by Janice Law
“As sure as I can be.”
She nodded and bit her lip and looked out over the streets of the Casbah and down toward the medina. I wondered what she really thought of Tangier, of Morocco, of Moroccans.
“What will you do now?” I asked.
“I will search for Herr Goldfarber,” she said immediately in a cold, flat voice.
“He’s a large, powerful, dangerous man. I wouldn’t recommend that.”
“I’m not going to date him,” she said. “I’m going to kill him.
Chapter Seven
In theory, Edith Angleford’s idea had a lot of appeal, but I could see big problems for her in practice. And maybe for me, too, because, although we parted on bad terms, I had a suspicion that sooner or later the vengeful widow would see a way either to enlist my help or to put me in danger. In short, my visit was a neat illustration of the perils of good intentions. Despite that nice Spanish red on the Angleford roof terrace, I found myself irresistibly drawn to a dive in the Socco, where I set a resolute course for the Empty Quarter. I was well on my way when David appeared, looking fitter and happier than he had in weeks, if not months. His face was shining, his hair brushed, his clothes, impeccable.
“Francis! What are you doing here? Today needs an elegant cafe and good champagne!”
His greeting should have warned me, but it was such a pleasure to see him happy that I was content in the moment. I paid my tab and joined him for a late, and quite splendid, lunch.
“No, my treat,” he said when I tried to pay. “I’ve come into money. Not real money, you understand, but sufficient unto the day, unto fines and lawyers, and certain niggling overdue bills.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said. I told myself that it was just my recent proximity to the Empty Quarter and my visit to Edith Angleford that suddenly made me apprehensive. “Your case is settled? So quickly?”
“A man with a sharp lawyer can do wonderful things, especially in Tangier. Money is so eloquent here.”
“Congratulations. I imagine that you’ll be making plans to leave the Zone. There’s no reason now for you to stay, is there?”
“No reason?” He gave a wicked smile. “Let me count the ways: Khalid, Bilal, Ali, Jamal … Why would I ever want to leave?”
Why, indeed? He was playful, but I was serious. We had drifted apart, and Tangier was proving dangerous for my health, not to mention my painting. “So why did you ask me, beg me, actually, to visit?”
“I missed you, of course. You suffer, and I enjoy.” He showed his teeth and gave a sly grin.
Once, my heart would have beat faster. Now, I wasn’t in the mood. “I could be in London, where I can paint. I could be getting ready for a show and repaying the loans from my gallery. I wouldn’t have come if you hadn’t asked me.”
His face changed. Perhaps only long acquaintance enabled me to register his emotions, but I suspected that he had lost some psychic armor. Military discipline had worn away with high, or more exactly low, living, and I could see that his new cheerfulness was only skin-deep. “I was in a bad way,” he said. “And you understand me.”
“Now you’re in a good way and determined to stay. Perhaps Khalid, Bilal, Ali, or Jamal will prove to be understanding in time.”
It was a mistake to sound bitter with David. He liked to be in control and provoke reactions. I understood, but I was losing patience with the game.
“I’m counting on it. Besides, where have you been lately?”
No point in discussing that. David was proud and touchy; knowing my efforts on his behalf would be deeply humiliating for him. And there are times when one needs to know the worst immediately. This was one of them. “How did you come into money? A late rich relative?”
Again the sly grin. “No, something far better in a way. I was with Abdullah. Or was it Karim? No matter. Things were progressing and then”—he darkened slightly—“too much kef or too much wine produced a misunderstanding and led to—”
“I don’t need all the details,” I said. If David didn’t leave Tangier, he’d be right back in the commissioner’s clutches.
“Oh, but you’ll be interested. Leading, as I said, to frolics in the living room, leading to pillows and lamps thrown, before a certain handsome Berber rug was ripped from the wall, producing a fine surprise.”
“Right. You found the ‘Picasso.’” My heart sank. The only saving grace was that Abdullah or Karim or the boy of the moment had not made off with it. “The painting’s a fake, of course.”
“By your fine hand, I’d guess. Much the best thing you’ve ever done, Francis. Why you labor on the rubbish you produce when you might live in luxury beggars the imagination.”
“What did you do with it, David?”
“I sold it, of course. I hadn’t realized what a marketable item good art is. It was no bother at all. I went out with it under my jacket and came back with a thousand pounds. But you don’t seem happy. Thanks to your work, I’m a free man, unencumbered legally, and once again a respectable member of Tangierino society—if that isn’t a contradiction in terms.”
He sounded breezy and lighthearted; it pained me to think that forgery had produced this improvement, as if the way to his heart was through dodgy pictures. Though someone like Edith Angleford might sacrifice all for love, this idea gave me pause. “Who bought it, David?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he teased.
“It’s more a matter of needing to know,” I said. “But I have a good idea in any case.”
“I’m sure you do. Who collects Picassos? Real or otherwise? Why our good friend Richard. One glance and he had to have it.”
I bet he did. “He didn’t ask where you’d gotten it? He never questioned its provenance?”
