MURDER IS SKIN DEEP by M.G. Cole (read dune .txt) 📕

Garrick hurried after Rebecca.

“I want to get back to me house!” Fraser roared after him. “I don’t want to be cooped up in this sty much longer!”

A five-star luxury sty, Garrick thought as he followed Rebecca across the drive to her parked hire car.

“Miss Ellis. DCI Garrick,” she didn’t look at his ID card, but her eyes flickered in recognition. “May I have a word?”

“I recognise you from the television. Some detective you are if you can’t even ensure my ex-husband is dead.”

“You came all the way over from Portugal just to shout at him?”

“I came because he is trying to screw me out of what is mine.”

“I thought everything had been decided in the divorce.”

“Not everything. Some things were best left aside. The house, for instance. To move things along, we had agreed that I get it if he dies before me, he gets the villa if I croak before him. I thought it was an amicable agreement. That way we could both hope the other would die soon.”

“It must be disappointing to think you were getting a nice house, then he spoils it all by not dying.”

Rebecca’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. There was no hint of sorrow there. “You understand my position.”

“But surely his remaining assets should go to his son?”

Rebecca’s eyes narrowed. “The boy isn’t even his. He’s as much a failure in the bedroom as he is elsewhere in life.”

“But she was the reason for your divorce. The paternity test–”

“The test showed nothing. We divorced because of the affair. Plain and simple.”

Garrick nodded sympathetically. “I understand. Do you mean his affair, or yours?”

A perfect eyebrow rose questioningly.

“Oscar Benjamin. The very man we are looking for. You have been living with him in Portugal. Mr Fraser cites him as the cause for your divorce.”

“Derek claims many things, doesn’t he? As for where Oscar is, I would like to know that for myself. I haven’t seen him since he came over here three weeks ago on business.”

“What business is that?”

“His own.”

“When did you last hear from him?”

She thought for a moment. “Perhaps two weeks ago. When he travels, we don’t often talk. That’s not uncommon when he’s busy.”

Garrick looked at the Hertz hire car. A small white Fiat Panda City Life. “How long are you planning to stay?”

“Not long. A short as possible.”

“And if we need to contact you?”

“You can call the same mobile you people have been using when I was home. Not that I can imagine we’ll have anything to say to one another.”

She opened the car to indicate the impromptu interview was over.

“One last thing, Miss Ellis. Is there anybody who would have a grudge against your husband?”

She laughed. “That is a long list. It would no doubt include you, too. You’ve met him. What do you think?”

She slammed the door closed and drove quickly away. Garrick turned back to the hotel and saw Fraser hurrying away from the doorway.

No matter how he angled his head, David Garrick was bewildered by the combination of shapes and colours on the painting. Any artistry or deeper meaning was so well hidden that he couldn’t see it. He’d thought that he’d been too harsh in his initial opinion about Hoy’s work, as people were obviously keen to throw money at it, but now looking at the two framed pieces on the wall, he was more convinced than ever that the artist must be a child.

“Not everyone gets good art,” Fraser growled as he took them down from his living room wall.

Garrick tried to bring Fraser onside by being magnanimous and allowed him to visit his home to retrieve a change of clothes and gather the few personal items he required. He warned Fraser that it was still a crime scene, so he would have to catalogue everything in and out. The first thing Fraser had done was to take the two valuable pieces of art from the wall.

“I just can’t see it,” Garrick admitted. “I suppose it’s a question of taste.”

Fraser held up one picture, alive with purple and green diagonal lines, and peppered with random yellow flecks.

“It’s a question of emotion,” he corrected Garrick. “Art isn’t about what’s easy on the eyes, it’s about how it stirs you. If this doesn’t elicit joy when you look it at, the taste of a Tuscan summer, the maybe you’re dead inside.”

Garrick couldn’t rule that out. He watched Fraser carefully place the paintings in a large battered brown leather carry case. These works were twice the size of the previous Hoys sold.”

“Why have you been holding these back from the market?”

“It’s all about timing, detective. You build people’s expectations. Let them simmer. When these go on the market, can you imagine the response?” He laughed greedily.

The broken patio had been boarded up with a plywood sheet and the glass shards removed.

Garrick glanced at the bloodstain on the carpet. “I imagine it may motivate somebody else to kill you.” That wiped the smile from the man’s face. “And it’s my job to see that doesn’t happen,” he added, remembering that he was trying to win him over. “So, talk me through the day you left here.”

“It was a normal day. Raining. Had some calls. I asked Mark, at the gallery, if there had been any interest in the two pieces down there. There was, but nobody was biting. I thought he had pushed the price way to high.”

“The last one sold for thirty thousand.”

Fraser bobbed his head, unimpressed. “Right. But maybe that was a fluke? We’d expected them to fly off the wall. We got a ton of interest but…” he shrugged.

“Then they sold for a fortune after you died.”

Fraser chuckled. “That’s good PR for you.” He became quiet as he recollected. Then I headed off to the retreat. Got the train.”

Through the doorway to the hall, Garrick noticed a keypad on the wall. “Did you put the alarm on?”

“Yes, I think so. I usually do.”

“But it hadn’t gone off. Who else has the code?”

Fraser shrugged. “I haven’t