Guns in the Gallery (20 page)

‘She did have two small children to bring up on her own,' Jude interceded on Bonita Green's behalf.

‘So what? A true artist wouldn't let considerations like that get in the way of their work.'

‘Right.' Carole picked up her interrogation. ‘So where did you go after the Private View?'

‘Back to the hotel they'd booked me into. Place called the Dauncey. Fairly primitive, but probably as state of the art as hotels get in a backwater like Fethering.' Carole curbed the instinct to defend her home village against the allegation. ‘I spent the whole night there.'

‘Do you have someone who can vouch for that?' asked Carole.

He smiled at her infuriatingly. ‘My, oh my. You've completed the full Amateur Sleuths' Correspondence Course and passed with distinction. Know all the questions about alibis, don't you?'

‘I asked if anyone could vouch for the fact that you'd spent all of Friday night at the Dauncey Hotel,' Carole continued implacably.

‘So you did. And the answer, I am glad to tell you, is yes.'

‘Was it someone you'd picked up at the Private View?'

He smiled lazily. ‘I'm glad my reputation as a babe magnet has spread as far as Fethering. But no, on this occasion I wasn't working my magic for some fortunate and grateful woman. I was with someone of my own gender.'

‘Oh?'

The disapproval in Carole's tone clearly communicated itself, because with another lazy smile, he said, ‘No, not that. I know you expect artists to be capable of any depravity, but to my chagrin I've never fancied boys. Sure I'm missing a lot, but there you go . . . No, I actually spent the night drinking with my old mucker Giles.'

‘Giles Green?'

‘I didn't notice any other Gileses around at the Private View.'

‘So the two of you were drinking all night in the bar of the Dauncey Hotel?'

‘Not the bar, no. The hotel manager had rather old-fashioned ideas about licensing hours; he seemed to believe that no one in Fethering ever wanted a drink after nine in the evening. So Giles and I bought a couple of bottles of Scotch and retired with them to my room to drink the night away.'

‘And in the course of that night,' asked Jude, ‘did you talk about Fennel Whittaker?'

‘We may have done. My recollections of the occasion are necessarily somewhat hazy.'

‘But you probably did?'

‘Probably. Giles and I have always tended to talk about women. We've known each other for a long time.'

‘From your time at Lancing,' said Carole.

‘Ooh, you have been doing your research.'

‘And has there been rivalry between you when it comes to women?'

‘A bit. Benign rivalry, I'd say.'

‘Never come to conflict?'

‘Good God, no. The woman hasn't been born who's worth spoiling a male friendship for.' This was said with a challenging smile. Denzil Willoughby was fully aware of the effect his words were having. It was almost as if he were trying to goad his two visitors into some reaction, but they were determined not to give him the satisfaction.

‘So that night after the Private View,' asked Carole, ‘did you talk about Giles's relationship with Chervil Whittaker?'

‘It probably came up.' He grinned complacently. ‘Though there wasn't really much he could tell me there.'

Jude was quicker to pick up the implication than Carole. ‘You mean you'd already had a relationship with Chervil yourself?'

‘Spot on.'

‘Recently?'

‘Fairly. It was when I got bored with the younger sister that I moved on to the older one.'

‘And Giles picked up with Chervil?'

‘Exactly. We've always kind of shared girlfriends.'

‘At the same time?'

‘Not very often.' He sniggered. ‘Wouldn't have worried us, but girls can be funny about that kind of thing.'

‘And what about Fennel?' asked Jude.

‘What about Fennel?'

‘Was she another girlfriend you shared? Did Giles have a relationship with her as well as you?'

Denzil Willoughby was silent, assessing his reply. Though there was an insolent pleasure in his manner, enjoying telling his visitors what a bad boy he was, an undercurrent of anxiety remained. The iPhone still moved restlessly around between his hands. Both women got the impression he was deliberately extending the conversation, that he still hadn't got from them what he wanted to know.

He made his decision. ‘Yes, Giles had a bit of a fling with Fennel.'

‘Before you did?'

