Georgina was quick to answer. ‘Don’t think of us as invaders. We’re used to mingling with strangers, aren’t we, Peter?’
‘It’s our job,’ he said, his toes curling. Mingling with strangers? Like at a cocktail party? Pity he couldn’t have thought of some alternative mission for Georgina.
‘I must apologise for the state of my colleague’s clothes,’ she said to Standforth. ‘We had a diversion involving a trek through a quagmire.’
‘I hadn’t noticed.’
The studio was abuzz with people chatting over coffee. Three of the Prior Park schoolgirls glanced across and immediately went into a huddle. Ella, Jem and Naseem were alert for every twist in this drama.
‘There’s no need for an announcement,’ Georgina told Tom Standforth.
‘Sorry, you’ve lost me.’
‘To explain who we are and why we’re here. I dare say they’ll find out soon enough.’
‘I wasn’t aiming to say anything. I’d rather keep it low key.’
‘So would we.’
‘In fact,’ the young man said, ‘I’m wondering if you’d like to join us.’
‘We intend to,’ Georgina said. ‘We’ll introduce ourselves as we go round.’
‘That isn’t what I mean. Would you like to do some drawing?’
‘Actually put pencil to paper? Oh my word, I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose we could appear to be sketching. In fact, it might be rather a clever move. Peter, what do you say to that?’
He was speechless. They hadn’t come here to make fools of themselves.
‘In which case,’ Georgina said, ‘we need drawing materials.’
‘Not a problem,’ Standforth said. ‘Help yourselves to coffee and I’ll fix it.’
‘I can’t draw,’ Diamond said after their host had moved off.
She was without pity. ‘Anyone can make marks on paper. That’s all it is. Go to any gallery and you’ll see aimless scribbles passed off as masterpieces. Art is ninety-nine per cent bluffing.’
‘Are you any good at it?’
‘As a matter of fact, I won the art prize at school. I’d offer to show you the basics, but we’d better split up when it starts, don’t you think?’
‘I need a strong coffee.’
All too soon, Standforth clapped his hands and addressed everyone. ‘Let’s start the first session, shall we? You’ll be pleased to hear Davy is back with us today.’
‘Who’s Davy?’ Diamond asked, jumpy as frying popcorn.
‘How would I know?’ Georgina said.
The floor squeaked to the sound of easels and stools being dragged into position. Two of the men pushed a low wooden stand into the centre.
‘What’s that for?’
‘The dais,’ Georgina informed her colleague from the depth of her experience. ‘To support the arrangement.’
‘What of?’
‘Come on, Peter, this is art. Still life. The usual thing is a bowl of fruit or a potted plant. Personally, I prefer apples or oranges. They’re easier to copy.’
Standforth handed them drawing boards with large sheets of paper clipped to them. ‘I recommend charcoal if you haven’t done much before. Take as much as you like from the box on the table at the end. And help yourselves to easels. Back of the room.’
‘Do we really need easels?’ Diamond asked his boss.
She was implacable. ‘Thank you for offering. Place mine next to the gentleman with the clerical collar.’
The easels were heavy and paint-spattered. By the time he’d manoeuvred one to where Georgina wanted it, a circle was forming. He noticed some people weren’t bothering with easels at all. They perched on high stools or at a lower level astride donkey stools. A tall black man in a Rasta hat was standing with a sketchbook. One of the stools would do for Diamond.
‘I’ll be on the other side,’ he told Georgina.
She didn’t answer. She was staring over her shoulder at a large man in a black silk dressing gown standing beside the dais, barefoot and bare-legged. The apples and oranges would have to wait for another day.
The next hour was a new low in Diamond’s career. He had the rear aspect of the nude model, Davy, and he wasn’t interested in committing it to paper. No one spoke. The concentration in the room was absolute. The whole point in being here was to get acquainted with the artists, but it wasn’t possible. He could only look around and try to get an impression of them as people.
The only consolation was the sight of Georgina with her full-on view of the model, having her artistic credentials tested to the limit as Davy faced her, hands on hips. Each time Diamond glanced her way she swayed like a boxer out of sight behind the easel. Mostly she managed to hold a fixed stare at Davy’s head and shoulders as if the rest of his body didn’t exist. There was one exquisite moment when the tension became too much, her charcoal snapped and a piece rolled across the floor and stopped six inches from the dais. She didn’t go after it.
Finally Tom went over and drew chalk marks around the model’s feet to allow him to move and ease the strain on his muscles. Everyone relaxed. And then, with the grace of a true gentleman, Davy stooped, picked up the charcoal and handed it to Georgina. She turned geranium red, took a step back and knocked over someone’s easel.
Diamond didn’t have long to savour the incident. The woman beside him said, ‘Are you having trouble?’
‘Trouble?’
‘With the pose. You haven’t made many marks. I’m Drusilla, by the way.’ She held out a slim hand. Her voice was sharp, but she looked friendly enough, a slim woman about his own age dressed in some kind of ethnic sweater and frayed jeans.
‘Peter,’ he said, shaking hands, ‘and it’s no use pretending I can draw. I’m a fraud, as you can see.’
‘An interloper?’
‘In a way, yes. A police officer, volunteered for this by my boss.’
‘The lady hiding behind her easel?’
‘Right. She thinks we should join in and not be too obvious.’
‘She’s more obvious than she thinks. Are you supposed to be undercover? If so, you’re not very good at it. What are you hoping to find out? We may look a suspicious bunch, but I don’t think we’re lawbreakers — except Manny, the West Indian. He had a short spell inside for dealing in cannabis, I was told, but he served his sentence and made use of the time to become a brilliant cartoonist.’
‘Good for him.’
‘Tom and Ferdie employ him as the gardener. They’re like that, open-minded, willing to give a man a fresh start. You should ask to see his cartoons. He’ll do one of you if you ask. He might have done one already. There’s character in your face, if I may be personal. But if you’re going undercover—’
‘If I was undercover, ma’am, I wouldn’t have told you I was in the police.’
‘My dear, you can tell me anything and it stays in here.’ Drusilla tapped her forehead. ‘What are you investigating?’
‘One of the schoolgirls who has gone missing.’
‘I saw on the TV. I was hoping it was just a tiff with the parents. Isn’t there any news?’
‘Nothing yet.’
‘Have you spoken to her friends? I suppose you will have.’
‘They don’t know either. There was a party here a couple of nights ago — the night she went missing. Did you go?’
She nodded. ‘They couldn’t keep me away if they tried.’
‘Was Melanie there?’
‘If she came, I didn’t spot her. I thought only one of the schoolgirls came and that was Ella, the tall one over there, looking amazingly grown-up and different in her gothic get-up, and she didn’t stay long. When she got a little woozy, Tom removed her from the scene. It was the right thing to do. He’s a responsible young man.’
He nodded, trying not to seem over-interested. ‘When you say woozy, are you talking about alcohol?’