by John Lawton
“I talked to Laura Narayan this morning. By and large, what she said about Skolnik squares with your appraisal and with what Wally said, a scrounger living low on the food chain. But she liked him more than Wally did, and I think she knew him a lot better. She described him as generous.”
“Generous with what?”
“Quite. She said he was intermittently flush with money. And at times when he was, all debts would be repaid.”
“Okay, that matches something Gibbs said when I picked up the key this morning. How Skolnik threw parties at no notice or suddenly rounded up half a dozen ne’er-do-well mates and took them all to Bertorelli’s for a meal. But I don’t know what it means.”
“It might mean he was on someone’s payroll, and every so often that someone paid him in cash.”
“Maybe he sold a painting?”
“Does it look like he sold anything?”
“Okay, tell me what you have in mind.”
“First, I’d like to get Laura Narayan down here just to be sure this is a genuine Skolnik. Then I think I’ll need to talk to Fish Wally one more time.”
“And if it turns out that Skolnik was a Soviet agent?”
“I’ll let the spooks handle it,” Troy lied.
Jack mulled it over.
“Might be a godsend if he was and they did. We’re at the point of going through every scrap of paperwork he left—of course that may not amount to a pile, probably not much more than a gas bill—and of going onto the Underground at 4.30 every day for a week with a photograph asking, ‘have you seen this man?’ and that will amount to a pile.”
“Hmm,” said Troy, “4.30 is not a good time. If he’d got on half an hour or three-quarters of an hour later it would have been the rush hour—regular travellers. At 4.30 you don’t know who you’ll get.”
“Are you trying to depress me?”
§98
Troy’s last call of the day was to Orange Street, which snakes its way from the Haymarket to the Charing Cross Road, hidden on the one side from Leicester Square and on the other from the National Gallery. It’s one of those streets best described as “you’d never know it’s there.” It is so narrow that cars cannot pass one another at the eastern end. Troy left his Bullnose Morris in Whitcomb street and walked the last few yards to the premises of Robert Churchill, gunsmith.
Mr. Chewter answered his ring. Chewter had been Churchill’s factotum, his everything, since time immemorial. Troy knew full well his Christian name was Jim, but had never heard anyone address him as anything but “Mister.”
“Mr. Troy. What a pleasant surprise.”
“Not too much of one I hope. I’ve no appointment.”
Chewter looked at his pocket watch, dropped it back into his waistcoat pocket, and said, “I’m sure we can fit you in, sir. You go up in the lift. I’ll call up and let the guv’ner know you’re here.”
As the coffin-sized cage wound up to the top floor, Troy was struck by an annoying thought. Angus had made him petty, because all he could think of for fifteen seconds was that this was a service for which the Yard would not pay, and that Angus would add it to his list of claims. Troy realized that accountancy, chartered or otherwise, could infect the soul.
Bob met him at the lift gate.
“Freddie! How nice to see you again. Is this what I think it is? The body on the Northern Line?”
“Am I so predictable?”
“No . . . but you’d not come to me if you hadn’t found the gun.”
“I have found it. It’s a real oddity.”
“Let’s go to the desk, shall we?”
Churchill led him into the inner office. He bore a more than passing resemblance to his distant cousin Winston, the same round face, the same ready wit—and as he followed, Troy found himself pondering the common girth of the two men. A large arse in voluminous trousers preceded him.
“Are you practicing regularly?” Churchill asked.
The same question Rosen had put to him only hours before. Rosen taught him the piano, Churchill how to shoot, and so the same lie served.
“Of course,” Troy lied.
Churchill flicked on a desk lamp, rolled out a clean sheet of white paper. Troy handed over the three packages Kolankiewicz had given him. The gun, the bullet, and the ruby.
“My oh my,” said Churchill. “What have we here?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it, and nor has Kolankiewicz.”
Churchill held the gun under the light, turned it this way and that.
“So light. So . . . delicate.”
