[Poppy Denby 05] - The Art Fiasco

by Fiona Veitch Smith

  Sherman leaned back in his seat. He adopted a weary air. “You know he is. But why shouldn’t I speak to him? Agnes wasn’t there and I didn’t have time on my London trip to drop by again. My train was leaving two hours later.”

  “Didn’t you telephone ahead to see if she were in and prepared to receive visitors?”

  Sherman shrugged. “I didn’t think to. It was a spur of the moment thing.”

  “And was buying the paintings spur of the moment?”

  “It was. But I had been wanting to buy some anyway. So I took the chance when I saw them.”

  “And you still contend that you paid money for these paintings?”

  “I do.”

  “What if I were to tell you that the Metropolitan Police have found evidence in Agnes’ studio to suggest that you were attempting to blackmail Gus North? That you demanded he bring these paintings in return for your silence?”

  “I would say you should produce this evidence,” said Sherman’s solicitor.

  Sandy flattened his lips into an approximation of a smile. “Oh I shall, at the right time. Come, Mr Sherman, I asked you a question: did you or did you not demand these paintings in return for your silence about some unlawful activity you believed Mr North to be involved in?”

  “I did not. As I said, I bought these paintings in good faith as valuable additions to the Laing’s collection. I don’t know what ‘unlawful activity’ Gus was involved in. That’s all news to me. But it doesn’t surprise me. As I said, he’s a heavy drinker and is known for getting into scrapes. He’s also run up a lot of gambling debts…”

  Sandy did not respond to the accusations about Gus and allowed silence to fall again. Then he pushed the Lilies in a Vase photo closer to Sherman. “So, to clarify – you bought this very painting?”

  A slight smile played on Sherman’s lips. “You know I did. That’s the painting that’s hanging in the gallery. And this is a photograph of it.”

  “But I’ve been told by someone who attended the exhibition that the paint is still tacky. I’m no expert, but that suggests to me that it’s only recently been painted. Professor Reid and Gerald Farmer both confirmed my observation. This picture could only have been painted early September at the earliest. But more likely, according to Professor Reid, the second or third week in September. Only two weeks ago… and you were in London when…”

  “You know when I was in London,” Sherman snapped.

  “I do indeed. The thirteenth of August. So this isn’t the exact painting you saw when you visited Agnes’ studio, is it?”

  Sherman’s solicitor flicked a warning glance at his client. But Sherman remained calm.

  “DI Hawkes, if you had truly done your homework you would know that Agnes painted a number of versions of that painting. It was one of her recurring themes. As it turned out, the one I saw in August was sold to someone else. This one was painted as a replacement.”

  Sandy raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m glad you finally got one of them, after all these months of trying to buy one and being turned down.”

  “Turned down? No one turned me down. There was just a short delay, that’s all.”

  “Are you telling me a nun is lying?”

  A look of shock came over Sherman’s face but was swiftly subdued. He leaned forward and answered in an admirably calm voice: “A nun? Whatever are you talking about, Inspector?”

  “Sister Henrietta. She runs a home for young women in distress in Gosforth. St Hilda’s. But you know that already. You visited her over the summer, wanted to know about Agnes’ time there when she was pregnant, and then tried to buy a version of this painting from her. Now why would you do that?”

  The solicitor cleared his throat. “This has nothing to do with the charge at hand, Inspector.”

  “Doesn’t it? It shows your client had been trying to buy this painting – or a version of it – for some time before he procured it from Gus North under what the Metropolitan Police tell me were potentially extortionate means. I – and no doubt the King’s Counsel if this goes to trial – will see it as an indication that Mr Sherman was interested in more than just any old Agnes Robson painting. He was interested in paintings that reflected a difficult period in her life – when she became pregnant and had to leave her home. Now why would you be interested in that, Mr Sherman?”

  “I’ve told you, Lilies in a Vase is a quintessential Agnes Robson theme. I would be remiss not to get one for the gallery. It would be like me not getting a Constable depicting a pastoral scene.” He smirked, challenging Sandy to contradict him.

