The Montague Portrait

by Matt Drabble

  But it was to the man’s eyes that Travis was drawn – dark black pools that seemed to suck him in through the photograph.

  ‘Even in a photograph it is rather something, isn’t it,’ Vargas said.

  ‘Who are they?’ Travis asked, unable to stop gazing at the image.

  ‘Hugo and Eleanor Montague,’ Vargas announced grandly. ‘Hugo was a land baron of some repute. He held huge swathes of land under his iron thumb, which is apparently where he kept the lovely Eleanor as well.’

  ‘And this is the painting that was destroyed in a fire?’

  ‘Ah, now therein lies the mystery, Mr Parker. The policy was authenticated and cashed in and paid out to the Goode family some twenty-one years ago now, after a family tragedy, so to speak.’

  ‘‘What kind of tragedy?’

  ‘‘A … a murder suicide,’ Vargas said a little uncomfortably. ‘The house went up in a blaze and took all their belongings with it, including the Worthington painting.’

  ‘Then what’s the problem?’

  ‘The company I represent has heard disquieting rumours that the painting still exists. Your mission, Mr Parker, is to track down the painting, verify its authenticity and return it to us.’

  ‘And why exactly would I care to do that?’ Travis cared little now as his hangover began to take shape, and he could already feel the call of the oblivion-offering bottle.

  ‘Because, Mr Parker, we are prepared to help you save your wife’s pet little project here.’

  ‘Yeah well, it’s going to take a lot more than a consultancy fee, Mr Vargas.’

  ‘I have in my possession a cheque for the exact amount of your outstanding mortgage on this property. If you agree to undertake our task it is yours up front, with a further cheque of an equal amount upon a successful completion.’

  Travis ran the numbers quickly through his foggy mind; the mortgage was still in the region of a hundred and ten thousand pounds. ‘Wait a minute, you’re saying that if I just agree to look into this case then I get this place free and clear?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Vargas said, pulling a small white slip of paper from his coat pocket. ‘And the same amount again once you have either found the painting or verified that it was indeed destroyed.’

  Travis thought of Amy and how for the last two years he had let her memory down. Her dreams had crumbled around his ears, while without a fighting bone in his body he had wallowed in self-pity. The money would be a way of setting things right: he would own the gallery outright, and if he was successful, he would get the gallery up and running again.

  ‘What’s the catch?’ he asked warily, his eyes feasting greedily on the cheque.

  Vargas stood up and moved slowly towards him. ‘This is a matter to be handled with the utmost delicacy. You will tell no-one of your actions and no-one of this conversation. You will report only to me and you will operate outside of any authorities.’

  ‘Why all the secrecy?’

  ‘Because, Mr Parker, if it is revealed that someone successfully defrauded your new employers for over twenty-one years, then it would be open season for every fraudster out there with a policy.’

  Travis began to fear for his own safety as Vargas moved even closer, dwarfing him and invading his personal space as he towered over him.

  ‘I cannot begin to express just how serious I am in our desire for discretion,’ the big man whispered in close.

  Travis took an involuntary step backwards. He knew that in retrospect, in a couple of hours the threat of a borderline pensioner would be somewhat diminished, but right now he was terrified.

  ‘Well now, I’m glad that we are all agreed.’ Vargas stepped back slightly and slipped the gleaming white cheque into Travis’s jacket pocket, along with a small black mobile phone. ‘I will contact you from time to time for updates, and my personal number is the only one programmed in, in case you need to reach me in a hurry. Auf Wiedersehen, Mr Parker,’ he said as he turned and casually strode out of the door and into the daylight beyond.

  It took Travis a couple of minutes of stunned silence standing alone to realise that he had never actually agreed to take the job.

  ----------

  Charlotte watched as Vargas left the closed-down gallery alone and hefted himself into his luxurious limousine. Her stomach retched at the very sight of the man. She had yet to stand within his immediate presence and she had very little desire to do so. Even from this safe distance she felt terrified of him. It wasn’t that he appeared to be in any way physically frightening, he just exuded an unnatural aura.

