In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(91)

“We eat out mostly,” Cilia said from the doorway.

“Looks like,” Barbara agreed.

They moved to the sitting room, where they paused and took in its unusual decor. The room appeared to be a showplace for their art. There were several pieces of the same agricultural nature as the larger efforts that Barbara had seen earlier that day in the railway arch studio, marking them as the work of Terry. The other objects—paintings, these—were the obvious results of Cilia's endeavours.

Nkata—having not seen Cilia's mouth fixation given concrete form—whistled quietly in reaction to the dozen or more oral cavities that were explored on canvas in the sitting room. Screaming, laughing, weeping, speaking, eating, slobbering, vomiting, and bleeding were all featured in graphic detail. Cilia had also explored further fantastic possibilities of the orifice in her paintings: Several mouths had fully grown human beings rising from them, most notably members of the Royal Family.

“Very … different,” Nkata commented.

“Munch, however, has nothing to worry about,” Barbara murmured next to him.

There were bedrooms on either side of the sitting room, and they ventured into Cilia's first, with the artist herself leading the way. Aside from a collection of Paddington Bears that overflowed from the top of the chest of drawers and the window sill onto the floor, Cilia's room didn't present any contradiction to the artist herself. Her wardrobe contained the usual colour-splodged garments one would associate with a painter; the milk crate serving as bedside table held the box of condoms that one would expect of the sexually active and sexually cautious young woman in the depressing days of STDs; a considerable collection of CDs met with Barbara's approval and told Nkata how far out of the loop he was when it came to rock ‘n’ roll; a number of copies of What's On and Time Out had pages turned down and galleries with newly mounted shows circled. The walls featured her own art, and the floor had been painted by the artist to reveal more of her singular artistic sensibility. Great flapping tongues dribbled partially masticated food onto naked infants who were defecating onto other great flapping tongues. It was certainly one for Freud.

Cilia said, “I told Mrs. Baden I'd paint over it when I move out,” in apparent response to the detectives' failure to keep their expressions dispassionate. “She likes to support talent. She says so. You can ask her.”

“We'll take your word for it,” Barbara said.

They found nothing in the bathroom save a grubby and unhygienic ring round the bath which Nkata clucked at mournfully. From there they went to Terry Cole's bedroom with Cilia dogging their heels as if worried that they might nick one of her masterpieces if she didn't keep watch.

Nkata took a post at the chest of drawers, Barbara at the wardrobe. There, she discovered the gripping fact that Terry Cole's preference in colours was black, and he carried this theme out in T-shirts, jerseys, jeans, jackets, and footwear. While Nkata slid open drawers behind her, Barbara began going through the jeans and the jackets in the hope that they might reveal something cogent. She found only two possibilities among the cinema ticket stubs and crumpled tissues. The first was a scrap of paper with 31-32 Soho Square written on it in a small, pointed hand, and the second was a business card that had been folded in half over a wad of discarded chewing gum. Barbara prised this open. One could always hope …

Bowers was engraved in posh script across the card. In the lower left corner was an address on Cork Street and a phone number. On the lower right was a name: Neil Sitwell. The address was W1. Another gallery, Barbara deduced, but she flicked the dried gum onto the bedside table and pocketed the card nonetheless.

“Something here,” Nkata said behind her.

She swung round and saw that he'd taken a humidor from the bottom drawer of the chest. He had it open. “What?” she said.

He tilted it towards her. Cilia craned forward. She said in a rush, “That's none of mine, you lot,” when she saw what was in it.

The humidor contained cannabis. Several lids by the look of it. And from the drawer from which he'd taken the humidor, Nkata pulled out a palm-size bong, rolling papers, and a large freezer bag sealed upon at least another kilo of the weed.

“Ah,” Barbara said. She eyed Cilia suspiciously.

“I said,” Cilia countered. “I wouldn't've let you go through the flat if I knew he had that stuff, would I? I don't touch it. I don't touch anything that could cock up the process.”

“The process?” Nkata looked quizzical.

“My art,” Cilia said. “The creative process.”

“Right,” Barbara said. “God knows you don't want to mess about with that. Wise move on your part.”

Cilia heard no irony. She said, “Talent's precious. You don't want to … like waste it.”

“Are you saying this”—with a nod at the cannabis—“is why Terry couldn't make it as an artist?”

“Like I told you at the studio, he never put enough into it—his art, that is—to get anything out of it. He didn't want to work at it like the rest of us. He didn't think he had to. Maybe this is why.”

“Because he was high too often?” Nkata asked.

Cilia looked uncomfortable for the first time. She shifted from foot to foot on her platform shoes. “Look. It's like … He's dead and all that and I'm sorry about it. But truth's the truth. His money came from somewhere. This is probably it.”