A Cry from the Dark

by Robert Barnard

  “Nothing gets past you, does it, Bettina? Old X-ray eyes, that’s you. Yes, actually I have got someone lined up to take to bingo. Quite young for a bingo fanatic, and definitely interested. We’ll be going back to her place afterwards, if her hints have been anything to go by. It’s a minor triumph, because there are lots of others sniffing around.”

  “She must be a very odd younger woman if she finds hordes of pensioners sniffing around her a turn-on.”

  Mark had been hugging himself with impatience.

  “Auntie Bet, about that film of your book—”

  “Oh, Mark, I was wanting to make you and Clare better known to each other. She has lots of contacts in the advertising world, and could be very useful. Clare, darling—”

  That done, she and Hughie got into a huddle with Sylvia listening in, all of them now and then reaching out to take one of the delicious nothings from the Prince Leopold tray.

  “So what about this ‘faint trace’ of the Mawurndjurl?”

  “It’s a contact in Melbourne. He’s been offered a picture from a British source. It’s aboriginal, or aboriginal-inspired. It’s been described to him as a matter of intricate lines and shapes, in browns and grays.”

  “That could describe a lot of aboriginal work,” said Sylvia.

  “It doesn’t seem to amount to much,” said Bettina.

  “It’s a lead. If it doesn’t amount to anything it still alerts people, and that’s what we want. Dealers noticing and making contacts.”

  “I love that picture so much!” said Bettina.

  “I could look around a bit when I’m back in Australia,” said Sylvia. “It seems logical that that’s where the thief would try to sell it. And I remember it quite well. It sort of brought me up every time I went out the door.”

  “Would you keep an eye open?” said Bettina, feeling oddly pleased. “I’d be so grateful. And we would be keeping in touch.”

  For a moment Bettina thought, I’ll leave my art collection to my daughter. But then she thought, But what will happen to it after she dies? She might even leave it to Mark. Better to leave it to an English gallery, maybe one of the regional ones. Australian art should have a strong presence in Britain. It was international, like Australian fiction.

  “These little fishy things are gorgeous,” said Sylvia, into the moment’s silence.

  “They do me very well here,” said Bettina complacently.

  “So they should,” said Hughie. “You put them on the literary map.”

  “The literary map!” scoffed Bettina. “You’re obsessed with league tables and ratings and values at auction. It’s very vulgar.”

  “You’re wrong, Bettina,” said Hughie, for whom this was an old charge. “I’m obsessed with quality. I like all the other stuff associated with quality—standing, current values, that sort of thing—but they come very definitely second.”

  “Anyway, I don’t suppose the Leopold gets anyone staying here or dining here because The Chattering Classes put them on some imaginary literary map.”

  “As you please,” said Hughie. “I don’t suppose anyone ever drank at the bar of the Folies-Bergère just because Manet painted it.”

  “Actually, I bet thousands of tourists have.”

  “So how is the good Inspector Murchison going?” asked Hughie casually.

  “You’ve talked to him?”

  “Oh yes. He came to quiz me on Tuesday night. I told him quite a lot about Australian art values, but I didn’t have a lot else to add. Since the thief was obviously disturbed by Katie while he was on the job, the one picture he took doesn’t tell us very much about whether he was an expert or not. He grabbed the Mawurndjurl either because it was just beside the door or because he had seen it in Hi! magazine. Or both.”

  “I still can’t get my brain around the idea of art thieves in Britain specializing in Australian art,” said Sylvia. “I suppose in an odd way it proclaims that it has arrived.”

  Hughie raised his eyebrows. He had hastened its arrival, in his estimation, and that several decades ago.

  “Don’t knock your native land,” he said. “Artists, opera singers, novelists, even poets. You name it, Australia is in there buzzing.”

  “Still a bit short on playwrights, architects, and one or two other things,” said Bettina. “But I’m sure Sylvia was not knocking it. And I’m not either.”

  “You could have fooled me. I should think you know less than nothing about Australian architects. And not much more about playwrights.”

