by Joan Lock
To his surprise she laughed out loud at his remark. ‘Clearly, Sergeant, the very idea of a woman wanting to live without a man is one which you find both fascinating and incomprehensible. But I assure you I am not the only woman artist to have made this decision.’ She gave him a wry, direct look. ‘If it is of any comfort to you this is no reflection on the desirability of your sex.’
He felt a blush creeping up his cheeks. She had this way of making him feel foolish. Damn the woman’s impertinence.
She stopped. ‘Here it is.’
Judging by the imposing exterior of the double-bow-fronted, icing-sugar mansion, Jacques Bertrand was clearly one of the current darlings of the painting world. Helen Franks would be surprised to know, thought Best, that he had seen some of the artist’s work at a Royal Academy exhibition when he sneaked a few minutes to look round while investigating some petty pilfering at the gallery.
A painter of ingratiating portraits of the rich and famous, and dramatic, historical tableaux, Bertrand also occasionally attempted something more daring and realistic. His Repentance had caused something of a sensation depicting, to some, a too earthy-seeming Christ (‘might be my butcher or baker!’ exclaimed one critic) bathing the feet of an over seductive-looking Mary Magdalene.
Best thought Mary was meant to be enticing, and to portray her otherwise would have been foolish. But he was well aware that was probably because policemen saw life as it really was, and not as it was pretended to be. Despite this controversy, Bertrand obviously thrived and remained the darling of his wealthy patrons.
Best had been secretly excited by the prospect of seeing a famous artist’s studio and he was not disappointed. All was Eastern-style opulence. There was a musky scent in the air, rich damask covered the armchairs, colourful drapes were thrown over couches, copper pots and urns glinted and glowed in the light from the wall of windows opposite. Best had never seen a room with so much light. Decorative tall screens, so much the fashion, were used not to divide up the room into cosy corners, but described arcs from the wall where, Best presumed, they served as dressing-rooms. One was embellished with raised patterns of black and gold Chinoiserie, the other a much more homely, papier-mâché affair of flowers and birds, probably put together by someone in the Bertrand family. Emma had been working on a screen like that just before she died, only hers was a riot of mother and baby pictures cut from the pages of ladies’ magazines. She had so wanted children. Doctors had warned her that to become pregnant would only hasten her inevitable end. And so it had. But she had so enjoyed creating her screen. To Best’s surprise, the memory was a warm and happy one.
On a park bench on a polished wooden podium sat a young woman, dressed in rags, leaning sorrowfully over a babe in arms. Standing before an easel opposite her was a dark-haired man with a Vandyke beard, wearing loose clothes and looking, Best decided, like nothing so much as an Arab sheikh.
Seeing them, the man put his brush down and came towards Helen with outstretched arms. ‘Helen, my dear,’ he said warmly. His French accent was soft and slight, ‘How do you bear up?’ To Best’s surprise, Helen returned his affectionate hug and, patting his arm, gave him a rueful look.
‘We will find her, my dear, we will find her.’ He spread his hands expansively, ‘How can I lose my best model? It is not possible. I will not allow it.’ He turned again towards Best. ‘This is the young man who is to help you?’
She nodded, ‘Sergeant Best of Scotland Yard. I warn you,’ she continued, ‘he thinks I am a difficult woman.’
‘Of course you are, my dear. Of course you are,’ he laughed. ‘But I am sure he will do his best for us, will you not, Sergeant?’
Best pasted on the smile he kept specially for that little joke and tried to reciprocate in the same warm spirit but his, ‘I will indeed, sir,’ came out stiff and cold.
‘She is not easy, I know. But she is a kind lady, this ‘elen, as my wife has cause to know – and she is talented, so talented. The English, they do not appreciate talent.’
Noting Best’s fascination with the set-piece he touched his arm, nodded towards his model and smiled, ‘The Sick Child – it pays the rent.’ He signalled to the model to take a break before leading them over to velvet-covered chairs placed around a lacquered Chinese table. ‘My clients demand civilized comfort,’ he explained. ‘Myself – I would be happy to paint in a bare attic.’
