Playing With Fire

Chapter 6

Banks had loved the smell of old bookshops ever since he was a child, and Leslie Whitaker’s Antiquarian Books and Prints, in the maze of cobbled alleys at the back of the police station, was no exception. It stood in a row of particularly ancient shops with low, crooked beams and mullioned bay windows thick as magnifying glass. On one side was a tobacconist’s, with its wooden bowls of exotic pipe tobaccos, and on the other, J. W. Allen, apothecary, with the antique blue, green and red bottles in the window. Purely for the tourists, of course.

The bell jangled over the door as Banks entered. It was hard to define the smell, a mix of dust, leather and paper, even a spot of mildew, perhaps, but its effect was as comforting to Banks as that of freshly mown hay, or bread straight from the baker’s oven. Something to do with a childhood spent in the children’s library and many days as a teenager spent browsing in secondhand bookshops. He paused on the threshold to inhale and savor the sensation, then presented his warrant card to the man shelving books across the room.

“A chief inspector, indeed,” Whitaker said. “And on a Saturday afternoon, too. I am honored.”

“We’re short-staffed,” Banks said. While this was partly true, it was not the real reason he often made such routine calls himself. Most chief inspectors spent their careers behind desks piled high with paper, or in meetings thrashing out details of budget and manpower, paper clips and databases, cost-effective policing, flow charts and value assessments. While Banks had plenty of that to do, he also liked to keep his hand in, liked to stay close to the street policing he had grown up with. It was partly a matter of solidarity with the troops, who appreciated that their boss would often carry out the same tedious, dead-end tasks as they did, even get his hands dirty; and partly selfishness, because Banks hated paperwork and loved getting out there and sniffing out the lie or the possible lead. Some of the young turks who had come up through accelerated promotion schemes didn’t understand why he just wouldn’t settle down to “administrative” duties, which was what many of them aspired to in the long run.

Banks’s instincts as a working detective had developed enough over the years, and his success rate was high enough, that neither Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe nor Assistant Chief Constable Ron McLaughlin stood in his way. And if Banks also chose to interview a suspect – a task usually carried out by a lowly DC, or DS at the highest, and one which most people above the rank of inspector had forgotten how to do – then that was fine with his bosses, too, as he had a knack for the thrust and parry, or the subtle persuasiveness of a good interrogation.

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 thi

“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.