Black & Blue (Lord & Lady Hetheridge Book 4) (17 page)

Suppose Buck's story about being estranged from Sunny is just that, a story? Suppose they killed Hardwick together, for whatever reason, and his romance with Sharada is just a front?

But it was too soon to breed theories. First Kate needed to meet Sunny, to get a feel for Mrs. America and her grot-art-creating sister.

Xpression Xpress was a dodgy rectangle squeezed between a launderette and a New Age shop. The gallery had no sign or lettered window to announce its presence, but nearby utility poles and one side of an abandoned café were covered in flyposts, all identical:

NEW EXHIBIT!

ART OR DEATH

THE CHOICE IS YOURS

Judging by the altogether indifferent passersby, the public was opting for death. Then again, Shoreditch had art encoded in its very genes, which meant not only an innate seeking of truth and beauty, but a chromosomal state of rebellion. Common hucksterism wouldn't entice the locals; they'd walk a mile to avoid a hard sell.

Kate tried the door. As it swung inward, a bell tinkled and a variety of smells rolled forth: curry, incense, and marijuana.

Xpression Xpress's entryway was claustrophobic, three feet wide and twenty feet long, with a scuffed lino floor and dim lighting. Beyond that unpromising beginning, the gallery swelled into one vast, unpartitioned exhibition room with a ceiling so high, an upper floor must have been demolished to create it. The spotlights overhead were trained on various pieces of sculpture, some freestanding, some on pedestals. Sometimes Kate recognized the original materials: an aluminum bicycle repainted and twisted into a human female, or hundreds of broken crayons and dried up paint pots, rearranged to look like a flowerbed. She didn't understand more than half of it, at least at first glance, but she felt moved, uplifted, just by looking at those flowers or that sinuous steel woman.

Buck, you may know Black Angus cattle, but you don't know bollocks when it comes to your sister-in-law's art.

"Well, ain't you the early bird?" called one of two women picnicking in a corner as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. On a calico quilt, they'd spread a late breakfast or early lunch: two Styrofoam takeaway containers of curry, plastic cups, and a bottle of red wine. The blonde, Sunny Wainwright, wore black jeans and an ivory sweater that fit her like a glove. The one who'd spoken, surely Maisie, had on a hoodie, yoga pants, and what appeared to be Army-Navy Surplus boots. Her brown hair was up in twin pigtails, half her face obscured by impenetrable black sunglasses.

"No, you can't use our bog," she continued, splashing more wine into a plastic cup. "No, we don't make change for the bleedin' launderette. And no, we bloody well ain't hiring."

"My goodness, Maisie, the poor lady has barely poked her head inside. It's bad manners to attack her." Sunny's twang matched Buck's or slightly exceeded it. "Maybe she's an art lover, you ever think 'bout that? You come on over, sweetie," she called to Kate. "We don't bite."

"Thank you." As she advanced, Kate pulled out her warrant card, holding it out for both to see. "My name is Detective Sergeant Kate Wa—Hetheridge. Are you Sunny Wainwright and L. M. Dase?" She used what seemed like the least objectionable pronunciation,
DAW-say
.

"Who called for police? No one called for police!" Maisie leapt to her feet. If she, like Sunny, hailed from the American South, she'd adopted the East End manner of speech quite well. "I know my rights. You have permission to touch nothing in this place, you hear me? Nothing. And no, I'm not L.M.
Daw-say
!"

"Maisie, calm down." Rising, Sunny stepped over the blanket, graceful in her red-soled Louboutins. "I am Sunny Wainwright, soon to be Sunny Dase." She pronounced it "daisy."

Sunny Daisy? Maisie. Daisy?
Kate thought.
No wonder those two left the States. Their parents are sadists.

"And eventually, when the time is right, I'll be Mrs. Sunny Hardwick," Sunny added. But she sounded not the least bit convincing.

"Shut it," Maisie told her sister. "This cow isn't CID. She's one of them, pretending to be filth, here for a shakedown. We're out!" she told Kate. "Out, you hear me! Go bark up some other tree!"

