The Scold's Bridle (12 page)

His eyes flickered towards his wife. "The irony is that it was also a symbol of her love, I think, or those cessations from hostility that passed for love in Mathilda's life. She called Sarah her scold's bridle and she meant it as a compliment. She said Sarah was the only person she had ever met who came to her without prejudice and took her as she was." He grinned amiably. "I tried to explain that that was hardly something to applaud-Sarah has many weaknesses, but the worst in my view is her naive willingness to accept everyone at his or her own valuation-but Mathilda wouldn't have a word spoken against her. And that's all I know," he finished ingenuously.

DS Cooper decided privately that Jack Blakeney was probably one of the least ingenuous men he had ever met, but he played along with him for disingenuous reasons of his own. "That's very helpful, sir. I never knew Mrs. Gillespie myself, and it's important for me to understand her character. Would you say she was the type to commit suicide?"

"Without a doubt. And she'd do it with a Stanley knife, too. She found as much enjoyment in making an exit as she did in making an entrance. Possibly more. If she's looking at the three of us now, picking over the bones of her demise, she'll be hugging herself with delight. She was talked about in life because she was a bitch, but that's nothing to the way she's being talked about in death. She'd love every cliff-hanging moment of it."

Cooper frowned at Sarah. "Do you agree, Dr. Blakeney?"

"It has an absurd sort of logic, you know. She
was
like that." She thought for a moment or two. "But she didn't believe in an afterlife, or only the maggot variety which means we're all cannibals." She smiled at Cooper's expression of distaste. "A man dies and is eaten by maggots, the maggots are eaten by birds, the birds are eaten by cats, the cats defecate on the vegetables and we eat the vegetables. Or any permutation you like." She smiled again. "I'm sorry, but that was Mathilda's view of death. Why would she waste her last, great exit? I honestly believe she would have prolonged it for all it was worth and, in the process, made as many people wriggle as she could. Take that video, for example. Why did she want music and credits added if it was only to be shown after she was dead? She was going to watch it herself, and if someone walked in while she was doing it, then so much the better. She meant to use it as a stick to beat Joanna and Ruth with. I'm right, aren't I, Jack?"

"Probably. You usually are." He spoke without irony. "Which video are we talking about?"

She had forgotten he hadn't seen it. "Mathilda's posthumous message to her family," she said, with a shake of her head. "You'd have loved it, by the way. She looked rather like Cruella De Vil out of
The Hundred and One Dalmatians
. Dyed black wings on either side of a white streak, nose like a beak, and mouth a thin line. Very paintable." She frowned. "Why didn't you tell me you knew her?"

"You'd have interfered."

"How?"

"You'd have found a way," he said. "I can't paint them when you bleat your interpretations of them into my ear." He spoke in a mocking falsetto. "But I like her, Jack. She's really very nice. She's not half as bad as everyone says. She's a softy at heart."

"I never talk like that," said Sarah dismissively.

"You should listen to yourself once in a while. The dark side of people scares you, so you close your eyes to it."

"Is that a bad thing?"

He shrugged. "Not if you want existence without passion."

She studied him thoughtfully for a moment. "If passion means confrontation, then yes, I prefer existence without passion. I lived through the disintegration of my parents' marriage, remember. I'd go a long way to avoid repeating that experience."

His eyes sparkled in his tired face. "Then perhaps it's your own dark side that scares you. Is there a fire in there waiting to blaze out of control? A scream of frustration that will topple your precarious house of cards? You'd better pray for gentle breezes and no strong winds, my angel, or you'll find you've been living in a fool's paradise."

She didn't respond and the room fell silent, its three occupants curiously abstracted like the portraits round the walls. It occurred to DS Cooper, fixed in fascinated immobility upon his chair, that Jack Blakeney was a terrible man. Did he devour everyone in the way he was devouring his wife?
A scream of frustration that will topple your precarious house of cards.
Cooper had held his own scream in check for years, the scream of a man caught in the toils of rectitude and responsibility. Why couldn't Jack Blakeney do the same?

He cleared his throat. "Did Mrs. Gillespie ever tell you, sir, what her intentions were with regard to her will?"

