A Colourful Death: A Cornish Mystery (8 page)

More likely she was thinking up unnecessary complications and the others simply had their own washing facilities.

Through the window, left a couple of inches open for ventilation, came a chilly draught and the sound of rain. Eleanor glanced at herself in the medicine-cupboard mirror and decided lipstick would be superfluous in view of the promised soup and cocoa. She never had been able to keep lipstick on while eating. Come to think of it, she didn’t have one with her anyway.

Closing the bathroom door behind her, she returned to the kitchen. Here any draughts were kept at bay by the cosy warmth of the big iron range. Margery stood before it, stirring something steaming in a saucepan.

“That smells delicious,” said Eleanor. Her roving life had never allowed her any opportunity to master the culinary arts and she greatly appreciated other people’s abilities.

“I hope you like lentils.”

“Oh yes.” She had once, after an extended sojourn in India, vowed never to eat another lentil, but that was long ago. “So versatile.”

“So cheap and filling,” Margery retorted, “and easy to reheat. When you have as many mouths to feed as I do, and most of them extremely erratic as to keeping an eye on the time, you don’t waste a roast on them. At least, not often. The idea is I have a meal on the table at seven every evening, but I always have stuff available so that they can make a sandwich or, as in this case, heat up some soup. This is so thick it’s more like a stew, really, and full of vegetables.”

Eleanor couldn’t have asked for a better opening. “How many do you cook for?”

“It varies. Not that they usually bother to let me know when they’ll be out. Sorry, I’m being grouchy. Doug was up at four to get the hay in, and then Geoff … It’s been a long day. Do sit down. We won’t bother with a tablecloth at this time of night. It’ll be ready in just a minute. You’d like bread and butter, I expect, and some cheese.”

“I’ll get them.”

“Thanks.” Margery pointed out the bread-bin, an old-fashioned wooden one with a roll-up lid. “And that’s the larder, there.”

Eleanor took a bread-board from behind the bin and put it on the long, well-scrubbed table. In the bin she found a bread-knife and an unsliced wholemeal loaf of somewhat irregular shape. “You make your own bread, Mrs Rosevear?”

“Marge. Yes, I like baking. I don’t really mind cooking for a crowd, you know, though there are times … But Doug couldn’t have kept the farm without doing something on the side, and taking in boarders was the obvious solution in this part of the world. It was my idea to collect a flock of artists who’d stay year-round, instead of summer visitors. I had artistic leanings in my youth.” The ironic tone of her last words had a tinge of wistfulness.

In the larder, Eleanor found a wedge of cheddar, and the butter in a small crock of unglazed earthenware, covered with cheesecloth and standing in water to keep it cool. Also home-made, she thought, but she didn’t ask. She didn’t want to distract Marge from the subject of her paying guests.

“A group of artists must be more interesting than the general run of summer visitors,” she observed, emerging from the larder with the butter as Marge set out a variety of unmatched pottery bowls and plates on the table. “Less work, too, as they don’t keep coming and going.”

“Yes, and we get all their rejects, too,” said Marge, adding a particularly lopsided greenish-blue plate to the collection.

They looked at each other and laughed.

“How can you laugh?” Stella stood in the doorway, glaring at them accusingly. Swathed in a scarlet hooded cape, she was a figure of wrath straight from some bloody myth. “Have you forgotten already that Geoff is dead?”

Margery was guilt-stricken. “Of course not, dear. I’m sorry. Come and sit down. You’ll feel better when you’ve had something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.” She turned, the cape swirling about her ankles, and disappeared into the night.

“Oh dear.” Margery sighed. “She’s right, I shouldn’t have laughed.”

“It’s a pity she heard us,” Eleanor agreed, “though I think she would have been angry regardless. Grief takes some people that way. They’re looking for someone to blame, and failing that, they’ll turn their hostility on anyone within reach.”

“But Stella knows who’s to blame.”

“Nick did not—”

“All right, sorry, I spoke out of turn,” Margery said wearily. “I’m too tired to think straight. The police will sort it out. As Stella isn’t going to grace us with her presence, let’s just not talk about it over supper, right?”

“All right,” Eleanor conceded. Nick’s vindication would take more than her protests of his innocence and the inevitable decision of the police not to charge him. “Tell me about your artists. How many are there living here?”