“There is one other thing,” Troy said. “We think a potato was used as a silencer.”
Churchill raised one eyebrow at this but said nothing. Lowering said eyebrow, he put a jeweller’s lens to his eye and continued to examine the gun. Then he removed the eyeglass and began to strip down the gun.
He laid the pieces out in a neat line across the paper. Put the eyeglass back in.
“Well . . . ,” he said after a minute or two of silence in which all Troy had heard was the ticking of the clock and the rumbling of Churchill’s stomach. “All I can tell you right now is that the mechanism is Swiss. There is a maker’s mark. Gebrüder Altmann. As I recall they were based in Zurich, packed up shop just after the Great War. They did make small guns, but I’d no idea they’d ever made anything as small as this.”
“It’s .15,” said Troy.
“Amazing. They probably had to make the ammunition as well. However, the casing, and the . . . whatdeyecallit . . . ornamentation, is another thing entirely. Indeed, before somebody knocked it about it must have been beautiful. The engraving, the leaves, the ferns. So . . . I say again, delicate. Puts one in mind of a Fabergé egg.”
Troy kicked himself inside. He’d seen all sorts of things in the engraving on the gun but the similarity to a Fabergé egg had not once occurred to him.
“But of course,” Churchill went on, as though reading Troy’s mind and trying to soften the blow, “there could be dozens of people who did that sort of thing at the time. And I’ve never heard that Fabergé worked on guns. But it does look very Fabergé.”
“What time would that be, Bob?”
“Well, this century I think. But only just. Say 1905. 1910. Not later than 1917 . . . if my Russian hunch has anything more to it than a style of jewellery. Fabergé fled west that year. The name survives but he made nothing after the revolution. Three hands at work here. The Altmanns made the gubbins, somebody else made the body, and someone else did the decoration. Look there, I think these blips held jewels at one time.”
Troy pushed the ruby across the paper to him. It looked like the packet of salt at the bottom of a bag of crisps, wrapped in a twist of blue paper.
Churchill unwrapped it.
“My,” he said. “Just the one?”
“Whoever prised them out missed one. It’s all I have.”
Churchill put back his eyeglass.
“It’s beautiful, simply beautiful. Of course, there’s nothing to say they were all rubies.”
“There might have been diamonds.”
“Exactly. Who knows? A gun like this would be unique—a one-off. Made to order.”
Troy knew what this meant.
“That doesn’t help, does it?”
Churchill sighed a little.
“In a country that kept records it would be a positive advantage. In Russia, after all it’s been through these last thirty years, quite the opposite. I shall do what I can do, but if you’re relying solely on the gun as your lead to the killer I’ll disappoint you now. This could take weeks. I can’t just phone anyone up. I shall have to write letters, and I shall have to be very discreet. And when I get replies, if I get replies, I shall in all probability have to write more letters.”
“Then I’ll leave it with you.”
Troy got up, pushed the last package across the paper to Churchill, and headed for the lift. Over his shoulder, he said, “It’s the bullet, Bob. Many thanks.”
“It’s silver, Freddie. The bullet is made of silver!”
§99
Troy’s father had thrown nothing away. The man had been an habitual hoarder. His study at Mimram, the country house in Hertfordshire where Troy’s mother had lived permanently since the death of her husband, was a Chinese box of a room—strip away one layer of junk and you will find another. Rod could not abide such disorder, and Troy had taken over the study at Mimram. In London, the old man’s study had become Rod’s domain. Troy expected to find it somewhat more organized. Somewhere in his past, and he had lived well into his eighties, Alex Troy had been a cigar smoker, and when nagged by wife and doctors to give it up he had done so—and when most men might have put the Fabergé cigar tools up for auction or presented them to a son who smoked (none of his did), Alex had simply left them where they had stood since 1910 on his desktop. Troy hoped they were still there.
Rod had entirely forgotten his mood of only hours ago. The blob was still out front. Rod didn’t so much as glance at it and Troy did not mention it.
