She gazed at him indulgently, as if he were a wayward schoolboy, then frowned. “That could be Thomas McMahon,” she said. “He’s certainly the shortest artist I’ve ever met. I suppose Toulouse-Lautrec was shorter, but he was before my time.” She smiled.
Banks’s ears pricked up. “But he fits the description, this Thomas McMahon?”
“Sort of. I mean, he was short and squat, a bit toadish, really. He had a beard back then, but his hair wasn’t really long. One thing I do remember, though…”
“What?”
“He had beautiful fingers.” She held out her own hand, as if to demonstrate. “Long, tapered fingers. Very delicate. Not what you’d expect for such a small man.”
Wasn’t that what Mark had said about Tom? That he had long fingers? It wasn’t a lot to base an identification on, but it was the best they had so far. “Tell me more,” Banks said.
Maria waved her empty glass. “Well, I could be bribed,” she said.
Banks had finished his Laphroaig and he still had half a pint left, but he wasn’t having any more, as he had to drive home. He went to the bar and bought Maria another Campari and soda. The pub was filling up now, and he had to wait a couple of minutes to get served. Someone put an old Oasis song on the jukebox. The Queen’s Arms was certainly a lot different from the previous summer, Banks thought, when foot-and-mouth had emptied the Dales, keeping even the locals away, and Cyril hardly had a customer from one day to the next. And this was only January, most of the people here local. Maybe the coming summer would be a boom time for the Dales businesses. They certainly needed it. Back at the table he handed Maria her drink and said, “Well?”
He was surprised when she opened her handbag and brought out a packet of Silk Cut and a slim gold lighter. He didn’t remember her as a smoker. “Do you mind?” she asked, lighting up.
It wouldn’t have mattered if he did mind; the smoke was already drifting his way, along with the perfume. “No,” he said, surprised to find that instead of a craving, for the first time he felt revulsion. Was he going to turn into one of those obnoxious, rabid antismokers? He hoped to hell not. He sipped some beer. It helped a little.
“I can’t tell you much about him,” Maria said. “If indeed he is the one you think he is.”
“Let’s assume that he is, for the sake of argument,” said Banks.
“I mean, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for sending you off in the wrong direction, wasting police time.”
Banks smiled again. “Don’t worry about that. I won’t arrest you for it. Just tell me what you know and leave the rest to us.”
“It must have been about five years ago,” Maria said. “Sandra was still with us at the time. She used to talk to him quite a bit, you know. I’m sure she’d remember even better than me.”
Wonderful! Banks thought. Was he going to have to go and talk to his ex-wife to get information about a case? Maybe he’d send Annie. No, that would be cruel. Jim Hatchley, then? Or Winsome? But he knew, if it came to it, that he’d have to go himself. It would be rude and cowardly not to. No doubt he’d get to see the new baby, bounce little Sinéad on his knee. Maybe Sean would be there, too, and they’d ask him to stay for dinner. Happy families. Or he might end up baby-sitting while they went out to the cinema or the theater for the evening. On the other hand, maybe it could be avoided altogether if he pressed Maria just a little harder. “Let’s start with what you remember,” he said.
“Well, as I said, it was a long time ago. McMahon was a local artist, lived on the eastern edge of town, as I recall. It was part of our job to encourage local artists – not financially, you understand, but by giving them a venue to exhibit their work.”
“So Thomas McMahon had an exhibition of his work at the community gallery?”
“Yes.”
“And there’d be records of this? A catalog, perhaps? A photograph of him?”
“I suppose so. Down in the archives.”
“Was he any good?”
Maria wrinkled her nose. “I won’t pretend to be an expert on these matters, but I’d say not. There was nothing distinguished about his work, as far as I could see. It was mostly derivative.”
“So he’d have a hard time making a career of it?”
“I imagine he would. He sneaked a couple of ghastly abstracts in, too, at the last moment. I have a feeling they were what he really wanted to paint, but you can’t make a living from that sort of thing unless you have real talent. On the other hand, you can make a fair bit from selling local landscapes to tourists, which he did.”
“Any chance that his death might affect the value of his work?”
Maria’s eyes widened. “My, my, you do have a devious mind, don’t you? What a delicious motive. Kill the artist to increase the value of his paintings.”
“Well?”
“Not in his case, I shouldn’t think. A bad watercolor of Eastvale Castle is a bad watercolor of Eastvale Castle, whether the painter is alive or dead. Perhaps a dealer might know more than I do, but I think you’ll have to look elsewhere for your motive.”
“Was he a drinker?”
“He liked his drink, but I wouldn’t say he was a drunk.”
“Drugs?”
“I wouldn’t know. I saw no signs, heard no rumors.”
“And you’ve neither seen nor heard anything of him since?”
“Oh, yes. He’s dropped by a couple of times, for other artists’ openings, that sort of thing. And he was at the Turner reception, of course.”
“I see,” Banks said. The Turner. By far the most valuable and famous painting ever to be housed in the modest community center gallery, a Turner watercolor of Richmond Castle, Yorkshire, believed lost for many years, had spent two days there after being discovered under some old insulation during a cottage renovation. Nobody knew how it had got there, but the speculation was that the original owner died and whoever had the insulation put in didn’t know the value of the small painting. There had been a private reception for local bigwigs and artsy types. Annie had been involved in the security, Banks remembered. It had happened last summer, while Banks had been in Greece, and he had missed all the excitement.
“Other than that?”
“No. He dropped out of the local scene shortly after the exhibition, five years ago. I understand that his dealer had trouble selling his work, and that McMahon went through some sort of personal crisis. I don’t know the details. Leslie Whitaker might be able to help. I know they were friends, and he tried to sell some of McMahon’s serious paintings as well as the junk he painted for the tourist trade.”
“So Whitaker was McMahon’s agent?”
“Sort of, I suppose.”
“Recently, too?”
“Yes. I’ve seen Thomas McMahon coming out of Leslie Whitaker’s shop once or twice this month. He looked as if he’d been buying some books. He was carrying a package, at any rate.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Only to say hello.”
“How did he seem?”
“Remarkably fit, actually. Though, as you mentioned earlier, his hair was a bit long, and it could have done with a wash. He also hadn’t shaved for a few days, by the look of him.”
“Do you think you could dig out a catalog and give me the names of the artists whose openings he attended?”
“Why?”
“The catalog might help identify any of his works that show up, and we’d like to talk to anyone who might have known him. A photograph would help, too.”
“I can try. I’d have to look at the center’s records, though.”
“Could you do it first thing?”
Maria eyed him for a moment and sipped some Campari and soda. Her glass was almost empty again. “I suppose I could. You do realize it’s Saturday tomorrow, though, don’t you?”
“The center’s open.”
“Yes, but it’s my day off.”
“I’ll send one of my DCs along then,” said Banks. “It might take him a bit longer, but…”