The Marsh & Daughter Casebook

by Amy Myers

  ‘Could you have made a mistake because of your own feelings for him? Imagined—’

  ‘No, I could not,’ Venetia interrupted briskly. ‘Firstly, he told me so, secondly, that bitch Madeleine Beaufort told me so and thirdly, the lady herself smugly informed me.’

  ‘You met her?’

  ‘Of course. She made sure of that, and so Lance was eager too. She and Jago had been married for a year or two by then, and had a child. Jago and she, Lance and I and Madeleine and her husband all spent a merry evening at the Café Procop – you know it?’

  ‘I do,’ Peter said. The tone of his voice told Georgia he’d been there with Elena.

  ‘Everyone who is anyone from Benjamin Franklin onwards has been there. So of course that’s where we went. I was introduced as Lance’s girlfriend, regardless of the fact that he was married. Jennifer took my measure, all charm and smiles. I doubt if Jago noticed a thing. He was rabbiting on about King Arthur as usual, Lance was playing us off one against the other and Jennifer continued to sum up the competition. She was beautiful, I grant you that, and did a good line in warm companionship. At the end of the evening, when we left the restaurant, I was alone with her for a few minutes and she dripped her poison in my ear. I think she realized I was of stronger metal than Lance’s other flames, so she was reasonably subtle about it. “Do you know Mary?” she trilled, and I said I did but that she need not worry on Mary’s behalf about me. There was a pause, then beautifully timed with a beautiful smile, she replied: “I don’t.” She had the most lovely voice. Deep and husky. She looked like the Pre-Raphaelite paintings with Jane Morris as model. She had the dark eyes and hair, and an oval face so flawless that when she chose it could be entirely expressionless. This displayed her at her most beautiful, but also served to hide her inner feelings. It’s my belief there was a block of ice in there, except where Lance was concerned, of course. “Do take care of yourself,” she urged me. “Lance is a breaker of hearts.” I’d already figured her out, so I replied: “Of yours, you mean.” “I think not,” she said sweetly, and delivered by that lovely voice it sounded all the more chilling. I knew then I hadn’t a hope. Fortunately I didn’t want one. As I told you, one doesn’t set sail without knowing the rules, and although the rules changed somewhat abruptly when I saw how things were with Jennifer, I was wary from then on.’

  ‘If the attachment was so strong, why did she marry Jago?’

  ‘Lance told me it was a mistake. Jennifer was as much in love with him as he with her, and both were then single. They had one of those stupid rows that everyone has. Lance was an adventurer, he had a fling with Madeleine, Jennifer took the huff and married Jago who was well-off and secure. Lance was not, and I suspect that had something to do with it.’

  If Venetia was right, Madeleine was back in the picture. Georgia realized she was going to have to reassess her visit to Paris.

  ‘So you can see if I really wanted to kill Lance, I would have done it there and then in Paris,’ Venetia said. ‘But I didn’t.’

  ‘Others might have had cause. Madeleine or Jago.’

  Venetia considered this. ‘Perhaps, but hardly likely. Madeleine seemed perfectly happy with rich cuddly Antonio, and Lance jogged along under this pretence of being Jago’s best friend, as the only way he could stay in touch with Jennifer without risk.’

  ‘If Jago found out about them, that would have given him reason to kill Lance.’ Georgia could see Peter was thinking that way too by the brief nod he gave her.

  ‘If we’re talking theoretically, yes,’ Venetia agreed. ‘And if Jago could muster enough passion to do it.’

  ‘He had reason enough,’ Georgia argued. ‘If he planned it carefully, came over from France, met Lance and went to sea with him on the 14th—’

  She stopped abruptly, as Venetia laughed outright. ‘In a boat? I said theoretically. I’m afraid there’s a fatal flaw in your theory.’

  ‘Which is?’ Georgia asked, taken aback.

  ‘Jago would never set foot on a boat. Absolutely no way,’ Venetia said. ‘Even if you told him King Arthur and Sir Gawain had anchored just outside Dover Harbour, he’d only stand on the quayside with binoculars.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Peter asked, looking as shell-shocked as Georgia felt.

