“She’s had the baby. Sinéad. Nice of you to ask, Ken. Mother and child are doing fine.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know it was still such a touchy point. Any chance you’ll be down in my neck of the woods again soon?”
“Depends on how the case goes. And what you dig up on Aspern, of course.”
“Well, if you’ve got time, give me a bell. We can go out for a curry and a piss-up. My sofa’s yours anytime. You know that.”
“Thanks, Ken. I’ll likely take you up on that soon. Talk to you later.”
“Bye.”
Banks tapped his ballpoint on the desk. He didn’t really expect anything to come of inquiries into Patrick Aspern. If Mark’s accusation was to be believed, whatever went on was a family matter, in more ways than one, and they might never be able to find any evidence. Frances Aspern knew something, Banks was certain, but she didn’t seem very likely to talk. Whatever the reason, her relationship with Aspern was important to her; she needed him enough to sacrifice her daughter to him, if, indeed, that was what had happened.
Banks did, however, want Aspern to know that the local police were on his case, which was why he had told Ken Blackstone not to worry about discretion. It would be interesting to see how the good doctor reacted to that. He glanced at his watch. Time to get a few more actions issued, have a chat with Annie about progress so far, then go home. And what would he do there? Well, it wasn’t always Laphroaig and La Cenerentola for Banks. He did, at times, give in to his baser instincts, and tonight he felt like an evening alone with a Chinese take-away, a James Bond DVD – Sean Connery, of course – and a few cans of lager. Ah, the lush life.
Lenny Knox and his wife, Sally, lived on Eastvale’s notorious East Side Estate, a living testament to the fact that it wasn’t only big cities that had problem areas. But like all the big city estates, the East Side Estate also had its share of decent people just trying to make the best of a bad situation, and Lenny was one of them. He was a founding member of the local neighborhood watch, keeping an eye out for drug deals and vandalism. He’d had his own problems when he was a teenager, Mark knew from their conversations, but a short prison sentence in his early twenties had turned him around.
They’d done a fair day’s work when Lenny pulled his rusty old Nissan up outside the terraced house on the estate’s central artery. Street parking wasn’t especially safe in the area, but everyone knew Lenny’s car, and no one dared touch it. Lenny probably thought that was because everyone was scared of him, but Mark thought it more likely because the car was a piece of crap no respectable thief would waste a second glance on. Mark looked around warily as he got out of the car, and it wasn’t because of what Banks had warned him about. He had bad memories of the East Side Estate, and even though he didn’t think Crazy Nick was around anymore, it still paid to be careful. He knew that Nick would kill him if he found him. That was why the boat had been safe. Nick would never think to look anywhere rural like that; if anything, he had even less upstairs than Mark himself.
Mark followed Lenny inside and saw Sal’s look of surprise when he entered. She welcomed her husband with a perfunctory kiss on the cheek and disappeared into the kitchen to make tea. A black cat with half its left ear missing rubbed up against Mark’s leg, then slunk off upstairs.
“Make yourself at home,” Lenny said, pointing to a threadbare armchair.
“Are you sure it’s all right?” Mark asked. “I don’t want to be a bother.”
“Oh, don’t worry about Sal,” he said. “She’ll come around. She always does.”
Mark had seen the expression on Sal’s face, and he wasn’t too certain about that.
Lenny offered Mark a cigarette. “We’ll have a cuppa first,” he said, “just to wash the dust out, then I’ll go get us all some fish and chips and a few cans of lager. Okay?”
Mark reached in his pocket. “I’ve got some money…”
Lenny waved it away. “Don’t be daft. My treat.”
“But-”
“No arguments. You can buy us pizza on payday, all right?”
“Okay.”
