A Bed of Scorpions (13 page)

I wanted to leave on time, so that I could go and see Toby without it looking as though I was expecting to be asked for dinner. I was sure they wouldn’t want me, the night before the funeral, but if I got there later in the evening, they might feel they had to offer, or, even worse, put me in a position where I had to accept. I figured that if I got there by six, I could decently leave at seven, and honour would be satisfied.

The tube would be faster, but I decided to take the bus up to Highgate. First of all, it was a nice evening, and I’d been indoors all day. But that was a polite fiction I made up to fool myself. What I really wanted was something to
keep my mind busy so I didn’t have to think about this second death. I was sure I would hear the details at Toby’s: the man had been the gallery’s restorer, and lots of the people there must have known him. But information was one thing. I longed for information. What I didn’t want was to have to turn the bare facts which Jake had given me over and over in my head, which I would do if I was strap-hanging on the tube. If I took the bus, I could busy myself with the day’s backlog of emails: the meeting, and then rushing to get the two offer letters written, meant that I’d otherwise only dealt with emergencies, or things that looked like they might soon become emergencies. I hear that other cities have this legendary thing called Wi-Fi on their underground systems, but as London had yet to join the twentieth century, much less the twenty-first, we see no reasons to pollute our transport network with such crass modernity. There were a few stations that proudly announced they had a connection, but that was only on the platforms. If our ancestors could fight the Crimean War without Wi-Fi, seemed to be the consensus, then it must be admirable to continue proudly on without it. I think that is the technical explanation.

It was rush hour, and the bus was crowded. I was lucky to get a seat, and it was on the top deck. Since they banned smoking on the buses years ago, the only people who go upstairs if there are seats below are tourists and children. The natural swaying of the bus is magnified; add in bus drivers’ union regulations that require them to stomp on the brakes with the strength of a rhino in heat, and doing email becomes complicated. But sitting was better than standing, and email was better than worrying.

I clicked and scrolled busily as we stopped and started up the hill to Highgate, getting through an enormous amount of dull but necessary routine as we went. Two or three stops before we reached Toby’s, I looked up to check where we were. I was staring out blankly at the street below, not really paying attention, when something nagged at me. I looked again. That was it, a russet flash. I turned to look back, and sure enough, there was Celia Stein.

Without thinking, without even processing the thought, I leapt across the person sitting next to me and flung myself down the stairs. The bus was already in motion again, but it was one of those new ones, with the old-style back opening. This, too, is a space for tourists, or maybe for government ministers to look at nostalgically as they drive past in their cars, remembering the days of their youth. Whatever, it’s not officially for use, and each of the buses boasts a conductor whose sole job is to prevent people entering and exiting this way. But in my mad scramble the momentum I’d gained on the stairs was no match for him. I leapt off the moving bus and was steadying myself on the pavement before he’d even managed to put out a hand to stop me.

I looked in the direction I’d seen Celia. There was no one there now. I looked up and down the street. No one. Had I been mistaken? Was I having Celia Stein hallucinations? For all I knew this was where she lived. It was as likely a place as anywhere.

I was an idiot. That wasn’t news, so I turned and headed up the hill to Toby’s.

I walked slowly, dreading the evening. I’m not good in social situations – if I were, I’d have become a publicist. But
more than that, there was the little job Helena had landed me with. People who have never met Helena tell me ‘Just say no’ when I complain about her making me do things like this. Not about making enquiries linked to sudden death. That hasn’t come up much up until now. But more generally. My answer is simply to introduce them to my mother. Then they know better.

The front door was ajar when I arrived. I took this as a sign that lots of people were there, or at least were expected, so the family didn’t have to run back and forth. That was hopeful. And so it proved. The sitting room already held maybe thirty people, standing and talking as though it were a drinks party. I slid through, nodding and smiling at the few people I recognised – some gallery staff, whose names I didn’t know but I’d seen them over the years and their faces were familiar, and some people I’d met at Aidan and Anna’s. But I saw no one I knew and I could see their eyes widen as they saw my injured face, not something I felt like discussing with strangers. So when I saw Lucy, I stopped. At least we’d chatted a bit, and we could talk about Jim, and the show. In these circumstances she was as close as I was going to get to a friend.

