Hall of Mirrors

by Christopher Fowler

  ‘It’s just something that occurred to me a few minutes ago.’ He blew into a white handkerchief, turning it black and leaving himself with a white nose. ‘I may be wrong. I usually am. Not about that, though.’

  He pointed at the canvas of Willem van de Velde the Younger’s Harbour Scene, which had unrolled itself on the carpet. It showed so many unfurled sails against the sky that you could have been looking at a washing line.

  ‘Not something I’d want on my wall, but I think I know who put it there.’ Bryant sneezed revoltingly.

  ‘Whatever is going on here?’ asked Lady Banks-Marion from the doorway. Once again she exhibited an annoying habit of talking only to May. ‘This is really no time to play the fool.’

  ‘We’re not, your ladyship,’ said May. ‘My colleague has recovered your missing van de Velde.’

  ‘I suppose I should thank him,’ she said, ‘but I’d rather you released my guests. And look at the mess you’ve made. We’re all at the end of our tether. Why does he look like a minstrel?’

  ‘I am here, you know.’ Bryant coughed again, revealing a blackened tongue. ‘If you’ll bear with me for just a short while longer, your worshipfulness, I hope to have some answers for you.’ He plonked himself down on the nearest chair and put his boots up on the one next to it.

  ‘Not there, they’re Hepplewhites!’

  ‘I don’t care whose they are, I’m knackered,’ said Bryant.

  ‘Arthur, we have to search for Fruity,’ warned May.

  ‘He’ll have to hold on for a few minutes. If I can just find one last piece of the puzzle the rest will follow. And I think I know how to do it. Tell Alberman to assemble everybody in here.’ He blew his nose again and made the mistake of looking in his handkerchief. ‘Get him to bring me some old newspapers. And tea, lots of it. Cripey, I could get used to having servants.’

  39

  * * *

  HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN

  It was, when everyone thought about it afterwards, an extremely bizarre gathering, a snippet from a forgotten British film, a page from a tattered paperback. Squeezed on to one rather fragile-looking sofa, looking as if they were waiting to see a dentist, were Slade Wilson, Vanessa Harrow and Toby Stafford. On chairs and in armchairs were Lord Banks-Marion, his mother, Monty Hatton-Jones, Norma Burke and Pamela Claxon. In addition to his neck bandage, Monty now had part of his head shaved and wore a pair of sticking plasters arranged in a cross, like a cartoon character who had suffered a mishap with an anvil.

  May had handed the floor to his partner. Bryant had made a desultory attempt to wipe his face, but the result was more monstrous than before. He rose before them now, a lunatic lecturer in the physics of murder.

  ‘Forgive me for handling this all backwards, but I think one solution leads to another,’ he apologized. ‘So I must start with the least important part, the stolen painting. When I heard it was missing I first suspected Reverend Patethric.’ He paced before them excitedly. ‘After all, he’d been a bit light-fingered around the church so it seemed reasonable to assume he’d know how to fence a painting. Even his parishioners had cottoned on to him.’ He picked up one of the newspapers, rolled it and tied it in a knot, dropping it into the fireplace. ‘Then I realized it couldn’t be Trev the Rev.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Wilson, raising a hand.

  ‘The painting disappeared from its frame this morning. It’s Sunday. The vicar was getting ready for the morning service at St Stephen’s.’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked May.

  ‘Because Mrs Bessel had a visit this morning from the lady who does the flowers at the church, and she saw the Reverend.’ He knotted another newspaper and threw it into the grate. ‘It had to be someone who was in the house between seven and nine. Sorry, it’s a bit chilly in here.’ Pulling out a box of matches, he struck one and touched its flame to the tangle of newspapers. ‘It didn’t seem a very female crime to me. I could be wrong, of course, but I thought the culprit might be someone who had dabbled in art and knew a little about marine paintings. I’m not saying an expert, but a person who lived in Greenwich, where the nation’s biggest collection of maritime art is housed, someone who once worked in an auction house …’ He turned to look into the fireplace, where the flames were flaring.

  ‘All right!’ Monty jumped up with his hands raised. ‘Put out the fire! It’s up the chimney!’