“You know, Francis, I think our friend’s expertise is much exaggerated. You had to clue him in about the first painting. If you’d had your wits about you, you’d have said it was one hundred percent Spanish Master and sold him a gallery full.”
I got up from the table, grabbed the edge of the cloth, and tipped dishes, cutlery, wine glasses, carafes, and coffee cups into his lap. “I was never an officer and a gentleman like you, but I’m no hack. And don’t get up or I’ll flatten you.” I turned so quickly that I knocked my chair onto the floor. I stepped over it, shoved the waiter, and headed straight for the door. David’s voice rose behind me, but his every word was incinerated by anger.
I stormed down the narrow lane to the market square, squeezing past shoppers and overloaded donkeys, dodging ancient trucks and fancy cars. I’d been a fool to come, a fool to involve myself in David’s troubles, a fool to stay one minute more in the wretched, seductive, filthy, beautiful city. I would pack my things, buy a ticket for the ferry, and be in Spain tomorrow. I love excess, I really do, but even the most intense pleasures can wear thin. David was beginning to exceed my emotional exchequer, and I wanted to get out before my account was overdrawn.
In this determined mood, I climbed the stairs to my studio, my mind full of resolution and exciting new images. I can’t paint around David; there’s too much turmoil and drama, but there’s no doubt that the aftermath is inspiration. Given my habits, it’s probably no surprise that my Muse is an alcoholic sadist with deadly charm. Chacun à son goût! But no longer. Propelled by good intentions and common sense, I put the key in the door of my studio and found it already unlocked. A little carelessness on my part?
Yes, I decided, and opened the door. Wrong: two men had made themselves comfortable in my chairs. Even against the light, I recognized Richard and next to him, a blond head. Clearly I had proven irresistible to my friend from the medina.
“Come in,” said Richard. “We took the liberty.”
“You took too much liberty,” I said sourly. “I let very few people into my studio.” I was more than annoyed, I was semipanicked. Richard was a weasel, cozy with the polic
e commissioner and attached to some mysterious outfit at the legation. His arrival could only be bad news.
“A thousand pardons for invading the sanctity of the studio.”
Where does the damn old queen get those Edwardian turns of phrase? He must study them, because he’s not old enough to remember them.
“But time is of the essence,” he continued. “Her Majesty’s Government needs your help.”
“I worked for her father during the war. It really didn’t suit me. My plan at the moment is to leave Tangier on the morning ferry.”
“As a friend, I would heartily recommend that. But I’m here in a different capacity.”
“One that involves breaking and entering, I see.”
“Alas, that has come into it.” He shook his head with what might have been regret but which I took to be playacting. “We really have come for your help.”
“The last time I gave you some ‘help,’ I wound up doing a favor for the police commissioner and working illegally for a man whom I now assume is a murderer. Not a good recommendation, Richard.”
“You refer to Goldfarber?” Like a switch turned off, all the camp antics were gone.
“The same. A dangerous man, as I’m sure you and your colleague know perfectly well.”
“We’d be interested in your observations,” he said smoothly.
I considered whether the pleasure of surprising him outweighed the possible benefits of secrecy, but he had the painting and doubtless would collect my fingerprints. He could make trouble for me, but maybe I could make some for him. “I suspect they would overlap your own, seeing that we both visited Goldfarber’s gallery the other afternoon. You and tall-blond-and-handsome here were in the gallery and in the office. I was on the stairs and eventually on top of the water tank.”
Richard was clearly taken aback. “You were in the gallery. The whole time?”
“I went to collect some money. Money for the picture I understand you just bought.”
“I must congratulate you on that, quite beyond what I’d have expected of you,” Richard said, momentarily falling out of his role as a man of mysterious government affairs. “It puts my other ‘Picasso’ quite to shame. And it dried so quickly, too. Do tell me how!”
“That’s a trade secret.” I thought how easy it is to admire the already famous, which is how most connoisseurs get their reputations.
“And did he pay you?”
“As a matter of fact, he did. Instead of cutting my throat, which maybe you’d expected?”
Richard’s face went red. “Steady on,” he said. “I had nothing to do with your association with Goldfarber. I hadn’t a clue that you had done work for him.”
“Except for putting me in the way of the commissioner, who was investigating Goldfarber, whose previous assistant wound up dead. No, fortunately for me, Herr Goldfarber was expecting someone. Someone dressed, as I was at that moment, in a burnoose. Sound familiar?”
The blond man spoke up for the first time. “Did you see him? The visitor?”
I shook my head and described my imprisonment in the storage room, the unintelligible voices of Goldfarber and his visitor, and the sound as of something—or someone—being dragged across the gallery.
“Why didn’t you answer us when we called?” Richard demanded. “If you were already freed from the closet, you must have heard us.”
“I didn’t know who you were, and when I did recognize your voice, I wondered what you were up to. Not your usual role, is it, Richard? Looking out for transmitters and searching offices? Speaking of that, did you notice a little blood on the desk? I hope Her Majesty’s servants were alert to that. You might have called the police, and poor Jonathan Angleford might have been found more quickly.”
