Dying Art (A Dylan Scott Mystery) (23 page)

Chapter Thirty-Five

The twenty-five-mile drive into Manchester took just over an hour and they encountered rain, sunshine and snow. Bloody snow!

“I don’t suppose spring bothers springing this far north,” Dylan said, and Frank chuckled.

“Snow in April isn’t unheard of. Maybe it’s even snowing in London on you soft fucking southerners.”

“No. The sun shines on the righteous, Frank.”

The only parking option was the multi-storey car park. They left the car there and dodged the rain on the sprint to the art gallery.

Frank had the necessary paperwork—and the voice of authority—and they were soon sitting down to look through images recorded on the day Prue Murphy visited the art gallery.

Dylan had forgotten how much he hated looking at CCTV. The images were invariably crap and he often wondered if he’d recognise his own wife. The angle was always wrong, the lighting poor.

“It’s a busy place,” Frank said after a long hour had passed. “That’s surprising for a weekday. At least, it surprises me.”

“Me, too. You’d think people would have better ways to spend their time.”

Another hour passed. And another.

“There!” Dylan paused the film. “That’s definitely Prue.”

She walked through the main doors and up to the desk. She was smiling. She had a bag slung over her shoulder and her hands were deep in the pockets of her jacket.

Three hours and they’d confirmed that Prue was indeed at the art gallery on the day in question. As they’d already known that, it could hardly be classed as progress. They continued to stare at footage.

“This,” Dylan said, “has to be the most mind-numbingly awful job ever invented.”

“Agreed.”

Dylan was starving but they couldn’t stop. He didn’t want to have to come back tomorrow.

“Is that—?” Frank paused the film. “Could that be Maddie Chandler?”

“What?” Dylan peered more closely. “No. Of course not. It’s nothing like her. And how would you know what she looks like? You’ve never met her, have you?”

“No, but I’ve done a bit of research on her. There are a lot of photos of her on the internet.”

Of course there were. She was a model, or had been, and spent a lot of time in front of cameras.

“And,” Frank said, “I can’t believe she read an article that mentioned your name while she was up in Dawson’s Clough.”

Frank had mentioned that before. “Why not?”

“I checked with the paper,” Frank said. “The last article that mentioned you was printed just before Christmas.”

“So? It was probably an old paper she saw.”

“Not in the sort of hotels she stays in,” Frank said. “You might, at a push, find yesterday’s edition but not copies from months ago.”

“How else could she have found me? And why would she lie?” Dylan didn’t have time for this.

“I don’t know.” Frank nodded at the screen. “Are you sure that’s not her?”

“Yes.” The woman in front of them was tall, slim, elegant and blonde. She was wearing a long leather coat and carrying a handbag. There were similarities, but it wasn’t Maddie. Dylan was sure of it. “It was Maddie who told me Prue was here. She only knew that because she found a receipt in Prue’s coat.”

“Right.”

Dylan didn’t like Frank’s tone, but he didn’t have time to argue. Instead, they both continued to stare at images of people walking into the gallery on the day Prue was killed.

It was long, painstaking work.

“There she is.” Dylan checked the note he’d made. “Prue spent a little over two hours in the gallery.”

She’d walked in all smiles. She was hurrying out. It was impossible to see her expression because her back was to the camera. The bag was still slung over her shoulder. Her hands weren’t in her pockets because she was striding past the camera and reaching for the door. There was no one with her.

“We’re none the wiser,” Dylan said. “She came, she left. We knew that. She probably took the train home, watched TV, went to bed and disturbed a burglar.”

But that didn’t explain the attempt on McIntyre’s life. If indeed, there was such a thing.

They looked through images from different cameras for the two hours of Prue’s visit.

Just as Dylan was about to suggest they call it a day, he saw a man he thought he recognised. It was impossible to be sure, but the chap looked very familiar. He was wearing a white shirt, a dark tie and a short jacket.

“That looks like Eddie Bryson.”

“Who? Oh, Chandler’s partner? Are you sure?”

