By Death Possessed

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘But you’re so ... so intense. I was trying to lighten ...’

  ‘It matters,’ she whispered, half turning away.

  She had poised herself on the springboard of her career. One leap into the heights of a major art discovery, and she need never descend again. She’d been in orbit. But the springboard had collapsed, and her enthusiasm was drowned. To me, too, it mattered, I recalled. My ghosts demanded their absolute proof.

  I said gently: ‘This doesn’t have to be positive. Let’s look at it logically.’

  ‘You and your damned logic.’ But now she was more calm, even with a hopeful undertone in her voice.

  ‘Grace could have been lying. We know she lied to Angelina, one way or the other. It’s in her blood—lying. If she knew Angelina was left-handed, it would be almost instinct for her to say she was right-handed.’

  ‘Weak,’ she decided emphatically.

  ‘All right. Weak. Try this, then. That reproduction you found in the biography of Maurice Bellarmé—it was of Frederick Ashe. But that could’ve been printed backwards. It happens, you know. I had it happen with one of my pictures in a photo magazine.’

  She pouted. ‘That’s unlikely. You’re trying to encourage me, aren’t you, Tony! Oh, I know you. Getting to, anyway. You don’t like to hurt people. You’re too soft. And I know you’re as disappointed as I am. But you pretend. You are disappointed, and if you interrupt I’ll kill you, Tony. You’re not as disappointed in me as I am. This is my job, and I’m supposed to be an expert. Expert! I’ve failed. All right, it’s taken me a day or two, but now I can face it. I’m finished, and that’s it. There’s nothing else I can do with these paintings of yours, or decide to do. So ... as far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of it. We assume the loft batch is Angelina’s and ... I don’t know ... I’ll sell them for you, if you like. I don’t know!’

  The thought crossed my mind that if she was so certain she had ‘failed’, how could she be equally certain that the loft batch was Angelina’s? But I didn’t say so. Her brilliant mind was coldly analytical, and there wasn’t much room for warm logic. What I did say was: ‘It’s not the end, you know. There’s still that man you mentioned, who has those two—and perhaps all six—of the accredited Frederick Ashes. We go to him—’

  ‘You must be mad.’

  ‘I don’t see why we shouldn’t.’

  ‘You don’t go to a man like that and expect to be welcomed and shown round his collection. The Queen couldn’t get in there without the SAS behind her.’

  After contemplating this image for a moment, I said: ‘I’d thought of something more subtle. All we want to know is whether his two (or his six) have got near duplicates in the loft set. As my original one has. If so, then it indicates that the loft set must be Grannie’s, because we have to accept the six are Frederick Ashes.’

  ‘Indicates! Indicates!’ she said impatiently. ‘And how could you tell, just by looking at them, that they’ve got near duplicates?’

  ‘We ask him.’

  ‘We take all that batch of canvases to him ...’ She stopped, realizing that this was not what I’d implied.

  ‘No. I’m a photographer. Remember? I’ll take shots of all eighty-one, full frame, and do prints. They’ll be good, I can promise you that. And we take him the prints. We say nothing. We let him do the talking.’

  ‘I don’t like it ...’

  ‘What harm could there be in trying?’

  ‘I’d just as soon abandon the whole thing.’

  I grinned at her. ‘Rightee-oh. So we load ‘em all in my car, and I’ll do it round at my lab. It’ll be inconvenient, but I’ll manage somehow. Then I’ll go and see him myself.’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘I’ll ... I’ll come with you. I’ll have to. What if he lets us see the canvases! You wouldn’t know what to look for.’

  ‘Of course. I’d forgotten that. But I’m such an ignorant pig ...’

  She thumped my arm. ‘Where’s your camera, you big fool?’

