‘The day before her body was found.’

  Melissa felt a prickle of foreboding. ‘Iris, are you sure?’

  ‘Of course. Her name and the date were in the visitors’ book.’

  ‘What was the fuss about?’

  ‘Eloise came rushing out to Damian, asked if he’d seen an elderly woman leave and was she carrying a picture? He hadn’t and there was a full-scale alert, Eloise and Gerard charging around looking for her. Seems she’d gone.’

  ‘Taking the picture with her?’

  ‘Right. Point two. I went back to the studio, hoping to get a closer look at that canvas. No chance. Arnie was still painting away like one possessed, but Eloise was there too, pretending to read a book.’

  ‘But really keeping an eye on things,’ said Melissa. ‘Making sure Arnie wasn’t seized with any more disastrous fits of generosity, or in case some other inquisitive visitor started taking too much interest in the canvas.’

  ‘Figures, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It certainly does. This explains why Leonora’s cottage was burgled. They wanted the picture back, and …’ Little by little the grim truth was edging into her mind, like a cloud creeping towards the sun.

  ‘… and they wouldn’t want the police to know what had been taken,’ Iris continued. Her expression was bleak; she too was coming to the same conclusion. ‘If Leonora had reported it stolen and said how she came by it …’

  ‘… and the police had started asking awkward questions …’

  ‘… such as why anyone would make all that fuss about a picture by an unknown artist who turns them out like sausages from a machine …’

  They stared at one another with a growing sense of horror. The chill that crept over Melissa had nothing to do with the weather. ‘Oh Iris, you know what this means, don’t you? Leonora didn’t die because she happened to disturb an intruder. She was deliberately, cold-bloodedly murdered!’

  Fourteen

  By mutual agreement, they turned and headed for home.

  ‘The police should be told about this,’ said Melissa as she unlocked her front door. ‘I’m going to call Ken – he was due back yesterday evening. Come in with me, Iris. He may want to speak to you.’ She kicked off her walking boots, flung her anorak on a chair, hurried to the kitchen phone and tapped out DCI Harris’s home number.

  ‘Damn,’ she muttered as the answering machine clicked into life and the recorded voice spoke its carefully worded, anonymous message. ‘I suppose he’s having a lie-in after the seminar.’ She waited impatiently for the tone, then said, ‘Ken, it’s Melissa. Iris and I have some information about a visit Leonora Jewell paid shortly before she died. Please call me back as soon as you can.’

  ‘Going to leave it at that?’ Iris looked disappointed.

  ‘What else can we do at the moment? We’re not going to talk to Inspector Stuck-up Holloway, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ she added, seeing Iris about to protest. ‘He wouldn’t take us seriously – he thinks I’ve got an overheated imagination as it is. There’s no desperate urgency, is there? Ken’s sure to call back soon.’ He should have called before now; he was due home yesterday, said a disturbing voice in her head.

  ‘Fresh evidence. Holloway’d have to listen,’ protested Iris.

  ‘What evidence?’ The word was like a splash of cold water, dousing the excitement that Iris’s observations had aroused. Slowly, Melissa sat down at the table and propped her chin in her hands. ‘We’ve no evidence of any actual wrongdoing.’

  ‘Grounds for suspicion, then.’

  ‘I’m not sure we’ve even got that. There are just two things we know for certain: that Leonora was at Blackwater the day before her body was found and that she had gone there at Sam Deacon’s suggestion to ask Gerard Hood about mulberry tissue. The rest is either hearsay or surmise on our part.’

  ‘Hood lied to you,’ Iris pointed out. ‘Never mentioned mulberry tissue when you asked what Leonora was after.’

  ‘That’s true – and presumably he lied to her as well.’ Melissa reflected for a moment, then said, half to herself, ‘Suppose he were to be questioned about that, what might he say? That she had hit on a feasible way of disguising old masters for illegal purposes and he didn’t think it a good idea for it to be used in a book?’

  ‘Afraid some crook might copy it, you mean?’ Iris, seated opposite Melissa and hunched forward over folded arms, considered the point with half-closed eyes.

