The Devil in the Snow

by Sarah Armstrong

  ‘He’s a fucking moron, that bloke.’

  Shona closed the door. ‘Jude is here, remember.’

  Jimmy put his hand on two neat printed piles. ‘These are related to his flat in London. You can get the address from here. And these are related to his work. He was sacked, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s nothing on that here.’ He moved one hand. ‘These are emails from Cerys that he’s printed out, mostly complaining about you.’

  Shona put her hand out and he kept his hand firmly on top until she pulled her hand back. He moved to the fourth pile, scrappier and more creased than the others with half pages and hand-written scribbles.

  ‘These relate to me. Every payment, every meeting, every idea that never quite came off. He was going to screw me over, given half a chance.’

  ‘Over what?’

  Jimmy pointed at the paintings on the walls. ‘He has paperwork relating to the sales of each of these paintings to his gallery.’

  ‘So why are they here?’

  ‘Because the ones he sold are the copies I painted.’

  They sat silently and looked at the paintings. Jimmy grimaced.

  ‘How did that work?’ Shona asked. ‘Why didn’t anyone notice?’

  Jimmy sighed. ‘I’m not sure I want to say, Shona. I’m so used to not saying anything at all, no matter what.’

  ‘I don’t want to have start visiting you in prison again. I need to know what Maynard’s been up to, not what you’ve been up to. I know it’s all connected but I’m not going to repeat anything to do with you.’

  Jimmy shook his head. ‘Help me up, would you?’

  He sat on the sofa and she sat on the footstool.

  ‘You can’t separate what he did and I did. The brilliant idea, one of his many brilliant ideas, was to sell paintings with a renovation package. He’d have them verified and certificated and then, when they were sold, he’d arrange for them to be cleaned.’

  He cleared his voice but didn’t speak again.

  ‘By you? Did you clean them?’

  ‘He used a different name, something a bit fancier.’ His eyes brightened. ‘It can take months to clean a painting. It was plenty of time to do a damn good copy. And the genius bit is that they expect it to look different, to look newer and fresher. Not so fresh you can smell the paint, but, you know.’ He became animated. ‘And the best thing was he chose really well, only investment pieces or to a little gallery that just wants to hang it and leave it there for decades.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be more ethical to fuck over the banks and businesses?’

  ‘Shona, you’ve always had a very weird sense of who deserves to be fucked. Why them? Galleries are businesses too. And I don’t see why, if the people looking get the same pleasure from the painting, that it matters. Artists are basically quite shitty people. I’ve met enough. They come up with all kinds of ridiculous philosophies about what they do, but in the end they are a brand. And a brand is going to be copied because it’s overpriced. If there was truly something magical in their hands that powered their brush, then people would spot it. They don’t. They like a nice picture of a pretty woman and that’s it. That’s art.’

  ‘No, it’s fraud. If I bought a pair of designer jeans and it turned out they were from Tesco, I’d be pissed off.’

  ‘But it would be your fault for choosing for the brand and not for the quality. If you can’t see the difference, stick to Tesco. It goes for everything: wine, furniture. If you’re a snob, then you don’t deserve the real thing. I would never have done it for a private buyer making a single, loving purchase.’

  ‘Did you meet every buyer?’

  ‘All the ones Maynard had marked, yes. I had to wear my false beard and beret. You could tell if it impressed them.’ He stroked his missing beard and smiled.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Nothing officially. A little gallery had second thoughts. Some great master didn’t go with their colour scheme and gave the director a migraine whenever he walked past it. Or something like that. They decided to sell, and their buyer claimed it was a fake.’

  ‘It was a fake.’

  Jimmy frowned. ‘That’s not the word I’d use, but kind of.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Maynard refused to budge. The gallery managed to offload it somewhere else but, when they complained to the company, a few other concerns started to be remembered. Just niggles and things. Now I think he was busy with other people too, not just me. I think he was far too busy generally.’ He closed his eyes. ‘If I’d have known . . .’

