The Dead Lie Down: A Novel Page 9

  Standing in Aidan’s one-room home, the stark fact of how low I’d sunk in two months hit me like a boulder in the chest. What was wrong with me, that I’d let it happen? I could have reacted differently. Better.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Aidan asked, cutting cheese with a paint-spotted Stanley knife.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said quickly.

  ‘Yeah, you were.’

  He hadn’t answered my question about the frames, so I didn’t have to answer his. I knew he was as aware of this as I was.

  He gave me my sandwich and a glass of orange juice. I sat cross-legged on the floor to eat it. It tasted divine. ‘Want another one?’ Aidan said, watching me devour the sandwich as if I’d never seen food before.

  I nodded.

  ‘Want to tell me the story of why you left Hansard’s place?’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. An artist brought in one of her paintings to be framed; I asked her if I could buy it; she said no, it wasn’t for sale.’ I recited woodenly. ‘I asked her if I could buy any of her other pictures, and she said none of her work was for sale.’

  ‘That’s crazy,’ said Aidan, his back to me as he foraged in the fridge again. ‘An artist who won’t sell any of her work? I’ve never heard of that before.’

  I shivered. Crazy. Like having empty frames all over your walls, with no pictures in them.

  ‘So? What happened?’ Aidan asked.

  ‘She accused me of harassing her.’ I took a sip of my orange juice, hoping he would leave the subject alone.

  ‘Sounds like a standard shit day at work,’ he said. ‘Why did you leave? Hansard weighed in on your side, didn’t he?’

  He sounded as if he was guessing. Saul hadn’t told him.

  Aidan handed me another cheese sandwich. It had dents in the bread from his thumb and forefinger. He looked down at me, frowning. ‘You’ll have to toughen up,’ he said. ‘I’m not having you resigning on me after the first visit from some awkward bugger artist.’

  I ate my food to avoid having to answer.

  ‘There’s something you’re not telling me,’ said Aidan, watching me carefully. ‘Isn’t there?’

  I nodded.

  For a second he looked wary, perhaps even afraid. ‘You’re just like me,’ he said. ‘I knew it, soon as I saw you. That’s why I gave you a hard time.’ He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I won’t ask again.’ He stared at the empty frames on his walls, as if making some kind of silent pact with them.

  I was smiling at him when he turned to face me, and he smiled back. Having established the ground rules, we could both relax. From that point on, we talked about art, framing—things we were happy to talk about. Aidan started—immediately, while I was still eating—to tell me everything he knew about his craft, everything he thought I should know. He told me that all the concepts and designs in picture-framing come from classical architecture. He dug out dusty hardback books from under piles of black T-shirts and faded jeans, and showed me photographs of tabernacle frames and trompe l’oeils and cassettas, explaining what each one was. He railed against people like Saul, who didn’t read up on the history of picture-framing, whose libraries on the subject were less extensive than his own, and against all the art books that contained photographs of unframed pictures, free-floating against a black background, as if the frame were not crucial to the work of art.

  I remember being struck by his anger, his apparent determination to make my brain a replica of his, containing the same information. Apart from the bits that were missing, that is. He didn’t tell me, not then and not ever, why he had framed emptiness and hung it on his walls. And I didn’t give him the missing details from the story about why I’d left my job at Saul’s gallery. I’d made what had happened sound so straightforward, but it wasn’t at all—my reaction to the picture, my conviction that I had to have it, all the different ways I’d tried to persuade the artist to sell me some of her work, hounding her so that she had no choice but to lash out at me . . .

  My fault. My fault, again.

  And of course, the main thing I didn’t tell Aidan, because I didn’t know it at the time, I only found out months later: that the artist’s name was Mary Trelease.

  4

  3/3/08

  ‘Have you been bullying DS Kombothekra, Waterhouse?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Filling his petrol tank with porridge, putting laxatives in his coffee?’ Proust pressed his hands together church-and-steeple style, index fingers protruding.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why is he afraid to give you a simple instruction? You might as well spit it out, Sergeant, while you’ve got me here to protect you.’

