by Peter Helton
“I need absolute discretion.” Her voice adamant.
“Then you’re fonder of discretion than you are of your paintings.”
“Fonder of my father’s health. I don’t want him upset.” Virginia twirled her cigarette in the ashtray. She spoke more softly now. “My father is in Devon, at a private natural health clinic for a last ditch attempt to cure his cancer. He doesn’t have long to live so he’s going for a miracle cure. He’ll be back in twenty days. If I go to the police one way or another it’ll get into the papers and he’ll hear about it. I don’t want him distracted. They do a lot of meditation and things. It’s hocus-pocus in my book but he’s entitled to give it a shot without being sidetracked by this.”
“The collection is your father’s?”
She nodded. “This is his house.”
“It’s an impressive collection. Eclectic, to a point, but impressive. I wouldn’t mind a closer look later on.”
Her mouth twitched into a brief halfsmile, possibly a half-smirk. Take the job, it said, and you can look all you like. If not, Nescafe and out.
“You don’t live here?”
“I want to spend as much time with my father as possible while he’s around. But no, I have a flat in Bath.”
“Your mother?”
She simply shook her head.
“So there’s no one here at the moment? To look after the house?”
“My father’s housekeeper took the opportunity to visit family while he’s away. I look after the house in her absence but…” She didn’t finish the sentence and I didn’t ask. But I might later. The reproductions of the vanished canvases at the back of the catalogue made me nervous as well as angry. All of them were figurative, all but one of them nudes. I wondered about the thief’s choice and taste. “Has everything been left as it was? You didn’t clear up any mess they made?”
“There was no mess. Everything is as I found it.”
I gave it one more try, to make sure.
“My chances of recovering these are very slim. It would be a lucky break, no more.” I’m not known for lucky breaks. Breaks, yes. Lucky, no.
Her hand hovered over the ashtray, ready to drop the butt. “But you’ll have a go?”
“What will you do if I turn you down?” As if I didn’t know.
“Nothing. I’ll wait until my father gets back. I’ve tried ev…” She dropped the butt, spread her hands in surrender.
“You’ve asked everyone else and they all turned you down for the same reasons. Only someone said, “Try Aqua, they’re a bunch of painters so might just be mad enough to take it on.””
She nodded. “And are you?”
“Mad enough? I am now.”
There were two more things on my list for the day before I’d give the Dufossee paintings my undivided attention and both should be more pleasurable — to check on what exactly Simon Paris Fine Art meant by good news and to see Jenny at Somerset Lodge. Jenny first, I decided, since there was always a chance of food and by now I was ravenous. I drove to Poet’s Corner.
Somerset Lodge, at the Alexandra Park end of Boswell Avenue, is a small residential place for recovering mental health patients, a kind of halfway house, run by the Culver-house Trust, and Jenny Kickaldy is the long-suffering housekeeper.
When and where Jenny and I first met is now lost in the depths of time. She’s always been there, it seems, and always been there for me when things get rough. I try to do the same for her but naturally she’s much better at it.
So whenever things get on top of her and she needs to get away from it all for a day I step in and cook the meals and chat for a few hours with the residents. She hadn’t called me for weeks so I thought I’d show my face. At the front gate I nearly got bowled over by an eighteen-stone paper-girl who had just stuffed the Chronicle through the letter box. She managed to ram her overloaded bag into my stomach as she barrelled past me. I unjammed the paper from the letter box and let myself in with my key. I walked past the sitting room, with its perpetually burbling TV, through to the kitchen. It had been done up since I’d last been there. A brand-new electric oven and grill winked digitally across at me. Dave was there, lean and hectic, pacing the length of the kitchen and adjoining dining room, as is his habit.
I said hello.
“Hi, Chris.” He didn’t stop. Jenny and I once worked out that Dave walks thirty miles a day pacing up and down, a cool ten thousand miles a year, which keeps him extremely fit and wears out the carpets.
