by Peter Watson
‘I agree. I don’t think I’ll leave the painting here overnight. I’ll take it home with me.’
‘Is that wise? Don’t you live alone?’
‘Yes, but Molyneux won’t burgle me while I’m there.’
‘I’m not so sure. He tried it with me, remember.’
‘He doesn’t know where I live.’
‘You’re in the phone book, aren’t you?’
When Michael nodded, Isobel went on. ‘Don’t underestimate him, Michael. Think what he’s done so far: broken into two places, stolen those pamphlets and been alert and cunning enough to spot that we are following along behind him. He’s not fooling around.’
‘Are you saying you want to take it with you? To an address he doesn’t know? I don’t think –’
‘No, I’m not. It wouldn’t be fair on my hosts to put them at risk, however slight.’
‘There you are –’
She interrupted him again. ‘But what I’m also thinking is that two people are a whole lot safer than one. We can stay awake in shifts throughout the night.’ She looked at him without blinking. ‘I am inviting myself to stay for the night.’
Michael swallowed. He thought she was being melodramatic. At the same time, he acknowledged that it was possible Molyneux might come looking for the picture. The man had now tried unsuccessfully to get his hands on it twice, and without it he was stymied. There was no doubt that the man was capable of violence. Michael felt sick just thinking of the damage to his car. He spread his arms and, without taking the cigar from his mouth, said, ‘Be my guest. You can sleep in the smoking-room.’
They carefully wrapped the painting in a black leather portfolio which Whiting & Wood kept to carry pictures in. They closed the vault, slid the bookcase back into place and went downstairs. Michael turned off the lights, reset the alarm and placed the portfolio with the luggage on the back seat of the car.
On the way back to Justice Walk, they stopped off at a Chinese restaurant in Ebury Street. ‘Living alone,’ said Michael, ‘I never keep a lot in the fridge except booze and chocolate. This means we won’t have to go out again, once we are locked in at home.’
Everything looked calm and safe at his house. Michael explored all the floors, while Isobel sat in the Mercedes in Lawrence Street with the engine running and the doors locked. They had talked themselves into a fine state of nervousness. And, after all, there was still no explanation why the gallery had been deserted that afternoon.
Michael’s house seemed safe. They hauled the suitcases out of the car, together with the portfolio and the Chinese meal. They locked the front door behind them.
Over noodles and crispy beef, Isobel said, ‘I suppose I’d better check in with Tom.’
‘Good idea,’ said Michael, and after dinner they spent half an hour on the telephone. At first Isobel brought herself up to date on the farm. Then Michael called Greg and his secretary, Elizabeth. He had no luck though: all he got was Greg’s machine and no answer from Elizabeth. They would have to remain in ignorance about what had happened in the gallery until the morning. Although they had the Landscape of Lies with them it was disturbing.
Michael showed Isobel his collection of gambling knick-knacks. He took down from a wall a piece of yellowed paper framed in gold wood. ‘If we had time, which we don’t, we could count the pinpricks in this piece of paper. They are the most notorious pinpricks in the history of gambling.’
‘Why?’
‘At the beginning of the French Revolution one nobleman, who didn’t exactly have the poor on his conscience, bet another nobleman that he could prick half a million holes in a piece of paper before his friend could ride from Paris to Versailles and back. As you can see,’ Michael said, hanging the paper back on the wall, ‘the man won his bet.’
Isobel stared at the paper and shook her head. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she breathed. ‘So dumb.’ She looked at the paper again. ‘I do believe it.’
Michael next pointed to a print which showed a grinning fat man in a three-cornered hat. ‘Jeremiah Austin. One of the slimiest Englishmen ever. He was a member of that great gambling club, White’s, in the eighteenth century and one day, when one of the club servants collapsed, Austin bet a thousand pounds – a great deal of money in those days – that the fellow was dead.’
‘Charming.’
‘Hear the rest. Another servant sent for the doctor . . . but Austin wouldn’t let him near the collapsed man – because it would spoil the bet.’
Isobel peered at the print. ‘I’d like to stick half a million pins into him.’
