Playing with Fire (12 page)

Aspern gave a grim smile. “We're not infallible, you know, despite what some people think.”

“So you had no idea that Christine was taking drugs?”

“None at all. Like I said, she was a teenager. Teenagers are surly and uncommunicative, whether they're on drugs or not.”

“What about her eyes? Didn't you notice dilated pupils?”

“I might have done, but I wouldn't necessarily jump to the conclusion that my stepdaughter is a drug addict. Would you?”

Banks wondered. What would he think if he noticed those signs in Tracy or Brian? As a policeman, he had certainly been trained to look for them. But if he challenged either of his children and the explanation was innocent, such a challenge could cause irreparable damage to their relationship. They'd never trust him again. On the other hand, if he were right…Fortunately, he had never been put to the test. Brian played in a rock band, so he was probably the one with the best access to drugs. Banks didn't doubt that his son had tried marijuana, perhaps even Ecstasy. Banks could live with that. Maybe Brian had also taken the odd upper on the road to stay awake. But nothing stronger, surely? Not heroin. And Tracy? No, she was far too sensible and conventional, wasn't she?

“Didn't you ever notice needle marks on her arms?” Banks paused. “Or in other places, perhaps?”

Aspern stared at him. His expression was hard to read: cold but quizzical. “That's a strange question,” he said finally. “If I had, then I would have known what was going on. I said I didn't know, ergo I can't have noticed anything.”

“I suppose she must have worn long-sleeved tops,” Banks said.

Aspern got up, walked over and leaned on the mantelpiece by the watercolor of AdelWoods. He looked as if he were posing for a photograph. “Indeed she must have,” he said. “Look, I understand you have your job to do and all that, and I think I've been more than patient with you. But I've just lost my stepdaughter, and I'm beginning to get a very suspicious feeling about this conversation. If this artist on the other boat was the intended victim, why are you asking so many questions about Christine? She was merely an innocent bystander.”

“Oh, nothing's obvious yet,” Banks said. “It's still early days. Believe me, we're gathering as much information as we can about Thomas McMahon, but we have to follow every lead we have and avoid jumping to conclusions. I said it
looked
as if Christine wasn't the intended victim, but criminals can be very clever at misdirecting investigations, especially if they've had a chance to think out and plan their crimes ahead of time.”

“You think that's how this happened? It was planned?”

“It's beginning to look that way to me.”

“I still don't understand why you're questioning
me
this way. You can't think I had anything to do with it, surely?”

“Where were you on Thursday night?”

Aspern laughed. “I don't believe this.”

“Humor me.”

“I was here, of course. With my wife. Just like I told you the last time you asked.”

“Nobody else? No dinner guests?”

“No. We ate by ourselves, then we watched television. It was a quiet evening at home.”

“What time did you go to bed?”

“Eleven o'clock, as usual.”

“You always go to bed at eleven o'clock?”

“Weeknights, yes. We sometimes stay up a bit later at weekends, or we may go to the opera, dine with friends. Believe it or not, my job can be rather tiring, and I do need my wits about me.”

“Of course. Wouldn't want the hand that holds the needle to be shaking, would we?” Banks was wondering how he could get around to Mark's accusation that Aspern had sexually abused Christine. If there was an easy way, he couldn't think of it. He decided to jump right in. “Mark Siddons had something else to say about Christine,” he said.

“Oh?”

“He said that one of the reasons she left home was that you were sexually abusing her.”

At least Aspern didn't act outraged, Banks noticed. He seemed to take the accusation calmly and consider it. “And you believe him?”

“I didn't say that.”

“Then why mention it, especially at a time like this? Can't you see how upsetting an accusation like that can be to a grieving relative, however groundless?”

Banks stood up and looked Aspern in the eye. “Dr. Aspern, this is a murder investigation. We might not know exactly who the intended victim was, or victims were, but we do know that two people died. One of them was your stepdaughter. Now, I'm very sorry for your loss, but as you said earlier, we men have to get on with our jobs, don't we? That's what I'm doing. And anything that I think might be relevant to the investigation, I ask questions about. That's not unreasonable, is it?”

“Put that way,” Aspern said, “I suppose not.”

