The Art of Murder (9 page)

‘But how do you obtain your specimens?’ I asked. ‘Is there still a trade in grave-robbing?’

Merryfield looked greatly offended. ‘No, there is not, Sandler!’ he snapped. ‘We are morally minded students, just like you. The dead bodies we use are all officially accounted for and their passage from the workhouse, the prisons and the hospitals is documented in triplicate.’

‘I’m sorry, I …’

‘Burke and Hare went out of business a long time ago,’ he added.

I held my hands up and made a very fine show of trying to pacify my ‘friend’. The fact was, of course, that I was greatly amused by his reaction, though I could not let him know that. ‘So how on earth do you preserve the corpses?’ I said, quickly putting Merryfield back into a position where he could do his best to impress.

‘Well, that’s actually a very good question,’ he said, his ill temper evaporating. ‘It’s not at all easy. Have you heard of refrigeration?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s what we do here. We have a gas generator at the back of the building which keeps the room cool. You must have noticed?’

‘Yes, I did,’ I retorted with a shiver.

‘The body is embalmed with a special chemical called glutaraldehyde and packed in ice in the box there.’ He pointed to the dead man’s steel tomb. ‘The glutaraldehyde has turned Franklin’s skin yellow.’

‘Franklin?’

‘That was his name. A murderer, apparently. Killed two small children.’

I stared down at the sinewy naked form and could not visualise it as ever having been a living thing, let alone a person possessing the passion to kill.

Later Merryfield and I walked back to Broad Street together. After arranging a date and time for my first extra-curricular anatomy lesson with him, we parted on good terms. He wandered off to his room in Lincoln College and I walked slowly along Turl Street towards Exeter. But I knew even then that I would not sleep until I had spent some more time with Franklin.

I waited for three hours, watching the clock on my mantelpiece until the hands reached one. We were all supposed to be tucked up in our rooms by ten at night, and the curfew was strictly enforced. But, as you will have gleaned, I’ve never been an entirely conventional fellow. Within twenty-four hours of arriving at Exeter I had found at least three different ways to avoid the Bulldogs. It was a simple matter to
slip unnoticed past the head porter, Mr Cooper, as he read the
Oxford Times
and sipped tea in the porters’ lodge. I could move with great stealth and almost completely silently. As a precaution, I had put on black clothes, smeared my face with paint and pulled a hat tight down over my head.

Another useful skill I had acquired years earlier was the ability to pick locks. To this day there is still not a lock that has defeated me … and, believe me, good lady, I have picked a few.

I have a near-perfect memory and could recall every detail of the inside of the lab. Another useful skill of mine. You have to admit, I am a rather clever chap. The room was black, but there was a gas lamp close to the door. I pictured the layout of the room: the wooden and metal benches, the chairs, the sinks and the metal ‘tombs’. I made my way in the dark straight to the part of the room where Merryfield and I had been talking the previous evening. I lit the gas mantle, turning the tap to produce the palest, most sallow light.

The memory of it all is as clear as crystal in my mind today. Most people would probably have felt uncomfortable in that place. The cold was biting, my cheeks felt numb and my fingers were freezing. I could see my own breath in the air. But aside from these discomforts, I felt remarkably relaxed. The dead have never scared me, and in this dark, frigid room, I felt absolutely at home. And so I set to work.

I shall not describe precisely what I did. Let us just say I was searching for something. I always had
been. This was in the days when I believed there was still something to find inside the human body. A time before I realised there was nothing there. Before I gleaned the real truth.

I haven’t really explained this so far, have I? Perhaps I should. My parents’ religious zeal repelled me, this much is undeniable. I had no time for myths and legends, and I certainly did not believe in a benevolent God. But at the same time, I could not come to terms with the idea that this meagre existence on Earth was the end of the story. I realise now that it was just my ego making me think this. After all, it is human ego that drives all religious faith, and like most people I needed to believe in the existence of the soul. As far back as the days when I’d vivisected rats and frogs, I was searching for a physical manifestation of it. I knew it had to be in there somewhere. That is what I was doing that night in Merryfield’s lab. I was hunting for tell-tale signs that the dead murderer’s body had once hosted a soul, that traces of it somehow remained. I realise the futility of it now, dear lady. But I was young once.

