By Death Possessed

by Roger Ormerod

  For a moment she held herself away from me, her eyes moist and her hair wild, then she put her head on my shoulder and clutched me close.

  ‘Oh, Tony! Tony! Why did you have to do it like this? Every minute I’ve been worried.’

  ‘And all for nothing,’ I said softly. ‘Come and eat. I’ve seen the menu. You’ll love it.’

  There comes a time when a tone of levity needs to be introduced.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Worried or not, ten minutes in the ladies restored her to normal, and in practice she had been a few minutes late arriving, the worry not bringing about any panic speeding, so that we didn’t have much time to spend on eating. I had said three o’clock to Paul Mace, and I’m the sort of person who likes to be prompt. I didn’t want them worrying too.

  Over the meal I explained, roughly, what I had in mind. As I’d expected, there were objections.

  ‘If you expect me to lie for you Tony ...’ Her professional integrity was creeping back. ‘Only to back me up.’

  ‘But if you’re lying—’

  ‘With a bit of luck, I shan’t have to.’

  I followed the Volvo down the motorway to Bridgwater. From there we were on ordinary roads. Margaret showed no inclination to linger. I managed to keep her in sight. Put it like that.

  One behind the other we rolled smoothly into the courtyard of Coombe’s stately home. The front door opened before I’d got all my riding equipment off. I let him wait. Margaret lit one of her rare cigarettes. I realized she would probably be meeting Evelyn, which could well be as unnerving as meeting Coombe.

  The gaunt retainer led us through the hall, through the sun room, and out on to the terrace. There, a tableau was being played out. It held all the gruesome viciousness of a medieval ritual, and for several moments I had difficulty in reminding myself it was real.

  Evelyn was standing to one side. When I had last seen her there’d been evidence of joyful self-indulgence, even if hysteria hadn’t been far away. But now, I saw, she was quiet and withdrawn, her face pale and her clothing untidy. She had had no chance to change for several days. Her face had encountered soap, but with no make-up her complexion was sallow. Her hair, usually so flamingly flamboyant, now seemed lustreless.

  She saw me and took a pace forward, then, seeing Margaret, she stopped. Her mouth formed the word: ‘Aleric?’

  I nodded, smiled. ‘He’ll be fine.’ But it was said absent-mindedly, my attention being captured by the scene on the terrace.

  Previously, apart from the episode in the woods, I hadn’t seen much evidence of Coombe’s armed back-up. Now they were all there, lined up with their backs to the balustrade. They, I thought, hadn’t even noticed my arrival, their attention being concentrated on the tableau, as though they might have been witnessing a keel-hauling with Captain Bligh in charge.

  I reminded myself that I had been expected at three o’clock. It was three minutes past, so the whole thing could have been staged to impress. Or perhaps not.

  Coombe was standing, in a dark blue tracksuit he’d have had to get tailored, with his fists on his hips. Paul Mace, shrunken and grey, was swaying in front of him, legs apart to prevent himself from falling over, holding in his right hand a three-inch paintbrush, and in his left, by its handle, a half gallon can of white emulsion paint, its lid off. He seemed unable to move.

  Coombe made a pretence of having just seen me. He waved, all friendly and jovial. ‘Come on over. You can help him.’

  Not sure I wanted to, I nevertheless strolled over. ‘Anything to oblige. What’s going on?’

  It’s a courtesy I extend to my employees when they’re about to leave us. He puts a cross where he’d like to be buried. We simply lift a couple of the flagstones. Come on, Mace, we can’t take all day on it.’

  Mace’s grey lips opened, but nothing came out.

  ‘Pour encourager les autres,’ I suggested.

  ‘Eh?’ said Coombe.

  ‘Bonaparte,’ I told him. ‘When he—’

  Evelyn cut in. ‘Voltaire.’ She always likes things to be correct.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Voltaire wrote it. A sly dig at the British when they shot Admiral Bing. To encourage the others, he said.’

  I stared at her. Everybody stared at her. She fidgeted with her fingers, and blushed. I turned, and grinned at the line of men against the balustrade. Stiff, vicious faces stared back.

