‘And you are...?’
‘Geraint.’
‘So you use the knives in your art?’
‘Fucking obvious, isn’t it?’
‘May I see your work?’
Geraint didn’t answer, but stood back from his canvas, making just enough room for Diamond to step around the knives.
The painting looked like a skid pan at the end of the day, riven with intersecting tracks. Many colours had been worked into a thick khaki mess in which the broad shape of a man was just about discernible.
‘What do you think?’ Geraint said.
‘I’m lost for fucking words,’ Diamond said and moved on.
The three students turned their heads like meerkats.
‘Good to see familiar faces,’ he said. ‘This is better than school, I bet.’
Not one of them answered. In truth, it wasn’t much of an icebreaker.
He tried again. ‘I started doing some drawing and gave up when it came out looking like the Michelin man.’
None of them smiled, but Ella couldn’t resist saying, ‘Show us.’
‘I tore it up. Didn’t want the model thinking I see him like that. I came over to ask if anyone has heard from Mel?’
‘We’d tell you, wouldn’t we?’ Jem said.
‘I was hoping she might have texted one of you.’
‘She’s not much of a texter,’ Ella said. ‘Not like Jem and me.’
‘But she owns a phone?’
‘Natch. Doesn’t everyone?’ Jem said. ‘Ella’s right. Mel keeps a load of stuff bottled up in her head. Even her best friends don’t know.’
‘And who are they?’
‘Ella, for one. Me and Naseem.’
‘Does she get on with her parents?’
‘I suppose. They’re stuck in their ways, like most parents. When I say “parents” I mean her mother and stepfather. She’s their only child and that makes it all a bit heavy for her, but she doesn’t complain. She’d hate to see them upset like they were on TV. ’
‘What’s your theory, then?’
‘About Mel?’ Jem said. ‘I think she’s dead.’
‘Oh, Jem!’ Naseem said.
‘Some psycho tried it on and she fought back and he killed her.’
‘That’s horrible.’
‘Murder is horrible. Isn’t that the truth?’ She turned to Diamond.
She was trying to shock, and he didn’t play along. ‘It may not be in this case. Let’s hope there’s another explanation. She left her house unexpectedly on the same night as the artists’ party.’
‘Pure coincidence,’ Jem said. ‘Mel wasn’t a party girl. She didn’t like hanging around with blokes. She wasn’t even a drinker.’
Naseem said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t talk about her in the past tense. You don’t know she’s dead.’
‘None of us knows for sure, but if she just ran off because of a row with her parents, she wouldn’t last one night on her own. She’s a home lover. Correction: she was a home lover.’
‘She went out on her scooter,’ Ella said. ‘She definitely had some place in mind.’
‘Well, it wasn’t here,’ Jem said. ‘She wouldn’t go near one of Tom’s parties. She’d pay money to stay away. Am I right?’
‘Unless she came for another reason,’ Naseem said.
‘Such as?’
‘The texts we were getting from Ella.’
Ella turned accusingly and made a snorting sound — and it was clear that a confidence had been broken.
Diamond, inwardly alert, didn’t alter his expression.
Naseem refused to be cowed by Ella. ‘Were you texting all three of us, including Mel?’
After a moment’s consideration, Ella nodded.
‘So she would have got that message about Miss Gibbon, saying she was here,’ Naseem went on.
‘That’s not what I texted, dorkbrain.’
‘What was it, then?’
Suddenly all three had their phones out, checking stored messages. Diamond watched and waited with mounting interest. This could be vital information.
‘Found it,’ Naseem said and held out her phone.
They all looked at the message, including Diamond.
you wont believe this the Gibbon used to hang out here
Ella was quick to comment. ‘Is that clear enough for you? She used to hang out. Past tense, get it? I didn’t say she was at the party.’
The main force of these remarks had been directed at Naseem. She wouldn’t be silenced. ‘But we all know Mel was forever going on about Miss Gibbon and how we never had a chance to say goodbye and stuff like that.’
‘That’s true,’ Jem said, and added in a complete about-turn, ‘What if she read Ella’s text and made up her mind to crash the party just to talk to people and find out for herself? Mel’s very single-minded. Once she gets an idea in her head, it won’t budge.’
‘So what are you saying?’ Ella said. ‘She got on her scooter and drove here and met some psycho—’
‘Like Geraint,’ Jem said. ‘And he cut her throat.’
‘Please!’ Naseem said. ‘That’s so gross.’
‘He’s creepy enough.’
Suddenly Ella was looking murderous herself. ‘You’re blaming me because of the text I sent? How mean is that?’
Diamond didn’t want this to end in a spat. He’d been content to listen up to now. ‘Hold on, young ladies. This is all supposition. We don’t know what was in Mel’s mind that night. Ella, did you send more than one text?’
‘She did,’ Naseem answered for her, ‘and I can show you.’ She brandished her phone with all the ceremony of Moses on Mount Sinai. ‘This was the first.’
Diamond read the message:
full moon guess where I am
‘And then this one,’ Naseem said.
OMG just met geraint in goth gear
‘So what?’ Ella said. ‘They’re texts, that’s all. I was being sociable, reporting what I saw.’
‘I would have done the same,’ Diamond said in a show of sympathy, wanting to tease out all the information that was going. ‘How did you find out about Miss Gibbon?’
She was recovering her poise. ‘From Ferdie. He was doing the drinks and talking to me about the artists and he goes, “They aren’t all weird like Geraint. Some of them are prim and proper, like the art teacher who worked on graph paper, measuring everything”.’
‘Could only be the Gibbon,’ Jem said.
‘Yeah, silly old cow, and he goes, “Her name was Connie and she used to teach at Priory Park,” so I knew it was her straight off. Constance Gloria Gibbon. We found her name on that missing persons’ website. It makes sense really, her joining the local artists.’
‘Did he say any more about her?’ Diamond asked.
‘Only that she stopped coming months ago.’
‘Are you sure of that?’
‘Those were his words. You can ask him if you don’t believe me. He’s still here. I was glad to have him talking to me at the party. I asked him to take my picture and he did.’
‘With your iPhone? May I see?’
‘If you want.’ Ella surfed through several pictures. ‘Here.’
The image of the young girl in her goth outfit with a fixed stare gave him some impression of her strength of purpose that night. In poor light in the background some shadowy dancing figures could be made out.
‘Can you zoom in?’
‘On me?’
‘On the people behind you.’
‘You won’t see Mel, if that’s what you’re thinking. She wasn’t there.’ She used her fingertips to enlarge the background. ‘That looks like the Bish. He was mental. The black guy in the hat is Manny. And the woman could be Anastasia or Drusilla. Just about everyone was there.’
‘Except us,’ Jem said. ‘I’ve got to hand it to Ella. She was the only one with the guts to crash the party.’
‘Unless Mel turned up later,’ Naseem said.