Anyway, I digress. I half-expected something concerning my nocturnal adventure to appear in the local paper, but, disappointingly, nothing was ever reported. It seemed the University hushed up everything. No blame was ever placed upon Merryfield because he shared the cadaver with at least a dozen other students. He told me there had been a discreet enquiry into the episode and that he had been
questioned at length. I put on a wonderful show of shock and disgust when, after swearing me to secrecy, he told me what had happened. None of the medical students or teaching staff could quite understand why a hard-to-come-by corpse, employed for serious research, had been so comprehensively and systematically eviscerated, each organ ransacked, every inch of flesh diced and pulverised.

For my part, I’m just as mystified as to why Merryfield never showed the slightest suspicion that the destruction of Franklin’s dead body had been in any way linked with our visit the previous night, or that it was anything to do with me. Either he was a very naïve chap or I am an even better actor than I give myself credit for.

Stepney, Friday 23 January, 8.30 a.m.

The morning sun was trying to break through heavy dark cloud as Pendragon and Turner drove through grey morning streets. Pendragon was sipping coffee, the sergeant at the wheel.

‘Did you learn anything from Chester Gerachi?’

‘Nah, just confirmed what that bird Selina said.’

‘About Arcade?’

‘Yeah, and Berrick leaving with Hedridge.’

‘Where did Gerachi go after the private view?’

‘Got a cab home. He lives in Bermondsey. I checked with the cab company. They dropped him there just after one-thirty.’

Pendragon nodded and took another sip of coffee. ‘Which doesn’t entirely rule him out. He could have made it back to Stepney in time to bump off Berrick.’

‘I thought the same thing. He’s clear though. His girlfriend was waiting up for him.’

They pulled up outside a large Victorian terraced house on Glynnis Road, close to Whitechapel tube station. Half a dozen rings on the doorbell brought no response, so Turner leaned on the ancient brass bell push until the front
door was finally opened a crack. Through the narrow opening they could see a man’s face, eyes crinkled to slits. His long, spiky hair was almost comical, like the much-maligned cat in a
Tom and Jerry
cartoon after he’s had his paw jammed in a plug socket. Pendragon pushed his ID up to the crack. The young man glanced at it and went to close the door again, but Turner had his foot in the opening. There was a brief sigh from the other side of the door and it swung open a little.

Francis Arcade lived in a bedsit on the first floor. It consisted of one large room with a minuscule bathroom and a galley kitchen. Windows in the main room looked out over the grey street, parked cars, ragged, leafless trees and Stepney grime. It was a high-ceilinged room with elaborate cornicing. It would once have made a fine master bedroom. The floorboards were bare and painted black. The walls were painted dark grey. A bare bulb hung from the centre of the ceiling. It cast a bright, stark light over the dark surfaces. In one corner stood a narrow bed. It was the only piece of furniture in the room.

The rest of the space was taken up with canvases laid flat on the floor or leaning against the walls, an easel, boxes of paints, and pots stuffed with brushes of all sizes. One wall was covered with advertisements from magazines and newspapers. The canvases, a good dozen of them, were identical, flat black, featureless surfaces. Arcade caught Turner staring at them.

‘A new series,’ the young man said. ‘Shades of white.’

Turner made to reply but a glance from Pendragon stopped him. ‘Mr Arcade, we’re from Brick Lane Police
Station. My name’s DCI Pendragon and this is Sergeant Turner. May we ask you a few questions?’

Arcade was tall, two or three inches over six foot, but incredibly thin. He could not have weighed more than seventy kilos. He had obviously just rolled out of bed. He was bare-foot, dressed in a pair of black baggy trousers that flapped about his feet, and a ripped T-shirt through which one pale nipple could be seen. About his neck was a grubby red kerchief. He had large hands, long fingers, filthy nails. His mop of jet-black hair was a mess, spiked up with gel. He had the remnants of black mascara about his large eyes, black pupils, a long, shapely nose and a sensuous wide mouth. Given a bath, a haircut and a few good meals, he could have been a good-looking kid.