“Seven at present, not counting the bungalow we built to rent out ten or twelve years ago. Geoff has—had—that. Then we converted the barn and stables and byres into six bedsitters and a flat, all with studios attached, of course. They’re the old farm buildings, good, solid stone. It meant we had to put up those ugly modern metal outbuildings behind the house, but…” She shrugged. “You cut your coat according to the cloth. Doug says they’re easier to keep clean.”

“The silver lining. Are they all painters? No, Stella’s a sculptor, and you’ve got a potter.”

“Jeanette paints. Wildly abstract, things with titles like
Green Diagonal
and
Blue on Blue
. She does sell them occasionally, but her bread and butter is illustrating books for children. She specialises in rolypoly puppies and kittens with enormous eyes, often playing musical instruments.”

“Good heavens! Each must come as something of a relief after the other.”

“I never thought of it like that, but I daresay you’re right. You’re just in time, dear,” she said as Doug came in through the door to the bathroom and office. “Soup’s ready.”

“Soup! A working man needs something solider than soup.”

“There’s cheese. And I forgot, there’s the last of the ham off the bone. I put it on the top shelf. As long as no one’s found it…” She disappeared into the larder and returned with a plate. The scraps of meat were abundant, if inelegant—as inelegant as the plate, another reject. “Mrs Trewynn, please help yourself while I dish up the soup. Oh, what about the dog?”

“Thanks, but I don’t think she’d better have anything else on top of that sandwich.”

While Margery ladled soup into the bowls, Eleanor passed the plate of ham to Doug and cut some slices of bread.

“Who is your potter?” she asked.

“Tom,” said Margery. “You mustn’t judge his work by these. He makes beautiful stuff and it sells very well.”

“Must have a packet put away,” Doug grunted. “More like a businessman than an artist. Never late with the rent. I’ve got no patience with some of ’em, always coming whining with excuses for paying a few days—or weeks—late. Stella’s all right, and to give the devil his due, Geoff was usually on time.”

Eleanor pricked up her ears at this evidence that Geoff had not been universally popular.

Margery said hastily, “Oswald’s another painter. Cornish landscapes, like Nick, but I have to admit not as good. Then there’s Quentin. He sculpts, but on a massive scale. He’s been working on the same hunk of granite for three or four years now. Luckily he has a rich aunt who thinks he’s going to be the next Henry Moore.”

Doug snorted. “Some hope!”

“Leila does the most beautiful shell-work. I’m sure you know the sort of thing. Ladies in hooped gowns and jewelry boxes encrusted with shells, but also hangings and necklaces and so on based on African and Asian designs. Beautiful mobiles. Some silverwork, too, set with local stones. More craft than art, strictly speaking, and so is Bert.”

“Who cares, as long as the rent’s paid.”

“What does Bert do?” Eleanor asked.

“He knits.” Margery threw a warning glance at Doug, who was grinning. “Don’t say it! He pays on time, doesn’t he? And by your own words, that’s what counts. He creates his own patterns, Mrs Trewynn, really gorgeous things. Used to design for a big knitwear manufacturer up north. He sells both designs and one-of-a-kind jumpers. You have to admit, Doug, the one he made for me is simply smashing. I’ll show it to you tomorrow, Mrs Trewynn.”

“I’d love to see it. And everyone else’s work, too, if they won’t mind showing me.”

“That’s one thing you needn’t worry about,” said Doug. “They’re all keen as mustard to show off their stuff.”

Perfect, thought Eleanor. She wouldn’t have to think up excuses to call on all her prospective suspects. If she couldn’t get them talking about Geoffrey Monmouth, or whatever his real name was, then she had somehow managed to lose all the skills that had taken her round the world as LonStar’s roving ambassador.

What was more, even artists were human, and it would be only human to be eager to discuss the murder of one of their company.

She hoped they wouldn’t be too eager, to the point of being ghoulish. Were they even now talking to Stella, hearing her description of the scene of the crime, absorbing the supposedly gory details? Would Stella already have prejudiced them against Nick, before Eleanor had a chance to explain what had really happened?

The poor girl had had a frightful shock. It was not surprising she’d been making wild accusations. Also, considering her partial responsibility for the damage to Nick’s paintings, there might be a bit of “attack is the best method of defence” in her ranting. All in all, she must be in a thoroughly confused emotional state.

