I Came to Find a Girl by Jaq Hazell Page A

way?”
    “Yes, but only mildly, it was a shock.”
    “She’d just got back from holiday; surely she would have been feeling relaxed?” the bald officer says.
    “I don’t know about that.”
    “When was the last time you saw Angela Fields?”
    “It’s been a few months since we split.”
    “Can you tell us what you were doing the night of Wednesday 25 May?”
    “It was the eve of my show, the night before the private view. I was in Nottingham, staying at the Merchant’s House Hotel. Here, I’ve got their card.”

    Interior, Flood’s studio: Flood is at the breakfast bar while behind him a young woman in her early twenties with black hair in a tight ponytail wipes down the sealed concrete work surfaces. It is the same woman who made coffee for the policemen.
    “Have you seen this, Rita?” Flood asks, as she sprays cleaning fluid into the sink. He holds up a newspaper cutting.
    Rita holds up her wet Marigolds and peers at the paper. “Why are they dressed like that?” she asks.
    “It’s a forensic team; they have to wear overalls.”
    “Where are they?”
    “It could be anywhere, but it’s Glasgow, Scotland.”
    She wipes at her brow with the back of her gloved hand. “Why you cut that out? You are interested in strange things.”
    “It could be anywhere – just your average 1930s semi, looks like so many streets in Britain. That’s what attracted Damian Hirst.”
    “Damian Hirst?”
    “You know – shark – you must have heard of him.”
    “Oh, you mean the shark in a big tank?”
    “Yeah that’s right, pickled.”
    “I have seen a picture of that.”
    “Imagine raking over the putrid remains of the dead for a living?” Flood shakes his head. “Do you think anyone goes to their school careers adviser and mentions that?”
    Rita wipes down the cupboard doors. “What does it have to do with Damian Hirst?” she asks.
    “At first glance it’s just another suburban murder, probably domestic, and yet it could have been something else, something special, because Damien Hirst took an interest. He was having a photorealism phase, ripping pictures out of papers and magazines and getting his team of assistants to phone around for permission to reproduce them as photorealist paintings. Only the grieving family of this particular victim objected.”
    “That is their right,” Rita says. “I would not be happy.”

    “This is BBC News 24 with the headlines at five.”

    They both look at the TV mounted on a shelf in the corner.

    “As police release details of the woman murdered in Nottingham last week, another body is found. Loretta Peters was a forty-year-old mother of two...”

    Flood approaches the TV. “Loretta? What sort of a name is that? I bet she got that from her job at the lap-dancing bar.”
    “You know her?”
    “Where is she in that photo? She’s too tanned, like a frankfurter.”
    “It is an old photo I think.”
    “These girls, they look like they’ve been working the fields, like peasants out of a painting by Millet – turnip pickers.”
    “You are critical man.” Rita sprays Mr Sheen across a cabinet.
    “Skin should be pale.”
    Rita pauses at Flood’s work area. She has a yellow duster in one hand, furniture polish in the other. “What you want me to do? It is difficult to dust your home right now. There are many things. Should I move, clean, and put back?”
    “No, don’t move a thing – you’ll have to work round it.” He lounges back in his calico-covered armchair.
    “You artists...” She shakes her head.
    “You clean for other artists?”
    “I do for one other but there are many round here, I think.”
    “Who else do you clean for?”
    “I should not say.”
    “You have to tell me now you’ve mentioned it.”
    “You have that camera on. I don’t like...”
    “Don’t worry about that, it’s only for me...”
    “I let you guess. She is untidy also – messier than you.”
    “I dunno, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas – Paula Rego?”
    “It best I