  ‘Funny!’ said Coombe, aiming it at me. ‘Perhaps you’d like a go. Give him the paint, Paul. And the brush.’

  Paul Mace sagged. In his eyes, tears appeared. His employer had called him Paul. Limply, he offered me the brush, but he had difficulty lifting the paint can enough to offer that.

  I took them. The brush was in my left hand. I put down the can in order to change over, and straightened.

  ‘Well?’ I demanded.

  ‘A cross. Where you’d like to lie in peace.’

  I considered him with fascination. It was impossible, with this man, to decide where a joke finished and serious conversation began.

  ‘I get a choice?’

  He waved an arm. ‘Feel free. Where you’d like to lie.’

  I lifted the can and dipped in the brush, giving myself time. When I had it well loaded I lifted it out, and painted a cross on his chest.

  ‘On top of you, Coombe.’

  He was late reacting. Suddenly his face suffused with blood and his fingers tightened into huge fists. I think he would have lashed out, in spite of a disinclination towards doing his own dirty work, but somebody giggled. He turned ponderously; he couldn’t whirl. The row of faces went stiff, and Evelyn belatedly screamed.

  I had been right about the scream, the night I raided the gallery. I recognized it now. Never before had I heard her do that. Somehow, one never expects screams from a solicitor.

  I turned to her and laughed. Not at her, not at Coombe’s discomfiture, but at the fact that in painting that cross I had seen where my absolute proof lay. Relief and elation prompted that laugh, and when I turned back to Coombe I found that he too was laughing. Or at least, had recovered his good humour enough to smile and making a whickering noise.

  It was then I realized that Coombe had astonishing reserves of character. How else could he have risen to the position he now held, a multi-millionaire in command of a group who feared his very glance? He had a great control over his emotions. When he needed calm and considered thought, he achieved it. Now, he needed every iota of his subtlety, because he had recognized my laugh for what it was.

  ‘I hope,’ I said, ‘that you’ve got that cheque prepared.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘A piece of paper can be torn to shreds.’

  So he had been sufficiently influenced by my continuing persistence to feel uncertain about his own position. Which meant he was already tentative about the authenticity of his six paintings, which in turn would explain the predicament in which Mace had found himself. And this in spite of the fact that four of them had been stolen from accredited sources, national, art collections.

  It wouldn’t be the first time that experts have been wrong, including Mace and Margaret.

  ‘Let me see it,’ I said.

  For one moment the anger returned. Then he snapped: ‘Paul!’ and at the same time gestured behind his back. Released at last, his consort of hooligans dispersed rapidly for cover.

  Paul Mace, recovering rapidly now that the attention had drifted from him, reached into his inside pocket and produced a wallet. From it, he took a cheque. He held it up before my eyes, not letting me reach it. It was a certified cheque.

  I put down the paint can, carefully placed the brush across it, then smiled at Coombe. ‘A hundred thousand?’

  ‘At the most, they’re fetching twenty thousand each.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘Frederick Ashes.’

  ‘Good. So, if you’re agreeing that mine are Frederick Ashe—’

  ‘I’m agreeing nothing.’ Coombe’s face was dark again.

&
nbsp; ‘Then I propose to prove that they are, and yours are not, and when I’ve finished doing that I think you’ll be pleased to produce the second cheque you’ve got ready, for the other two hundred thousand.’

  ‘Tony!’ moaned Evelyn feebly. She now knew enough about Coombe to know he was not be taunted.

  ‘Pff!’ said Coombe in disgust. ‘All this talk about proof, and you’re arguing with two experts.’ He nodded, his lower lip vibrating. ‘That’s right, I’ve checked on our Dr Dennis. Her reputation is world-wide. Mace was quite jealous. Weren’t you?’ he jerked out, not looking at Mace.

  Mace, disconcerted at becoming Mace again, mumbled something.

  ‘Weren’t you?’ Coombe snapped.

  ‘In comparison, my experience is limited,’ Mace admitted.

  ‘So let’s hear from the lady.’ Coombe beamed at her, like a malevolent laser. ‘What do you think of my set of Frederick Ashe?’

  Margaret was caught unprepared. ‘Well, I don’t ... I haven’t seen them, of course.’

  ‘The photographs,’ I prompted.

