The Hogarth Conspiracy

by Alex Connor

  “Someone did this to Kit,” Ronan said suddenly. “Someone injected him.”

  “He was injected?”

  Ronan nodded. “He’d never inject himself; he’s too squeamish. That’s another reason this doesn’t feel right.”

  “Have you injected him?”

  He shook his head violently. “No! I’m not the one who hurt him. You think I could?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Thoughtful, Victor turned back to Kit Wilkes. Someone who was adept at using needles had gotten to the dealer. Someone had made sure Kit Wilkes wasn’t going to talk.

  “Did you meet him at the airport?”

  Ronan nodded. “Yeah; then I drove us back to the flat.”

  “He didn’t stop off anywhere? At the gallery, perhaps?”

  “No.”

  “So you both got back to the flat, and then what?”

  “He went for a quick shower, and then he said he was tired and went into the bedroom to lie down. He was asleep when I looked in about ten minutes later. Then I tidied up the flat, watched part of a DVD—”

  “No one came to the door?”

  “No.”

  “No one telephoned?”

  “No!” Ronan replied emphatically. “It was just me and him. I didn’t hurt him.”

  “Someone did. Someone got access to him. Did you fall asleep?”

  “I was tired. I’d been up early, so yeah, I fell asleep for a bit,” Ronan admitted timorously. “But I’d have heard someone come in.”

  “Is there a back entrance to the flat?”

  He stared at Victor, openly hostile now. “Yeah, but they’d have to have a key. And besides, I’d have heard.”

  “How bad was your hangover, Ronan?”

  Ronan flinched. “Oh, you are good, aren’t you?” he said, his tone sarcastic.

  “I’m learning.”

  “How did you know I was hung over?”

  “I guessed.”

  Ronan was pale now and slightly sweaty. “No one could have gotten into the flat without me knowing.”

  “But you didn’t expect anything to happen. You couldn’t have known that anything would.”

  “I should have known!” he said, anguished, and gripped Kit’s hand.

  “Who were you with the night before?”

  “Friends. Guys I’ve known for years. It was just a night out at a bar. Nothing happened, nothing was said; it was just normal.” Ronan was still holding Kit’s hand, his voice tremulous. “You’ll find out who did this to him, won’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why won’t he wake up? If he’d just wake up and tell us what happened. That flight was deadly, and I want to know why.”

  I had known him for years. Thomas Coram, retired sea captain, philanthropist, and humanitarian, although I doubt he would have owned the words. When I walked into the Foundling Hospital in Bloomsbury that day in 1745, he caught me up in a spontaneous embrace. He was shimmering with achievement, his heavy face damson around the jowls. Finally, after a number of frustrating years, laden with official delays—during which he had endured much carping as he chivvied, bullied, and badgered the authorities—he had established his Foundling Hospital for the wretched, abused, and abandoned children of London.

  We had spoken of it many times over the years; indeed I had become a founding governor, raising capital by installing a permanent art collection at Bloomsbury Square. Flattered and cajoled by Thomas, I was persuaded to design the children’s uniform and the coat of arms. We two men—ironically, both childless—stood up against the callous indifference that prevailed. The capital had little regard for its weakest offspring. I, who could not bear to see an animal flogged, wondered at the depravity of cruelty meted out to infants who had been inconveniently born.

  Even in the midst of good work, wickedness thrived. When it became known that the Foundling Hospital had announced that it would receive ALL who were needy, a veritable torrent of children came to London from the country workhouses—and with them came the sinister “Coram men.”

  Using the name of the benefactor whose good work they betrayed, these rogues were paid to collect, and then deliver, unwanted children to the Foundling Hospital. But on the way from the countryside to the capital, many of the infants were abused and many died. Only a percentage of the country children ever made their way through the gates of the hospital in Bloomsbury. Seeing so many such wretches, I and my wife took over the care of several children. Jane had always wanted a family, as I had. But in this God was not listening—or perhaps I had offended him too, as I had so many others.