‘What nonsense,’ laughed Helen suddenly, ‘you would hate it! You love all this!’ Bertrand joined in her laughter then politely turned his dark, glossy eyes on Best and enquired as to how he could help.
Suddenly, Best was unsure how to proceed. Bertrand seemed to have jumped a stage in their acquaintance and was now treating him as though he was an established friend while, at the same time, he and Helen presented such an impregnable alliance he felt excluded.
Helen jumped to her feet. ‘I’m sure you would both manage better if I were not here – and I want to see Marie.’
After she had left the room, Best explained that he merely wanted to discover what contacts Matilda might have made at the studio and generally fill out his picture of the girl.
Bertrand nodded and confided in that curiously intimate manner of his, ‘Well, as for contacts, Officer, there is only me, my wife and my children – and the servants, of course.’ He stroked his soft beard. ‘They come in and out of here all of the time, you understand.’ Best wondered whether that were strictly true or merely said to stress respectability.
‘Your children are young?’
‘Oh, yes. Five, seven, nine, eleven and fourteen.’
Best nodded, ‘And the servants – are any of them male?’
The artist shook his head. ‘No; oh, only except for the groom. But he is quite old – that is, if it is romance you are thinking of.’
Best shrugged. ‘Possibly … how old?’
‘About sixty-five – and not, I would imagine of any attraction to a young girl.’
‘Did they have any contact?’
‘Oh yes. He took her home sometimes. But I can’t imagine … ‘He shrugged.
‘I’d like to see him.’
Bertrand looked surprised, ‘Surely you cannot think I mean … old Jenkins.’
‘I don’t think anything, Mr Bertrand,’ said Best, tiredly. ‘He may have noticed something. He may have formed a passion for this attractive young girl. She may have confided in him as a fatherly figure now that her father is dead. Or the whole exercise might be fruitless, who knows?’
‘Of course, of course. I do not think like a policeman.’
‘In fact, I would like to speak to all the servants.’
Bertrand nodded understandingly. ‘Ah, yes, it is they who know what is happening in any household! We are blind.’ He jumped up. ‘Before we talk further it is possible you would like to see some pictures of Matilda?’
‘That would be very helpful.’ The artist was friendly and warm but there was something about him that made Best uneasy. Was it his silkiness? Yes, that was it. He moved gracefully, his eyes and hair were glossy. He was sleek and sensuous and his manner intimate. It made Best uncomfortable. But that was no reason to distrust the man. He smiled to himself – just because he did not behave like an Englishman. Another thing, Bertrand kept touching him. He was now, as he guided him towards an ante-room. Best was not used to that any more.
From floor to ceiling the small, oblong ante-room was lined with pictures. More were stacked up on end against the far wall. Bertrand headed for the higgledy-piggledy stack and began pulling out those in which Matilda appeared: as a repentant servant girl, a devoted daughter, a young girl at her first dance, a Nordic princess and a captive of ancient Rome. Surely, Helen was jealous of such beauty? It would be only human. In all the pictures no more than a bare shoulder was displayed, such as one could see at any grand ball. Nothing to outrage anyone’s susceptibilities. He must get Maitland to look at them to see whether they resembled the girl by the canal.
‘Some tea is in orde
r, I think, Sergeant?’ Bertrand touched his arm and began ushering Best back into the studio.
‘Oh, yes, thank you,’ said Best compliantly, but resisted the apparent haste and looked about him very slowly. Most of the paintings on the wall were merely modern portraits, some half-finished.
‘I put them up so when I glance at them in passing maybe I see something that is not right,’ offered Bertrand. He followed Best’s eyes which had just alighted on a lush Roman set-piece. ‘Oh, yes, but here is one I forgot. As you see, it is not completed.’
‘This is Matilda?’ Best pointed to one of several toga’d Roman maidens reclining against a marble garden bench in the style of Frederick Leighton or Alma-Tadema. Roses trailed over the back of the bench catching in the girls’ hair and showing up vividly against the white skin. It amused Best that the Roman maidens were all Titian or blonde while the only male figure, clearly a captive slave, was dark and sultry-looking. In reality, it would probably have been the opposite. His mother was a Roman.
