Down Among the Dead Men (23 page)

“I'll be on the other side,” he told Georgina.

She didn't answer. She was staring over her shoulder at a large man in a black silk dressing gown standing beside the dais, barefoot and bare-legged. The apples and oranges would have to wait for another day.

The next hour was a new low in Diamond's career. He had the rear aspect of the nude model, Davy, and he wasn't interested in committing it to paper. No one spoke. The concentration in the room was absolute. The whole point in being here was to get acquainted with the artists, but it wasn't possible. He could only look around and try to get an impression of them as people.

The only consolation was the sight of Georgina with her full-on view of the model, having her artistic credentials tested to the limit as Davy faced her, hands on hips. Each time Diamond glanced her way she swayed like a boxer out of sight behind the easel. Mostly she managed to hold a fixed stare at Davy's head and shoulders as if the rest of his body didn't exist. There was one exquisite moment when the tension became too much, her charcoal snapped and a piece rolled across the floor and stopped six inches from the dais. She didn't go after it.

Finally Tom went over and drew chalk marks around the model's feet to allow him to move and ease the strain on his muscles. Everyone relaxed. And then, with the grace of a true gentleman, Davy stooped, picked up the charcoal and handed it to Georgina. She turned geranium red, took a step back and knocked over someone's easel.

Diamond didn't have long to savour the incident. The woman beside him said, “Are you having trouble?”

“Trouble?”

“With the pose. You haven't made many marks. I'm Drusilla, by the way.” She held out a slim hand. Her voice was sharp, but she looked friendly enough, a slim woman about his own age dressed in some kind of ethnic sweater and frayed jeans.

“Peter,” he said, shaking hands, “and it's no use pretending I can draw. I'm a fraud, as you can see.”

“An interloper?”

“In a way, yes. A police officer, volunteered for this by my boss.”

“The lady hiding behind her easel?”

“Right. She thinks we should join in and not be too obvious.”

“She's more obvious than she thinks. Are you supposed to be undercover? If so, you're not very good at it. What are you hoping to find out? We may look a suspicious bunch, but I don't think we're lawbreakers—except Manny, the West Indian. He had a short spell inside for dealing in cannabis, I was told, but he served his sentence and made use of the time to become a brilliant cartoonist.”

“Good for him.”

“Tom and Ferdie employ him as the gardener. They're like that, open-minded, willing to give a man a fresh start. You should ask to see his cartoons. He'll do one of you if you ask. He might have done one already. There's character in your face, if I may be personal. But if you're going undercover—”

“If I was undercover, ma'am, I wouldn't have told you I was in the police.”

“My dear, you can tell me anything and it stays in here.” Drusilla tapped her forehead. “What are you investigating?”

“One of the schoolgirls who has gone missing.”

“I saw on the TV. I was hoping it was just a tiff with the parents. Isn't there any news?”

“Nothing yet.”

“Have you spoken to her friends? I suppose you will have.”

“They don't know either. There was a party here a couple of nights ago—the night she went missing. Did you go?”

She nodded. “They couldn't keep me away if they tried.”

“Was Melanie there?”

“If she came, I didn't spot her. I thought only one of the schoolgirls came and that was Ella, the tall one over there, looking amazingly grown-up and different in her gothic get-up, and she didn't stay long. When she got a little woozy, Tom removed her from the scene. It was the right thing to do. He's a responsible young man.”

He nodded, trying not to seem over-interested. “When you say woozy, are you talking about alcohol?”

“She wouldn't have been offered the wine, I'm sure. She's far too young. Most of us stick to soft drinks, anyway. Pressed fruit in various flavours.”

“That's restrained for a bunch of artists.”

She laughed. “This is rural Sussex, my dear, not Soho in the sixties.”

“But you don't expect to stay sober at a party, do you?”

“Personally, I can get high on good company and music, but I can't speak for everyone. A few I could name knock it back, but I'll spare their blushes. We're all rather hyped up by the end of the evening.”

“Does anyone do drugs?”

Drusilla laughed. “Good God, you are a suspicious policeman. Get that idea straight out of your head. I wouldn't have anything to do with drugs, I assure you, and neither would most of the others—including Manny, who learned his lesson the hard way.”

“But you just said by the end of the evening . . .”

“I meant something much more innocent. Haven't you ever been to a pop concert? Just listening to the music gives me an adrenalin surge. Coming back to young Ella, I saw Ferdie taking her a glass of fruit juice.”

“When you say Ferdie . . . ?”

“Tom's father, the unofficial barman. It's thanks to his generosity that we come here at all.”

“So you didn't see Mel that night. You're certain Ella was the only girl from Priory Park who showed up?”

“You'd better ask around if you doubt me. Ella's the only one I saw.”

His theory was looking shaky. He didn't get a chance to ask around because the model had just stepped up to the dais again and people were back behind their easels.