Michael chuckled. He started to light a cigar. While he had his hands full, coping with his cigar and some matches, Isobel reached into a half-open drawer and picked up a pack of playing cards.
‘Don’t!’ cried Michael urgently. Then, more calmly, ‘I mean, they’re not very interesting, artistically, that is.’
But Isobel had opened them. Something in Michael’s tone told her he was lying. She slid the cards out of their box and turned them over so that she could see the faces.
Bodies would have been a better word. The cards were pornographic, all the picture cards being naked kings, queens and knaves. As she passed the cards from one hand to the other, she cocked her head to one side and stuck her tongue in her cheek. ‘Whatever these people are doing, it isn’t playing cards.’
‘They’re French,’ said Michael nervously. ‘They belonged to the Regent, Philippe, Duc d’Orléans. You know, the dissolute one, who had those petits soupers . . . orgies . . . he was a great gambler . . . sorry . . .’ He tailed off.
Isobel put the cards back into the box and replaced it in the drawer. She looked at Michael. ‘When I was in Afghanistan, I photographed a dead Russian soldier who had had his heart cut out of him and stuck on a pole in the ground. In Argentina I saw pictures of torture victims with cattle prods in their vaginas. In Beirut I photographed the bodies of women who had their breasts cut off. None of the pictures was ever used, of course. They were too horrible. But don’t treat me like a child, Michael. I’ve seen real obscenities. You think a pack of dirty playing cards is going to make me throw up – or think any the less of you?’ She leaned forward and took the cigar from his mouth. ‘Look at this,’ she said, holding it in front of him. ‘Wet as a worm at one end and reeking like Rangoon at the other. That’s what I call obscene.’
That night one of them kept the portfolio in sight at all times. Michael let Isobel go to bed first, while he lay on the sofa in the living room and watched videos of old movies to keep him from going to sleep. He still smoked, but sheepishly, even though there was no one watching him. He had come across anti-smokers before but Isobel’s style was a bit too much, he thought. No doubt his cigars reminded her of that man – Tony? – in Beirut. Did she feel guilty, he wondered. Guilty that she was alive and he, presumably, wasn’t. Was it something else? Was she fond of him, Michael? He thought of her body upstairs, in his spare room. He had never made love in that room. No, not tonight. Maybe not any night. She had given him no hints, unless her attacks on his smoking were hints – a bloody funny way to show your feelings. But it was too late at night to think it all through. He switched off the light and shifted his attention to the real Rita Hayworth on the video.
When the film was over, Michael decided to make himself some coffee before watching another. In the kitchen he used the last of a jar of instant coffee and threw the empty jar into the waste bin. That was nearly full, so he lifted it out of its container. Justice Walk was a passage that linked Lawrence Street with Old Church Street. The house had no back garden and no traffic was allowed in the walk. Michael’s dustbins were therefore kept in a cupboard at the front of the house. Without switching on the hall lamp, he quietly opened the front door and peered out. He looked right, to Old Church Street. An amber light shone down the street, casting the walk into shadow, but the street itself seemed clear. Michael looked left to Lawrence Street – and just glimpsed a figure slip out of view in the directio
n of the river.
Michael’s blood started to race again. He looked at his watch: 1.30. Late, but this was Central London. Being abroad at that hour wasn’t in itself out of the ordinary. Michael hadn’t convinced himself, though, and was already moving. Leaving the rubbish where it was in the hall, he closed the front door behind him, double-locked it, and ran to where Justice Walk opened into Lawrence Street.
He looked towards the river. Nothing – or was that a figure disappearing into the little park that lay between the houses and the embankment?
He looked back to his house. There was no one in sight. He ran down Lawrence Street, paused at the junction that led to Cheyne Walk and looked to his left. No one. He knew that the pub to his right had a yard at one side. He was sweating now. He peered into the yard. That too was empty.
He ran the rest of the way to the park but when he reached it he found he was alone? Or was he? Wasn’t that a figure on a bench? It was lying down, as if it was trying to hide behind the back of the bench.
