A Colourful Death: A Cornish Mystery (2 page)

He unlocked the driver’s-side door and folded himself into the little car. The starter caught on the second try. The Incorruptible ran pretty well, considering its age and its hard life up and down the hills of Cornwall, frequently heavily loaded.

“Books in that box in the back?” Nick asked.

“Yes, Major Cartwright, as usual. It’s very good of him to keep giving them to LonStar when he could sell them on to the used book shop that just opened in Bodmin.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t know about it.”

“Nick, I told him as soon as I found out.”

“I was teasing. And don’t worry, I’ll go on buying his thrillers and detective stories from your shop and giving them back after reading.”

As they drove up St Thomas Road past the castle, in ruins but still towering on its mound, Eleanor said, “Let’s park and find anoff-licence. I’ll buy a bottle of Champagne, or at least Asti Spumante, in case the Wreckers lets you down. But I thought you’d gone back to the Trelawny Arms since Donna decided you don’t look sufficiently like Ringo.”

He laughed. “Thank heaven! No, let’s press on. One of the pubs is bound to have something sparkling, whatever the label. I want to get home. I’ve got a commission I need to get going with right away.”

“A commission?”

“You won’t believe this. I went for a walk in St James’s Park and there was a concert going on at the bandstand. The brasses were shining in the sun and they were playing Elgar, the first
Pomp and Circumstance March
. You probably know it as ‘Land of Hope and Glory.’”

“Oh yes, I know that.”

“Well, it gave me an idea. I started sketching and a girl who was sitting nearby asked if she could look. Turned out she was an American, on her honeymoon but her husband was busy taking photos of the Horse Guards or something. She’d walked on to listen to the band because she plays in one in the States. Alto sax, I think she said. To cut a long story short, she said she’d buy a painting of the band if I’d paint it.”

“But it won’t look like a brass band, will it?” Eleanor said doubtfully. “Or are you going to do something more like your landscapes?”

“No, I explained to her that I paint the images the music makes in my head. She said that’s okay by her. She’s sure she’ll like it and it’ll be a very special souvenir of England. Her family has some connection with England—supposedly an ancestor jumped into the Thames and saved Charles I’s life, and they have an antique walking-stick to prove it.”

“Before he had his head cut off, I take it?”

“Oh yes, before he became king, I think. Yes, must be, because she said her maiden name, Hazard, was bestowed by a grateful James I. Janice Hazard Harrison—what a mouthful! When I suggested a price she didn’t even blink, just asked how much deposit I wanted. Her husband turned up and wrote a cheque on the spot.”

“So now you have to paint it.”

“Yes, before inspiration fades and before the Harrisons fly back to America, so I’ve got to get cracking. Besides, I want to get home and see what sort of mess Stella has made of my place. Her sculptures are so perfectly finished, it’s hard to credit that she’s such a slob in everything else.”

“She dresses very nicely, dear. Except, I dare say, when she’s actually sculpting. Is that the right word? It sounds rather odd.”

“Yes, that’s right. It can get pretty dusty, and then there’s always the odd slip of the chisel and blood everywhere.”

“Nick!”

“Not likely for Stella. She works in serpentine, which isn’t all that hard. Though she did talk about trying something in granite, something more recherché than her usual seals and seagulls. I don’t know if it’s just talk, or if she’s started work on it. I haven’t been to her studio in ages.”

“In Padstow, didn’t you say?”

“Yes, just outside. Did you see much of her while I was gone?”

“No, hardly anything. When I invited her over for lunch, she said she always brought sandwiches. Perfectly politely, but I’m afraid she doesn’t have much time for little old ladies, unless they’re customers.”

“More fool her.” Nick seized his chance between two lorries and swung round the roundabout onto the A30. The Incorruptible groaned a bit as they started the long climb up onto Bodmin Moor. “How’s my favourite little old lady been while I’ve been gone? Busy as always?”

“Busy as always. The summer people have started to arrive. So many emmets seem to forget what they already have at their ‘little place in the country,’ especially in the way of kitchen stuff and linens. They bring more down and then give the old to LonStar. Joce is tearing her hair to try to fit everything into the stockroom. She says I’d better take a few days off from collecting.”

“I can’t imagine Mrs Stearns tearing her hair, under any circumstances. Do you think we can pass this exceptionally slow and smelly lorry?”

