Grief Encounters (13 page)

I had a snooze at my desk, luxuriating in the familiarity of my own domain while nobody else was there and the phones were silent, then went downstairs to chat to the duty sergeant for half an hour. When we’d put the force to rights I went back to the gala.

The horses were being paraded and the dogs were impatient to do their stuff. I watched for a few minutes before wandering over to the art section. My pictures had two red dots on them, indicating they’d been sold. I was chuffed to bits. Next year I’d put up the price.

The prisoners’ contributions were better than I expected, and I made a silent apology to the artists. There was the usual maudlin stuff, but what can you expect from someone who’s banged up for years on end? Two were a revelation. They were abstracts done in the style of Paul Klee. They didn’t quite work for me, but they were brave attempts, obviously both painted by the same person. I looked closely at one of them to see if there was a signature. There was. It said
Ennis
.

Never heard of him, but maybe I’d see what he was in for. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t. The woman who brought the paintings was nowhere to be seen, so I wandered back to the main arena, looking for Dave and his family. A police German shepherd was wrestling with a handler with a padded arm, and a five-aside football match was just starting in the next field. All around me small boys, and a few girls, were thinking that they’d like to become policemen. Sadly, it wouldn’t last.

Monday morning the phone interrupted my breakfast. It was Mad Maggie. ‘Are you going in to the office this morning, boss?’ she asked.

‘That was my intention, Maggie,’ I replied. ‘Unless you are about to make some revelation that will take me elsewhere.’

‘No. I want to see you at the nick. I’ve a present for you. Bought it at the gala yesterday.’

‘What is it?’

‘Can’t say. I want to see your face.’

‘I’m intrigued. It’s not a leaving present, is it? Have you heard something that I haven’t?’

‘When you leave, Chas, we’ll push the boat out. You’ll know all about it.’

‘OK. I’ll see you after morning prayers.’

Morning prayers comprised of me confessing to Mr Wood that we were at a standstill with the Magdalena case and were hoping for some revelation about the MO from our serious crime analysis section, which wasn’t forthcoming. He pointed out, unnecessarily, that our time was up and HQ would take over the investigation if we didn’t make some progress soon. He was wearing his funeral suit, because later that morning our
ex-MP
, Ted Goss, was being remembered in a service at the cathedral. Gilbert knew him through various committees and was a fellow-Rotarian with the MP’s local agent.

‘It should be you going to the service, not me,’ he protested.

‘How do you work that out?’ I asked. ‘You’re our figurehead.’

‘Because he was one of your lot, that’s why.’

As I was leaving his office he said: ‘And Charlie…’

I spun round. ‘Yes, boss?’

‘Get your hair cut. You look like a travelling Romanian knife-sharpener.’

First thing I saw in the CID office was that young Brendan had joined the shaven-head brigade. His head glowed like the dome of the Golden Mosque of Samarkand in the desert sun.

‘Listen up,’ I shouted, and the hubbub died down. ‘Mr Wood has just had a word with me about haircuts. I see Brendan is the latest to join the bullet-headed boys. It has to stop. You lot are beginning to look like a private army.’

‘It’s this weather, boss,’ Brendan protested.

‘Not good enough. You’re supposed to be
plain-clothes
detectives, not a band of mercenaries, so let’s have some variation in styles, eh? No more shaven heads unless it’s on doctor’s orders, in which case you’ll have to have it painted with gentian violet as well.’ I turned to Maggie and put on my best couldn’t-care-less voice. ‘So where’s this present, Maggie?’ I asked. I knew it was some sort of leg-pull and I was due for a disappointment, so there was no point in putting it off.

‘Right here, Chas.’ She rose to her feet and reached down the side of her desk, producing what was obviously a painting wrapped in tissue paper. She stood behind it, made a noise suitable for an unveiling and pulled the wrappings off.

It was the Paul Klee painting, done by one of the prisoners.

I said: ‘
Pour moi?
’ and stabbed my chest with a forefinger.

‘Just for you,’ she replied.

I hadn’t a clue what it was all leading up to, but went along with it. She’s not known as Mad Maggie without reason. I said: ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Margaret, but wasn’t there a
£
125 price tag on it?’