  “Well, I don’t know much about art, but I do know that you appear to have been doing the rounds, trying to dig up dirt on Agnes Robson.”

  Sherman laughed disdainfully. “Digging up dirt? Asking to buy a painting from a nun and trying to get a bit of background information from her for our exhibition programme notes is hardly digging up dirt.”

  “No? Then what about travelling to Ashington to visit the sweet shop right next to the railway line where this second picture was painted? Why would you do that, Mr Sherman, and why would you ask the shopkeeper to share any gossip she had on Agnes? Particularly about the time she became pregnant? And what about the rumours that the baby was sired by your father, Michael Brownley? Who, according to Professor Reid, also painted naked children.”

  Into the stunned silence, Sandy produced the photograph of the nude painting of Agnes at fourteen and slapped it on the desk between them. “Do you recognize this painting, Mr Sherman? I am reliably informed it is one of your father’s.”

  Sherman paled. “I – well – I –”

  “You do not have to answer that, Dante.”

  “If he doesn’t,” Sandy nodded to the stenographer, “then it will go down that the subject refused to answer.”

  “May I remind you, DI Hawkes, that my client does not have to answer any questions that might lead to self-incrimination.”

  “Oh aye? So you’re admitting there is something to incriminate then?”

  The solicitor leaned over the table. “No Hawkes, I am not. I am just doing my job and preventing my client from saying anything that might be twisted and used against him unfairly.”

  “In that case, then, you should not object to providing a writing sample. We asked your client for one a few days ago but he has not yet complied. Now why is that?”

  “Because, DI Hawkes, as we told Mrs Rolandson, providing it would suggest that our client was under suspicion of something.”

  “He is under suspicion of something.” Sandy pushed a sheet of paper and a fountain pen across the table. “So, Mr Sherman, in order to clear your name of all this suspicion, why don’t you write us a little note. ‘Mary had a little lamb’ should do it. Or something more highbrow if you prefer. Oh, and please also write ‘Stay away’.”

  “Stay away? Why should he write that?” demanded the solicitor.

  “Will you write it or will you not, Mr Sherman? Be assured that refusing to do so will go down in the interview record.”

  “You don’t have to do it, Dante.”

  Sherman shook his head. “That’s all right, James. I will.” He picked up the pen, leaned over, and wrote for a few moments. When he’d finished he passed the sheet to Sandy.

  Sandy picked it up, read it, then opened his file again, raising the cover so neither Sherman and his solicitor, nor for that matter Poppy and Yasmin, could see what he was looking at. He eventually closed the file and straightened it on the table in front of him.

  “Thank you, Mr Sherman. That was not hard to do, was it? You are free to go for now, but do not leave town. I will need to talk to you again.”

  Sherman looked at his solicitor, who nodded. “That’s fine. But make sure you have proper reason to do so – backed up by evidence a judge considers pertinent, not hearsay and gossip – or I shall be laying a charge of police harassment.”

  Sandy smiled, the conviviality not reflected in his eyes. “You do that.”

  Sherma
n and his solicitor left the room. Sandy looked towards the two-way mirror and nodded. A few moments later he was at the door of the viewing room.

  “Good job, DI Hawkes,” said Yasmin.

  “Thank you, Mrs Rolandson, but we have a way to go yet.”

  “How’s that?” asked Poppy.

  Sandy looked at the two women ruefully. “Because, unfortunately, Sherman’s handwriting did not match that of the person who wrote the threatening note to Poppy’s mother. Nor who inscribed the message on the back of the photograph of Agnes as a girl.”

  “Oh bother,” said Poppy.

  “Quite,” said Yazzie.