  “More than you think, Hughie. Australia won’t need you as a cheerleader while I’m around. You loathed the place, remember?”

  “I loathed small-town and outback Australia,” corrected Hughie. “That’s only a tiny segment, population-wise. Essentially Australia is a big-town place.”

  “Maybe. I’d certainly prefer to live in Sydney than in Bundaroo if it was still my country…Anyway, I’m not sure how seriously Murchison took this art thief notion.”

  “He certainly seemed to be taking it as a distinct possibility,” said Hughie. “And he struck me as a pretty bright man.”

  “Oh, I think he is. But talking to me he seemed more interested in my little memory novel. I’m thinking of calling it A Far Cry from Bundaroo, by the way. I don’t suppose Muriel Spark will sue.”

  “You know there’s no copyright on titles, Bettina. Why would Murchison be interested in that?”

  “Victims of my vitriolic pen trying to sabotage it, that sort of thing. I take that with a pinch of salt. I can’t see that my pen is that savage.”

  “How can you say that? We just mentioned The Chattering Crowd. Kingsley Amis must have felt flayed by that book.”

  “Odious man—served him right. And I’m glad I crucified the young Kingsley rather than the old man. He was a monster and a bore who everyone could have a go at in his later years, but he was horrible back in the fifties, well before he whizzed over to the lunatic right.”

  “Well, Kingsley is dead—”

  “Exactly. And if Martin is going round exacting revenge on people who didn’t like his father, he’ll have his work cut out.”

  “So who does Murchison think might be wanting revenge or preempting revenge?”

  “Any- and everyone I’m in contact with at the present time, apparently,” said Bettina briefly. She turned aside abruptly and drew Ollie and Sylvia together. “How is K—” began Sylvia, but Bettina just shook her head and silenced her before going on. “I know we’ll see each other tomorrow, but since this is in the nature of a farewell I did want to say, from the bottom of what heart I have, that I have been so happy having you here. It’s been, somehow, reviving—what people mean when they say ‘a tonic.’ Can we keep in better touch in future, Ollie?”

  “That suits me fine,” said her brother, grinning widely with pleasure. “And Dad would have been pleased.”

  “Dad and Mum,” said Bettina. “Dad was only half the man I knew when he lost Mum. That’s not my observation, of course. It’s what he said to me just before he died…” She turned to Sylvia. “And I meant what I said about keeping in touch.”

  “I’m really glad about that.” The warmth in her tone was patently sincere.

  “You’re wonderful because you don’t expect from me what I can’t give.”

  “You mean love, don’t you? I understand that, and maybe why. I’ll settle for interest. Interest lasts longer usually.”

  Kissing her and turning away, Bettina felt that that last remark was an acute one. She would part from Sylvia with genuine regret, and look forward to whatever contact they could maintain with interest, and she felt the same would be true for Sylvia. She was sure they were both similar souls—or at any rate natures: if they had met without the emotional baggage they did have, they would still have felt a kinship in attitudes, in their psychological makeup. But love? Bettina felt that love did not enter into it. Had love ever entered into it with her, in the years since the closeness to her parents? Hughie had been a wonderful
intellectual stimulus, the Brighthouse boy had been just a flirtation, Cecil Cockburn had been a bit of fun, which marriage had turned sour, and Peter had been “something else”—something different in her life, something comfortable to be with. All the rest had been just bed.

  Peter was the first guest to go—off to meet his bingo queen. Then Ollie and Sylvia disappeared in the direction of the underground, which their stay in London had made them quite expert in negotiating. Clare and Mark were still there. She hadn’t noticed how they’d been getting on, but she did notice that, though they pretended to be going their separate ways this involved some acting on Mark’s part that he was not quite up to. Bettina raised her eyebrows at Hughie and they both went over to the window that overlooked the main entrance. A minute or two later they saw the two of them leave together and go toward Mark’s car. As she waited for Mark to unlock the passenger door, Clare looked up and gave a cheeky wave in the direction of the window.