He muttered something about “standard procedures” and “jeopardizing the operation.” Given a few more minutes, I think he’d have ventured on “state secrets.” In short, he covered his backside as I’d covered mine; I guess the secret services are human after all. “Best not let Mrs. Angleford know,” I said. “Until her husband’s killer is found, she’s going to make life difficult for all Bad Samaritans.”
I thought he seemed momentarily distressed; whatever else he was—and his identity appeared to be both interesting and complicated—Richard really was enthralled with his place in Tangierino society.
“Well, we will have to produce Goldfarber, won’t we? It will be in everyone’s interest: the commissioner’s, ours, Mrs. Angleford’s, and yours.”
“I will applaud from afar,” I said. “From my London studio, to be exact. And now, gentlemen, I must pack.”
I made this announcement with a considerable show of confidence, but Richard didn’t move and neither did his companion. The possibility of social complications had been my best card, and Richard was going to leave it on the table. “We have a plan,” he said, “to flush him out.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Even the verb was ill-chosen.
“We believe that he is in the Spanish Zone.”
“Why?”
Richard and his companion exchanged glances. “What I tell you now is highly confidential, classified information.”
“Best to leave me out of it, then. I have security risk written all over me.”
“We considered that,” Richard said sourly. “However, you seem curiously blackmail-proof.”
“Candor has its uses, gentlemen.”
“No doubt. You are vulnerable on only one point.”
I felt my chest prickle, preliminary to seizing up; I knew what was coming.
“That fine—shall we call it a ‘Picasso homage’—might be misconstrued. Not here, certainly. Here in Tangier, its creation was a very public spirited act, admirable even. But London’s a different matter, don’t you know. I’ve always found the London art world catty, even vicious.”
This was true. It was also true that I hate lying in paint and that forgery is one of the rare accusations that could both embarrass and injure me. I should have taken Nan’s advice, avoided passion, and stuck with rich gents from Mayfair.
“Fortunately,” Richard said, “I am in possession of the doubtful item. I can keep it as an amusing souvenir to test would-be connoisseurs’ acumen. Or I could consign it to the flames.”
“Much the best thing,” I said.
“I agree. But Her Majesty’s Government has a thousand pounds invested in the work, and there will be problems accounting for it without some profit to us.”
“There might be questions raised about how you failed to find Angleford’s body, too,” I said, determined to go down on the attack. “And why you apparently ignored the evidence in his office.”
“That might be so, theoretically,” said Richard, “but there won’t be any questions.”
Definitely a hint of menace. Could I have been mistaken about who killed the Spanish boy? Even Angleford? No, not Angleford; I had heard a large object being dragged across the gallery floor. That was surely Goldfarber’s doing.
“The operation we are engaged in is important. Important for us, for Tangier, for the future of North Africa.” Richard sounded ready to address the House of Lords.
“A lot of people have ideas for the future of North Africa,” I remarked. I detest politics and tend to reduce all issues to the personal. Nadir with his lacerated back and his curious bracelet and his faithful friends seemed admirable in a way that neither the commissioner nor Richard was. Whatever the wild Berbers came up with could hardly be worse than the corrupt mess of the Zone.
“The Soviets are interested in stirring up trouble,” Richard continued. “They want to use Moroccan anger over the king’s exile to promote a Marxist government in the region. With Gibraltar just across the straits, Her Majesty’s Government cannot allow that. And will not.”
“And you assume that Goldfarber was a Soviet agent of
some sort?” Apparently agents came in all shapes and sizes, but an art dealer with a sideline in forged paintings seemed unlikely. “Wouldn’t his dubious stock make him a suspect for one thing or another?”
“Exactly. He was an unreliable Soviet agent. It is likely that he killed Angleford and possibly one other associate. It might have been to hide his profitable sideline.”
“But why Angleford? A British poet with an enthusiasm for Moroccan verse.”
Richard looked at his colleague, who gave the slightest of nods.
“Jonathan Angleford was an enthusiast of all things Moroccan. We also have evidence that from the time he left Cambridge he was a committed Marxist and very possibly a Soviet agent.”
I remembered that David had hinted at something similar with his sly references to Cambridge and the notorious spy ring. I felt a pang for Edith Angleford. “Goldfarber seems to be eliminating Soviet agents. Perhaps you should leave well enough alone.”
“It’s more complicated than that. Angleford was still a British subject. It would look very strange if the legation didn’t take an interest, and the devoted Mrs. Angleford is ready to move heaven and earth to get his killing solved. Besides, there are Goldfarber’s masters. We think we can get farther up the chain.”
The whole operation had an off smell to it, and I wasn’t inclined to take Richard’s word for anything. “Such a delicate operation requires a professional,” I said. “How you can think about involving me is beyond imagining.”
“Normally,” said the blond man, “we’d never give you a thought.”
I believed that. He was disdainful and full of himself.
“But Goldfarber needs a painter.”
“Surely not still. His sideline wrecked whatever else he was doing, didn’t it?”
“For that very reason,” Richard said. “He’s been acting like a man who wants out. In from the cold, so to speak.”