Quick and the Dead

by Susan Moody

  But when I pulled it out from under the cushions, it turned out to be nothing more significant than an empty cushion-cover, and nothing to do with my missing friend.

  FIFTEEN

  ‘It was good to see you at our little gathering last week. My husband and I would love you to come for drinks next Tuesday, so you can have a closer look at the gallery. And we can also have a business discussion,’ the note read. ‘Very informal. Bring a friend if you wish.’

  Bring a friend … Well, now … Did she know that Helena wasn’t around? It sounded as though she did. Those Yankee blue-bloods were sticklers for protocol; if she hadn’t known, she would have written ‘Dr Drummond’ rather than ‘a friend’.

  I walked down to Willoughby’s book shop. It was crowded this morning, people buying Christmas presents, I guessed. Both Sam and Alison, his part-time assistant, were working flat-out and I could see he was far too busy to stop for a chat with me. I idled by the till, pretending to scrutinize the flyers for various events taking place in the town, until he had put through his next transaction, then I said quickly: ‘I want to ask you a favour … come round to my place this evening and I’ll open a bottle of wine.’

  ‘Absolutely love to,’ he said abstractedly. ‘What time?’

  ‘Any time after you’ve closed.’

  ‘Today’s late-night closing.’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  He rang my doorbell at 8:32, handed me a bottle of red (‘from Vine’s wine shop next door to me’) and collapsed onto the big squashy sofa in front of where the fireplace would be if it hadn’t been ripped out by the company which had renovated my building.

  ‘I’m tired,’ he said. ‘So forgive me if I’m not my usual ebullient self.’ He smiled self-deprecatingly, knowing full well that ‘ebullient’ and ‘Sam’ did not usually inhabit the same sentence.

  ‘Have a glass of wine,’ I said. ‘Also from Vine’s. Or would you prefer something stronger … whisky, brandy?’

  He opted for a glass of Armagnac, after which he perked up a bit. ‘The Christmas rush is always exhausting,’ he said. ‘Not that I would be without it. The four weeks leading up to Christmas Eve generate more than a third of our total annual sales.’

  ‘At least books are still being bought. Considering the size of the town, it’s amazing that you manage to stay in business.’

  ‘But for how long? The competition from eBooks and self-publishing is fierce.’ He sighed. ‘Luckily there are three private schools in the area plus several state schools, plus that big EFL institution out in the country, which caters to the rich sons of foreign dictators and politicians, so I don’t do too badly. Obviously I make sure I stock all the necessary textbooks or I take care to obtain contracts to supply them to the different teaching establishments. I carry cribs and collections of sample exam questions. And I have a thriving second-hand section – though there again I’m in competition with the charity shops. Not that anyone could realistically expect to make a living out of flogging pre-loved books – as the phrase is – for £1.99 a pop. Or even less. Especially in the age of electronic readers and the like.’

  ‘And here I thought you were a dozy kind of dreamy individual, nose stuck in a book all the time.’

  ‘Oh, I’m that all right.’

  ‘As well as a hard-headed businessman?’

  ‘These days, you have to be. In fact, I took a six-month business course when I first came down here from London to help out Annie Marston.’

  ‘Annie Marston …’ The name rang bells.

  ‘Who used to own the shop? Until she retired,’ he continued. ‘I’ve recently branched out into stationery plus cards for every possible occasion, wrapping paper and ribbons, magazines, computer accessories, that sort of thing, so that brings in the punters.’ He pushed back the flopping blond hair – in need of a cut, I couldn’t help noticing, realizing that he probably didn’t have time to get to the barber at the moment – and produced another of his wry little laughs.

  ‘And you’ve also squeezed in those four café tables and the coffee machine.’

  ‘Squeeze is the word. I really need to expand. But it’s heck of a risk to take when book sales are dropping.’ He took another luxurious mouthful of brandy. ‘Oh, I feel so much better.’ He hoisted his glass at me. ‘Thank you.’ Looked expectant. ‘So …’

  ‘The reason I asked you to drop in this evening was because this morning you were too busy to stop, and I wanted to ask if you would like to join me …’ I handed him the card from Mercy Lamont.

