"You got it in three. At least that's what it did look like; it's a
bit changed now. Come and see for yourself."
He led her over, excusing them quietly past the silent onlookers, and
into the alcove in which the exhibit had been placed. It was still
hanging there, still perfectly lit from above, but no longer in the
form of the artist's vision. The gold frame ... about five feet deep
by four feet wide, r i , Rose estimated .. . was largely undamaged,
although foam from a fire extinguisher still dripped from it in places,
forming puddles on the floor below, but the painting itself had been
virtually destroyed. It was a mass of blackened, hanging threads with
a gaping hole in the centre through ill
which the scorched wall behind could be seen. Three of its corners
retained colour and shape, but even they were badly blistered.
"Pretty comprehensive," the detective superintendent muttered.
"Oh yes," Steele agreed. "I haven't touched it, and neither did the
fire boys, but Grogan said he thought that an incendiary device had
been placed behind it, in the bottom left corner. You'll see that's
been completely destroyed. As I said, he thinks we'll find the remains
of a timing device when the technicians look behind it."
"When did it happen?"
"I can tell you that," a dry, cultured voice interrupted. Rose turned
to look up at a tall, grey-haired man in a dark business suit, with
flecks of dandruff about its shoulders and lapels.
"This is Mr. David Candela, the senior partner of Candela and Finch,"
Steele explained.
"I thought this was your bicentenary," she said to the man.
He nodded, taking her meaning at once. "It is, but there's been a
Candela in the firm since its foundation. We're very proud of the
family connection. It's unique in its longevity, I believe."
"Congratulations," said the detective. "Now tell me about the
present."
"Certainly. I was right in the middle of my opening speech, standing
just there .. ." he pointed to a spot in below the Botticelli which
hung on the far wall '.. . when there was a damn great whoosh to my
right, and the damn thing went up in flames.
"I got quite a shock, I can tell you. All hell broke loose, of course;
the curator, who was standing beside me, went into a blue funk and ran
off to call 999. A couple of the security Johnnies, they grabbed fire
extinguishers and started to go at the fire. It was going like .. ."
he gave a short braying laugh at an impending joke '... like blazes, I
suppose, but they got it out eventually. By the time they did, though,
it looked like that. It's a bit of a bugger, really; we're
underwriting the insurance costs of this show."
"Has your firm upset anyone lately, Mr. Candela?" Rose asked.
"My dear lady," the man replied, affably, 'my firm has been upsetting
people for two hundred years now. We have developed a style over that
time which tends to get right up the noses of the people on the
opposite side of disputes in which we become involved. Kick 'em bloody
hard in the thingamajigs; it's the only way in litigation, and we're
bloody good at it, I can tell you."
Smiling in spite of her dislike of being taken for a dear lady, Rose
nodded towards the wrecked painting. "Can you think of anyone you
might have upset enough for them to do that to you?"
Mr. Candela drew himself up, seeming to find another couple of inches
in height in the process. "Dear lady.. ." he began.
"Superintendent," said Maggie, affably.
"Superintendent then," he continued, unruffled, 'the people against
whom we litigate tend not to be, shall I say, at that end of the
market. They went to different schools. Some of them may be arse
holes I'll admit, but I do not believe that any of them are arsonists.
Go down that road if you choose; I'll co-operate, if only to annoy some
of the buggers even more, but you won't find your man among them."
Rose sighed. "I'm sure you're right, Mr. Candela, but I can't take
that as read. It's a line of enquiry I'll have to follow." She turned
to Steele. "Stevie, a word."
They walked back to the alcove from which they had come, in time to see
the red-haired Inspector Arthur Dorward, the head of the scene-of-crime
team, slouch glumly into the hall. "Another unhappy copper," said
Rose, in greeting. "It's over there. We think you'll find the remains
of a firebomb behind it. As usual, we'd like to know everything about
it, and we'd like to know yesterday. If that's not possible, later on
today will do.
"While you're at that, Stevie and I will start to go through the
basics." She pointed up into a corner of the gallery towards a video
camera. "That has to be connected to a tape. Maybe we'll get lucky
and it'll give us a result."
Steele looked at her with something approaching disdain. "Sure,
Maggie, sure, and maybe God really is a woman."
Wight.
Sarah stood on the porch of the cabin. The sun was rising in the sky,
its light glistening and dancing on the waters of the lake, and the day
was becoming hot, yet she clutched herself as if she was shivering.