  Bryant took the rolled painting from the sideboard and unfurled it. ‘Would you like to explain why you stole it?’

  Monty fell back into his chair, realizing he’d been had.

  ‘For once in your life, Monty, tell the bloody truth,’ warned May.

  Hatton-Jones looked like someone who had just seen his true reflection in a mirror. ‘I’ve been a fool,’ he said. ‘A middle-aged man chasing after a beautiful young woman.’

  ‘An overweight middle-aged man,’ added Pamela Claxon ungraciously.

  ‘From the moment I set eyes on her I knew I was in terrible trouble.’

  ‘Where was this?’ asked May.

  ‘At the Chelsea Drugstore on the King’s Road.’ Monty sat with his eyes downcast, keen to avoid Vanessa’s gaze. ‘I watched her dancing, so happy and carefree, as if she could do anything and go anywhere without having to think about it for a second. I was too old for all of that. My father made sure I started work the week after I left university. I was expected to be responsible and mature. But every business I tried my hand at failed, and the debts quickly mounted.’

  ‘Oh, spare us the sob story, Raffles,’ Claxon retorted before being cautioned by May.

  ‘It was Toby Stafford who spoke to her first,’ Monty continued. ‘I knew him from Oxford, of course. The two of them started chatting, and he introduced me. But he did more than that. He made me out to be some kind of property millionaire. I saw her eyes light up, and realized she wasn’t so innocent after all. But it didn’t matter. Just to be in her presence was delightful.’ He finally looked over at Vanessa, embarrassed. ‘She soon found out the truth about me, though. Then she got the job at Donald Burke’s club. She couldn’t sing – she didn’t have to. She could just stand there and people would applaud.’

  ‘Did you know that Miss Harrow was going to be here this weekend?’ Bryant asked.

  ‘He couldn’t have known,’ said Harrow. ‘I only decided to come at the last minute. That’s why I was late for dinner on Friday.’

  Monty looked shocked. ‘Of course I didn’t know. The entire weekend was arranged for Donald Burke, to make sure that he wouldn’t back out of the deal. He was buying Tavistock Hall; he was the only one who mattered. The rest of us were just invited here as window dressing.’

  Slade Wilson, who knew more about window dressing than most, looked highly displeased.

  ‘When I heard that Lord Banks-Marion had sold him the house without even carrying out a full inventory on the paintings, I decided he wouldn’t miss one.’ Monty dropped his head into his hands.

  ‘I had to include the paintings,’ said Harry. ‘I was scared that Burke might back out.’

  The truth dawned on May. ‘That’s why you didn’t want to leave, Monty. You couldn’t take the picture any earlier in case we noticed it was missing. You thought that with everything else going on you could get away with it. You didn’t reckon on my partner, Hawkeye.’

  ‘And I wouldn’t have noticed it without Herne the Hunter’s help,’ said Bryant, mystifying everyone.

  ‘I thought I could sell the painting and pay off my debts, perhaps even win Vanessa back,’ said Monty. ‘If she only stayed with me for a few days it would be worth it.’ He winced. ‘I’m an absurdity.’

  ‘Well, yes. You’re not a murderer, though,’ said Bryant.

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ Lady Banks-Marion asked.

  ‘Because I have a few ideas about who is,’ Bryant replied. ‘“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote that. You just need to ask yourself what the most obvious fact in this ca
se is.’

  ‘You know you told me to inform you when you were being unnecessarily mysterious and annoying?’ said May. ‘You’re doing it right now.’

  ‘With good reason, as I hope you’ll soon see,’ Bryant said.

  ‘But we have to find Fruity. He could be lying injured somewhere—’

  Bryant ignored him. ‘Monty, you can make amends for your misdeed. If Lady Banks-Marion chooses not to press charges, we might see our way to overlooking the whole unfortunate incident with the painting.’

  ‘Why would I do that?’ asked the matriarch, arching an eyebrow.