“No.” Dylan tapped his pen against his chin as he first tried to see if it really was Bryson and second, tried to work out what it meant. “If it is Bryson, I’ll bet Chandler isn’t far away. Maddie thought her husband was having an affair with Prue. Maybe—just maybe—she’s right.”

Also, if it was Bryson, perhaps Maddie wasn’t too far away.

“I’m having dinner with Maddie this evening,” he said. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

“You do that. And find out where she read that article about you.”

Dylan smiled at that. “Yes, boss.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

When Dylan returned to his hotel, the receptionist handed him a note.
I’m in Room 206. Ring me as soon as you arrive. Maddie xx.

He’d assumed, wrongly, that she would have checked in to the more upmarket Carlton Hotel. He wished she had.

He took the lift to his room, showered and changed, and then lay back on his bed to stare at the ceiling. Maybe if he got up close and personal with her, she’d be more forthcoming with information. He wasn’t going to leap into bed with her. Not that up close and personal. He did need her to open up though. She was the one paying him to look into her sister’s death and yet he was coming to believe that she knew a lot more than she was saying.

Even supposing it was true, she was hardly likely to broadcast the fact that she was having an affair with her husband’s business partner. Nor, having recently buried her sister, would she tell the world that she’d been unable to stand the sight of Prue.

He sat up, took his laptop from its bag and switched it on.

Information on her husband’s company was sketchy. To the casual viewer, it looked to be a highly profitable affair. He and Bryson only dealt with properties that the very rich could afford. If you wanted a luxury home in Spain or the Algarve, Tim Chandler was the expert. Dylan would dig deeper and see what he unearthed.

At six-thirty, someone knocked on his door. He knew who it was before she spoke.

“I thought you were going to call me when you got in, Dylan.”

He went to the door and held it open. She was wearing a short, figure-hugging black dress that showed off legs that went on forever. Clutched in her hand was a small black bag. Again, he was reminded of the girl he’d made love to in that blue bedroom all those years ago.

“Hi, Maddie. I was planning to call you but I had some work to do first. I’m all finished now though. Let’s go and eat, shall we?”

She leaned past him and eyed his rumpled bed. “I can think of other ways to pass the time.”

“So can I, but I need to talk to you about Prue.”

She sighed at the mention of her sister’s name. “Come on then. We’ll have drinks in the bar first.”

The bar was warm—and deserted. For the first time that Dylan could remember, no guests were sitting on stools and complaining to the barman about the weather.

Dylan ordered a pint of beer.

“Gin and tonic.” Maddie gave the barman an irresistible smile but no “please.”

As soon as their drinks were in front of them, Maddie decided they should sit on the sofa by a long, low table close to the fire. “We’ll be private here.” Her smile offered almost anything he wanted. All he wanted was the truth and he wasn’t sure that was on offer.

“Good idea.”

She sat close to him, much too close, with her arm through his so that he had to use his left arm to lift his pint.

“Right,” he said, “I need to know what happened during the weekend you visited Prue in France.”

“What?” The question took her by surprise and made her laugh. “What do you mean? Nothing happened.”

“Tell me about it. Everything you can remember. What time you arrived, what you did, who you saw, when you left, what Prue did—everything.”

“Okay, if it will make you happy. Let me think. We arrived early on the Friday evening. Maybe five or six o’clock. Prue had offered to meet us from the airport but that would have involved catching sixteen trains and four buses before we even glimpsed her flat so we hired a car and Tim drove us to her flat. She took us to a nearby pizza house for dinner. An awful place. Cheap and cheerful, Prue said. Cheap was the only accurate part of that.” She took a sip of her drink. “Are you bored yet?”

“No. Carry on. How did Prue seem to you?”

“The same as Prue always seemed. Polite, smiling, ingratiating.”

“Did anything happen during that meal?”

“Nothing. We talked about the flight, she kept saying how lovely it was to see us. Boring, boring, boring. Blah, blah, blah.”

“Go on.”

“After we’d endured our pizzas, we went back to her flat—poky doesn’t even begin to describe that—and sat about talking for an hour or so. We had a couple of glasses of wine while we caught up on each other’s news.”

“What news did she have?”