“So will you answer my question?”

“It's hardly worth dignifying with a denial.”

Banks looked into his eyes. “Try anyway.”

“Very well. The accusation is absurd. I never touched my stepdaughter. Will that do?”

He was lying, Banks knew it. In that instant, he knew that Tina and Mark Siddons had been telling the truth. But who would believe him? And how could it be proved? What could he do about it?

So intent was he on registering his awareness of Patrick Aspern's body language and facial signals that he didn't notice the figure in the doorway until she spoke.

“What is it?” Frances Aspern asked, her face still soft and puffy from sleep. “What's going on?”

They both turned to face her. Patrick Aspern looked at his wife and said, “It's nothing, darling. Just a few more questions, that's all.”

The look that passed between them said more than enough.

B
anks had loved the smell of old bookshops ever since he was a child, and Leslie Whitaker's Antiquarian Books and Prints, in the maze of cobbled alleys at the back of the police station, was no exception. It stood in a row of particularly ancient shops with low, crooked beams and mullioned bay windows thick as magnifying glass. On one side was a tobacconist's, with its wooden bowls of exotic pipe tobaccos, and on the other, J. W. Allen, apothecary, with the antique blue, green and red bottles in the window. Purely for the tourists, of course.

The bell jangled over the door as Banks entered. It was hard to define the smell, a mix of dust, leather and paper, even a spot of mildew, perhaps, but its effect was as comforting to Banks as that of freshly mown hay, or bread straight from the baker's oven. Something to do with a childhood spent in the children's library and many days as a teenager spent browsing in secondhand bookshops. He paused on the threshold to inhale and savor the sensation, then presented his warrant card to the man shelving books across the room.

“A chief inspector, indeed,” Whitaker said. “And on a Saturday afternoon, too. I am honored.”

“We're short-staffed,” Banks said. While this was partly true, it was not the real reason he often made such routine
calls himself. Most chief inspectors spent their careers behind desks piled high with paper, or in meetings thrashing out details of budget and manpower, paper clips and databases, cost-effective policing, flow charts and value assessments. While Banks had plenty of that to do, he also liked to keep his hand in, liked to stay close to the street policing he had grown up with. It was partly a matter of solidarity with the troops, who appreciated that their boss would often carry out the same tedious, dead-end tasks as they did, even get his hands dirty; and partly selfishness, because Banks hated paperwork and loved getting out there and sniffing out the lie or the possible lead. Some of the young turks who had come up through accelerated promotion schemes didn't understand why he just wouldn't settle down to “administrative” duties, which was what many of them aspired to in the long run.

Banks's instincts as a working detective had developed enough over the years, and his success rate was high enough, that neither Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe nor Assistant Chief Constable Ron McLaughlin stood in his way. And if Banks also chose to interview a suspect—a task usually carried out by a lowly DC, or DS at the highest, and one which most people above the rank of inspector had forgotten how to do—then that was fine with his bosses, too, as he had a knack for the thrust and parry, or the subtle persuasiveness of a good interrogation.

All Banks knew so far was that Leslie Whitaker had taken over the business from his father, Ernest, who had died two years ago. There was a framed photograph of what Banks took to be the two of them on Whitaker's desk. He didn't correspond with Banks's mental image of an antiquarian book dealer, though the picture of the wispy-haired man in the ill-fitting sweater was a bit of a stereotype. Whitaker was in his early forties, dressed in a light-gray suit, white shirt and maroon tie. His short dark hair was thinning a bit at the temples,
but the look suited him. He looked fit and well muscled. Banks supposed that, with his strong chin and clear blue eyes, women, and perhaps even men, found him handsome. He had no criminal record, and DS Hatchley, who knew everything about these matters, hadn't been able to unearth any gossip about him.

“What can I do for you?” Whitaker asked. “Do please sit down.”

He sat behind his ancient polished desk at the rear of the shop and gestured Banks to a hard-backed chair. Banks sat. “It's information I'm after, really,” he said.

“Some crime in the book world?”

“Art world, actually. Or so it appears.”

“Well, that would certainly make more sense. The art world's rife with crime.”

“I suppose you've heard about the fire on the canal boats?”