  ‘Well yes, I’ve seen those, but the actual canvases are a different proposition. Ask me again when I’ve seen them.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Coombe. ‘That, I’m afraid, is impossible.’

  Margaret shrugged. She managed to get into it an element of contempt for Coombe’s cageyness. ‘I’d hoped to be shown round. Your collection’s legendary.’

  Coombe lifted his head. ‘We’re wasting time. Hine, you’d better get on with it. Let’s hear about this proof of yours.’

  I tried to repeat Margaret’s shrug, but it hadn’t her impact. ‘I’ll need to go with you into the gallery, and I’ll need Mace with me, and Dr Dennis to confirm a few points. Otherwise, there is no proof.’

  Coombe stood before me like a rock. He made a movement as though to cross his arms, then realized the paint on his chest was still wet. His face darkened at the thought. ‘Paul,’ he said, ‘you might as well tear up that cheque.’

  I smiled at him. ‘Then we’ll be off, though I did hope for a cup of your Darjeeling before we leave.’

  Evelyn took a step forward. I glanced at her. She became motionless. I added: ‘Over the tea, we can discuss the basis of my proof.’

  Coombe considered it for a few moments, then a couple of teeth appeared, one at each corner of his mouth. He was smiling. It was terrifying.

  ‘Paul,’ he snapped. ‘A minute.’

  Then he turned away, and he and Mace walked away along the terrace, conferring animatedly. I was left with Evelyn and Margaret, my predicament no less fraught.

  ‘Evelyn,’ I said, ‘you ought to meet Margaret Dennis. My wife, Margaret.’

  Margaret had moved no farther than a yard from the plate-glass door. She made no move now. Evelyn inclined her head coldly and with reserve. She was not at her best, in dirty jeans and a crumpled shirt, and was facing a woman who could always look smart and poised whatever the circumstances. Nevertheless, Evelyn managed to convey a contained dignity. She turned to me.

  ‘You haven’t told me about Aleric, Tony,’ she said. The voice had a beckoning quality. It was a quiet request. I moved towards her, to face her so that I could watch Coombe and Mace beyond.

  ‘He’s a bit knocked about. They’ve got him in Salisbury General. Nothing that won’t repair. He’s more disturbed, I think, at finding that two of his great grandparents were artists.’

  ‘What? You’re being clever again.’

  ‘My grandmother, and Frederick Ashe.’ She absorbed that in a flash. ‘I didn’t like her,’ she said definitely.

  ‘Never mind that, now,’ I told her firmly, and to my surprise she didn’t snap straight back at me. ‘We haven’t got much time. You heard what I said to Coombe. I need you in that gallery. So play along with it, please.’

  Her eyes searched my face. ‘You’re different, Tony. You’ve changed. What are you up to? And what’s all this talk about three hundred thousand pounds? That’s nonsense, of course. Isn’t it?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’ve seen Aleric. Coombe’s going to pay for that. Call it compensation, if you like.’

  She bit her lip. ‘I can’t make you out. Tangling with a man like that.’ Her head jerked towards him. ‘There’s a basic precept in law: don’t take on a case until you know the strength of the opposition.’

  ‘This isn’t law. There’s nothing legal about it. He’s going to pay.’

  ‘But you’re such a simpleton!’

  ‘They’re coming back. Will you help me?’

  ‘For Aleric, yes.’

  ‘Not for me?’

  Her lips flickered. ‘You’d be lost on your own.’

  Coombe was coming back, but not Mace, who had disappeared inside the house.

  ‘We’ll have tea,’ Coombe grumbled. ‘You can talk. Then we’ll decide.’

  ‘Has Mace gone to get the strawberries and cream?’

  He sneered at my humour. ‘He’s making preparations. In case.’

  He didn’t say in case of what, but I guessed that Mace was heading for the gallery. A man appeared, sent no doubt by Mace. He arranged four chairs around one of the tables. We sat, Coombe and I facing each other, the two women disconcertingly facing each other. Coombe lifted his head. The tea-tray appeared. No delay this time; Coombe’s rumbling mood of near explosion had upset everyone.

