Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear

home secretary Joyston-Hicks? Of course, but what has this to do with the younger brother?”
    “It’s one of them roundabout stories, Miss. You remember that when ’e was in government, Jix was the one who got the police going round to the clubs and closin’ ’em down? Right killjoy was that man, we’re better off without the likes of ’im.”
    “Billy…”
    “Well, turns out that one of the people old Jix ’ad it in for was Harry B-H. The boy might’ve been able to carry a tune with that trumpet of ’is, but ’e ’ad a reputation for carryin’ on with all sorts of people—you know, girls on the game. And ’e kept the villains entertained while they got up to no good at all. The press ’ad their eyes on ’im too, and ’e’d got a few mentions in the linens, you know, when the police’d raided a club on Jix’s orders.”
    Maisie was thoughtful. “Well, it’s funny you should say that, but I confess, since Miss B-H first mentioned him, I have had a sense that all was not well with the brother. I mean, as a family, they definitely sound a bit out of the ordinary, but there was a certain hesitation in her voice. Look into it again tomorrow. The club raids subsided as soon as Jix lost his position, so Harry might’ve been able to keep his job without having to move on. I want to know where he is, who he works for, who he consorts with and, if he’s on the edge of the underworld, so to speak, whether he’s in any trouble.”
    Billy nodded.
    “I think you might have to go back to see Levitt as well. I want to know the location of Nick’s lock-up and Levitt probably knows someone who can tell us, even if he doesn’t know it himself. An artist might be secretive about his work, but he’s also protective and would want there to be help available if there were a fire, for example—someone else may well have known the location of the lock-up, and I suspect that the major work that he wanted to hang is still there. Mind you, I am wondering what the arrangements were for its delivery to the gallery on the evening of his death—was it loaded on a lorry waiting for Nick B-H to drive it himself once the backdrop was ready? Or did he have drivers at the ready—and had they already left by the time he’d fallen? If so, then what did they do when they couldn’t gain access to the gallery?” Maisie had been staring out at the square, seeing only the closing hours of the dead man’s life, rather than the trees, people walking across the square or anything another onlooker might have noticed. She turned to Billy again. “There is much to gather, Billy. Let’s be ready to put our backs into the case again tomorrow.”
    Billy nodded, consulted his watch once more, then asked Maisie whether her second visit to the Tate had been fruitful.
    “Yes, I think it was. I wanted to find out more about the artist as a person, what character traits define someone who takes on that kind of work—”
    “Work?” Billy was frowning. “I can’t say as I would call that dabbling around with brushes and paints work . I mean, work is…is…’ard graft, ain’t it? None of this daubin’ business.”
    Maisie stood up, leaned back against the table and regarded Billy for what must have felt like an age to him, though it was only seconds. “I think you had better get what’s gnawing at you off your chest, because if there is one thing we cannot afford in our work, it’s jumping to conclusions about the moral worth of our clients. We must accept who they are and get on with it, putting our personal feelings and beliefs aside. Such opinions reflect prejudices, and we cannot allow smoke from our personal fires to prevent the vision that is crucial to our work.”
    Billy’s lips formed a tight line. He said nothing for some time, then blurted out his words, his face becoming red with anger. “It was when that man yesterday, you know, ’im at the Tate, was tellin’ us about that bloke who spent almost ’alf a