The Tropical Issue: Dolly and the Bird of Paradise

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Copyright & Information

  Tropical Issue

  First published in 1983

  © Estate of Dorothy Dunnett; House of Stratus 1983-2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of Dorothy Dunnett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2012 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

  Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  ISBN: 0755131606 EAN 9780755131600

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  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  The Dorothy Dunnett Society can be contacted via http://dorothydunnett.org

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  Dorothy, Lady Dunnett, was born in Dunfermline, Scotland in 1923, the only daughter of an engineer, Alexander Halliday, and his wife Dorothy. Whilst gifted academically and musically, she was not encouraged to further her talents by attending university, and instead joined the civil service in Scotland as an assistant press officer. In 1946, she married Alastair Dunnett, who was at the time the chief press officer to the Secretary of State for Scotland. He went on to become editor of The Scotsman newspaper, whilst she later worked on a statistics handbook for the Board of Trade.

  After a brief spell in Glasgow, the couple settled in Edinburgh where their home became a centre for hospitality and entertaining, mostly in support of Scottish art and culture. Dunnett had also taken evening classes at the Edinburgh College of Art and the Glasgow School of Art, and from 1950 onwards she established a prominent career as a portrait painter, being exhibited at both the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy. She was also an accomplished sculptress.

  Her interest in writing developed during the 1950’s. Her own tastes took her to historical novels and it was her husband who eventually suggested she write one of her own, after she had complained of running out of reading material. The result was The Game of Kings, an account of political and military turmoil in sixteenth-century Scotland. Whilst turned down for publication in the UK, it was eventually published in the USA where it became an instant best seller. Other titles, such as the Lymond Chronicles and House of Niccolo series followed and which established her international reputation.

  She also successfully turned her hand to crime, with the Johnson Johnson series. He is an eccentric artist, famous for bifocals, and of course amateur detective. All of the titles in the series somehow also feature the yacht ‘Dolly’, despite ranging widely in location from Scotland, to Ibiza, Rome, Marrakesh, Canada, Yugoslavia, Madeira and The Bahamas. There is plenty of sailing lore for the enthusiast, but not so much it detracts from the stories genre; crime. Each of them is told by a woman whose profession explains her role in the mystery and we learn very little about Johnson himself, save for the fact he is somewhat dishevelled in appearance.

  Dorothy Dunnett somehow fitted in her many careers and voluntary work, along with supporting her husband’s endeavours, yet still found the time to correspond widely with her readers from all over the world, and was often delighted to meet with them personally. She held the rare distinction of having a Dorothy Dunnett Readers’ Association formed during her lifetime and collaborated with it as much as possible. A writer who has been described as one of great wit, charm, and humanity, yet whose work displayed toughness, precision, and humour, she was appointed to an OBE in 1992 for services to literature and became Lady Dunnett in 1995 when her husband was knighted. She died in 2001, being survived by her two sons; Ninian and Mungo.

  Chapter 1

  To most of my clients, bifocal glasses are asthma. All those words are spelled correctly. I looked them up.

  Whether they’re in show business or not, most people want to look good, and it’s part of my job to help them.

  I can make people look terrible, too, if I have to. I am, you might say, in the conversion business.

  A few top names don’t care what they look like at home, or even in public. Johnson is one of that lot.

  Johnson wears bifocal glasses. I’m speaking of Johnson the portrait painter. You wouldn’t think Rita Geddes and Johnson had much in common, except that we both paint, in our way, people’s faces.

  Wait till I tell you.

  The day I met him is fairly easy to remember, because I spent the night in his apartment. In his Mayfair apartment, which he had loaned to a photographer pal who wanted the use of his studio.

  The photographer pal was Ferdy Braithwaite. He needed the studio for a photo session with a rich American client. And I had to meet Ferdy there, to fix the client’s face for the photos.

  I worked quite a lot with Ferdy Braithwaite. Between us, we made brides look contented and fiancées and graduates pure. When, instead of retiring, he decided to diversify into film shorts, I helped him with screen make-up too.

  The camera never lies. Ferdy’s Leica will end up in Heaven, but it’s the bad fire for him and me and Max Factor.

  King Ferdy, the photographer with the most subjects. And the most money. And the fastest turnover in crumpet. I called him Ferdy, and he called me Rita.

  Behind my back, he called me his Scotch Bird of Paradise. Considering the fees that I charged him, I wasn’t bothered.

  I have been in Mayfair, London, before, on jobs for photographers. The penthouse flat of Ferdy’s pal Johnson was in shopping-trolley distance of Asprey’s, Sotheby’s, Hermes, and four shops selling Persian carpets whose names I am not going to look up.

  To get into this apartment block, you have to pass a pair of round trees, two lots of armoured plate glass, and a doorkeeper three feet higher than I am, who said, ‘Now then. You don’t want to come in ‘ere, do you?’

