“What is it?” she asked.
“What?”
“You wanted to talk to me.”
“Oh, yes. It’s nothing, really. Just a case I’m working on. Remember an artist called Thomas McMahon?”
“Tom? Yes, of course. Why?”
“He’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“Yes, killed in a fire. He was squatting on a barge down on the canal.”
“I take it he was murdered, or you wouldn’t be here?”
“Looks that way,” said Banks.
“Poor Tom. He was harmless. He wouldn’t hurt a soul.”
“Well, someone hurt him.”
“A fire, you said?”
“Yes. Arson. He was unconscious at the time. He wouldn’t have… you know.”
Sandra nodded. Her small, pale nose was a little red at the tip, he noticed, as if she had a cold. “I haven’t seen him in five years or more,” she said. “I don’t know how I can help you.”
“I don’t know, either,” said Banks, sticking his hands in his overcoat pockets. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I shouldn’t have come.”
They came to a bench and Sandra sat, wheeling the pram close and locking the brake with her foot. Banks sat beside her. He craved a cigarette. It wasn’t a sharp, fast, overwhelming urge as he usually felt, but a simple, deep, gnawing need. He tried to ignore it.
“You smell of beer,” Sandra said.
“I’m not pissed.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Banks paused. He’d had a couple of pints with Burgess, true enough. But that was all. And he certainly wasn’t going to mention Dirty Dick to Sandra. Red rag to a bull. “Maria Phillips was asking after you,” he said.
Sandra shot him an amused glance. “Between trying to get her hands down the front of your trousers.”
“How did you guess?”
“She never was a subtle one, was Maria.”
“She’s rather sweet, really.”
Sandra rolled her eyes. “To each his own.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Banks rushed on. “I think she’s just very insecure underneath it all.”
“Oh, please.”
“She said you spent a lot of time with Tom.”
“And you think she was hinting at an affair?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It’s obvious in your tone. For your information, not that it matters anymore, but I didn’t have any affairs while we were together. Not one.”
Sinead stirred and made a gurgling sound. Sandra leaned forward and did something with the blanket again, then she put her hand to the side of the baby’s face, stroked it and smiled, murmuring nonsense words. It was a gesture Banks remembered her making with both Brian and Tracy when they were very young, and it cut him to the quick. He had forgotten all about it, and there it was, a simple maternal gesture with the power to hurt him so. What the hell was going on? he wondered, breath tight in his chest. This baby was nothing to do with him. If anything, it was an insult to the relationship he thought he had with Sandra. It wasn’t even a particularly beautiful baby. So why did he feel so excluded, so alone? Why did he care?
“So what can you tell me about McMahon?” Banks asked.
“Tom had a lively mind, wandering hands and low self-esteem,” Sandra said.
“Why the low self-esteem?”
“I don’t know. Some people are just like that, aren’t they?” She rocked the pram gently as she spoke. “Even when he was moderately successful, getting the odd exhibition and managing to sell a painting or two – and I don’t mean just the tourist stuff – he still couldn’t seem to believe in himself. You know, he once told me he felt more himself imitating other artists than he did doing his own work.”
“Oh,” said Banks. “Who did he imitate?”
“Just about anyone.” Sandra laughed. “He once dashed off a Picasso sketch for me. It took him about five seconds. I don’t know if you could have got it by a team of experts but it would have fooled me. Why are you so interested?”
“What about Turner?”
“What about him?”
“Do you think McMahon could have forged Turner sketches and watercolors?”
Sandra swept her hand over her hair. “Do I think he had the talent for it? Yes. Did I ever see him imitate or even hear him mention Turner? No.”
“Just a thought,” said Banks. “Some have turned up.”
“Is this connected with his death?”
“It could be,” said Banks.
Sandra shivered and adjusted her scarf.
“Is there anything else?” Banks asked.
“Not that I can think of.”
“You didn’t know his circle of friends?”
“Didn’t know he had one. I only saw him at the gallery. Sometimes we’d have a coffee there together. That’s all.” Sinead gurgled again and Sandra leaned over.
“She’s a lovely child,” Banks said.
Sandra didn’t look at him. “Yes.”
“Well behaved.”
“Yes.” Sandra glanced over at her house. “Look, I’d better go,” she said. “It’s nearly Sinead’s feeding time and…” She held her hand out. “I think it’s starting to rain.”
Banks nodded. “Good-bye, then.”
Sandra stood up. “Good bye,” she said. “And take care of yourself, Alan.”
Banks watched her push the pram down the path as it started to drizzle. She didn’t look back.
Chapter 13
“Well, Mark,” said Banks, leaning back in his chair and linking his hands behind his head. “Why did you run?”
“How was I to know they were plainclothes coppers? You told me I was in danger, to watch out. That’s what I did.”
“And what do you have to say about it all now?”
“Just the same as I told those bastards in Scarborough yesterday. The bloke attacked me. I defended myself. What was I supposed to do, let him put his hands all over me?”
Banks scratched the scar beside his right eye. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about, Mark,” he said. “What bloke is this? Who attacked you? Where?”
Mark stared at him. He’d been held overnight at Scarborough for resisting arrest and delivered to Western Area Headquarters that morning. The arresting officer had mentioned some gibberish about an attack and self-defense, but he had no idea what Mark was talking about, either. Nor did he want to know. Enough paperwork on his plate already without picking up Eastvale’s leftovers. One thing that did bother Banks was the black eye, split lip and bruising on Mark’s cheek. He wondered how “necessary” the force was that the two DCs who arrested him used. And had they announced that they were police officers first? Mark said not.
“You mean you don’t know?” Mark asked.