  ‘Quite, I’m afraid.’ Venetia looked at them in amusement. ‘I offered to take Jennifer and Jago out in my own Hillyard, but Jennifer looked at me in that superior way of hers. “If only,” she sighed, “but Jago hates the water so much that even fishing in a river is barred.” Jago looked annoyed, but agreed he was so hydrophobic that he couldn’t swim or sail, but fortunately had no desire to.

  ‘No, don’t look to Jago,’ Venetia continued more soberly. ‘Look to Mary. When a worm turns, it can be vicious in real life, particularly if it’s a snake in the grass too. As for me in the role of villain, I have no alibi if you want to pursue me. I was with my husband, but he’d lie in his teeth to put me in the frame.’

  ‘If Jago is ruled out, what about Benizi?’ Peter asked.

  ‘Possible, if there were a motive. He can’t have felt friendly towards Lance if he was aware of the tendresse between his wife and Lance.’

  ‘And Jennifer?’

  Venetia smiled. ‘How satisfactory that would be – if you could find any reason. Never forget Jennifer.’

  And for the first time Georgia glimpsed the serpent in her.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Do you believe her?’ Georgia watched Peter at his computer clicking on Charlie’s Suspects Anonymous program. He’d been unusually quiet on the way home, and it was only now that she realized why. He’d already decided on a reshuffle of his Internet players.

  ‘Unfortunately, yes. This requires major rethinking.’

  ‘Taking Jago out of the Burglar Bill suspects?’

  ‘Temporary demotion.’

  ‘Putting Venetia in? She seemed willing enough to volunteer.’

  ‘Double bluff?’

  ‘Perhaps. It would be good cover. Let’s put her in with reluctance. I liked her.’

  ‘We like Jago too. Did you believe what she told us about his and Lance’s relationship?’

  ‘Yes,’ Georgia said after reflection, ‘although both Jago and she could have been telling the truth. Jago could perfectly well have believed Lance had been his best mate, while all the time Lance was seething away with frustrated passion for his wife and intense dislike for him.’ She remembered the elderly lady she’d seen in the photograph in Jago’s home and tried hard to equate her with a luscious sexy Guinevere. Trying to strip away the years from images taken years later was always difficult. The past remained a book whose text was difficult to bring alive, needing determination and sympathy to fight one’s way into it.

  ‘True, O sage,’ Peter agreed. ‘Do you mind if I put Zac in as a suspect?’

  Georgia was jolted back into an area she preferred to ignore. ‘As a joker?’ she asked wryly. She had been so deep into her personal reaction to Zac’s reappearance that she hadn’t considered the possibility that his arrival was no coincidence. And that would mean Madeleine and Antonio had planned the day very carefully indeed, which she couldn’t believe.

  ‘Why not? Let’s say Zac is a wild card, role as yet unfathomable. Did you tell Luke that we’ve decided to go to Dover, Mike willing, and who with?’

  This last sentence came out without a pause, intended no doubt to catch her off guard. ‘Not yet.’ The words to tell him hadn’t yet come, nor had the right moment and Luke would be able to deduce her ambivalence simply by the way she spoke. Or was it merely guilt on her part to think that way? Nevertheless it would surely be better to tell him about Paris after she returned from Dover – if they went? There was no point in upsetting him needlessly.

  ‘What about putting Madeleine and Antonio in as suspects?’ She had to get away from the subject of Zac.

  ‘You liked Antonio, didn’t you?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Italian charm?’

&
nbsp; ‘If so, that doesn’t mean it’s false.’

  ‘Let’s agree he’s a sweetie-pie. Can’t a sweetie-pie also be a criminal?’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘But we don’t know he is. He claims that he was a trusted bridge between the criminal art fraternity and the honest joes, accepted as such by both.’

  ‘That would seem to be the case. I asked Mike to run some checks after you returned from Paris.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me,’ she said accusingly.

  ‘You were preoccupied with Zac.’

  She opened her mouth to deny this, but realized that it was all too true.

  ‘Interpol hoped for years to pin the Benizi brothers down to a more criminal role than the one you’ve described. It failed, but that doesn’t mean that the brothers have been forgotten. Far from it. They’re still very active in the art and antiques world, and still watched. It’s not the same generation as Lance dealt with, and probably not the next, but the one after that. With Russian millionaires thirsty for art treasures the world is currently the Benizi brothers’ oyster.’

