Little Grayle, at least, seemed glad he’d returned. She rose, hugged him.
‘Jesus, why are they doing this to you?’
Cindy was stoical. ‘When things happen to us which we clearly cannot alter, little Grayle, we must ask ourselves what is to be learned from them. What they may be telling us abut ourselves that we were unwilling to recognize.’
‘Oh sure. Like you’ve been chosen as God’s tool to break the hold of the National Lottery on the public’s consciousness? Did the BBC respond yet?’
‘My career with the BBC is, you might say, in a state of cryogenic preservation. Someone may perhaps consider thawing me out in five years’ time.’
‘Cindy, can they just do this?’
‘I fear they have done it, lovely. Some years ago, the mandarins might have stood by me. Those days are gone.’
Bobby Maiden looked up from the Mirror. ‘This didn’t just happen, did it?’
‘Perhaps not.’
‘Somebody had to start it, didn’t they?’
‘I also tend to be sceptical about spontaneous combustion, Bobby, but I rather suspect we have something more important to discuss than the descent of Kelvyn Kite.’
He had seen the exchange of glances. Oh yes, something else had occurred in the aftermath of the explosive exit of Miss Persephone Callard.
Grayle said, ‘You better tell him, Bobby.’
This was the standard mugshot issued to the papers when Gary Seward’s long-time enforcer, Clarence Judge, escaped from police custody in 1976. Used many times since because Clarence always hated having his picture taken.
‘You could argue’, Maiden pointed out, ‘that I came across it browsing through Seward’s book, and it just stuck in my head. A famous picture of a minor gangland celebrity.’
‘Which was subconsciously stored’, Marcus said, ‘and surfaced in a moment of heightened consciousness during a meditative state induced by sitting around in the dark with a group of people who-’
‘Hey, whose side are you on?’ Grayle demanded.
‘Just giving the psychological explanation, Underhill.’
Maiden smiled to see Grayle setting up in opposition to Marcus, the way she often did, without realizing this was what Marcus intended.
Cindy examined the photo in Seward’s book. ‘It’s a face which seems to convey a brutal distrust of the entire human race.’
‘A criminal stereotype, in fact,’ said Marcus.
‘And another stereotype’, Grayle said, ‘is bad guys always having scars. I don’t see a scar in this photo. Otherwise, yeah, it’s very like the face you drew. Got the scar when he died, maybe?’
‘He was shot in the back of the head,’ Maiden said.
‘Oh.’
‘I believe he got the scar in prison.’
‘So he did have a scar.’
‘If not several. According to Seward, another inmate with a longstanding grudge surprised Clarence in the prison library. With a fish slice he’d nicked from the kitchens. And sharpened.’
Grayle winced. She was probably thinking about hedging tools and a dead man in a ditch. Maiden hesitated.
Grayle took a breath. ‘Just finish the story, Bobby.’
‘It’s really about what Clarence did next. He’s half-blinded by the blood, according to Seward, but still manages to push the guy’s head through the back of a free-standing bookshelf. OK? Leaving his face sticking out among the books, like in a pillory?’
‘Uh-oh,’ Grayle said.
‘And he can’t get free, and he’s hanging there. And then Clarence goes around the other side and props up these leather-bound encyclopedias against the guy’s ears on either side for further support. And then he starts hitting him. For … well, for a long time. It was said the blood spread so far that the library had to throw away more than a hundred books.’
‘This was in the pen? Where were the … wardens … the guards?’
‘Oh, well they were attending to a small disturbance elsewhere. It probably didn’t even involve a bribe — none of the screws would’ve lost sleep over something unpleasant happening to Clarence. They hate people prison life doesn’t seem to bother, and nothing ever got to Clarence. If you spat in his food, Seward says, he’d eat it all up in front of you and ask for seconds. And then he’d bide his time, but eventually he’d come and “visit” you, as he liked to put it.’
‘Jesus. And this is what… visits Callard? I take everything back. No wonder she’s so fucked up. Jeez, I only have to look at that drawing and I’m …’ Grayle shuddered.
Marcus said, ‘You ever come across this man personally, Maiden?’
‘No, I didn’t know him at all. Clarence would’ve been doing his bird when I was at the Met. I’ve just been having a quick look at Seward’s book. Looked up Judge in the index. Lots of references. Clarence has rare qualities, Seward says. Possibly the only person he truly admires, apart from Lady Thatcher.’
‘Hold on,’ Grayle said. ‘Let’s get back to the scar. Were there no pictures of him with this scar from the fish-slice attack?’
Maiden thought about it. ‘I don’t know. None that I’m aware of. With a scar like that you can understand him keeping a low profile.’
‘So you can categorically state that you never saw a picture of it?’
‘Not categorically. But I’m pretty sure. It could be artistic licence, though, couldn’t it? We’re never going to know for certain unless we dig him up and call in a facial reconstruction expert.’
‘So, Bobby — let’s just get this right — you only know what the scar looked like from Callard’s description, that it was like half of a pair of glasses. In fact it may not be quite like you’ve drawn it here, but we’ll never know. OK, let’s deal with the other rational explanation. What if Callard deliberately fed us this image of the face, with the glasses’ scar? Maybe planted the whole idea of this Clarence. And even Seward, with his peculiar laugh.’
‘Except that it was Les Hole who first mentioned Seward,’ Maiden said.
Marcus looked pained. ‘Underhill, why would she anyway?’
‘I have no idea. I’m exhausting rational possibilities, is all. It still makes no sense to me why she suddenly skipped out last night, and it doesn’t to you, Marcus, if you’d only admit it.’
Marcus was silent.
‘So let’s look at the crank stuff,’ Grayle said. ‘Spirit drawings. It’s a common enough thing for an artist to be present at a seance, right?’
Cindy, who’d been absorbing all this stuff in silence, said, ‘And the artist does not necessarily have to be a medium. Sometimes he or she works the same way as I believe police artists do, creating the face according to the instructions of the medium. And on occasion,’ Cindy coughed lightly, ‘this is done without them even speaking.’
‘The image gets transferred mentally,’ Grayle said. ‘It sounds crazy, but I’ve seen this happen.’
‘Usually, I think,’ Cindy said softly, ‘when there is, er, a close personal link between the medium and the, er, artist.’
Marcus stiffened, directed a hard look at Bobby. Grayle made no comment.
Cindy said, ‘What were your feelings, Bobby, when you were doing this drawing? What sensations were you experiencing?’
‘I can’t remember. I can’t remember doing the drawing. All I have a clear memory of is Seffi saying, “He’s touching me”, and me diving at her. And then the window bursting.’
Grayle wondered what might have happened at this point if the window hadn’t exploded. ‘This gets us nowhere,’ she said hastily. ‘What actually happened to Judge?’
‘From what I can remember,’ Bobby said, ‘his body was found in a rubbish skip somewhere. He’d been shot in the back of the head. It was assumed it was a gangland killing. Only one shot, close range. Looked professional. No-one was ever caught.’
‘When was this?’
‘Over a year ago.’ He opened the paperback. ‘I assume this edition’s only just out. In the front here, Seward’s written a ridiculous kind of eulogy to the old thug, also offering a large reward for information leading to his killer. He says he’ll hand any new information over to the police immediately. I think that’s where we’re supposed to laugh.’