  ‘It sounds good,’ he said. ‘Nice address. Yes, please, I’d love to. Alison can hold the fort. And I could certainly do with a break.’ He smiled at me. ‘Yes, lovely. What’s the gallery?’

  ‘The Lamonts are big art collectors, and they have this amazing corridor – they’ve amalgamated two flats, in Eaton Square no less, so as you can imagine, they must be rolling in it, and turned a connecting passage into a kind of arcade of family portraits, dating back two or three centuries.’

  ‘Sounds interesting.’ He took another sip from his glass. ‘And you still haven’t located Doctor Drummond?’

  ‘Not yet. But at least I’m assuming she’s all right.’ For a moment I debated not telling him about the four-character note I’d received, but could see no reason not to. I explained how I knew.

  ‘Interesting.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘You sure it was her who shoved it through the door? Not someone else, trying to trick you into thinking it came from her?’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ I couldn’t bear to contemplate the possibility. Blame and guilt rained down me. ‘I feel responsible for what’s happened.’

  ‘Why?’

  I looked at him miserably. ‘I’m not entirely sure. I just do.’

  ‘Doctor Drummond is an adult, responsible for herself. As indeed was Amy Morrison. But if something terrible has happened to her,’ Sam said, his voice pushing harshly into my self-recrimination, ‘it has nothing to do with you, Alex. Nothing whatsoever.’ He took me by the shoulders and gave me a little shake. ‘It’s not your fault.’ He let go of me, took my hand and held it tightly between his own. He repeated, ‘Not. Your. Fault.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said awkwardly. ‘Or no …’ I wasn’t sure quite when we had become this close.

  ‘It’s so easy to think that things might have been different if you had been with her.’ He rubbed my cold fingers with his own warm ones. ‘But it wouldn’t, you know. Even if you’d been there, you couldn’t have changed a thing.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Sam.’

  On Tuesday, we travelled up to London together by train. Much simpler than trying to find parking in the city. When we arrived at the Eaton Square flat, we were met by a housekeeperish young woman in a white-collared black dress and shown into a sitting room, somewhat smaller than the grand salon of last time, but nonetheless decorated with almost as much luxurious magnificence.

  Mercy and the mostly silent Bob were on hand to greet us. Bob gestured at an enormous silver tray set on a sideboard holding a sparkling array of expensive glasses and offered us almost anything we could imagine to drink: Sam had a gin and tonic while I opted for a glass of red wine.

  We chatted about this and that. Sam’s eyes were round as he absorbed the paintings which hung on the walls. After a while, Bob suggested we move to his office, where he began to speak more seriously, while his wife verbally hung back.

  ‘I believe Mercy has already spoken to you of the possibility of us setting up a small publishing house,’ he said. ‘Concentrating on exactly the kind of popular art books that are Drummond & Quick’s speciality.’

  ‘It sounds like a really good idea.’ I thought of Clifford Nichols and his three-book offer. I had not yet signed the contracts and returned them to him, as I had been waiting for Helena to return. Meanwhile, my gaze travelled over the two walls that weren’t covered in books. The people they knew! There were the Lamonts with Obama and Michelle, with François Hollande, with Oprah
and Clint Eastwood. There was Mercy with her hair shrouded in a black lace shawl, shaking hands with the Pope. There was Bob with Condoleezza. The two of them with Bill and Hillary.

  ‘It’s not just a good idea,’ Bob said severely. ‘As we see it, this would be a prestige concept. High-end. Premium books for premium people.’

  ‘What you’ve produced so far is good,’ said Mercy. ‘Very good. But it could be even better.’

  ‘Must-have books for the luxury crowd,’ Bob continued. ‘And priced accordingly. No one with any pretensions to culture will be able to afford to be without at least one copy.’

  ‘If they can afford to buy it in the first place!’ Sam said. It was exactly what I was thinking.

  Bob shot him an inimical look. ‘The product could really take off – and the marketing would be a piece of cake.’

  I could easily see how his dynamic approach must have turned his father’s fortune into millions more. ‘I’m not too keen on my work being seen as “product”,’ I said.

  ‘It’s an advertising term. I have absolutely no intention of belittling or demeaning your projects.’