“She talked mostly about the people who had flats in her building. I remember we had every resident’s life story but I don’t remember her talking about anything else. I’d guess we were in bed by eleven at the latest.”

“Talk me through the following day,” Dylan said.

“Okay, Saturday. We had breakfast at a nearby café—the weather was good, I remember that. We sat outside this little café eating croissants and drinking coffee. That wasn’t too bad. Then we had a stroll round the shops in the vicinity.”

“Did she see anyone? Talk to anyone?”

“No.”

“Then what?” Dylan asked.

“We wasted the day as people do. In the evening, she said she was throwing a party for us. About a dozen of her friends turned up. All scruffy types and all carrying bottles of cheap plonk. Tim and I tried to be sociable but it was bloody difficult. As soon as the first guests left, I went to bed. I’d had the headache from hell all day. Tim sat up and got drunk with her.”

“What did they talk about?”

“I don’t know, Dylan.” She sighed her irritation with the questions. “According to him, she said nothing that made any sense. You know the sort of rubbish people come out with when they’re drunk. I gather it was that sort of evening.” Her gaze was steely. “Whether they slept together, I have no idea. He says no, and I never asked her. I wouldn’t be surprised though.”

“And after that?”

“Is any of this important?”

“Yes.”

“She was hungover the next morning, but we went to that café again for coffee and croissants. A couple of hours later, we set off for the airport. And that was that. Why is it important?”

“I believe she told someone about her affair with McIntyre. I also think she told that person he was painting again. Now who would she tell? Her sister? The sister who tends to look down on her? The sister who thought she’d never make anything of herself? Don’t you think she’d boast about being with a wealthy, successful man? I do.”

“She didn’t say a word about him.”

He didn’t know whether to believe her or not. Prue must have told her she was living with Jack McIntyre. Maybe Prue told Chandler. Either way, Maddie must have known about it.

“Why didn’t you like Prue?” he asked. “And exactly how much did you
dis
like her?”

Maddie stared at him long and hard. “I loathed her.”

He was surprised at such venom but didn’t let it show. “I thought so. Why? What did she ever do to you?”

“What did she ever do to me?” She threw back her head and laughed. “She only ruined my life. I was happy until she came along. At five years of age, my life was over. You can hardly pack your bags and leave home at that age, can you? I was tempted, believe me. Everything revolved around her and she lapped it up.”

“If you felt left out when Prue was born, surely that was your parents’ fault? It wasn’t hers, was it?”

Maddie shrugged and looked weary of the whole discussion.

“So why,” he said, “if you hated Prue, did you ask me to look into her death?”

She smiled, a smile that was like the sun breaking through heavy cloud. “I needed an excuse to see you, Dylan.”

A shudder ran down his spine. “How did you find me, Maddie?”

“I told you—”

“You lied. You said you saw my name in the local paper when you stayed up here following Prue’s death. I checked with the paper’s editor. My name hasn’t appeared in the paper this year.”

She slipped her arm through his. “I told a white lie. When Prue sent me a change of address card, I looked up Dawson’s Clough on the internet and saw your name then.”

“That was November. Why didn’t you contact me then?”

“I didn’t have a good enough excuse.” She squeezed his arm. “It’s wonderful to be together now, though, isn’t it?”

He wasn’t going to answer that. “Did you kill Prue?”

There was none of the shock or outrage he’d expected. “No.”

“Where were you on the day she died?” he asked.

“At home. Alone. No alibi, I’m afraid, detective.”

“You weren’t with Eddie Bryson?”

That did surprise her. “Eddie? Why would I be with him?”

“I think he was in Manchester on the day she died.”

“So? He and Tim are often in Manchester.”

“I think he was at the same art gallery as Prue. Is he an art buff?”

“Not that I know of. Look, Dylan, I know you’re getting nowhere with this, but it doesn’t matter, truly. Let’s have dinner. Let’s enjoy the evening.”

She was right about one thing. He was getting nowhere. But he would. He’d find Prue’s killer if it took him to the end of his days.

“Dinner,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go to the dining room. And later—” She leaned close and whispered in his ear. “Later, we can refresh our memories...”