  ‘I’m not desperate,’ I said. ‘But business is business. Seventeen b? Mr Johnson’s studio flat?’

  ‘Business?’ said the doorkeeper. He followed me through the inner glass doors and into a marble foyer full of contract plants, looking hard at this case I was holding.

  ‘Goin’ fishing then, are you?’

  A security man looked up from behind a counter. The doorkeeper said, ‘This little lady’s bro
ught a fishing-tackle case to do business with 17b. I think we might just take a look at it.’

  ‘I think,’ I said, ‘that you might just phone 17b and say Miss Geddes is here to see Mr Braithwaite.’

  The security man put his newspaper down, and the doorkeeper leaned on the counter. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. He looked at his chum. ‘She’s goin’ fishing with Ferdy.’

  Beginning with my hair, the security man’s eyeballs were punting all over me. It must have been dead dull that morning. Then he pushed his chair back and got up, which made it official.

  He said, ‘Have to be Ferdy’s date, wouldn’t it? She’s not givin’ Johnson a whirl after that plane crash an’ all, unless she gives ‘im a ride in ‘is wheelchair. Goin’ to cheer ‘em up, darlin’?’

  He held a hand out, and the doorkeeper whipped my case neatly out of my fingers and laid it flat on the desk.

  Until he did that, I was quite interested in what he was saying about Ferdy’s pal Johnson and some plane crash.

  I never read newspapers, but I know what’s going on. I never miss a news broadcast or the share prices reports. My mother’s two-storey house with double garage has a radio in every room, and three television sets and a video.

  As the doorman grabbed my case, I said, ‘Hang on. Is the man in 17b the same as Johnson the painter?’

  One of the best-known international figures in the field of portrait painting, the announcer had said. Sole survivor of a private plane crash on the Continent.

  The security man was dialling 17b. ‘Thought you knew Mr Johnson,’ he said reproachfully. He spoke into the phone and replaced it. He said, ‘All right. Let’s see inside this one.’

  I stared at him. ‘Did you speak to 17b just now?’

  ‘Come on,’ he said. He tapped the case. ‘Rule of the ‘ouse.’

  Rule of the house, nothing. I’m all for security, but this was plain bloody nosiness.

  I looked at the doorkeeper. ‘You’ve checked me out,’ I said. ‘I don’t have to show you anything.’

  The doorkeeper was feeling great. ‘Cheer old Johnson up, won’t she?’ he said. ‘Fairly jump out of ‘is nightshirt, ‘e will. What’s in the case, then? Whips and handcuffs?’

  ‘Blood,’ I said sourly. ‘I’ve come straight from the mortuary.’

  I can cope with aggro. I can cope with most things. You get fed up with it.

  I took the case by the handle. I said, ‘You open it, you pay for it.’

  I am four feet eleven inches high, but I could tell without cricking my neck that they were leering.

  The doorkeeper jerked the case forward. The security man banged the catch and flipped the lid back. They peered inside together.

  That way the blood got them both. A jet of Dark up the security man’s nostrils and all down his collar and uniform front. A jet of Standard circling the doorkeeper’s cap and then sprinkling his suit like a crop sprayer.

  A kinky pal fixed up the tubes for me. The release catch is in the case handle. I only flip it if I’m annoyed. The stuff inside is protected by polythene.

  I shut the box and whipped it off the desk while the two yobs were still snorting and groaning; dabbing their faces and starting to claw their bloody clothes off.

  It looked like a clip from Hammer Films. It had given their day a real buzz. I hoped they were grateful, but I didn’t stay to make sure. I just got to the lift before they did.

  I wasn’t sorry. They were wrong, and I’d warned them. If they complained, Ferdy would fix them. And if he didn’t, I could take care of myself.

  I pressed the button for flat 17b and, while the lift rose, I checked out my hair and my lashes and my earrings.

  The mirrors didn’t crack or anything.

  Just before the lift stopped, I took out my lipstick and wrote BLOOD on the glass, just to needle the Hit Squad when they found it.

  Or, if you want the truth, I wrote BLUD. You can’t take a dictionary everywhere.

  The door to flat 17b was opened by a pretty woman in a white service coat and fading make-up over an anxious expression.

  She changed it to a nice smile, and asked me in, as if she saw me every day. ‘Mr Braithwaite won’t be a moment. I’m just making you both some fresh coffee.’

  She glanced at my case as I walked through, but didn’t mention it. She said, ‘I’m Mr Johnson’s housekeeper. Would you like to take anything off?’

  For Ferdy, I’d put on a grey knitted shawl over a grey quilted jacket over a grey Fair Isle Navajo waistcoat over a woollen shirt and gauchos and legwarmers. And gloves.