  One thing about her, the volatility of her temperament maintained the interest. Nursing my arm, I went to fetch my Pentax. I was still having to carry all my possessions around with me in the car.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  She expected me simply to walk round her workroom, shooting away and capturing perfection. It’s not like that. Strictly speaking, it should have been done with the camera mounted on my enlarger stand, each canvas face up on the base, and with a spotlight each side. But I was equipped with no such niceties. I used a 50mm lens on the Pentax, and loaded in a slow film for finest grain and maximum definition. This meant that I would have to handle fairly slow exposures, as the diaphragm had to be stopped down for a decent depth of field, to allow for any lack of squareness to the subject. I couldn’t use a flash on the hot-shoe, because it would throw back reflection, and I didn’t want to use an extension flash because of the fall-off of light intensity across the canvases.

  Margaret couldn’t understand my laboured precision, so I explained. She still didn’t understand. I did one at a time, perching them on a chair, leaning them against the back, and relying on her flat and white artificial light. It worked out at one-tenth of a second of fl1, which was too slow for hand-held shots, so I used the tripod.

  Eighty-one frames. It seemed to take an eternity. Three spools.

  ‘I’ll get straight on to this in the morning,’ I told her. ‘Another all-day stint.’

  ‘Right. You do that. I’ll try to find out who owns those two Maurice Bellarmé canvases.’

  ‘Why trouble?’

  ‘You said ... the picture of Frederick Ashe in the biography could’ve been printed backwards.’

  I grinned at her. She wasn’t missing a trick.

  We went to bed. Together. It seemed natural and inevitable. Mostly, we slept. Our second night together, and we were both so exhausted that we slept! Yet, come to think of it, we had become so attuned to each other’s moods and characters that there was a hint of strain between us that inhibited relaxation. At least, so I felt. For once, I did not feel she had been completely honest with me, and it was in attempting to decide in what way that I fell asleep.

  My automatic alarm woke me early. I was a self-employed man, used to fixed hours as a regular routine, and I had work awaiting me in my darkroom. I took a shower, got a quick breakfast inside me, and took her up a cup of tea at eight. She groaned and rolled over when I kissed the back of her neck. Her eyes were smeared, her cheeks puffy. The jet-black hair, I noticed, showed lighter traces at the roots.

  ‘What time ...’ Her eyes cleared. ‘You’re dressed!’

  ‘Early birds. It’s eight o’clock.’

  ‘Can’t you ever rest?’

  ‘No.’ This was true. How could I rest when I was competing with Evelyn in the rivalry for income? The fact that I was no longer doing so hadn’t yet seeped into my system. I still could not relax. Damn Evelyn. ‘I’ll be off,’ I said. ‘It’s another big day in the dark.’

  ‘No wonder you’re so pale. Hurry back.’

  ‘You know I will.’

  I kissed her on her naked lips, savouring the perfume of her, and turned away quickly. Why ruin my applaudable efforts for an early start?

  It was a fifty minute drive. When I pushed open my photo-lab door, there was a bulky brown envelope dragging against the floor. Not delivered through the post. No name on it.

  On my narrow counter I slit it open. There was a note with the contents, from Evelyn.

  Tony,

  For God’s sake make arrangements for your post. If you want a complete break, then do it. From next Monday I shall return all your mail as gone away. Which you have. I want to organize my life on that assumption.

  Evelyn.

  It had been a mistake even to have started using my home address for business purposes, simply because Evelyn maintained an office there. Now I would have to arrange with the Post Office for my stuff to be forwarded to
my tight little workplace. One good intake of mail, and I wouldn’t be able to get the door open.

  There were two new commissions, one of them a lucrative and technically difficult assignment for a glossy magazine, to cover a pop group’s tour. Just try working in that psychedelic lighting! Forcing myself not to think of this, nor of Evelyn, I got down to work in the dark room.

  They were good, better than I’d expected. I did a complete set at six by four and glossed them, put them in an envelope, and left. It had taken me nine hours. I was drained, and pains kept running up my back and across my shoulders. I went in for a coffee before tackling the run back to Margaret’s. These long stints in the dark room did terrible things to my eyes.

  ‘Get a dark room assistant,’ Evelyn had said. ‘You’re the photographer, not the stinks-room mechanic.’

  But part of the job was the quality of prints. It was something of which I was proud.

  ‘Good?’ Margaret asked as she let me in. ‘Are they good?’