  CHAPTER 27

  Rollo Rolandson walked into the foyer of the Grand Hotel and consciously deposited his domestic cares along with his coat and hat in the cloakroom. He adored being a father, but by Jove, it was harder work than he’d ever imagined. Being a first-time father at fifty was not for the faint-hearted. He had to admit that when Yazzie had announced she was pregnant, he had assumed she was joking. He had married her when she was forty-two when she was an already well-established career woman. They had been sleeping together on and off for years, so all that happened after the wedding was that Rollo moved into her luxurious flat in Mayfair on a more permanent basis. But their lives continued much as they had done before. They both worked and loved their jobs, and he had kept his rooms near Fleet Street for when he was doing an all-nighter at the paper – or having a lucky run of poker at the club. But when she had convinced him that she was not, in fact, in jest, and after he had digested the news with a large whiskey, he had warmed to the idea, imagining the fun he could have with the kid on his days off.

  Yazzie announced early on that she would be going back to work after her confinement – he expected nothing else – and they agreed that on their substantial joint income they could more than afford a nanny or two to help out. His fantasy was only slightly disturbed when it was announced that there would be two little Rolandsons, and only just a bit more when his wife almost doubled in size. His fantasy also survived Yazzie’s mood swings – so uncharacteristic of the woman he had married – although it took a bit more of a knock with her new-found aversion to sex.

  But then reality hit with a bang. A double bang. Despite having two full-time nannies, a cook, a butler, and a maid, the Rolandson household had been chaos for the last fourteen months. Sometimes joyful chaos, sometimes scream-into-the-pillow-at-night chaos, but always chaos. And Rollo, if he were perfectly honest, wasn’t quite sure how he’d survive it. So he took every opportunity he could to escape – just for a while. And this was one of those opportunities. He had hoped he would be much busier than he had been following the story of Agnes Robson’s murder, which was why he had insisted on coming up to Newcastle instead of staying home in London with the children. But there wasn’t actually that much to do here. Yasmin was taking centre stage. He realized that that was as it should be – she was Grace’s lawyer – but it still irked him. He was a news hound and if he didn’t have the chance to follow a scent he would soon start howling at the moon.

  So he crossed the foyer of the Grand Hotel with a self-confident swagger, ignoring, as he always did, the stares of people who weren’t used to seeing dwarfs outside of the circus. At the reception desk he asked if Gerald Farmer and Gus North were in and was told the gentlemen were in the bar having a drink. Dandy! He would be glad of a stiff whiskey.

  Rollo spotted Gus and Gerald in a high-backed booth at the far end of the room. He ordered his whiskey – a double – and made his way towards them. One of the advantages to being only four-and-a-half feet tall was that he was not easily spotted above the clutter of tall chair backs. Of course, sometimes this was a disadvantage, but not today. Gus and Gerald, their heads bowed, did not see him approach, and as he got into earshot he heard Gerald say: “For heaven’s sake, Gus, you can’t just run. They’ll think you’re guilty.”

  Then Gus answering with his not-properly-formed, but still recognizable, words: “But I am guilty. We both are.”

  Rollo, stunned at what he was hearing, slipped into a nearby booth, not wanting to interrupt the confessional flow. He noted that there were no other customers at this side of the room – no doubt why the two men felt able to talk so freely.

  “Look Gerald, the only reason I came back was to convince you to come with me. Will you?”

  “I don’t think it’s wise, my boy, I really don’t.”

  “They will arrest us!”

  “They haven’t yet…”

  “Then that’s our chance to leave. I’ve been checking out the ferries to Amsterdam. There’s one leaving tomorrow morning. We can check out of here, book in somewhere near the Port of Tyne under assumed names, and be at the ferry first thing.”

  “I am not going with you to Amsterdam, Gus.”

  “For Pete’s sake, why?”

  “Because I think we have a chance to clear our names. What we did wasn’t so bad, was it? In fact, I don’t think charges can even be laid against us, now that Agnes is dead.”

  “We committed fraud, Gerald. I produced paintings, pretending to be Agnes, and you sold them under her name.”

  “I only suggested doing it that time when we had the order from Buenos Aires and Agnes was in one of her moods, unable to work, unable to deliver. How I hated those moods of hers. It was so hard to run a business like that – when you couldn’t guarantee to buyers they’d get what they ordered.”