  ‘If the idea’s feasible, he might very well think that. You do think it’s feasible, don’t you?’

  ‘Sure. Once the covering picture was painted, it’d take a close examination to detect it.’

  ‘And a work by an unknown artist bought by some foreign tourist as a souvenir of a Cotswold holiday isn’t going to attract much attention.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Iris knotted her brows. ‘Abe Asser’ll be furious. Pillar of rectitude, that man.’

  ‘I’ve a feeling it’s going to be difficult to convince the police to start an investigation without something more concrete,’ said Melissa despondently, ‘even though Hood did tell me that cock-and-bull story. He already knew I was finishing Leonora’s book, so he wouldn’t want me to get hold of the idea. All right, let’s give him the benefit of the doubt about that. He couldn’t deny using mulberry tissue, though. If he doesn’t do restoration, what else might he do with it?’

  Iris thought for a moment. ‘I suppose, to protect a painting, if you wanted to transport it rolled up instead of in its frame …’ She spoke grudgingly, as if reluctant to say anything to scupper her original theory. ‘Still doesn’t explain the hoo-ha about the picture Arnie gave Leonora, or the dodgy canvas Eloise brought in.’

  ‘There’s no proof there was anything dodgy about it – it was only your impression …’

  ‘An artist’s impression,’ Iris pointed out. ‘A professional artist’s impression,’ she added with emphasis, lifting her head to look Melissa full in the face. ‘Should count for something.’

  ‘It certainly would, if you could examine the canvas more closely in the presence of a police witness, for example …’

  ‘So why hang about? Get the fuzz up there with a search warrant …’

  ‘On what grounds? Warrants aren’t dished out like freebies in a supermarket.’ Melissa pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘We need Ken’s advice; let’s have some lunch while we’re waiting for him to call back. I fancy a toasted cheese sandwich.’

  She prepared a simple lunch and they ate in the kitchen. She served fruit and made coffee; when they had finished, there was still no call from DCI Harris.

  ‘Maybe the message didn’t get recorded,’ said Melissa. ‘He’s been away for several days – the tape’s probably full.’ She tried again, with the same result as before. ‘Waste of time,’ she said, putting down the phone.

  ‘Probably out buying you a present,’ suggested Iris, with an elfish grin. ‘Compensation for a long absence.’

  ‘He was only away three days.’ Melissa tried to sound matter-of-fact. She had no intention of revealing her impatience to Iris, who played her own love life very close to her chest, but had no compunction in observing and commenting on Melissa’s whenever the opportunity arose. She hastily reverted to the Blackwater affair.

  ‘I wonder what went on between Gerard and Eloise, once they realised Leonora really had gone home with the painting,’ she said.

  Iris shrugged. ‘Had a row, probably. He gave her a rocket for letting it happen. Wonder if anyone overheard?’

  ‘That’s a thought. I don’t suppose Damian said anything?’

  ‘All he said was, they seemed in a great panic.’

  ‘He didn’t say what they did afterwards? Whether either of them went out, or made any phone calls?’

  Iris shook her head. ‘Never thought to ask,’ she admitted. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You couldn’t think of everything. It would help, though, if there was something more to tell Ken.’

  ‘The fuss over Arnie giving the picture away – that’s fishy, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not necessarily. It represented money for the AFTER funds.’

  ‘Not all that much. Fifty, seventy-five pounds, a hundred at most.’

  ‘The amount isn’t the point. Gerard Hood is accountable to the Asser Foundation for whatever funds AFTER collects. If Arnie makes a habit of donating his work to anyone who happens to admire it …’

  ‘See what you mean. Ah! Just a minute!’ Iris jerked her head upright as a new thought struck her. ‘Leonora’s death was reported in the paper. If they had nothing to hide, and if she had something of theirs, why didn’t they claim it?’

  ‘Good point. Let’s go back to the moment they realised she’d taken the picture off the premises. I think, in their shoes, I’d have phoned her and pointed out that it was all a mistake, that Arnie wasn’t supposed to give his work away, perhaps explained the picture was a special order, and asker her politely to return it.’