“Do you think Stella is all right?” Eleanor asked.

“I’ll pop over to see her before I go to bed. But let’s go up and make up a bed for you first. You look all in.”

“To tell the truth,” she confessed, “I’m feeling my age.”

“It’s all your fault, Pencarrow!”

Megan held the receiver several inches from her ear, a precaution always advisable when her boss, Detective Inspector Scumble, was in a state. At least it gave her time to wake up. She’d gone to bed early after too little sleep the night before.

As soon as Scumble paused for breath, she asked cautiously, “What’s my fault, sir?”

“That snake Pearce has got DCI Bixby to dump a case on us. You know what that means.”

Megan had been with CaRaDoC long enough to have a fair grasp of the personalities and politics concerned. “Either it’s so simple there’s no kudos in solving it, or it’s so complicated he doesn’t think the kudos is worth the effort, or he thinks it’s unsolvable.”

“Give the little lady a prize! Whichever, it’s no kudos.”

“But I still don’t see why it’s my fault, sir.”

“Because,” he snarled, “their excuse for foisting it on us is that your bloody aunt is involved.”

“Aunt Nell?” Megan’s heart skipped a beat. “Is she all right? I must phone her.”

“Perfectly all right. She’s spending the night at some commune near Padstow.”

“A
commune
? Why on earth?”

“How the bloody hell am I supposed to know? Padstow’s the scene of the crime. Another pal of yours, that artist fellow, Gresham, is spending the night at Bodmin nick. Helping police with their enquiries, officially, but the Super says Bixby told him they’re just waiting for a magistrate to wake up in the morning and sign a warrant. They have an eyewitness.”

“Then what do they need us for?”

“You think I know? I’ve no idea what the silly buggers are playing at. The sooner we find out the better. Pick me up at home at half six. I want to be in Bodmin by seven.”

“Yes, sir. Er, sir, eyewitness to what?”

“Murder, Sergeant. Eyewitness to murder.” He hung up.

Megan reached out her arm to replace the receiver on the phone on her bedside table. She reset her alarm.

A few minutes ago she had been warm and cosy and asleep. Now she was wide-awake with cold shivers running up her spine.

She didn’t have enough information to make any guesses as to what was going on. Was Aunt Nell the eyewitness? If she had seen Nick Gresham kill someone, she must be shattered. He was more like a son to her than a next-door neighbour. What was she doing in a commune, near Padstow or anywhere else? Why did the Bodmin CID want Launceston to take over, if they had a cut-and-dried case? Just so as to avoid the drudgery of taking statements and writing reports? It didn’t seem sufficient reason for the top brass to go along with the transfer.

In vain Megan told herself to stop worrying; she’d find out in the morning. She was too concerned about her aunt to fall asleep. She reminded herself that, far from the sheltered existence one associated with old ladies, Aunt Nell had led an unusually adventurous life. That enabled her to drift off, only to find herself suddenly wide-awake again and worrying about Nick Gresham.

She had met Nick now and then at Aunt Nell’s, and liked him, though he was not her type and sometimes irritated her almost beyond bearing. The artist had always struck her as extremely easygoing. In fact, it was his casual attitude to life that irritated her. What provocation could have made him blow his cool to the point of murder?

When at last she slept, she had horrible dreams in which Duty, in the form of DI Scumble, obliged her to testify in court against Nick Gresham, and Aunt Nell swore never to speak to her again.

The alarm awoke her all too soon. She felt as tired as last night, but she had retained one certainty from her dreams: Given that Pearce was keen to hand over a case to his arch-rival Scumble, it was by no means cut-and-dried. For some reason he didn’t like the look of it. And the reason more than likely had something to do with Mrs Eleanor Trewynn.

A light rain was falling. “Rain before seven, fine by eleven,” Megan told herself.

After a quick wash, followed by toast and coffee, she rode her bike down the hill to the fenced-off police section of the public car-park behind St Mary Magdalene church. She stowed it in the bike-shed and went to ask the uniformed sergeant in charge for the keys of an unmarked car.

“DI Scumble?” he said. “I’ll give you an 1100. He’s hard on the springs of my Minis. Maybe it’s not his fault, though.”

“There are plenty of outsize coppers around here,” Megan agreed.