By Death Possessed

by Roger Ormerod

  He tossed the prints on my lap, or rather, on to the bedcover beneath which my lap was hidden. It was a challenge, or an offer, or a veiled suggestion of alliance.

  ‘You’ve looked at these?’ I took them up and shuffled them, then put together the six from the Coombe gallery, the ones showing the canvases as being framed.

  ‘Before I woke you up.’

  ‘Right. Then I’ll tell you something. Not officially, Sergeant. Just you and me.’

  He inclined his head. Maybe it was agreement.

  I went on: ‘The paintings from the loft, which my grandmother gave me, may or may not be Frederick Ashe works. Equally, the ones Coombe has may or may not be what he thinks they are—Frederick Ashes. Both can’t be right. So I took photographs of the ones Coombe has. These six here, the ones showing the frames. Six, you’ll notice, when he’s only supposed to have two. The other four have been stolen from national galleries in the past two years. Are you interested?’

  He looked up at me, directly in the eyes, probably for the first time since he’d entered my tiny personal ward. ‘Possibly.’ But his eyes were bright.

  ‘So ... in his gallery are four paintings that can be shown to have been stolen. Right?’

  He picked up the theme. ‘So I take those photographs to the Super, and we get a search warrant. For years we’ve been looking for evidence that’ll get us inside there.’

  I shoved them under my pillow, just before his questing hand reached them. ‘No you don’t. I’ve lost the negatives in that fire, so these are all I’ve got.’

  ‘I’ll have them officially copied for you.’

  ‘I’m not letting ‘em out of my hands.’

  ‘I’ll legally impound them as evidence, if I have to.’

  I grinned at him. ‘Evidence of what? That they’re photographs, and that means nothing. You’d need an affidavit from me, to provide the proof that I took six specific photos of paintings on the wall of his gallery. No, let me say it, Sergeant. You see ... whereas you could subpoena me to a trial, and get me on oath, there’s nothing you can do to force me into swearing an affidavit. My wife’s a lawyer, Sergeant. Details rub off over the years.’

  His brows had lowered. He wasn’t certain what to say. ‘Why’re you telling me this, if it isn’t going to do me any good?’

  ‘I owe him, Sergeant. He tried to kill me, or have me killed. I owe him a lot. But I need you to give me time. It’s a quid, as my wife would say, pro quo. Give me time, and you’ll have your evidence. But there’s another point. I now think that I can prove to him that the paintings he has are not by Frederick Ashe.’ I tried to sound convincing about this, though all the evidence was to the contrary.

  ‘I don’t like the sound of this. You’re thinking in terms of revenge.’

  ‘Partly. But you see the snag? No? Well, if I succeed, and convince him that he owns copies, what good would it do you to get a search warrant? He’d claim they weren’t stolen, because they’re only copies. And it’d be Coombe, and not the prosecution, who would subpoena me as a witness, to prove in court that they’re copies. You get my point?’

  He levered himself to his feet. His face was flushed and his voice was a growl. ‘Oh, I get it, don’t you worry. You offer with one hand and take away with the other! You’re too bloody clever by half, strikes me.’

  ‘I need time.’ I was fighting for it.

  ‘You might get all you need in gaol.’

  ‘Now don’t be niggly.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘You’re talking about going to see him again?’

  I nodded solemnly.

  ‘Then it’ll be protective custody for you.’

  ‘If I’m around when you come next time.’

  He leered. ‘You’d better be.’ He paused with his hand on the door. ‘And now, you see, you’ve put it right out of my mind. Why I came. Your son—Aleric is it? he’s been found in a ditch in Wiltshire.’

  ‘Wh ... wh ... what?’

  ‘Oh, he’s alive. A broken bone here and there, cuts and bruises, but he’ll live. They’ve got him in Salisbury General, if that’s any use to you.’ He shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this,’ he admitted sadly. ‘It’ll only make you more stubborn.’

  He had the door open, and again paused. ‘Oh ... something else. There’s a lady to see you.’

  At last he got through it.

