by Amy Myers
Plenty that she could foresee, but she remained silent. Stand-off still in place. The space between them in the double bed was a no-man’s-land and neither of them entered it.
Before her was the river Danube, winding its majestic way through the city dividing Buda from Pest. On their side, Buda, the dominating Castle Hill, the Várhegy, was the central point that drew the eye, with its churches, ancient houses and statues and the magnificent Buda Palace. On the far side of the river lay Pest, the more modern half of the city, with its museums, shops and the university. It was in Pest that she would find both the Benizi antique shop and the Daks residence.
She was tempted to answer Luke’s question of ‘Where first?’ with the obvious tourist choice, the Buda Palace, especially since the heat made the effort of work harder. Nevertheless Lance Venyon had to take precedence. There was a possibility that somewhere out there could lie the answer to the riddles that he, fairly or unfairly, had come to represent. Hungary symbolized the meeting point of East and West, and perhaps that might be a clue to the enigma of Lance. Nevertheless, as Peter admitted, they could be on a wild-goose chase, and the true story lie much closer to home.
That possibility didn’t make this visit any less useful, even though both she and Peter were aware that it was bringing them perilously close to Mike’s police investigation.
‘I’ll take the Daks family first,’ she answered Luke.
‘You will?’ That eyebrow raised once more.
She silently cursed. She had put her foot in it again. ‘We will.’
‘I can play by myself.’ Luke let her off the hook. ‘The Liszt museum is over in Pest.’
‘Come with me today, and we’ll play together later. We have two whole days here, after all.’
It was the right suggestion, and the atmosphere thawed as they took the bus across the river. ‘Whatever you say, don’t pronounce bus as we do in England,’ she warned him. ‘Here it means a four-letter word, not three.’
This produced a welcome laugh. The bus dropped them in Pest, and as she walked up the Rákóczi út and into the street where the Daks home was situated, she was even more glad that Luke was coming. For all their emotional estrangement he could be a great support in the meeting with Leonardo Daks, who was an unknown quantity. Mike had said that Leonardo was a retired academic. ‘He’s OK,’ he had explained, ‘but don’t expect there to be anything behind the brick wall if that’s what he seems to present.’
The fact that there was only one bell on the front door of this four-storey house suggested prosperity; most of the houses had three or four. The door was opened by a dark-haired girl, heavily pregnant, who announced herself cautiously as Magda. Leonardo had been equally reserved on the telephone when Peter called, and this girl, however she fitted into this household, was following suit.
They were led up several flights of stairs, since there seemed to be only a small anteroom on the ground floor, and on the first floor she glimpsed only a kitchen and dining room. They were shown into an austere but expensively furnished living room overlooking the street beneath, where Leonardo Daks – she presumed – rose to greet them. The girl stayed, so she couldn’t be a maid. A sister? There were several pictures on the wall, but they looked like expensive prints rather than originals, which surprised her. She would have expected some sign of Sandro’s work.
‘Please come in.’ Leonardo looked Jewish and in his mid-sixties, with greying hair; he also looked very weary, she thought, which was natural enough. It was less than two months since Sandro’s death.
‘You bring me news of Sandro?’ he asked immediately.
‘We’re not the police,’ she explained, ‘but we know Chief Inspector Gilroy, whom you met. There are no arrests yet.’ In fact Mike was making little progress. There was precious little forensic evidence and their one ace, a trainer footprint, had produced no leads so far. Nor had there been any success in finding the gun.
His face seemed to sag. ‘He was your only son?’ Luke asked sympathetically.
‘Yes. Magda was his fiancée.’
‘I’m very sorry about Sandro,’ Georgia said. ‘He was a very gifted artist. I bought one of his drawings at a gallery in Dover, where he worked for a man called Roy Cook. Did you meet him?’
No hint of recognition. ‘I meet only the police and the people in the village.’
‘I understand you also came over to Wymdown in 1990.’ She thought at first he was not going to answer, but she was wrong.
‘To Kent, yes. A short holiday. I taught art in Estonia and also here in Budapest. That was our first chance to travel freely to the West.’