  I simply handed her the envelope, and followed her down the stairs. She poured us drinks, and while I sat quietly and tried to make myself unwind, she went through them. She looked up with a smile.

  ‘I didn’t expect this. The colour’s marvellous.’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s done with chemically-linked dyes. They can’t be perfect, but you have to try to get the best there is from the materials.’

  ‘I could put a lot of work in your way—’

  ‘Not that sort of thing, thanks. It’s mechanical. I like variety. It keeps the interest going.’

  ‘But these—’

  ‘I could bang those up to twenty by sixteen, and print on specially grained paper, and most people would just as soon have them as the original painting. But I suppose that offends your sensibilities?’

  ‘Somewhat. But if it gave pleasure—’

  ‘Condescending, that’s what you are. The poor, non-aesthetic horde, who don’t appreciate your art!’

  She flushed. ‘What’s got into you, Tony? You’ll hardly let me finish a sentence, and when I praise you—and genuinely, I assure you—you throw criticisms at me.’ The patches of colour were high, and her eyes seemed out of focus.

  I looked at her above my glass. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have said she was on drugs. It was some sort of emotional high that possessed her. Had there been a breakthrough in her endeavours?

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s been a heavy day.’ A bad one. I couldn’t get Evelyn’s message out of my mind, and I hadn’t found time to get to the Post Office. But most of all, with my brain tired, I was unable to find sympathy for Margaret’s art-establishment oriented ideas. I was clinging desperately to my ghosts. The blooms of high colour on her cheeks were still there. ‘I see you’ve had a good day,’ I added as a palliative.

  She looked away. ‘If it’s any satisfaction, I haven’t. I’ve been tracking around, trying to locate the whereabouts of those two Bellarmé portraits. All I can come up with is that they’re in a private collection. Somewhere. So there’s no joy there.’ She grimaced at me. ‘You’re hungry?’

  ‘Yes. Very.’

  ‘It’s all ready. You see, I’m still considering your welfare.’

  We ate in silence, which gave me time to realize how expertly I was able to ruin relationships with my moods. The trouble was, I could put forward no good explanation for them. I could well have kept my mouth shut. But no. Perhaps I’d been too pleased to see Margaret again, and had relaxed, allowing built-up tension to take control. I’d known for some time that I’d been trying to do too much on my own, the photography, the processing, the paperwork and accounts. But I’d been reluctant to seek assistance. I treasured the complete pattern of expertise. Proud, that was it. Big-headed, even. It doesn’t do to face yourself over an Irish stew.

  I gave myself excuses. My whole life was being set aside to cater for this provenance business. Did I resent this? No, to hell with that. The paintings were mine. I had to know the truth.

  After a lemon meringue pie—she was quite a cook; it was perfect—I tried a suggestion.

  ‘I suppose it’s too much to ask you to call in another expert? A second opinion.’

  Her eyes were dark under her eyebrows when she glanced up. ‘Yes, too much. You shouldn’t need to ask that, Tony.’

  Over the coffee she told me what she knew of the big man we would now have to approach. His name was Renfrew Coombes. He lived in a large house on the edge of Exmoor in Somerset, and so far as Margaret knew the police had no active interest in him at that time. Several art historians had attempted to gain access to his gallery, but had been shown the inside of the door, even if they’d got beyond the outside. He was no longer an active villain, but it was said that his old team—as it was politely called—was still with him. He was protected, though there was no longer any suggestion of violence. He never answered his own phone. His secretary was illiterate, inasmuch as no replies were ever received, not if they concerned the collection.

  ‘Then we go and knock on his door,’ I suggested, ‘and we see what happens.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Only because it’s too late tonight. I’ve got a business to maintain.’

  She said idly: ‘And if the eighty-one turn out to be true Frederick Ashes, would it tempt you to retire?’

  I grinned at her. ‘I’d turn amateur, but I’d still be a photographer.’

  ‘And I,’ she said, ‘would still be a consultant on art.’

  ‘Even more so.’

  ‘Yes.’

  We parted on the landing. There were no words said on this arrangement, it just happened.

  ‘An early start?’ I asked.

  She nodded. ‘We’ve got to find the damned place.’