She seemed just as pleased to see me. She had, she said, been head of ‘kitchen operations’, feeding the people who had come to visit over the past week. Now there was just the funeral to get through, and then things would return to normal, so she wasn’t going to be needed anymore. I apologised for having failed to bring the supplies I’d promised on the weekend. She examined my face with a naïve openness that was much better than the covert looks
I’d been getting, and said, peering at the scabs, ‘If you were making excuses, at least you went to the trouble of making it look authentic.’

I smiled. ‘My mother’s a lawyer. I’m a stickler for an alibi.’

She jumped and flushed. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’

‘You weren’t rude. It was a big improvement on the people who talk around the subject, hoping I’ll mention how it happened so they don’t have to ask a direct question.’ Asking direct questions in middle-class, professional England gets you deported, probably to the colonies, where they don’t know any better.

She put her head on one side, interested. ‘Sort of the way we treat death. Poor Toby. I think if one more person puts a hand on his arm and says, “How
are
you,
really
?” he’s going to explode. Except Toby doesn’t explode. That was Frank. Toby was the smoother-over afterwards. Even for gallery explosions.’

‘I didn’t know Toby had ever had anything to do with the gallery.’

She nodded, her eyes scanning the room restlessly. Apparently being head of kitchen operations hadn’t quite worn off, and she was checking to make sure everyone was supplied. Which they were, and the noise was rising accordingly. ‘Officially, Aidan does the selling and Frank was the artist-wrangler.’ She gave a small smirk, to mark off her cynical assessment that artists needed to be herded like cattle. ‘But without Toby as social glue, I doubt there would have been an artist left on the gallery’s books. Or a staff member.’

This was as good a place as any to start the investigation
Helena had ordered. ‘I had no idea. I saw one of the gallery people last night, or at least an ex-gallery person.’ I looked over her shoulder, as though I wasn’t much interested. ‘Matt Holder.’

Her eyes snapped back to me, but she didn’t say anything.

I shrugged. ‘One of those who needed smoothing over, I hear?’

She looked curious, now. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I heard that there was an argument about his seeing an ex of Frank’s.’ Who was now dead.

She closed her eyes and shook her head, a worldly-wise twenty-year-old mourning the foolishness of her elders. ‘God knows why that was ever a problem, but it was.’ She stopped, seeming to feel that this discussion was at an end.

I didn’t want to barge off, as though I’d only stopped to pry, so I changed the subject. ‘I also chatted to Jim Reynolds yesterday at the Stevenson press conference. What I saw of the pictures looked great.’ It wasn’t the most original, or interesting, comment I’d ever made, so I wasn’t surprised when she just smiled mechanically. I was more surprised that she didn’t reply. Maybe Jim liked her more than she liked Jim? At any rate, she wasn’t interested. So I might as well push off. ‘Is Aidan here?’

She didn’t even look around. ‘Last I saw he was in the conservatory, talking to Myra.’

I turned. He was still there, and having Myra identified was a bonus: she was definitely one of those faces I was supposed to know.

I started to make those noises you do when you’re ready to leave. ‘This all coming together must be so difficult for you.’

Lucy had clearly decided the gathering held more interesting people than me, which I couldn’t really argue with. ‘Will you excuse me?’ she said, as though we’d never met. ‘I think they need more ice over there.’

Another dazzling display of social skills on my part. I turned and trudged off to the back of the room, which Lucy had called the conservatory. Aidan had moved off, but Myra was still there. She was the one, I remembered, who had sent the email with the funeral details, so I introduced myself and thanked her for including me. She recognised me, but I had no idea if we’d ever spoken before or not. I cast around for conversation, not easy when I didn’t know what she did at the gallery. So I just repeated what I’d said to Lucy – that I’d been at the press conference for the Stevenson exhibition and it looked as though it would be a great show, and added, ‘It must be taking up enormous amounts of everyone’s time at the gallery. And particularly now, without Frank.’

She wasn’t a chatty type, apparently, because the only answer I got was pursed lips. I bet no one ever said, a party’s not a party without Myra.