  ‘Are they informers?’

  ‘They wouldn’t have lasted two days if so. No, they’re either just what they claim, or fiendishly clever villains.’

  ‘Assuming them the former, they wouldn’t be suspects, would they? They’re unlikely to have had a personal motive for murdering Lance.’

  ‘Why not? Madeleine can’t have been pleased if he was forever mooning over Jennifer during their affair – correction, friendship until proved otherwise, despite what Venetia says.’

  ‘Good point,’ she conceded.

  ‘Moreover the Benizis are as strong a link as Jago between today and Paris of the 1950s which means Lance Venyon, so far as we’re concerned.’

  ‘They don’t like each other, so they would hardly be allies in some conspiracy,’ she objected.

  ‘Benizi says they don’t like each other. So far as the fake angle is concerned,’ Peter continued, ‘there were plenty around on the Continent last century. Apart from van Meegeren and his Vermeers, there were Otto Wacker and his Van Goghs, Dossena’s classical sculptures, Malskat’s medieval paintings, to name but a few. There would have been plenty of candidates for any Rossetti fakes, and Benizi would have known that.’

  ‘There wouldn’t have been as much of a market for a fake Rossetti as for a Vermeer,’ she said obstinately. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Anyway, Antonio says he doesn’t want to know if it’s a fake or not.’

  ‘I find that strange considering his former career, from which I doubt if his mind has retired, even if he professes to have done so physically. What seems to me unlikely is that both Lance and Antonio could be moving in circles where the chances of its being fake were so high, and yet neither of them appears to have taken steps to check it.’

  ‘The painting could be genuine,’ Georgia said defensively, ‘even if the goblet is a figment of Rossetti’s imagination.’

  ‘The rumours about the goblet predate the painting,’ Peter pointed out to her annoyance. ‘And there’s no mention of it on the blogs, only references to scripts that might or might not still be around. After all, Dover Priory had a highly regarded library at the time of its dissolution, which disappeared after the priory obediently submitted its catalogue to His Majesty’s men. Some of its treasures turned up later in other libraries; many did not, but weren’t necessarily destroyed.’

  He grinned at her, furthering her irritation. ‘I think we need a clearer timetable,’ he continued.

  She guessed what might be coming. ‘You think I should talk to Antonio again.’

  ‘I’ve already done so,’ Peter said smugly.

  ‘You might have told me,’ Georgia exploded, unreasonably perhaps. He was implying that she felt a rapport with the Benizis which blinded her to the fact that they were clearly not coming entirely clean over Lance Venyon.

  ‘I’m telling you now,’ Peter rejoined placidly. ‘A fresh eye or rather ear was needed. Madeleine answered, and I asked whether Venetia was right about Jago not liking boats or water. She confirmed it without hesitation.’

  ‘She didn’t mention it to me,’ Georgia said.

  ‘Perhaps you didn’t ask her. She sounds to me like a lady who isn’t forthcoming unless pushed.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Georgia reluctantly agreed. ‘What about the sticky relationship between Jago and Lance? Did she confirm that?’

  ‘She didn’t answer me. She handed the phone to Antonio.’

  ‘And he said?’

  ‘Ask that nice Mrs Georgia to come to Paris again. We talk. But this time,’ Peter added, obviously noting her pleasure at the suggestion, ‘take some ammunition with you.’

  ‘Against Zac?’

  ‘No.’ He gave her a withering glance. ‘But find out what he was doing there.’

  *

  A typical Monday morning. Despite the fact that June had arrived, the Gare du Nord presented its usual grey face to Georgia as she descended from the Eurostar five days later. She had carefully packed her ammunition. Jennifer, as well as Madeleine and Antonio, would take centre stage in this discussion, together with Venetia. There was one other shot she could fire. Their website had thrown up another contact – a Barry Hoskin whose father, Professor Richard Hoskin, now in his nineties, had known Lance and would be willing to see them, although the phrase ‘not in good health’ had sounded ominous.

  Her journey to meet Antonio and Madeleine proved shorter than she anticipated, because they were waiting to welcome her with beaming faces.

