The Dark Eye (The Saxon & Fitzgerald Mysteries Book 2) (12 page)

His get-up-and-go had got up and gone.

The very fact that Fitzgerald had let him keep his night off even after the Marxman struck again, and sent him off today on errands to Alice when Felix’s death wasn’t even in her jurisdiction any more, was proof how little she needed or respected him.

She wouldn’t have done it if Boland wasn’t depressingly dispensable.

I caught Walsh’s eye and he winked at me, grinning, like he knew what I was thinking and he thought the same, and at that moment I despised his conspiratorial grin, and despised myself for having invited it by being disloyal to Boland in the first place. Whatever he lacked in investigative nous, he more than made up for with a good heart, and I needed to believe in that sometimes.

What was equally depressing, though, was that Boland didn’t even seem aware of the silent communication passing between Walsh and me. Or if he did, he was doing a remarkably good job of hiding it, and I’d never noticed that propensity in him before. He had one of those bluff, honest, open faces that just expose all the thoughts inside no matter what.

He caught me watching him and took his chance.

‘Didn’t you say you wanted to get something to eat?’ he said.

‘I thought you were on a diet?’

‘One bacon roll can’t hurt.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t feel like eating anymore.’

‘More for me then,’ he said cheerfully.

At least he was still hungry for something, I found myself thinking unkindly.

A girlfriend. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was more than I’d had that morning when I woke.

Before we parted, Walsh gave me her number on the strict understanding that I didn’t reveal it came from him; I think he still had plans of his own for calling her up and asking her out, and didn’t want his chances ruined by me; but as it was, Gina didn’t even ask.

Still, she took some persuading before she’d agree to talk to me.

‘You’re not the police?’ she said. ‘Then I don’t get it. What do you want me for?’

‘I’m—’ What could I say? ‘I’m a friend of Alice,’ I put it feebly.

‘Oh,’ she replied. ‘Alice.’

‘She asked me to look into Felix’s death. You knew him. I just thought—’

‘I didn’t know him that well,’ she said. ‘Well, not as well as I thought I knew him.’ She sounded bitter, and I was immediately intrigued. ‘Look, come round if you really want, I’ll talk to you, it can’t do any harm. But I don’t see what help it’s going to be either . . .’

It took a while to find the address she gave me. It was a basement apartment in a quiet street not far from Appian Way on the southside of the city. Potted plants round the door, a windowbox with flowers. Not my kind of thing at all. She probably had cuddly toys in her bedroom too. She was dressed like I expected from the outside of the apartment too. She had on some kind of shapeless shift with a bright summer pattern, and wore a string of beads round her neck interlaced with tiny silver charms, and she had that weird frizzy hair that never stays combed down for long; it spilled freely long and red past her shoulders.

Seeing her, I wasn’t surprised it hadn’t worked out with Felix. He didn’t seem the type to go for a woman with such a vague, hippyish, New Age vibe about her; though to be fair, she seemed sharp enough when she introduced herself and let me in.

Inside was more austere than I’d expected from the outside too. The walls were bare, exposed brick and plaster, painted white – that seemed to be the required style with artists – and there was little save an iron-framed bed against the wall, the sheets and quilt all white too, and a table scattered with photographs. Her own, I guessed, and self-portraits mostly, some of her tastefully in the nude on the bed here in this tiny room – and there, through a window, I saw a yard and a stone wall painted white too with a covering of ivy, and that was in the background of some of the other nude shots.

She must be popular with the male neighbours.

And maybe some of the female ones too.

Among the photographs were also still lifes: of a watering can and a wooden staircase heaped with books and a window with a cracked pane of glass like a spider’s web, as well as shots of a white cat stretched out in a patch of sunlight, and the same cat chasing a leaf. I was glad to see no sign of a cat round my feet, at any rate, since I wasn’t in the mood for befriending another one. Hare was more than demanding enough.

Gina was silent for a while, letting me look at her pictures.

‘Do you want a drink?’ she said at last.

‘That depends what you mean by drink,’ I said.

‘Never fear, I’m not going to offer you herbal tea or homeopathic tonic, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ she said, as if reading my thoughts. ‘I’ve got a bottle of wine here somewhere, you can drink it with me if you like.’

I liked.

