you can.’
24
Charlie had hoped things would be winding down by the time she got to the Spilling Gallery, but the party seemed still to be in full swing at nearly nine o’clock. The lit interior was dark with bodies, and she heard the noise as soon as she got out of her car: laughter and clashing voices.
She’d rung Saul Hansard at home first, having found his number in the phone book. His house was listed by name: The Grain Store. That’s right; she remembered him mentioning the dilapidated building he and his wife had bought and converted. Charlie knew Saul from an initiative she’d been in charge of last year to combat business crime. Most of the local shop-owners had been involved; Saul had been among the least obnoxious and demanding.
Tonight there was a private view at the gallery, Breda Hansard, Saul’s wife, had told Charlie. The windows were so heavily misted that you could hardly see the pictures on display. As Charlie walked in, she was hit by the competing smells of wine and sweat. Now she could see the paintings; they were of local scenes, made prettier by unrealistically bright colours and what looked like pieces of gold tin-foil stuck to each one to represent the sun, or yellow flowers growing beside the road. Twee. Just the sort of thing the people of Spilling were bound to love.
Saul saw Charlie, and broke off from the group of people he was talking to. ‘I’m glad they sent you,’ he said. ‘Let’s go through to the back.’
‘Glad who sent me?’ Charlie pulled off her coat and draped it over her arm. The gallery was uncomfortably hot with the thick, moist heat that could only be generated by too many people crammed into too small a space.
Saul hadn’t heard her, so Charlie repeated her question.
He looked puzzled. ‘You’re not here because I phoned?’
‘No. Who did you phone?’
The back turned out to be a large room that might have belonged to an inspired but undisciplined child with artistic leanings. Marker pens were scattered everywhere, on every surface and on the floor; Charlie’s foot rolled on one as she walked in. There were large sheets of white cardboard with paint splashes on them leaning against walls, paintings both framed and unframed in tottering piles, aerosol paint cans with dried paint dribbles down their sides that had spilled on-to the table, tissue paper, mainly torn, occasionally screwed up into uneven balls, wood shavings, glue…
‘I wanted to talk to someone,’ said Saul, fiddling with his red braces, the same ones he always wore. ‘I’ve had all sorts of police in and out yesterday and today, asking me questions. They wouldn’t answer any. I was worried. I think some people I care about might be in trouble, or missing, and…’
‘Would those people be Ruth Bussey, Aidan Seed and Mary Trelease?’
Saul looked satisfied, briefly, then anxious. ‘You’re also here to ask about them?’
‘Unofficially.’
‘Mary Trelease isn’t a person I care about,’ he said thoughtfully, as if reluctant to declare himself unconcerned. ‘Though of course, I wish her no harm. She’s a very strange lady. Difficult. I lost Ruth because of her. You know Ruth used to work for me?’
‘Ruth told me about her row with Mary. It happened here, didn’t it?’
Saul nodded.
‘Did you see it?’
‘Only the end of it. That was bad enough.’
‘What exactly happened?’
‘Wait a minute. Sorry.’ Saul seemed agitated, pressing the thumb of his right hand into the palm of his left as if trying to drill a hole in it. ‘Can you at least tell me if Ruth and Aidan are all right? Both are… well, I couldn’t bear to think of either of them being in any trouble.’
‘I don’t know if they’re all right,’ Charlie said, feeling awful when she saw the effect it had on him. ‘You’re better off asking whoever you’ve been dealing with from London.’
‘London? I haven’t spoken to anyone from London.’ Saul was growing twitchier by the second. ‘The policemen who came here were local. I’ve seen them going into the Brown Cow. And coming out, sometimes, very much the worse for wear. I’ve seen
‘Was the other short and dark, with a face like a vindictive rat?’ Charlie asked.
Saul looked caught out. ‘I thought you said she’d told you.’
‘Mary brought in a picture to be framed, Ruth wanted to buy it, Mary didn’t want to sell?’
‘That was the essence of it, yes. Mary’s the only artist I’ve ever met who refuses to sell her work. She doesn’t even like people to see it. She once told me she’d prefer it if I could put the frames on without looking at the pictures. I told her it was impossible. Knowing what she was like, I’d never have dared to ask to buy anything, though she was extremely talented. I should have warned Ruth.’ He pressed his thumb harder into his palm. ‘Has Mary hurt Ruth again? I’ll never forgive myself if she has.’
‘ “Again”?’ said Charlie. ‘What happened between them exactly? How badly was Ruth hurt?’
‘No bones were broken, if that’s what you mean. The damage was mainly psychological. Mary pushed Ruth up against a wall, took a full cylinder of red paint and sprayed it all over her face. After which Ruth completely withdrew into her shell, wouldn’t come to work, wouldn’t speak to anyone.’
‘What aren’t you telling me?’ Charlie inclined her head, forcing him to meet her eye. ‘Listen, Ruth came to me for help last week. I think she might be in danger. Anything you tell me, anything at all, might make the difference between me finding her and not finding her.’
‘This won’t, I promise you.’
Charlie had assumed Saul would be a pushover, but he seemed to have taken a stand. Which made her all the more determined to break him down. ‘You can’t possibly know that,’ she said. ‘Please. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to.’
Saul stared at the floor. ‘Ruth wet herself, all right? It was horrible. It must have been awful for her. In front of Mary and me, and the couple who’d walked into the gallery a few seconds before, hoping to see a few nice pictures on their way round town, not a sobbing woman with red paint all over her face, standing in a pool of her own pee!’ He sighed. ‘I shouldn’t have told you. How would you like it if someone repeated a story like that about you?’
‘People know worse things than that about me,’ Charlie told him abruptly. ‘Have you heard the name Martha Wyers before?’
Saul’s forehead creased. ‘Martha… Yes. She’s a writer, isn’t she? Aidan knew her. They were both part of an arts promotion some years back. I seem to remember they had their pictures in the papers. Glamorous, young, sexy artists-you get the idea.’
‘Did you ever meet her?’
‘Yes, I think I did. Aidan had an exhibition at a gallery in London.’
‘TiqTaq.’
‘That’s right.’ Saul looked surprised that Charlie knew. ‘I think Martha Wyers came to the private view. I can’t remember her face, but the name rings a bell. Aidan might well have introduced us. Any rate, I seem to remember her being there.’ He picked up a marker pen from the table and spun it round as he thought back several years. ‘With her mum, possibly. Yes, that’s right, because the mum told me about Martha’s book.’
‘
‘I have no memory of the title, I’m afraid. But Mum was rather full of her daughter’s achievement, as I recall, and Martha found it embarrassing.’