  “Good God! Whatever is Clare thinking of?” said Bettina.

  “I’ll give you one guess,” said Hughie. “Actually, I think Clare is exactly the type of managing middle-aged woman that Mark stands in need of,” he added in his prissiest tones.

  “I’m not worried about what Mark needs,” protested Bettina. “What on earth can he offer her?…One guess for that, too, I suppose. Forget I spoke. What do I know about such things? One day some critic will discover a great gap at the core of all my novels and realize it’s an absence of heart…What time are you meeting Marie, Hughie?”

  “Not till eight.”

  “Would you walk me to the park then? It’s a lovely evening, and we haven’t had so many of them. The café will still be going, and we can have coffee sitting out.”

  They walked through the tediously well-painted streets until they got to the park, where the winding paths soothed her: the abundant and varied flowers, the shade from the trees, the nursemaids with prams, the foreign students, the people staying at the youth hostel, and the world and his wife walking in the late sunshine. They had hardly spoken so far, Hughie only to show solicitude for her greater walking difficulties. Once they were rid of all the traffic noise and fumes Bettina said, “I’m worried, Hughie.”

  “Of course you are. You don’t get over something like a break-in in a matter of days.”

  “It’s not that—not just that. It’s the police. I didn’t want to talk about it in there, but they have everyone in their sights. Even Ollie and Sylvia, though they were with me in Edinburgh at the vital time.”

  Hughie considered. “There are planes.”

  “That’s what the inspector said. Down on the last one at night, back on the early one from Heathrow. It all sounds rather silly and fantastic to me, like one of those detective stories based on railway timetables.”

  “I don’t see why the idea is fantastic.”

  “Well, planes are pretty small, particularly ones on internal flights. They would surely be recognized and remembered by the hostesses and stewards.”

  “That might not bother them if all they were planning on doing was to rob the flat. When did you see them that morning?”

  “Sylvia about half past nine or so. Ollie later.”

  “And the day before?”

  “We went our separate ways.”

  “I should think at that rate they could even have taken the train.”

  “That seems hardly less fantastic. In any case I barely know Ollie, and only met Sylvia—apart from holding her as a baby—a couple of weeks or so ago. They can hardly be living in fear of my memoirs.”

  “In Sylvia’s case there could be a long-cherished resentment.”

  “I know. I hope not, but I do realize there could be. But if there is one, why would she go down to London to work it out, when we were together in Edinburgh?…Murchison seemed more interested in Mark, oddly enough.”

  Again, Hughie thought hard. “Apart from watching him today, I only met Mark briefly when he first came. I did realize it wasn’t love at first sight as far as you two were concerned.”

  “Oh, I could well put Mark down with a poisoned arrow or two if I was carrying the memoir up to the present day. But I’m not, and even if I was I don’t think I’d bother with him. He’s hardly worth the trouble.”

  “I bet he wouldn’t think that,” said Hughie with a grin. “Why is Murchison directing his cold gaze on him?”

  “I didn’t say he was direc—Oh well, yes, maybe he is. He’s talked to him, of course, and I think he’s been struck by the vanity, the self-love.”

  “Who wouldn’t be? You were. And even watching him just now it rather thrust itself at me. A modern Narcissus.”

  “Yes. I forgot to tell Murchison that, according to Ollie, Mark hasn’t always been like this.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. I’d hate to think of a baby as full of himself as Mark is.”

  “I rather think babies are, though neither of us would know much about that. It seems to me that the basic fact about growing up for most people is becoming aware of others. What Ollie said was that when he was at school he was the tall, beanpole type of kid, picked on by others.”

  “Difficult to imagine.”

  “Yes. Apparently it was partly because he wasn’t too bright, partly the gangling physique. The ridicule sent him to the gyms and the weight-training courses.”

  “Probably to steroids as well. That’s the way men get Mark’s sort of bulk. And they can send you off course, steroids.”

