The Art of Murder

Chapter 17

Brick Lane, Stepney, Friday, 1 p.m. Pendragon was in a foul mood as he came through the doors of the station, head down, barely looking where he was going. The duty officer turned to a young constable beside him and raised his eyebrows as the DCI stormed past them. Just beyond the main desk, Pendragon almost knocked Jimmy Thatcher off his feet. The young sergeant was holding armfuls of papers, half of which flew across the corridor.

'Damn it!' Pendragon exclaimed, and crouched down to help. Straightening, he passed a large sheaf of paper to Thatcher and apologised. 'Sergeant?' he added. 'You tied up with paperwork?'

'Yes,' Thatcher said mournfully.

'Well, take a break. Get over to Noel Thursk's flat. Forensics have been through the place. I want you to bring in the man's computer and any disks or… what are those things?… USB drives you can find. Pass them all on to Turner. Then you can get back to the paperwork.' And he nodded at the untidy pile in the sergeant's arms.

'Anything from Grant and Vickers on the cameras?' Pendragon asked as he strode into the Ops Room, pulling off his overcoat as he went.

Turner was seated at one of four desks arranged in a vague semi-circle. 'Nothing, sir. But I've stumbled on something you might find very interesting.'

'Arcade's alibi?' Pendragon asked as he approached the desk. Turner was staring intently at a flat screen and tapping at a keyboard. 'Nah. A podcast.' Turner looked up at his superior's blank expression. 'You have no idea what I'm talking about, have you?' the sergeant added.

'None at all.'

'A podcast is a broadcast over the internet. You can stream it on an MP3 player or any computer if it's online. Audio, visual… It's a bit like TV or radio, but you pick it up with a computer.'

'So what sort of podcast have you found?' Pendragon asked. The way he said it sounded as though he couldn't quite grasp the concept or why the world needed such a thing.

'I was doing a search on Francis Arcade. Got the standard Wikipedia stuff and a few art sites he's mentioned on, then this popped up.' Turner clicked the mouse and the screen changed. Photographs of two faces appeared, those of the murder victims, Kingsley Berrick and Noel Thursk. Written across the faces were the words TWO DEAD MEN: A Post-mortem Podcast. The sergeant clicked again and a two-and-a-half-minute video played. It was shot using a single camera. The jerkiness showed it was almost certainly hand-held. The setting was the Berrick amp; Price gallery the previous Tuesday. It featured the two dead men of the title in conversation with others at the event. The camera moved around the room. Snatches of conversation could be heard – Berrick deliberating on some aspect of commercial art, Thursk nodding as he listened to a woman telling him an anecdote. He smiled and replied with something inaudible.

The podcast ended as abruptly as it had started and the screen turned black.

'Before you ask, guv, this was only put online a couple of hours ago.'

'Shame,' Pendragon said.

'So what do you make of it?'

The DCI shook his head and lowered himself into a chair. 'I'm at a loss. It's almost as though the man wants us to pin the murders on him.'

'You want to go back for a second visit?'

'No, Sergeant. I think this time we get Mr Arcade in here.' As Pendragon spoke into the digital recorder, Arcade sat perfectly still on a metal chair pulled up close to the table in Interview Room 1. The Chief Inspector concluded by saying that the suspect, Mr Francis Arcade, had declined the services of a lawyer.

Pendragon stared at the young man and remained equally still, equally silent, for more than two minutes. The only sound in the room came from the electronic ticking of the wall clock. Finally he pulled a plastic folder towards him across the shiny metal surface of the table. 'I watched your wonderful piece of work,' he began. Arcade did not stir. 'Who filmed it?'

Arcade returned Pendragon's intense gaze. 'Michael Spillman, a friend.'

'We might need to talk to him.'

'I wouldn't bother. He flew to New York early Wednesday evening. Besides, he was just doing me a favour. Made a copy of the videotape and emailed it over. Berrick and Price had commissioned a recording of the evening. It was all above board. Ask your mate Jackson.'