‘You’re worth every penny, boss.’

‘Have you borrowed it?’

‘
Commandeered
it might be more accurate. I had to do some leaning.’

‘Can I ask why?’

‘What do you think of it? Is it any good?’

‘It has a certain merit,’ I replied, ‘but I thought the other one he did was better.’

‘Which other one who did?’ Maggie asked.

‘He’s called Ennis,’ I told her. ‘There were two of his paintings in the exhibition.’

‘This isn’t by Ennis,’ she replied.

‘It is,’ I assured her. ‘The style is unmistakable. I’d gamble money on them being by the same person.’

‘This one isn’t signed Ennis.’

‘Is it signed?’

‘Have a look.’

I walked over to the painting and stooped to see if anything was written in the bottom right-hand corner. That’s the usual place for a signature. I couldn’t see one at first, because it was green on green, but it soon became apparent to me. In small, loopy letters was a clue to the identity of the man who’d executed the picture while locked up in one of Her Majesty’s prisons for God knows how long.

He’d signed himself
The Pope
.

‘He’s called Ennis,’ I told them again. ‘Take my word for it, both paintings were done by the same person.’

‘So why did he sign them differently?’ someone asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Why not? Maybe it was just a whim. Maybe the pictures were done years apart. I wouldn’t attach any importance to that. What we need to know is who he is and where he is. I’ll make some phone calls. Meanwhile, Maggie, you’re excused from coffee duty for the rest of the day. Brendan can be coffee monitor,’ I turned to him, ‘but don’t get any hairs in it.’

First stop was the organiser of the art exhibition at the gala. Her number was printed in the programme, which was still in my pocket. Her elderly mother answered the phone and gave me her work number. Eventually I tracked her down – mobiles do have their good points. 

We only meet once per year but she greeted me like a long-lost friend. I said I needed to know about one of the prison artists, and could she give me the name of the person who had arranged for the pictures to be there?

‘She’s called Sam Spencer,’ I was told, ‘and she teaches art for the Workers’ Educational Association. She also goes into prisons and does a lot of work with them.’

‘Great. Do you have a number for her?’

She did, and fifteen minutes later Maggie and I were on our way, on the pretext of returning the painting Maggie had commandeered.

Ms Spencer and her partner were living the good life, or as near as you can get to it up on the moors. They had an end cottage in one of those terraces that are dotted arbitrarily about the place, where toilers in some long-forgotten industry once raised their families in the hostile climate up there. They had an acre of land and were making raised beds in which to grow their own organic produce. I hadn’t the heart to tell them that only potatoes and sprouts would thrive at that altitude, and when theirs were ready to harvest the price in the supermarkets would be down to about fifty pence a ton. No doubt they would have hit back with a diatribe about flavour.

After a quick look around we left the partner manoeuvring old railway sleepers at the far end of the plot and sat in a garden area while Ms Spencer fetched us iced lemonade. It was idyllic, and I felt a small pang of jealousy, then remembered that the road became blocked by snow every winter, and the wet-fish man probably didn’t deliver up there, either.

‘He’s called Peter Ennis,’ she told us, after overcoming her early cautiousness. Part of her mandate was to befriend the prisoners, which put us in opposing camps. I told her about Magdalena, even asked if she’d known her while at college, and she soon decided to cooperate.

‘Where did you meet him?’ I asked.

‘He was in Bentley prison.’

‘Any ideas what for?’

‘No. I never spoke one-to-one with him outside the class.’

‘You said
was
.’

‘That’s right. He was released about a year ago. He left his paintings behind, said I could have them. I put them in the show for a bit of variety. They were the only abstracts there apart from two done by a policeman.’

We sat silently for a few seconds, wondering if she was about to make some killer criticism of my work, until I said: ‘He signed one picture
Ennis
and one
Pope
. Any ideas why?’

‘Not really, except he was probably embarrassed by his name.’ 

Maggie and I looked puzzled, until Ms Spencer spelt it out: ‘P. Ennis.’

‘Oh, I see,’ I said. ‘What did the other prisoners call him?’

‘Some called him Pete, some called him the Pope. He’s a big man, has a lot of authority. I think he liked being called the Pope.’

‘Is he religious?’ Maggie asked.