  ‘Known what?’

  ‘That’s enough to be getting on with, isn’t it?’

  ‘How does this fit in with your prison sentence?’

  ‘It doesn’t. That was a stupid, impulsive and greedy move of my own making.’

  Shona shook her head. ‘It’s ridiculous. Maynard just isn’t clever enough to come up with this.’

  ‘You never knew any of it?’

  ‘Of course not. He worked for an exclusive art dealership and was always getting bonuses. Why would I think he was risking it all?’

  ‘They didn’t give bonuses.’

  ‘Oh, of course not.’ Shona stood and kicked the footstool. ‘Why would that have been true?’

  ‘That’s an antique!’

  Shona looked at Jimmy and then kicked it across the room. It shuddered against the writing desk. Jimmy pressed his lips together and rubbed his hands on his knees. Shona dropped into the armchair and closed her eyes.

  Shona finally thought of words to place together. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘You were happy.’

  ‘I was never happy. I felt compelled.’

  ‘You seemed happy. I thought I was helping you to be rich and successful. And I enjoyed it too much to stop.’

  ‘Is this why Mum doesn’t talk about you?’

  ‘Could be. She suspected when he made his first big find that I had something to do with it. That wasn’t one of mine. I used to have different contacts.’

  They were silent again.

  Shona said, ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘We could offer Maynard up to the gods of art verification and watch him burn.’

  ‘But you’d burn too.’

  ‘Probably,’ Jimmy nodded. ‘I don’t want to do that, I just thought I’d say it before you did. Or we could take the paintings and sell them. He can’t ask for them as he can’t prove he had them in the first place.’

  ‘Which would probably result in the same thing, when people realised there were two copies of these original paintings.’

  ‘That depends who you sell them to. Third, I take the paintings, copy them again, give him the copies and sell these ones. It depends what kind of revenge you want, nice and quick or slow and satisfying. He might never notice, he has no eye at all. He thinks he’s won but you know you have. Or would you rather he knew?’

  ‘Fourth, we could take the whole lot to the tip,’ said Shona. ‘No-one benefits and no-one wins.’

  Jimmy went pale and clasped his chest. ‘Christ, Shona! You don’t mean that, tell me you don’t.’

  Shona had hated the collection for so many years. Maynard only cherished it for its value. She had forgotten that some people loved art for its own existence.

  ‘With option number three,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose you could include some putrid ingredient in the paint that will get progressively rank?’

  Jimmy pulled a paisley handkerchief from his breast pocket. ‘Shona, I’m beginning to wonder what kind of philistine you are. I need to get these irreplaceable pieces out of your grasp. Did your young man give you a new key for the lock?’

  ‘Yes, I can lock it all back up.’

  Jimmy walked to the display cabinet. ‘In that case, sell this. He may notice it’s gone but it will sort out your finances for a bit. And you’re still married so what’s his is yours and all that.’ He tossed a cluster of sparkles towards her. ‘Worth five grand,
don’t take less than four and a half. The diamonds are good quality but the design is generic enough not to alert him if he’s looking at any auction websites.’

  ‘How did you know I’m short of money?’

  ‘I know all sorts. Forging essays, I don’t know. Must be in the genes.’

  Shona blushed. ‘Why has he left so much stuff here? I thought he must have taken anything of any value with him.’

  ‘The room was locked, as far as he was concerned. It makes you think that there is someone he lives with now that he doesn’t quite trust. Sticky fingers, a clumsy person, someone who values things too much or too little.’

  They looked at each other.

  ‘Cerys,’ said Shona.

  Jimmy stood up. ‘I’ll come back and give you prices on everything here. Can I take a couple of the paintings?’

  ‘To sell?’

  ‘Maybe. I’ll ask around, see what’s possible. I’ll ask about Cerys too.’ He looked at the paintings again. ‘There’s one missing. He might have taken it with him, but I doubt it. He never said what he’d done with it, but I’d have heard if it was sold. It’s the one I’d want to keep.’