Lenny tuned the television set to a snooker game and settled back in his chair. The house smelled faintly of burned bacon and cat’s piss. Mark couldn’t concentrate on the game; he’d never been a big snooker fan, anyway. He couldn’t stop thinking of Tina, couldn’t quite get his head around the fact that she was dead, gone, kaput, and that they’d never again be able to snuggle up to each other against the winter chill in their sleeping bag. His home was gone, too. It might not have been much, but it had meant a lot to them. It was their very own place, an escape from the miserable squat in Leeds, and they’d added a little personal touch here and there – a nice candlestick, a Primus stove to boil water and cook tinned foods on, a framed photo of the two of them on the wall, a mini CD player and a few of their favorite CDs: Beth Orton, David Bowie, Coldplay, System of a Down, Radiohead, Ben Harper.
Tears pricked Mark’s eyes. He couldn’t cry, not in front of Lenny, but he felt like it. What would he do now, without Tina to look after? What was the point of it all? Until he’d met her, his life had been nothing but an aimless mess, and that’s what it would turn into again. He knew people had looked at the way they lived and judged them, but he didn’t care what people thought. One day he and Tina were going to get it all together: home, kids, the lot. Let them laugh. But now… And it was all his fault.
The snooker game droned on. Sal poked her head around the door and said, “Tea’s ready. Can I talk to you a minute, Len?”
Len pulled a long-suffering face for Mark’s benefit, as if to say, Women! Then he dragged himself away from the TV set and went into the kitchen.
When Mark thought of Tina’s stepdad, he felt the voiceless anger boil in him until his hands shook. He had no doubt that Aspern was responsible for Tina’s drug addiction. She had told him that she started doing morphine to dull the pain and humiliation of his sexual advances, and when Aspern caught her at it one day, he started using the drugs as a reward for sexual favors. He’d already given her sedatives before, to make her easier to handle. And he was supposed to be a doctor. The mother knew more than she let on, but she was scared shitless of Aspern, Tina had told him. A mouse. If he so much as raised his voice at her, her lower lip would start to tremble and she’d run away in tears. Tina had nobody to stand up for her. Nobody but Mark. But now it didn’t matter anyway.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he heard Sal saying in the kitchen. “Bringing him here. The kid’s just come out of jail, for Christ’s sake. It’s been all over the news. I knew it was him when I first heard about that fire.”
“I’ve been in jail myself, love,” Lenny said, “but it doesn’t make me a criminal.”
“That’s different. That was years ago. We can’t be responsible for him.”
“Have a heart. The poor kid’s just lost his girlfriend and his home.”
“Home! A clapped-out boat. Lenny, what’s got into you? You’re not usually such a soft touch.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, no doubt he’s spun you a sob story of some sort. Got you thinking he’s the son you never had-”
“Now, wait a minute!”
“No! You wait a minute. You bring him here without asking, without even ringing first to let me know, and you expect me to cook for him, clean up after him? What do you think I am, Lenny, a skivvy? Is that all I am to you? A bloody skivvy?”
“Come on, love.”
“Don’t you ‘love’ me.”
“Sal…”
“Have you thought for just one moment, has it even crossed that tiny little brain of yours, that he might have been the one who set the fire? Have you thought of that?”
“For crying out loud, Sal, Mark wouldn’t do anything like that. Besides, the police let him go.”
“The police are always letting murderers go. Just because they don’t have enough evidence. But it doesn’t mean they don’t know someone did it.”
“Oh, come on. He’s a good kid.”
“Good kid! You won’t be saying that when the bloody house is burning down around you, will you!”
“Sal, I’m not-”
But Mark didn’t hear any more. Tears finally blurring his vision and anger seething inside him, he snatched up his overcoat and dashed out of the door. He was halfway down the street before he heard Lenny shouting after him, but he ignored the calls and ran on, under the railway bridge, away from the town.
The Angel was reputed to have the finest chef east of the Pennines, and he was even rumored to have something of a flair for vegetarian dishes. Thoughtful of Phil to take that into account. Annie had dressed accordingly, toning down her sartorial flamboyance a bit with her little black number in deference to Phil’s decidedly more conservative-but-casual look. She hadn’t worn the frock in ages and felt a bit self-conscious in it. She was pleased to find that it still fitted. The last time she wore it, she remembered, was on one of her dinner dates with Banks. And that reminded her: something he’d said in their brief meeting a short while earlier had rung a bell somewhere, and she wanted to ask Phil about it.