‘Yes.'

‘While he was still with his wife?'

‘Sure. Giles always thought that he and Nikki had an open marriage.'

‘There are a lot of husbands who think that,' said Carole with some bitterness, ‘but quite a few of them forget to explain the situation to their wives.'

Denzil Willoughby did another of his infuriating shrugs. ‘Having never been married, I wouldn't know,' he said in a voice of assumed piety.

‘But this is rather important,' announced Jude. ‘Now we know that Giles also had a relationship with Fennel, the whole situation becomes—'

‘It doesn't change anything if you're looking for a murderer,' Denzil pointed out. ‘Because if Giles is my alibi for the relevant time, then I'm also his.'

‘But surely—'

Carole didn't get beyond the two words, as Denzil suddenly reacted to a beep from his iPhone. Maybe it announced the text he's been expecting all morning, but the news it brought certainly gave him a shock.

With a cry of, ‘Oh my God, no!' he leapt to his feet and rushed back into the workshop.

TWENTY-TWO

O
n the assumption that when he had done whatever the text demanded of him, Denzil Willoughby would return either to pick up the conversation or end their meeting, Carole and Jude stayed out on the terrace. The
cafetière
retained enough warmth for them to refill their cups.

They talked casually, about anything except the death of Fennel Whittaker. Though both women were full of new ideas relating to their investigation, on Denzil Willoughby's home territory they felt somehow under surveillance.

Some twenty minutes passed before the conviction hardened in both of them that he wasn't coming back, so they ventured into the workshop. There nothing seemed to have changed. The young man had found a new area of Christ's carved wooden flesh into which to bang galvanized nails, and the girl was still laying her meticulous lines of Christmas tape over President Obama. There was no sign of Denzil Willoughby.

Neither of the assistants so much as looked up from their work, so Carole and Jude reckoned they were capable of seeing themselves out. They had almost reached the small door to the street when they heard the sound of feet descending the spiral staircase.

This pair of legs was also wearing jeans, but they fitted the more shapely contours of a woman. A few seconds more descent and Carole and Jude found themselves facing Nikki, Giles Green's wife.

She seemed unfazed to see them. ‘Ah. Denzil said you'd been here. I thought you might have gone.'

‘Good morning. I'm Carole and—'

‘We met at the Cornelian Gallery.' There was something strikingly direct about Nikki Green.

‘Yes, of course we did. I wasn't sure you'd remember.'

The two assistants on the floor showed no more interest in this exchange than they had in anything else that had happened that morning. Maybe they were under orders to make no response, or just too preoccupied in realizing the ‘concepts' vouchsafed to them by the genius who was their employer.

‘I'd better explain what's happened,' said Nikki Green as she reached ground level. She looked around the workshop and seemed to dismiss it as a venue. ‘Let's go out and get a coffee. There's a Starbucks just down the road.'

Jude saw Carole about to say that they'd actually just had downed the contents of a
cafetière
, but managed to stop her with a look.

The three of them didn't speak until they were sitting in the café with yet more coffee in front of them. Then Nikki Green said, ‘Apologies for Denzil not saying goodbye to you. He'd just received some bad news.'

‘Oh? We saw he'd just had a text that—'

‘Yes. That was it. His mother's just died.'

Jude said she was sorry and Carole came up with the customary elaborate expressions of regret that people in Fethering always produced at the news of the death of someone they'd never met.

‘Denzil and Philomena were very close, texting each other every day. More like lovers than mother and son. He'll be pretty cut up about it.'

‘Maybe,' suggested Jude, ‘that's the explanation for his behaviour to other women. None of them could ever match up to his mother.'

‘That's one explanation for it,' said Nikki Green, ‘though I favour the view that he behaves like that because he's basically just a little shit.'

‘And how well do you know him?' asked Carole in a manner that she couldn't prevent from sounding old-fashioned.

‘Ah, yes. Well, a legitimate question, I suppose. Given the fact that I was introduced to you in Fethering as Giles Green's wife and here you find me
in flagrante
with Denzil.'