  They had propped me against a couple of pillows, an awkward position, neither sitting nor recumbent. I tried to lever myself upright, wished I could have been shaved—though my chin was too sore—worried about my hair. Evelyn? Evelyn! How could it be?

  Margaret put her head round the door tentatively, eased the rest of herself inside, then stood with her palms to her face. She seemed nervous of what she would find.

  ‘Tonee-ee-ee! What have you been doing to yourself?’

  ‘I was done to. Come in and sit down. It’s good to see you, but how—’

  ‘Are you all right? Let me look at you.’

  Grinning, I discovered, hurt. I was not pleased to be stared at like a barbecued burger. She sat. I thought she was about to burst into tears. Of course, I had to remember that her life was spent in the company of painters usually long dead, and thus out of harm’s way.

  ‘How did you manage to trace me here?’

  ‘I kept getting the unobtainable signal when I phoned your photo place, so in the end I drove down ... and found the place gutted. Oh, Tony! I stood and looked at it, and my mind ... I just couldn’t make it work.’ Her face puckered. I had never seen her so attractive. ‘Then in the end I went round to the police, and they told me you were here.’

  She drew in her lower lip, nodding, seeming nervous about my possible response.

  ‘Out tomorrow,’ I assured her. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks.’

  ‘You say that ...’

  ‘Because it’s so.’

  ‘I told you not to go there again. That man’s powerful and vicious ... and ... you did go there?’

  ‘I’ve told you this. I didn’t just visit, I managed to get into his gallery.’

  ‘I didn’t believe you. You actually got in?’

  ‘I did. But not with his permission.’

  ‘Oh, you idiot. You’ve annoyed him.’

  ‘Hopefully. And worried him too, with a bit of luck.’

  ‘You got a look round? You’d be the first one—’

  ‘There wasn’t time for that. It was a matter of a quick in and out.’

  ‘Oh.’

  She looked past me, her eyes vague. I couldn’t decide whether she was disappointed or not. Possibly, and because she hadn’t been with me. There was a pause. We had been batting question and answer at each other, and seemed to have run out of both.

  At last: ‘But it’s not serious?’ she tried again, eyeing me discouragingly.

  ‘As long as you don’t kiss me.’

  Her little laugh was awkward. She got to her feet and leaned over me and kissed me gently on the lips. It was like an electric shock.

  ‘There,’ she said, nodding as though she’d given me an injection, and she sat down again. ‘Now tell me all about it.’

  I told her, the whole thing. Not for one moment did her eyes leave my face. She searched it. There was agony in her eyes. It took a long while, and when it was over she produced a tiny handkerchief and wiped the palms of her hands.

  ‘You’re lucky to be alive,’ she said huskily.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you didn’t—no, I can see you wouldn’t have had time to look round his gallery.’ It was the third time she’d asked that.

  ‘Why should I trouble? I headed straight for the six so-called Frederick Ashes.’

  ‘But there must be some wonderful things ... I’d give anything ...’

  ‘I’m sure you would.’

  ‘But you’ve got your photos?’

  ‘I’ve got ’em and they’re printed. It’s about all I’ve rescued from the fire, those and the six new prints they match
from the loft set.’ I gestured. ‘There they are,’ I said negligently.

  If she’d noticed them before, there had been no sign. Now her hand pounced on them. I gave her a couple of minutes.

  ‘The ones showing frames—’

  ‘I realized,’ she said sharply.

  ‘You’ll notice his are painted from the right-biased viewpoint. The same as my original one.’

  ‘I’d noticed that.’

  ‘Which seems to show—’

  ‘What’s this one?’ she demanded. She was waving the spoiled shot, me having jumped when Aleric said, ‘Psst!’

  ‘I jumped just as the shutter went off. Better throw it away.’

  She looked at me doubtfully, glanced at the waste-basket, and asked me: ‘Have you looked at it?’

  I took it from her. There wasn’t much see. It was just a shot involving two paintings, angled in the frame of the photo and painfully out of focus.