  Beside Simon, Sam Kombothekra shuffled from one foot to the other, looking as if he would prefer to be in an abattoir, a skip full of rubble—anywhere but the Snowman’s office. ‘I’m assigning you the statements in the Beddoes case,’ he muttered.

  ‘What?’ For a second, Simon forgot Proust was in the room with them. ‘You told me you’d given that to Sellers and Gibbs.’

  ‘Sergeant Kombothekra changed his mind,’ said Proust. ‘He decided it was a task best suited to a pedant with a keen eye for detail. That’s you, Waterhouse. As it happens, I agree with him.’

  Simon knew what that meant. There was no way this was Kombothekra’s initiative. ‘I don’t mind doing my share if we’re all chipping in,’ he said, doing the calculation in his head as he spoke. Kombothekra would have to do his bit too if he was making Simon do it; he wouldn’t dare not to.

  ‘Good.’ Proust smiled. ‘Tell him what his share is, Sergeant.’

  Kombothekra looked as if someone had inserted a hot poker into a tender part of his body as he said, ‘I’m giving you all the statements.’

  ‘All of them? But there are two hundred-odd.’

  ‘Two hundred and seventy-six,’ said Proust. ‘In this instance, no one will be chipping in apart from you, Waterhouse. This is something you can make your own. I know that’s important to you. You’ll have no one interfering, no one to cajole or negotiate with. From here on in, Nancy Beddoes is your exclusive territory. You can plant your flag unchallenged.’

  ‘Sir, tell me you’re joking. Two hundred and seventy-six people, all living in different parts of the country? It’d take me weeks!’

  The Snowman nodded. ‘You know I’m not one to gloat, Waterhouse, or push home my advantage, should I be so lucky as to find myself in possession of one, but it would be remiss of me not to point out that if you were a sergeant, as you certainly should be by now and could be in a matter of months if you put in for your exams—’

  ‘Is that what this is about?’

  ‘Don’t interrupt me. If you were a DS, you’d be the team leader. You’d be the one assigning the actions.’

  ‘To a different team, maybe hundreds of miles away!’ Simon struggled to compose himself. Charlie was in Spilling, his parents were here, everything he knew was here. Proust couldn’t make him move, couldn’t force a promotion on him that he didn’t want.

  ‘You need to broaden your horizons, Waterhouse. Another good reason to give you Nancy Beddoes. As you say, taking all those statements will involve a fair amount of travel. Aren’t you even a bit curious about your native land? Have you ever left the Culver Valley for any significant period of time?’

  Simon wanted to kill him, mainly for staging this production in front of Kombothekra, who knew Simon had been to university in Rawndesley but not that he’d lived with his parents for all of his three years as a student. Proust, unfortunately, knew everything—all the sad details of Simon’s life so far. Which of them was he about to mention now? The age at which Simon left home? The Sunday mornings he’d spent at church with his mother rather than upset her while his university mates had been in bed sleeping off hangovers?

  ‘I can’t believe you’re serious, sir,’ he said eventually.

  Proust grinned. Unlike most of his good moods, this one didn’t have a provision
al, threatened-with-imminent-extinction feel about it. It seemed to have taken root, possibly for the whole day. ‘Waterhouse, explain something to me. Why do you respond with such . . . bamboozlement, if that’s a word, when all I’m asking you to do is your job?’ Giving Simon no opportunity to respond, he went on, ‘I’m not ordering you to dress up in a gorilla costume and distribute free bananas on public transport. I’m asking you to take statements from the people to whom Nancy Beddoes fraudulently sold items of clothing on eBay, clothing she’d stolen from high-street shops. Is it my fault there are so many of them? Did I ask Mrs Beddoes to put in the hours of a hedge-fund manager in pursuit of her criminal activities? The woman’s an exceptionally motivated and diligent lawbreaker—you don’t see her complaining about having two hundred and seventy-six people to deal with. Think of it this way, Waterhouse—she did it for the money, and so will you be, because it’s your job.’ Proust beamed, pleased with the neatness of his conclusion. ‘I trust that, by the time you’ve finished, you’ll have had your fill of taking statements. You certainly won’t want to bother taking one from an irresponsible timewaster about a murder that never happened.’