  She pondered her next move carefully. Vargas had been her target for many weeks now. He was her link to the past and her hope for the future, but had he handed her another more appropriate target?

  She had observed Vargas drifting around this dilapidated neighbourhood on several occasions now, always hanging around the closed gallery. Through the rare surviving proprietors on the street, she was able to ascertain that the gallery owner died almost two years ago. By all accounts Amy Parker was a wonderful woman, charming and warm to all who met her. After her death her husband took little interest in the gallery and it had limped to an early grave. Among the platitudes for Mrs Parker, she had learned one interesting fact about Mr Parker: he was, or at least had been, an insurance investigator. If Vargas was looking for him, and knowing that Vargas wasted little time or effort on unworthy causes, then Mr Parker was definitely worth looking for. There could only be one reason for Vargas to seek him out: Parker would be offered the case of the Worthington.

  Taking a chance, she followed her instincts. Vargas drove away, his driving matching the man – slow and confident, as though he ran the roads like everything else in his kingdom. And after about five minutes, Parker emerged from the building. She watched him walk unsteadily towards his car. Unlike Vargas, he seemed to melt into the background as though he carried little weight in the world. He appeared to float rather than walk, stooping as though his shoulders carried some terrible burden. Although somewhat out of psychical shape, he wasn’t an unattractive man, but he seemed somehow lost.

  She snatched up the Canon EOS 7d digital camera that rested on the passenger seat. Zooming in for a tight shot of his face she felt an uncharacteristic flutter of compassion. Close up he looked desperately sad; his features hung on his face and his eyes were red and puffy. For the first time in a long time, she felt a tug towards just what she had given up in her life. The absence of room for any personal entanglements made for a lonely heart. If Parker was still mourning his wife after two years, then she had been a very lucky woman indeed.

  Quickly she cut off the thoughts and got back on the clock; she had no time for wrapping herself in regret and doubt, not when there was work to be done.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MUSCLE MEMORY

  Travis stood outside, confused as to just how in a matter of minutes his world had been turned upside down. He had come to the gallery to say goodbye before the estate agents moved in to evaluate and put it on the market tomorrow. But here he was with a cheque in his pocket and a flutter of hope in his heart. The gallery would be saved, and if he did a good job on the Worthington painting, perhaps he could save himself as well.

  For a split second he felt eyes watching him. He whipped his head around to the other side of the road and could just make out a female figure in a car as it pulled away from the curb – a flash of red hair and then she was gone. Mentally he shrugged his shoulders. Whatever the feeling had been, he couldn’t trust his senses yet; it was a long time since he had faced the day sober and alert.

  Giving himself a figurative slap to propel the old muscle memories back into his system, he muttered out loud, ‘First things first. Thoroughly investigate the history of the Worthington painting – pry back the hands of time to uncover the truth; check the creation, the artist, the commission, and the provenance of the piece.’

  During his earlier life he had developed a network of contacts throughout the antique industry. The mo
st valuable pieces that carried large policies were almost always created by an artist’s hand that had long since turned to dust. Jewellery and paintings were common investments of the wealthy, either for their monetary or aesthetic value.

  Taking out the phone Vargas had given him, he figured that his benefactor could afford the phone bill rather more than he could at the present. There might be a cheque for £110,000 in his pocket, but he had little in the way of cash.

  After struggling to remember the number, he punched in the digits and waited for an answer. Eventually the other end was picked up.

  ‘Chris, Chris Taylor?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, who the hell is this?’

  ‘Parker.’ He grinned as he imagined the look on his friend’s face.

  ‘Jesus, man! Where the hell have you been?’ Chris’s voice warmed up several degrees.

  ‘Here and there,’ Travis said, not wanting his old mate to know that he had been swimming at the bottom of a vodka pool.

  ‘Do you have any idea how many times I’ve tried to call you?’ Chris said. ‘Janey was about ready to kill me when I told her I couldn’t reach you. We were both worried, man.’

