Portrait of Shade

by Benjamin Ford

  The man cast his eyes downward. ‘I am so very sorry to hear that. It has been so long since my last release that I just had to explore my surroundings. Had I known Gaia would still be in danger, I would not have given in to such temptation. And now doubly I wish I had stayed here, for the painting is gone, and if I don’t get back to it soon then I shall certainly die.’

  ‘Gaia took the painting somewhere, Spiridon. I’m not sure where. I might be able to find out, though. She’s bound to have left me a message at home.’ She grabbed her bag and ushered him from the gallery with almost indecent haste.

  ‘Am I coming home with you?’ he asked.

  Eudora shook her head. ‘You must be joking!’

  ‘Where am I to spend the night then?’

  Eudora sighed and glared at him with uncharacteristic dispassion as she locked the gallery door, wondering why she was bothering since the glass was broken. ‘You can spend tonight in the same place you spent last night while Gaia was being murdered!’ She unlocked the door of Nathan’s car, which he had left behind for her, and climbed behind the wheel. She faced the man again. ‘I’ll see you back here in the morning,’ she said, and then slammed the door, started the engine, and roared off into the twilight.

  When the car had disappeared around the corner, another car crept down the lane, and the man slid into the back seat. The two thugs who had attacked Eudora sat in the front.

  ‘Did she believe you?’ asked Nola, looking at her father as he closed the door and settled comfortably beside her.

  Dino Clayton faced his daughter, his false smile dropping into a frown. ‘I am uncertain,’ he said. ‘I believe so. We shall find out tomorrow.’ He slammed his right fist into the palm of his left hand. ‘I must get that portrait soon, or it will be too late, and I shall be condemned to yet another lifetime of purgatory!’

  Chapter Eleven

  When Eudora finally arrived at Nathan’s home he was not there to greet her, and he had left no note of explanation either. Initially, Eudora was not unduly worried. Nathan had probably gone to the gallery in search of her. It was, after all, almost an hour since she had telephoned to say she was leaving.

  Then Eudora suddenly thought of the two men, supposedly still secured to the staircase outside the gallery. She did not for one moment believe they would still be there, as the more she had thought about it, the more she believed they were in collusion with the man who had claimed to be Spiridon. She did not like to think Nathan could be in any danger, so she called the police, told them as much of what had happened as she dared, and after she had assured them that she was all right, they promised they would send a car to the gallery immediately.

  Pouring herself a brandy after replacing the receiver, Eudora settled down on the sofa, folding her legs beneath her, and thought again of her encounter with the man who said he was Spiridon. He was most definitely not who he claimed to be. As the fiery liquid warmed her stomach and settled her nerves, it also freed her mind from the fog that had enshrouded her thoughts.

  Spiridon, as depicted in the painting, was shorter and altogether better looking than the impostor, and as she thought, she realised why the man had been so familiar. He was in the portrait too. There was little doubt in Eudora’s mind that he was actually Diocletian.

  The portrait was the key to it all. She knew she had to find the painting in order to unlock its secrets, and when she did that, she would be able to unlock a multitude of secrets in her mind.

  But where was the painting?

  She sensed it had now become a race against time, a race between Diocletian and herself to be the first to reach the painting.

  And if – when – she found it, what then?

  She glanced at her watch as she drained the brandy from the glass in one long fiery gulp. It was well past ten. Where was Nathan? Inexplicably Eudora felt a wave of despair wash over her. She felt certain that something terrible had befallen him, though she did not know what, and she was fearful for his safety. What if the men were still at the gallery and the police had arrived too late to protect him? What if he were lying dead in a pool of blood?

  She reached for the telephone and dialled the number of Nathan’s parents, not pausing to consider the possibility that they might be asleep.

  Cassie answered the phone in her usual intolerant manner. ‘What do you want?’ she snapped without bothering to find out first who was calling.

  ‘And a good evening to you, Cassie,’ Eudora said in a neutral tone.

  ‘Eudora, what do you want? I’m in the middle of something important!’

  ‘Well I’m so sorry to have disturbed you. I’m looking for Nathan. Is he there?’

  ‘Why would he be here at this time of night? He doesn’t live here!’

  Eudora was about to hang up without another word, unwilling to be spoken to in such a manner, but she heard Constance’s voice in the background, asking her errant daughter to give her the phone. She heard Cassie mutter something indecipherably rude, and then Constance came on the line.

  ‘Eudora, are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, Constance. How are you?’

  ‘Not good.’ The unmistakably desperate edge to Constance’s voice further unsettled Eudora. ‘It’s vital that I speak to you… in person… tonight!’

  ‘Well I’m at Nathan’s at the moment. You can come over here if you like?’

  ‘No. It’s got to be somewhere we won’t be disturbed.’

  ‘Constance, I can’t leave now. I’m waiting for Nathan to come home. He’s disappeared somewhere, and I really need to speak to him.’

  ‘Please, Eudora,’ begged Constance. ‘It’s urgent. I wouldn’t normally ask like this, especially so late in the day, but you can’t even begin to imagine how important this is!’

