The Art of Murder

Chapter 42

Brick Lane, Wednesday, 10.40 a.m. The polarised glass window opened on to Interview Room 3 where two people sat at a table. A uniformed officer was standing motionless against the door to the corridor. There was a video camera mounted on a tripod in the corner, its 'record' light flashing red. Jack Pendragon and Jez Turner were standing in a narrow room behind the window. The DCI had his arms folded and he was staring intently at the two figures in the Interview Room. The person on the left was Francis Arcade; the other, seated across the steel table from him and adjusting a pair of spectacles to study a sheaf of papers stacked beside the A4 notebook in front of her, was Dr Rose Tremlin, the police psych from Scotland Yard. In her mid-forties, she was a tall, slender woman, her brown hair cut into a fashionable bob. She was wearing black flared trousers and a smart imitation Chanel jacket. She had a very large diamond on her ring finger.

Arcade was sitting stiff-backed in his chair. He looked terrible. He had been vomiting for most of the morning and his face had the pinched look of the deeply depressed. He stared straight at the psychologist, who looked up and started to speak. The scene had hardly changed for the past twenty minutes. Dr Tremlin would ask the young man a question, he would stare fixedly at her and say nothing in reply. The psych would then scribble in the notebook in front of her, occasionally adjust her glasses, and then, after a moment, start in again with another question. It was becoming wearing for Rose Tremlin as well as for the two policemen behind the glass. After three more questions, Dr Tremlin closed the notebook, placed the papers on top of it, pulled her chair back and stood up. Without another word, she turned and left the room.

'I'm afraid I can get nothing out of him,' she told Pendragon as he opened the door to the observation room behind the glass and ushered her inside. 'I would surmise it's too early. He's in shock. He's shut down.'

'You don't think he's faking it? Turner asked.

'No, I don't,' Dr Tremlin said with a dismissive air. 'That's not to say he is innocent. Some killers are shocked into this state after they commit their crimes. But, on the other hand, he could simply be an innocent witness who stumbled upon the mutilated body of the woman with whom he was infatuated. The short-term outward effects would be almost identical in each case.'

Pendragon looked through the glass at the forlorn figure in the Interview Room. 'Any suggestions?'

'He needs time.'

'I'm afraid, Dr Tremlin, that is a commodity in very short supply right now.'

She raised her eyebrows. 'Then there's little I can do. Please call me straight away if there is any change.'

Pendragon nodded and Turner opened the door for the psychologist. Jack turned back to the room, studying Arcade's expressionless face. The only sound in the observation room was the ticking of the clock on the wall. Pendragon glanced at it. It had just passed 10.45 a.m. He stepped towards the door as Turner started to close it. A moment later, he was at the entrance to Interview Room 3.

'What you doing?' the sergeant asked as the DCI gripped the handle.

'I'm going to talk to him. You go next door.'

'But… don't you want me in there?'

'No. I'll talk to him alone.'

Pendragon pulled out a chair and sat down, legs outstretched, trying to look relaxed. Arcade continued to stare fixedly ahead.

'Francis,' Pendragon began, 'I know you're not our killer.'

The young artist did not react.

'Francis, look at me. I want to help you.'

Nothing.

Pendragon glanced down at his own fingers where he had them entwined on the desk. He suddenly felt incredibly weary. Then he heard Arcade's voice, and looked up, surprised.

'I loved Chrissy. I did not kill her.'

The DCI looked into Arcade's eyes. The boy had averted his fixed gaze from the back wall and was staring at Pendragon. For the first time since Jack had met Francis Arcade, almost a week before, the kid was presenting an unguarded, genuine face to the world. At that moment Pendragon could visualise the child beneath the surface, just below the abrasive, cultivated insouciance.

'Okay,' he said. 'I know that. But if you want my superiors to believe you, you're going to have to help me.'

Arcade glanced at the ceiling for a second, gathering his thoughts. 'I knew she was in danger.'

'Because you've been carrying out your own investigation? That's how you had photos of the murder scene…'

Arcade looked startled. Then his face relaxed. 'As it happens, I'm quite handy with computers, Inspector. Hacking into police files isn't that complicated. So you found the USB?'

Pendragon nodded. 'My sergeant did actually. But, yes, we have the files. So… care to explain?'

Arcade shook his head and looked at the table for a moment. 'It's a relief,' he began. 'I probably would have told you about it anyway before too long. Yeah, I've been investigating the murders, and I knew something nasty was going to happen, even before Berrick was killed. I was worried about my uncle.'