“Are you cooking tonight?” he asked. The residents always ask me that of course. I’ve never worked out if they dread my cooking or if it’s just a polite question.
“Don’t know yet. Where’s Jenny?”
Jenny was in the garden. I found her sitting cross-legged in the shade of the chestnut trees, blonde hair piled high on her head, sweating over paperwork that was spilling out around her on the grass. Linda, at nineteen the youngest resident, was saving the flower beds with the aid of an old-fashioned, tin watering can. Quite fragile and flowerlike herself, she just smiled across. Linda is very shy.
Jenny lifted tired eyes from a thick file and also smiled, a tired smile. The shadows under her eyes were deeper than normal. Quickly she gathered some of the papers together, flipped one or two over. I help out but I’m not entitled to know medical details about the residents — unless they tell me themselves, which some of them do quite freely.
“You look worn out,” I said. “Why didn’t you ring?” I flopped on to the grass next to her. Perhaps it wasn’t the nicest opening I could have thought of.
“Good morning to you too.”
“It’s gone two o’clock.”
“Really?” Jenny puffed up her cheeks and slowly blew out the air. Then she seemed to snap out of it. “Right,” she said breezily, gathering up her papers, “in that case enough of this. I’ll make some lunch. Want some? Stupid question. Let’s go inside.” I have a reputation for being perpetually hungry, so people tend to offer me food a lot. Which is nice.
“If you need a day off I’m not too busy,” I suggested, following her across the lawn.
She stopped on the threshold of the back door. Checked no one was within earshot. “We’ve got a bit of bother. A lot of bother actually. I’ve called a committee meeting, they’ll have it here at Somerset Lodge on Saturday. So at the moment I’ve got to be here. Two more days. But after that, yes, please. I really could do with forgetting all about this place for a day or two.”
“You don’t want to talk about it?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“I can’t. You know how it is.” Jenny is fiercely protective of the residents’ rights and privacy. Strictly “need to know”. She was doing it now. “There’s one thing I ought to tell you if you’re cooking next week.” She checked again that no one was listening. Linda was at the far end of the garden, just contemplating the bushes. “I had a funny incident with Dave. It’s nothing really but…” She nibbled at her lower lip. “I think you’re entitled to know. I was preparing supper a couple of days ago. Got it all in the oven. Had some garnish laid out to chop at the last minute. The big Sabatier knife next to it. Sat down and read the paper for a bit. Dave was pacing as per usual. When it was time to serve up I went to the chopping board and the knife was gone. Looked everywhere. Turned round and there was Dave, clutching the bloody thing in his right hand, like a dagger, pacing up and down like an assassin, right behind where I’d been sitting and reading.”
“Bloody hell. And?”
“And nothing. First I got scared, then I realized he probably didn’t even know he had it. I said, “Dave, can I have the knife,” and he just gave it to me.”
“Did you ask him what it was about?”
“I did, later, when I felt a bit calmer. He just said, “I don’t know.” So watch your back a bit but don’t be obvious about it. You know what Dave’s like, always on the boil. Talks about volcanoes and so on. Thank God I’m a post-Freudian.” She tried for a grin. “The way I feel at the mo
ment I’m post everything. And there’s other stuff. Odd things go missing. Small change from the mantelpiece. A candlestick. Wanna play detective? Forget it. Let’s eat.”
Dave had transferred his pacing to the living room so we could chat freely while Jenny threw together one of her famous buffet spreads in record time, despite her obvious tiredness. Since she insisted she worked quicker without my help I perched on the chest freezer and watched her whirl about, in her element now. Deep-fried chicken bits, tabbouleh, dips and salads ran off the assembly line. Her hair was working loose and she blew wayward strands out of her field of vision while she worked and quizzed me about my day.
“Which hat are you wearing today, then?”
“Aqua business, I’m between paintings.”
“Is that like between chairs?”
“No, much more comfortable. Took on a new job today which looks like it’ll run for a while and probably come to nothing. Art theft. Or you could call it a heist really, they got away with seven paintings.” Unable to resist the lemony smell of those chickeny things I reached for one and got my wrist slapped.