She had also done the best she could to hide her red nose with cunningly applied makeup and had taken Nurofen so she didn’t have to reach for her hankie all evening, although she could still feel that irritating tickle at the back of her throat. From experience, she knew that it responded best to red wine, but they were driving to the restaurant separately and she would have to take it easy on the alcohol. Before she left, she made sure she had her beeper and mobile, though she hoped to hell she wouldn’t have to use either.
Phil was already waiting at the bar, a half pint in front of him, and he waved her over. “They’re just preparing the table,” he said. “Won’t be a minute. Drink?”
“Mmm, I think I’ll just have a grapefruit juice for now, thanks.” That way, Annie thought, she’d be able to have a couple of glasses of wine with dinner.
Phil ordered the drinks without comment. That was one of the things she liked about him. He never questioned you or made a snarky comment the way some people did when you didn’t order real booze, or if you happened to be a vegetarian. All he’d asked her the first time they went out to dinner was whether her reasons for not eating meat were humanitarian or health. A bit of both, she had replied.
“Busy day?” he said.
Annie nodded. “The boat fire. You must have heard about it by now.”
“Yes, of course. Any leads yet, or shouldn’t I ask?”
“Probably best not to,” Annie said, with a smile, “but no, nothing really.”
The maître d’ came over and led them to their table. It was in a quiet corner of the restaurant, a table with a scarlet cloth, lit by a shaded lamp, polished silverware gleaming. Wallpaper music piped softly in the background, Beatles via Mantovani, not loud enough to interfere with conversation, but audible enough to create an atmosphere of soporific calm. Cozy and intimate.
Annie watched Phil as he studied the menu: the small, boyish mouth, slightly receding dark hair, just showing a tinge of gray here and there, the watchful and intelligent gray eyes. He must be seven or eight years older than her, she thought, probably in his early forties. Banks was older than her, too. Why was it she went for older men? Did she feel safer with them? Was she looking for a father figure? She almost laughed out loud thinking what Ray, her dad, would have to say about that.
In some ways, Annie thought, Phil was actually quite similar to Banks: a little traditional, conservative, even, on the surface, but broad-minded and free-spirited underneath it all. Besides, it wasn’t so much age that mattered to her, but intelligence, maturity and a sense of culture. Not that career and money didn’t matter, but most of the mobile-flaunting men she had dated of her own age had been interested in them to the exclusion of other things, and it was the other things that interested Annie most.
She decided on a salad with pears, walnuts and crumbled blue cheese to start, and a wild mushroom risotto as her main course, then put the menu aside. Phil was still studying his.
“Problem?” Annie asked.
“Just can’t decide between the venison and the guinea fowl.”
“Sorry, can’t help you there.”
Phil laughed and put his menu down. “I don’t suppose you can.” He took out a coin from his pocket, spun it in the air and caught it. “Heads,” he said, looking at the way it had landed. “Venison.”
“How do I know you didn’t cheat?”
“Actually, I did,” he confessed. “It was supposed to be heads for the guinea fowl but I realized at the last moment I really wanted venison. Wine?”
“Please.”
Phil chose a bottle of 1998 Chianti Classico. Not too ostentatious, Annie thought, but not cheap, either.
“How’s the Turner?” she asked when they had given their orders.
“Still resting comfortably. It should be up for auction soon. The Tate’s interested, naturally, but so are the V and A and several private collectors.”
“It’s definitely genuine, then?”
“Oh, yes. So the team of experts attests.”
“It wasn’t just your opinion?”
“You must be kidding. Not a chance. It would be immodest of me to say my voice doesn’t carry some weight, but a discovery like that comes under incredible scrutiny. Any art forger worth his salt wouldn’t pick a big-name artist like Turner or Constable to copy. Forgers with any sense stick to less famous artists. Turner’s a national treasure. You might as well try and pass off a Da Vinci or a Van Gogh.”
“It has been done, though, hasn’t it?”