‘Does it all end up with Aidan now?’ I tried next. ‘Frank never struck me as a paperwork type.’ I considered it for a moment. ‘Not that Aidan does either.’

She huffed. ‘I do the paperwork. That’s what a registrar does.’

I had no reason to stay with this grumpy woman, but maybe she had been close to Frank and this was her way of dealing with it. I tried to look sympathetic instead of answering her words. ‘It must be hard for someone who worked with Frank as closely as you did.’ And then I made a break for it.

I went into the kitchen and found myself a glass of wine. I also found Aidan, who was listening to Lucy, who was gesticulating furiously, but with tears in her eyes – more upset than angry. Whatever it was it didn’t appear to worry Aidan too much, because he just patted her on the shoulder when he saw me and walked away, leaving her there biting her lip.

He couldn’t have seen me when I’d arrived, because he was now staring at my face, appalled, not bothering with the sidelong glances others were deploying. I agreed with him. Most of my face was now not only scabbed over, but had turned an elegant sea-green from the bruising. But while I found it mostly embarrassing, Aidan seemed to be personally insulted by it. ‘Jesus, Sam.’ It was an accusation.

But not one that was worth responding to. ‘I fell off my bike. It looks worse than it is.’ I didn’t want to talk about it, and if I talked to him quickly about Holder, I could get the hell out of there. I thought ‘How are you managing?’ was a good opening gambit. He could tell me how he was feeling, or how they were managing at the gallery, or he could just take it as a variant on ‘How are you?’, whichever he liked.

He chose reality. ‘I’ve been here every evening for a week. I’m contemplating becoming an alcoholic.’

I tried to sound encouraging. ‘These late career changes can be good. I’m sure there’s a call for a professional lush somewhere.’

I agree, not funny, but it was the night before his partner’s funeral. I don’t think any of us were making great jokes.

He wasn’t really listening anyway. And I was surprised
that he hadn’t mentioned Schmidt’s death. That no one I’d spoken to so far had. I thought briefly that I might avoid it, and then vetoed that. Aidan had come to me when Frank died.

‘I heard about Werner Schmidt this morning. I’m sorry. Was he an old friend?’

Aidan rubbed his eyes, much as he’d done that first day at lunch. It was a bit like one of those nightmares, where every time you go back to sleep it starts all over again. ‘Everyone else has been too tactful to mention it to me.’ He smiled an old-friend smile. ‘Your tact levels never change, do they?’

I was mortified. ‘I never know whether talking about things or tiptoeing around them is worse.’

He patted the air. ‘Tiptoeing is worse. I’m glad you said something. And yes, he was an old friend. He was at art college with Frank, and they were together for a few years. Frank always knew he wasn’t good enough to be a successful artist, and became a dealer almost as soon as he graduated. Werner …’ He hesitated. ‘Werner wasn’t good enough either, but he didn’t accept it for a long time. Never did, really. He started to do bits of restoration for friends, and then ultimately retrained, but he always continued to make his own art. It just isn’t very good. And so restoration became a living, and his own art a hobby, although he didn’t think of it that way.’

‘Poor man. To do something you love badly, or at least not well enough, and not love the thing you’re good at.’

He nodded. ‘He was very bitter. A great guy, as long as you never discussed art. Or, at least, I didn’t, apart from the restoration he did for us. He and Frank had a
much tighter relationship.’ Then he frowned. ‘How did you hear?’ Even as he asked, he knew the answer. ‘Your policeman?’

‘Yes. This morning.’ I shook my head, pre-empting his next question. ‘I don’t know anything apart from the fact that he’s dead, and it was probably an accident. That’s all Jake had when I went to work.’

‘Then I know more than you. He was found dead in his studio on Monday morning by a courier who was booked to collect a job from him. As far as any of his friends can work out, he was last seen on Friday night. He was invited to a party on the Saturday, and didn’t show up, so we’re assuming between then sometime.’

‘Do you know how? Jake said “industrial accident”, but I don’t know what that means.’

Aidan’s mouth twitched. ‘A very official phrase. At the moment, we’ve been told that it looks like it was glue inhalation.’