"It's taken a hell of an effort for you to come here, hasn't it?" Ron
Neidholm murmured from behind her.
She glanced at him over her shoulder as he leaned against the frame of
the open door. He was one of the biggest quarterbacks in football
history, six feet five and two hundred and forty-five pounds according
to the official website, and he seemed to fill it.
"Oh it has," she agreed. "At first, you know, I decided that I never
wanted to see this place, the house where my parents were murdered.
Then gradually, I realised that I had to, if I was ever going to come
to terms with it. It was really nice of you to offer to bring me up
here; I could never have come on my own.
"Even with you alongside me, it wasn't easy; you probably didn't
notice, but the closer we got along the road, the more I was
trembling."
He reached out and touched her shoulder, then slipped his fingers
through her auburn hair, and rubbed her neck gently, feeling her
tension. "I noticed all right," he said, as he moved close behind her.
She leaned against him; her eyes closed as her head fell back against
his chest. "How do you feel now?" he asked.
"I don't know," she whispered. "I feel that I should cry, but I can't.
At one point I thought I'd drench the place in gasoline and burn it to
the ground, in a grand gesture, but now that I've seen it, I can't do
that either. It's just so beautiful here."
"Beautiful, and isolated; and vulnerable."
"You don't need to remind me."
Feeling a small shudder run through her, he slid his arms around her
and held her tight. "I'm sorry. It was stupid of me to say that.. .
but then I never did have a way with words."
She turned in his embrace, and looked up at him. "You didn't need it,"
she said, with a smile in her eyes, if not on her lips. "You had other
ways."
"I still have, honey: I still have."
In Britain or America, you foot ballers are all the same."
His face took on a mock frown. "Hey, I'm a national figure; I can't
get up to stuff like that. Besides, when you get past the thirty mark,
the groupies tend to pass you by."
"More fools them, I'm sure."
"Nah, they just assume there's a little wife at home, that's all. Most
times they're right, too; most of my contemporaries have families."
"Have you ever been married, Ron?" . "No. Not even close."
"Why not?"
"Football."
"That can't go on for ever."
"I know."
"What you said the other night, about maybe giving up ... were you
serious?"
"I'm always serious, Sarah, especially about you."
Sarah took a deep breath and looked up at him. "Ron, things have
changed since we had our thing at college; apart from everything else,
I have three kids."
"Yeah, and great kids they are; I hope I can spend a little more time
with them when I take you back." He glanced around the surrounding
woods and out across the water. "Now you've finally seen this place,
do you think you might keep it for them to enjoy?"
She gave a soft whistle, and smiled. "They might enjoy it, but it
would be a nightmare for me. Mark isn't exactly an outdoor boy; he's a
mathematician and a computer buff, and he's happy anywhere with a
telephone line. But James Andrew is action boy personified. As soon
as I turned my back on him he'd be halfway up a tree. As for Seonaid,
it's early days yet, but she's showing signs of turning out the same
way. No,
I haven't decided what to do with it yet. I have been toying with an
idea, though, of giving it, or at least making it available to, an
outfit that works with deprived inner-city kids. What do you think?"
"I think that would be very noble." He looked at the heavy logs that
formed the walls. "The structure would make it pretty difficult to
spray-paint, and they'd probably take their knives away before they
brought them up here, so you wouldn't have gang symbols carved
anywhere."
"Cynic," she laughed. She stepped back from him, holding on to his
left hand. "Speaking of getting back to Buffalo," she said, 'as we
were, how long have we got here? When should we be thinking about
heading back to the airfield? I know you've been flying for a few
years now, but we don't want to take any chance of doing it after dark.
Your plane isn't that big."
His face creased into a broad grin. "You know what the private pilot's
greatest enemy is? Fog, that's what. Why, you can have what looks
like a perfect day, just like this, yet the temperature can change just
a degree or two and great banks of the damn stuff can appear out of
nowhere. And when they do, only the big aircraft can fly."
Without warning he gazed out over the lake then pointed, with his free
hand. "Hey, over there; I'm sure I can see a fog bank, can't you?"
She looked out over the shining water. "No', she replied. "I don't
believe I can."
"What the hell," he chuckled. "It was worth a try. The stuff is so
damned unpredictable after all."