  ‘What’s it of?’

  ‘Of? The whole of love and life and living, that’s what “it’s of”.’ He sneered at her and then straightened his mouth. ‘Sorry.’ He held his hands a hand width apart. ‘If you find something about this big, will you phone me? Straight away. It folds out into three parts,’ he moved his hands further apart. ‘I found it in Bruges. I’d pay you for it.’

  Bruges. ‘Did you bring it back from Bruges?’

  ‘No, Maynard did.’

  Shona frowned. ‘You met him there? When we were on honeymoon?’

  Jimmy turned his eyes away. ‘I might have done,’ he mumbled.

  ‘So this was when I was pregnant and just before I had a miscarriage and you involve me with stolen goods.’

  He scuffed at the floor with his foot. ‘I didn’t say it was stolen.’

  ‘You made me into an international art thief.’ Shona hid her smirk. ‘Take the paintings, but tell me which are yours so I don’t stick them on eBay.’

  Jimmy swept his hands around the room. ‘These are all original but that doesn’t mean you can stick them on eBay.’ He looked at her from the corner of his eye and laughed. ‘Well, they’re not all originally original. You can’t tell, can you?’ He pointed to the one on the chimney breast. ‘That one,’ the central one on the wall over the sofa, ‘that one,’ the massive landscape on the other wall, ‘and this are mine. I’ll leave them with you and take the other four.’ He turned. ‘If that’s OK.’

  She didn’t know if it was OK. He was a confirmed thief and liar and she knew that art meant much more to him than money, or family. On the other hand, she didn’t want stolen goods in the house and she had the paperwork to stuff Maynard. And if anyone was going to be able to sell the paintings it was Jimmy.

  ‘OK. What about the bits and bobs in the cabinet?’

  ‘All real, as far as I know. Not my area, but I know he thought they were all authentic.’

  He removed the paintings from the walls and Shona fetched him towels to wrap them in.

  ‘Can I take the papers too?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I need to see if there’s anything I can use. Nothing to do with you, just his bank accounts, things like that.’

  ‘Don’t read Cerys’ emails, yeah? Promise?’

  Shona nodded.

  ‘And remember to let me know if you think of where the other one might be. Soon as you can, Shona. This might be my only chance to see it again. I haven’t seen it since Bruges.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘OK, lock up. Just be careful. I don’t want anything in here getting into the wrong hands.’

  In bed that night, she could think of nothing but the honeymoon she thought she was having in Bruges and the one her husband was actually having. The city was beautiful, full of towers and churches with saints’ relics and holy blood. Both new and old buildings had the corners shaved off to provide a background for Madonna and child statues. Some were classically white, and others painted in primary colours. Once she started noticing them, Shona made a point of looking for them, holding her stomach in empathy. This was a city that celebrated motherhood and she could relate to that.

  They laughed at the strange assortment of museums, on lights, chips and chocolate, and Maynard listed the places he couldn’t leave without seeing. First Shona persuaded him to take a boat trip along the waterways, negotiating their way past quiet backrooms and secret river gardens, along with half a dozen other boats, all with loudspeakers. She wanted to swap the tourist boat for a small dinghy she could lie in and follow the swans, but the tour guides wanted to repeat their script, as well as reminding everyone that there were more than three famous Belgians.

  On the carriage trip they got off at the Minnewaterpark so the horse could be watered at the fountain. They wandered away and watched people throwing metal loops on strings into the river.

  ‘Are they catching crabs?’ Shona asked the carriage driver, waiting back in his seat.

  The carriage driver said, ‘No, they’re magnets. It’s to collect the coins people throw in for good luck.’

  Shona wondered whether their wishes would still stand if the money was taken. It was on the way back to the Markt that she first felt something was wrong. Just a little cramping. Maynard took her to the hotel and left her there while he toured the museums. That was why he’d chosen Bruges: for the art, the Michelangelo, the Picassos, the collection in St Saviour’s that he spent an entire afternoon looking at, he said. That was the evening he’d gone out again.