  ‘I didn’t expect this treatment,’ Georgia greeted them cautiously, somewhat taken aback, as they led the way to their car – complete with chauffeur, of course.

  ‘We make a visit somewhere first, then we have lunch, then we take you to Vincennes,’ Antonio announced. What was in store this time, she wondered, aware that the initiative had been swept away from her – no doubt intentionally. Antonio, for all his bonhomie, was the sort of person who never did anything without good reason, and in her case, she realized, that would not be for her company, but to do with Lance Venyon. So much for the ‘now we talk’. Control had been taken out of her hands, which was an unwelcome position – as was the rear of this car. She was constantly being thrown against Antonio as they shot along the pavé road straight over minor crossroads at which the driver gave not a blink to right or left.

  ‘Does he race at Le Mans?’ she joked.

  ‘No. Nürburgring,’ Antonio answered, so seriously that she was inclined to believe him.

  She was aware that she was already relaxing in response to the Count and Countess of Orvona’s delightfully informal company and that she should be on her guard. Trust Antonio to take her by surprise again, however. When their destination was reached, she saw that they were outside the Louvre. Antonio issued instructions to his madcap driver, they descended, and she followed in the wake of the Benizis as they strode off for the entrance.

  They were hardly the only visitors, and it was difficult for Georgia to keep up with her hosts let alone enquire what they were here for. Stealing a painting, perhaps? Swapping a Rubens for a copy rolled up in Antonio’s jacket? To look at a Rossetti? Who knew with this pair? She hurried behind them as they took the stairs at the double, and noticed a sign she recognized. Her heart sank. She had a strong suspicion that was where they were heading, although goodness knew why Antonio and Madeleine would want to show her La Gioconda. Georgia had seen the Mona Lisa at least three times before, and magnificent though it was, she hadn’t planned to spend her precious time here today admiring it. Sure enough, she was right. Antonio and Madeleine were joining the usual crowd surrounding this well-guarded and surprisingly small painting.

  Antonio craned over the heads of the crowd. ‘Voilà,’ he said. ‘You see, Mrs Georgia?’

  ‘I do, but I don’t understand.’

  ‘That’s just the point,’ Madeleine said softly. ‘One doesn’t.’

  ‘I have a clever wife,’ Antonio said. ‘L
ook at this lady. What is she smiling at? Is it at a joke? Is it sadness because she does not like being wife of Francesco del Giacondo? Is it ennui because she does not like this painter Leonardo?’

  ‘There are no answers to that,’ was all Georgia could think of to reply.

  ‘Non. But there are more questions. Do we look at this lady and ask: are you true, are you fake?’

  ‘No,’ Georgia admitted.

  ‘Yet why not?’ Antonio said. ‘Some say this is a forgery. A copy. There are other Mona Lisas in the world. There was big law case once from American lady who said she had real Mona Lisa, but this painting won. Suppose the judgement wrong? Or suppose the real Mona Lisa still lives under bed of the men who stole her in 1911? Do we ask that as we look at her smile?’

  ‘No,’ she said again, feeling remarkably helpless.

  ‘I tell you why not. Because what we see in this lady is not just what is on the canvas but the soul of the painting. Always there is the soul in every picture. And if soul shines out, we need not ask more. It satisfies everyone.’

  ‘Not everyone,’ Madeleine objected, to Georgia’s relief, since she had had much the same thought. ‘Some want money, and that’s where the artist’s name is important.’

  ‘Yes, but we –’ Antonio struck himself on the chest – ‘you, my Magdalena, you, Georgia and I, Antonio Benizi, we want soul first, then money, and that is good. Come,’ he beckoned, ‘we will look at the soul of Goya, the soul of Venus de Milo. That lady has great soul, even if she have no arms. True?’

  ‘Yes, but—’ Georgia broke off, because Antonio was already bustling away on his high-speed tour. This was ridiculous. She began to feel like Alice and the Red Queen, rushing faster, ever faster, to she knew not where. What was all this about? To pave the way for confessing that his ‘Rossetti’ was a fake? Or that it didn’t matter even if it was? Either way, what had it to do with Lance Venyon?

  At last Antonio came to a halt. ‘That is the end of souls, so now we will see forgers. Then lunch.’