The day was still chilly, so I was surprised when she lifted the wine and two glasses, carrying them all in one hand, each finger occupied, whilst with the other hand she pushed down the handle of the door and led me into the yard.

Traces of music, low and well behaved, drifted out from an open window above. Voices came out to join them at intervals but the words were indistinct. Somewhere up there too was the sound of a guitar being played badly, the same few chords over and over, as Gina laid the glasses and wine down on an iron table where there was room for just two chairs and we each scraped one back noisily and sat down.

‘You don’t seem like the sort of person who’d be friends with Alice,’ Gina said to me once she’d poured the wine, sparing me the difficulty of deciding how to begin.

‘You didn’t get along?’

‘I only met her once. That was enough. Enough for Alice too, from what Felix said.’

‘She didn’t take to you?’

‘Ask her.’

Touchy subject. I let it drop. I could always come back to it later.

‘How did you meet him?’

‘It was my idea. As you saw inside, I’m a photographer too. I sent him one of my photographs. I’m not denying it, I was looking for my first step on the ladder. I wanted to have someone looking out for me. I thought if he liked my work, liked me, then it would help me get a foothold in the art world. Maybe get my own exhibition, space on someone’s walls, a dealer, who knows? If you don’t look out for yourself, no one else will.’

‘Why Felix?’

‘Why did I choose him to send my stuff to, you mean? Because I liked his work. Genuinely admired what he did. His work was different from everyone else’s. I know
everyone
thinks their own work is unique, but I really do think mine has a quality not everyone would appreciate. I thought he might. So I wrote to him, didn’t know if I’d hear from him again, but he called me one night, we talked, and arranged to meet next day.’

‘How long ago was this?’

‘About a year ago?’ she said, considering, slipping on a pair of sunglasses, reminding me of Alice. They both seemed to retreat behind sunglasses when the light hardly merited them. ‘Yes, that’d be right. Maybe January last year. We arranged to meet in a hotel the following afternoon. We had drinks. I showed him my photographs. Some of them are quite, well, erotic I suppose. You saw them. It obviously had an effect on him. We ended up spending the rest of the day in a room at the hotel, making love. I didn’t get the impression it was a surprise to him that the meeting ended that way.’

‘Do you think he arranged the meeting in a hotel with sex in mind?’

‘He was a man, he probably did everything with sex in mind, even putting up a shelf. Not that I can imagine Felix putting up shelves. But no,’ and here she gave a small smile half of pleasure, half of mischief at the memory, ‘I must confess that the hotel was my idea.’

‘You planned on seducing Felix?’

‘I wasn’t averse to the idea. He was a good-looking man. I didn’t think it would hurt, I thought if he felt something for me, he might . . . you know.’

‘Make you a few introductions?’

‘That was the idea. Afterwards, I agreed to see him again and for a few months we spent a lot of time together. I even used to go out with him sometimes at night when he was taking pictures. I suppose those are the moments I cherish most.’

‘Did you ever go out with him when it was snowing?’

‘I don’t think so. I’m sure I’d remember. Why’d you ask?’

‘No reason. Curiosity.’

She frowned at me slightly over the top of her sunglasses. I didn’t blame her. Curiosity. Did I think she was stupid?

‘And did he?’ I said quickly to change the subject. ‘Introduce you to the right people, I mean?’

‘Vincent Strange was one. Have you heard of him?’

‘Our paths have crossed.’

‘Then you’ll know all about him. Big shot. Big house. Big head. Important gallery. Frightfully well connected, don’t you know? He’d been a supporter of Felix’s from his early days. I hoped he might do the same for me but nothing came of it. Felix, though, I was growing rather fond of. The sex wasn’t up to much, but he was sweet, and he seemed to have a genuine interest in my work. Always encouraged me. First one who ever had. I was touched. I was feeling vulnerable at the time, I suppose. I don’t have any family. My sister died when I was young; both my parents are dead; I’d only recently arrived here from London, I hadn’t made many friends, I was doing some crappy commercial photography work to make ends meet. So when Felix showed me some affection, I was glad of it. It wasn’t just sex. Sometimes he didn’t even want to make love. He just came round here and we lay on the bed and talked. Sometimes he put his head on my shoulder and slept.’

‘So what went wrong?’