  ‘It’s definitely something I must look at very carefully,’ I said. ‘Actually, we’ve just been offered a three-book deal with a publisher specializing in art books.’

  Bob’s face flushed. ‘I hope you’re not trying to up the ante,’ he said.

  ‘Of course I’m not!’ I wasn’t best pleased with his insinuations. ‘I don’t play games.’ Already I was wondering whether I wanted to be associated with someone quite so ready to take offence.

  ‘I’ll double their offer,’ he said.

  ‘Meanwhile …’ said Mercy. She laid a soothing hand on her husband’s arm. ‘Let’s not forget the gallery. That’s what they came for.’

  She pointed at one of the tall panelled doors set into one of the long side walls. ‘As I told you on your last visit, behind the middle door there’s a passage we’ve turned into our own private portrait gallery. A mixture of pictures from our collection, family portraits, paintings by members of our families or friends – you know the kind of thing.’

  ‘You should know,’ Bob said, ‘that we don’t let everyone in. In fact most people don’t even know it’s there.’

  ‘Exactly. I should feel almost …’ Mercy paused, searching for a word. ‘… defiled if someone went in uninvited.’

  ‘We’re flattered.’ I nodded and smiled. Defiled … strong word. It sounded a little melodramatic, a bit Ayn Rand, but I suppose the owners of expensive artworks develop a powerful possessiveness about them.

  Bob refilled our glasses. ‘Feel free to take these with you.’

  Sam and I moved towards the door Mercy had indicated, slipped through, closed the door behind us, raised our eyebrows at each other in a silent ‘Phew!’

  ‘Oh, wow!’ I said. ‘And double wow!’

  We found ourselves in a long, glass-roofed hallway, the walls on both sides lined with portraits, rather like the Vasarian Corridor at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. I walked down the right-hand side, enjoying the diverse mix of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century paintings and contemporary art. The Lamonts had been eclectic in their choice of subjects: mothers with children at their knee, sportsmen leaning nonchalantly against trees, family groups, horses standing on the cobbles of their stableyards or trotting over velvety greenswards, pug dogs, cats, fish, even a Dürer-like detailed drawing of a toad.

  I recognized several of the paintings. At the end of the long corridor, I turned and walked slowly back up the opposite side. There was more of the same, but as I approached the door leading back into the salon, Sam said suddenly: ‘Alex, come and look at this.’

  ‘What?’

  He was gazing at a husband and wife, mounted in an elaborate gilt-plaster frame entitled ‘Pierre and Marie Lamont’, and a date of over 150 years ago. There was another similar canvas, with another couple of the same vintage, both of them looking deeply apprehensive. This time the couple was called Jaime Arturo and Caritas Parnassi. Then came a woman whose likeness to Mercy was unmistakable, with three children – two girls and a boy – lounging against the skirt of her plain black velvet gown, neckline plunging, shoulders a little bit Dallas but not too much, as though the sitter was aware that it was a style which would never be classic. And yet another painting, done in conscious imitation of the old masters: a woman, two little boys, a husband leaning against a tree with a gun across his shoulder. The dress was off-the-shoulder, the hair and make-up very Eighties. So were the kids. Obviously the present-day Lamonts.

  Round Mercy’s neck and swinging between her boobs was a gold necklace with earrings to match. It was the same necklace that the woman in black velvet was wearing, now I came to look more closely, as indeed was Caritas Parnassi. A family heirloom, then. A one-off, personally commissioned maybe a century earlier by one side of the Lamont family or the other.

  It was unmistakably the necklace from which the link I’d found beside Amy’s body came.

  Little hammers started knocking at each other inside my brain. Knock … how did Amy get hold of it? Knock … if Amy had been wearing it when she was killed, where was it now? She’d had a rich husband, of course. Perhaps he had been a friend of the Lamonts. Perhaps he had seen the gold chain at a dinner-party chez Lamont, noticed how his wife had admired it, had commissioned a copy from some prestigious upmarket jewellers.

  ‘I’m certain I’ve seen that very necklace somewhere before,’ Sam said, keeping his voice low. I knew he was wondering whether microphones were placed strategically here and there.