  ‘Suppose she refused?’

  ‘Why should she? By all accounts, she was a reasonable sort of person. If she did, of course, they’d have had to think again – offer her another one in exchange, for example. But you see the problem, don’t you? We’ve no proof of anything dodgy about that particular canvas. We don’t even know that it was in the cottage when it was burgled. If Leonora agreed to hand it back, that’d be the end of it.’

  ‘They’d have to be ready to say what became of it, if they were asked.’

  ‘True. If they invented a fictitious customer, there’d be the risk of a check. That’s assuming they were thinking that far ahead …’ Melissa was putting herself in the mind of a villain with a problem. It was something she did so often for the purposes of her plots that it was almost second nature. ‘I think,’ she said after a moment, ‘the story might have been that Leonora wanted to keep the painting and offered to pay for it. When they read about the burglary, they assumed the painting had been pinched and because it wasn’t especially valuable, they’d written it off rather than bother the police with it. That’d be their story, if questions were ever asked.’ Increasingly, despite being as sure as Iris that there was something sinister going on, Melissa was beginning to see the weakness of their case. ‘You know, there’s nothing to suggest that isn’t what really happened. Leonora could have been attacked by a burglar who was looking for money for drugs …’

  ‘Except for the dodgy canvas,’ Iris insisted.

  ‘Ah, yes. The artist’s impression,’ said Melissa. She made a helpless gesture with her hands. ‘It wouldn’t stand up in court, I’m afraid.’

  Iris sighed. ‘Thought I’d cracked it,’ she said ruefully.

  ‘You’ve suggested what might be a very useful lead. I’ll tell Ken as soon as he calls back; I expect he’ll want to come and see you.’

  ‘He’ll want to see you first,’ said Iris. Her tone, and the sly grin which accompanied the words, could have only one interpretation. ‘How long since … ?’

  ‘Last Friday.’ Melissa felt her cheeks go warm.

  ‘Surprised he wasn’t round here the minute he got back.’

  ‘He knows how busy I am at the moment,’ said Melissa defensively.

  As soon as Iris left, she went up to her study. She had made good progress that morning; the spark of inspiration had been glowing brightly and she was now so involved with Leonora’s characters that they were almost as real to her as if she had created them herself. She settled down at the keyboard, determined to push Iris’s revelations to the back of her mind until she had a chance to discuss them with Ken Harris.

  The weekend passed and there was still no word from him. By Monday morning she was thoroughly uneasy; after trying his home number yet again and receiving the same recorded message, she was tempted to call police headquarters to ask where he was, but held back. They had agreed, once their relationship had moved to an intimate footing, that she would contact him there only in an emergency. ‘I don’t want some nerd spreading innuendos about us,’ he had said after they made love for the first time, and she had replied, ‘And I don’t want to be thought of as Sir’s bit on the side.’ She remembered how they had giggled together like a pair of teenagers with a guilty secret, and the ache of anxiety became sharper.

  Iris called for her at eleven o’ clock and they went for their usual walk. The weather reflected Melissa’s mood: dull and cheerless, with a north-easterly air-stream bringing a cold drizzle that threatened to turn to snow.

  ‘No word from Ken?’ asked Iris as they set off, muffled to the ears, heads bent against the wind.

  ‘No. I can’t understand it. He might be busy, but he could at least find a couple of minutes to return my call.’ As she spoke, it dawned on Melissa how unreasonable she was being. Not long ago, their positions had been reversed and when he reproached her she had given him short shrift. Perhaps he was getting his own back. The thought cheered and annoyed her at the same time.

  ‘Probably tied up with the latest “Sex Strangler” case,’ suggested Iris.

  Melissa looked at her in surprise. ‘There’s been another attack?’

  ‘You didn’t see the report? It was in Saturday night’s Gazette.’

  ‘I haven’t opened a newspaper for several days. Was the victim hurt?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Oh, my God. That’s exactly what Ken said they were afraid of. Where did it happen?’

