Landscape of Lies: The Thrilling Race for Treasure

by Peter Watson

  ‘Let’s not rush things,’ he said. ‘The answer must be in here somewhere, if only we know where to look. The person who painted this landscape would have been educated by the standard of his day, or else instructed by someone who was. But he would not have had massive libraries at his command. I remember reading somewhere that the average noble in the late Middle Ages had something like twenty books in his library. The answer must be here.’

  They had brought their coffee upstairs with them and they sat in silence as the rain beat against the bedroom windows. The room had a view of the red-tiled roofs of Dorchester, which resembled an uneven piecrust, some slopes more highly baked than others. After half an hour Isobel got up, stretched and went to the window. She stared down at the main street of the town. She was watching a crocodile of schoolchildren, a line of dark blue raincoats being led along the pavement like so many goslings, when, behind her, she heard Michael breathe out.

  ‘Eubloodyreka!’

  She turned. ‘Any luck?’

  ‘Gloss among the dross, my dear.’ He held up Gertrude Saxl’s Iconography of Christian Art. ‘Under “Tree”, it says, among many other things, “See Jesse”. So I saw Jesse.’ He rolled his eyes, imitating Isobel’s eyebrows. ‘Jesse . . . joy . . . jubilation . . . jackpot!’

  She leaned back against the window-ledge.

  He read aloud. ‘“Jesse, Tree of (Stem of). The prophecy of Isaiah, chapter eleven, verses one to three, that a Messiah would spring from the family of Jesse, the father of David, was interpreted visually in the Middle Ages as a genealogical tree. A tree rises from Jesse’s loins on the branches of which appear the ancestors of Christ. The theme also occurs in Renaissance painting, especially of the early Netherlands.”’

  ‘You know, I think I prefer you when you drink cider – it gives you more fire. That was pyrobloodytechnic,’ she added, mocking him back. ‘That’s our man, all right. There must be a Jesse buried in the church somewhere.’

  So back out into the rain they went, retracing their steps and tyre tracks, to Godwin Magna. By four o’clock they were back in the church. In the chapel they examined every plaque, every tomb, expecting one to refer to a Jesse. None did. Undaunted, they tried the rest of the church, the walls of which were covered in plaques of every description. There were Jameses, there were Jeremiahs, there was a Jason and five Johns. But no Jesses.

  ‘Nothing for it,’ said Michael, nodding at the window, where the rain still buffeted. ‘Let’s try outside.’

  Back into the long wet grass they went. They already knew how hard it was going to be to read some of the names. ‘Trace the letters with your fingers, if you can’t read them,’ said Isobel. ‘It might help.’

  It would also look very odd, Michael thought, if they were observed fondling gravestones.

  The rain and the wind kept up, making it difficult for Isobel to wield the umbrella. Cold trickles of water sneaked inside Michael’s collar and scored down his back. Systematically, they covered every tomb. It took them until half past five. There were five names they couldn’t read but in each case the dates on the headstones were much later than the sixteenth century, so they were at least certain that Jesse, wherever he was, was not in the cemetery.

  Michael thrust his hands into his pockets and stared at the church. The rain dripped from his eyebrows to his face. Even his cigar, which had gone out again, was wet. ‘I don’t know about you but I feel slow-witted. I’m sure our next move is staring us in the face, if only we knew where to look.’

  ‘Do you think the next figure, the next clue, might help? It might guide us back to Jesse.’

  Michael nodded. ‘Worth a try, certainly. Let’s go back to the car, out of the rain.’

  They sat in the Mercedes and looked again at the photograph of the painting.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Michael. ‘Here we go again. I don’t understand this at all. The next figure looks like a ghost.’ He rubbed his hand over his face, to brush away the rain. ‘I wonder if we did the right thing, not employing an expert.’ The figure they stared at was by far the most insubstantial of the bunch: a grey man, ghost-like in appearance, as Michael said, with flesh that was deathly pale. A badly drawn animal, what appeared to be a three-headed something, sat at his feet. He was holding the chalice.