'Your uncle?'

Arcade let out a sigh. 'Yeah. Noel. He was my uncle.'

It was Pendragon's turn to be surprised. 'But you made such a fuss about how much you hated the man.'

Arcade allowed himself a brief smile. 'Well, I'm obviously a better actor than I thought I was! I wanted to throw you off the scent. I was conducting my own investigation. I didn't want you interfering. I wanted you to suspect me.'

'Okay. And your uncle also thought the situation was getting dangerous?'

'That's why he wiped his laptop and gave me the only copy of the manuscript. He'd only written half a dozen chapters, but he had researched everything.'

'So he knew more than he put in the fifteen thousand words in the file?'

'Tons more, Inspector. But he kept it all up here.' And Arcade tapped the side of his head.

'So what you're saying is, you knew there was someone out there who was intent on shutting up your uncle?'

'Yes, but it was still a big surprise when Berrick copped it.'

'Because you thought Noel Thursk would be the first, perhaps the only, victim?'

Arcade nodded and looked away. Pendragon could hear the young man take several slow, deep breaths. 'It took me a while to see how the pieces fitted together. And it wasn't until the priest was murdered that I managed it. That's when I got really scared.'

'Why?'

'Why do you think, Inspector? I sussed out who had killed all three men, and why.'

Pendragon stared at him in silence. 'Okay,' he said after a moment. 'The stage is yours, Francis.'

'My uncle had only written about the early part of Juliette Kinnear's life, and her background, so I started to think that he was not taken care of for what he knew about her or any of the Kinnears. There was nothing salacious there. He hadn't even reached the part about Juliette stabbing the gardener. But you would have read the first bit by now, yeah?'

Pendragon nodded.

'Old Uncle Noel didn't pull any punches about the London art scene in the late eighties and into the nineties, did he?'

'No,' Pendragon responded. 'But no one is mentioned specifically by name.'

Arcade snorted. 'He didn't need to do that, Inspector. Everyone who was there at the time would know who was who. And…' Arcade put up a hand '… I know what you're going to say. So what? If they're all implicated and they all know who's who, but no one else does, what's the problem?'

Pendragon tilted his head as though to say: Very well, carry on.

'Perhaps you're at a disadvantage, Inspector. Because I had my uncle's confidence and I knew that he was working himself up to naming names later on in the book. Obviously, someone suspected this and decided to silence Noel.'

'So, you believe the killer is someone who was mentioned vaguely in the first part of the book?'

'I know it. And it was confirmed by murder number three.'

'Oh?'

'I just wish I had been quicker to realise that the murderer had also gone completely mad… that my darling Chrissy was in danger too. But I was so fixated with the sequence of murders, I thought I'd figured out who would be next, and it wasn't Chrissy.' He suddenly brought his hands to his face and wept. His shoulders shook. Pendragon waited for him to pull himself together.

'But you said you knew she was in danger?'

Arcade let his hands fall from his face. His eyes were red. 'Only after it was too late.'

Pendragon shuffled his chair forward and leaned his elbows on the metal table. 'So. Your big moment, Francis. Who is the killer?'

Arcade sat back and folded his arms. 'It was obviously someone mentioned in the first part of Noel's draft. Someone with a big secret to hide. Someone with a lot to lose. Someone with the skill to carry out such a series of murders and clever enough to make it seem like a serial killer hung up on some artistic theme. He was known as Jerome Travis in the early nineties. He was a young kid then, about the age I am now, a medical student who found a way to make a tidy little packet on the side to subsidise his grant.'

Pendragon shook his head.

'You know, don't you, Inspector?'

'Francis, don't you think you've become obsessed?'

'Obsessed?' Francis Arcade suddenly erupted. 'I'm not obsessed. I know the truth. And I will hate myself for the rest of my life for realising it too late to save the only woman I've ever loved. The only woman I will ever love.'

'But, Francis,' Pendragon spoke softly, trying to calm the boy down, 'where's your evidence?'

The young artist was gripping the table and taking more deep breaths. Pendragon could tell how important this story was to him, how he wanted to keep it rational, how he did not want to come across as crazy himself.

'Okay,' Arcade said, keeping his voice remarkably measured. 'These are the reasons I think Jerome Travis, aka Dr Geoff Hickle, has murdered four people.'