  ‘So this is about Aidan Seed,’ said Simon angrily. He should have known. He looked at Kombothekra, who’d agreed with him no more than an hour ago: they ought to take Seed’s statement, make sure all bases were covered. Had Kombothekra broached the subject with the Snowman? He must have. It made perfect sense: Simon’s punishment was Nancy Beddoes, Kombothekra’s was having to participate in this excruciating scene.

  ‘It’s a shame, in a way,’ said Proust. ‘Mr Seed’s statement is one I’d have enjoyed reading. Pity we can’t get it just to entertain ourselves. “I do not intend to explain why I killed one Mary Trelease. I do not intend to inform the police of the date on which I killed Ms Trelease. I do not intend to offer details as to the nature of my relationship with Ms Trelease prior to my killing her . . .’

  ‘Sir, Simon and I both think . . .’

  ‘“I do NOT”’—Proust’s voice rose to a crescendo as he drowned out Kombothekra’s words—‘“have any comment to make regarding the claims made by DCs Christopher Gibbs and Simon Waterhouse that they, on the twenty-ninth of February 2008 and the first of March 2008 respectively, found Ms Trelease alive and well at her home, 15 Megson Crescent, Spilling, RY27 3BH, and were shown by Ms Trelease several items of identification that confirmed her identity as Mary Bernadette Trelease, aged forty . . .”’

  ‘If a situation being at all unusual prevents us from taking a statement, sir, we might as well all give up now,’ said Simon. Cunning bastard. Proust had to prove he’d memorised the relevant facts before dismissing them.

  ‘Tell me why we aren’t charging Mr Seed with wasting our time,’ the inspector snapped. So the good mood was finite after all. Even so, Simon was sure Proust had broken his record; usually the ice storm was much quicker in coming.

  ‘Trelease told Gibbs she didn’t know Seed, but he thought she was lying,’ said Kombothekra. ‘What if Seed beat her up, left her for dead, and now she’s too scared to tell us in case he does it again?’ It came out sounding awkward because they weren’t his words. He was quoting Simon, trying to make amends for Nancy Beddoes.

  ‘Did Ms Trelease look as if she’d recently been attacked? Any scars, bruises, cuts? Any sign of limited mobility, hospital notes lying around the house, wheelchairs parked on the front lawn?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Simon.

  ‘We’ve been able to find no evidence—substantial or circumstantial—that Aidan Seed’s committed any crime,’ Kombothekra told Proust. ‘That’s if we leave aside the verbal evidence . . .’

  ‘Verbal evidence?’ the Snowman intoned flatly. ‘You mean lies?’

  ‘I spent most of last night going through our unsolveds, just in case anything from any of them chimed in with what Seed and Bussey had told us.’

  ‘Chimed in? Are you a bell-ringer, Sergeant?’

  Kombothekra smiled in deference to Proust’s witticism. ‘I found nothing that might fit the bill, however wide a margin I allowed myself: no suspicious deaths where the victim’s name or appearance or address was in any way similar to Mary Trelease’s. Nothing. We’ve put all three names—Seed, Bussey and Trelease—into Visor, Sleuth, the PNC, NFLMS. None of them have got form.’

  ‘Yes, yes, Sergeant.’ Proust waved his hand dismissively. ‘And you failed to find mention of them in the cast list of Rawndesley Opera House’s production of West Side Story.’

  ‘Simon and I think that, all this notwithstanding, we ought to take a statement from Aidan Seed,’ said Kombothekra. Nervousness about the brave stand he imagined he was taking made his voice louder than it normally was.

  ‘Not only Seed,’ said Simon. ‘Bussey and Trelease too.’

  ‘If only we could amuse ourselves by doing as you suggest,’ said Proust with feigned wistfulness. ‘Had we but world enough and time. Imagine Mary Trelease’s statement: “On a date that a man I don’t know called Aidan Seed refuses to divulge, he did not murder me.”’ Proust banged his fist down on his desk. ‘What’s wrong with the pair of you? Did you share a beefburger of questionable origin in the mid-nineteen-eighties?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Kombothekra took a step back. The brave stand was over, then.

