Page 17 of The Dead Come to Stay

Hans did not understand heel . Or stay or stop or whoa . Pepper, on the other hand, refused the indignity of walking after a block and a half. Happily, their destination was in

sight: the Right Café, with its welcoming outdoor seating among potted ferns. It’s where she intended to meet Chen Benton-Li,

and she’d been reading about her the whole way.

The artist had been born in Newcastle to Chinese immigrants of modest means. Her father passed while she was still a child,

and she and her mum lived in the low-rent district. Chen had only intermittent education until her mother remarried; she first

entered public school at the age of thirteen, and announced publicly that she was a she . Assigned male at birth, Chen lived the rest of her life as a woman. Jo did the mental math; now seventy-one, Chen transitioned

in the ’60s following pioneers like April Ashley (who modeled for Vogue before being outed). Coming out of the closet was hard enough in the present; she imagined Chen must be made of stern stuff.

And, according to Jo’s research, her artwork was impeccable. Jo couldn’t wait to meet her—even if the prospect also gave her

new-people anxiety. The joys and woes of excito-terror.

“Can I come in with the dogs?” Jo asked at the front door. “I’m supposed to meet someone—we can sit outside.”

“No problem. Those are Arthur’s pups, aren’t they?” the server asked. “He’s here all the time.”

“Yes. I’m just walking them. To brunch.” That sounded especially odd, but then again, they weren’t even the only dogs inside

the place. Jo’s eyes adjusted to pick out a herding dog of some variety near the back—and the flutter of a hand in her peripheral

vision. The café was white: white walls, white tables, bamboo-colored chairs. But just beneath the stylized café name, a bright

mandala bloomed in teal and aquamarine. A jacket, Jo realized, with structured shoulders and a vanishingly thin waist. Tucked

into it and wearing a contrast of summer yellow was an elegant woman, gracefully poised. She held one hand aloft, supporting

a nickel-sized sapphire stone, and rolled her wrist to beckon.

“Wow,” Jo said before she could school herself not to.

“Pleased to meet you, too, child,” said Chen. Jo already knew Chen was native to Newcastle, but that she talked like Ann Cleeves’s

Vera Stanhope was both incongruous and delightful. “Shall we dine alfresco? It’s a rare thing.”

Jo nodded affirmative, and Hans registered his approval by circling Chen excitedly.

“Arthur wouldn’t leave his babies to just anyone, you know,” she said. “You must be very special.”

“Oh” was Jo’s so-cultured response. Think faster, please , she instructed her brain. “It’s really wonderful that you could see me,” she added as the server led them to the sun-soaked

beer garden.

“Of course. I adore Arthur. And besides,” Chen said, lowering magenta sunglasses and looking at Jo over the rim, “I’m interested.

You see, no one else knows .”

“About...?” Jo put Pepper down in the shadow of the table and tied off Hans’s leash.

Chen waited until she was settled. “Evelyn’s painting.”

“You—saw it? You were you at the estate?”

Chen smiled. “Oh. Hadn’t you guessed it was my work?”

Jo bit her lip. No, and yes. Dared to hope.

Chen went on. “Aiden invited me; he wanted my opinion about their origins. As I gather you already know, Evelyn’s is an Augustus

John. The other two paintings of his ancestors were not . Very strange mystery indeed. Evelyn’s painting was decent work, mind. But not expertly done.”

“So it’s all true. Aiden knew it was an Augustus John! I thought he must have. Was it hard to replicate?” Jo began. She wanted

to ask about the message on the torn photo, but the server was standing over her now. “Um, coffee?”

“Try the omelet, pet,” Chen suggested, then to the waitress, “I’ll have my usual,” then back to Jo, “Aiden had a small photo

on silver paper in a tiny gilt frame. Very helpful for the repair.”

Chen went on, pausing now and then to make quiet little hums—appreciative vibrations. It was oddly soothing.

“Aiden invited me to the Ardemore estate. He was sick then, and I rather younger and fitter. I worked right there, in the

library—was sorry to hear of its demise. Aiden sat in a wingback chair, blanket on his knees, and watched me paint.” She smiled

gently. “I’m glad I had the time with him. He supported me when it mattered. I was only too happy to return favors.”

The omelet had come, but Jo pushed the plate to one side.

“I want to know everything,” she said.

“Tut. You want to eat your breakfast is what, pet. There’s a girl. And then, you want to come to this.” Chen burrowed into

an oversize bag, half disappearing into its yawning mouth. She returned with a folded brochure. “It’s an exhibition.”