  As the man leaned over the table I caught a glimpse of the butt of a gun under his left armpit. I watched him leave, and had the impression he went no farther than just inside the door.

  ‘Now,’ said Coombe. ‘Talk.’

  ‘There’s a story behind it,’ I said, and watched his fist clench on the table surface. ‘Frederick Ashe met my grandmother, who was Angelina Foote at the time, and she was just about seventeen. Quite apart from a natural affinity for each other, they had other things that linked them, such as the fact that one of them was left-handed, and they had the same initials, only reversed. And the fact that they were both painters. She learned to work in his style, and went away with him to Paris in 1910. They used to paint side by side, with their palette on a table between them, and they invented the same signature for their paintings, an A and an F, overlapped. All this I got from my grandmother, very recently. Margaret was there. She can confirm it.’

  I glanced at her. She was sitting with her fingers interlocked on the table in front of her, her eyes on them, saying nothing. Evelyn sat the same. I nodded to Coombe.

  ‘Looks like you’ll have to be mother.’ His bushy eyebrows lifted. He frowned. He reached for the pot.

  ‘So,’ I went on, ‘there were two sets of paintings completed, each of eighty-one canvases. Out of one set six were sold in Paris, and these are the ones now in your gallery, Coombe, and one went to my father, and on to me. The other complete set I now have. The whole point is: which set was painted by who?’

  ‘Sugar?’ said Coombe, looking at Margaret.

  ‘Pardon? Oh, I’ll help myself, thank you.’

  Having attracted her attention he asked: ‘Is he making this up?’

  ‘Not one word. It’s all true.’

  ‘And it doesn’t get us anywhere,’ he decided.

  ‘Oh, but it does.’ I reached inside my right inside jacket pocket and produced the two sets of six prints each. ‘One of these sets is of your own six, Coombe, and the other set is of the six matching ones out of the complete batch of eighty-one.’ I spread them out in front of him. ‘Check ‘em. Go on. Tell me what you see.’

  Coombe had a reluctance even to look down at them. For too long now he had paid people to do things for him. He wouldn’t, for instance, do his own killing. Paul Mace was the person he paid to look at photographs for him, and probably to arrange the theft of paintings that Mace had decided Coombe should own. It was now beneath Coombe’s dignity to do anything for himself. He probably had someone whose sole duty it was to go to the toilet for him.

  Crooking his finger like a fractured banana, he sipped his tea, then growled: ‘Mace
has told me.’

  ‘Told you what?’

  ‘That they’re painted from slightly different viewpoints. If it matters.’

  ‘Oh it does. It does. Two people, sitting side by side and separated by a table on which they have their palette—and one of them is left-handed. Now ask yourself, wouldn’t it be more convenient if the left-handed painter sat at the right of the table? It would save either of them reaching across with the brush. You agree?’

  He grunted. Evelyn had not touched her tea, but her eyes were fixed on me. There was a light in them I hadn’t seen for years. Encouraged, and because Coombe hadn’t answered, I demanded: ‘Don’t you agree?’

  Margaret stirred uneasily.

  ‘Margaret?’ I asked.

  ‘You know I agree. We’ve already discussed this.’ For one moment she glanced at me. There was bewilderment in her expression. She believed that this presentation would get me nowhere, in fact would play right into Coombe’s hands. Perhaps Coombe recognized this. Mace would have briefed him fully, in so far as Mace himself understood the implications. But Coombe’s face had set into an expressionless front. His poker face, this was, though no doubt he had someone to play poker for him.

  ‘Do you agree?’ I insisted to him, determined to provoke a response.

  ‘You’re pushing it, Hine,’ he said, his voice grumbling at my presumption. ‘Don’t press your luck.’

  ‘I’m only asking you to agree that it would’ve been more convenient for them to paint in that relative position, the left-handed one to the right of the table. Not that it proves anything.’

  Margaret made a sound in her throat. Evelyn’s cup clattered in her saucer. Nobody had looked at the strawberries and cream.

  Coombe said nothing.

  ‘How in God’s name does anybody do business with you!’ I cried.

  ‘Nobody does business with me. I do business with them.’

  ‘Then do something.’

  He poured himself another cup of tea. I had disturbed him, or he’d have poured three others, too.