“No, Nick! Don’t even try. You know the Incorruptible hates going uphill.”

He obeyed, or more likely saw reason. They toiled upwards between hillsides patched with still-golden gorse and the pinkish-purple of heather coming into bloom. The bracken was bright green, not yet darkened by summer. Looking south towards Rough Tor, Eleanor saw a herd of wild ponies grazing on the spring grass.

She had often dreamt of these moors during the long years of journeying, usually to the hotter parts of the globe, working for the London Committee to Save the Starving. She and Peter had always intended to retire to their home county. When he was killed, in a riot in Indonesia, she had come sadly home without him. But she couldn’t abandon LonStar, not when so many had so great a need. With their savings, she had bought a cottage in the small fishing village of Port Mabyn and turned her ground floor into a charity shop. Under the efficient guidance of Jocelyn Stearns, the vicar’s wife, it was flourishing. If dear Joce was sometimes just a trifle bossy, it was a small price to pay for the pleasure of sending off the pounds, shillings, and pence to LonStar’s headquarters.

“Made it!” said Nick in triumph as they reached the top of the long hill at Cold Northcott. There were more hills ahead, but none so trying to the Incorruptible’s old bones.

A worrisome new rattle developed as they started down the steep lane that became Port Mabyn’s only street.

“Do you hear that?” Eleanor asked.

“The church clock? Five o’clock. We’ve made reasonable time considering. Stella will still be at the shop. Like LonStar, I don’t close till half past at this time of year. Oh, by the way, though I didn’t tell Mrs Stearns, I did tell Stella about Alarian’s offer when I rang up to say I’d be back this afternoon.”

“Of course, she’s a colleague. There, listen!”

But Nick was concentrating on parking—on the wrong side of the narrow street, with two wheels on the pavement and the car’s nose inches from a no parkingsign outside the LonStar shop. At the same time, a bustle of chattering pedestrians flocked out of the bakery opposite after their Cornish cream teas. Never mind, Eleanor thought. In the mysterious way of such things, the rattle might well disappear by tomorrow.

“Damn!” Nick exclaimed, putting on the hand-brake and turning off the ignition. “She’s shut up shop early.”

And indeed, the glass door of the next shop down the hill displayed a closedsign and the blinds were down.

Frowning, Nick opened the car door and twisted to get out in the narrow space between the car and the LonStar shop window. Teazle jumped over the brake and sprang down after him. Luckily Nick remembered her just in time not to shut the door on her. By the time Eleanor had climbed out on the street side, Nick was unlocking the door to his gallery, the dog at his heels.

“I’ll just see if she’s still here,” he called over his shoulder to Eleanor. “I’ll be back in a minute to help you unload.”

“Teazle, come!”

Eleanor’s words were drowned in a burst of laughter from some happy people full of splits with strawberry jam and clotted cream. Longing for a cup of tea, she followed Nick to retrieve Teazle, who by then had gone with him into the gallery.

“Bloody hell!” Nick stood just inside the door, gazing around wildly.

For a moment Eleanor couldn’t see what was wrong. Then the first thing she noticed was that all the sculptures were gone. They had occupied a shelf on the wall to the right of the door—sleek seals, seagulls, and dolphins, carved from serpentine mottled and streaked in blues and greens and browns. Still there, drawing-pinned to the shelf, was the card with the sculptor’s name: Stella Maris.

Star of the sea
, Eleanor thought irrelevantly. Surely a pen-name, or the sculptural equivalent.

“Bloody hell!” Nick repeated violently, striding round behind a three-panelled screen hung with pictures.

Looking after him, Eleanor realised that the paintings hanging on the outer panels of the screen had been slashed. Someone had taken a knife to the two landscapes, making three parallel diagonal cuts in each canvas. The wildflower miniatures on the centre panel had been spared, perhaps considered insignificant.

Speechless, she followed Nick. White-faced, fists clenched, he was staring in stunned silence at three of what he called his “serious” paintings. Eleanor didn’t understand or properly appreciate them, but these were the sort of things Alarian had chosen to hang in his prestigious London gallery. They, too, had been sliced diagonally but cross-wise, so that a sad triangle drooped from the centre of each.

“Oh, Nick!”

“I know who did it.”

“Not Stella?”

He shook his head. “There’s only one possible person. And he’s going to get what’s coming to him!”