“You’re as bad as the residents. Wait till it’s on the table. I thought you didn’t take on stuff like that. Isn’t that a police job?”
“It will be, I’m sure. I’ve got twenty days to try to get them back before it goes official.”
“Your inspector friend isn’t going to be too happy when he hears you’ve been holding out on him again,” she said with a certain relish.
“Needham? He’s a detective superintendent now.”
“Even worse then, I should think.” Jenny always enjoyed my stories of the low-level feuding that’s been going on between Needham and myself ever since my very first case. Then I was looking into some good old-fashioned sheep rustling when I stumbled into nasty goings-on in the meat industry which involved a deep-frozen meat inspector. Something which for my own reasons I failed to mention for a while since I naturally assumed the poor man would keep for another week or so while I sorted out the good guys from the not so nice. When I waltzed into Manvers Street police station one morning with all the evidence, terribly pleased with my own cleverness, the then Detective Inspector Needham made me sweat in a clapped-out interview room until long after last orders had been called. That “stunt”, as Needham called it, nearly cost me my brand new licence and set the tone for our relationship. Needham would give me a hard time, I knew. Especially if I failed. He’s a proper copper, due process and all that. Some of the things Aqua get up to set his teeth on edge, particularly when Tim does his door opening/door closing routine. We call it checking things out, he calls it breaking and entering. Only Tim’s far too good to ever break anything. Except codes.
“Can’t be helped,” I summed up. “My client won’t go to the police for her own good reasons. So it’s up to me.”
Jenny gave me one of her is-that-so looks and wiped her hands on her Short-Tempered-Short-Order-Cook apron. “You just can’t resist it, I expect. Paintings and all that. I know how you hate art thieves. I’m done. Want to sound the alarm?”
I did. Jenny knew I loved banging away at the big Chinese dinner gong in the hall. I took a good swing at it, making sure everyone in Boswell Avenue knew lunch was served at Somerset Lodge.
First to appear was Gavin, a spotty, slightly unsavoury-looking boy with thin, perpetually greasy hair. Was it grease or was it “product”? I couldn’t decide. He slithered in and stuck damply to the wall just by the door jamb, looking me up and down. Then he looked Jenny up and down, scratched his crotch and swallowed.
“Hi, Gav,” Jenny coaxed. Gavin hardly ever speaks, not unless he absolutely has to. He’s twenty-two but his mind is stuck in his midteens somewhere, shy of girls, shy of the world. Only the pressures of bodily needs make him venture beyond his attic room. Food was one of those.
“Help yourself. We’re having ours out on the lawn. You’re welcome to join us,” she invited. Some hope. Gavin cleared his throat, laboriously and wetly. This meant he was going to speak, which is a rare occasion. We stood still.
“Is it…Thursday?” Gavin is also lost in time. Days, hours, weeks, all tenuous notions, all interchangeable. “Is Gordon coming?” he squeezed out.
“No,” Jenny said firmly. “Gordon won’t be coming to see you.”
Gordon Hines is one of the more religious committee members of the Culverhouse Trust who looks after the spiritual welfare of the residents, especially the younger ones, the truly lost. Gavin didn’t appear to be greatly put out on hearing that the visit was off.
Next into the room was the quiet Linda, rapidly outpaced by Dave. While we all heaped salads on to our plates Anne came clucking into the room, nervously chatting and fussing.
“Ooh look at all that food salads chicken I’m not so sure about chicken in this heat hi Chris did you make this it’s a lovely spread we’re so fortunate isn’t it a scorcher today I’ll just have a little bit of…” Despite her medication Anne is always a little bit hyper, always sweating a little in too many layers of matronly clothing. She’s thirty but she dresses sixty.
“One missing. Shall I go and look for Adrian?” I offered.
“He’s in hospital again,” Jenny said, “didn’t I tell you?”