  Naturally, Thomas knew of Hal, the infant I had hidden thirteen years earlier. But not his heritage. He didn’t know that the child’s life—which had so far been mercifully without incident—was about to change.

  “I wanted to talk about Hal,” I said, sitting down opposite Thomas as he lowered his great bulk into an oversized chair, the springs of which sighed like a diving whale. “He’s old enough to start work. He needs to be apprenticed and learn a trade, and”—how I baulked at the sentimentality—“I would like to see more of him. Not directly, of course, but indirectly.”

  I faltered at the words but was only voicing my long-held thoughts. Thomas raised the great arcs of his eyebrows in surprise.

  “We could give him a job here, William. God knows he wouldn’t stand out among so many others. Just one more lad. Besides, he could learn a trade at the hospital.”

  Damn me, but I was never clever at gratitude and blundered on.

  “Well, if you could … we could … yes, yes, that would serve.”

  I should mention here that I had followed my ward’s history closely. From the moment Hal was taken to Chiswick into the Binny household, I had paid for his upkeep—more perhaps than was necessary—to smooth his existence and that of his surrogate family. Nell kept her word, and no one knew of his beginnings. Neither was I personally known to Hal, but I had been made aware of every step of his progress from infancy to boyhood. He was, it must be said, an engaging child. Strong but not stocky. Tall but not so tall as to draw attention. And his colouring was middling, made remarkable only by the fierce interest in his eyes.

  How do I know all this? From watching him at a distance and being quick with my pen to record his looks at many stages. By the time Hal was ten, I had several sketchbooks filled with images of the boy. Images that reminded me of Polly Gunnell.

  Of course I felt guilt for the loss of his mother. Time and time again I remonstrated with myself, telling myself that I should have halted the affair, that I should have followed up on my suspicions—but it had been Polly’s life, and she was not the first whore to bed a son of the nobility. I had presumed she was clever enough. I had not realised that in some instances no one is clever enough.

  When I watched Hal, it was easy to read Polly’s expression in her son’s visage. But there was also a spectre of his father in him. Thankfully too slight to invite comment or notice. After all, we had spent thirteen years avoiding such attention.

  But now the newborn I had rescued was taller than I. Much taller. But then, most are. Although the romantic notion had occurred to me over the years, I would never have risked bringing Hal into my home and endangering Jane and the others I hold dear. For the innocent, thirteen years is a long respite. For the guilty, thirteen years is too short for determined people to forget. To those who had wanted his death, Polly Gunnell’s bastard son had been long in the grave. Some clumsy emotional gesture on my part would not be allowed to resurrect him.

  As though privy to my thoughts, Thomas said suddenly, “Sir Nathaniel Overton progresses rapidly up the ranks at court. I hear he has the King’s ear, although the Queen is still suspicious of him.”

  Sir Nathaniel Overton, one of the most mendacious men in England. A man who supported the King but was also rumoured to be on convivial terms with the Young Pretender. A man so unreadable, so cunning, he had to be welcomed into the royal circle, his machinations kept clos
e by and observed minutely. A man no one really knew, whose motives were unfathomable, whose true intentions were opaque. Sir Nathaniel Overton, the courtier I had long suspected to have had some hand in Polly Gunnell’s death.

  And over the thirteen years since her murder how his comet rose. How he was feted and praised, flattered into a silky keeper of secrets. For what reason? For his skill? Or the Court’s gratitude? How better could a subject prove his loyalty than by killing any threat to the crown? And how cleverly Nathaniel Overton wore his disguise of the benign.

  I feared him as I feared no other man. I knew him through my own connections at Court, although my royal patronage had been halted prematurely by my rival, the villain Kent. But on the few occasions I had talked to Nathaniel Overton there had always been—under the courtly manners—the scintilla of a threat. He looked at me as though he was reminding me of what he knew. He looked at me as though he was reminding me that I had once been his shit-clearer, his minion. That I had buried his victims to secure my own safety.