  Eudora was in two minds, but the desperation in Constance’s voice sealed her decision. Since Nathan’s mother was not one to make Mount Everest out of an anthill, there was little doubt in her mind about the urgency of the matter the older woman needed to discuss. ‘Very well, Constance. Where would you like to meet?’

  ‘Could we meet at my studio, in twenty minutes?’

  ‘All right, I’ll be there.’

  Eudora hung up, completely mystified. She felt it only proper to leave Nathan a note in case he returned whilst she was gone, and despite Constance’s insistence that they meet somewhere that they would not be disturbed, Eudora felt it prudent to reveal where she was going – but added that he was not to come unless she had not returned by midnight.

  Constance’s art studio was only a couple of blocks from the Donat Gallery, and whilst Constance’s family were strictly forbidden even to set foot in the building, the three Donat women had visited the studio often.

  The loft studio was one vast room with bare brick walls and wooden floorboards. In the daytime, it was flooded with natural light from the windows on all four sides, and from the additional skylights. Brick pillars and steel girders supported its high ceiling, giving the space a half-finished effect. It had once been a penthouse apartment, but when Constance bought it, she had knocked all the rooms into one. Twice a week she held private classes for fee paying students, and sometimes she held invitation only exhibitions of her work – though none of her family were ever invited. The rest of the time, it was Constance’s personal domain, where she came to escape the tedium of her family life, and to paint in peaceful solitude. As she progressed through life, painting had become more of a relaxing hobby than it had been in the early years, when it had been her means for paying the bills. Even so, she still loved the tranquillity of the studio, and sometimes came here just to read in peace, away from her family – which was why she maintained that they should still never set foot in the building.

  Having driven Gaia’s lime green Volvo to the studio and parked it on the opposite side of the road, Eudora rode the elevator in silence to the top floor, where it deposited her at one end of the studio, and when the doors opened, she stepped into the gloom.

&nbs
p; Seated at her easel on the north side of the room, illuminated by a single spotlight, Constance wore her painter’s smock and the ridiculous black floppy beret she always insisted upon wearing when she painted – to keep the old brain warm and active, she had once said.

  Even from this distance, Eudora could tell there was something different about Constance. She was holding herself differently, and the harsh spotlight made her face a mask of intrigue. For a wild moment Eudora was convinced it was not Constance sat there, but someone else altogether.

  ‘Constance?’ she said softly, marvelling once more at how even a gentle whisper resonated around the enormous studio. She crossed the floor silently when Constance did not respond, and the old woman did not look up until Eudora was less than a metre away.

  Eudora froze, her blood chilled as Constance smiled and spoke in a voice almost masculine in timbre. ‘Hello, Theodora.’

  Eudora backed away slightly, and the unnatural purple haze that had momentarily glowed in Constance’s eyes vanished.

  Constance blinked several times, and when she smiled and spoke again, it was in her own familiar dulcet tones. ‘You look startled, my dear. Are you all right?’

  For a few moments, Eudora was too stunned and confused to speak. With everything else that had happened that night, she decided she had probably imagined the strange voice. She would not be at all surprised to find her subconscious had been playing tricks on her.

  ‘I’m fine, I think; as well as can be expected, anyway. Who’s Theodora, Constance?’

  ‘Theodora?’ murmured Constance softly. She shook her head. ‘I’m not sure I know anyone by that name personally.’

  ‘But just now you called me Theodora, when you spoke in that strange voice.’

  At once Constance’s manner became vague again. She was shifty eyed, sullen and uncommunicative, and Eudora had the distinct impression she was hiding some piece of information that she was too terrified to impart. She waved a hand dismissively and laughed throatily. ‘I think perhaps my brain must be addled. Come; take a look at my new painting.’

  As she waved Eudora around to her side of the easel, Constance smiled secretively. She had always been able to read Eudora’s expressive face like a book. ‘You didn’t know I was working on a new painting, did you?’

  It was quite a while since Constance had painted anything of any significance. Though Eudora had often begged the older woman to paint something new, the request was always ignored. Constance said she would paint again when the muse returned, but until then she was taking a break to replenish her creative juices.

  Now it seemed as though the muse had at last returned, and Eudora was intrigued. ‘Let’s take a look then,’ she said as she turned to face the canvas.

  She recoiled in shock, as though struck by a powerful electric charge. Her skin prickled curiously and the hairs on the nape of her neck stood on end, as if a ghost from her past had entered the studio and was breathing on her.

  Predominantly in red hues, Constance’s painting depicted a foreign port, bathed in the glorious glow of the setting sun. Small wooden hulled boats seemed to bob up and down gently on the astonishingly clear water, in which was perfectly mirrored the turrets and towers and domes and minarets of the immense city which grew upwards from the water’s edge to dominate the skyline.

  Even though she had not visited the city, Eudora recognised it as Istanbul – Constantinople.

  In the foreground, sat astride an equally armoured horse, an unfamiliar man resplendent in gold coloured armour and chain-mail headgear stared out impassively. Beneath his armour, he wore brightly coloured silk robes, and over the chain-mail headgear, he wore a metal helmet, topped off with a lethal looking spike and ostrich feathers.

  The man and woman on either side of the horse, however, were undeniably familiar, and their appearance chilled Eudora to the core.