“Back so soon? Ah, well, the sun is over the yardarm, come and have a drink.”
“I need a few minutes in the old man’s study.”
“Fine, you know where to find me.”
The study was at the back at garden level. Alex was often to be found, rain or shine, summer or winter, simply standing by the French windows staring out, or at his desk leafing through Quiller-Couch’s Oxford Book of English Verse to find something that matched the mood of the day. If he’d still been alive, doubtless Troy would only have had to mention the quotation from Pushkin for the old man to have found it in his capacious memory of Russian verse.
The Fabergé set was still there, next to the green-bound edition of Quiller-Couch. Troy had no idea of the technical names for these devices. There was a thing that lopped one end off a cigar—as a boy Troy had thought it could as easily lop off offending fingers—a thing that pricked the other end, and a penknife—with which the ten-year-old Troy had once attempted to whittle a bow and arrow. But their function was as nothing to their form.
There were no diamonds or rubies but the golden swirls, flower-like, fern-like, tapering into infinity were all but identical to those that decorated the gun. It was, as Churchill had insisted, a delicate work of art. The eggs had always struck him as overblown and indulgent.
The gun was Russian. Wally would have it that Skolnik was Russian. Quite soon now he’d have to ask.
He found Rod in the small sitting room on the floor above—ground level at the front, one flight above the garden at the back. Shoes off, one black sock one green, tie at half-mast, a red ministerial box open on the carpet.
“Do we have a complete Pushkin?”
“Did you look downstairs?”
“It’s not there.”
“Must be up here, then.”
Rod gestured to a column of bookshelves in the alcove of the fireplace. It was mostly texts in Russian and French, and someone, undoubtedly Rod, had alphabetized them. Troy, like his father before him, had always thought the alphabet overrated.
He found a copy of Boris Godunov and flicked through it. A few scenes from the end, he found the passage that Skolnik had painted beneath his Venus. “A dark and constant secrecy.” Skolnik had quoted accurately and it meant what Troy had thought it meant—but what it meant in the context Skolnik had newly ascribed to it remained a mystery.
“I’m glad you dropped in. I wanted a chat about this Northern Line thing,” Rod said.
“Am I talking to a politician or a brother? Are you talking to a brother or a copper?”
“Could we not just talk without the labels? I’ve got some responsibility for the games—the Olympics . . .”
“Why? It’s hardly an RAF matter.”
“Use your imagination, Freddie. It’s the biggest thing . . . since . . . since . . . well, since the war . . .”
“Part of the healing process?”
“Exactly, part of the . . .”
“Then why aren’t the Japs and the Jerries invited? Why aren’t the Russians coming?”
“You’re nitpicking. It might be a bit soon to have the German flag flying in London even if the new one doesn’t have a swastika on it . . . and I’ve no idea why the Russians aren’t coming. Ask Stalin, not me. But it is an international effort, and every minister has extra responsibilities.”
“And yours just happens to include the Northern Line?”
“You’re taking the piss. Stop it. Mine include public relations.”
“And how does that involve the killing on the Northern Line?”
“Simple. We may not have a flood of visitors, God knows most of Europe can’t afford the bus fare to the next town, but we will have visitors and the PM’s worried about anything scaring them off. Foreign currency, balance of payments . . . blah blah blahdey blah. Every country is pitching in to stop this event looking any shabbier than it is. Between you and me it’s a threadbare business, cobbled together, and I dearly wish the Mongolians or the Mexicans were staging the games not us. We cannot afford it. Half the countries are bringing their own food with them!”
“Decent of them.”
“Decent, helpful, and bloody embarrassing. The Swedes, or is it the Norwegians? . . . Anyway, they’re shipping in their own peas! Can you imagine it—shipping in their own peas?”
“Is this why bread has suddenly come off the ration? To make us all seem better off than we are, in the eyes of other countries?”
“Sort of.”
“How sort of ?”
“Sort of . . . yes.”
“And will it go back on ration when the rest of the world departs?”