'It's a rather obvious message, isn't it?'

'A few days ago these two men were alive and well. Now they cannot speak or move, and soon they'll be ash. Haven't you ever wondered at recordings of someone who has since died? Are they really still alive? Were they always dead? I sometimes wonder if isolated tribes who have no understanding of the camera are right to fear it. Perhaps it does leach away our souls. But then, perhaps it's good that it does, for how else may we be kept alive when memory fails?'

'Very profound. Very Damien Hirst,' Pendragon replied tonelessly. 'Where's the artistic merit to it?'

'I thought this was a murder investigation. Why are you so interested?'

Pendragon shrugged. 'Humour me.'

Arcade gave a wan smile. 'I don't spare a moment's thought for artistic merit and nor should you, Chief Inspector. But… if you want me to humour you.' He tilted his head to one side for a second. 'It's about intent. My friend supplied the material just like an art shop provides paints and canvases. I edited the film. But much, much more important is the intent behind the work. The conceptualisation, if you like. In this case, the mystery of the after-image. The only possible form of Life After Death.'

'Why?'

'I'm an artist. That's what I do.'

'Oh, come on! That's a glib remark and you know it, Francis.' Pendragon allowed a look of disappointment to flicker across his face.

'It's the truth.'

'It's boring.'

Arcade could not hide his surprise.

'You're provoking us, deliberately positioning yourself as the prime suspect. Why?'

The young man shrugged and stared fixedly at a point on the wall behind Pendragon.

'I think I know what you're up to. This is all about publicity, isn't it?'

'Hah! You sound like Berrick,' Arcade exclaimed. 'That's the sort of shit he was so concerned about.The oxygen of publicity,' he added in a pompous tone.

'But it makes sense, doesn't it?' Pendragon moved a hand across the space between their faces. '"Failed Artist Seizes Opportunity to Get Noticed". Perfect.'

'You surprise me, Chief Inspector. I was beginning to think you weren't quite as thick as some of the other pigs.'

Pendragon paused for thirty seconds, letting the silence grow uncomfortable. Then he placed the plastic folder upright on his lap and opened it so that Arcade could not see the contents. 'I imagine, as an artist, you are quite accustomed to seeing extreme images, Francis.' Pendragon stared into the young man's eyes. 'This is Mr Berrick, though I'm not sure you'll recognise him.' He removed a glossy from the folder and pushed it across the table. It spun round and stopped a few centimetres away from Arcade. It was a close-up of Kingsley Berrick's disfigured head taken by the police photographer at the gallery on Wednesday morning.

Pendragon could just about discern a flicker of something in Arcade's eyes, but was not sure what that something was.

'Perhaps not as you remember him.'

Arcade slid the picture back. 'You're right, DCI Pendragon. I am accustomed to extreme images.'

Pendragon plucked the photograph from the table and replaced it in the folder. Then he removed two more glossy prints, turned each so that Arcade could see them and moved them across the table. The first one showed the flattened body of Noel Thursk, pensile over the tree branch in the cemetery. The second was a picture taken in the Path Lab from a camera placed high above the remains. With nothing else around it to offer perspective, the body looked like an amoeba under a microscope.

'Recognise him?'

Arcade stared silently at the picture.

'Looks a little peaky, I admit. But do you really not know who this poor fellow is? It's your old friend Noel Thursk.'

Arcade looked up. His mouth moved as though he were about to say something, but he let it go. Then he gave a brief smile. 'Quite something, Pendragon. I'd say you should be looking for someone with a dead Surrealist fixation.'

This time, Pendragon could see nothing slipping from behind Arcade's mask, but he was sure it was a mask. 'Very well,' the Chief Inspector said calmly. 'If that's the way you want to play this, you give me no alternative but to place you under arrest. See if you still feel so relaxed after twenty-four hours in a cell. That's how long I can hold you without charge. Meanwhile I'll obtain a warrant. Shouldn't take long. Then we'll go through your studio with a fine-toothed comb.'

Arcade did not flinch.