Pendragon recalled what he knew of Francis Arcade from the record. He had been reported for two relatively minor offences, disorderly conduct and petty theft. No charges had been brought on either count. He had studied at St Martin’s and had once been considered a promising young artist. There had even been an article about him in
Paint
, which had trumpeted that Arcade was
the
young artist to keep an eye on. Then it had all gone wrong. He had been kicked out of college, a remarkable feat in itself. Officially it had been because he had slandered the school in an interview in the
Big Issue
, but Arcade had claimed he had been victimised and that they had used the interview as an excuse to get rid of him. Whatever the truth, it marked the start of a rapid slide in his fortunes. He was soon ostracised by the painting fraternity, and his few friends deserted him. He had taken to attacking the London art world at every opportunity,
but each attempt to deride or upset those who pulled the strings had backfired, and now he was perceived by most people in the scene as an object of ridicule.

‘I take it this is about the stiffs?’

‘If by that you mean the two men whose deaths we are investigating, then, yes.’

‘That’s cool. I’ll tell you anything you’d like to know about the fuckers. I hated the air they breathed. Very good riddance, as far as I’m concerned.’

‘That seems a strange thing to say at this juncture, Mr Arcade.’

The young man shrugged. ‘Innocent until proven guilty, I was always told. Has that changed suddenly?’

Pendragon stared at him. ‘Can you account for your movements early on Wednesday morning?’

‘Yes, I can actually. I was at the Lemon.’

‘The Lemon?’

‘A club, sir,’ Turner said.

Pendragon screwed up his mouth and nodded. ‘And what time did you leave … the Lemon?’

‘About four, I think. You could ask them at the door. They saw me arrive about midnight. There were quite a few people at the club who could vouch for me. I was on the floor the whole time. Didn’t stop … except to take a piss a couple of times.’

‘What about early yesterday morning?’

‘Was that when my dear departed friend Noel Thursk died? I thought he hung himself.’

‘Just answer the question, please.’

‘Am I a suspect suddenly?’

‘You’re helping with our enquiries, Mr Arcade. If you
would prefer to come down to the station, we have nice warm interview rooms there.’

Arcade bit on a dirty fingernail. ‘I was at the Lemon then too.’

‘Two nights in a row?’

‘I’ve been in a dancey mood.’

Pendragon looked around the room before staring hard at Arcade. ‘You knew Kingsley Berrick and Noel Thursk well?’

‘Better than I would have liked. Berrick was a breadhead, nothing more. He had no real interest in art. When he looked at a painting or a sculpture, he saw pound signs. And Thursk? A seedy little charlatan. All he was interested in was digging the dirt on the people around him. He was a crap artist and a crap writer. No great loss, really,’ Arcade concluded, screwing up his face in a mock smile.

‘I assume you blame these two men for your recent problems,’ Pendragon replied.

Arcade’s smile dissolved, to be replaced by a stare as black as one of his new canvases. ‘And what would those “problems” be, Chief Inspector?’

Pendragon felt Turner staring sidelong at him from where he stood a few feet to his left. Arcade gave a short laugh. ‘You don’t really understand anything, do you?’ he said. ‘There are two types of people in the art world, Chief Inspector. There are the creators and the spongers. Berrick and Thursk are … sorry,
were
… spongers, parasites who fed off the spirit and the soul of artists. For me, there are no “problems”, as you call them. There are only opportunities … opportunities to create. I learn from
everything that happens to me. Each new experience in my life feeds my work. Because of that, I don’t have
problems
. I’m immune.’

Pendragon glanced at Turner then back at Arcade. He wanted to argue, to point out that he was contradicting himself, for if there were no problems, then Berrick and Thursk had not been problems. If they were simply fuelling his creativity, they had been doing him a favour; no reason to hate them therefore. ‘Tell me about Tuesday evening,’ he said instead.

‘What? The sickening display of pomposity and backslapping at Kingsley’s gallery?’

‘An event to which you weren’t invited.’

‘Wouldn’t have gone if I had been.’

‘So gatecrashing was just a display of frustration? Or was it performance art?’