Page 28 of Go Now
They'd searched the bedroom, the living room, and the kitchen, without finding anything of note.The decor was textbook Single Academic throughout: varnished floorboards, an heirloom rug, and an industrial quantity of books.The walls were bare, save for a couple of framed exhibition posters, one from Paris, another from Budapest.There was an upright piano, and an old hi-fi system, but no TV, while draped over the back of the battered leather sofa was an embroidered, pueblo-style blanket, rough to the touch.The only real surprise came from the bathroom, where they found two toothbrushes facing each other in the mug, like an arguing couple.
‘Do you live alone, Doctor?’Kate asked.
‘I have a…’ She hesitated before saying the word.‘I can’t call him a boyfriend.But I never know what word to use.He’s 53. He stays over sometimes.’
Kate nodded, looking in the medicine cabinet.
‘I suppose you think you’ve got me pegged now,’ Morrison went on, sharply.‘The lonely spinster.Waiting for the man who’ll never leave his wife.’
Kate looked at her.‘I’m not making any such assumptions, Dr Morrison. How often does your… friend stay over?’
‘Once, twice a week,’ she replied stiffly.‘His wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the age of 46.I’d appreciate it if you left him out of it.’
‘We certainly won’t trouble him unless we need to,’ Kate said, as they moved out of the bathroom. A floating staircase bisected the kitchen from the living space – more like a ladder, fixed to the floor. ‘May we go up?’
‘Why bother asking?’Morrison exclaimed.‘You’ll go anyway.’
‘I still consider it polite to ask,’ Kate said, refusing to be rattled.‘Is it safe up there?’
‘Perfectly safe.It’s my studio.’
Kate started to go up the ladder.Morrison followed behind her.
The studio was impressive, with three huge skylights; Kate could imagine how they'd flood the space with sunshine in the warmer months.It had to be like working in the clouds, or the next best thing.There was a substantial workbench with drawers underneath, a sink in the corner, a partition made of yet more overstuffed bookcases, and what looked like an electric kiln.Throughout the room, two smells vied with each other for supremacy: the sweet-sharp tang of varnish and the earthy, dusty odour of clay.
Kate picked up one of the tools from the table: it was a sharp-looking scalpel, covered in dried clay.On the shelves were more of the sculptures Marcus had photographed in Morrisson's office: a skull, a rat on its hind legs, a hand curled into a fist, and then, in stark contrast to the others, a distinctly happy-looking frog in a teacup.
‘How long have you been into this?’Kate asked.
‘Since I was a girl.I always liked how dirty it was.Girls are supposed to like watercolors, aren’t they?Sketching flowers in insipid bloody pastels.I just wanted to get up to my elbows in mud.’ She smiled, seeming to forget how annoyed she’d been at the search warrant, the intrusion, the questions. Kate almost didn’t want to spoil the mood.
‘Both of the recent murder victims were found with clay sculptures.Effigies, I guess you could call them.’
‘I didn’t know that.Do you have a picture you can show me?’
Kate obliged, handing her phone over. Morrison was expressionless as she looked at the photographs.She handed the phone back, again without giving any clue as to her inner state.
‘Whoever made them is considerably more talented than me.’
‘Why do you say that?I mean, apart from the obvious reason?’
Morrison almost smiled.‘The “obvious reason” being that I would be inclined to say that, in order to deflect any suspicion from myself, right?’
‘Exactly.’
'I say that because it's clear that the sculptor has made these pieces freehand from a single piece of clay. He or she knows their material so well that they can judge perfectly how much they'll need to create the image they've got in their mind's eye, and do so with perfect proportionality.'
‘How does that differ from your technique?’
‘I barely have a technique, Agent Valentine.But such as it is, I create each component separately and stick them together, sometimes using a wire scaffold for stability.As a result, my sculptures have visible joint marks, whereas these have none. Look –’
She handed the frog and tea-cup sculpture to Kate. What she’d said made sense: it was a composite figure, made of individual pieces stuck together.
‘If you were to x-ray these items left at the crime scenes, I’m certain you wouldn’t find any kind of underlying scaffold or frame. As a result, your killer’s statues – assuming it is the killer who makes them – have a living, breathing quality that I can only admire from afar.Although, I have to say, I wouldn’t want them anywhere near me.They’re deeply unsettling pieces.’
They agreed on that, at least, but Kate kept silent, weighing up everything the academic had just said.Was she telling the truth?She could have guessed, correctly, that someone like Kate knew very little about the topic, and might therefore swallow any plausible explanation.But then again, much of what she’d said was easily checkable.
‘What you say makes sense, Doctor Morrison.But I’m struggling with one detail.’
