Guns in the Gallery

Jude was surprised that they only went one stop. Pimlico. She let Bonita get out ahead of her and followed at a distance. But she had to hurry to keep up. There was a skittishness about the movements of the woman ahead. She almost ran up the escalator.

Jude, who carried more weight than she should have done, was a bit breathless by the time she reached ground level. When she emerged from Pimlico Station, she was worried she might have lost the trail, but after a moment of anxiety, she spotted the woman in black walking demurely in the direction of Vauxhall Bridge.

Before she reached the river, Bonita turned right into a narrow road on one side of which was a parade of shops and on the other a terrace of pretty little cottages. Without a backward glance, the woman took a set of keys out of her shoulder bag and let herself into one which had a door of Victorian purple.

It was by now about eleven o’clock. Jude, trailing some way behind, looked at the row of shops and was delighted to see that one sold coffee. Taking her time, she ordered a cappuccino and an almond croissant, then settled herself into a window seat. She pretended to be reading her Daily Mail, but she had already been over it so thoroughly that it no longer even made her cross.

She was getting towards the end of her second cappuccino (and her second almond croissant) and beginning to wonder how she could eke the time out much longer, when the purple door opposite opened.

Bonita Green came out first, and there was about her an aura of happiness which Jude had never seen in their previous encounters. The bag still hung from her shoulder, but there was no sign of the painting.

She was followed out by a tall white-haired handsome man who looked at least as happy as she did.

Jude recognized him from the websites Carole had shown her. It was Addison Willoughby.

THIRTY

Jude followed the happy couple at a distance. They walked along arm in arm, talking and giggling animatedly.

Given the time of day, it was quite possible that they were on their way out to lunch. Jude wondered how she would maintain her surveillance if that was their intention. Go into the same restaurant and scrutinize them over the top of her menu? Sit in a convenient coffee shop opposite their venue and drink more bladder-straining cappuccinos? But as was usually the case with Jude, she decided she would make that decision when she had to.

Anyway, it was soon clear that their destination was not a restaurant. In fact, they seemed to be heading straight back the way Bonita had come, to Pimlico Underground.

So it proved. At the head of the stairs down to the station the couple stopped and embraced warmly. Jude managed to be close enough, apparently removing a stone from her shoe, to hear their conversation.

‘It seems awful to be going so soon,’ Bonita said.

‘Just for today,’ said Addison Willoughby. ‘Once I’ve sorted things out with Denzil, there’s nothing to stop us being together all the time.’

‘I can’t wait.’ Bonita Green rose on tiptoe to give him a parting kiss on the lips. ‘Call me when you’ve done the deed.’

‘Of course.’

Then he watched her as she skittered off down the stairs. When Bonita was out of sight, he turned to find himself facing a generously upholstered woman with a bird’s nest of blonde hair.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘My name’s Jude. You don’t know me.’

‘No, I certainly don’t.’ But he said it in puzzlement rather than anger.

‘I know your son Denzil.’

‘Ah.’ He waited to see what she’d say next.

Jude, grateful that Carole wasn’t there to disapprove, decided to go for broke. ‘And I’m investigating the death of his former girlfriend Fennel Whittaker.’

‘Are you from the police?’

‘Not exactly.’ Which, given the situation, was a rather cheeky answer. ‘You heard what happened to her?’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said almost snappishly. ‘And what – are you suggesting there’s some thought Fennel might have been murdered?’

‘It seems to be a possibility.’

‘And Denzil is under suspicion of having done it?’

‘Let’s say we’d like to rule him out of our enquiries.’

‘Very well,’ said Addison Willoughby wearily. ‘You’d better come back to my place.’

The interior of the terraced cottage with the purple door was immaculate and expensively appointed. But it had the feeling of a hotel suite, not a place where people lived all the time.

Over the fireplace in the front room where they sat hung the Piccadilly snowscape from the Cornelian Gallery. ‘Did you do that?’ asked Jude. Addison Willoughby nodded. ‘It’s very good.’

‘Yes, there was a time when I was thought to have considerable talent. Long ago dissipated, I’m sorry to say.’

‘You seem to have been very successful in the world of advertising.’

‘Maybe, but I don’t regard that as a talent. It is at best a skill, and a learnt skill at that. Talent is what artists have.’

‘Like your son?’

‘I’d say the jury’s still out on that.’

‘Then like Bonita?’