‘Well, hardly
in flagrante
.'

‘To all intents and purposes. I did spend the night with him. I'm not pretending otherwise. I don't know the simplest way to explain that. It's all rather complicated.' Nikki Green swept the long highlighted hair back off her forehead. Carole and Jude were again reminded of her likeness to Chervil Whittaker.

‘Look,' she said, ‘I married Giles because he asked me to. It seemed to matter to him in a way that kind of thing has never mattered to me. Maybe because he lost his own father so young, he always dreamed of some kind of stability. A kind of family life; though not with children, not if I was going to be involved. I made it clear from the start there wouldn't be any of them.'

‘Because you couldn't have children?' asked Carole.

‘No. Because I didn't want them. So far as I know, I've got no malfunction in my apparatus for the manufacture of sprogs, I've just never fancied them. At the core of my being there's a strong spine of selfishness. I enjoy life. I look after number one, and I'm quite good at being independent.'

‘But you still married Giles,' Jude pointed out.

‘Yes, and that, as I said, was because he asked me to. I had no idea whether it would last or not. I knew neither of us would be faithful. It's not in our nature.'

‘So you fully expected your husband to have affairs?'

‘Yes. Just as I fully anticipated having a good few myself. Over the years I've probably seen more action in that respect than Giles has. When he had his job in the City he worked much longer hours than I did. So I had more time to stray.' Nikki Green grinned wolfishly.

‘What do you do?' asked Carole.

‘I'm an artist's agent.'

‘Oh, my daughter-in-law's in a theatrical agency for—'

‘No, artists, not
artistes
. I represent people in the visual arts.'

‘Painters and people? Like Denzil?' asked Jude.

‘Precisely.'

‘So you met him first as an artist?'

‘Yes. And he introduced me to Giles.'

‘From what Denzil was saying this morning, he and Giles had quite a few girlfriends in common.' The old-fashioned quality remained in Carole's voice.

‘Yes. So Denzil and I had been having a thing for a while before I hooked up with Giles.'

‘An affair that continued?'

‘On and off. For someone so self-centred and up himself, Denzil is a surprisingly generous lover. Very good in bed – and I speak as a connoisseur.'

‘And would you say the two of you are “an item” now?' asked Carole.

‘We never were an item. It's some months since Giles and I have been living together. I have quite a strong sex drive, but I don't want to go through all that rigmarole of online dating and . . . It's better to hook up again with someone you know well. So when Denzil and I are both free . . . like last night . . . we get together.'

Nikki Green spoke with no embarrassment and with absolute certainty about what she wanted from life. Carole could not imagine anyone conducting sexual relationships on such a casual basis. But at the same time a bit of her did find the idea rather appealing. ‘So don't you ever feel jealous?' she asked.

Nikki Green grinned. ‘Haven't for a long, long time. Maybe all it means is that I've never properly fallen in love. Well, if that's the case, fine by me. Imagine what it would be like actually worrying about what some little shit like Denzil – or Giles, come to that – was up to every minute of the day.' She shook her head and chuckled. ‘Give me the quiet life.'

‘So,' Carole went on, still intrigued by the woman's attitudes, ‘it doesn't worry you when you see Giles with Chervil, like you did at the Private View?'

‘Doesn't worry me at all. He can work his way through the entire spice rack, so far as I'm concerned.'

‘And what about Giles and Fennel Whittaker?' asked Jude gently.

For the first time here was something that did give Nikki Green pause. ‘That one I wasn't so happy about.'

‘You were jealous of her?'

An impatient shake of the head. ‘I wasn't unhappy from my point of view. But from hers. I knew how vulnerable that girl was. The last thing she needed was Giles and Denzil messing with her head.'

‘Did you talk to Giles about it?'

‘Yes, but he wasn't listening. It was round the time that his job was on the line. Considering other people's feelings was never high on my husband's list of priorities; back then, he was even more blinkered than usual.'

Carole took up the baton of interrogation. ‘Had you met Fennel before the Private View?'