‘We are interested in a man who died accidentally in 1961. His job was tracking down antiques and his name was Lance Venyon. When your son first came to Kent, he asked where he could find Venyon, who was a friend of his grandfather. I wondered if you could tell us more about him.’
A frown, but she had caught his interest. ‘My father is no longer living. I think, yes, he might have been a friend once. This man Venyon had property of my father’s. My father say ask him for it if I go to England. I do not know what it was. No one know about Lance Venyon any more, say that he is dead, so I ask Sandro to make an enquiry too. He tell me he is doing so, but then no more. You bring news?’
‘I’m afraid not. If Sandro discovered the property it would have been among his effects, and I think you have those. Could it have been a painting?’
From the flicker of reaction she realized she had scored a bullseye. But how and where? ‘Was your father a painter?’ she continued as innocently as she could. ‘Sandro was excellent in copying as well as drawing, so his tutor said.’
A definite coolness now. ‘Domenico Daks do not copy. Michelangelo, my brother, was artist; he create though, like Sandro, and has been dead for many years. Now Sandro gone too.’
Michelangelo? She was immediately back in Camelot with Professor Hoskin. Was this the source of his reference? No, this Michelangelo would have been much younger than Hoskin, although it could tie in with the reference to Raphael if Hoskin had been trying to convey something about a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Another thought. A young man called Michael . . . Michelangelo? Was that too big a jump from Venetia’s titbit of information? Could Lance Venyon have known him? Michelangelo Daks? He would have been living in Estonia, so it seemed unlikely.
‘You all have such wonderful painters’ names,’ she said as casually as she could. ‘Leonardo, Michelangelo, Domenico – is that after Ghirlandaio, perhaps?’
He shrugged dismissively. ‘My father love art, that why we have such names. Sandro too –’ he swallowed – ‘for Botticelli.’
She felt her stomach knotting in excitement; she was teetering on the brink of a breakthrough. ‘And there was Domenico Kranowski, the great art faker of the 1950s, whom Lance Venyon knew in Paris. Did your father work there too?’
‘My father work in Estonia, and not as art faker,’ he said sharply. ‘My father no longer here to speak for himself. Nor, Madame Marsh, is my son.’
Point taken, and she thought they were going to be thrown out, but fortunately Luke came galloping to the rescue. ‘Your son had a brilliant career in front of him. His death was a tragedy.’
Leonardo grasped the lifeline. ‘He had good teachers here in Budapest.’
‘Did Sandro ever talk to you about the work he did in England?’
The mask fell again. ‘No. Did drawings, he said. For a lady.’
‘Kelly Cook, perhaps?’ Georgia asked. ‘Or Cindy Priest? He seems to have sold his drawings to two galleries.’
He shrugged. ‘I not know.’ The interview was clearly over, since he was rising to his feet, and after a few pleasantries to restore harmony, they were back in the street.
What, she wondered, had Leonardo hoped to learn from the interview? He had wanted any news of the investigation – and, she felt a rising excitement, of this property his father had sought so keenly. Domenico, Michelangelo, Domenico Kranowski, Domenico Daks �
�� too much of a coincidence? If linked with Lance Venyon, no. Scenarios began to rush through her head.
‘Luke, thank you,’ Georgia said gratefully.
‘Only protecting my investment.’
Back on firm ground. ‘You haven’t given us a contract yet, let alone invested.’
‘It wasn’t the book I was referring to.’
‘Oh.’ Georgia digested this. Did he really think she was walking in Zac’s trail? ‘In that case, protection isn’t necessary. I’m armour-plated where Zac’s concerned.’
‘And inside the heavy metal?’
‘Nothing, Luke. Like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz, there’s an empty space where my heart once was.’
He looked at her questioningly.
‘Mine’s on permanent loan to you,’ she finished.
His arm went round her.
‘Sure?’
‘Positive.’
‘Then let’s follow this Yellow Brick Road.’ He proceeded to jig along the Rákócszi út to the pleasure of a gypsy violinist in full Magyar costume who took this as a personal tribute to his playing and had to be duly rewarded.