  ‘If this figure is a ghost,’ said Isobel slowly, ‘that too would point to a tomb or cemetery, don’t you think? Maybe the church has been rebuilt since the sixteenth century and a crypt or undercroft has been covered over:’

  Michael didn’t reply but instead got out of the car again and went back to the church. He was inside for several minutes before returning, running through the rain. ‘Extraordinary,’ he said, settling back behind the wheel. ‘I looked at the back of the nave, in the choir, even in the pulpit, everywhere . . . but nowhere is there any literature about the church. Usually these country churches have a pamphlet or two about the history of the building. That might have told us whether you are right, whether the church has ever been changed or rebuilt.’ He bounced the ball of his hand on the driving wheel. He looked at his watch. ‘Six o’clock. The local library will be closed now but that had better be our first stop tomorrow. There must be some sort of local records there, which might help.’ He looked across to Isobel. ‘We’ll take a break here, as they say on the chat shows. Let’s go back to the hotel, have a nice hot bath, a big whisky, an even bigger cigar, and treat ourselves to the best dinner they can offer.’

  ‘Three out of four will suit me, thanks. I’d better call Tom, too. I hope his day has been better than ours.’

  It was just on eight o’clock when Isobel joined Michael at the hotel bar. They sat together as the barman poured their drinks and placed them on the counter. Ceremoniously they both lifted them to their lips, then sighed in pleasure.

  ‘What news from Château Sadler?’ Michael said. ‘All okay?’

  ‘Yes, thank God. The drainage system worked very well after the hail and the meadows are drying – so the problem with the cow’s hooves isn’t serious. It damaged some of the early crops too but not permanently. A little sunshine wouldn’t go amiss, though. Lord, I’m famished.’

  Michael looked about for a waiter and signalled for him to bring the menus.

  ‘Steaks, I think, don’t you?’ said Michael. ‘After the day we’ve had, the redder the meat the better.’ When she nodded, he added, ‘And a nice heavy burgundy.’ He dipped into his top pocket and removed a cigar.

  Immediately, Isobel reached across and laid her hand over the book of matches lying on the top of the bar. ‘Do you have to? Haven’t you sinned enough for one day?’

  Michael snipped the end off the tube of tobacco and took a second book of matches from another pocket. He held a match to the cigar and made several silent sucking movements with his mouth, soon enveloping them in smoke. ‘Lady Bracknell didn’t think it was a sin. She described it as an “occupation”. At least you didn’t say “Thank you for not smoking.”’

  Isobel put her hand over her nose and mouth in protest.

  Undaunted, Michael said, ‘I have a goddaughter – Clarissa, would you believe? Such an old name for a seven-year tot. Anyway, she’s always saying things like, “Pink is my fifth favourite colour”, “Seven is my third favourite number”, “So-and-so is my fourth favourite doll”.’ He drew heavily on his Havana. ‘After painting and the cello, after whisky and’ – he looked at Isobel and grinned – ‘after sex, cigars are my fifth favourite thing. Now you want to take them away.’

  ‘They’re bad for you. You’re putting your life at risk.’

  He spoke while gripping the cigar with his teeth. ‘Would you miss me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t miss the ash, or the smoke, or the smell. Now sit a bit further away and tell me if you had any luck in the books.’ She sucked the ice from her drink. ‘I’m afraid I was too busy phoning Tom to do anything else.’

  ‘Not sure,’ said Michael. ‘I looked up small animals, starting with cat. Nothing; but under dog there is a thr
ee-headed monster mentioned, which is part-dog, part-human. It symbolises Prudence. And there is a many-headed dog, Cerberus. But I was too badly in need of a drink by then. Also, I was listening to the news on the radio – and guess what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The government has announced that it is to legalise brothels. A good wager, eh? Predict the number who register in the first year.’

  ‘Michael!’

  ‘Or the number of customers an average establishment receives on an average night.’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘Or the average price.’

  ‘You’re disgusting.’

  ‘Or –’

  ‘Mr Whiting?’

  Michael was astonished to hear his name spoken and both of them turned to see who it was. The mystery was easily explained, however, for the man who stood next to them wore a dark suit and, at his throat, a white dog-collar.