“I'm ducking out of this session,” he told Drusilla. “I've done all I can.”

He glanced across at Georgina. With her easel in a prime position, she would find it impossible to extract herself without everyone noticing. Stuck between the clergyman and a tall man making slashing movements with a palate knife, she looked as if she'd rather be anywhere else on the planet.

But Diamond escaped.

As if in sync with him, a wintry sun emerged from behind the clouds, throwing shadows and patches of bright green across the landscaped estate. What better than fresh air and exercise? Well, there was something better if the exercise had a purpose. Somewhere was the lake Ella had spoken about and that he'd speculated would be the ideal place to set up her lobster-pot House of Usher. Ella was a useful contact. With time in hand before lunch, the least he could do was to check. Down a gentle slope to the left was a beech copse turning gold. Logic suggested the lowest point on the landscape where the wooded area flourished would be where the lake was sited. He started walking.

One thing he hadn't expected until he got close and felt it underfoot was a gravel driveway running directly across the lawn, not so much in the direction of the copse as off to the right. From the size of the tracks it appeared to be in use by heavier traffic than cars. He couldn't at first understand why. There was nothing worth driving towards, just the tall brick wall that bounded the garden. Then he noticed a point where the wall angled sharply inwards and formed a square-shaped enclosure, presumably a walled garden. He wouldn't have picked it out from the background unless he'd asked himself where the road headed. Now it made sense. He could just see the roofs of buildings inside the walls that evidently housed the orchid collection. The driveway across the lawn would be needed to transport the orchids by van to the main drive.

His thoughts moved quickly from orchids to lobster pots. How simple it would be for the Standforths to transport Ella's House of Usher from the school to its new location by the lake—provided they liked his suggestion.

He crossed the drive and continued down the slope. Before reaching the copse he saw the gleam of water between tree trunks. All doubt was removed when a pair of mute swans glided across. He picked his way down a steeper incline and reached the bank where the water lapped. He was impressed. Two hundred to two-fifty metres to the far side, he estimated. The depth was anyone's guess, but this was much more than a pond. In his estimation it qualified as a lake. The dark reeds at the edges would blend in superbly with Ella's creation.

No question: it would pass for Edgar Allan Poe's sinister tarn.

The find was pleasing. There hadn't been much to celebrate lately. He stood a little longer, enjoying the view, thinking if everyone agreed he would have contributed to a small success.

In the act of turning to go back, he spotted a movement on the far side. The lake almost lapped the wall there, but a narrow path existed because someone was walking slowly from right to left.

Impossible to tell if it was male or female. Well covered in black beanie hat, brown overcoat and trousers. Not particularly tall and moving in a preoccupied way, with head down and arms folded. Maybe one of the artists had got the same idea as he, and escaped. Whoever it was hadn't seen him and was too far off to hail, or wave to, so he turned and retraced his route.

24

D
iamond had plenty on his mind as he toiled up the slope towards the house so perhaps it was excusable that he failed to spot Georgina striding towards him.

She was not at her most sunny. “What do you think you're playing at?”

“Didn't see you coming, ma'am.”

“Answer me, Peter.”

“I went for a walk.”

“Went for a walk in the middle of the session when everyone else was in the studio?”

“It goes completely silent when the drawing starts, and that's useless to us. Can't talk to anyone, can't overhear other people talking. So I stepped outside. A chance to look round.”

“With what result?”

“I found the lake.”

Her eyes rolled upwards. “Have we ever discussed a lake?”

“You and I? No. Young Ella needs it for her A level extended project. She also needs transport and I think there's a chance of getting some.”

Georgina looked ready to strangle him. “Have you gone soft in the head? You're not here at the beck and call of schoolgirls. You're assisting me in a serious investigation.”

“Point taken,” he said in the same untroubled tone. “I'm on the case. I need to persuade Ella I'm on her side. A rather odd incident happened at the party that she hasn't told us about. She started behaving as if she was drunk or drugged and Tom Standforth led her away.”

“Where to?”

“Don't know yet.”

“Did he take advantage of her?”

“That's not a question I can answer yet. I doubt if Tom will tell me, but if I win Ella's confidence, I might get it from her.”

“Who told you this—about Tom taking her off somewhere?”

“Drusilla. One of the artists.”

She frowned. “That is disturbing.”

“If true, yes. Drusilla is a vocal lady. These things can grow in the telling.”

“There's a danger here of getting sidetracked. Even if you discover the truth, how does it help us find the missing schoolgirl?”

“Get Ella talking and she might tell me more about Mel.”

Georgina didn't, after all, strangle him. She didn't even grab him by the throat. His explanation may have caused her to reflect a little. She sounded slightly reassured. “So you're going to speak to her now?”

“When I can prise her away from the others. She won't open up while they're around.”

