The Other Half Lives aka The Dead Lie Down

‘It’s nothing to do with heavy,’ said Dunning, shooting his skipper a look designed to obliterate. ‘If you use two hooks, the picture’s more likely to stay straight, especially if it’s a big one.’

‘I think there’s a picture missing,’ said Charlie. ‘I think this murder’s about that-that’s why the killer used picture hooks and nails to mutilate Crowther’s face.’

‘Why would anyone want to steal a cheesy photo of-?’ Milward began.

‘Not a photo,’ Charlie cut her off. ‘A painting. It’s called Abberton. It’s by Mary Trelease.’

‘So, this is the table you sat at with Dommie.’

‘Pure coincidence,’ said Charlie with a bland grin. Her heart wasn’t in it. ‘Either that, or this is my table of lust, and I bring all my rides here.’ They’d been dismissed by Milward three quarters of an hour ago. Charlie had hailed the first free cab that had come their way, told it to drop them on Goodge Street.

The man who had served Charlie and Lund yesterday-Signor Grilli himself? Charlie wondered-approached their table. Instead of asking if he could take their order, he said, ‘Is okay, I see you’re no ready.’ He might as well have said, ‘I can see you’re too busy rowing to think about food.’

‘Is it true?’ Simon asked. ‘Are you seeing Lund?’

‘I’m not going to dignify that with a-’

‘Then why say it? Is it your new hobby, making me look like a twat in front of as many people as possible?’

‘You? Oh, they loved you. I was the despicable one.’

‘You encouraged them to despise you! Boasting about something that ought to disgust you, as if you think being a rapist’s girlfriend is something to be proud of.’

‘Ex-girlfriend.’ Charlie pretended to look at the menu. The tables around theirs had fallen silent. Even the music playing in the background sounded as if it was deliberately leaving lots of spaces between the notes. Charlie spoke clearly, for the benefit of any eavesdroppers. ‘Funny-I seem to have gone from one extreme to the other. From a man who has sex with women against their will to one who won’t shag one woman, not even his own fiancee, even if she begs…’

‘If you carry on like this, I’m leaving.’ Simon pushed his chair back.

‘The restaurant, or our relationship?’ Charlie asked. ‘Just so as I understand the exact nature of the threat.’

‘Do you want a smack in the face?’

‘At least if you hit me, we’d be touching.’ She was only half joking.

‘When it suits you, you make me the enemy. Whenever you’re feeling shit about something, I get the brunt of it. You knew I’d never hung a picture.’

‘What? You haven’t?’ Charlie laughed. ‘Actually, I didn’t know. Bloody hell, Simon…’

‘You knew, and you wanted to show me up, because you’d been shown up: forced to boast about the fuck-up that nearly ruined your life, and still might. You seem to want it to!’

‘Stop.’ Charlie gripped her menu with both hands.

‘Except you weren’t forced at all-it was your choice. You could have said, “Yeah, okay, I made a mistake. But I didn’t know what he was when I got involved with him.” Why couldn’t you have said that?’

‘Why don’t you write me a script next time? The press office did it two years ago. They told me what to say.’

‘There’s no point in us talking.’ Simon picked up his menu, held it between his face and Charlie’s. ‘Let’s get something to eat while we can, before they call us back in.’

‘Do you think they will?’ It was almost a comfort to think about Milward and Dunning; against them, Charlie and Simon were allies.

‘I would. We’re better than they are.’

‘I’m not hungry.’ Charlie sighed.

‘Then why are we here? It was your idea.’

‘I thought Lund might be here. I was hoping to persuade him not to tell Milward that he and I aren’t screwing each other’s brains out, if she asks him. True, I’d have been wasting my time-Lund’d rather chew off his own scrotum than help me, but since I’ve sunk so low already today, I might as well go that bit further and beg a favour from a man who… looks like a buzzard.’ She covered her face with her hands. Her own voice was starting to grate on her tattered nerves. It was no fun, being on the wrong side of the table in an interview room. She felt as if she still was. The table and room had changed, but the vibes of condemnation were the same.

‘You should have told them the real reason you met Lund. Why didn’t you?’

‘What, tell them Ruth Bussey’s decided to make an exhibition of me and I ran to a lawyer for help only to hear that there’s fuck all I can do about it? I think I’ve had enough public humiliation for one lifetime, don’t you?’

Simon reached across the table, grabbed her wrist. ‘They’re investigating a murder, one of the sickest. Some things are more important than your pride.’

‘My what? You think I’m proud? Some detective you are.’ She didn’t pull her arm away. The angrier he got, the more remote from him she felt, as if his reactions had nothing to do with her.

He stood up. ‘I’m going to order a pizza. Are you sure you don’t want anything?’

‘I’ll have a taste of yours.’

‘Will you fuck. I’m starved.’

She listened as he ordered two pizza funghis. He should have said ‘pizzas funghi’. Simon was no linguist. She pointed out his mistake when he sat back down. ‘I got “two” right,’ he said. ‘That was the important part.’ He was feeling better, she could tell, though they’d resolved nothing. Because he’d ordered some food?

‘So. You’ve really never hung a picture? What else don’t I know about you?’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Simon, we’re engaged!’

‘I know that.’

‘Christ, this is ridiculous! All right, then: where would you live, if you could live anywhere in the world?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.’

‘Well, think.’

‘Are you serious? At the moment, all I can think about is a disfigured mouth with gold picture hooks for teeth. You think Mary Trelease killed Gemma Crowther, don’t you? Because Crowther had her picture, the one she gave Ruth Bussey. So, what: Bussey gave it to Seed who gave it to Crowther?’

Charlie didn’t want to talk about this, not now. She wanted to tell him that if she could choose anywhere in the world to live, she would choose Torquay. She’d always loved it. She’d had her first and only holiday romance there.

Their pizzas arrived suspiciously quickly, their temperature somewhere in the no man’s land between cold and warm. Charlie didn’t care, and Simon certainly wouldn’t, she thought. That was one thing they had in common, though Simon was more extreme. Food was something he put in his body in order not to die. He didn’t care what it tasted like as long as it filled him up. As recently as last week, he’d have taken pains to avoid eating in front of Charlie. Now he seemed fine about it, as if having a meal together was a natural thing to do. Like the four chaste nights they’d spent together so far, Charlie saw this as progress.

Once the waiter had gone, she said, ‘All I know is, Trelease is protective over her work. Whether she’s protective enough to kill to retrieve one of her paintings, I have no idea, but the picture-hook teeth? That’s a woman’s touch.’

‘I disagree,’ said Simon, ripping strips off his pizza like a savage and stuffing them into his mouth as if he didn’t have a knife and fork in front of him.

‘A man wouldn’t have had the idea. It’s too… intricate.’

‘So’s the way Seed’s mind works. He’s a craftsman. Whatever his motives, there’s nothing crude or obvious about them. How can there be? A man who confesses to a non-murder. An atheist who leads a secret life as a Quaker…’

‘Maybe he’s been infiltrating all the major religions,’ said Charlie. ‘Maybe Monday’s his Quaker day, Tuesday he’s a Hindu…’ She sighed, bored by her own joke. ‘I’m going back to Spilling after lunch to talk to Kerry Gatti. I need to do something under my own steam. Want to come?’