  Travis smiled to himself. Chris was in his late thirties now, but he hadn’t seen the man since a disastrous dinner party around eight months ago when he had staggered in drunk and ruined the evening. Chris was short and round, his face soft and pudgy, but always kind and warm with twinkling blue eyes. His hair invariably hung over his face in ginger clumps but his brain was always ticking faster than anyone else’s that Travis knew. His wife was quite simply a stunner, and Travis was one of the few who had not wondered why she had chosen Chris – for she was as beautiful on the outside as he was on the inside.

  ‘I’ve got some work on at the minute, Chris.’

  ‘Hey, that’s great, man. And I’m guessing you’re in need of my particular expertise.’

  Travis felt oddly close to tears as he realised just how lost and lonely he had become over the past two years of self-imposed exile. Chris had been his closest friend and a hugely valuable asset to his work. He was his eye in the sky, his one man research encyclopaedia. He had known him since they were in school together, but the one rule that existed between them was that Travis could never ask how Chris earned his real living. He had many ideas, but all of them were illegal. Once during a fire investigation, Travis finally proved that one of the largest sausage manufacturers in the country had destroyed a large warehouse for the insurance. He had dealt closely with the arson investigative team and one of the senior members told him that Chris Taylor handled the money for the biggest crime family in the city. After much deliberation he had broached the subject with Chris, but Chris smiled a little sadly and told him that he had an unbreakable confidentiality agreement with his employers.

  Chris lived in a large mansion and worked from home. His wife Jane was an ex model who strutted through life in heels and a warm smile. Contrary to popular opinion on the subject, she had managed to be both beautiful and nice.

  Chris giggled disarmingly. ‘Is it juicy, this work of yours?’

  Travis giggled back, his mouth creaking under the unusual and long forgotten gesture. ‘I hope so for your sake.’

  ‘Well then, lead on, Macduff.’

  ‘I need your magic fingers to find out everything you can about …’ Travis paused as he pulled the envelope Vargas had given him from his coat. A painting by Benedict Worthington in 1923’, he read.

  The other end of the line went deathly silent.

  ‘Chris? Chris, are you still there?’ Travis asked.

  ‘Yeah, I’m still here,’ Chris replied in a shaky voice. ‘Tell me it’s not the Montague Portrait, buddy.’

  ‘Uh, yeah, that’s right,’ Travis answered, still reading the notes. ‘Eleanor and –’

  ‘Hugo,’ he said shakily.

  ‘You sound a little weird, Chris. What is it?’ Travis was puzzled. Chris wasn’t normally stumped for words.

  ‘Do me a favour, man, and just walk away from this one,’ Chris said. His voice was calm and sombre.

  ‘I can’t,’ Travis replied, thinking of the cheque that was going to save Amy’s gallery.

  ‘Look, man, whatever they’re paying you I’ll match it if you’ll just leave it alone and walk away,’ Chris pleaded.

  Travis had never heard his friend shaken by anything before. ‘What’s going on, Chris?’

  ‘That painting is bad mojo, my man.’

  ‘Bad?’

  ‘The worst.’

  Travis was more than a little shaken now. Chris had always been so unflappable. Whatever the situation in the past, he always had an answer, and his voice had always been sharp and crystal clear.

  ‘Look, Chris, I can’t walk away from this and I won’t take your money either,’ Travis said firmly.

  There was silence at the other end to the point when he thought that Chris had hung up.

  Chris finally replied with a long sigh. ‘All right then, I’ll get you what I can. Janey would never forgive me if I let you walk through this one alone and something happened to you.’

  Travis laughed a little nervously. ‘What’s going on, Chris? I’m just trying to track down a painting, man. It’s just a painting.’

  ‘Is it?’ were the last words Chris said before he hung up.

  ----------

  Charlotte followed Travis Parker back to his house, his homeward journey having been temporarily delayed while he spoke intently on his phone sitting in his car outside the gallery. His driving was overly cautious as though he had to concentrate on keeping in a straight line.

