cigarette again. ‘I could do a portrait of you, you know. Nice strong chin, decent cheekbones. With the proper lighting….’
‘No, thanks. I hate having my picture taken.’
‘I’m not talking about pictures.’ Hutton was moving now, circling the desk. ‘I’m talking about art.’
‘That’s why I came here actually.’
‘What?’
‘Art. I was impressed by some of your photos I saw in a newspaper. I was wondering whether you might be able to help me.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s a missing person.’ Holmes was not a great liar. His ears tingled when he told a real whopper. Not a great liar, but a good one. ‘A young man called Ronnie McGrath.’
‘Name doesn’t mean anything.’
‘He wanted to be a photographer, that’s why I was wondering.’
‘Wondering what?’
‘If he’d ever come to you. You know, asking advice, that sort of thing. You’re an established name, after all.’ It was almost too blatant. Holmes could sense it: could sense Hutton just about realising what the game was. But vanity won in the end.
‘Well,’ the photographer said, leaning against the desk, folding his arms, crossing his legs, sure of himself. ‘What did he look like, this Ronnie?’
‘Tallish, short brown hair. Liked to do studies. You know the sort of thing, the Castle, Calton Hill….’
‘Are you a photographer yourself, Inspector?’
‘I’m only a constable.’ Holmes smiled, pleased by the error. Then caught himself: what if Hutton were trying to play the vanity game with him? ‘And no, I’ve never really done much photography. Holiday snaps, that sort of thing.’
‘Sugar?’ Christine put her head around the door, smiling at Holmes again.
‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘Just milk.’
‘Put a drop of whisky in mine,’ said Hutton. ‘There’s a love.’ He winked towards the door as it closed again. ‘Sounds familiar, I have to admit. Ronnie…. Studies of the Castle. Yes, yes. I do remember some young guy coming in, bloody pest he was. I was doing a portfolio, some long-term stuff. Mind had to be one hundred percent on the job. He was always coming round, asking to see me, wanting to show me his work.’ Hutton raised his hands apologetically. ‘I mean, we were all young once. I wish I could have helped him. But I didn’t have the time, not right then.’
‘You didn’t look at his work?’
‘No. No time, as I say. He stopped coming by after a few weeks.’
‘How long ago was this?’
‘Few months. Three or four.’
The secretary appeared with their coffees. Holmes could smell the whisky wafting out of Hutton’s mug, and was jealous and repelled in equal measure. Still, the interview was going well enough. Time for a side road.
‘Thanks, Christine,’ he said, seeming to please her with the familiarity. She sat down, not drinking herself, and lit a cigarette. He thought for a moment of reaching out to light it for her, but held back.
‘Look,’ said Hutton. ‘I’d like to be of assistance, but….’
‘You’re a busy man.’ Holmes nodded agreement. ‘I really do appreciate your giving me any time at all. Anyway, that just about wraps it up.’ He took a scalding mouthful of coffee, but dared not spit it back into the mug, so swallowed hard instead.
‘Right,’ said Hutton, rising from the edge of the desk.
‘Oh,’ said Holmes. ‘Just one thing. Curiosity really, but is there any chance I could have a peek at your studio? I’ve never been in a proper studio before.’
Hutton looked at Christine, who muffled a smile behind her fingers as she pretended to puff on her cigarette.
‘Sure,’ he said, smiling himself. ‘Why not? Come on.’
The room was large, but otherwise pretty much as Holmes had expected, excepting one significant detail. Half a dozen different types of camera stood on half a dozen tripods. There were photographs covering three of the walls, and against the fourth was a large white backcloth, looking suspiciously like a bedsheet. This was all obvious enough. However, in front of the backcloth had been arranged the set for Hutton’s present ‘portfolio’: two large, freestanding sections, painted pink. And in front of these was a chair, against which, arms folded, stood a young, blonde and bored-looking man.
A man who was naked.
‘Detective Holmes, this is Arnold,’ said Hutton by way of introduction. ‘Arnold is a male model. Nothing wrong, is there?’
Holmes, who had been staring, now tried not to. The blood was rising to his face. He turned to Hutton.
‘No, no, nothing.’
Hutton went to one camera and bent down to squint through the viewfinder, aiming in Arnold’s general direction. Not at head height.
‘The male nude can be quite exquisite,’ Hutton was saying. ‘Nothing photographs quite as well as the human body.’ He clicked the shutter, ran the film on, clicked again, then looked up at Holmes, smiling at the policeman’s discomfort.
‘What will you do with the …’ Holmes searched for some decorous word. ‘I mean, what are they for?’
‘My portfolio, I told you. To show to possible future clients.’
‘Right.’ Holmes nodded, to show he understood.
‘I am an artist, you see, as well as a portrait snapper.’
‘Right,’ Holmes said, nodding again.
‘Not against the law, is it?’
‘I don’t think so.’ He went to the heavily draped window and peeked out through a slight opening. ‘Not unless it disturbs the neighbours.’
Hutton laughed. Even the sober face of the model opened in a momentary grin.
‘They queue up,’ said Hutton, coming to the window and peering out. ‘That’s why I had to put up the curtains. Dirty buggers that they were. Women and men, crammed into the width of a window.’ He pointed to a top-storey window in the tenement across the way. ‘There. I caught them one day, took a couple of quick shots of them with the motor-drive. They didn’t like that.’ He turned away from the window. Holmes was browsing along the walls, picking out this and that photograph and nodding praise towards Hutton, who lapped it up and began to walk with him, pointing out this or that angle or trick.
‘That’s good,’ said Holmes, gesturing towards one shot of Edinburgh Castle bathed in mist. It was almost identical to the one he had seen in the newspaper, which made it a very near relative to the one in Ronnie’s bedroom. Hutton shrugged.
‘That’s nothing,’ he said, resting a hand on Holmes’s shoulder. ‘Here, have a look at some of my nude work.’
There was a cluster of a dozen black and white ten-by-eights, pinned to the wall in one corner of the room. Men and women, not all of them young or pretty. But well enough taken, artistic even, Holmes supposed.
‘These are just the best,’ said Hutton.
‘The best, or the most tasteful?’ Holmes tried not to make the remark sound judgmental, but even so Hutton’s good humour vanished. He went to a large chest of drawers and pulled open the bottom one, scooping up an armful of photographs which he threw to the floor.
‘Have a look,’ he said. ‘There’s no porn. Nothing sleazy or disgusting or obscene. They’re just bodies. Posed bodies.’
Holmes stood over the photographs, not seeming to pay them any attention.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘if I seemed — ’
‘Forget it.’ Hutton turned away, so that his face was towards the male model. He rubbed at his eyes, shoulders slumped. ‘I’m just tired. I didn’t mean to snap like that. Just tired.’