The Yellow Brick Road continued down a side street, where Luke had wanted to see a garden with a Holocaust memorial at its centre in the form of a weeping willow. ‘We’re in the Jewish quarter here,’ Luke explained. ‘This is the Wallenberg Memorial Garden. He was the Swedish diplomat who rescued many Jews from being transported to Auschwitz from Budapest. They went through bad times in Budapest, first from the Germans, then the Russians.’
Sitting on a bench a girl glanced at them, and Georgia recognized Magda, who rose to greet them.
‘You knew Sandro?’ she asked wistfully.
‘Yes,’ Georgia replied firmly.
‘I am fiancée. I have his baby.’
‘That must be a comfort for you,’ Georgia said sympathetically.
‘I come to England to visit Sandro and go home with baby inside. Now I live in his home with family till the baby is born. Perhaps after that too.’
‘Is that usual in Hungary?’
‘To live with Daks family, great honour. Father Leonardo have sister, and she has daughter, but Sandro was only son. My baby another.’ She patted her stomach proudly.
‘Are the whole family artists?’ Georgia asked as casually as she could.
‘Only my Sandro left,’ came the prompt reply. ‘And then my son.’
Georgia hoped she was right about its being a boy. There might be a lot resting on this child, she reflected with growing excitement as they left Magda in search of lunch. Kranowski, Daks, Benizi, Venyon, Sandro . . . Surely the links were getting a lot stronger now? The Kranowksi family disappears from Paris, turns up as Daks in Estonia, then re-establishes itself in Budapest, the city linking East and West. Which, according to her guidebook, was a city that in the 1980s was rife with art forgery and crime. And what could Domenico Daks’ property be but the painting – or paintings?
‘Circumstantial,’ Luke said, when she put this thesis to him. He relented. ‘But it’s looking good. Equally you could be talking through your hat.’
‘That’s funny. Richard Hoskin used three words when I asked him about Lance: Raphael, Michelangelo and hat.’
Luke laughed. ‘There you are then. Proof.’
‘I am not,’ Georgia informed him, ‘going to return to Peter with a theory about Lance’s old panama or homburg or trilby.’
‘You should be grateful that the word Arthur hasn’t passed anyone’s lips today.’
She shuddered. ‘Give it time.’
*
The Benizi premises were situated just off the Falk Miksa utca, a street filled with antique shops and near the Danube’s Margit Bridge. Benizi Antiques looked unobtrusively expensive with three exquisite items in the window display, an icon, a painting and a Chinese vase. They spoke for themselves, suggesting it would be a waste of time to enter except with a large chequebook.
‘You can leave this one to me, unless I’m positively drowning,’ Georgia told Luke.
‘Don’t I have a part in your cunning plan, whatever it is?’
‘Yes. Not to erupt when I mention Zac.’
Did she sense him stiffen? ‘I’ll stay out of this one, then,’ he said. ‘You’ll do better alone.’
That was true and she was grateful. Luke gave her no time to argue, but strolled off towards the river. It was time to act, and in she went. The reception room followed the style of the window display. An elegant antique desk and chairs, plum-coloured velvet drapes and a sense that one was in the presence of great art (and wealth). A good-looking man in his late thirties appeared, thanks to closed-circuit TV she assumed, since nothing so vulgar as a bell had sounded. Immediately a chair was placed for her to be seated. To prevent her from fainting with shock at the prices to be mentioned? No problem. She sat.
‘Signora?’
‘You must be Signor Roberto Benizi.’ And when he nodded, she swept on: ‘I’m Zac White’s wife.’ She beamed at him. ‘Well, ex-wife really but we’re on the best of terms. He’s probably talked about me. He told me about the Arthurian paintings, you know, and since I was in Budapest on holiday I thought I’d ask if I could possibly see them.’
Nothing like jumping into a raging torrent. Roberto’s smile barely changed. He looked puzzled but his eyes were studying her keenly. ‘Arthurian paintings?’ he queried.
She nodded. ‘The Rossettis.’