“My God, you’re so cynical. No, it won’t.”
“I still don’t see where you come in.”
“Public relations . . . the PM wants to know there isn’t a nutter loose on the Underground.”
“What . . . Béla Lugosi? Lon Chaney? The phantom of the Northern Line?”
“Freddie, please take this seriously. Tomorrow I have to call the Yard and seek reassurance from the copper in charge.”
“Then why not ask me now?”
“It’s you? You total bastard! You could have told me that at lunch-time.”
“You didn’t ask. And no, Rod, there are no more nutters loose on the London Underground than there used to be. Your problem is that London is a city full of nutters anyway. Let’s see you smooth that one over with publicity. I can tell you this much: it’s an odd case, but it’s not the work of a nutter or of anyone who intends to go on killing.”
“Why so sure?”
“I have the gun. If you mean to make a hobby of killing it would make sense to hang onto the weapon.”
Rod cooled rapidly. Anger, outrage were never his modi operandi for long.
Troy said, “If you’re in the know, tell me: what are our chances of a few gold medals?”
“Don’t Freddie, don’t ask. We’re going to get our national arse kicked.”
§100
Laura Narayan had very strong views on the work of André Skolnik.
“Of course, it isn’t just Botticelli. That’s merely his starting point. Knowing Botticelli means no more than knowing nursery rhymes. Everybody does. And he hasn’t assimilated a fraction of Botticelli’s technique. Botticelli is light and air, paint applied with a hummingbird’s tongue. This is glossy, a bit slablike. But that he owed to someone I did wake him up to, Magritte. I don’t think André had paid the slightest bit of notice to surrealism until I made him. They don’t influence me, I don’t copy them, but no painter can ignore them. André, as ever, has been a bit of a literalist and a bit more of a plagiarist. I mean, look in the background over her left shoulder. That’s a Magritte lamppost.”
Troy had missed this completely. He peered, feel
ing faintly foolish.
“I don’t think you’ll find Botticelli painted many lampposts. And there at her feet, next to the cello case . . .”
“A seashell?”
“No, Troy, it’s a bowler hat. Magritte dressed like the continental bourgeoisie, and never seemed to tire of painting their icon. This is a genuine Skolnik, Troy. And I rather think it’s unfinished.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Those smudges around the left hand. It’s not bad workmanship on André’s part. He’s still thinking about the painting as he works, and he means to add something. He’s traced the outline with a cloth on the end of his finger. Damned if I know what it is, except it’s painting by numbers and I’m afraid I gave him the numbers.”
“And the portrait?”
“It’s hardly that.”
“It’s someone. It’s not just Skolnik’s imagination.”
“It might be, but you’re right, there is something vaguely familiar about the face. But given André’s talents, if he’d set out to make an accurate representation we’d be none the wiser, would we? And speaking of portraits . . . would you mind if I took mine? I mean the one he did of me. It’s not as though it’s evidence is it?”
“It is subject to probate.”
“I doubt very much whether André has any heirs or left enough of anything to rack up death duties.”
“If you can find it, take it.”
She walked across to the wall of demoiselles and picked three up five across.
“Laura? How do you know it’s that one? They all look alike to me.”
“Simple, Troy. She’s fatter than all the others.”
As she was leaving, Troy asked, “Are you busy tomorrow night, Laura?”
“Busy, Troy? I’ve got two children. Of course I’m busy. Why do you ask?”
“Viktor Rosen gave me two tickets for his Schubert concert at the Wigmore.”
“Oh, I would have loved to come. I get out so rarely. But Indra cannot be relied upon in the evenings. He’s always speaking at some political gathering or another. And my mother has a silent attitude of ‘bed made, in lie’ that I’ve really no wish ever to hear gain utterance so I tend not to ask her to babysit. Still, I’m glad you had the nerve to ask. Most men look upon married women as though they were in purdah. Not like the war when I was a copper. One went down the pub, we all went down the pub.”