  ‘Because there’s something that Monty doesn’t know. Lady Banks-Marion, you knew your son had undervalued everything when he included the house contents in the sale, so you substituted copies of the paintings you wanted to keep, and not very good copies at that. I mentally compared Willem van de Velde the Younger’s Harbour Scene with its facsimile in one of the books in the library. When you’re copying a maritime scene it’s a good idea to make sure you’ve matched the ships with the requisite number of masts. So perhaps, your ladyfulness, you can let him off the hook.’

  Monty’s face flooded with relief. ‘I’ll do anything you require.’

  ‘We need to make sure that you testify at tomorrow’s trial,’ Bryant told him. ‘But before that, we need to use you as bait.’

  It felt a little like staking a rather portly goat out in a field for a dragon.

  They sent Monty on to the driest part of the patio with a cigar and made him smoke the whole thing, first making sure that no one else could be seen on the same side of the house. As church bells rang in the distance, he stood self-consciously puffing away between the great stone urns that heralded the entrance to the gardens, attempting to look utterly unconcerned, trying not to consider the possibility that another stone gryphon might drop from the sky and flatten him.

  The sky had once more dimmed to a dusk-like gloom, and the next downpour began. Autumn, the time when England decided to sandwich four seasons into each day, had arrived. Monty nervously strolled back and forth beyond the edge of the pelting rain, trying to pretend that he was just out there having a ponder.

  ‘This is no good,’ said May from behind the curtain in Lupin. ‘Nobody’s going to have a go at him under these conditions. It has to be when he’s least expecting it.’

  Sensing that they would start arguing again, Bryant had released everyone from their incarceration together on the condition that they remained inside the house, but it was like herding cats. Only Pamela Claxon remained to watch Monty’s performance.

  ‘Can you go to the other end of the lawn?’ Bryant asked. ‘Alberman gave me these.’ He produced a pair of bulky walkie-talkies and handed one to May. ‘They’re used by the beaters. Make sure you stay in my field of vision.’

  May pocketed the handset and headed out across the grass. Monty lit another cigar and began strolling theatrically once more. He was shivering with cold and looked as miserable as a shot dog. May waited in the rain for twenty minutes.

  Bryant watched them but was unable to stop himself from perusing a book, A Popular History of British Seaweeds by Reverend D. Landsborough. Empathy had never been his strong point.

  May was about to give up when he saw one of Lord Banks-Marion’s ashram acolytes wandering from the walled garden towards the spot where their decoy was pacing. Monty tried to shoo Donovan away with an elaborate set of hand signals, but the boy in the poncho and Indian beads was too stoned to notice.

  ‘Hey, man,’ he called, ‘is that a Cuban cigar? Because Che Guevara is so cool.’

  ‘You do know that he had a great many of his compatriots shot?’ Monty pointed out.

  The lad came closer, hopping up on to the patio. ‘I just like his beret. I have his poster and everything.’

  ‘Get away, you ridiculous little beanpole, you’ll ruin everything.’

  ‘What’s your problem, dude? Hey, let me—’ He reached for the cigar.

  Something whizzed between them, causing a piece of brickwork to fly from the wall beside the library windows. Monty spun around and fell to his knees. Taking fright, the boy fell over his own feet and stumbled back to the safety of the yurt.

  Bryant ran out on to the patio. Monty raised a hand to him in horror. ‘I’ve been bloody shot!’ he cried, displaying crimson fingers.

  ‘It’s only a bit of your ear,’ said Bryant. ‘Nobody needs lobes. It’s just a nick. Get the housekeeper to bandage it. Then stay in the kitchen with the cook, away from all the windows.’

  He looked about but May had already raced off in the direction from which the bullet had come. Moments later he was crashing about in the undergrowth, hunting the hunter.

  40

  * * *

  VOODOO CHILD

  ‘Where are they now?’ asked Roger Trapp, passing a hand over his hair. ‘Please tell me they’re on their way back.’ He was even more unhappy about being dragged into the unit on a Sunday morning, but Gladys Forthright had insisted on him coming into Bow Street. The bad weather was now hitting the metropolis. The streets around Covent Garden Market were inundated. At the weekends straw and cabbage leaves from the vegetable sellers got washed into the gutters and blocked them when it rained.

