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courteous at all.”
    â€œBut he told you he was an artist?”
    â€œNo, of course not. I said I didn’t get past the door, but I could see past it, couldn’t I?”
    â€œSo what did you see?”
    â€œWell, artist’s equipment, of course. Easel, tubes of paint, palettes, pencils, charcoal sticks, old rags, stacks of canvas and paper, a lot of books. The place was a bloody mess, quite frankly, and it stank to high heaven.”
    â€œWhat of?”
    â€œI don’t know. Turpentine. Paint. Glue. Maybe he was a glue-sniffer? Have you thought of that?”
    â€œI hadn’t until now, but thank you very much for the idea. How long had he been living there?”
    â€œAbout six months. Since summer.”
    â€œEver see him before that?”
    â€œOnce or twice. He used to wander up and down the towpath with a sketchbook.”
    A local, perhaps, Banks thought, which might make it easier to find out something about him. Banks’s ex-wife Sandra used to work at the Eastvale Community Centre art gallery, and he still had a contact there. The idea of meeting up with Maria Phillips again had about as much appeal as a dinner date with Cilla Black, but she would probably be able to help. There wasn’t much Maria didn’t know about the local art scene, including the gossip. There was also Leslie Whitaker, who owned Eastvale’s only antiquarian bookshop, and who was a minor art dealer.
    â€œWhat else can you tell us about him?” he asked Hurst.
    â€œNothing. Hardly ever saw him after that. Must have been in his cabin painting away. Lost in his own world, that one. Or on drugs. But you’d expect that from an artist, wouldn’t you? I don’t know what kind of rubbish he painted. In my opinion, just about all modern—”
    Banks noticed Annie roll her eyes and sniffle before turning the page in her notebook. “We know his first name was Tom,” Banks said, “but do you know his surname?”
    Hurst was clearly not pleased at being interrupted in his critical assessment of modern art. “No,” he said.
    â€œDo you happen to know who owns the boats?”
    â€œNo idea,” said Hurst. “But someone should have fixed them up. They weren’t completely beyond repair, you know. It’s a crying shame, leaving them like that.”
    â€œSo why didn’t the owner do something?”
    â€œShort of money, I should imagine.”
    â€œThen he could have sold them,” said Banks. “There must be money in canal boats these days. They’re very popular with the holiday crowd.”
    â€œEven so,” said Hurst, “whoever bought them would have had to go to a great deal of extra expense to make them appeal to tourists. They were horse-drawn boats, you see, and there’s not much call for them these days. He’d have had to install engines, central heating, electricity, running water. Costly business. Tourists might enjoy boating along the canals, but they like to do it in comfort.”
    â€œLet’s get back to Tom, the artist,” said Banks. “Did you ever see any of his work?”
    â€œLike I said, it’s all rubbish, isn’t it, this modern art? Damien Hirst and all that crap. I mean, take that Turner Prize—”
    â€œEven so,” Annie interjected, “some people are willing to pay a fortune for rubbish. Did you actually see any of his paintings? It might help us find out who he was, if we can get some sense of the sort of thing he produced.”
    â€œWell, there’s no accounting for taste, is there? But no, I didn’t actually see any of them. The easel was empty when I paid my visit. Maybe he was some sort of eccentric. The tortured genius. Maybe he kept a fortune under his mattress and someone killed him for it?”
    â€œWhat makes you think he was killed?” Banks asked.
    â€œI don’t. I was just tossing out ideas, that’s