Pictures of Perfection (14 page)

‘Indeed. He was a competent amateur – a talent which, regrettably, has not descended to me. Caddy is something very different. She has a truly formidable talent and is always eager to try her hand at something new. She’s produced some
fascinating sketches to go in Lillingstone’s Parish History when it’s completed.’

Digweed was sorting through a pile of drawings as he spoke, then it seemed to occur to him that such enthusiasm was not something he wanted to share with a mere policeman and he suddenly thrust them out of sight, saying, ‘But how boring you must find all this, Sergeant. You must be dying to rejoin your colleagues and catch up on all their new clues.’

‘Yes, sir. Can’t wait, sir.’

Digweed gave him a sharp glance, then smiled and said, ‘It’s no use reverting to your PC Plod mode, Mr Wield. I am no longer deceived. I can see your Mr Pascoe thinks highly of you and he does not strike me as a man to suffer fools gladly.’

‘Because he can spot a quote?’ ventured Wield.

‘
Quotation
I assume you mean? Yes, that was … revealing. Incidentally, does he have a wife, I seem to recall the name from somewhere. A Ms rather than a Mrs Eleanor Pascoe, was it?’

‘Ellie. If you’d met her, you’d not forget her,’ said Wield with the fervour of an acolyte.

‘Then I haven’t met her, unless it was on my catalogue mailing list. Perhaps I can add your name, Sergeant?’

‘My shelves are pretty full,’ said Wield. ‘But I’d like to buy one of these if I may.’

He held up the
Naturalist’s Year
.

‘Really?’ Digweed almost looked pleased. ‘I’ll be
putting the dust jackets on them later. I dare say you’ll be around for some little time?’

‘I dare say. Don’t I get it for less without the jacket?’ said Wield.

‘What? Ah, a joke! No, that’s only old books, Sergeant. Don’t worry. If there’s a rush, I’ll save one for you.’

He ushered Wield out of the room, locking the door behind him. Downstairs they found Pascoe and Filmer. Neither looked pleased.

‘So how’s our dear postman?’ asked Digweed.

‘No worse than a broken nose and a cracked rib,’ said Filmer.

‘Good. And are the Post Office sending a relief van?’

‘Pointless, seeing as the shop’s shut this afternoon. But it’ll all go first lift tomorrow, so it won’t make much difference.’

‘Indeed not. What’s a few hours when the normal service can take days? Now, about my burglar, Mr Pascoe …’

‘Sergeant Filmer will take care of it. This is his patch,’ said Pascoe rather acidly. ‘Looks to me like whoever it was got scared, grabbed what he could, and ran.’

‘That’s it? Oh good. Another case solved. Well, I’ll go and repair the window so that no one will even notice there’s been a crime, and that way we’ll all be happy, won’t we?’

He went into the rear room, banging the door.

‘Is he always like that?’ wondered Pascoe.

‘Bark’s worse than his bite,’ said Filmer defensively. ‘He’s well liked by the locals. It’s just a question of knowing what’s what.’

‘Indeed,’ said Pascoe. ‘Perhaps from time to time you might care to share these arcana with me. For now, you’d better hurry in there to make sure you’ve completed your observations before Mr Digweed starts his repairs. And once you’ve finished here, you might care to head back to Church Cottage to make sure there’s nothing else you’ve missed.’

He made for the door.

And Wield, pausing only to murmur, ‘He’s well liked by the locals,’ followed.

‘I suppose you see the corpse? How does it appear?’

Outside, he found Pascoe breathing deep of Enscombe’s fresh spring air and the fragrant baking smells from the Wayside Café.

Hope and his digestive juices rose, making his stomach rumble.

‘Bit hard on old Terry, weren’t you?’ he said conversationally.

‘All he had to do was say, whoops, sorry, I didn’t think of looking for uniforms in the bottom of the wardrobe. Instead he went stroppy on me.’

Wield smiled. He knew a lot of people who’d found out the hard way that Pascoe’s mild manner was not an invitation to take liberties. You didn’t survive long in Andy Dalziel’s chocolate box if you had a soft centre.

He said, ‘Thirsty work, being in a bad temper, but.’