‘Not so you’d notice,’ she replied, ‘but I believe Ennis is an Irish name.’

‘Is he Irish?’

‘He doesn’t have the accent.’

I drained my lemonade, which was made by standing a lemon next to a glass of water, but still most welcome, and said: ‘Did you ever feel intimidated or threatened by him?’

‘No, never,’ she replied. ‘He was always courteous and considerate.’

‘What about his pictures? Was there anything in them to suggest a violent nature?’

‘I’m not a psychologist, but I wouldn’t say so. They were the usual stuff, like landscapes. The abstracts were an expression of his mood, but I wouldn’t regard them as having a violent origin. Would you?’

I shook my head. ‘No.’

We thanked her for her help and the lemonade. As she saw us into the car I said: ‘Are you still in contact with him?’ 

‘No, Inspector,’ she replied. ‘He wasn’t my type.’

‘You’re not on each other’s Christmas card list, then?’

‘No.’

On the way back to the nick Maggie said: ‘
Always courteous and considerate
. Sounds like a typical manipulating male.’

‘Tell me,’ I began, ‘does a woman like Sam get a feeling of power, standing in front of a class of rabid, testosterone-loaded men, knowing that she’ll be fuelling their fantasies as they lie in their bunks that night, and the next, and the next?’

‘
Touché
,’ Maggie replied.

The nick was buzzing with strangers when we arrived back, and two uniformed officers armed with Heckler and Kochs were guarding the entrance. I told Maggie to write up our morning’s work and went straight to the conference room where Jeff was holding his ID parade.

He was deep in conversation with Rodway and Clark’s briefs and the CPS solicitors, explaining how he was proposing to run the show, giving them the chance to make amendments. Mrs Dolan, the blind witness, was sitting in a chair with Serena next to her, holding her hand. Jeff introduced me to the briefs and they said they were happy with the arrangements. The whole thing would be recorded on video. Jeff looked at his watch and said: ‘Right, then. Let’s get on with it.’

The ten innocents were lined up and the briefs inserted their two clients randomly into the line. Jeff then gave each one a numbered card, one to twelve, from left to right. He said: ‘Right, gentlemen. When I put my hand on your shoulder I want you to say: “Get out of the fucking way” in your normal voice. Understand?’

They mumbled their agreement and Jeff placed his hand on the shoulder of number one.

‘Get out of the fuckin’ way,’ he delivered as if he were auditioning for
King Lear
.

The briefs made notes and the camera rolled. Jeff said: ‘Could the witness please tell us what colours that voice reminded her of?’

This worried me, and was a departure from what we’d agreed earlier. I thought Mrs Dolan would just pick out the person who’d knocked her over, but when she was told this she’d insisted that she could give colours to the full line-up, and what she saw was consistent and wouldn’t change.

‘Yes. He’s a very dark blue.’

‘Thank you.’ Jeff placed his hand on the shoulder of number two.

‘Get out of the fucking way.’

‘Yellow fading to orange.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Get out of the fucking way.’

‘Darkish blue again, but with some pale bits.’ 

‘Thank you.’

Wayne Rodway was at number six. He spoke his lines and Mrs Dolan said he was two shades of green, one mid green, one more viridian, and she added: ‘He’s the person who knocked me over.’

We continued to the end and had a break for coffee. Twenty minutes later we did it all again, with the subjects in a different order, chosen by the defence solicitors. Mrs Dolan scored one hundred per cent. Then it was handshakes all round; I told Jeff ‘Well done,’ and the briefs said they’d be having a word with their clients. In other words, they’d be recommending guilty pleas. One of them suggested that Mrs Dolan go on the music halls.

I went for a pee and washed my hands and face. As I walked into the office Maggie said: ‘How’d it go?’

‘Perfect,’ I told her. ‘Mrs Dolan did Rodway bang to rights. Serena’s taking her home.’

‘Here’s the report for this morning.’ She handed me a single typed sheet.

‘That was quick. Thanks.’

‘Um, Charlie…’

‘Yes, Margaret.’

‘You know when you asked Sam Spencer if the Pope was on her Christmas card list…’

‘Ye-es.’

‘Well, you weren’t just making small talk, were you?’