"I assure you, I am CID, and this is official business. I'm investigating a murder. Granville Hardwick is dead." Kate kept her gaze locked on Sunny, the better to absorb every joule of her reaction. "My condolences. Now, I'm afraid I must ask. Where were you yesterday, Mrs. Wainwright?"

Eyes on Sunny, Kate never saw Maisie lunge. But the instant the artist slammed into her, Kate's self-defense skills took over. Pivoting with the impact, she brought her knee up, driving it into Maisie's chest hard enough to knock the wind out of her. As Maisie doubled over, Kate seized her by the hoodie, twisting the fabric tight around her throat. Dragging Maisie across the picnic blanket, sending takeaway and wine glasses flying, Kate thrust her against the nearest wall, yanking off those Yoko Ono shades and flinging them away. Sunny was shrieking, but Kate ignored that, roaring into Maisie's face,

"Right! You're under arrest!"

Maisie responded with only a choked noise. Relieved of those intimidating sunglasses, she was just a fiftyish woman with a pierced eyebrow and wide, terrified eyes. The tough gal defending her patch had been rendered helpless by two basic hand-to-hand moves Kate could have done in her sleep.

"Let her go! Please. She'll behave, I promise," Sunny cried.

Kate let go. On guard, she took a step back, still bristling with narrowly contained energy.

Maisie slid down to the wall. Clutching herself around the middle, she vomited red wine and curry all over her combat boots.

"You—you're really a cop?" she gasped at Kate.

"I'm a real cop. That's a real warrant card," she said, retrieving it from where it had fallen, "and you're really under arrest."

"Please, Detective, take a moment and reconsider." Sunny knelt at her sister's side, just shy of the vomit. "We're from Texas. We know better than to attack the police. Maisie's just confused. People are turning up at her flat at all hours. We can't even sleep there now. Over the weekend, they started coming here, too, talking nonsense, making threats against Gran. You sounded like one of them. I even thought you said—said—"

"I did say it. Granville Hardwick died yesterday. He was murdered in his own home."

"Gran?" Sunny repeated blankly.

"Yes."

"Dead?"

"Yes."

"But—what about me?"

Kate didn't know what to say. Sunny stared at her, awaiting an answer. With her Botoxed forehead, collagen-plumped lips, and cascades of highlighted blonde hair, she looked like a flummoxed doll. Thrown For A Loop Barbie.

"Murdered." Maisie groaned and brought up a fresh torrent, retching miserably long after there was nothing more to come. "They killed him. We need protection. We need police protection,
now
, or we're next!"

"But Gran can't be dead," Sunny said, helping Maisie to her feet. "He promised me things. He was taking me to Paris. I can't be alone right now, I don't like being alone, it's not good for me. I need—"

"
Not everything is about you
!" Maisie screamed at her sister. "Gran put his foot in it, and now we're involved, whether we like or not. This is life or death, don't you get it?"

That got through. Releasing Maisie, Sunny tottered toward the sinuous bicycle woman, making it halfway there before she chundered all over her Louboutins.

"Listen," Kate told Maisie. "You're still under arrest, but whether or not I press charges remains to be seen. Tell me what's going on. Small words, short sentences. Don't leave anything out."

"Granville's not just an art broker," Maisie said. "He transports product out of London into Manchester, Leeds, Wolverhampton. Sometimes across the Channel. I didn't find out he was packing plastic baggies full of powder into my crates until one got diverted due a lorry crash and delivered back to me. I crowbarred the lid off, took out the pieces to see what I could salvage, and there it was—enough gear to keep a women's prison lit for a month."

"Heroin? Cocaine?"

"Either. Both. It's not like I can tell. I smoke a little weed, that's all. The hard stuff isn't for me." Maisie rubbed her sternum. "You hurt me."

"You attacked me. Suppose I had been one of these people you're so afraid of? You really think you could have taken me down?"

"I don't know. Used to be pretty good with my fists. Grow up with a name like mine, and you learn to fight early on," Maisie said miserably. "Guess the art world has turned me soft."

"So what did you do when you discovered the contraband?"