  I daresay he would have killed me if he realised what I had really done.

  “Hal could be trained as a farrier,” Thomas suggested, returning to our original topic. “God knows, there’s enough horses need shoeing and work here to keep him busy for life. A boy brought up in the country should be good with animals.”

  And I nodded, pleased by the thought. And I wondered if tonight was the time to tell Jane about the child. But why now, after so long? And anyway—as I had always believed—surely safety lay in ignorance.

  But ignorance—like a candle flame—lasts only so long.

  Thirty-Nine

  CROSSING LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS, INGOLA DIALED A NUMBER ON HER cell phone and waited impatiently for it to be answered. When it was, she began talking without a greeting, saying, “Victor won’t return my calls! I know he’s back from New York; he called his brother last night.”

  Tully sighed. “But not you?”

  “No, not me! Did you give him my messages?”

  “I did.”

  “I see.” She let the inference hang. “We slept together, you know.”

  Tully picked up his coffee and drained the cup, staring out of the window as a bus passed. On the top level he could see several huddled figures, their faces pink, indecipherable blobs looking out onto the passing street.

  “D’you really want to tell me this, sweetheart?”

  “Yes, I do, sweetheart,” she replied acidly, then muted her tone. “Don’t tell Victor I told you, will you? He’d be furious, and if Christian found out …”

  “I won’t tell Victor. And your husband won’t hear about it from me,” Tully replied, glancing at his watch and then holding it to his ear to check that it was still ticking. “What a very silly girl, you are, Ingola. Whatever possessed you? It’s not fair to screw up Victor like this, if you’ll pardon the expression. He let you go; you should stay gone.”

  He could sense her contrition even before she answered.

  “No one else is like him, Tully. I try to get on with my life, to carry on and make a life with Christian, but now Victor’s out of prison, he’s—”

  “Available?”

  “Well …”

  “No, Ingola, he’s not available,” Tully admonished her. “Not to you. You know it, and you should back off. Besides, he’s got other things on his mind right now.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “Yes, but he’s under pressure. He’s working on a difficult case.”

  “Working on a case? What kind of case? He’s not a lawyer or a cop.

  Nothing illegal, is it?”

  “Nothing that can affect your burgeoning legal career.”

  “What’s Victor involved in?”

  “Detective work,” Tully replied, relishing the words. “I’m assisting him. It’s all very 221b Baker Street.”

  “Detective work? What the hell does Victor know about that?”

  “He knows about the art world, and it’s a case which involves the business.”

  “Victor’s an art dealer.”

  “Victor is whatever people will let him be,” Tully retorted deftly. “Which isn’t a dealer, my love. His days of being the hotshot are over.”

  “You’re such a bastard.”

  Tully shrugged. “I see life as all men should, without muddying sentimentality. Victor needed to work; this work came along. He’s been floundering a bit, but I imagine he’ll prove to be rather good at it. Victor is clever and resourceful; he always was. He’ll stick with it however hard it gets.”

  “There’s no risk, is there?”

  He thought of what he knew and lied. “Only a little.”

  “Look after him, will you? I want to know you have his back.”

  “I always have his back.”

  “Oh, Tully,” she said quietly. “You and I both know that’s not true.”

  A moment of thudding silence fell between them. Tully was the first to break it.

  “I was wrong in the past; I admit it. But everyone’s entitled to make a mistake.”

  “Entitled to make one, yes. But not entitled to repeat it.”

  For once Charlene Fleet’s immense control was threatening to desert her. Enraged at having her messages ignored, she had driven over to Victor’s apartment and was sitting outside in a resident’s parking space, almost willing a traffic warden to come along and try to move her. In the backseat sat the mastiff, alert but as ever cowed by his mistress. Nursing a cup of Starbucks coffee she had bought around the corner, Mrs. Fleet turned on the car heater and felt the warm air nuzzle against her calves. It was one of the things that always impressed her about her car. How the best German engineering could ensure almost immediate heat, not like the clapped-out freezing Mini she had driven for years up north.