  ‘I’d got the focus at a metre or so,’ I explained. ‘These paintings were farther away, so they’re blurred. The flash has got a bounce response, so the exposure’s all right ... ah, I see what you mean. You told me the two by Maurice Bellarmé were in a private collection. His private collection. Well, well!’

  ‘Those are Bellarmé’s paintings, the ones he called Frederick Ashe and Angel. I recognized them.’

  I peered closer. ‘You can see that Frederick Ashe is painting. And look at this ... you can just detect that he’s got the brush in his left hand.’

  She sighed. ‘So it’s most likely he’d sit to the right of her when they worked together. So yours and Coombe’s, painted from the right viewpoint position, must almost certainly be Ashe’s, and the loft set are therefore your grandmother’s.’

  ‘Angel,’ I said softly.

  ‘As Bellarmé called her.’

  I handed it back to her. ‘So you were right first time. One look at mine, and you said: Frederick Ashe. And you must be right about the loft set.’ I looked directly at her and tried not to grin. ‘With a little help from your friend.’

  She grimaced. ‘They’re not exactly worthless, you know.’

  ‘Can you see what she’s doing?’ I asked, pointing at the print in her hand.

  ‘You’re not listening, Tony.’

  ‘I can’t make it out. She’s not painting, is she?’

  ‘Something domestic,’ she said impatiently.

  ‘In those days, women were expected to be motherly and domestic. Will you listen to what I’m saying!’

  ‘Say on.’

  ‘The loft set. I can lay on an exhibition—’

  ‘Not yet,’ I cut in.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I owe Coombe a favour, and I intend to get something out of him. I can’t kill him, though I’d like to. But I can squeeze something out of him. Money. I’m going to sell him the six canvases that match the six he’s already got.’

  She jerked to her feet. ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘I think not.’

  ‘You’re not to go near him.’

  ‘Not alone, I agree. I’m not going alone. I’ll need you with me, Margaret.’

  ‘Me?’ Her eyes were wild.

  ‘The art expert. To back me up. To help me persuade him that he has to have those

  six.’

  ‘I will do no such thing.’

  ‘Then I’ll do it alone.’

  Furiously, she moved to the door, flung herself back, stood over the bed, and almost stamped her foot. ‘You’d never get out alive!’

  ‘Yes I would. I’d persuade him that he has to have them, but I wouldn’t be able to tell him where they are. No—don’t tell me. The need to know, they call it in the trade. The secret service trade. What you don’t know they can’t extract from you with their nail-pullers and things. No, come to think of it, you’d better not be there, because you do know. Forget what I said. I’ll phone you when I get back—you’d better give me a number to call ...’

  ‘Damn you, what’re you trying to do?’

  ‘Get back at Coombe.’

  She was almost in tears. ‘How can I let you go alone?’

  ‘I said forget that bit.’

  ‘Forget it! Forget! I’d have it on my conscience.’

  ‘I forbid you—’

  ‘Forbid! Who the hell’re you to forbid? I go where I like.’

  ‘But this you wouldn’t like.’

  ‘If you insist on going, then I’m going with you. But what you hope to get out of it ...’ She shook her head miserably. ‘You frighten me, Tony. I don’t ... can’t understand you.’

  To tell you the truth, neither could I, and I was frightening myself. But then, I’ve always been easy to frighten. Offer me violence, and I would go to pieces. Always have. It’s something to do with imagination, I think. I never had any difficulty in imagining the pain about to be inflicted on me. So I would back off. But now ... oh yes, frightened I was, though for some reason I wasn’t feeling like backing off. You take so much, experience enough pain, and there comes a time when anger overrides the fear. The anger I was feeling wasn’t a transient thing. With every minute it was gaining strength. Mind you, I wasn’t any happier about the anger than I was about the fear, but there was an outlet for the anger. The same outlet, hopefully, would also blanket the fear.

  ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ I said gently. ‘You can walk out of here—I’d never know where to find you—and I wouldn’t blame you—’

  ‘I’m staying at the Metropole in town here.’

