Elder had taken it reasonably easy over the weekend, relegated his usual morning run to a walk and a slow one at that, his ribs still sore from the kicking they’d received. The bruising was gradually darkening into several distinct shades of brown. Vicki was off with the band on a brief tour of south Wales – Cardiff, Swansea, Newport – and Trevor Cordon was visiting friends in Redruth, so social engagements were few. An hour or so in the local pub, the Tinners’ Arms, a chat with a neighbour and that was about that. Not for the first time he fell asleep in front of the TV.
Come Monday, encouraged by a brightening sky, he pulled on his running gear, but after jogging for no more than half a mile, he shook his head and walked slowly back home. The rest of the morning passed aimlessly: loading up the washing machine, dislodging leaves from the guttering; a little reading, a quick drive into Penzance to replenish supplies.
He was putting things away, contemplating making soup of some kind for supper later – leek and potato? Mushroom and barley? – Radio 4 droning away in the background, the lunchtime news, when he heard Winter’s name. Artist found dead in his studio, victim, according to a police spokesman, of an attack by assailant or assailants unknown.
Elder fetched his laptop from the other room.
Details were sparse and he picked his way between the lines. Some reports were cagey as to the cause of death, others not above taking a punt in the dark. A possible intruder. The result of a struggle. Badly beaten. Bludgeoned. A good old-fashioned word for a good old-fashioned crime. Bludgeoned to death. Dickens, Elder thought. What little Dickens he knew. The copy of Oliver Twist that had spent years beside first his father’s bed and then his own. A version of Bleak House he’d watched on television some years before. Inspector Bucket, he would have known bludgeoned, Elder thought. Bill Sykes, too. The police, the reports said, were currently following several lines of inquiry.
On several of the sites there were reproductions of Winter’s paintings, none, as far as Elder could see, involving Katherine.
He wondered if she’d heard the news; when she did, how she might respond? No reply from her mobile number, the landline at the flat rang out unanswered. He started to send an email and realised anything he might say only ran the risk of making things worse. Better to wait, contact her later. He poured himself a small whisky and set to peeling the potatoes.
Hadley could tell from Chris Phillips’ face when he came into her office that he’d struck some kind of gold.
‘Just spoken to Alice, boss. That set-to at the gallery, a couple of nights before Winter was killed. The man who attacked him, she’s got a name. Elder. Frank Elder. Ran it on the computer. He’s only ex-job, isn’t he? Detective sergeant in the Met. A good few years back now. Transferred up to Nottingham around two thousand and four, five. Detective Inspector, Serious Crime. Took early retirement, six or seven years back.’
‘We’ve got an address? Current?’
‘Cornwall. Village on the north coast, few miles outside St Ives. Ends of the bloody earth, looks like.’
Hadley smiled. ‘Rachel and I went down there a couple of years back. That part of Cornwall. For some reason I never fathomed she’d taken it into her head she wanted to see Land’s End. Not that, in the event, we need to have bothered. The day we were there you could scarcely make out your hand in front of your face.’
‘I’ve been in touch with the local nick,’ Phillips said. ‘Penzance. No stranger to them, Elder. Seems he’s been helping out once in a while, training, that kind of thing.’
‘Be all the more anxious to help us then. Help you.’
‘Me?’ Phillips’ face was a picture. ‘More one for Alice, surely? Carry on from where she’s started?’
‘I don’t know, Chris. This Elder, what rank did you say he had last? Detective inspector? Don’t want to risk him getting up on his high horse, having to talk to a young DC. Besides which, if you go down, shows Devon and Cornwall we’re treating it seriously. More likely to get the cooperation we need.’
‘No way of me getting out of this, is there?’
Hadley smiled. ‘Chalk it up to experience. Another country down there.’
‘That’s what I’ve heard.’
The wind was getting up, the kitchen window rattling loose in its frame, one of the many small tasks Elder kept neglecting. Fitting a new washer on the bathroom tap was another. Maybe later, maybe not. He’d tried Katherine’s flat again and her friend Abike had answered: Kate was sleeping and she thought it was best if she didn’t wake her. As far as she understood, she’d been upset by the news of Anthony Winter’s death, but not uncontrollably so. She didn’t tell Elder that when she’d looked there’d been a half-empty bottle of vodka beside the bed.
Elder heated up the soup he’d made earlier, toasted some bread, ladled the soup into a bowl and carried it, along with the toast, into the small living room. Vicki had lent him a batch of CDs – Ernestine Anderson, Dianne Reeves – he thought he’d give those a listen while he was eating.
‘Let me know what you think,’ she’d said, ‘make a nice change from that mournful stuff you listen to.’
That mournful stuff, he had informed her, was Mozart’s Requiem and he didn’t find it mournful at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. A woman he’d been briefly seeing at the time, a music teacher from Mounts Bay Academy, had talked him into accompanying her to a live performance in Truro cathedral and he’d gone under sufferance. Only to emerge elated. He’d bought a CD the next chance he got and now it was what he played when he couldn’t sleep.
Dusk settling in, he took a walk down the lane to stretch his legs a little after finishing his supper. He was on his way back when he saw the headlights coming over the hill.
It wasn’t until the car came past the church and turned towards the cottages that he recognised it for certain.
‘Trevor, social call?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘You’ll come inside?’
Cordon followed Elder down the path to the front door, ducked his head and entered, accepted the glass of whisky pressed into his hand.
‘Anthony Winter,’ Cordon said, ‘name familiar?’
Elder nodded.
‘Came to a nasty end, maybe you’d heard?’
He nodded again.
‘Someone’s coming down from the Met. Wants to talk to you. “Person of interest”.’
The expression on Elder’s face didn’t change.
‘You’re okay with that?’
‘Sure. Why not?’ He could tell there were things Cordon wanted to ask and thought he understood why, for now at least, he was keeping them to himself.
‘Eleven-thirty, then? At the station?’
‘I’ll be there.’
Cordon raised his glass. ‘Thanks for this. Keep out the cold.’
‘Any time.’
When the sound of the car had faded away there was nothing but the familiar rattle of the window and, more distant, the trees in the churchyard moving uneasily in the wind.