  ‘Anthony Fleming, vicar at Godwin Magna,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘And at Godmanstone, Eddleston and Hesketh, come to that.’ He smiled. ‘I phoned home before I left Bath and my housekeeper said you were staying here. There’s a meeting of the county library committee at the town hall in about – oh, seventeen minutes. Rather than telephone, I thought I’d drop in. Nothing else to do until eight-thirty anyway.’ He smiled again. ‘How may I help you?’

  Michael introduced Isobel, then said, ‘Thank you for taking the trouble. May I offer you a drink?’

  ‘Splendid, splendid. A dry sherry, if I may.’

  Michael caught the barman’s eye, ordered the sherry and turned back to the vicar. ‘I’m an art dealer in London and I’ve been offered a picture that may have something to do with the Goodwin/Cross family. I’m researching the Goodwins and the Crosses, so naturally I’m interested in the family chapel at Godwin Magna. When it was built, why it was built, whether it was added to, what sort of family it was. Details.’

  The sherry arrived and Fleming took a sip. ‘Splendid. Yes, well, we’re rather proud of the church and the chapel. The church is originally fourteenth century, the main door is later and the oak screen at the edge of the chapel is eighteenth century, of course, though donated by a late member of the Cross family. The font is the oldest font in the county and dates from the sixteenth century, when of course the church became Anglican at the Reformation. The east window is by Wystan Cadie, an English pupil of Chagall’s and very modern, as I’m sure you noticed. Pity about the Jesse window in the chapel, of course, but you can’t have everything. Those are the main features of the church. Now as to the family –’

  Michael was in the middle of swallowing his whisky, so Isobel got in her reply first. ‘What do you mean, Jesse window?’

  ‘You can’t have missed it. That tall window in the chapel. Dominates everything else. In the Middle Ages it used to consist of the most beautiful stained glass, showing Jesse at the bottom with a tree growing out of him and the ancestors of Jesus on the branches. The story started at the bottom and read upwards, as with all stained glass. There’s one at St Jude’s in Exeter by the same artist which still exists, and there’s a drawing of ours in the British Museum. But the glass itself, of course, was all destroyed in the civil war – the family was royalist, of course. Later on it was replaced with the plain glass you see today. Such a shame.’

  Michael, his heart pounding, said: ‘When exactly would the window have been destroyed? Can you remember the date?’

  Fleming blinked. ‘Of course. Never been asked that question before though: 1640s, something like that. Anyway, it’s all in the pamphlet . . .’

  ‘Yes, where are the pamphlets? I looked for them but there didn’t seem to be any.’

  Fleming blinked again. ‘What? None at all? That’s very odd.’ He fixed Michael with a rather baleful glare as he finished his sherry. ‘I suppose I can just understand people stealing paintings from churches, or silver chalices – in those places lucky enough to have them. But pamphlets! – who on earth would do such a thing?’

  Michael looked at Isobel. Molyneux! Trying to stop anyone following him again.

  ‘Are there no other pamphlets? In the vicarage, say?’

  ‘I only wish there were. This is most distressing. All the spares we had were kept in a box under the table in the church. Has the box gone as well?’

  Michael nodded.

  ‘What is the world coming to? The worst is, the man who wrote the pamphlet – old Toby Clark – is dead now. I shall have to do the new one myself, when I get the time. It won’t be as good, though. Toby was a real historian. Published books.’

  ‘What else can you tell us about the family?’ Isobel asked.

  ‘The Goodwins were traders, originally, from Bristol. They imported wine from France. Because of their links with the French the early generations were not at all popular with Henry VIII. The Crosses, as they became, found favour with Charles I – though that did them no good in the long run. They died out at the end of the eighteenth century.’ Fleming paused, ‘Is that enough detail – or is there anything else you want to know?’ He looked at his watch. ‘I see it’s nearly eight-thirty. I suppose I should be cutting along.’

  Michael smiled and held out his hand for Fleming to shake it. ‘No, thank you. You have been very helpful. Thank you for telling us about the window. We shall go and look at it again tomorrow. And,’ he added, ‘with fresh eyes.’

  ‘Splendid!’ said Fleming. ‘Goodnight to you both. Thank you for the sherry. Splendid!’ And he was gone.