“Yes. Tragic. Terrible business.”

“We have reason to believe that one of the victims was an artist called Thomas McMahon. I believe you knew him?”

“Tom McMahon? Good Lord. I had no idea.”

“So you did know him?”

“Tom? Well, yes, vaguely. I mean, I'd no idea where he was living or what he was up to, but I know him—knew him—yes.”

“From what context?”

“I sell his work. Or rather, I liaise between Tom and the various craft markets, shops and boutiques throughout the dale that sell the landscapes he paints. And a few years ago, when he was regarded as an up-and-coming artist, I collected a couple of his paintings and even managed to sell a few.”

“What happened?”

“He just never took off. It happens more often than you'd think. The art world's brutal, and it's very difficult to break into. He had a big exhibition at the community center, and I
thought maybe he had a chance, but…in the end he just didn't make the grade.”

“Was he talented?”

“Talented?” Whitaker frowned. “Yes, of course. But what does that have to do with anything?”

Banks laughed. “Well, I've seen enough squiggles on blank canvases selling for thousands to know what you mean, but it was a genuine question.”

Whitaker pursed his lips. “Tom's technique was excellent,” he said, “but derivative. When it came right down to it, he just wasn't very original.”

That was exactly what Maria Phillips had said. “Derivative of whom?”

“He was all over the map, really. Romantic landscapes. Pre-Raphaelites. Impressionism. Surrealism. Cubism. That was the problem with Tom; he didn't have any particular distinctive style, nothing you could point to with any amount of certainty and say
that's
a Thomas McMahon.”

“So the paintings you bought…?”

“Worthless.”

“Doesn't his death change that?”

Whitaker laughed. “I see what you're getting at. Many artists didn't get famous until after they were dead. Van Gogh, for one. But he
was
an original. I don't think death is going to make Thomas McMahon's works immortal, or valuable. No, Mr. Banks, I'm afraid I have no motive for getting rid of Tom McMahon, and I didn't exactly pay a fortune for the paintings in the first place.”

Again, it was much the same as Maria had told him. “I wasn't implying that you had a motive,” said Banks. “I'm simply trying to get at who might benefit from his death.”

“Nobody I can think of. It can't have been easy for him, though,” mused Whitaker.

“Why not?”

“Failure's never easy to handle, is it?”

Banks, who had missed nabbing more than one obvious villain in his career, knew how true that was. He remembered the failures more than the successes, and every one of them galled him. “I suppose not,” he said.

“I mean you head out of a successful exhibition thinking you're Pablo Picasso, and the next day people don't even bother reading your name in the bottom right-hand corner of the canvas. Then all you've got left to give them is nothing more than a sort of glorified photograph to remind them of their holiday in the Dales. So much for artistic vision and truth.”

“Is that how McMahon felt?”

“I can't say for certain. He never talked about it. But I know it's how I'd feel. Forgive me, I'm just extrapolating.”

“But you sell these ‘glorified photographs'—or at least you help to.”

“For a commission, yes. It's a business.”

“I understand McMahon was also a customer of yours?”

Whitaker shifted in his chair and glanced at the top shelf of books. “He dropped by the shop from time to time.”

“What did he buy?” Banks looked around at the leather-bound books and the bins of unframed prints and drawings. “I'd have thought your fare was a bit pricey for the likes of Thomas McMahon,” he said.

“They're not all expensive. Many books and prints, even old ones, are hardly worth more than the paper they were printed on. It's actually quite rare to come across the sort of find that makes your pulse race.”

“So McMahon bought cheap old books and prints?”

“Inexpensive ones.”

“Why?”

“I've no idea. I suppose he must have liked them.”

“What did he buy the last time you saw him?”

“An early-nineteenth-century volume of natural history. Nothing special. And the binding was in very poor shape.”

“How much did it cost?”

“Forty pounds. A steal, really.”

Yes, Banks thought, but what was a man squatting on a narrow boat doing spending forty pounds on an old book? He remembered the wet, charred pages he'd seen on the boat with Geoff Hamilton. Well, McMahon
was
an artist, and perhaps he just loved old books and prints. “Can you tell me anything about his state of mind?”