‘What were these paintings? Perhaps you could describe them? With Lizzie Siddal as model?’
The weak point and he’d hit it. She hadn’t a clue what the other paintings depicted, or even how many there were. Time to play the ace. ‘Not in the one I saw recently at your father’s home in Paris. Such a magnificent painting of Sir Gawain, isn’t it? I fell in love with the portrayal of King Arthur.’ Mention the goblet? No, that would be a mistake.
‘You wish to buy such a painting?’ The eyes were boring into her, but at least he hadn’t pursued the question of the subject matter of the others.
‘Not me,’ she said truthfully. ‘But I have two friends who are keen enthusiasts of both King Arthur and the Pre-Raphaelites. If the paintings are on the market, I’m sure they would be interested.’
‘I can make enquiries about such paintings, madame. Who are these friends?’
She smiled. ‘Naturally I could not tell you that, if you do not actually possess the paintings. I was sure from what Zac said that you did. And of course since your father showed me the Gawain painting, the family firm would obviously have an interest in any others in the series.’
He frowned. ‘It is our policy only to show or even discuss paintings with the principals themselves. At least I must have further information about these friends.’
The last card in her hand and the riskiest. ‘Now you can’t really expect me to divulge confidential information,’ she laughed gaily, ‘any more than I would reveal the secrets of the Daks family.’
A sudden stillness in the atmosphere. ‘Domenico Daks?’
‘Yes. If that, of course,’ she said lightly, ‘was his real name. Domenico, Sandro, Leonardo and Michelangelo.’
Roberto was still wavering. ‘This Gawain painting,’ he said casually. ‘Is that the one with the priest in the background?’
You don’t catch me out so easily. Georgia sensed victory. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t remember a priest, just King Arthur holding a cup or something to Gawain’s lips.’ Please, please don’t let him decide to telephone Antonio.
Another tense silence, then to her relief, he relaxed. ‘Scusi, signora. Is necessary. You come with me, please.’
He beckoned to her to follow him. With her heart in her mouth, expecting to be coshed at any moment and grateful that Luke at least knew where she was, she did so, walking through the velvet drapes with a confidence she did not feel. Ahead was a corridor, but he beckoned her into a small side room. ‘You wait here,’ he told her. ‘I fetch them.’
Was this a trap? Sh
e waited on tenterhooks, but there was no click. She hadn’t been locked in at any rate. Either he was ringing his father, or the reason for her being in this small empty room was that he didn’t want her to see his other stock.
With great relief she heard his footsteps returning and he hadn’t been away long enough to have called Paris. He was carrying three paintings, which he stood against the wall, before removing the coverings.
Georgia caught her breath, hardly able at first to take in what she saw, and looking from one to another. The first was of a distraught woman holding a skull, with what was surely the Dover hill and Pharos in the background. ‘The Lady of Farthingloe,’ Roberto said, his watchful eyes upon her. For a moment this made no sense, and then she remembered Jago’s recounting of the legend of Gawain’s beloved who found his skull on the battlefield and gave it to the canons of the priory. The legend, he had said, that Lance loved so much.
Interesting though that painting was, it was the other two that gripped her attention: Guinevere and Lancelot. One was of their final parting in the cloisters of the convent to which Guinevere retreated after Arthur’s death. The other was of their tryst in Guinevere’s bedchamber. Georgia had seen Rossetti’s drawing of the discovery of Lancelot in the chamber by his enemies, but this bore no resemblance to it. For once guilt was playing no part in this relationship. With the casement through which Lancelot had obviously climbed behind him, he and Guinevere were just on the point of their first embrace. Georgia could almost sense movement in the figures as they approached each other, passion no longer suppressed, desire about to be fulfilled.
Roberto began to talk about the paintings in polished terms, obviously knowing every detail of Rossetti’s career – and the provenance of the paintings through the Milot family. Now was not the time to declare that they were fakes, or even to think through the implications.
Instead, Georgia was riveted on the figure of Guinevere herself, the betrayer of Arthur, lover of Lancelot. She had seen that perfect face before.
It was Jennifer’s.
Chapter Twelve