  Later, after they had finished dinner, Michael said, ‘Molyneux is damned cunning and doesn’t miss a trick. Those pamphlets obviously mentioned the Jesse window and by stealing them, he has gained a day on us.’

  Isobel rubbed an eyebrow and brushed her hair away from her eye. ‘We’ll have to go back and look at the window again in the morning, of course. But will it tell us anything? I mean, perhaps the design of the window was important. Does that mean going back to London straight away, to the British Museum? Maybe there was something in the window itself that won’t even be in the drawing . . .’

  Michael snorted. ‘Pessibloodymist! Don’t be so windy! We’ll worry about that if and when it turns out to be true. At least we’ve made a bit of progress today. We’re not exactly on the fast-forward button, I agree, but we know more than we did.’ He poured the last of the burgundy. ‘Actually, you can explain another mystery to me. You, Isobel Sadler. Thirty-ish, I would guess, very beautiful, I know, a farmer, so she says, though her heart isn’t really in it. And the only man in her life seems to be a farm manager called Tom, who depends on her. Something missing there.’

  Her plum-black eyes gleamed like wet rocks on a beach. She picked up a knife and dug a furrow in the tablecloth with it. ‘You ought to mind your own damned business.’ But then she dropped the knife back on to the table. ‘Sorry. I agree, we can’t keep going in circles around the Jesse window.’ She paused. ‘What I’ve told you is all true, so far as it goes.

  ‘What shall I add? Well, I was never very ambitious when I was young, so I never had much idea what sort of career I wanted. I knew I wanted one, but until I was twenty-one I never knew what exactly. Then, one Easter, I was in Rome. Like all the other tourists I was in St Peter’s Square to see the Pope as he walked in procession. As it happened I got quite a good view from where I was. The procession, and the Pope himself, came very close to where I was standing.

  ‘I had my camera out and was clicking away happily, when suddenly there was a commotion nearby. Someone raised his voice, and then a gunshot cracked out. It was so close I went cold for a moment. You really do wonder for a moment whether you’ve been hit. But when I turned, just a fraction, there was the man with the gun. I photographed him just as he was taking aim the second time and before the police could get to him. He fired. I can remember his arm, sticking out, very clearly. I remember thinking how ugly the gun looked. Short and squat, like one of those blind, blunt animals you get on the bed of the ocean. The first time he fired pe
ople weren’t sure what they had heard, but the second time there was no doubt. There were screams and a whole wave of people fell on the man.’

  ‘You must have been terrified.’

  She shook her head non-comittally. ‘By then I had turned back to the Pope. He had been hit, of course. His cassock had turned red under the arm. His skull-cap had slipped off. That made him seem more human, somehow. I photographed him as he fell, then as he was carried away. The blood was turning black – amazing how quickly that happens. I took more pictures, twenty at least. I have never been so cool in my life. While the Pope was carried away and the people all around were still screaming and shouting and comparing notes on what they had seen, I slipped away. I found a bar with a phone and a directory. I called the Rome office of one of the Fleet Street dailies. I explained what had happened and that I had it all on film.

  ‘I wasn’t interested in the money. But I’d been there when something important had occurred and I had a record. I was interested to see what would happen next.’

  ‘And . . .?’

  ‘My pictures were used. Oh, how they were used. The front page of one of the Fleet Street papers next day, the rest of the world the day after, and again in Fleet Street the following Sunday. More surprisingly, perhaps, the paper behaved very honourably and actually paid me a share of all the syndication. I bought a better camera with some of the money. With the rest of the cash I travelled. As happened to you, I got the bug.’

  ‘Anopheles . . . what?’

  Isobel smiled. ‘The picture editor at the paper which had bought the photographs was very helpful. He said he could not employ me on the strength of my Rome pictures – I’d just been in the right place at the right time, so to speak. He said I’d have to do what all budding photographers do – get on the road and find the stories. If I sent my photos to him, he said, he would give them his personal attention.

  ‘So that’s what I did. It was election year in America so I started there. I didn’t get anything particularly newsy or dangerous but I did get a picture of one of the candidates’ wives weeping when he was beaten and that was used.’