Jack had been watching Sarah intently. He glanced now towards the policeman. "Not in so many words. She asked me once what I would do if I had her money."

"What did you say?"

"I said I'd spend it."

"Your wife told me you despise materialism."

"Quite right, so I'd use it to enhance my spirituality."

"How?"

"I'd blow the lot on drugs, alcohol and sex."

"Sounds very materialistic to me, sir. There's nothing spiritual about surrendering to the senses."

"It depends who you follow. If you're a Stoic like Sarah, your spiritual development comes through duty and responsibility. If you're an Epicurean like me, though I hasten to say poor old Epicurus probably wouldn't recognize me as an adherent, it comes through the gratification of desire." He arched an amused eyebrow. "Unfortunately, we modern Epicureans are frowned upon. There's something infinitely despicable about a man who refuses to acknowledge his responsibilities but prefers to fill his cup at the fountain of pleasure." He was watching Cooper closely. "But that's only because society is composed of sheep and sheep are easily brainwashed by advertisers' propaganda. They may not believe that the whiteness of a woman's wash is a symbol of her success, but they sure as hell believe that their kitchens should be germ-free, their smiles as white, their children as well-mannered, their husbands as hard-working, and their moral decency as obvious. With men it's lager. It's supposed to persuade them they have balls, but all it really persuades them to do is wear a clean jumper, shave regularly, have at least three friends, never get drunk and talk amusingly in the pub." His grim face cracked into a smile. "My problem is, I'd rather be stoned out of my mind and rogering a sixteen-year-old virgin any day, particularly if I have to take off her gym slip slowly to do it."

Christ, thought Cooper in alarm, feeling the weight of the other's gaze upon his bent head. Could the bastard read minds as well? He made a pretence of writing something on his notepad. "Did you explain all that as graphically to Mrs. Gillespie or did you just stick with the spending of her money if you had it?"

Jack glanced at Sarah, but she was staring at Mathilda's portrait and didn't look up. "She had great skin for her age. I expect I said I'd rather be stoned and rogering a granny."

Cooper, who was far more respectable than he realized, was shocked into looking up. "What did she say?"

Jack was enjoying himself. "She asked me if I'd like to paint her in the nude. I said I would, so she took her clothes off. If it's of any interest to you, the only thing Mathilda was wearing when I made my sketches of her was the scold's bridle." He smiled, his perceptive eyes searching the policeman's. "Does that excite you, Sergeant?"

"It does as a matter of fact," said Cooper evenly. "Would she also have been in the bath by any chance?"

"No. She was very much alive and lying on her bed in all her glory." He stood up and went to a chest in the corner. "And she looked bloody fantastic." He took a sketchpad from the bottom drawer. "There." He flung the pad across the room and it fluttered to the floor at the policeman's feet. "Be my guest. They're all of Mathilda. One of life's great individuals."

Cooper retrieved the pad and turned the pages. They did indeed show Mrs. Gillespie, nude upon her bed, but a very different Mrs. Gillespie from the tragic cadaver in the bath or the bitter harridan with the cruel mouth on the television set. He laid the pad on the floor beside him. "Did you sleep with her, Mr. Blakeney?"

"No. She never asked me to."

"Would you have done if she
had
asked you?" The question was out before Cooper had time to consider its wisdom.

Jack's expression was unreadable. "Does that have a bearing on your case?"

"I'm interested in your character, Mr. Blakeney."

"I see. And what would my accepting an elderly woman's invitation to sleep with her tell you? That I was a pervert? Or that I was infinitely compassionate?"

Cooper gave a small laugh. "I'd say it was an indication that you needed your eyes tested. Even in the dark, Mrs. Gillespie could hardly have passed for a sixteen-year-old virgin." He fished his cigarettes from his pocket. "Do you mind?"

"Be my guest." He kicked the wastepaper basket across the floor.

Cooper flicked his lighter to the cigarette. "Mrs. Gillespie has left your wife three quarters of a million pounds, Mr. Blakeney. Did you know?"

"Yes."

The Sergeant hadn't expected that. "So Mrs. Gillespie
did
tell you what her intentions were?"

"No," said Jack, resuming his seat on the stool. "I've just spent a delightful two hours at Cedar House." He stared impassively at Sarah. "Joanna and Ruth are labouring under the misapprehension that I have some influence over my wife so they put themselves out to be charming."