“You haven't got long. They're still in the studio, I believe. It's a short break for lunch.”

He needed no better cue to escape from Georgina. “I'll get straight to it, then.”

She nodded and then announced in a voice that didn't encourage debate. “I shan't be doing any more art myself. Charcoal is a messy medium.”

He was tempted to say something, but he didn't.

* * *

Jim Bentley always watched the lunchtime news at home in his Emsworth bungalow with his wife Sheila. First the national and then the local, by which time he'd finished his tomato soup and started on the banana. This was the routine right through the year except for the days he went fishing with Norman. Even the flavour of the soup never changed. For a man of his age he was enviably slim.

Points South were screening an item about swans.

“Hey-ho,” Jim said “this could be close to home.”

But it wasn't. They were the swans at Christchurch, some way up the coast.

“They want to come here,” he said. “Ours take some beating.”

“You're so competitive,” Sheila said.

“There's nothing wrong with loyalty to your own home town. If they came to film our swans they'd probably show the town quay. I'd like to see my boat on the telly.”

“You and that boat.”

“She's given us some good times, you have to admit.”

“You're speaking for yourself, I hope. I don't go to sea.”

“But you make the most of it when I do.”

“In what way, may I ask?”

“In the shops—Debenham's, Jaeger, The White Stuff. Shall I go on?”

The news had moved on to a man speaking to a collection of microphones. Seated to his left were a man and a woman. The woman's eyes were red with weeping.

“Poor soul. Why do they put them through this?” Sheila said.

Jim had picked up the latest
Practical Boat Owner
and was leafing through it. “Through what?”

“It's a missing child. He's a policeman and they're the parents. I hope they don't force the mother to speak. She's too distressed. You can see.”

It was the father who spoke. “If you're watching this, Mel, please, please get in touch some way and let us know you're alive. We're here for you as always and we're missing you dreadfully.”

Sheila said, “It can't be a kiddie if they're asking her to get in touch.”

“Runaway teenager probably,” Jim said. “They aren't young, those two. I'd say they're knocking on fifty, both of them. Trying to bring her up to old-fashioned standards, I bet. It doesn't work in the modern world.”

“They don't look particularly strict,” Sheila said. “It could be nothing to do with the parents. Some boy could have put ideas in the girl's head.”

“Let's hope that's all it is,” Jim said. “If I was in charge of the case I'd take a close look at the family. Nine times out of ten it's what they call a domestic.”

“They aren't faking,” Sheila said. “Believe me, they're out of their minds with worry, those two.”

Now the detective in charge was speaking again.

“He's trying to sound positive,” Sheila said, “but look at his eyes. You can see he doesn't really think she's alive. We'll turn the news on tomorrow and they'll say they've found a body. I've seen it all before.”

The weather girl came on, pointing at the map.

“I wouldn't bank on it.” Jim said. “She may never be found. Real life isn't like these soaps you watch. It isn't all storylines that get tied up neatly, so you know exactly how things turn out.”

“There's an end to the story of every one of these poor people who go missing,” Sheila said. “Even if they're never found, they must end up somewhere. Sometimes they're all right and survive and sometimes they don't. But they all have a story.”

“What I'm saying,” Jim said with deliberation, “is we don't always find out.”

“It doesn't matter tuppence if you and I never find out,” Sheila said, “but for the families, it must be slow torture not knowing.”

The weather forecast had come to an end. Cold air from the north was coming in.

Jim said unexpectedly, “I'm going to call Norman.”

“What for? You're not planning another fishing trip? She said there could be gales”'

“It's about something else.”

The studio was pandemonium, a theatre bar between acts in a Beckett play, with everyone needing a break from the tension. Drawing from the model required strong concentration. Most were holding baguettes and drinks. Diamond squirmed through to the table at the end where the food was set out and a silver-haired man was presiding.

“May I?”

“Help yourself. Smoked salmon and salad to your left and bacon, lettuce and tomato here. The bacon is still warm, I think.”

“I can smell it. I'll go for it.”

“I'm Ferdie, by the way, Tom's father. Don't know you.”

“Peter Diamond, interloper, as one of your guests put it.”

“A first-timer, then? What will you drink—hot or cold?”

“CID, in fact, making a nuisance of myself asking questions about a missing schoolgirl. As I'm working, a coffee will suit me nicely.”

“Instant, I'm afraid,” Ferdie said, pointing to the urn. “Help yourself. We're all extremely concerned about the young lady. I'm at your disposal.”

“You're not an artist yourself, then?”

“One in the family is more than enough. I try to make myself useful as the catering manager.”

Diamond took a bite of the BLT. The bacon was still crisp and warm. “These are good. Do you cater for Tom's parties as well?”

“They're easy to put on,” Ferdie said. “Plenty of alcohol and savoury biscuits.”

“Nothing stronger?”

“What do you mean?”