  After drifting through the leafier suburbs of the city he eventually came to rest in an attractive street, lined with professional houses. Whatever Travis Parker had become after the death of his wife, he had certainly been successful beforehand. The financial trappings on view offered a picture of a man who had been good at his job, and this gave her cause for optimism. If Vargas had chosen Parker, then Parker was a man capable of the job.

  She parked the rental car opposite his house, and pulling the thermal blanket from the backseat, she settled back under its warmth for the long night ahead. She had become accustomed to waiting, and after twenty-two years she could afford a little more patience.

  Opening the glove compartment she pondered taking a pill to knock herself into a dreamless sleep, but decided against it. If Parker moved during the night she needed to be alert. Whatever lay ahead for her night’s entertainment, she would have to face in a broken shallow sleep. Whenever absent of medication her dreams were always dark and terrifying, full of fiery flames and twisted murder.

  ----------

  Travis slept better than he could remember in a long time. His dreams were normally full of tears and sorrowful drowning but when he woke at a little after six the following morning, he felt refreshed and recharged. Once more he had a purpose and a drive: he had a case to work, a painting to find, and a broken promise to Amy to repair.

  He was brushing his teeth when the phone rang and he ran to snatch it up quickly before the caller rang off.

  ‘Hello?’ he said through a garbled mouth of minty paste.

  ‘Morning, sweetheart,’ Chris’s merry greeting sang out. ‘Didn’t wake you, did I?’

  Despite his cheery words, Travis sensed a measure of forced frivolity from his friend. ‘Not today, sunshine. I’m up and raring to go. What have you got for me?’ he asked, and felt the temperature drop considerably from the other end of the line.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go down this road?’ His voice was heavy with doubt and foreboding.

  ‘Dammit, Chris, what the hell is all this?’ Travis demanded, momentarily forgetting the dance of the communication between the two men, a dance that prohibited any direct questioning.

  ‘It’s that painting, Travis. It isn’t something you want to be messing around with. Nor are the people who are asking you to do this.’

  ‘Are you saying that it definitely
was not destroyed?’ Travis asked, wondering just what his friend had managed to find out in such a short space of time.

  ‘The Worthington has a dark history, my friend. It’s a legend in the industry, and I do mean legend. By all accounts Benedict Worthington was a deeply disturbed man. His reputation was everything from a witch to a psychopath and everything in-between. The only man whose reputation came close to Worthington was Hugo Montague – the portrait subject of his last work.’

  ‘How do you know all this, Chris?’ Travis had to ask.

  ‘Some of my day job dealings overlap your areas, Travis, but a lot of my interests are as far removed from the depressing daily grind of reality as I can get.’

  Travis let his friend speak; according to their agreement he had never pried too deeply into what Chris did during his day job or just who he did it for.

  ‘Look, Janey would do her nut if she knew I was even talking to you about it,’ Chris said unhappily.

  Travis recoiled at the suggestion. He was puzzled. After Amy’s death Jane had been nothing but caring towards him. But if she was now willing to cut him off for the sake of Chris, then just what the hell was this painting, and just who the hell was he working for? ‘I thought she wouldn’t have wanted me doing this without your help.’

  ‘That was before she knew who you were working for.’

  ‘Who is Telfer Vargas, Chris? And how exactly do you know of him?’

  ‘Vargas is a very dangerous man, Travis, and he is not someone you want to be messing around with.’

  ‘He’s not with any insurance company, is he?’

  ‘He may well be connected with a few, but just why he wants you to find the painting, I couldn’t say. Some of his enterprises are on the up and up, and some are not.’

  Travis pondered over his next question, but couldn’t help asking it. ‘Is he someone that you work for?’

  ‘Best not ask such questions, Travis,’ Chris replied brusquely. ‘But no, I just know of him. He has a reputation in certain circles and it’s not a good one, my friend.’