  “She was an artist, not a production line, Gerald.”

  Rollo took a sip of his whiskey and swilled it round in his mouth. He would have lit a cigar, but the smell would alert Gus and Gerald to his presence. This was interesting, very interesting…

  Gus continued: “Besides, it wasn’t just that one time. You know it wasn’t. And you said yourself, that copper has been asking you about Lilies and The Railway Family.”

  “Oh my boy, it was those paintings that got us into trouble in the first place! Why, for heaven’s sake, did you let Sherman pressure you into bringing them up? And why, now that I think of it, did you try to slip The Railway Family into the Tate exhibition?”

  “I didn’t try to slip it in. Agnes chose it.”

  “So you say.”

  “Are you calling me a liar, Gerald?”

  Rollo heard Gerald take a deep breath, then emit a rattling sigh. He imagined the large man’s chins wobbling as he did so. “No Gus, I’m not. I just think perhaps you might have made an error of judgment, that’s all.”

  “An error of judgment? And that from the man who asked me to forge his client’s paintings?”

  “Touché, Gus, touché. But I still can’t believe Agnes submitted that painting herself, knowing that only half of it was hers. Did she tell you why she’d done it?”

  It was Gus’ turn to sigh. “She did, yes. She came in one day when I was doing some of my own painting. The railway line was one of her abandoned canvases. You know how she would do that. Start something then change her mind. She’d asked me to get rid of it. But I didn’t. There was something that drew me into that painting. So I decided to finish it.”

  “Why the mother and child?”

  There was silence. Then Gerald replied: “Oh I see.”

  Damn. Rollo wondered if Gus had slipped into sign language. If he had, that would be pretty much the end of his eavesdropping. But to his relief, after a few moments, he heard Gus speak again. “She said she loved it. She wasn’t angry with me at all. She said that I had finished the sentence she had started. That she hadn’t known how to complete it. She was… well… she started crying, Gerald.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “I don’t know. But it was her decision to submit it for the Tate exhibition. I told her then that if she did she should acknowledge that it was only partly hers.”

  “I wish she’d listened to you.”

  “So do I. And I wish I’d insisted. But she told me that she didn’t want to muddy my name with hers. She told me that she believed in my
talent and wanted to help me launch my own career. She said I should produce a couple of dozen originals and when I was ready to let her know she’d see about helping me get my own exhibition. Or joining in with one of those ‘new talent’ shows her friend Roger Fry arranged. So I backed down.”

  “Yes, Roger would do wonders for you. I hope he still will. He helped launch Agnes’ career, you know.”

  “Yes, she told me.”

  There was silence again. Rollo drummed his fingers against the whiskey tumbler. How he wished he could nudge the conversation in the direction he needed it to go.

  “So…” said Gerald eventually. “Have you changed your mind about leaving? I really think we could explain all this, you know. The police don’t know anything about the Buenos Aires painting. It’s just the lilies and the railway one. And you have an explanation for that.”

  “But not for the lilies. I painted that one for Sherman when he asked for it because I knew Agnes wouldn’t be up to it.”

  “You still haven’t explained why he asked for it.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Don’t you think you should? Particularly if you want me to leave the country with you. What is it you’re running from, Gus?”

  Another deep sigh from the younger man. “Sherman knows about the Buenos Aires painting. And the other one I did for that dealer in Leeds.”

  “Oh Lordy! I’d forgotten about the Leeds one.” A bang on the table clattered glasses and startled Rollo.

  “You’re not telling me he knows about both those paintings?”

  Silence.

  “Oh dear God. How?”

  Silence.

  “What the hell was he doing searching my office? How did he get in?”

  Silence.

  “All right, so he has threatened to expose us? Why didn’t you tell me, Gus?”

  Silence.

  “Oh my boy, bless you. Bless your kind and loving heart. But you really should have told me. We could have dealt with Sherman together, instead of you having to suffer under his blackmail. What did the swine want with those two paintings anyway?”