  ‘Tavistock Hall is cut off,’ Gladys explained. ‘It rained all night and flooded the only road in.’

  ‘You mean they can’t get out and we can’t reach them?’

  ‘I’ve been in touch with the local constabulary. It usually subsides enough to let cars through after a few hours. The bad news is that they won’t risk sending a team in at the moment.’

  ‘Hell’s bells, why not?’

  ‘There was a violent protest march at Canterbury College last night and some students are staging a lock-in. Their team’s still tied up dealing with it.’

  ‘Isn’t there anyone else in the area who works on a bloody Sunday?’

  Gladys checked her telephone pad. ‘There’s another team at Deal, but I haven’t been able to raise them.’

  ‘Good God, this is a murder investigation at one of the great country houses of Britain, not a shoplifting incident at the Co-op,’ Trapp complained. ‘If the upper classes can’t get protection what chance do the rest of us have?’

  Gladys sensed that the indifference of the Canterbury team was partly annoyance that a pair of London-based detectives had already encroached upon their territory. One officer had told her: ‘If they’re already there, why the hell can’t they handle it?’

  Was it a good idea to tell Roger everything she knew? He would hear the details sooner or later. ‘I’m afraid John and Arthur still haven’t been able to make an arrest,’ she admitted.

  ‘My God, what an utter disaster. A simple babysitting job. I should have known.’ Trapp fumed and paced. ‘I should have made them stay home, here at the unit. At least they wouldn’t have been able to do much damage.fn1 Did you try the army? They’re in the area, aren’t they?’

  ‘They won’t lend us their helicopter. I got the official line, that their work is of international importance and takes precedence over local problems.’

  Like every head of the PCU before and after him, Trapp’s rage was so driven by frustration with his detectives that a prescription for sedatives should have come with the job. He wondered if Kasavian had set him up. The Home Office had an antipathy towards specialist units and was fond of using them to score political points.

  Gladys did have one card left to play. A friend of Bryant’s was staying in Knotsworth and could probably reach Tavistock Hall by bicycle. The phone line at the Red Lion was still working. She pulled down her telephone directory and looked up the number.

  Maggie Armitage might have followed a different path had she not started dating a student of the late Aleister Crowley. As a boyfriend he had proven to be a bit of a non-starter but he showed her that atavistic shamanism, when used with an understanding of modern psychology, could sometimes ease the pain of troubled lives. Maggie embarked on a
n inordinate number of courses from dowsing to spirit revival. Her curiosity was unbounded, and her church was broad enough to encompass clairvoyance, biorhythmic feedback and harvest festivals.

  She had met Arthur Bryant at the Wigmore Hall, where they were attending a talk entitled ‘Whither Wicca?’ by Dame Maude Hackshaw. He was young, she was younger and something might have come of that if they hadn’t got into an argument about phrenology.

  Maggie could have been a nurse or a psychologist but for her own empathy issues: she had far too much. (She cried watching the six o’clock news, and took home badly kept dogs until their outraged owners found her and snatched them back.) Instead she managed to find the most obscure way of helping others that did not involve making any money: white magic. A perpetual student, she was currently a Grand Order Grade II White Witch and had just joined the Coven of St James the Elder in Kentish Town, where much of her work currently involved feeding tramps.

  It would have been easy to write her off as another kindly London eccentric but for her uncanny ability to find the truth in others. She was more often right than wrong in her estimations. Whether this was down to a genuinely attributable psychic ability or fortuitous guesswork was hard to say, but she had demonstrated her powers of foresight often enough that her neighbours were spooked by her, and consulted her before they caught aeroplanes or put up shelves.

  When she received a phone call from Gladys Forthright, Maggie unthinkingly agreed to help.

  ‘You haven’t heard what I’m going to ask you yet,’ said Gladys.

  ‘Sorry, I thought you wondered what I was doing in Kent?’

  ‘I was about to ask. What are you doing?’

  ‘Where, dear?’

  ‘In Kent.’

  ‘Yes I am. Quite near Arthur, as it happens.’

  ‘But you don’t know where he is.’

  ‘Isn’t he at Crowshott?’