  ‘They don’t know where the attack took place. The body was found on Cleeve Common.’

  ‘How dreadful. Ken told me they’d questioned someone after the last incident, but couldn’t hold him for lack of evidence. They’ll all feel dreadful if it turns out to have been the same man.’

  They finished their walk early and in comparative silence, their spirits subdued by a combination of bad weather and the latest tragedy. Back indoors, Melissa watched the local television news programme while she ate her lunch.

  As she expected, the main item was the discovery of the trussed-up, half-naked body of a young woman, apparently yet another – and the most unfortunate – victim of the man who had become known as the ‘Sex Strangler’. A senior police officer was interviewed, appealing for witnesses and saying, ‘This is what we feared would happen. This man must be caught’, but Melissa hardly heard his statement. One image was freeze-framed on her retina, blotting out everything else: the face of the victim, a young woman who had shyly confessed to being her devoted fan, for whom she had signed several books and who, only three days ago, had telephoned to beg for a meeting so that she could tell her about ‘something that might be important’.

  The face of Carole Prescot.

  Fifteen

  Halfway through tapping out the number of police headquarters, Melissa put the phone down, telling herself it would be better to go there in person to make her statement. She pushed aside the unworthy thought – unworthy because the violent death of a young woman made her anxiety about Ken Harris seem relatively unimportant – that by so doing she might snatch a moment with him. At least, she reasoned as she drove into the visitors’ car park, this explained his silence. He must have been working on the case, probably with very little sleep, since returning home.

  A young WPC was at the desk, relaying messages between someone at the other end of the telephone she held to her ear and a middle-aged officer standing at her elbow. Melissa had known Sergeant Waters since the early days of her acquaintance with DCI Harris; he caught her eye, gave a friendly salute and, as soon as the conversation ended, came across to speak to her.

  ‘Mrs Craig, good afternoon. I was going to get in touch with you,’ he said, in his soft Gloucestershire accent. Behind his smile, his expression was serious.

  ‘Oh, why?’

  He glanced round, as if concerned that what he had to say should not be overheard. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come through to an interview room,’ he said. ‘Unless … is there something you wanted to report?’

  ‘That’s why I’m here. It’s about Carole Prescot. Is Chief Inspector Harris …?’

  His manner altered slightly, becoming more official. ‘You have some information? This way, please.’ Without giving her a chance to finish her question, he led her along a passage to a barely furnished room with dingy green walls, motioned her to a chair and closed the door. He sat down opposite her, pulled out his notebook and placed it on the table between them. ‘Ready when you are,’ he said.

  Convinced that his reason for intending to contact her had something to do with Ken Harris, it was all Melissa could do not to question him about it right away. She reminded herself, with another twinge of guilt, that her personal problems were as nothing compared to the brutal murder of Carole Prescot.

  During the drive into town, she had mentally gone over her last conversation with the dead girl, anxious not to omit any detail that might help in the hunt for her killer. It was, she realised as she repeated it to Sergeant Waters, pitifully lacking in content.

  ‘And she gave absolutely no indication of what she wanted to talk about?’ he asked when she had finished.

  ‘None at all, except she was quite definite it wasn’t anything to do with writing. Although,’ she added, ‘on reflection, that might have been the reason just the same.’

  ‘Why should she lie about it?’

  ‘People are sometimes very reluctant to admit they write. They get embarrassed, afraid of being teased. Maybe she didn’t want anyone in the office to know. I got the impression when I met her that she was quite a shy person.’

  Waters gave a nod of understanding. ‘So she might after all have wanted to talk about writing,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘In that case, why call from the office and risk being overheard? The phone in the house where she lived has been cut off because the landlord hasn’t paid the bill, but she could have used a public call box.’

  ‘Maybe she suddenly plucked up courage and decided to do it there and then.’

  ‘She didn’t say it was urgent?’

  ‘No, just that it “might be important” and she “didn’t know who else to speak to”. When I said I’d meet her next time I was in Cheltenham, she seemed to accept that. Or rather, she didn’t press me further because her boss was saying something in the background about urgent letters.’

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19