“I was thinking a bunch of artists wouldn't be above dropping something extra into their drinks.”

“Never seen it happen,” Ferdie said. “I wouldn't allow it in my house if they tried. Tom knows that.”

Diamond nodded. No one was going to admit to a police officer that drugs were being taken, but Ferdie seemed to mean every word. “I guess most of them are past that sort of carry-on.”

Ferdie smiled. “They're a lively crowd after a few drinks. You should see them.”

“I'd like to, but they may not appreciate a policeman showing up. Did you see the students at the latest party?”

“I saw only one, with the wild hair, wearing black. A goth, she calls herself.”

“That's Ella. The missing girl is Melanie Mason, known as Mel, shorter, with dark hair. She hasn't been seen since that night.”

“I know who she is, from the art sessions. She definitely wasn't at the party.”

“Ella was taken ill, I heard. Can you tell me what happened? She had to leave the party, I believe.”

Ferdie sighed and shook his head. “She shouldn't have been here. You'd better speak to Tom about that. All I can tell you is that she spent the night on a sofa in our main sitting room. He drove her home next morning. I offered a cooked breakfast, but she couldn't face it.”

They were interrupted by a woman with charcoal smears on her face wanting a coffee. Diamond picked up his plate and mug and moved off. He definitely needed to speak to Ella.

He was crossing the room to where the three Priory Park students were in conversation when his path was blocked by a tall, gaunt man in a butcher's apron holding a knife. Sunken eyes and a mouth like a gash from the blade.

“You want to be careful with that,” Diamond said.

“You want to be careful where you fucking walk,” the man said. He pointed with the knife.

At knee level was a small armoury of knives and daggers spread out on a donkey stool. Diamond would have crashed into it if he hadn't been stopped.

“Thanks. Didn't spot them.”

“Fine fucking detective you are.”

“You know about me, then?”

“Everyone knows.”

“And you are . . . ?”

“Geraint.”

“So you use the knives in your art?”

“Fucking obvious, isn't it?”

“May I see your work?”

Geraint didn't answer, but stood back from his canvas, making just enough room for Diamond to step around the knives.

The painting looked like a skid pan at the end of the day, riven with intersecting tracks. Many colours had been worked into a thick khaki mess in which the broad shape of a man was just about discernible.

“What do you think?” Geraint said.

“I'm lost for fucking words,” Diamond said and moved on.

The three students turned their heads like meerkats.

“Good to see familiar faces,” he said. “This is better than school, I bet.”

Not one of them answered. In truth, it wasn't much of an icebreaker.

He tried again. “I started doing some drawing and gave up when it came out looking like the Michelin Man.”

None of them smiled, but Ella couldn't resist saying, “Show us.”

“I tore it up. Didn't want the model thinking I see him like that. I came over to ask if anyone has heard from Mel?”

“We'd tell you, wouldn't we?” Jem said.

“I was hoping she might have texted one of you.”

“She's not much of a texter,” Ella said. “Not like Jem and me.”

“But she owns a phone?”

“Natch. Doesn't everyone?” Jem said. “Ella's right. Mel keeps a load of stuff bottled up in her head. Even her best friends don't know.”

“And who are they?”

“Ella, for one. Me and Naseem.”

“Does she get on with her parents?”

“I suppose. They're stuck in their ways, like most parents. When I say “parents” I mean her mother and stepfather. She's their only child and that makes it all a bit heavy for her, but she doesn't complain. She'd hate to see them upset like they were on TV.”

“What's your theory, then?”

“About Mel?” Jem said. “I think she's dead.”

“Oh, Jem!” Naseem said.

“Some psycho tried it on and she fought back and he killed her.”

“That's horrible.”

“Murder is horrible. Isn't that the truth?” She turned to Diamond.

She was trying to shock, and he didn't play along. “It may not be in this case. Let's hope there's another explanation. She left her house unexpectedly on the same night as the artists' party.”

“Pure coincidence,” Jem said. “Mel wasn't a party girl. She didn't like hanging around with blokes. She wasn't even a drinker.”

Naseem said, “I wish you wouldn't talk about her in the past tense. You don't know she's dead.”

“None of us knows for sure, but if she just ran off because of a row with her parents, she wouldn't last one night on her own. She's a home lover. Correction: she was a home lover.”

“She went out on her scooter,” Ella said. “She definitely had some place in mind.”

“Well, it wasn't here,” Jem said. “She wouldn't go near one of Tom's parties. She'd pay money to stay away. Am I right?”

“Unless she came for another reason,” Naseem said.

“Such as?”

“The texts we were getting from Ella.”

Ella turned accusingly and made a snorting sound—and it was clear that a confidence had been broken.

Diamond, inwardly alert, didn't alter his expression.

Naseem refused to be cowed by Ella. “Were you texting all three of us, including Mel?”