  ‘I want to see Bruges at night,’ he said. ‘You’ll be OK, won’t you?’

  Shona, bent double on the bed, felt that was best. She’d just overdone it. If she could just rest, then she’d be fine. Tomorrow they could go to the convents, walk over the tiny stone bridges they’d seen from the boat, sit and eat ice cream in the shade of the bright walls. The pain worsened once he wasn’t there as witness, but she didn’t cry out, because what place could be safer and better for pregnant women than Bruges with its tiny streets and wide parks and mothers and babies worshipped. But Bruges was also the city that worships blood in a special basilica, with its black doors and windows too high to see through, where even the golden paintings looked dark. She had climbed the white steps to take the glass cylinder from the nun. She had acknowledged the blood at the heart of the place and now she had to acknowledge her own.

  When Maynard returned, drunk and elated, a carefully wrapped parcel under one arm, she had nothing more to say.

  Now that parcel she had barely seen seemed to stand out as the most important thing to take from that memory of tears and pain. She had watched Maynard place it on the dresser before he phoned down to the lobby, she had watched him hide it in the safe before the doctor arrived. She had been pleased that everyone spoke English so she wouldn’t have to mime or construct an explanation, but all the time she knew Maynard had positioned himself between everyone else and that safe. She was taken away to a hospital bed, fresh and modern, which surprised her in this medieval city, and never saw the package again.

  Two weeks after they got back there was a delivery of an antique crib carved from dark wood. She had thought, had hoped, that Maynard had stayed off work because he did really care that their child had melted away, but when the crib arrived safely he couldn’t stay off work any longer.

  Shona had wanted to sell it, send it back, burn it, but Maynard insisted on keeping it. It was the expensive crib he wanted his child to sleep in, with four finials and an overhanging wooden canopy. She hadn’t wanted any baby of hers to sleep in the crib that was intended for another child. She even began to believe that he’d brought on the miscarriage by buying it too early. He refused to sell it. It was an investment, an heirloom.

  Cerys used it and Meghan died in it.

  Then Shona had made it disappear.

/>   Shona got out of bed and put her dressing gown on. Jude stirred, flinging both arms above his head. She pulled the door behind her and went downstairs. The package Maynard brought to the hotel in Bruges, wrapped and insulated, must have been the same size as the one Jimmy had measured out in air. There was no reason to believe that he wouldn’t have taken it to London.

  She yawned and took her coffee to the back window. No sign of anything except her own reflection. Her hair created a halo, the shadows underneath made her eyes look tight and small. She couldn’t see Rob’s window from the kitchen but she imagined that, at two o’clock, the light was still on. She couldn’t see any signs of movement in the shed either and realised that this is why she’d got up, in the hope Kallu was there. She had thought that knowing he couldn’t give her a message would change how she felt about him, but she missed him when he wasn’t around. She would miss him desperately when he left.

  She shook her head. She had to sleep.

  14

  December

  Shona phoned Jimmy twice before he phoned her back. She put him on speaker to finish making Jude’s lunch.

  ‘I can’t get on with this bloody phone, Shona.’

  ‘Why don’t you get a landline fitted instead? Or put me on speaker.’

  ‘Don’t be so patronising. Anyway, Cerys.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She’s definitely with Maynard, staying at his flat.’

  ‘Is she OK? Is she going to school?’

  ‘Yes, she’s fine. She’s signed up to a private school and all that. I’ll text you the details.’

  Shona looked at Jude who had caught Cerys’ name and was making no pretence about listening in.

  ‘Are you OK?’ asked Jimmy.

  ‘Yes. Text me now.’

  ‘OK, but I’ll speak to you later. And, Shona?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Do you think you could phone me a bit later next time?’

  She heard him yawn and then fumble with the handset before the line went dead. Why hadn’t she asked how Jimmy knew who to ask? Was he watching Maynard? Was he watching her?