‘She would get to know the other sitters, of course.’
Bertrand shook his head. ‘No.’ He caught Best’s surprise. ‘Well, let us say, it is not very likely.’ He amended it yet again. ‘Not necessarily. You see, I work on each figure separately, so they come at different times and I tend to have a gap between them so that I may have a rest. Or,’ he added, ‘very often I have the one model for a whole day.’
‘But when you have more than one in a day,’ persisted Best, ‘they may meet when they are changing over?’
He shrugged. ‘I suppose so – now and then. It is possible.’
‘And that would apply to the young man’ – he indicated the slave figure – ‘as well as the young ladies?’
Bertrand clearly did not like the way the questioning was going but nodded, ‘It is possible.’
‘You wouldn’t remember if they did? Or in what order you did these figures?’
At this, Bertrand executed the full Gallic shrug and flung his arms wide to encompass all the pictures. ‘As you see,’ he pouted, ‘… it is not possible.’
Helen had just come in behind them and she said, ‘If I remember correctly, Jacques, in this one you finished the female figures first, then decided that that space needed filling, and you also needed a point of tension, so you brought the young man in.’
‘You are right!’ Bertrand chucked his hands straight up in the air in delight. ‘Of course. That is how it was, my clever petit chou. Didn’t I tell you she was clever, Sergeant?’
‘Very clever,’ Best conceded without enthusiasm. He was getting sick of all this – it is possible, it is not possible. ‘Nonetheless,’ he added coldly, ‘I will need his name and address and those of all your other sitters.’
Bertrand glanced at Helen. ‘I do not think …’
‘As I have said before, unless I have your full co-operation and that of your friends, Miss Franks, I will not proceed with this case.’
‘Do tell him, Jacques.’ She threw Bertrand what could only be termed a pleading glance and he appeared distinctly nervous. ‘There is no harm and the Sergeant is very discreet.’
What was going on? Suddenly it came to him: these two were lovers. All these surreptitious glances, the ‘old friends’ intimacy. That was the reason she did not wish to marry. They were lovers – and, if he was not mistaken, they had something else to hide as well.
Chapter Eleven
Chief Inspector Arthur Amos Cheadle sat bolt upright in his chair, his huge frame motionless, his eyes glaring. He was furious again. Furious because Best had not been down at the City Road Dock that morning when Minchin’s boat returned, more furious because Minchin had not been on board anyway and that the traffic manager of the Grand Junction Canal Company had had to bring this news to him. It put him at a disadvantage which he didn’t like. It also made him wonder what the hell his underlings were doing.
Opposite Cheadle sat the object of his fury – a weary-looking, Sergeant Ernest Best. Next to Best, looking brighter and, like Cheadle, keeping very still but for a different reason, sat the fair and innocent-looking, PC John George Smith.
‘Feel more at home with those artists, d’you?’ It was more of a statement than a question.
‘It was another strand of the enquiry, sir,’ ventured Best.
‘A strand was it, a strand!’ Cheadle was derisory. ‘It might be, my boy, but not a bloody urgent one! If you can’t sort out which is and which ain’t it’s time you were back pounding the beat.’
Best said nothing. At that moment the option seemed a very good one to Best. He was sick of the Detective Branch with its overwork, long hours, loneliness. Not to mention the shelling out of money on transport and the like, and the anxiety as to whether the commissioner was going to deem it well spent and deign to refund it. Most of all he was sick of the seemingly endless complications and confusions of this case. Admittedly, walking the beat had, in the end, become boring, and the wearing of uniform both on and off duty had been very tiresome. one could never fade into the background. But right now the peace of strolling along at a measured pace without any worries seemed very attractive. It didn’t help that he knew that Cheadle was right. He himself wasn’t sure why he had done what he had done.