“Did he stop taking his medication again?”
“No. Fell off his skateboard. Again. Did it properly this time, broke his shoulder. They kept him in.”
Thus everyone was accounted for and we ate sitting outside on the grass, plates balanced on our laps. Through the window I could see Dave eating from his plate while pacing to and fro in the sitting room, never dropping a crumb on the worn carpet.
“You’re doing an amazing job, Jenny,” I said, looking across at Anne chatting away, Linda nodding nodding nodding, Dave toing and froing. “Would you look after me if I ever went a little gaga?”
“Sure, Chris, one more won’t make any difference.” Jenny lifted her head to scrutinize my face. “But you know what? Sometimes I think you’re frighteningly sane.”
“Well finally! I’ve been going insane here trying to get hold of you. Don’t you ever switch your mobile on? We’ve got work to do.” The austerely minimal premises of Simon Paris Fine Art echoed Simon’s indignation. But he smiled at me. I smiled back and checked the walls. No red dots against any of my paintings, so where was the good news?
“The Saudis are back. Came in yesterday.” That was good news.
“And they do want to buy, they left a list.”
“They didn’t want any of these?”
“Wrong size. Just like last time they’re very specific. These are the sizes. They’re all meant to fit into particular spaces in King Whatsit’s old palace. Tell me you’ve got canvases in those sizes, Chris. If not, go and paint them. Like wow?” Sometimes I think Simon must be bored out of his balding skull to get that excited but then I remember he gets fifty per cent commission on all my sales. I looked at the list he waved in front of me. It amounted to enough money to keep me in paint and Simon’s son at Prior Park College for another year.
“If I have paintings in these sizes…” I began.
“Of course you have. And you know why? Because you took my advice and painted lots of different formats in the past three years since the Saudis last turned up. Tell me you have.”
“I’m not exactly sure of the dimensions, I’d have to check,” I mumbled.
“They can be an incy bit larger but not much. And don’t sit down, you don’t have time for that.”
“Even if I have the sizes it doesn’t mean they’ll want those particular paintings.” I tried to inject a few millilitres of caution into his optimism but I missed the vein.
“They will. They did last time. Last time they bought four, this time they’re taking nine. They love your work. Being Muslims, with their injunctions against figurative art, you’re right down their street. Apparently they find your work very spiritual. It’s those deep blues and sumptuous pinks,” he enthused.
“O
kay, I’ll let you know.”
“Nothing of the sort. Here. Take my digital camera, get everything that fits the dimensions photographed and bring me the images pronto. They’re only here for a few days.”
“No problem,” I said. “But I need a favour. I’ve got a list of my own I’d like you to look at.” I handed him the sheet of paper with the missing Dufossee canvases. Simon sighed, produced a pair of gold reading glasses from his jacket pocket and studied the note for four and a half seconds.
“Very fine, Chris, but what? Buying or selling?”
“Neither, I hope. They’ve gone AWOL.”
Simon gave a low whistle and looked at the list again. “Why show me?”
“You know every dealer in twentieth-century art in the West Country,” I flattered. Not enough.
A flash of his watery blue eyes over the top of his glasses. “Not just the West Country, I’ll have you know.”
“Ask around for me then, will you? Send a few faxes, make a few phone calls. If anyone’s been offered any of them, even hears a rumour, I need to know.”
Simon slapped the note into his photocopier and ran off half a dozen copies.
“How much, do you reckon?”
“At auction? Two, two-fifty. Could run to more on a good day. It’s the Sickert, you see?”
It was my turn to give a low whistle.
“Insured, one hopes,” Simon said laconically. He glanced once more at the note. “There’s something oddly familiar about this list.”
“You mean you’ve seen these paintings mentioned together before?”
“No, nothing like that. Can’t think what, though. I’ll get in touch if anything springs to mind or I hear something. Now get out of here and get cracking. On your own paintings.” He unceremoniously bundled me out of the door. Perhaps school fees had gone up this year.