"Yes, I've heard that. And you know what? I can be pretty damned
unpredictable too." She held his hand against her face, and kissed it.
"If we'd been somewhere else, and the moment had been right, I might
just have seen that fog bank. But not here, Ron; not here."
Nine.
Afternoon was turning into evening as Martin rang the doorbell, and
waited. He was no longer in uniform, but dressed in jeans, a white
tee-shirt and a black bomber jacket that he had owned for years. Its
leather was creased and softened with wear, and it was the most
comfortable garment he had ever known.
The day had gone from warm to hot, but the air conditioning in his new
Mondeo was efficient, and so he was comfortable despite the
seventy-five-mile drive.
Rather than the few moments he had expected, his wait turned into
minutes. He rang the bell again, frowning. Finally, the heavy front
door opened.
The man who stood there was wearing only shorts and trainers, and was
glistening with sweat. He was taller than Martin at around six feet
two, and looked at least ten years older. His face was lined, with a
deep scar above the nose, and his gun-grey hair was sticking to his
temples and standing up in spikes on top. But his body was that of a
much younger man, wide-shouldered, narrow-wasted, with long muscles on
his arms and legs and a six-pack that looked rock hard.
He swung the door open wider and smiled, that warm, endearing grin that
Andy knew so well. "I'm sorry, son," he said, then stopped. "Listen
to me, calling you son. I should probably call you "sir", since you're
a serving deputy chief constable and they've got me destined for the
scrap heap
"Come on in, anyway. I was working out in my gym upstairs. I thought
I'd have plenty of time before you got here. Either you've come down
that road like a bat out of hell or I'm slowing up."
"Jesus, man," said Martin as he stepped into the house. "You were out
running earlier when I called you on the mobile. You shouldn't be
going at it this hard."
Bob Skinner's smile disappeared. "Too fucking right I should," he
snapped. "I'm going to show a few people just how stupid they are."
"You are taking this too personally," his friend replied, allowing
himself to be led into the kitchen. "They're just being cautious,
that's all. Remember when Jimmy had his heart attack? It was a while
before they'd let him back to work."
The bigger man sighed, as if he was making an effort to be patient.
"Listen, Andy, for the umpteenth time, I did not have a heart attack. I
had an incident that turned out to be something called sick sinus
syndrome, a condition in which your heart rate drops without warning
and you pass out. They put me on a treadmill in hospital in the
States, once I'd recovered, with all sorts of monitors attached to me.
You're supposed to walk steadily on it; I ran nearly two miles in the
ten minutes of the test.
"The bloody thing's hereditary; my mother had it when she was in middle
age, and so did my Uncle George. It passed off with them as they grew
older. They didn't know what caused it then and they still don't."
He reached up and touched his chest, about four inches above the left
nipple. "If these things had been around then they'd probably have had
them fitted as a precaution, just as the Americans insisted on doing
with me."
Martin looked at the area where the pacemaker had been inserted. The
scar was still fresh, but it had begun to fade and had been overgrown
already by chest hair. The flat lump that he had seen before, where
the device lay on top of the ribcage, had almost disappeared, enveloped
by renewed muscle.
"I tell you, Andy," Skinner insisted, "I am as fit as I have ever been
and, probably as a result of this thing, fitter than I'
ve been for
years. I went round Gullane One in seventy-three yesterday, and I've
never hit the bloody ball as far."
"Doesn't the pacemaker affect you at all?"
"No. It's set to kick in if my pulse rate drops below fifty-five, or
if it rises to one-seventy-five. Even when I'm running flat out it
never gets that high."
"Nonetheless," said the other man, 'you have to ally a bit of patience
to this physical work you're doing. Rules is rules, like they say,
even for Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner. When are you due for your
next medical?"
"Not for another month, on the present timetable ... but I'm going to
do something about that."
"Why, for fuck's sake? You haven't had a sabbatical in years. Play
bloody golf, enjoy yourself, go back to Sarah in the States; stop doing
your head in, and everyone else's."
"Don't mention Sarah to me, please. She actually wants me to chuck the
police. Can you believe that? And why the hell should I go to her?
Okay, there's legal work to be done tidying up her parents' estate, but
there is such a thing as airmail. Anything she has to sign could be
sent over here and notarised here."
"It's a lot of money, Bob."
"So? It's her money. And how does that affect my career?"
"Significantly, if you choose to look at it that way."
Thursday Legends Page 6