  ‘I’ve heard as much as I want to about Aidan Seed, and seen more than I want to of your pathetically expectant faces. I’m sorry Santa didn’t bring you both what you wanted, but there’s only so much tat you can force down one reasonable chimney. Are we clear?’ Proust stopped, red in the face.

  Reasonable chimney? Was he talking about himself? The Snowman had trouble recognising his opinions as opinions, had for as long as Simon had known him. He regarded himself as the embodiment of universal truth. It wouldn’t for a moment have occurred to him, in constructing his metaphor, that he was closer to being a chimney than he was to being reasonable.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Kombothekra, who would probably have been bowing by now if Simon hadn’t been there.

  ‘Good. Now get out there and do your perishing jobs.’

  Kombothekra made a run for it, no doubt assuming Simon was close behind. Once the sergeant had gone, Simon pushed the door shut.

  ‘You’re still here, Waterhouse.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Since you’ve gone to the trouble of securing this private moment for us, might I beg a favour? Would you mind asking Sergeant Kombothekra to address you as DC Waterhouse instead of Simon? I’ve asked him several times, but he persists in his use of first names. The other day he told me he’d prefer it if I called him Sam.’ Proust compressed his thin lips. ‘I said, “When two people are as close as you and I are, Sam, they invariably have pet names for one another. My pet name for you is Sergeant Kombothekra.” ’

  ‘You’re wrong about Aidan Seed,’ Simon told him. ‘I know no crime’s been committed yet, but Sergeant Zailer and I both think something’s going to happen. That’s why we need to take statements now. There are protection issues here—we can’t ignore our concerns. You read Gibbs’ notes: he said Mary Trelease looked scared when he first mentioned Seed. Sergeant Zailer was left in no doubt that Ruth Bussey was terrified of something, she wouldn’t say what.’

  ‘Yet she didn’t follow it up,’ said Proust impatiently.

  ‘Bussey left her coat behind. Sergeant Zailer found an article about herself in the pocket. It was from the local rag, dated 2006. It was about her . . . when she . . .’

  ‘Say it in plain English: Sergeant Zailer’s catastrophic error of yesteryear. Not to be confused with her more recent catastrophic error: agreeing to marry you, Waterhouse. Go on.’

  ‘Bussey had an article about it in her pocket. Once Sergeant Zailer saw that, and put it together with Bussey’s unlikely story that was full of gaps . . . well, she thought the whole thing was some sort of ploy.’ Simon knew this aspect of things would do nothing for his cause.

  ‘What?’ Proust frowned so hard, his forehead
looked like an accordion.

  ‘She’s embarrassed about it now, sir, but she still gets really upset and paranoid at any mention of all that. She thought Ruth Bussey was some kind of investigative journalist, undercover—you know those programmes where they target someone they think ought to be sacked, and set traps for them? She thought she might end up on Panorama . . .’

  ‘No crime has been committed yet,’ Proust repeated slowly. ‘What’s that film?’

  ‘Pardon, sir?’

  ‘You know—it’s got that man in it. The scientologist with all the wives. What’s his name?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’ Simon didn’t watch films, couldn’t sit still long enough.

  ‘Age, Waterhouse—it’s a terrible thing. The man’s job, as I recall, was to foresee and prevent crimes that hadn’t yet taken place. The film was set in the future. Why do you think they didn’t opt for a contemporary setting?’

  Simon swallowed a groan. Can’t we skip this?

  ‘Could it be because there’s no technology, at present, for investigating crimes that have not yet been committed? Whereas if you set your film in the future, you can pretend all the necessary gubbins is in place. Your hero can watch handy trailers of forthcoming slayings . . .’

  ‘I take your point, sir.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t Mary Trelease let Gibbs inside her house?’ Simon was getting desperate. ‘Why did she keep him on the doorstep and bring her ID outside? And even with me—she let me in, but she wasn’t happy about it. When I asked to see the front bedroom, the one where Seed said he’d killed her and left her body, she made it obvious she didn’t want me in there. What’s she got to hide?’

  ‘She let you in, didn’t she, however reluctantly? You found a large number of paintings in the front bedroom and not much else.’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  ‘Most people would rather not have the big boots of plod trampling all over their houses, especially over their irreplaceable works of art. No mystery there.’