  ‘A bit of a dump, that.’

  ‘And I’ll be there. When you’re ready, Tony.’

  ‘You’re leaving? We haven’t really talked ...’ I meant in any way personal.

  ‘There’ll be time. Other times.’

  ‘The Metropole,’ I said. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  She kissed her palm and blew me a kiss. I watched the door close behind her, and wondered why she’d registered at a hotel, when she’d driven from London for no more than an exploratory visit.

  Then I realized she had not yet registered. She had noticed the hotel as she drove past, and had now deliberately severed her one escape route by deciding to stay there. The thought warmed me.

  I gave it ten minutes, then I pressed the buzzer for my nurse, and when she came asked how I could make a phone call. She went and fetched a trolley, complete with pay phone, and plugged it in. I called my friend Terry Bascombe, the only other pro photographer in town, by which I mean the only one who did his own processing.

  ‘Tony!’ he said. ‘I heard. Jesus, I’m sorry mate. What can I do for you?’

  Good old Terry. ‘Can I borrow your darkroom for a couple of hours?’

  ‘Any time, old son. What for?’

  ‘I’ll need a copying stand—six prints, that’s all I want to copy. Six by four—’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In hospital, you idiot.’

  ‘Then how can you ... have you got ’em with you?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘I’ll come straight there. Get ’em done, and back with you tonight. That do?’

  I was silent.

  ‘You know I can do a good job, Tony,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not that. How are you at picture framing?’

  ‘Lousy. I thought you said six prints.’

  ‘It’s a masking job. Tricky.’

  ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Sounds interesting. I’ll be right round.’

  He hung up. I lay back, relaxed. It would leave me a clear day I hadn’t counted on, and could use.

  The idea was beginning to clarify.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  At ten the next morning I limped out of the hospital in shirt and jeans and Aleric’s boots, but carrying his leathers in two plastic bags. My legs were painful, my face felt stiff, and I became short of breath very easily. But as long as I didn’t break into a run I was fine.

  There was no reason to run, no sign of Dolan’s protective custody, no lurking sh
apes behind the hospital trees. I strolled to the bus stop, collected Aleric’s motorbike from behind the pub in town, and rode to Salisbury.

  This was quite a long trip, though it gave me plenty of miles in which to become used to the bike. By the time I reached the other hospital I was pulling and kicking the correct things by instinct. Nothing else on the road had a chance to keep in touch with me.

  I took off the leathers again, intending to look respectable on this visit, and not wanting Aleric to see how I’d mistreated his riding kit. They weren’t leathers, they were a wax-treated black fabric, which was why they’d burned through around my legs. The holes had provided a cooling draught of air to my burns, and the limp was now much smoother.

  He was not in intensive care, but looked as though he ought to be. There were fractures not apparent, but a tent inside the foot of the bed indicated trouble with his legs. He did not at once see me there, so I had time to study the damage to his face. What I could see of it. He was extensively bandaged, but minor damage such as the purple and black bruises had been left showing. His right eye was almost closed, the left brow swollen. In his right hand, which had a stiff-fingered cast on it, he was gripping a pad of paper, in his left a black felt-tipped pen. Aleric is ambidextrous.

  I cleared my throat. He looked up. For a moment his eyes went blank, then he said:

  ‘Hi, Pa! They told me you’d had it.’ Not one to display emotion, my son.

  ‘Not so far wrong, at that.’

  ‘Get yerself a chair. Hey, this is great.’

  I reached a chair over and sat down. He wasn’t moving his jaw much. ‘When did they tell you that—me being dead?’

  ‘Just before they dumped me in the ditch.’

  I gestured. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Oh ... this? Yeh. Well ... a couple of ’em held me and that ponce Mace worked me over with his gun.’

  ‘I see.’

  We stared at each other. Conversation was difficult. I cleared my throat.

  ‘I suppose you’re lucky, on the whole. They tell me there’s nothing serious.’

  ‘More’n they told me. Feels serious from where I am.’

  ‘I bet. What’ve you got there?’