"Rang Gran. Gave the oily little weasel an earful."

"And he reacted how?"

"Like always," Maisie said. "Promises. Flattery. Then a list of things I needed to do so he could sleep easy. He was afraid the dealer would assume the crash was deliberate. That we'd diverted the box, listing it as destroyed in transit, so we could keep the gear and resell it ourselves. A little side-action for the middleman."

"I see," Kate said. "So did Hardwick come to collect the drugs?"

"Of course not. He told me to scamper down to bloody Brixton in the dead of night and return it to God knows who. I said no way, I don't want my throat cut in a back alley, thanks very much. I took it round back and flushed it down the toilet."

"I told her not to," Sunny offered. "I thought we should mail it back. With a note to say no hard feelings. And maybe cookies."

Ignoring that, Kate asked Maisie, "Did you flush all of it?"

"All of it. Burned the baggies in the grate. Told Gran he wasn't handling my art any longer, and we were finished. That should have been an end to it," Maisie said. "I reckon he told his connection he was innocent, and I was to blame for everything. That's when shady types started turning up. First they were friendly, just feeling me out, trying to get the gear back. Then they got serious. Said I had to reimburse them the street value in cash, or someone would die."

"Poor Gran," Sunny wailed, bursting into tears too loud and copious to be false. "Killed by drug dealers! Have you caught them? Please tell me you've caught them!"

"Actually, we've only arrested one man in connection with Hardwick's death," Kate said. "Your husband. Buck Wainwright."

Sunny stared at Kate. Then she closed her eyes and shook her head. "Oh, Buck. Buck. How could you do this to me?"

"We need protection," Maisie insisted. "I'll telling you, I'm next."

"All right. I'll arrange transport for the three of us to Scotland Yard," Kate said, pulling out her mobile. "We'll get this on record. I want names and addresses—every detail that connects Granville Hardwick to the drug trade."

Chapter Eleven

"Right," said Mrs. Snell, a glint of steely resolve in her eyes. "This is a council of war, is it not?"

After kedgeree and three cups of tea, she no longer resembled the distraught woman Tony had led out of Scotland Yard via a concealed exit meant for officers undercover. He wasn't surprised how well she'd rallied. Mrs. Snell had that capacity to absorb and accept misfortune that he secretly considered almost wholly feminine. Women cried and raged as most men never dared. Then they dragged themselves up by their bootlaces and got on with it.

"As we lost the battle, I'd say, yes. War is the word."

"What about the legal strategy?"

"Dead. There isn't one I can live with." There was no need for further explication; Mrs. Snell understood. Even if the finest legal counsel promised to win him his job back, no force on earth could compel Tony to go along with what such a lawsuit would require: for him to take the witness stand and declare, as a matter of public record, how unfairly he'd been treated and what it had cost him to be forced out. He'd accept retirement first. He'd accept the firing squad first, if it came to it.

"Good. Personally, I find the notion of private investigation rather adventurous."

"As do I," Tony lied. He wasn't there yet and didn't know if he ever would be. But he'd raised the notion to Mrs. Snell some weeks before, during their last high-profile murder case, when Downing Street had exerted undue pressure, almost as if trying to intimidate him into failure. From that moment, they'd seen the writing on the wall, and Mrs. Snell had begun researching UK regulations for private investigators with gusto.

"What does your wife say?" she asked.

"We haven't spoken of it."

Mrs. Snell looked at her teacup.

"You disapprove?"

"I've been widowed for a very long time. What do I know of such things? Only…."Her gaze lifted. "As your administrative assistant, if you'd chosen to keep me out of the loop, I'd be gutted. I'd feel you didn't trust me."

Tony was startled. It was a day of firsts. His first day out of public service after more years than he cared to count. And the first time Mrs. Snell had issued a bare-faced rebuke.

"Forgive me if I seem to speak out of turn," she continued as if reading his mind. "But now that I'm no longer your subordinate, I suddenly have the need to express myself. Should the notion of a private investigation service pan out, and should you choose to engage my services under such auspices, no doubt I'll regain my former restraint."