The Other Half Lives aka The Dead Lie Down

suggested a headache. No, a hangover-there were empty bottles all over the table. A morning-after-a-heavy-night scene, Charlie guessed.

At the foot of the stairs was another picture of the same man and woman, this time without the boy. The woman was combing her hair in front of a mirror, wearing a strappy white nightie. Behind her, the fat man lay on a bed reading a tabloid newspaper.

Charlie was impressed. The paintings were too seedy to be conventionally appealing, but they had life in them, and seemed to create more energy in the hall than the shadeless bulb Mary had turned on as she passed. The colours were extraordinary-vivid without being in any way buoyant or heartening. The effect was one of grim cheerlessness exposed in the glare of a searchlight. ‘Are these yours?’ Charlie asked, guessing they must be.

Mary was halfway up the stairs. She made a noise that was hard to interpret. ‘I didn’t steal them, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘No, I meant…’

‘No. They’re not mine.’

So she hadn’t misunderstood. She’d been playing for time.

At the top of the stairs there was another picture, and a further two on the landing: the woman and the boy sitting at opposite ends of a lumpy yellow sofa with a torn cover, not looking at each other; the man standing next to a closed door, his hand raised to knock, his mouth open. The third painting featured two different people: a young man and woman, both dark with heavy eyebrows and square foreheads, both overweight, playing cards at the same table that was in the picture downstairs.

Mary pushed open one of the three doors on the landing, stood back and gestured for Charlie to go in ahead of her. The front bedroom. Aidan Seed had told Simon he’d killed Mary in here, left her body in the centre of the bed. Charlie’s throat felt tight as she walked in. I’m being ridiculous, she told herself. Would Mary be opening the door if there were a corpse behind it?

The room was full of pictures, so full that after a few steps Charlie had to stop. Many of them were obscured from view, either by other paintings, or because they were turned the wrong way. Charlie tried to take in as much as she could. There was a picture of a large stone building with a square tower, a lot of head-and-shoulders portraits, mainly of women, all of whom looked weary, defeated by life. Leaning against one wall were four or five big pinky-brown abstracts that looked like close-ups of scarred human flesh, with lots of intersecting lines and funny ridges. Like the paintings downstairs and on the landing, none of these was conventionally beautiful, but their power was undeniable. Charlie found herself needing to stare at them.

Like the paintings downstairs… Something else was undeniable, and yet Mary had denied it. ‘If you painted all these, then you painted the others as well,’ said Charlie, gesturing towards the door. ‘Even I can tell they’re all by the same artist.’

Mary looked put out. After a few seconds she said, ‘I painted them, yes. All of them.’

Charlie would have felt pedantic asking her why, in that case, she’d pretended she hadn’t. Was she embarrassed to have her own pictures up on the walls? She didn’t seem the sort of person who would give a toss about seeming vain. In this room, all the paintings were framed; the ones Charlie had seen on the walls had been hung unframed. Somehow, it seemed the wrong way round.

‘Who are they all?’ Charlie asked.

‘The people in the pictures? Neighbours, mostly, or people who used to live round here. The Winstanley estate collection.’ Mary’s smile was like a sneer, directed at herself. She nodded at the portraits stacked against the opposite wall. ‘I couldn’t tell you most of those people’s names now-I paid them, they sat for me, that was it.’

Charlie looked again at the faces, to see if she recognised anyone she’d ever arrested.

‘You’re wondering why I’d choose to paint strangers who mean nothing to me,’ said Mary, though Charlie hadn’t been. ‘Painting people you care about is like offering yourself an emotional breakdown. I avoid it if I can, though it’s not always possible. Sometimes a compulsion takes hold and you have to suffer the consequences.’

Charlie saw the tension in her posture as she spoke, the way she hunched herself together so that her body became more compact.

‘If you had to paint a portrait, who would you choose? Your fiance?’ Mary was looking at Charlie’s hand. ‘I saw the ring.’

‘I really don’t know.’ Charlie felt her skin heat up. No way could she paint Simon; it would be too intimate, too close. He’d never let her. He’d ended up staying the night on Saturday, after the party; he and Charlie had slept side by side, but they hadn’t kissed or touched. The hug he’d given her downstairs-that had been it in terms of physical contact. Still, Charlie was pleased. She’d never been able to persuade him to stay the night before. It was progress.

‘Definitely not your fiance,’ said Mary. ‘So either you don’t care enough about him to bother, in which case I’d call off the engagement, or you know what I’m talking about: like offering yourself a breakdown.’

‘You said pretty much all your pictures were here,’ Charlie changed the subject. ‘Where are the rest, if you never sell your work?’

‘Ruth Bussey’s got one. I gave it to her as a present.’ A smile played around Mary’s lips. ‘Remember the sempervivum I showed you outside?’

Charlie didn’t. Then she realised Mary was talking about the rubbery green rose sticking out of the wall.

‘Ruth told me it was called that. I didn’t know. I don’t know any plant names. My experience of gardening is limited. I completely ruined a garden once and decided to leave it at that. After I gave Ruth the painting-I hadn’t given anybody a present in a long time and it felt strange-but I thought to myself, she’s given me a present too. That name: sempervivum. Live for ever, live always-that’s what it means.’

‘You aren’t in the habit of giving presents?’ Charlie asked gently. There was a story here, and she found herself wanting to know what it was. Where was the garden Mary had mentioned? Where did she live before Megson Crescent?

‘No presents,’ said Mary. ‘I’m not giving you a picture for free, and I won’t sell you one. I only gave Ruth one as a form of apology.’

‘For what?’

‘I lost her her job. It’s a long story, one I’m not going to tell you. It doesn’t show either of us in a good light.’

‘You mean her job at the Spilling Gallery?’

‘What does it matter?’ Mary asked warily.

A woman with a lot of boundaries, thought Charlie. Too many for life to be easy for her. ‘I just wondered. That’s where Ruth worked before she worked for Aidan Seed.’

Charlie had never seen a person’s face shake before, but Mary’s did. It was as if she’d suffered an internal electric shock. ‘Ruth… Ruth works for Aidan Seed?’ She tucked her hair behind her ear, repeating the action, three, four times.

‘They also live together,’ said Charlie. ‘As a couple.’

All the colour drained from Mary’s face. ‘That’s not true. Ruth lives alone. In the lodge house at Blantyre Park. Why are you lying?’

‘I’m not. I don’t understand. Why does it matter? You say you don’t know Aidan.’

‘My picture. I gave Ruth my picture.’ She bit her lip. ‘Where are my cigarettes? I need a cigarette.’ She made no attempt to look for them. Her eyes were blank, moving to and fro, not settling on anything for long. ‘What’s Aidan Seed done? I need to know. Why are the police after him?’

Not knowing if it would prove to be the key that unlocked everything or a disastrous error, Charlie said, ‘As far as we know, Aidan’s harmed nobody. But he’s telling us different. He’s saying he hurt someone, badly, and he says that person was you.’

Mary’s chin jutted out. Charlie guessed she had resolved to show no more emotion after her brief lapse. Another shock, then.

Charlie took a step towards her. ‘Mary, believe me, I know how odd this sounds. Aidan Seed came to us voluntarily, wanting to confess to a crime. He described you-your appearance, where you live, your work…’

Mary wrapped her arms around herself, hugged herself tightly.

In for a penny, thought Charlie. ‘He seems to have got hold of the idea that he killed you,’ she said.

‘Not me.’ Mary let her head fall back, then straightened up, her eyes locking on Charlie’s. ‘Not me.’