  Sam and I went back into the elegant salon, where Bob was pouring himself a second G&T. Or possibly even a third. ‘So what did you think?’ Mercy asked, while Bob handed me another glass of wine.

  ‘Exhilarating.’ I gave her a short critique of some of the paintings. Specified several. Mentioned the Vasarian Corridor in Florence. Her face lit up. ‘That’s exactly what we modelled it on! There was that passageway between our two apartments, which didn’t seem to have any real function except to connect them, and my husband suggested roofing it with glass and turning it into a gallery. As you saw.’

  ‘I would love to produce a … not a catalogue raisoné,’ I said, ‘but an anthology of your paintings. Or some of them. Alongside a discussion of the people featured, their history, their story. Each of them must have a narrative which might be of interest not only to social historians, but also to art-lovers.’

  ‘That’s a fascinating idea.’ Mercy’s face shone as she turned to her husband. ‘Don’t you agree, darling?’

  ‘It’s certainly an attractive proposition.’ Bob nodded. I could almost hear the cogs and wheels whirring inside his head, calculating costs and returns and what’s-in-it-for-mes?

  ‘It could be a really intriguing project,’ Sam said.

  ‘In fact …’ Bob looked at Mercy. Mercy looked at Bob. ‘This,’ said Bob, ‘is exactly what we’ve been discussing for the past eighteen months or so.’ He gestured behind him to the door of the gallery. ‘Not just the family portraits, but all those wonderful paintings we should be sharing with the world.’

  ‘When your second anthology appeared,’ Mercy said, ‘we were fairly sure we’d found the very person to do justice to our wonderful pictures.’ She beamed at me, the desolation at the back of her eyes temporarily eclipsed by fervour.

  ‘Obviously we would give you all the support you would need. A salary, expenses and so on. A generous per diem.’

  ‘I’d have to talk it over with my colleague, Doctor Drummond,’ I said cautiously.

  ‘Of course you would. But to give you some indication of how highly we value the Drummond & Quick mark – and these are, of course, only ballpark figures – we would be prepared to offer …’ And he mentioned terms so hugely favourable that it was a toss-up whether I stared at him with my mouth hanging open, drooling slightly, or ran out into the austere and elegant spaces of Eaton Square and screamed in disbelief.

 
Again Mercy put a hand on her husband’s arm. ‘I think we should let Alexandra think it over. Perhaps we could draw up a draft contract and messenger it down to her.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan.’ Bob crinkled his eyes at me. ‘We’ll look forward to your response.’

  ‘We’ll be in touch in the next couple of days,’ Mercy added.

  ‘I was intrigued,’ Sam said boldly, ‘by a necklace which appeared in several of the paintings. Gold, with sort of hand-beaten links, and a pendant antique coin.’

  Mercy’s eyes darkened, and again I was aware of a profound sadness until, almost by force of will (or so it seemed), they cleared once more. ‘I know the one you mean. It’s most unusual, isn’t it? My great-grandfather had it made for his wife to celebrate the birth of their first child.’

  Just before we left, Mercy came up to me and asked quietly if everything was all right between Helena and myself. ‘We were surprised that you brought your young man,’ she said.

  ‘He’s not my y—’

  ‘So Doctor Drummond is fine?’

  ‘As far as I know. She’s away at the moment,’ I added hastily, then looked at my watch. ‘Sam, we need to hurry if we’re going to catch that train.’

  ‘Let me get our driver …’ she began.

  ‘Thanks, but the Tube is so much quicker.’

  Back in my flat, Sam once again collapsed into the sofa. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with his balled fists. ‘God, I’m tired.’

  ‘Whisky?’

  ‘Some more of that Armagnac I had the other night would be good.’ He sipped for a while. His eyes closed and stayed shut for so long that I thought he had fallen asleep. Then he roused himself, sat up straight, said, ‘I feel like a new man.’

  ‘I rather liked the old one,’ I said.

  He smiled. ‘So what did you make of today?’

  ‘What did you?’

  ‘I …’ He looked up at the ceiling. ‘I don’t want to rain on your parade, but I got the distinct feeling that it was all just a little bit too good to be true.’