Page 10 of Go Now
She couldn’t stop looking at it, ugly as it was.It was agony, made solid.Torment, in clay.
And she couldn’t stop thinking about the words Cox had been mouthing to her as he was hauled out of the interview room at the prison.
He’d said those same words to her before, shortly after his arrest.
After Denton, after me, there are many more disciples.And there will be many more deaths.The world will be washed in blood, Kate.
Was he telling the truth?And if he was, was this murder the proof?Could this be the work of some Cox follower or disciple, targeting those he believed to have broken the second commandment?
And if so, why tell her?
That was what she’d failed to understand throughout the last case.What did it have to do with her?
CHAPTER FOUR
‘This guy’s a one-horse pony.’
Kate looked up from her screen.‘A what?’
‘Sorry.It’s what my grandma used to say.She always got her sayings mixed up.It’s like a one-trick pony mixed up with a one-horse town. I mean, this Ashworth guy.You’re right what you said about him.He’s really only got one trick.Look…’
Kate padded over from the bed to Marcus’s makeshift desk – a narrow table in his hotel room, where he’d got just enough space for a laptop and a notepad.Showing on the screen was another one of the artist’s paintings.A Christ-like figure in a loincloth touted for business amongst a small group of male prostitutes on a city street corner.
Marcus tutted as he clicked through some further images.A nativity scene being raided by ICE agents.A re-take of the Last Supper, with Christ and his disciples round a roulette table.A voluptuous Virgin Mary in some kind of coin-operated funfair attraction, a small boy putting a nickel in the slot.
‘He’s not even making a point,’ Kate said.‘Maybe the nativity one is… I mean, it’s kind of saying, this is how this family would be treated if they showed up now.But the rest of it?It’s just trying to offend, isn’t it?Or maybe, at a stretch, it’s saying, these are the people Christ would have cared most about.’
‘They’re well executed though,’ Marcus said.‘The light, the tone… it’s like religious paintings from centuries ago.It seems like a… well, kind of a waste, y’know?To have all that skill, and just to waste it making cheap jokes.Not even jokes.One joke, over and over.’
Kate looked at him.There was a lot about her partner that she didn’t know.She’d never have imagined him to be an art enthusiast, for a start.
'The NYT ran a profile on him a couple of years back,' Marcus continued.'After he won a big prize.Apparently, it was a major scoop because he doesn't like being interviewed.'
'Well that's another way for the talentless to appear otherwise,' Kate said.Refuse to give interviews.Everyone thinks you're like this great enigma, when in fact, you've got nothing to say.'
She realised that she was being somewhat disrespectful about someone who had just lost their life in the nastiest way possible.The job could make you callous, sometimes. But you didn’t have to give into it.
‘I don’t know if he is talentless,’ Marcus said.‘Stuck on one point, maybe.But he’s got skill.I looked him up.He grew up in Baltimore.He was an altar-boy.Surprise, surprise.He… hold on, let me find it…’ Marcus clicked away from the artwork and onto another page.‘This is from an interview with theBaltimore Echo.He says he doesn’t seek controversy but he doesn’t shy away from it.He compares his work to Jesus knocking the tables over in the temple.Christ is actually one of his heroes, he says.He’s not a blasphemer, he thinks JC is cool.’
‘Go figure,’ Kate said.‘What do we know about that “controversy”? Any of it spill over into something stronger?’
Apparently, he was part of an exhibition a while back that attracted a crowd of protestors.And his agent called out the PD at one point.According to Chen, she'd received a regular stream of not-very-friendly letters, and then there was a guy hanging around outside her office.That was last year.And…' He searched for something else on the screen.'This is via Gillian Caitiff, the neighbor who found the body. 'At the last co-op meeting, eight weeks ago, Ashworth filed a motion to overturn the ban on CCTV. Wanted it installed in all the common areas.'
‘Because of threats?’Kate asked.
‘That seems likely.Gillian should be able to join the dots for us.By the way, she’s called New Gillian.’
‘New Gillian?’
Marcus shrugged. ‘Artists.Anyway, how about you, Vee?Any progress?’
Kate shook her head and glanced back at the bed, where her various notebooks, papers, and glossaries were scattered alongside her own laptop.Before Marcus had called her over, she'd been on the verge of falling asleep, just teetering at that point where her thoughts started to slow down and make far less sense.It was so unfair.At night, she knew she'd be not just awake but hyper-awake, brain churning like a food processor.Fast-forward to late afternoon, and it was a struggle to stay awake.
They'd asked Chen if they could borrow some desk space in the police precinct. But her captain had responded swiftly, with a very unequivocal no. It was probably for the best, she reminded herself.In their last case, some information had ended up in the hands of the press, and despite the indignant protestations of the local police chief, it had seemed pretty obvious where the leak came from.End result, for various reasons, Kate and Marcus were holed up in a pair of clean, but tired-looking rooms on 57thStreet, offering breakfast, laundry, and panoramic views of the nearby cemetery.
She returned to the bed, continuing to study photos of the clay figure that had been left with the body of the victim.It wasn’t uncommon, in many societies, ancient and still thriving, for people to be buried alongside small effigies.But they were generally put inside the grave for companionship and protection.Death was viewed as a journey, from one state to another, and the figures were meant to help the deceased along the way. It was hard to think of this tortured figure offering any help to anyone. Whether it was a gigantic mouth, mid-scream, or an eye transfixed at some hideous sight, or something else altogether, it seemed like an echo of the awful, brutal way in which Ashworth had died.Or a sign of what was coming next, in Hell.
What message was hidden there?And who was it for?
