The Other Half Lives aka The Dead Lie Down

‘Why do you say that?’

‘There’d been some kind of contretemps when they got together to have their photo taken. I don’t think I ever knew all the details, but it was something to do with one or more of them calling Aidan pretentious. Which he wasn’t,’ said Jan defensively. ‘He could be too intense and earnest at times, but there wasn’t a grain of pretence about him.’

‘So Martha Wyers might have been there, at Aidan’s private view?’

Jan shrugged.

‘Could Mary Trelease have been there too?’

‘I suppose she might have been. It was a bit of a blur that night-private views always are. I was madly busy and the place was packed. I don’t remember individuals, only a big crowd of people, almost too big to squeeze in.’

‘Did anything happen that struck you as out of the ordinary? ’ Charlie asked. ‘Anything at all?’

‘I don’t think so. Two punters had a fairly predictable row about whether to buy a picture or not. A mother and daughter, I think. That’s right, yes. I remember thinking I wouldn’t have dared tell my mother how to spend her money, God rest her soul. It’s amazing how tactless people can be-tussling in front of the artist like that. “It’s not worth two thousand quid!” “Well, I think it is!” Usually I keep schtum, but on that occasion I butted in and told the daughter she was crazy.’

It didn’t sound crazy to Charlie. Two thousand quid? Was there any reason for art to be so expensive?

‘I don’t mind if people genuinely can’t afford it,’ said Jan. ‘But in this case, it wasn’t about money. The daughter said the paintings were cold and unforgiving, that they had a “rotten soul”-I’ve never forgotten that. She was talking nonsense, and her mother looked upset by it, so I gave her a piece of my mind. Thank goodness Aidan didn’t hear her.’

‘Did Aidan talk to you about his personal life?’ Charlie asked.

‘Not really. Apart from jokingly.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He once told me he had a stalker. When we were hanging his exhibition.’

Charlie tried not to look too eager.

‘Oh, he wasn’t worried about it or anything like that. He sounded almost flattered. He wasn’t being entirely serious, I don’t think.’

‘Do you remember anything else he said?’

Jan’s face creased in concentration. ‘Something about having to let her have her way with him because she wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was very tongue in cheek, though. I said something like, “It’s a hard life when you’re in demand,” and he laughed. He referred to fate, too-fate kept throwing them together, something like that.’

Not many people would accept a stalker as part of destiny’s grand plan, Charlie thought. Odd. ‘Can you remember his exact words?’ she asked.

Jan looked impatient, then tried to soften her expression to one of mock exasperation. ‘It was eight years ago. Of course I can’t.’

‘And he didn’t give his stalker a name?’

‘Nope. Sorry.’

‘You didn’t take any photos or anything, did you? Of the private view? You said you kept a record of all your exhibitions.’

‘That’s an idea. I always take pictures. Want me to dig out the file?’

‘Please.’ It wasn’t impossible that Mary Trelease or Martha Wyers or both of them might be in one or more of the photographs. And if they were? More evidence of a connection between the key players, but still nothing to indicate what they were players in, or how their individual stories fitted together. Had Martha and Mary been more than contemporaries at Villiers? Had they been friends?

Charlie recalled Mary’s expression when she’d said, ‘Not me.’ Had Aidan Seed killed Martha Wyers? Hanged her? You murder one woman, then, years later, pretend you’ve strangled her friend. No-too bizarre. And why choose hanging as a way of killing someone? Automatically, Charlie’s mind supplied an answer: to make it look like suicide.

‘Could Martha Wyers have been Aidan’s stalker?’ she asked, not expecting Jan to know the answer.

‘I’ve no idea. I suppose she could have been. Why?’ Jan had pulled a manila folder out of one of her desk drawers.

‘Martha published a novel before she died, Ice on the Sun. It’s about a woman who falls for a man she meets at a job interview and pursues-’

‘Oh, lordy.’ Jan’s mouth gaped open. ‘Aidan told me he first met his stalker-woman at a job interview. It only came back to me when I heard you say it. He definitely did. I remember asking if he thought she’d fixated on him because he had the job she wanted.’

Charlie cautioned herself against getting her hopes up. Yet another connection; more unanswered questions. ‘In Martha’s novel, the man the heroine falls in love with is called Adam Sands-same initials as Aidan Seed.’

Jan was flicking through the file. ‘Nothing here, I’m afraid. Look.’ She handed Charlie several photographs. Seeing Aidan again in this context was almost shocking, though Charlie couldn’t have said why. In the pictures, he was wearing a suit and was slimmer than he’d been when Charlie had met him. He was smiling for the camera, but there was a strain to the smile, as if he wasn’t sure he could support its weight for much longer.

‘Would you say he was a happy person?’

‘Hard to tell,’ said Jan. ‘Sometimes he was jolly and chatty, life and soul of the party, but he could also be reserved, verging on morose. I had the impression life had been a struggle for him.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I was afraid you were going to ask me that.’ Jan smiled ruefully. ‘I don’t know. Let me think about it.’ She was silent for so long, Charlie started to wonder if she was waiting to be granted permission to think. ‘It was the way he spoke,’ she said finally. ‘He expressed his opinions and pursued his ambitions so… assertively. As if he thought it was the only way to be heard. I used to wonder about his family. I know his siblings are much older than he is. None of them came to the private view, which I thought was rather odd; not one single relative of his came anywhere near the exhibition in the month it was on. That’s almost unheard of.’

There was nothing remarkable about the photographs of Aidan Seed’s private view. His paintings, from what Charlie could make out, were of interiors containing people, usually more than one. Charlie found herself staring for longer than she needed to at a painting of a staircase, with a middle-aged woman turning, halfway up, to look down at a younger man-almost a boy-who was looking away from her.

‘Can you see how he uses almost stiflingly traditional painting techniques to create scenes that are aggressively contemporary? ’ Jan asked.

The picture was meticulously realistic; it could have been a photograph. Charlie was impressed, but she wouldn’t have wanted it on her wall. It would make her tense. The couple depicted-if they were a couple-had evidently had a row, or were in the middle of one. It wasn’t a peaceful painting. ‘What’s it called?’ she asked, wondering if the title would offer any clues. If she’d painted it, she’d have called it ‘These people are pissed off with each other because…’ and then the reason. What was the point of a picture that told a story if no one could work out what the story was?

Jan had pulled a glossy card booklet out of the file. ‘Here’s the catalogue.’ She handed it to Charlie. In the photograph, the stairs painting was labelled ‘12’. Number 12 in the catalogue was called Supply and Demand. Charlie was none the wiser. The picture had been reproduced in the catalogue, along with one other, of a fat man in a bath, his torso like a mountain.

‘His titles are all…’ The rest of the sentence withered and died in Charlie’s mouth as she stared at the catalogue. Her hands shook. She’d been about to say that all Aidan’s titles were evasive. They said nothing about what was happening in the picture.

Apart from one.

Painting number 18 was called The Murder of Mary Trelease.