Instead of taking the hint, Pascoe was staring across the street.

‘Are my flies open, Wieldy?’ he asked. ‘There’s a young woman across there can’t take her eyes off me.’

Wield turned. Standing at the window of the
Eendale Gallery was Caddy Scudamore. Seeing that she had his attention, she raised her hand and waved. Or was she beckoning? He looked away.

‘Dammit, it’s you she’s after, Wieldy,’ said Pascoe with mock regret. ‘Friend of yours?’

‘That’s Caddy Scudamore,’ said Wield. ‘She’s a painter. Any chance of a cup of tea and a bite to eat? I’m clemmed.’

‘Later, I promise,’ said Pascoe. ‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you it was rude to keep a lady waiting?’

And with many a longing backward glance, Wield let himself be led across the street and into the Gallery where Caddy Scudamore was waiting with undisguised impatience.

Close up, Pascoe’s first thought was: What a marvel it is that a small place like Enscombe should be so full of extremely attractive women. And his second was: What a shame it is that none of them seems the least bit interested in me!

Caddy Scudamore had seized Wield’s sleeve and was pulling him through an inner doorway leading to a flight of stairs.

‘Can you spare just a moment, please,’ she said. ‘It’s the colouring and shadows. They just don’t come out right on film. Honestly, it won’t take a minute.’

Pascoe was interested to observe that being gay didn’t seem to make it any easier to resist being dragged upstairs by a gorgeous girl.

He followed uninvited and stopped in the studio doorway to cope with a triple surprise.

First there was the studio’s size, much bigger than he’d expected and full of light. Second there was the chaos. The floor was littered with discarded sketches, half-finished paintings, jars full of brushes, hi-tech equipment, rainbow-coloured palettes, newspapers, books, mugs, plates … he’d seen rooms left tidier by a bunch of vandalizing burglars!

And third, dragging his attention from the surrounding chaos, was the huge Crucifixion scene.

Caddy had guided Wield across the floor with surefooted ease and stood him by an easel. With one hand she explored his features while the other transferred lines and shapes on to a sheet of paper. Wield showed no emotion but the sight of those paint-stained fingers pushing themselves against his tight-closed lips gave Pascoe a voyeuristic charge.

He dragged his eyes away, tiptoed across the room and examined the Crucifixion more closely.

The Enscombe background teemed with three-dimensional life. Not only was every inch of canvas crowded but much had been painted over, not so much to obliterate it as to relegate it to a kind of misty other world where it still continued to exert its existence, even its simultaneity. Beneath trees heavy with both blossom and fruit lay an Adam and Eve couple, their faces pressed too close for identification. But Digweed was recognizable, slinking furtively down the High Street clutching what looked like a pile of drawings rather than
books. Outside the Hall a column of smoke veiled but did not conceal Girlie Guillemard. The inn sign outside the Morris had a tiny but identifiable sketch of Justin Halavant clutching his crotch, and everywhere there were bushes and shadows which concealed or even grew into the slim but menacing figure of Jason Toke.

He shook his head to clear away these disturbing images and glanced at his watch.
Ars longa
but enough was enough.

‘Time to be on our way, Sergeant,’ he said sternly.

She was on to colours now, using fingers as much as brushes, the paint staining her hair as she pushed it back from her brow to stare with fierce concentration at Wield’s face.

‘It’s like granite,’ she said. ‘You’d think nothing but greys at a glance, then you get closer and suddenly there’s the whole spectrum … and such textures too …’

Granite was right, thought Pascoe. Wield looked completely petrified. Then from below came the sound of a door slamming and Kee Scudamore’s voice raised in anger.

‘What do you think you’re doing there? Caddy, where the hell are you?’

The spell was broken. Wield and Pascoe set off simultaneously for the door, but Caddy, whose feet clearly had a built-in memory of the studio’s minefield, was down the stairs ahead of them.

‘There you are,’ said her sister. ‘How many
times have I told you not to leave the till unattended?’

‘I’m not here to steal,’ protested the figure standing on the wrong side of the till counter.

It was Jason Toke at once furtive and defiant. He was carrying two bags, one the bloodstained gunny, the other a plastic carrier.