  We used her Volvo, because Margaret thought we needed to make an impression. On such a man as Renfrew Coombes, nothing less than a gold-plated Rolls would have made an impression but, really, she wanted to do the driving.

  It wasn’t as difficult to find as I’d expected. We stopped in town so that I could fix the forwarding address business with the Post Office, and I popped into a stationer’s to get an Ordnance Survey map covering Exmoor. One inch to the mile. It covered every tiny hamlet, and I noticed that a number of them had Coombe in their title. I studied it as Margaret drove, and discovered something about the sort of man we were going to visit. He had decided to retire from crookery. It befitted his self-esteem to retire to somewhere bearing his own name. This he had managed to bring about.

  It is a simple thing to change the name of a country. They do it every month in Africa. It is also possible to change the name of a county, if a boundary adjustment also adjusts the political balance. It even happens that towns change, by being squeezed out—Wellington in Shropshire is now no more than an appendage to Telford. But just try changing the name of a village. Then you have the villagers to deal with, and they won’t even let you change the name of their local pub.

  So Renfrew Coombes had searched around, and discovered that there was a village called Renfrew Coombe. It was simple to drop his final s by deed poll. I learned, later, that he’d bought the freehold of the whole village, just so that his address would be Renfrew Coombe, Somerset, England.

  It was such a man whom we hoped to impress and persuade.

  We discovered the village as we popped over a stone-built hump-backed bridge. A wriggle in the road, and there it was, a row of cottages, one public house, and a tiny village store. We slowed, wondering whether to ask directions to the big house, but I sensed the atmosphere and whispered for her to drive on.

  A fair number of the original residents were still hanging on. You could tell which they were, those people on the street who looked like furtive extras in a film set, equally nervous in spite of the lack of cameras, but uneasy with their new neighbours. Coombe had managed to empty a few of the cottages, and fill them with his own men. These, too, were obvious. They were the ones with newly colour-washed walls, the brightly painted front door
s, and the professionally landscaped diminutive gardens with roses sweeping up the walls. The occupants of these cottages lounged in doorways, from time to time flicking cigarette ends at their fuchsias, then disappearing inside to their phones to report a sight of a stranger. Strangers were suspect. The publican, too, lounged in his doorway. The pub was now part of the film set, might even have been no more than a false front. Beer might still have been obtainable inside, if the regular citizens weren’t too dispirited to find out. Or maybe the cellar contained an armoury.

  Shaking myself from these fanciful thoughts, I looked ahead. ‘There,’ I said. ‘Just beyond that rise.’

  What I’d seen might have been the ruins of a castle, but it was the only sizeable building in that hilly, tangled landscape. It was possibly half a mile away. The road became increasingly unappealing, perhaps as a discouragement. The map showed it to continue onwards, but the surveyors had allocated it no more than a dotted line.

  One or two buildings speckled the rises each side, and could have been farmhouses, though their bright and recent paintwork made them suspect. I was aware of being observed with suspicion.

  It had once been a castle, guarding a ford and offering a grim front to the north. It had been built on from time to time, with scant attention to previous styles, and perhaps had more recently been improved by an intake from Renfrew Coombe’s millions. It was depressing and unwelcoming. A mist would have improved the prospect.

  We drove through an opening in the surrounding high wall, directly into a large courtyard. I would have expected a gate across that opening, with a guard. But against what would Coombe need to protect himself? Certainly not burglars; they would appreciate the risk. The law? There was nothing specific to level against him. Ordinary visitors such as ourselves? There was a very large, solid and iron-studded door to serve that purpose. It could be closed firmly on an unwelcome face.

  Which was what happened.

  Margaret had performed a wide, smooth swing round the courtyard, which was entirely stone-flagged and liberally mossed, but which once must have rung to the hooves of armoured cavalry. We stopped opposite the door and got out. Nothing moved. I could hear no bird-song, no bleating of sheep or barking of dogs. The door towered above us under an inadequate porch. There was no bell-pull or button, only a large knocker in the form of a lion’s head. I lifted it, and banged firmly. Twice. The echoes sang away inside the house.