A car flashed by on the embankment, sending light and shadows raking through the trees of the park. For a split second the bench was lit up. Yes! there was a figure lying on it. It might be a tramp, of course, or a drunk. But if it was Molyneux Michael wanted to know. He felt both frightened and foolish at the same time. A sleeping tramp might be very angry when disturbed. Yet Michael had to know. He wanted to face Molyneux, to have some idea of whom he was up against. And he wanted to frighten the other man too, just as he was frightened himself.
He moved closer. Noiselessly. When he was five yards from the bench he had his answer. The stench which the horizontal body gave off could only mean that the figure was a sleeping tramp.
Now Michael’s fear took another turn: he had left the house, and the picture, unguarded. He turned and ran back up Lawrence Street, his heart bucketing in his ribcage. He skidded into Justice Walk. His front door was locked, just as he had left it. He turned the key and let himself in. The rubbish bag lay in the hall as he had left it. His pulse boomed in his ears. He checked the picture: it was safe. He sat in the kitchen and reached for his coffee.
Had that really been Molyneux he had seen in Lawrence Street? It had certainly been a tall figure but he had not registered any features. As he lifted his mug, Michael realised his hand was shaking. It had been quite a day – first his car mangled, now this. Nearly two o’clock in the morning and he was chasing shadows in Chelsea.
He sat, sipping his coffee and listening to the night outside. A motor bike started up in Old Church Street; footsteps passed along Justice Walk; someone ran in the distance. They could all have been Molyneux. Twice he looked out of the window in Justice Walk. Nothing – nothing, that is, except shadows.
Around four o’clock, armed with a big mug of tea, all he had left, he awoke Isobel. He showed her how to work the video, drew her attention to the rare old movies he had which she might not have seen, then took himself off to bed. He slept at the top of the house in a room with a huge bed and a single painting, the most beautiful picture he had ever been able to afford for himself. It was a small Cozens watercolour of Lucca in Italy. The lines were no more than hints, the washes were only suggestions, yet he had counted at least fifteen yellows in it.
He didn’t mention his nocturnal prowl, deciding that he was doing enough worrying for both of them. But he took the Landscape upstairs with him and slid it under the bed. He tried to sleep but the image of that figure, slipping out of view towards the river, kept floating before him in the dark.
Chapter Seven
When he awoke, around eight o’clock, it was to the smell of fresh coffee. Parabloodydise. He quickly shaved, showered, dressed, and went downstairs.
‘Sit down,’ said Isobel, as Michael entered the kitchen. The table was laid for breakfast. ‘You seem to have run out of instant coffee but there were some beans in the fridge. And some eggs. Some tomatoes but no bread. I’m making us an omelette.’
He drank some coffee, contemplated a cigar but thought he had better not. Not if he wanted an omelette. He watched as Isobel expertly slid the yellow and brown mass from the pan on to two plates. ‘You appear to be as good with kitchen gadgets as you are with a camera.’ Too late, he realised what he had said. ‘Sorry, sorry. That was tactless.’
She gave him another of her looks and banged his plate down on the table in front of him. ‘Eat that.’ Meaning: and shut up.
He did both for a while. ‘Mmm. This is good. Light and it needs no pepper or salt. Twenty-two-carat cooking.’
‘What’s our plan today?’
He drank more coffee. ‘I have some calls to make before I can be certain, but, during the night, I decided it’s too dangerous to send this picture to my regular restorer. For a start, he’s not far away, in Dover Street, and very easy for Molyneux to get at. Also, he’s known throughout the trade, so he’s hardly the most secure person to send it to.’
He ate the last of his omelette and ostentatiously licked his lips. ‘Wonderful. Four knives and forks, as Michelin would say. I’ll bet Rita Hayworth couldn’t cook like that. There’s another restorer I have been trying out, for when old Julius retires, which can’t be far off. Her name’s Helen Sparrow and she lives in East Anglia. That’s safely out of the way. If she’s free and can do this job for us over the weekend, then I can be pretty sure Molyneux will never find her.’
