All Banks knew so far was that Leslie Whitaker had taken over the business from his father, Ernest, who had died two years ago. There was a framed photograph of what Banks took to be the two of them on Whitaker’s desk. He didn’t correspond with Banks’s mental image of an antiquarian book dealer, though the picture of the wispy-haired man in the ill-fitting sweater was a bit of a stereotype. Whitaker was in his early forties, dressed in a light-gray suit, white shirt and maroon tie. His short dark hair was thinning a bit at the temples, but the look suited him. He looked fit and well muscled. Banks supposed that, with his strong chin and clear blue eyes, women, and perhaps even men, found him handsome. He had no criminal record, and DS Hatchley, who knew everything about these matters, hadn’t been able to unearth any gossip about him.
“What can I do for you?” Whitaker asked. “Do please sit down.”
He sat behind his ancient polished desk at the rear of the shop and gestured Banks to a hard-backed chair. Banks sat. “It’s information I’m after, really,” he said.
“Some crime in the book world?”
“Art world, actually. Or so it appears.”
“Well, that would certainly make more sense. The art world’s rife with crime.”
“I suppose you’ve heard about the fire on the canal boats?”
“Yes. Tragic. Terrible business.”
“We have reason to believe that one of the victims was an artist called Thomas McMahon. I believe you knew him?”
“Tom McMahon? Good Lord. I had no idea.”
“So you did know him?”
“Tom? Well, yes, vaguely. I mean, I’d no idea where he was living or what he was up to, but I know him – knew him – yes.”
“From what context?”
“I sell his work. Or rather, I liaise between Tom and the various craft markets, shops and boutiques throughout the dale that sell the landscapes he paints. And a few years ago, when he was regarded as an up-and-coming artist, I collected a couple of his paintings and even managed to sell a few.”
“What happened?”
“He just never took off. It happens more often than you’d think. The art world’s brutal, and it’s very difficult to break into. He had a big exhibition at the community center, and I thought maybe he had a chance, but… in the end he just didn’t make the grade.”
“Was he talented?”
“Talented?” Whitaker frowned. “Yes, of course. But what does that have to do with anything?”
Banks laughed. “Well, I’ve seen enough squiggles on blank canvases selling for thousands to know what you mean, but it was a genuine question.”
Whitaker pursed his lips. “Tom’s technique was excellent,” he said, “but derivative. When it came right down to it, he just wasn’t very original.”
That was exactly what Maria Phillips had said. “Derivative of whom?”
“He was all over the map, really. Romantic landscapes. Pre-Raphaelites. Impressionism. Surrealism. Cubism. That was the problem with Tom; he didn’t have any particular distinctive style, nothing you could point to with any amount of certainty and say that’s a Thomas McMahon.”
“So the paintings you bought…?”
“Worthless.”
“Doesn’t his death change that?”
Whitaker laughed. “I see what you’re getting at. Many artists didn’t get famous until after they were dead. Van Gogh, for one. But he was an original. I don’t think death is going to make Thomas McMahon’s works immortal, or valuable. No, Mr. Banks, I’m afraid I have no motive for getting rid of Tom McMahon, and I didn’t exactly pay a fortune for the paintings in the first place.”
Again, it was much the same as Maria had told him. “I wasn’t implying that you had a motive,” said Banks. “I’m simply trying to get at who might benefit from his death.”
“Nobody I can think of. It can’t have been easy for him, though,” mused Whitaker.
“Why not?”
“Failure’s never easy to handle, is it?”
Banks, who had missed nabbing more than one obvious villain in his career, knew how true that was. He remembered the failures more than the successes, and every one of them galled him. “I suppose not,” he said.
“I mean you head out of a successful exhibition thinking you’re Pablo Picasso, and the next day people don’t even bother reading your name in the bottom right-hand corner of the canvas. Then all you’ve got left to give them is nothing more than a sort of glorified photograph to remind them of their holiday in the Dales. So much for artistic vision and truth.”
“Is that how McMahon felt?”
“I can’t say for certain. He never talked about it. But I know it’s how I’d feel. Forgive me, I’m just extrapolating.”
“But you sell these ‘glorified photographs’ – or at least you help to.”
“For a commission, yes. It’s a business.”
“I understand McMahon was also a customer of yours?”
Whitaker shifted in his chair and glanced at the top shelf of books. “He dropped by the shop from time to time.”
“What did he buy?” Banks looked around at the leather-bound books and the bins of unframed prints and drawings. “I’d have thought your fare was a bit pricey for the likes of Thomas McMahon,” he said.
“They’re not all expensive. Many books and prints, even old ones, are hardly worth more than the paper they were printed on. It’s actually quite rare to come across the sort of find that makes your pulse race.”
“So McMahon bought cheap old books and prints?”
“Inexpensive ones.”
“Why?”
“I’ve no idea. I suppose he must have liked them.”
“What did he buy the last time you saw him?”
“An early-nineteenth-century volume of natural history. Nothing special. And the binding was in very poor shape.”
“How much did it cost?”
“Forty pounds. A steal, really.”
Yes, Banks thought, but what was a man squatting on a narrow boat doing spending forty pounds on an old book? He remembered the wet, charred pages he’d seen on the boat with Geoff Hamilton. Well, McMahon was an artist, and perhaps he just loved old books and prints. “Can you tell me anything about his state of mind?”
“He seemed fine whenever I saw him. In very good spirits, really. He even so much as hinted that things might be on the up for him.”
“Was he specific?”
“No. It was just when I asked him how he was, you know, as you do. Well, you don’t really expect much more than ‘fine, thanks’ as a reply, do you? But he said he was thriving and that they might think they could grind old Tom down but he’d still got a trick or two up his sleeve. He often referred to himself in the third person.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
Whitaker shrugged. “Didn’t say. The world in general, I assumed. The ones who refused to recognize his talent and buy his masterpieces.”
“And what trick did he have to show them?”
“No idea. I’m merely reporting what he said. Tom always tended to talk a good game, as they say.”
“You think there was any truth to it, that his fortunes were improving?”
“Who can say? Not from sales to the tourists, they weren’t.”
“So you hadn’t noticed any decline in him? In his appearance or mental state?”
“Quite the opposite, really. I mean, Tom was never the model of sartorial elegance – he was always a bit paint-stained and disheveled – but his clothes sense seemed to have improved. He’d also lost a bit of weight. And mentally, I’d say he was in good spirits.”
“Was he ever married?”
“I think he might have been, once upon a time, but if he was, it was long before he fetched up here in Eastvale.”