  Mind you, back then she had been proud of the Mini. Back then, it was something to have a car in Scotland Road, something few people had. Or if they did, it had been bought on credit and was repossessed as soon as they defaulted on the payments. Or vandalized by kids or one of the innumerable drunks who spilled out of the pubs nightly. She had seen cars with tires sticky with vomit, graffiti smeared on the windows and the hood. The drunks wrote on anything, even the police cars when the cops went in to sort out the pub fights.

  She took off the lid of her cup and watched the windshield mist up with steam from the coffee. A memory came back of a woman throwing hot coffee at a man. The liquid had caught him on the side of his face and blinded him in his left eye. Her father had always been a mean bastard, but becoming partially sighted had made him worse and given him an opportunity to avoid dock work. He had died two years later of a burst appendix; her mother had refused to go with him in the ambulance to Bootle Hospital. A month later her uncle came to the door and told her mother what he thought of her, and she told him that if he said another word, she’d get the coffee and do him the same.

  Wiping the mist off the windshield with her hand, Mrs. Fleet stared into the street, waiting for Victor, but her thoughts slid back to Liverpool, and, irritated, she got out of the car. Almost as soon as she did, Victor walked up to his front door.

  “Ballam! What the hell are you playing at?” she called out.

  “Can we talk inside?” he replied. “I’m afraid dogs aren’t allowed.”

  Throwing her coffee into the gutter, Mrs. Fleet moved past Victor into the hallway and started up the stairs.

  “First on the left,” he said, watching her pause uncertainly. Unlocking the door, he let her in ahead of him. Standing in the center of Victor’s living room, she seemed immediately to lay claim to the space.

  “I’ve been trying to get hold of you since—”

  He cut her short. “Enough! I need the truth from you, although that’s probably the last thing I’ll get. What happened in New York?”

  Her eyes widened.

  “How the fuck do I know? You were there, not me.”

  “Have you heard from Annette Dvorski?” he asked, waiting for some rea
ction in her eyes.

  Which didn’t come.

  “No! You were going over there to see her, remember? Well, did you see her?”

  “Oh, yes; I saw her.” Victor took off his coat and sat down. “She’d been murdered. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I don’t want to see anything like it again.”

  In silence, Mrs. Fleet sat down opposite Victor and stared at him for a long moment. It was difficult to tell whether she had known already.

  “Murdered?”

  “Yes. In Bernie Freeland’s apartment,” Victor replied. “I was about to meet up with her when I was knocked out. When I came to, she was lying dead next to me. It was obviously meant to look as though I’d done it.” He was trying to read her face, but there was nothing beyond a fleeting expression of distaste.

  “Tortured?”

  “The killer poured bleach over her breasts and genitals, then made her drink it.”

  Again no response.

  “I only just got away before the police came. I ran.”

  “Yes. Of course you would,” she said finally, taking out a tissue and blowing her nose. Victor couldn’t tell if she had a cold or had actually been about to cry. “I noticed that they’re doing some building work next door. I’m allergic to dust.”

  “I’m allergic to being framed,” Victor replied. “What’s going on?”

  “That’s what I’m paying you to find out.”

  “Stop lying to me!” Victor snapped. “No one else knew I was going to Bernie Freeland’s apartment in New York. No one but you knew that Annette Dvorski was going to be there.”

  “Your assistant knew.”

  “Tully? No; he wouldn’t set me up.”

  “So did Liza Frith, if it comes to that.” She sneezed violently, blew her nose, and tucked the tissue into her pocket. The gesture made her seem oddly vulnerable. “Before she ran off, that is. In fact, it was Liza who told me about Annette and Freeland meeting up. You know that, Mr. Ballam; she told you on the phone. Don’t deny it; I stood next to you and heard the conversation. So before you start throwing accusations my way, I suggest you look at Liza Frith. She’s left Park Street.”