“He seemed fine whenever I saw him. In very good spirits, really. He even so much as hinted that things might be on the up for him.”

“Was he specific?”

“No. It was just when I asked him how he was, you know, as you do. Well, you don't really expect much more than ‘fine, thanks' as a reply, do you? But he said he was thriving and that they might think they could grind old Tom down but he'd still got a trick or two up his sleeve. He often referred to himself in the third person.”

“Who are ‘they'?”

Whitaker shrugged. “Didn't say. The world in general, I assumed. The ones who refused to recognize his talent and buy his masterpieces.”

“And what trick did he have to show them?”

“No idea. I'm merely reporting what he said. Tom always tended to talk a good game, as they say.”

“You think there was any truth to it, that his fortunes were improving?”

“Who can say? Not from sales to the tourists, they weren't.”

“So you hadn't noticed any decline in him? In his appearance or mental state?”

“Quite the opposite, really. I mean, Tom was never the
model of sartorial elegance—he was always a bit paint-stained and disheveled—but his clothes sense seemed to have improved. He'd also lost a bit of weight. And mentally, I'd say he was in good spirits.”

“Was he ever married?”

“I think he might have been, once upon a time, but if he was, it was long before he fetched up here in Eastvale.”

“Womanizer?”

“No, not really.”

“Men? Little boys?”

“No, don't get me wrong. Tom wasn't that way inclined. He liked women, even had the occasional girlfriend, but nothing lasted. There was only one love for him, and that was art. It was always his art that came first—came even before such mundane matters as punctuality and thoughtfulness, if you see what I mean. And it was such a damn shame that his art wasn't really worth much to anyone else.”

Banks nodded. Whitaker might as well have been describing a policeman's lot. He'd forgotten his share of dates and anniversaries because he'd been too involved in a case. That was partly why his marriage had ended. The miracle was, he realized only later, that it had lasted so long in the first place. He had assumed everything was fine because Sandra was an independent spirit and got on with her own life. And so she did—ultimately to the extent of taking up with Sean, dumping Banks and getting pregnant in her mid-forties. And now she was a mother again. “Any particular girlfriends you remember?” he asked.

“Well, he was rather taken by young Heather. Can't remember her second name. Worked in the artists' supplies shop down York Road. I can't say I blame him. She was quite a stunner. Real page-three material. I don't think she's there anymore, though the owner might know where she is. Much too young for Tom, of course. He was asking for grief, there.”

“How old was he?”

“It was about five years back, so he'd have been in his late thirties.”

“And Heather?”

“Early twenties.”

“Serious?”

“On his part. He was quite broken up when she traded him in for a more successful artist. That was one of the few times I saw him pissed. I think it really depressed him, you know, feeling all washed-up as an artist, and then his girl chucks him for someone more successful. That was about as low as I ever saw him.”

Well, that would do it, thought Banks. “Who did she leave him for?”

“Jake Harley. Glib bastard, I must say. Up-and-comer at the time, but I'm happy to report that he went nowhere, too. He didn't have the guts to live with his failure, though. He committed suicide about eighteen months ago down in London. Of course, he'd split with Heather ages before then.”

“And you don't know where she is now?”

“Sorry. Haven't clapped eyes on her in about three years. Sam Prescott might know, though. He still runs the shop.”

“You don't know of any more recent girlfriends?”

Whitaker shook his head.

“Was he ever with anyone when he came in here, male or female?”

“No. He was always alone.”

“Did he ever mention anyone, any names at all?”

“No, not that I can recall. But he was always a bit of a loner, especially after Heather.”

Banks stood up and stretched out his hand. “Well, thanks very much, Mr. Whitaker. You've been a great help.”

“I can't see how, but you're welcome, I'm sure.”

“Can you think of anyone else we might talk to about McMahon?”

Whitaker thought for a moment. “Not really.” He men
tioned a couple of artists whose names Banks had already heard from Maria Phillips. It sounded to Banks as if McMahon had shed his earlier life and friends and cut off all contact with the old world, the world that had burned him, had refused to recognize his talent. Whether he had found new friends or adopted the life of a recluse, the way it seemed, remained to be seen. And why had he been buying worthless old books and prints from Leslie Whitaker?