Cheadle turned his attention to the other two figures sitting to the left of his desk: Traffic Manager Albert Thornley, still worried-looking but clearly relieved to have been able to demonstrate his willingness to co-operate with the authorities. Alongside him, the darkly handsome and friendly dock labourer, Sam Grealey, as restless as ever, and looking ill-at-ease in his rough shirt and stained cord trousers tied up with string. Clearly, he didn’t like being at a disadvantage either. Hadn’t he done his duty, pointing out to Thornley that Minchin was missing, telling them what he knew about the man? Now he sat shifting about in his chair clenching and unclenching his strong fists and causing his considerable arm and shoulder muscles to tense and grow large which, had he known it, made him look even more out of place.
‘Near Tring, you said?’
Thornley nodded. ‘Coming into Marsworth – “Maffers” the boatmen call it – there’s a run of seven locks there. He got out to see the boat through, then went off. The crew thought he’d gone to pass water, but he never came back.’
‘Been drinking? Fell in the canal?’
‘Drink’s forbidden on our boats.’
The Chief Inspector didn’t even bother to comment, merely let a slight sardonic smile twitch his lips as Thornley continued.
‘Look, I know boatmen have a reputation, but not only is it exaggerated, they’re kept at it on these fly runs, don’t get much of a chance. And they know they’ll lose their jobs and they’re good jobs for canal folk. Anyway,’ – he drew a deep breath – ‘the crew swear not. They say Minchin wasn’t a drinker.’
‘I’m sure they do,’ agreed Cheadle in the manner of one well schooled in the ways of the world. ‘We will just have to ask them again, won’t we?’
Thornley nodded and offered, ‘In any case, be difficult to fall in accidentally there and not be seen, it’s busy all the time.’
‘So, he probably just scarpered?’
‘Yes.’
‘He have any family around there?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘We will ask his wife.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Best, ‘I was going to talk to her anyway if Minchin did not come back.’
‘Oh, is that right? You were going to? Well, I don’t want you to do that now.’
‘Sir?’
‘That’s a job for Constable Smith.’ He put on a mock posh voice, ‘You, Sergeant Best, will proceed in a northerly direction – to Berkhamsted – in pursuit of Mr Minchin. You remember that quaint old police habit, pursuit?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Cheadle could scarcely contain his pleasure. ‘And you will go by canal.’
It was Best’s turn to sit bolt upright. ‘Sir?’ He hesitated. ‘But surely, the train is much faster?’
>
‘Well, well, suddenly Sergeant Best is in a hurry to find Mr Minchin.’ The Chief Inspector had relaxed enough to allow himself to begin his usual slow descent down in his chair. ‘Might be faster, Sergeant, but not by that much because you will be leaving tonight on one of the fly boats. Then you can get to know canals, canal boats and canal people on your journey and you can gather clues – you remember them? – so no time will be wasted. Fill out the picture for you, won’t it?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Best was horrified. Those dirty little boats!
‘You’ve seen to that?’ Cheadle asked Thornley.
‘Yes. We’ve taken a bit of cargo off the Yarmouth to make space.’
‘He won’t need much,’ said Cheadle, with a grin. The image of the immaculate Best cramped in a filthy boat among bags of coal clearly delighted him. One day, thought Best, I will hit him.
Constable Smith saw no signs of bruising on Mrs Minchin’s face and arms – something Best had told him to look out for. Standing before him on the doorstep of number seven, Alma Street, a lodging-house close by the City Road Basin, he saw just a typical, working-class woman such as he saw every day on his beat. Cleaner than many, she was thin and pale, with a babe-in-arms and a rather unappealing, bare-footed toddler clinging to her skirts. Probably in her early thirties but looking almost ten years older. Not pretty, and probably never had been, but with a certain air about her, a dignity, as though she had been meant for better things. That, and a pervading sadness.
The sight of him, still so obviously an official of some sort despite Best’s ministrations, had agitated her. She had stared at him and grasped her baby tighter.
‘Is it … Joe?’ she asked. ‘What’s happened to him …? Tell me!’
That answered one question for Smith straight away. No, four in fact. She was waiting for him to come back, didn’t know where he was, cared that he hadn’t returned and his not coming home was unusual.
When the fair-haired young man confessed that he had no idea where Joe was, she relaxed a little. No news was better than bad news. Of course, this concern of hers might be because her husband was the breadwinner. If he didn’t come back they might starve.