“Oh, yes. It has been done. Tom Keating, for one, comes to mind. He did Rembrandt, among others. And Eric Hebborn did all right with Corot and Augustus John. But that was in the fifties and sixties. These days, there are far more forensic tests and, as I said, a battery of experts to get past. This one’s been verified through fingerprints, among other things.”
“Fingerprints?”
“I thought that might interest you. They can last a very long time, you know. Prints have even been found on prehistoric cave paintings and pottery unearthed at archaeological digs.”
“But how can you verify them? Turner’s been dead for more than a hundred and fifty years.”
“Painting can be a messy business. You get your hands dirty, and as often as not an artist applies his fingers to the paint and the paper or canvas during the process of painting. Especially oils, but even with watercolors like this one. If you examine the surface carefully with a magnifying glass – a bit like Sherlock Holmes, I suppose – you can often find very good fingerprints.”
“But how do you check against the artist’s original?”
“That’s the problem. It’s not always possible, and the results are sometimes dubious, but in the case of Turner, it actually works very well.”
“Why?”
“His prints are on file in the Tate archives.”
“Of course,” said Annie.
“Naturally, you need an impeccable source. A painting with credible provenance leading right back to the artist. But not many other people would have been in a position to get their fingerprints in the paint on a Turner canvas. He was known to work alone, without assistants.”
Annie nodded.
“And it’s been done before,” Phil went on. “A Canadian called Peter Paul Biro pioneered the whole technique some years ago. He worked with the West Yorkshire Police to identify a Turner called Landscape with Rainbow in 1995. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it.”
“In 1995 I was a mere DC in Somerset and Avon.”
“Well, that explains it.”
“We tend not to notice that much outside our immediate areas,” Annie explained. “You get focused on the job in hand and-”
“I understand,” said Phil.
“How much do you reckon it will go for?”
Phil pursed his lips and thought for a moment, then said, “About three hundred thousand. Maybe a bit more, seeing as it’s part of a set.”
The wine came and the waiter first showed off the bottle, then presented the cork and a tiny splash in Phil’s glass. “Just pour it,” said Phil. “I’m sure if it’s corked you’ll bring us another bottle.”
“Of course, sir,” said the waiter. Annie wasn’t used to such deference in Yorkshire restaurants, or restaurants anywhere, for that matter. But there was something about Phil that seemed to bring it out in people. Maybe he looked like someone famous, though Annie couldn’t think who. Stefan Nowak was the only other person she could think of who had the same sort of aura. She could imagine waiters being deferential around Stefan, too.
Phil sipped some wine and looked around. “Turner actually dined here once,” he said, “on the same tour he did the sketches for that watercolor.”
“Really? I knew the place was old but…”
“Well, I don’t think it was the same chef. Mostly he complained about the weather. Bit of a miserable bugger, was J.M.W. Bit of a miser, too.”
“He’d fit in well up here, then.”
“I’ve never found Yorkshire folk to be anything less than generous.”
“I agree, actually. It’s just one of the myths around these parts, and people sometimes seem quite proud of it, the parsimony.”
“They’re canny with their money, I’ll give them that. But there’s no harm in not being a wastrel, as my grandfather always used to say.”
Annie almost asked him about his Yorkshire grandparents, but she held herself back. She didn’t feel like getting into family histories and reminiscences tonight. There was something about other people’s families that always disturbed her a bit.
The starters arrived and both ate in silence for a while. “One thing I never got around to asking you is why this painting went missing for so long,” Annie said, when she had finished the last walnut. “I mean, seeing as it was a Turner, and part of a set.”
“There are plenty of Turners unaccounted for,” said Phil. “As you know, this one was part of a series of twenty watercolors Turner painted for the History of Richmondshire. He delivered the first twelve to the publisher for engraving in spring 1817, and the other eight in December of the same year. After that, the originals were sold to various buyers. The one we saw, Richmond Castle and Town, was one of six that the publishers of the history were selling off at cost. Twenty-five guineas. Can you believe it? Previously the only record of it seems to have been at an exhibition of the Northern Society in Leeds in 1822. After that, nothing. Anyway, three of the twenty went missing, two untraced – until last summer – and one destroyed in a fire.”