‘Nothing, as far as I was concerned,’ Gina said. ‘No quarrels, no drifting apart, none of the usual clichés. He just called one day and said we shouldn’t see one another again.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I’m not the begging type,’ Gina replied from behind her sunglasses, unreadable. ‘I wasn’t going to throw myself at him – though I know what you’re probably thinking. That that’s exactly what I did at the hotel that first afternoon.’

‘I wasn’t thinking that.’

‘Doesn’t matter if you were. It’s all over now. I called him a few times, turned up once at Strange’s gallery when I knew he’d be there, but he was distant, preoccupied, almost—’ She stopped herself clumsily.

‘What were you going to say?’

She spoke the next words slowly. Reluctantly, I thought, though she might have just wanted me to think they were reluctant; they might have been exactly the words she wanted me to hear all along.

‘I was going to say he seemed almost afraid to talk to me, but that wouldn’t be what I meant. That is, it’s what I thought at the time, but maybe I just needed to believe there was some other reason he was dumping me rather than the fact he’d just tired of me.’

‘Were you surprised when he broke off your relationship?’

‘Surprised is putting it mildly. I was spitting fire. Look, I’ve been dumped before, it’s not exactly a new experience. But usually for some reason, you know? With him, I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong. I thought I deserved an explanation at least.’

‘Why did you think he’d ended the affair?’

‘Oh, there’s no real mystery about it,’ said Gina. ‘He told me eventually. He said it was Alice’s fault, said she didn’t think I was right for him. As if she was his mother or something. And more than just a mother, if you know what I mean. I don’t think she thought anyone was good enough for Felix. Except her.’

There was something about the way she said this that made me aware she meant more than she was saying. I left a silence for a moment, then said: ‘When I was talking to Alice the other day, I sensed something in the way she spoke about Felix. Something—’

‘Not quite right?’ she jumped in. ‘That’s what I thought too. They were way too close for brother and sister. There was too much of an intimacy there. Wasn’t normal. She may come across as some kind of vestal virgin – doesn’t take any lovers, there’s never any gossip or scandal about her name – but if you ask me, that’s because she already had what she wanted in Felix. Had in every sense of the word, if you know what I mean. It’s no wonder she was so jealous when I started getting in the way.’

‘And did you sense Felix felt the same about her?’

‘He was always talking about her,’ she confessed. ‘How Alice had done this and Alice had said that. Always checking things were OK with Alice. We couldn’t have a date or go anywhere without making sure it was OK with Alice, and obviously it pretty quickly started to be not OK with Alice.’

‘Must’ve been awkward for you.’

‘You go out with someone, you don’t expect them to be running home each night to their sister, or be constantly talking about her when they’re in bed with you. It’s bad enough when they talk about their former lovers. When it’s their sister, it starts to get a bit creepy.’

‘Why did you put up with it?’

‘I had no right to expect anything of Felix, he was an occasional lover and if I ever allowed myself to think there was more to it than that, then I knew I was just daydreaming. I was still nothing next to him, a minor thing in his world, Alice’s world, Strange’s world. But I did think we had something, we fitted together, so when he was able to throw it away so easily on what seemed to me so flimsy an excuse, then I was disappointed in him. He wasn’t the man I thought he was. He hadn’t lived up to what I hoped he’d be.’

So that was what she’d meant on the phone by not knowing him as well as she’d thought. And maybe she hadn’t. Maybe I hadn’t either. Was there something in Felix and Alice’s relationship that I hadn’t picked up on before? And did it matter if I hadn’t?

Lives are messy, after all. Doesn’t mean there’s any connection between the messiness of the life and the mystery of the death.

I took another sip of wine and replaced the glass, watching the light dance on the unsettled surface for a moment before settling into the reflection of a window up above.

‘Did you ever see him again afterwards?’

‘After we split up? Sure. I was at a party, some friends of friends of friends of Strange. Don’t ask me how I got an invite, but I turned up. And yes, I probably was half hoping I’d bump into Felix. I hadn’t completely given up, though weeks had passed without a word. I was wandering round looking for someone I knew when I saw him with a woman. They were standing in a dark corner and I was sure they’d been kissing. I was annoyed, I suppose, that he’d been there with another woman so soon after dumping me, and I just walked out of the party. It was only afterwards, when Strange introduced me to Felix’s sister, that I realised she was the woman at the party. She just smiled at me smugly, as if she’d won.’