  “Well, don’t say that to Murchison. I had the same thought, but I let it out to Ollie, not to Murchison. He’s fixated enough on Mark.”

  “Why should you protect him? He’s less than nothing to you. Anyway, the mere talk of gyms and weight-training will have suggested steroids to a policeman.”

  “I’m not trying to protect Mark,” said Bettina, becoming a little heated, “except that I don’t want innocent people accused or suspected where there is no evidence. There have been far too many fit-ups in British crime history in recent years.”

  Hughie nodded, but kept with the subject. “So though you don’t like Mark, though he gives you the heebie-jeebies, you feel pretty sure he didn’t do it?”

  Wanting to collect her thoughts, to approach the subject in the way that suited her best, Bettina put it off.

  “Ah, here we are. Coffee is just what I need. I’m parched.”

  They sat down in the open-air part of the cafeteria near the house and ordered coffee and cream cakes from an exuberantly Italian waiter. They talked about little nothings till they were tucked into them, and then Bettina took up the subject again.

  “You asked me if I felt pretty sure that Mark didn’t do it. I do, though I can see the way Murchison is thinking: Mark is vain and yet unsure of himself; he has a child’s mind in a very powerful body; he seems to be pretty unsure of his sexuality; and he has the sort of vanity that needs constant feeding—for example from women, who may be casual paid pickups if nothing else is available. Poor Clare—I wonder how she’s doing…You get this strange breezy confidence and at the same time the constant asking for admiration, for acceptance, for some kind of status. It seems to bespeak the uncertain persona, with a history of nonacceptance.”

  “So? What holds you back from agreeing with him?”

  “I can’t for a moment see Mark conceiving the idea of destroying my book because it might contain some bilious picture of him, or going to the lengths of savaging Katie—he would know it wasn’t me who was disturbing him, since I was with his father in Edinburgh. Mark just doesn’t have enough determination and joined-up thinking to do that.”

  “So who does? I must say Mark sounds more likely than most of the alternatives.”

  “I’m not accusing anyone. I’m just saying, ‘Why pick on Mark?’ Clare has the grit, the thinking-through, the ruthlessness.”

  That surprised Hughie.

  “Clare? I’ve always suspected Clare of preying on you, wanting her pound of financial flesh, though I suppose that
’s her job, as you always say. But have you thought it through? Why—?”

  “There’s no why. I’m not making a case against her. She has custody of the tapes of the new book, so if she were to have done it that couldn’t be a motive…Then there’s Peter.”

  “Peter? I’d never even thought of him.”

  “Yet he’s got a lot in common with Mark. You know how I’ve said that everything washes over Mark. I remember I told you how I had him walking round the flat practically naked, and when I told him in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t on, he just said, ‘OK, Auntie Bet,’ and added an item of clothing or two. Then he was accused of curb-crawling and all he did was say it was a silly law, and that it’s a good way of picking up someone for sex. Nothing sticks. And why? Because there are no known standards or norms of conduct there.”

  “Are you saying Peter is the same?”

  “Yes, I think I am. In a milder form. I love Peter, you know that: I enjoy his company almost more than anyone’s, and my time with him was, I suppose, emotionally the best time in my life. But he has always been so much the boy, the willful, lustful boy, who must have whatever he craves at any one moment, so that he goes after it even if it means losing something infinitely more valuable to him. And he’s always enjoyed the boy’s pleasure of taking anything he wants off someone else. When he left me to go after a floozie he crowed at the thought of giving one in the eye to her existing ‘protector.’ Very like Mark, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t really know either of them well enough to say. I don’t think you want Peter to have done it, though.”

  “No, of course I don’t. And I can’t think of a reason why he should have. If he were to appear in my memory book he’d know it would be with affection…And if it wasn’t, he’d just thumb his nose at me and laugh.”

  “And you think Murchison will have all those people in mind?”

  “I imagine so, since he obviously knows his job. For all I know he’s added you to his list since his talk with you.”

  Hughie seemed unfazed.