Jo looked at the title: Fractured Genius: Augustus John and the Slade School of Art . It started tomorrow, Tuesday, at the York Art Gallery. Jo lifted her eyes to Chen. “This is... interesting timing.”

“Oh, there’s always a show somewhere featuring the Slade pupils. It’s a celebrated bunch, and you’ll see the work of Derwent Lees and William Orpen. Even Augustus’s sister, Gwen.”

Jo nearly choked. Why was everyone called William and Gwen? Across from her, Chen put down her toast and jam.

“Join me,” she said.

“At the museum?”

“Quite. You want to know more about Aiden—you need to see the paintings. Consider it the price of admission.” She winked.

“Now, eat up. Those pups will want to be home again before it gets too warm.”

***

Chen wasn’t wrong about the temperatures; by the time Jo left the café, she’d started to sweat in earnest. On the street,

she saw summer shorts and preposterously white legs to prove how rare a day it was. And Pepper was having none of it. Looking

up the museum while carrying an inverted eight-pound dog was not improving the heat index. She retraced her steps at a clip

even Hans could appreciate, cutting across the park to one of the main streets... just in time to be honked at.

Loudly, Jo dropped her phone, managed not to drop the dog, and quite possibly her heart had exploded. The phone remained thankfully intact. Car horns should be banned. Any horn, frankly. Manic, random noisemakers.

Looking up, she did not see a cranky driver riding away as she’d expected. What she saw, instead, was a white butty van.

Not the same one, obviously. The one with a single window, dinged metal counter, out-of-date condiments—the one that delivered

a sizable bacon sandwich but on stale bread Gwilym complained about the whole way back. The one with a bejowled driver with

a thick Geordie accent.

Except, somehow, it was . Jo approached the window, dogs in tow.

“Hi, excuse me?” Jo asked. The man had been looking at his phone.

“Closed,” he said.

“Oh. I’m not ordering. I just had a question.” Jo was, in fact, trying to formulate a question just then, but it was hard

to know how to begin. Were you parked up at a murder scene yesterday? didn’t seem like a good opener; Have you seen the vanishing hiker? didn’t strike her as much better.

“Closed, I said.” He reached for the sliding glass door—and Jo did something drastic and more than a trifle embarrassing.

She blocked it with the bone-shaped dispenser for tiny dog-poo bags she’d been carrying around. That made him shove all the

harder, but he’d been thwarted by femoral knob.

“Please, I really just—”

“Look, ye nebby hinny, go off. We ain’t selling today.” With that, he wrenched loose the blockade, shut the window and put

up the official closed sign. Jo stared at it, wondering what had got into her lately. The van wasn’t her problem. The hiker

wasn’t, either. She had enough mystery women to track down without adding new ones to her repertoire.

And anyway, she needed to prepare for an art opening. She opened a text window and searched for Gwilym. It was time to divide

and conquer.

I need everything you can dig up on Augustus John.

The ellipsis of creation appeared immediately.

You’re the boss , he wrote.

***

When MacAdams and Green returned to Abington CID, Gridley and Andrews met them at the door.

“About our burner phone,” Andrews said, waving a sheaf of paper. “Guess what? Most of the calls go to another burner, or several—”

“Which you are also tracing,” MacAdams interrupted.

“Yes, sir. But we did get a bit of good news. The reports show a series of calls to a landline, every few weeks over the last

six months. The Abington Arms.”

That got MacAdams’s attention, and Green’s, too, he noted.

“Wait just a minute,” she said. “Arianna said he’d never called before, that she didn’t recognize the name.”

MacAdams responded by putting Arianna and Evans back on the incident board in the Active category.

“We’ll get them in for questioning. What about Sophie Wagner’s charity?”

Gridley hopped up from the table she’d been sitting on. “That checks out; cleared with Home Office and registered for community

sponsorship. Not as big an organization as something like Citizens UK, but they seem to have helped resettle a few dozen families.”

“Is that a lot?” Andrews asked.

Gridley picked up a marker. “You bet. It’s thousands of pounds per person. If—super conservatively—we say 5K per, that’s over

130,000 sterling.” She wrote that on the board. “But that’s not even the biggest part of it. There’s finding the right housing,

getting it approved, sorting the paperwork, job center training, language classes. That’s why it’s usually a communal effort.”

“And not usually attached to a country club,” MacAdams said.

“Fair,” Gridley agreed. “But even though Sophie started the Fresh Start charity, she has a board of directors. It’s not under

the business she operates; they just happen to be licensed for job placement. FYI, though. Burnhope is on the board. So is

Ava.”

Burnhope had said as much to MacAdams. Tight little family, they had there. Each standing in as supportive alibi for the rest.