He looked at Isobel. She was nibbling a burnt piece of omelette. He held his fingers around the cup to warm them. He had, in fact, done quite a lot of thinking during his ‘watch’ earlier on that morning. ‘Isobel, today’s Friday. You said you didn’t want to go back to the farm just yet. Say we go to East Anglia today and give Helen the picture. There’s nothing else you or I can do until she’s taken away the grime and our next move is revealed. But we needn’t come back to town. We could spend the weekend on the coast, or looking at churches. East Anglia is where many English painters did their best work. I could show you. Constable country. Gainsborough gulch. We could pick up the cleaned picture on Monday morning and come back then, ready to take up the trail again. What do you say?’
A level stare.
‘Cotman, Turner, Cozens. They all painted some of their best works near where we have to go.’
She drank some coffee but still didn’t speak.
‘Too much art? How about fish, then? Helen Sparrow’s studio is barely thirty minutes from Lowestoft, as the crab scuttles. Fresh halibut, whitebait, sole, mackerel, lobster, herring, haddock, oysters, shrimps . . . I can’t think of any more. I’m fished out.’
Was she laughing at him? She still hadn’t spoken but her expression seemed to have changed. The flint in her eyes shimmered.
‘Okay, I’m going to play my trump card.’
‘I hope it’s not obscene.’
‘Ah, I thought my eloquence had knocked you speechless. No, it’s not obscene. Quite the opposite, in fact . . . Are you ready?’
Now she was smiling at him.
‘Come with me and I promise not to smoke before dark.’ The idea had come to him from nowhere. He only hoped he could keep to it. If she agreed.
Isobel reached across and took his empty plate. She stood up. ‘An almost ash-free weekend. Days without a cough. The unadulterated smell of fresh air. What woman could resist?’ Still smiling, she turned and started to put the cups and plates in the dishwasher.
Michael looked at his watch: 8.40. Time to call Greg Wood at home. Greg, who sometimes stood in for Michael at house sales, had had a good day up in Warwickshire, he said. He had bought two of the three paintings Michael had wanted but the other had gone for way over its estimate to a Dutch dealer. That they had acquired two paintings was very good news. One had been catalogued as a James Ward but Michael believed it to be by Ward’s brother-in-law, George Morland, a much better painter and a better-known name. If he was right the picture was worth at least five times what they had paid for it.
Though Michael was pleased by Greg’s news, this morning it wasn�
��t his main concern. ‘Greg, what happened yesterday? I knew you were going to be out of the gallery. But what happened to Patrick and Elizabeth? I called in all afternoon and no one ever answered.’
‘You mean you haven’t heard? Elizabeth’s mother was rushed to hospital. In Aberdeen. Touch and go, I hear. Patrick drove her to the airport. He didn’t bother to come back afterwards, since it was the day for his Italian lesson in High Street Kensington. He went straight there.’
Relieved, but worried on Elizabeth’s behalf, Michael said, ‘Which hospital is the mother in? I should send some flowers.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Greg. ‘I’ll do it. How’s your hunt going? Any luck?’
‘Luck? Yes. Bad as well as good. It’s moving, Greg but – well, there’s a long way to go. I’ll fill you in on everything when we get back.’
Michael had to wait another hour for people to get to their offices – as he had told Isobel, there weren’t many early birds in the art world. He occupied his time by opening his mail and reading the newspapers. The government’s proposals to legalise brothels were receiving their fair share of criticism, not least from the cartoonists. But the plan, even if it came off, wouldn’t be brought in for more than a year so it wasn’t worth a wager just yet. Something else, however, caught Michael’s eye. The managing director of a large sugar-refining company, a millionaire and a knight to boot, was just going on trial for fraud, attempting to manipulate the stock market. Michael knew that many people doubted the man would be sent to gaol, even if found guilty. He felt strongly on the issue, believing the man should be gaoled, but he knew others in the syndicate disagreed. It was, therefore, a perfect wager.
He phoned around. Everyone liked the idea and the sentences ranged as high as seven years. He himself opted for a fine of £100,000 but no prison sentence. Then, if he lost the wager, at least he would have the satisfaction of seeing the man go to prison. The trial was expected to last a month.