  The man was unquestionably the man who wore monastic robes in Taine’s Trinity: Spiridon.

  The woman was her.

  ‘Why have you included me in this painting?’ Eudora demanded frostily, for the moment choosing to ignore the fact that, to her knowledge, Constance had not yet seen Taine’s Trinity. She faced Constance. ‘Is this your idea of a joke?’

  ‘It is no joke!’ Constance said, once more reverting to the deep masculine voice.

  ‘Must you keep using that voice?’ snapped Eudora, shivering with unease.

  Constance smiled distractedly. ‘Poor, poor Eudora, you still do not understand.’

  ‘Damn right I don’t understand! Please, Constance, stop this. You’re beginning to frighten me!’ Despite the tears that pricked at the corners of her eyes, Eudora was determined not to give in to them.

  Constance’s hand indicated the painting whilst her eyes focussed on Eudora. ‘This is the Sultan, Selim the Second, his concubine, Theodora Dieudonné, and their friend, Dušan.’

  ‘But it’s me!’

  Constance shook her head. ‘No, she is Theodora Dieudonné, Selim’s concubine. She was also Dušan’s lover.’

  Dušan…

  The name struck a chord with Eudora.

  ‘Dušan… Spiridon… My God, Don Dusan – Spiridon Dusan… he’s the man who has Trinity!’

  Constance nodded, becoming herself once more. ‘I know it’s difficult to understand, Eudora, and I wish I could explain everything, but I can’t.’

  Eudora clutched Constance’s hand in desperation. ‘Please, Constance, tell me what’s going on. Tell me what you know. I feel like I’m going mad.’

  ‘If I tell you what I know, you’ll think I’m going mad!’

  ‘Tell me!’ Eudora snapped furiously.

  Constance sighed. She knew it would be pointless to refuse. ‘You won’t like it!’

  ‘Tell me!’

  There was a sudden loud bang from somewhere behind her, and something whizzed past Eudora’s face, grazing her cheek as she turned, just in time to see the elevator doors closing. She felt something begin to trickle down her cheek, and touching her hand to the stinging sticky damp patch, she pulled it away to see her fingers coated in blood. She turned to Constance, and the words that had half formed on her lips froze in her constricted throat.

  Constance was slumped face down across the easel. Blood oozed from the head wound and trickled in crimson rivulets down the canvas.

  Pushing Constance back off the easel, Eudora instinctively knew her friend was dead, and tearfully cradled her head against her breast, rocking back and forth gently. Something exploded through one of the windows behind her, sending shattered glass flying everywhere. She screamed in alarm, whirling around, half expecting to see a brick lying amid the debris. She did not expect to see flames licking at the papers strewn across the table that was set against the wall beneath the window. Eudora shrieked again as another bottle filled with petrol shattered through another window, exploding glass and flames in all directions, quickly followed by several more, and within a very short space of time, the studio was filled with smoke and flames.

  * * *

  Having followed Eudora from the gallery to Nathan’s house, Dino and Nola waited in the rear of the parked car just down the road until she re-emerged a little while later, and then followed her to Constance’s studio. Once Eudora had entered the studio, Dino instructed his daughter to search the battered Volvo, and it did not take her long to find a one-day-old receipt, which gave the room number, name and address of a hotel.

  It had to be where Gaia had taken Don Dusan.

  Praising his daughter, Dino then instructed his two henchmen to take care of things. When one entered the studio and the other entered the neighbouring building, Nola had no idea of what their intentions were. A few minutes later, she heard the sound of breaking glass, some of which showered down around the car. She craned her head out of the window, and seconds later saw a smoking bottle arc across the narrow alley to smash through another window of the studio.

  She flailed against her father’s grip, screaming for release
, but Dino possessed inordinate strength. Holding her arm in a single-handed vice-like grip, he closed the electric windows then turned and slapped Nola’s face hard before releasing his grip. ‘Be quiet, daughter,’ he growled. ‘I will not allow you to ruin my plans!’

  Even though she knew he was capable of many unpleasant things, Nola was unused to physical violence at her father’s hand, and his stinging blow silenced her. She peered up at the fourth floor of the studio building, where she could see smoke beginning to appear at the windows.

  She was still staring at the windows when her father’s henchmen returned, and following directions from Dino, sped off down the road.

  * * *

  Eudora was appalled at the speed with which the flames spread, igniting paper, oils and canvas, consuming all, leaving nothing untouched by the incandescent heat as they licked at the walls and floors, spreading across the ceiling in search of more combustibles. Fanned by the breeze emanating from the shattered windows, the flames seemed to have a will of their own, heading across the room towards the elevator even as Eudora tried to drag Constance’s body in the same direction.

  She quickly realised that if she was going to get out of the studio alive she was going to be forced into leaving Constance behind, and the stark reality of her grave situation did not sit well with her. Constance might be dead, but she was still a very good friend, and Eudora really did not want to leave her behind to burn to a cinder. As the flames passed the centre of the room, the floor began to smoulder, and Eudora unceremoniously dumped Constance on the floor, jabbing furiously at the button, calling for the lift to come as she coughed and spluttered.