Something of MacNeil’s distaste must have been apparent to Flight. His eyes smiled, supercilious and superior. ‘Don’t you like my work, Inspector?’
‘I prefer a nice picture I can hang on my wall.’
‘Like?’
MacNeil shrugged. ‘Vettriano.’
‘Ah,’ Flight said. ‘The Singing Butler. I’ve often wondered who bought those things.’ He turned towards his work in progress. ‘The brain’s a fascinating subject, don’t you think? Of course, you have to know a little about it. The brachium pontis. The colliculus superior.’ He pointed to lobes and leafs of his sculpted brain. ‘An amazing piece of engineering. It’s extraordinary to think that just anyone can have one. Of course, they come in all models, from a Rolls Royce to a Mini.’
‘And what do you have, Mr Flight?’
‘I like to think I’m probably in the BMW bracket. What about you, Inspector?’
‘Oh, probably a Ford Granada,’ MacNeil said. ‘Solid, reliable, doesn’t need much servicing, and just keeps going till it gets there. So what can you tell me about Ronald Kazinski, sir?’
‘Nothing, I’m afraid.’ Flight began circling his sculpture, casting a thoughtful eye over its curves and planes. MacNeil saw now that he was, indeed, a tall man. Six-six, perhaps, and painfully thin, with long, feminine fingers. He was wearing a three-quarter-length white apron, like a surgeon’s gown. Only it was smeared with clay and paint rather than blood. ‘I’ve never heard of him.’
‘He’d heard of you.’
Flight flicked him a look. ‘Had he? Did he tell you that?’
‘No, Mr Flight. He was dead. Don’t you want to know how he died?’
‘It’s no concern of mine.’
‘He was shot three times in the chest.’
‘How unpleasant for him.’
‘And he had your business card in his wallet.’
‘Did he? Well, you know, there’s probably a few thousand people of whom you could say that.’
‘Most of whom are probably interested in art.’
‘And Mr Kazinski wasn’t?’
‘He was a crematorium worker, Mr Flight. He lived in a slum south of the river.’
‘Then I take your point.’
MacNeil let his eyes wander around the studio, flicking from one obscenity to another. He said, ‘It’s possible, of course, that he picked up your card at the Black Ice Club. Do you know it?’
‘I’ve heard of it, of course. Avante-garde performance art. Shock for the sake of shocking.’
‘Familiar territory for you, I’d have thought.’ Flight cast him a withering look. MacNeil said, ‘You’ve never been, then?’
‘Really, Inspector, credit me with a little taste.’
‘I do,’ MacNeil said. ‘Very little.’ He looked around the studio. ‘Most of it bad.’
Flight’s patience with him was starting to wear thin. ‘If that’s all, Inspector, I’d like to get on, if you don’t mind.’ He nodded towards the arm and head. ‘The hours of darkness are my most creative.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ MacNeil said. There was more than just something of the night about the cadaverous sculptor. He gave MacNeil the creeps. ‘Thank you for your cooperation, sir.’
II
Pinkie watched MacNeil back his car out into Old Brompton Road and turn towards South Kensington tube station. He waited until the tail lights were gone, and then he got out of the car and walked slowly across the road to the green, grilled door of Flight’s apartment. He hesitated there and looked around. There were lights shining in an atrium conservatory on the other side of Cranley Place, but he couldn’t see anyone moving around. Most of the other windows in the street were black holes, protective curtains drawn tight to shut out a scary world. Pinkie hated wearing a mask, but there was one good thing about it. It hid your face, and nobody thought it was strange. Any witness questioned by the police would always be certain of at least one thing. He was wearing a mask, officer.
He pressed the STUDIO buzzer. And after a moment, Flight’s angry voice growled through the speaker grille, ‘What is it now?’
‘It’s Pinkie.’ There was a long pause before the buzzer sounded and the electronic lock clicked open. Pinkie stepped inside and flicked up the snib on the lock so that it remained unlocked when the door closed behind him. He hated being locked in. He remembered the cupboard under the stairs where his mother locked him away when she had her visitors. She didn’t want them to know there was a child in the house. But she had made it comfortable for him, with a light, and a drawing book and some games. And a mattress for him to sleep on. It was his little den, secret and safe. He had never minded being shut in there, until the night he heard her screaming.
Flight peered at him through the glass in the studio door, and Pinkie grinned behind his mask and waggled his gloved hands in the air. Flight opened up. ‘What do you want?’ He was careful to keep distance between them.
‘You had a visitor, Jonathan.’
‘A very rude policeman.’
Pinkie shook a finger of admonition at him. ‘Don’t be so judgemental, Jonathan. Poor Mr MacNeil lost his son today.’
Flight was unaffected. ‘Perhaps that explains why he was so rude.’
‘What did he want?’
‘He wanted to know if I knew Ronnie.’
‘And what did you tell him?’
‘That I’d never heard of him, of course.’
‘And he believed you?’
‘Why shouldn’t he?’
‘Why did he think you and Ronnie would be acquainted?’
‘Apparently Ronnie had my business card in his pocket.’
‘Ahhh.’ That explained it. Pinkie wandered across the studio and poked the exposed half of the brain with unashamed curiosity. ‘Is this real?’
‘Don’t touch it!’ Flight snapped at him. Then, ‘Did you kill Ronnie?’
Pinkie smiled. ‘I could do with a drink, Jonathan.’
‘I’m working.’
‘I could do with a drink, Jonathan.’ Pinkie repeated himself as if making the request for the first time.
It had its effect on Flight. He seemed nervous. ‘We’ll have to go upstairs.’
The living room of Flight’s apartment overlooked Old Brompton Road and was what the design magazines would have called minimalist. Bare floorboards, polished and varnished. Naked cream walls. A glass table and six chrome and leather chairs in the window. There were two red leather recliners with footstools, a long, low, black-lacquered sideboard, and a wafer-thin plasma TV screen on a chrome stand. The only art in the room comprised a couple of Flight’s own sculptures raised on tall black plinths. Pinkie looked at them with distaste. ‘I don’t know how you can stand to have that stuff in your home.’
Flight didn’t grace the comment with a response. ‘Whisky?’ He opened up the drinks cupboard in his sideboard.
‘Cognac.’
‘I’ve only got Armagnac.’ Flight sounded annoyed. ‘It’s very expensive.’
‘That’ll have to do, then.’
Flight poured a conservative measure into a single brandy glass.
‘Aren’t you going to join me?’
‘I never drink while I’m working.’
‘Make an exception.’ Pinkie walked to the window and looked down into the street below. He heard Flight sighing and taking out a second glass. The unaccustomed sound of a car engine rose from the street, headlights raked the shuttered shops opposite, and a vehicle pulled up outside the gallery. Pinkie pressed his face against the window to see who it was, and recoiled as if from a blow. MacNeil was stepping out on to the pavement. Pinkie turned quickly towards Flight, who looked up in surprise, his bottle of Armagnac hovering over the lip of the second glass.