The Art of Murder

Pendragon turned to the sergeant beside him. Jez Turner had already scribbled down the name.

‘How long have you known the deceased?’

Hedridge took a deep breath, leaned his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together. ‘Let me see … perhaps ten years. I met him by chance when the gallery was at its old site in Shoreditch. I bought a painting there, a Gary Heathcote. I was very grateful to Kingsley for that tip, it’s shot up in value.’

‘Was Mr Kingsley a popular man?’

‘Not sure what you mean.’

‘Sociable? A big circle of friends?’

‘Well, yes, I believe so. I think it goes with the territory.’

‘Any special friends?’

‘I have no idea, Chief Inspector.’

‘Would you consider yourself to have been a special friend?’

‘Where is this leading?’ Strinner interceded.

Pendragon turned to him. ‘I’m trying to build up a picture of the victim’s social circle. Does your client have a problem with that?’

Strinner looked at Hedridge, who sat staring coldly at Pendragon.

The DCI turned back to the politician. ‘Let’s put it another way, Mr Hedridge. Did Kingsley Berrick have any enemies?’

Hedridge looked a little startled for a moment. ‘Not so far as I’m aware, Chief Inspector. We were friends, but I had no inside information about how he ran his business. I can honestly say we rarely discussed the commercial aspects of the art world.’

Pendragon paused for a moment and the room sank into a heavy silence. He glanced at Turner and noted that he was still scribbling diligently in his pad.

‘My source suggests that your … relationship with the deceased had recently soured. Do you have any comment to make about that?’

‘No.’

‘Mr Hedridge, please don’t insult my intelligence. My source referred to you as Mr Berrick’s “ex”.’

Hedridge gave him a fierce look and Strinner started to raise a hand.

‘His words, not mine,’ Pendragon added.

‘Jackson Price, or “your source” as you prefer to call him, knows nothing about it, Chief Inspector.’

‘That may be so, but for now I have to assume he does. And if he is correct, and you and Mr Berrick were … intimately associated and had only recently become … disassociated, that would have a bearing upon my investigation. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr Hedridge?’

‘Look, this is utterly ridiculous,’ Strinner exclaimed. ‘I’m sorry, but this line of enquiry is so far off beam as to be ridiculous. My client has come here to help solve your case …’

‘That’s correct,’ Pendragon retorted.

‘But the intricacies of my client’s relationship with the murder victim …’

‘Are entirely relevant, Mr Strinner. Come now, you know that as well as I do.’

Hedridge placed a hand on the lawyer’s arm and gave Pendragon a pained look. ‘I thought we had a deal, Chief Inspector.’

‘The terms of a deal need to be clearly defined by both parties in advance, Mr Hedridge. You made a declaration of intent. I did not.’

Hedridge laughed briefly and turned to face his lawyer. ‘Maurice, I think it’s time we left.’

Chapter 8

‘Well, that went well,’ Sergeant Turner said sardonically as the door closed behind Hedridge and Strinner.

Pendragon shook his head slowly. ‘Turner, when you are a grown-up copper, you might, if you’re very lucky, begin to realise that what seem like the worst interviews often yield the most useful facts.’

Turner raise his eyebrows. ‘Sorry I spoke.’

‘Good.’

‘But Hedridge was obviously lying out of his arse,’ the sergeant added.

‘About?’

‘His relationship with Berrick.’

‘Of course he was. Though, actually, Strinner was right. It isn’t strictly relevant.’

‘You sure, sir? Couldn’t Hedridge have killed Berrick after a lovers’ tiff?’

‘Oh, come on, Sergeant. How often does a “lovers’ tiff”, as you put it, end with one of the “lovers” boring a huge hole through the other’s head and propping them up in an art gallery as the centrepiece to a Rene Magritte- style tableau?’

‘Not often, I s’pose.’

‘Try “never”. Or perhaps Berrick committed suicide?’

And Pendragon gave his sergeant a withering look. ‘I think we’ll find that the nature of their relationship was the only thing Hedridge was lying about. He was protecting himself — understandably. According to his file, he’s married with two teenage children, and there’s his political career to think about too. I knew he would clam up about his relationship with Berrick. I wanted to throw him off-kilter. Push him just far enough to let something slip.’

‘Did he? I didn’t notice.’

Pendragon was staring at the wall, lost in thought. ‘No,’ he replied absent-mindedly. ‘No, he didn’t. He’s a politician, and a very clever one … Right, you can get busy, Turner,’ he said, snapping back to the task at hand. ‘I want you to check up on Silver Cabs. See if Mr Hedridge was telling us the truth about last night. I also want you to go through the entire guest list. Trace any connections between Kingsley Berrick and the names featured on that list, and then any links between Hedridge and those who were there last night. No matter how tenuous.’

‘Well, sorry I criticised your interview technique, I’m sure,’ Turner mumbled to himself as he walked off down the hall.

By the time Pendragon emerged through the main doors of the station it was dark outside, and it felt as though the temperature had dropped at least another five degrees. It wasn’t worth bothering with a car; a fresh layer of snow had fallen, making the roads even more treacherous. Instead, he turned up his collar, plunged his hands into his pockets and headed through the gate on to Brick Lane.

The human tide had turned. All those people who had headed west into the city for their daily labours were now on the homeward journey, back to husbands and wives, curries and fish and chips, TV and Sky Sports, the pub and the bottle of chilled Pinot Grigio in the fridge, phone calls to Mum and Dad, a snooze in front of the box or ten pages of a paperback before bed, a freezing cold quickie under the duvet perhaps, and then sleep; ready for tomorrow’s action replay.

The Milward Street Pathology Unit was only two hundred yards away. It was a single-storey red-brick building totally devoid of character. Thrown up in the 1950s, it was a monument to post-war austerity. Inside it was a little less austere. The hallway was painted a warm cream shade, and contained a cluster of chairs, a table with some two-year-old magazines on it, and a plastic palm in the corner. Pendragon strode along, ignoring his surroundings. He had been here on dozens of occasions, and almost every time the visit had involved his staring down at a corpse and receiving distinctly unpleasant information as to how the recently living person had become a dead one.

Jones saw him enter the lab and nodded before turning back to the latest arrival on the dissection table. The lab was a stark affair: whitewashed walls, scrubbed surfaces, and the irremovable stink of offal. Visible through an open door stood a wall of morgue drawers — the ‘sunbeds’ as the staff called them.

Jones looked up from the corpse. ‘You’re tired, Pendragon,’ he observed.

The DCI shrugged and stared down at the almost surreal form of Kingsley Berrick. He was naked, his body split and clamped open, red and grey, as dead as a carcass hanging in a butcher’s window. He looked just like a thousand other corpses, except for the void where his face had once been, now backed by a circle of steel — the