Cooper scratched his jaw and wondered why Dr. Blakeney put up with it. The man was toying with her in the way a sleek cat playfully inserts its claws into a half-mangled mouse. The mystery was not why she had decided to divorce him so suddenly, but why she had tolerated him for so long. Yet there was a sense of a challenge unmet, for a cat only remains interested while the mouse plays the game, and Cooper had the distinct impression that Jack felt Sarah was letting him down. "Did you know before that?"

"No."

"Are you surprised?"

"No."

"Do your wife's patients often leave her money then?"

"Not as far as I know." He grinned at the Sergeant. "If they have, she's never told me."

"Then why aren't you surprised?"

"Give me a good reason why I should be. If you'd told me Mathilda had left her money to the Police Benevolent Fund or New Age Travellers, that wouldn't have surprised me either. It was hers to do with as she liked, and good luck to her. Mind you, I'm glad it's the
wife
," he put an offensive emphasis on the word, "who hit the jackpot. It'll make things considerably easier for me. I don't mind admitting I'm a bit short at the moment."

Sarah raked him from head to toe with angry eyes. "My God, Jack, if you knew how close I am to sinking my fist into your self-satisfied gut."

"Ah," he murmured, "passion at last." He stood up and approached her, spreading his hands wide in an invitation to do it. "Feel free. It's all yours."

She took him by surprise and kneed him in the groin instead. "Next time," she said through gritted teeth, "I'll break Mathilda's canvas over your head. And that would be a shame because it's probably the best thing you've ever done."

"GODDAMMIT, WOMAN, THAT HURT!" he roared, clutching his balls and collapsing back on to the stool. "I asked for passion not fucking castration."

Sarah's eyes narrowed. "It was supposed to hurt, you cretin. Don't even think about getting your hands on Mathilda's money. You're certainly not getting any of mine if I can help it. Fifty-fifty? Fat-bloody-chance. I'll sell up and give it to a cats' home before I see you living the life of Riley on the back of my hard work."

He poked his fingers into his Levi's pocket and removed a folded piece of paper. "My contract with Mathilda," he said, holding it out to her with one hand while he fondled himself gingerly with the other. "The silly old sod snuffed it before she paid me, so I reckon her executors owe me ten thousand and her heir gets the painting. Jesus, Sarah, I feel really sick. I think you've done me some severe damage."

She ignored him to read what was on the paper. "This looks kosher," she said.

"It
is
kosher. Keith drew it up."

"He never told me."

"Why should he? It was none of your business. I just hope I've got a claim on the estate. The way my luck's running, the contract's probably invalid because she's dead."

Sarah passed the paper to DS Cooper. "What do you think? It would be a shame if Jack's right. It's his second major sale."

She was genuinely pleased for the bastard, Cooper thought in surprise. What a peculiar couple they were. He shrugged. "I'm no expert but I've always understood that debts have to be met out of an estate. If you'd supplied her with new carpeting, which she hadn't paid for, the bill would presumably be honoured. I don't see why a painting should be any different, particularly one where the subject is the deceased. It's not as though you can sell it to anyone else, is it?" He glanced at the canvas. "Bearing in mind, of course, you might have a problem proving it's Mrs. Gillespie."

"Where would I have to prove it? In court?"

"Possibly."

His eyes gleamed as he clicked his fingers for the contract. "I'm relying on you, Sarah," he said, tucking the paper back into his pocket.

"To do what?""

"Tell the executors not to pay, of course. Say you don't think it's Mathilda. I need the publicity of a court battle."

"Don't be stupid. I
know
it's Mathilda. If the contract's legally binding on her estate, they'll have to pay."

But he wasn't listening. He tossed his paints, brushes and bottles of turpentine and linseed oil into a hold-all, then released the canvas of Joanna Lascelles from the easel. "I've got to go. Look, I can't take the rest of this stuff because I haven't found a studio yet, but I'll try and get back for it during the week. Is that okay? I only came for some clothes. I've been sleeping in the car and this lot's a bit rank." He padded towards the door, slinging the hold-all over his shoulder and carrying the painting in his hand.