Sarah's eyes narrowed. "It was supposed to hurt, you cretin. Don't even think about getting your hands on Mathilda's money. You're certainly not getting any of mine if I can help it. Fifty-fifty? Fat-bloody-chance. I'll sell up and give it to a cats' home before I see you living the life of Riley on the back of my hard work."
He poked his fingers into his Levi's pocket and removed a folded piece of paper. "My contract with Mathilda," he said, holding it out to her with one hand while he fondled himself gingerly with the other. "The silly old sod snuffed it before she paid me, so I reckon her executors owe me ten thousand and her heir gets the painting. Jesus, Sarah, I feel really sick. I think you've done me some severe damage."
She ignored him to read what was on the paper. "This looks kosher," she said.
"It is kosher. Keith drew it up."
"He never told me."
"Why should he? It was none of your business. I just hope I've got a claim on the estate. The way my luck's running, the contract's probably invalid because she's dead."
Sarah passed the paper to DS Cooper. "What do you think? It would be a shame if Jack's right. It's his second major sale."
She was genuinely pleased for the bastard, Cooper thought in surprise. What a peculiar couple they were. He shrugged. "I'm no expert but I've always understood that debts have to be met out of an estate. If you'd supplied her with new carpeting, which she hadn't paid for, the bill would presumably be honoured. I don't see why a painting should be any different, particularly one where the subject is the deceased. It's not as though you can sell it to anyone else, is it?" He glanced at the canvas. "Bearing in mind, of course, you might have a problem proving it's Mrs. Gillespie."
"Where would I have to prove it? In court?"
"Possibly."
His eyes gleamed as he clicked his fingers for the contract. "I'm relying on you, Sarah," he said, tucking the paper back into his pocket.
"To do what?""
"Tell the executors not to pay, of course. Say you don't think it's Mathilda. I need the publicity of a court battle."
"Don't be stupid. I know it's Mathilda. If the contract's legally binding on her estate, they'll have to pay."
But he wasn't listening. He tossed his paints, brushes and bottles of turpentine and linseed oil into a hold-all, then released the canvas of Joanna Lascelles from the easel. "I've got to go. Look, I can't take the rest of this stuff because I haven't found a studio yet, but I'll try and get back for it during the week. Is that okay? I only came for some clothes. I've been sleeping in the car and this lot's a bit rank." He padded towards the door, slinging the hold-all over his shoulder and carrying the painting in his hand.
"One moment, Mr. Blakeney." Cooper stood up to block his path. "I haven't finished with you yet. Where were you on the night Mrs. Gillespie died?"
Jack glanced at Sarah. "I was in Stratford," he said coolly, "with an actress called Sally Bennedict."
Cooper didn't look up, merely licked the point of his pencil and jotted the name on his pad. "And how can I contact her?"
"Through the RSC. She's playing Juliet in one of their productions."
"Thank you. Now, as someone with material evidence, I must warn you that if you intend to go on sleeping in your car then you will be required to present yourself at a police station every day, because if you don't I shall be forced to apply for a warrant. We also need your fingerprints so that we can isolate yours from the others we lifted in Cedar House. There will be a fingerprinting team in Fontwell Parish Hall on Wednesday morning but if you can't attend, I shall have to make arrangements for you to come to the station."
"I'll be there."
"And your whereabouts in the meantime, sir?"
"Care of Mrs. Joanna Lascelles, Cedar House, Fontwell." He booted open the door into the hall and eased through the gap. It was clearly something he had done many times before to judge by the dents and scratches on the paintwork.
"Jack!" Sarah called.
He turned to look at her. His eyebrows lifted enquiringly.
She nodded to the portrait of Mathilda. "Congratulations."
He flashed her an oddly ultimate smile before letting the door slam behind him.
The two, left behind in the studio, listened to his footsteps on the stairs as he went in search of clothes. "He's a law unto himself, isn't he?" said Cooper, drawing thoughtfully on his cigarette.
"One of life's great individuals," Sarah said, consciously echoing Jack's description of Mathilda, "and very difficult to live with."
"I can see that." He bent down to stub the butt against the rim of the wastepaper basket. "But equally difficult to live without, I should imagine. He leaves something of a vacuum in his wake."
Sarah turned away from him to look out of the window. She couldn't see anything, of course-it was now very dark outside-but the policeman could see her reflection in the glass as clearly as if it were a mirror. He would have done better, he thought, to keep his mouth shut but there was an openness about the Blakeneys that was catching.
"He's not always like that," said Sarah. "It's rare for him to be quite so forthcoming, but I'm not sure if that was for your benefit or mine." She fell silent, aware that she was speaking her thoughts aloud.
"Yours, of course."
They heard the front door open and close. "Why 'of course'?"
"I haven't hurt him."
Their reflected eyes met in the window pane.
"Life's a bugger, isn't it, Sergeant?"
Joanna's demands on my purse are becoming insatiable. She says it's my fault that she's incapable of finding a job, my fault that her life's so empty, my fault that she had to marry Steven and my fault, too, that she was saddled with a baby she didn't want. I forbore to point out that she couldn't get into the Jew's bed quick enough or that the pill had been available for years before she allowed herself to get pregnant. I was tempted to catalogue the hells I went through-the rape of my innocence, marriage to a drunken pervert, a second pregnancy when I'd barely got over the first, the courage it took to climb out of an abyss of despair that she couldn't begin to imagine. I didn't, of course. She alarms me enough, as it is, with her frigid dislike of me and Ruth. I dread to think how she would react if she ever found out that Gerald was her father.
She says I'm a miser. Well, perhaps I am. Money has been a good friend to me and I guard it as jealously as others guard their secrets. God knows, I've had to use every ounce of cunning I possess to acquire it. If shrouds had pockets, I'd take it with me and "to hell, allegiance!" It is not we who owe our children but they who owe us. The only regret I have about dying is that I won't see Sarah's face when she learns what I've left her. That would, I think, be amusing.
Old Howard quoted Hamlet at me today: "We go to gain a little patch of ground that hath no profit but the name." I laughed-he is a most entertaining old brute at times--and answered from
The Merchant
"He is well paid who is well satisfied..."
*7*
"Violet Orloff sought out her husband in the sitting-room, where he was watching the early evening news on the television. She turned down the volume and placed her angular body in front of the screen.
"I was watching that," he said in mild reproof.
She took no notice. "Those awful women next door have been screaming at each other like a couple of fishwives, and I could hear every word. We should have taken the surveyor's advice and insisted on a double skin with soundproofing. What's going to happen if it's sold to hippies or people with young children? We'll be driven mad with their row."