teaching drawing and painting in the art colleges back in the sixties. Graphic artists—that’s what they all want to be—only no one tells them there aren’t any jobs. So they come out of art college like this wee chappie,” he nodded toward the street, “hawking their wares from gallery to gallery like itinerant peddlers. You saw it—fairly competent airbrushed crap, without a spark of originality. If he’s lucky he’ll find a job frying up chips or driving a delivery van.”
“You were courteous enough,” said Kincaid.
“Well, you have to have some sympathy, haven’t you? It’s not their fault they’re ignorant, both in technique and in the realities of life.” He waved a hand dismissively. “I’ve nattered on long enough. What can I do for you?”
Kincaid gestured toward the watercolors in the second room, “These—”
“Ah, she’s an exception,” Simons said, smiling. “In many ways. Self-taught, for one, which was probably her salvation, and very successful at it, for another. Not with these,” he added quickly, “although I think she will be, but with the work she does on commission. Stays booked two years in advance. It’s very difficult for an artist who is successful commercially to find the time to do really creative work, so this show meant a lot to her.”
Realizing the answer even as he asked and feeling an utter fool, Kincaid said, “The artist—who is she?”
Trevor Simons looked puzzled. “Julia Swann. I thought you knew.”
“But…” Kincaid tried to reconcile the flawless but rather emotionally severe perfection of Julia’s flowers with these vibrantly alive paintings. He could see similarities now in technique and execution, but the outcome was astonishingly different. Making an attempt to collect himself, he said, “Look. I think perhaps I ought to go out and come in again, I’ve made such a muddle of things. My name’s Duncan Kincaid,” he extended his warrant card in its folder, “and I came to talk to you about Julia Swann.”
Trevor Simons looked from the warrant card to Kincaid and back again, then said rather blankly, “It looks like a library permit. I always wondered, you know, when you see them on the telly.” He shook his head, frowning. “I don’t understand. I know Con’s death has been a dreadful shock for everyone, but I thought it was an accident. Why Scotland Yard? And why me?”
“Thames Valley has treated it as a suspicious death from the beginning, and asked for our assistance at Sir Gerald Asherton’s request.”
Kincaid had delivered this with no intonation, but Simons raised an eyebrow and said, “Ah.”
“Indeed,” Kincaid answered, and when their eyes met it occurred to him that he might be friends with this man under other circumstances.
“And me?” Simons asked again. “Surely you can’t think Julia had anything to do with Con’s death?”
“Were you with Julia all Thursday evening?” Kincaid said, pushing a bit more aggressively, although the note of incredulity in Simons’s voice had struck him as genuine.
Unruffled, Simons leaned against his desk and folded his arms. “More or less. It was a bit of a free-for-all in here.” He nodded, indicating the two small rooms. “People were jammed in here like sardines. I suppose Julia might have popped out to the loo or for a smoke and I wouldn’t have noticed, but not much longer than that.”
“What time did you close the gallery?”
“Tenish. They’d eaten and drunk everything in sight, and left a wake of litter behind like pillaging Huns. We had to push the last happy stragglers out the door.”
“We?”
“Julia helped me tidy up.”
“And after that?”
Trevor Simons looked away for the first time. He studied the river for a moment, then turned back to Kincaid with a reluctant expression. “I’m sure you’ve seen Julia already. Did she tell you she spent the night? I can’t imagine her being silly enough to protect my honor.” Simons paused, but before Kincaid could speak he went on. “Well, it’s true enough. She was here in the flat with me until just before daybreak. A small attempt at discretion, creeping out with the dawn,” he added with a humorless smile.
“She didn’t leave you at any time before that?”
“I think I would have noticed if she had,” Simons answered, this time with a genuine flash of amusement, then he quickly sobered and added, “Look, Mr. Kincaid, I don’t make a habit of doing this sort of thing. I’m married and I’ve two teenage daughters. I don’t want my family hurt. I know,” he continued hurriedly, as if Kincaid might interrupt him, “I should have considered the consequences beforehand, but one doesn’t, does one?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Kincaid answered in bland policemanese, all the while thinking,
“You don’t live here, then?” he asked, breaking the train of thought abruptly. He gestured toward the door across the garden.
“No. In Sonning, a bit farther upriver. The flat was included in the property when I bought the gallery, and I use it mainly as a studio. Sometimes I stay over when I’m painting, or when I’ve an opening on.”
“You paint?” asked Kincaid, a little surprised.
Simons’s smile was rueful. “Am I a practical man, Mr. Kincaid? Or merely a compromised one? You tell me.” The question seemed to be hypothetical only, for he continued, “I knew when I left art school I wasn’t quite good enough, didn’t have that unique combination of talent and luck. So I used a little family money and bought this gallery. I found it a bit ironic that Julia’s opening also marked the anniversary of my twenty-fifth year here.”
Kincaid wasn’t inclined to let him off the hook, although he suspected his curiosity was more personal than professional. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Yes, I paint, and I feel insulted if I’m referred to as a ‘local artist’ rather than an ‘artist who paints locally’ It’s a fine distinction, you understand,” he added mockingly. “Silly, isn’t it?”
“What sort of things do you paint?” Kincaid asked, scanning the paintings on the walls of the small room.