“Yoohoo, Mrs Trewynn!” Donna, the teenage daughter of the landlord of the Trelawny Arms, stood on the threshold, her plump form barely encased in an op-art mini-dress. Eleanor hurried to stop her coming any further into the gallery. “I saw you come in here. D’you need help unloading?”

“Yes, dear. That would be very kind. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Thass all right, take your time. You left the car windows open, so I can get in okay.” She raised her voice. “You coming up the Arms tonight, Mr Gresham?”

Nick achieved no more than a strangled grunt. Fortunately Donna was quite accustomed to receiving no more by way of response from him. Besides, she had confided to Eleanor a few days ago that Mr Gresham, though dishy, was really too old for her. She went off happily crooning something about love, which Eleanor assumed to be one of the Beatles’ songs rather than a personal declaration.

She turned back. “Nick,” she said urgently, “you mustn’t do anything hasty.”

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to cut his throat with his own knife, no matter how much I feel like it.”

“Just going to ‘pop him on the nose’? I realise I can’t possibly understand how you feel, but really, my dear, that’s not a good idea.” She didn’t want to sound goody-goody, but she had seen too much of the effects of violence ever to be complacent about it. “Please, at least come and have a cup of tea before you do anything you’ll regret.”

He scowled. “Tea! You’d have better luck dissuading me if you got me too sozzled to ride my bike.”

“I knew we should have stopped for a bottle of Asti.”

His lips quirked and he said more calmly, “It’d take more than a few glasses of wine—”

“Then it’s just as well I didn’t buy it. I don’t want you pot-valiant. Where does he live, the man you suspect?”

“Padstow.”

“I’ll tell you what, if you’ll come and drink a cuppa, I’ll drive you down there.”

“Oh lord, Eleanor,” he groaned, “if you’re present, I won’t be able to sock him one.”

“Exactly. Come on, lock up so no one can get in and see.” She nearly suggested that he should go round by the back doors, but the need to seem normal to Donna would probably do him good.

Reluctantly he followed her out. Teazle scooted past them and through the open door just past the LonStar shop. She’d go and wait at the top of the stairs, outside the door to Eleanor’s flat, out of the way of people tramping back and forth. Donna had already cleared out the interior of the Incorruptible, with the assistance of Ivy and Lionel, the children from Chin’s Chinese. Having just opened the boot, the obliging teenager was tugging with both hands at Nick’s rucksack.

“Golly, it’s heavy. Whatcher got in there, Mr Gresham?”

“Among other things, books. Ever heard of them?”

She giggled. “Yeah, like we’re s’posed to read at school.”

“Oil paints, too. They weigh a ton. Leave it. I’ll get the rest.”

He went round to the back of the car and lifted out the rucksack, easily, with one hand. Donna didn’t kid him about his muscles, as she usually would have. Eleanor had never considered her sensitive, but obviously, though he had teased her, she had seen something in his face that told her this was not a good moment for joshing.

While Nick deposited the rucksack just inside the door and returned for the box of books, Eleanor thanked Donna and the children.

“Me and Ivy put your shopping on your stairs, Mrs Trewynn, so’s they wouldn’t sell it with the rest of the stuff.”

“Thank you, Lionel. That was very thoughtful. I’d quite forgotten I went shopping before I met the train.”

“It was down on the floor behind the seats,” Ivy explained kindly, “where you couldn’t see it.”

“That’s right. I remember putting it there to leave room for Nick and his … luggage.”

“You ought to put the frozen stuff away in the fridge right away, or it’ll melt.”

“Thaw,” her brother corrected her.

“You’re quite right,” said Eleanor. “I’d better go and do it this very minute, before I forget.” She escaped.

In the passage she met Nick on his way out. “I’d better take the Incorruptible down to the car-park,” he said. “It’d be a pity if Bob Leacock came by and felt obliged to give you a fine. I’ll drop off my rucksack.” He reached for it.

Eleanor put her hand on his arm. “No, leave it here. Don’t go back in there till you must. Perhaps I’d better take the car down while you make the tea.”

“I promise I won’t hop it to Padstow without you, however great the temptation.”

She followed him to the street door and watched him drive off down the hill, till he turned into the field on the far side of the stream, the only flat space in the centre of Port Mabyn. Then she went into the shop.