  I was hot.

  I took off the shawl and the gloves and the jacket in a double bedroom which was full of new furniture like a hotel room. I checked out the bathroom, and put my case in it. Then the woman took me to the studio.

  The apartment was big. The tiled hall was covered with rugs from one or other of the four carpet shops, and had tasteful pillars with sculpture on them. There were more boxes of contract plants. There were gilt wall lights with glass earrings everywhere.

  There was also a wheelchair, for God’s sake, outside one of the bedrooms. And from inside, the rattle of clinical snoring.

  The owner of the flat was still in it.

  I hadn’t been warned. Good old Ferdy.

  Ahead, the owner’s housekeeper was opening the door of the studio. A lot of daylight came out. I went in. The studio itself seemed to be empty. Mr Braithwaite was still just coming.

  I thought of the complaints coming up from below, and made my number with the housekeeper, quickly.

  ‘I hope,’ I said, ‘that Mr Johnson is keeping better? It must have been a terrible crash.’

  She stood in the doorway, her hands clasped together. ‘He’s very much improved, thank you,’ she said. ‘It will be a long business, of course. But he’s making great strides now, considering.’

  She said it as if she had had to tack it on the gates for a week, and five doctors had signed it. Then a phone rang in three different rooms and she excused herself. A moment later I heard her reeling off the same answer.

  Between then and the time she brought coffee, in bone china with bluebirds on it, I counted two more calls and a ring at the doorbell. Whatever he paid her, Johnson’s housekeeper was earning her salary.

  I also had a good look at the studio.

  The crippled pal Johnson was rich. The walls were all done in watered silk wallpaper, and there were fancy tables with marble tops and flower arrangements; and silk lampshades everywhere held up by Chinese ladies selling kippers.

  There were a lot of expensive mirrors, a sort of enamelled screen, and a grand piano. The piano was groaning with shiny boxes of tantalised fruit, a stack of new hardcover novels and eight flowering plants, two of them still in their tissue.

  In the middle of the polished floor, the rugs had been rolled back to make way for Ferdy’s lighting gear, with coils of cable lying everywhere; and the easy chairs and the sofas had all been pushed to the walls except for a fat two-seater meant, I could see, for the client.

  The north wall and half the ceiling were made out of glass, providing cut-price light for artists and cameramen. There was no sign of any painting equipment.

  A balcony ran along half the back of the apartment, and the view was great. You could see Midas and Selfridge’s and the queue outside the American Embassy, and people blowing whistles all round Claridge’s.

  I wondered what Ferdy was paying Johnson for the use of his studio, and hoped it was less than Mrs Natalie Sheridan was paying Ferdy for photographing her. I was spooning the last of the sugar into my third coffee when a door opened somewhere, and I heard footsteps and a voice, and there on the studio threshold was Ferdy, with his arms stretched out sideways like Jesus.

  ‘Rita! My gorgeous Toucan!’ he bellowed.

  I just managed to put the bluebirds down and get up, before I was lifted out of my legwarmers, and crushed against all the silk neck-scarf and cashmere.

  Ferdy’s tongue in your
mouth was a bit like a doormat dipped time about in brandy and nicotine. Ferdy was great for kissing.

  He’d had enough practice. If you believed all you heard, Europe’s leading magazine and society photographer was by now into his third round of crumpet.

  Ferdy was the original population explosion. Working with him was great, because he had all this energy left over from the Army. He was big, with suntan all over his head, and a fuzz of sideburns in a sort of speckled fawn.

  He looked like a goalie. He would, I knew from experience, take no for an answer, after a struggle.

  Now, he put me down just as the housekeeper came in, smiling, with a fresh cup and saucer. In exchange, he gave her the sugar bowl, which she went off to refill. He stood, looking at me over the bluebirds.

  ‘Rita, my sweet sucrose junkie. A great big bikini and little black teeth, darling. It isn’t worth it. Let me look at you. There’s something different.’

  He walked all round me, still hugging the teacup.

  ‘Not the hair: still that boring old magenta and blue. And the Dracula eye shadow. And the Biro finger-rings. But where are the stripes, darling? The tattoos? The gold balls in the nose?’

  ‘I slept in,’ I said. I knew he would notice when I left off the face painting.

  ‘And the clothes,’ he went on. He twirled a chair and sat down, while I filled his cup for him.

  ‘All that lovely warm wool, just like Johnson. You should see Johnson’s cardies – straight out of the Personality Knitting Quarterly, and the same page, too, I shouldn’t wonder. You could swap your back numbers.’

  The Navajo waistcoat was a Lauren. The rest of the gear cost just under eight hundred pounds in South Molton Street, which he knew and I knew he knew.

  I said, ‘What about Johnson, then? He’s here, and you didn’t mention it?’