Annie’s ears pricked up. “A fire?”
“Ah, I see. You’re thinking about the boat fire you’re investigating, aren’t you? Well, I hate to disappoint you, but this was decades ago. There’s no connection.”
“But there’s still one more missing from the set?”
“Yes. Ingleborough from Hornby Castle Terrace. Hasn’t been seen since the turn of the last century. It fetched a record price when it was sold at Christie’s in 1881 to a certain W. Law, Esquire. Two thousand guineas, in fact. It would be nice to find it and complete the set, of course, but it’s not as if they’re all collected in one place.”
“Real Antiques Roadshow.”
“You may well laugh, but it happens more often than you think. That dusty old frame in the attic. The ugly landscape old Aunt Eunice’s grandad hid away in the cellar.”
Annie laughed. “You could hardly call the Turner ugly.”
“Of course not. But somebody thought little enough of it to bury it under a couple of layers of insulation.”
As they ate their meals, they talked about paintings and films they liked, and Annie discovered that they were both fans of Alec Guinness in the old Ealing comedies, though Phil preferred The Captain’s Paradise to Annie’s favorite, The Lavender Hill Mob. They both loved The Horse’s Mouth, though.
When it was time for dessert, Annie decided to hell with her diet – not that she was really on one, but she was always full of good intentions – and went for the crème brûlée. She resisted the cognac, though, and chose café au lait. She was pleased that she had managed to restrict herself to only one glass of wine.
“Have you ever heard of a local artist called Thomas McMahon?” she asked Phil after her first mouth-watering spoonful.
Phil frowned. “McMahon? Can’t say I have, no. Why? He any good?”
“I probably shouldn’t be telling you,” she said, “but it’ll be in the papers tomorrow, and probably on the radio and TV tonight. He’s most likely the victim in the boat fires. One of the victims. I just wondered if you’d heard of him at all, come across him in your line of business?”
“I don’t come across many living artists, I’m afraid,” said Phil.
“From all accounts, after a promising start he dropped out of the scene some years ago, made a living painting landscapes for tourists.”
“Then I’d have even less reason to have heard of him. Always the detective, eh, Annie?”
Annie blushed. There was some truth in that. She was slowly and indirectly getting around to what she had wanted to sound him out on. “One thing we found out – my boss discovered it, actually – was that he frequented an antiquarian bookshop on Market Street and that he bought a number of old books and prints.”
“Nothing unusual in that, surely?”
“We don’t think he was very well off, and besides, most of the stuff he bought was worthless. Worthless but old.”
Phil looked at her, and she saw the beginnings of understanding in his eyes. “I was just thinking,” she went on, “that-” Right then, her beeper went off. The station. One or two of the other diners gave her dirty looks. “Oh, shit,” she said. “Sorry. I mean, I’d better… I won’t be long.”
“Okay. Don’t worry. I’ll be waiting.”
Annie hustled outside and fumbled with her mobile. “Yes?”
“DI Cabbot?”
“Yes.”
“DCI Banks said to tell you there’s been another one – another fire, that is – and he wants you to get out to Jennings Field ASAP. You know where it is?”
“I know it,” said Annie. “Thanks. I’m on my way.”
Bollocks, she thought, putting her phone away and reentering the restaurant. Inconsiderate arsonist, spoiling her evening. She just had time to make a quick apology to Phil before heading out.
“Can I give you a lift?” he asked.
“No, thanks,” said Annie. “I’ll go in my own car.” She could just imagine the expression on Banks’s face if she turned up at a crime scene in Phil’s BMW. She wasn’t even dressed for standing around in an open field on a cold night, she realized, as she threw on her elegant but lightweight black overcoat.
Just to end their evening together on a perfect note, Annie found herself unable to get her handkerchief to her mouth fast enough to stop a sneeze and ended up spraying the entire table with germs. Phil just smiled and gestured for her to go. Red-faced now, as well as red-nosed, Annie went.