‘What are you here for?’ inquired Pascoe gently.

‘Brought something for Caddy,’ said the boy, regarding Pascoe uneasily.

Definitely not Bendish’s head, decided Pascoe. Another dead rabbit, perhaps? The carrier looked as if it held something fairly heavy, but too square for a dead animal. Suddenly Toke plunged his hand into the gunny and brought out a bird. Even Pascoe, who was no ornithologist, knew at once what it was. Or had been. A kingfisher. Death had not dulled the brilliant blue of its wings, which shone with such intensity it seemed they might still beat the air and send the dangling creature arrowing from Toke’s careless grasp.

‘Said you wanted to see old kingy,’ said the youth, proffering the corpse to Caddy. ‘For the colours. That’s what you said.’

‘Oh, Jase,’ whispered the girl. ‘But not dead.’

‘Colours is the same,’ protested Toke. Some impression of the shock felt by all those in the room seemed to have got through. He tossed the corpse on to the desk. It fell so they could see the hole in its breast.

‘Colours is the same,’ he repeated. ‘And it’s a
sight easier to paint, I’d say. You see him move, too fast to photo let alone paint. Any road, couldn’t just leave him lie. You take him if you want. No use grieving over what’s done. That’s no way to survive. Take and make, that’s the way. Take and make.’

This spate of words took them all by surprise. Then he turned with that deceptive speed Pascoe had noticed before and was through the door before anyone could try to hinder him.

‘Something needs to be done,’ said Kee, looking at the dead bird. ‘This is going too far.’

‘It’s my fault,’ said Caddy in a low voice, ‘I never meant …’

‘You can’t blame yourself, darling,’ said her sister, putting her arm around the younger woman’s shoulders. ‘Could one of you please dispose of this thing?’

Wield reached to pick up the dead bird.

Caddy said, ‘Oh, can’t I keep it? Those colours are incredible … I know that killing it was wrong …’

Wield said, ‘More than wrong. Illegal. Protection of Birds Act.’

Pascoe nodded vigorously, delighted at this confirmation of the avian expertise he’d ascribed to the Sergeant on his first encounter with Toke’s dead birds.

‘Yes, and we’ll need the corpse as evidence,’ he said. ‘Young Toke’s got some answering to do.’

‘Make sure you ask the right questions,’ said Kee.

‘I’ve heard about the War Memorial,’ said Pascoe, regarding her curiously. ‘But Sergeant Wield here got the impression you didn’t think there was too much to worry about. Have you changed your mind?’

She looked uneasily at her sister, who was still regarding the dead bird greedily, and said, ‘I think he’s ticking, Mr Pascoe. I don’t know whether he’s a bomb, a clock, or a death watch beetle. But I think perhaps someone should find out, don’t you?’

It was, strictly speaking, another job for Filmer. There couldn’t be any connection with the missing constable. Could there?

‘You’d better tell us where he lives,’ he said.

‘Intake Cottage, it’s set well back from the road just beyond the Morris. They rent it from the Hall estate, but Jason looks after the upkeep himself.’

‘They?’ said Wield.

‘He lives with Elsie, his mother.’

‘And what do you mean, he looks after the upkeep?’ asked Pascoe, sensing an over-emphasis.

Kee half smiled and said, ‘Why spoil a surprise? You can see that for yourselves!’

A few minutes later Pascoe and Wield were seeing for themselves. It was certainly a surprise.

For a start, Intake Cottage had a dilapidated look at odds with the well-tended appearance of most of Enscombe. Once painted white, its now greying walls were streaked with water and mud
from the leaky gutters, giving the building the air of a leprous zebra which had limped away from the herd to die. The roof, with several slates askew and a couple missing, was the breeding ground for some interesting lichens which looked as if they might have crawled up there to escape the Great War battlefield beneath. Once it might have been a prototypical cottage garden, all hollyhocks and delphiniums, golden rod and old moss roses, but someone had gone to work with chainsaw and strimmer, razing all vegetation within a radius of twenty feet of the house.

‘What’s this got to do with the hunt for Bendish?’ wondered Pascoe, holding up the dead kingfisher in a plastic evidence bag.

‘Search me,’ said Wield sulkily. ‘If we’d gone into the caff, we’d never have seen it.’

‘It’s our next port of call, I promise,’ said Pascoe. ‘But look at it this way, if you hadn’t gone when Caddy called, she might have sent Jason looking for you too!’

When they walked up the weed-crazed path to the door, they were faced with another oddity. It wasn’t the decaying mouse-gnawed raft of planks which might have been expected in such a dilapidated structure, but a solid aluminium slab with two mortise locks and a security peephole. As Pascoe waited for a reply to his knock, he observed that the windows too were metal-framed and double-glazed. Interesting priorities.

The peephole darkened as an inward eye checked
him out, then the door opened on a chain and both eyes, screwed up myopically against the light, peered out at about third rib level.

‘Yes?’ said a voice, soft as moleskin.

‘Mrs Elsie Toke?’

‘Yes?’

‘Is Jason in, Mrs Toke?’

‘No.’

The door began to close.

‘Mrs Toke, hold on,’ said Pascoe, hastily holding his ID up to the crack and introducing himself. ‘Can we come in a moment?’

The door closed. There was a long moment when it looked as if it might stay that way, then it swung silently open.

‘Come in,’ said Mrs Toke.

She was a tiny woman who must have needed to stretch on tiptoe to get her eye up to the peephole, but for some reason her size was less remarkable than it might have been. Pascoe found himself thinking the odd thought that you did not expect an elf to be large and there was certainly something elfin about her. Faces like this had peered out through ferns in his infant story books, anxious and curious and above all other-worldly. She stood still as he passed by her into the low-beamed living-room, yet she gave an impression of constant movement, like wood sorrel in a spring breeze.

‘He is a good boy,’ she said, ‘though he finds it hard to understand the world.’

Pascoe sat down in a soft and pleasantly body-embracing armchair. If she was going to telepath his questions, he might as well telepath her offer of hospitality.

Mrs Toke was regarding him with a gaze which seemed to rely as much on sound as light.

He said, ‘There are things which have to be understood, Mrs Toke. Like the law, for instance.’

He held up the kingfisher in the plastic evidence bag.

She leaned forward to look close and said, ‘Oh, the lovely thing.’

‘Lovely indeed. And protected,’ said Pascoe.

‘And you think my Jason killed it?’ she said. ‘You’re wrong. He’d not do that. Not to old kingy.’

She spoke with absolute conviction but Pascoe was unimpressed. In his experience ninety-nine out of a hundred mothers confronted by a video of their offspring robbing a bank or ramraiding a warehouse or even just jumping a red light would say, ‘No, not my Tom or Dick or Clint. He’d never do a thing like that.’ He was looking forward to meeting the hundredth who’d say, ‘Yes, that’s the little toe-rag. Why don’t you bang him up forever?’

‘But he does shoot birds, doesn’t he?’ he said.

‘Oh yes. For the pot. Only for the pot. What reason would he have to shoot old kingy?’

Best reason in the world, thought Pascoe. Love, sweet love.

He said, ‘Could we take a look at Jason’s room while we’re here?’

It would be interesting to see if it did contain the secret arsenal Kee Scudamore suspected.

‘No,’ said the woman.

Pascoe was only slightly surprised by the finality of her tone. She didn’t look the type to make a fuss about legal rights and search warrants, but these days the telly made everyone a barrack-room lawyer.

He said, ‘Not to worry. I’m sure Jason will be back soon. Mr Toke, Jason’s father, is he still … here?’

He glanced significantly at Wield as he spoke.

‘All right if I use your lavvy?’ said the Sergeant, rising.

‘First left up the stairs,’ said Mrs Toke. ‘Jason’s room is next one along.’

So even the little people knew the interesting ways of coppers, thought Pascoe, amused.

‘You were asking about Toke,’ continued the woman. ‘Dead these ten years. Police killed him.’

‘What?’

‘Chasing a stolen car, they said. Knocked him off his bike. He were out looking for work. Used to be a keeper up at Old Hall but got laid off when they started cutting back. Crowner said it were an accident, no one to blame.’