by Janice Law
Harry gave a little smirk, and I was sure that he was thinking of my purloined wallet. Then he said, “I’ll put in for expenses and get you some cash when that painting is done. In the meantime, Francis, stay put. And stay safe.”
Was that meant as a threat? I was soon going to find out.
Chapter Ten
I worked dutifully the rest of the morning, mixing my colors as close to those in the reproduction as I could. This proved a tricky business. Photo reproductions of paintings are never exact, and matching colors with different brands of oil paints is difficult. However, I persisted. The great man is supposed to have knocked off masterpieces in a single day’s work, and I had the advantage of having the complete design before me. By lunchtime, I had blocked in plausible colors for one of Picasso’s weeping, and hysterical women.
Poor Dora Maar; despite the many paintings she inspired, her affair with the great man does not seem to have been a happy one. I can’t say I cared for the results, but maybe it was just a case of material hitting too close to home, unhappy loves, and bad, obsessive behavior being much on my mind at the time.
Close to one o’clock, Elena appeared to tell me lunch was listo. She asked whether she should keep the food caliente.
I held up my hand for five minutes and started to clean my brushes. Was I wrong or had she taken a good look at the painting? Watch the paranoia, Francis. Downstairs, I had grilled sardines and a salad with red onions and oranges. Barring the coffee, Elena was an excellent cook, and I told her so in both French and English.
She smiled and nodded, the very model of the modern domestic—complete with a spy camera or a listening device in her capacious black purse? I did notice that she was never without it. When she went into the garden to get some rosemary, I got up from the table and sidled over to have a look. No camera. No mysterious recording device. What I saw instead was a small but heavy handgun. Right.
I got back to my seat and tried to look unconcerned, but when, a few minutes later, she bid me adios, I hurried up to the roof. I watched her wheel her bicycle out of the yard and set off down the road toward the port. She turned at the second cross street, where the tall trees in the neighboring gardens blocked my view. Dinner being late in the Spanish style, she wouldn’t be back for hours. As for the gardener, I had not seen him yet, and a glance into the yard below told me that he was not on the premises. Just as well; I never fancy being under observation, especially when I’m eager to fly the coop, literally or metaphorically.
But first, I dutifully checked the paint on the newest “Picasso” and convinced myself that it was too damp to add the details. That was good, because I had a serious need for diversion. Despite my new and pious name, the monastic life is not for me, and while cafes and restaurants were out of the question, life is full of possibilities if you have savoir faire. I decided that Jerome Hume had plenty.
He only needed some materials, and fortunately, Richard and Harry had done a thorough packing job; it took but a few minutes to find a pocket sketchbook and some pencils. Although I usually use a brush and do only rudimentary drawings for my paintings, I developed a certain skill at sketching during a brief stint as a beach portrait artist. Now I was Jerome Hume, tourist and amateur landscape painter, and where better to find some local color—and maybe some excitement—than a seaport?
Sketching material in hand, I set off down the same narrow road I had taken in darkness the night before. The mysterious walls and dark gardens were now ordinary enclosures of fig and citrus trees, and the jagged and inky shadows the shade of date palms. I quickly passed the little streets I had managed so slowly the night before and crossed an open field where sheep and goats were grazing, accompanied by some active little boys in short djellabas. The Mediterranean lay ahead, bordered by a dazzling white beach and swept by a brisk wind.
I walked onto the sand. A line of men, some on the shore and some in the surf, were hauling in a long fishing net to the accompaniment of dozens of screaming gulls. The fishermen were thin and muscular; their faces, shadowed by their straw hats, were the color of old bronze. Would Jerome Hume be interested in them? I put down a few lines on paper, but healthy exercise in the open air is not the most congenial subject for me. Still, I had to admit that the coast was spectacular with the sea receding in bands of jade, aqua, and ultramarine until it met the paler stripe of the horizon and lowering clouds to the north.
The port was to my left, a tumble of blocky houses that descended the hill to the docks. A variety of fishing boats rode the water, along with other, sleeker, if no better painted, craft that I guessed handled the smuggling trade. I noticed several substantial yachts, too—early arriving winter visitors or travelers set to cruise to Egypt along the African coast. Although not fond of beaches with their blowing sand and stink of salt and seaweed, I could fancy a yacht.
Unfortunately, I was in an awkward situation: too poor for the virile young fishermen and too old for the rich yachtsmen; life can be a melancholy business. Perhaps that’s why Jerome Hume preferred landscapes, poor man. I balanced on one of the pilings that lined the edge of the dock and scribbled in the masts of the fishing boats with their complicated lines and ropes. I added little figures for the fishermen, busy with their catch, and for their nocturnal counterparts, who were sleeping the afternoon away on the decks of slim, fast boats and getting ready for mysterious runs to the International Zone and points farther north.
Some of the locals had interesting faces—bony, weathered, and secretive—but I had no chance to sketch them, for they were as wary as cats. I would no sooner put down a preliminary oval or the line of a jaw before their dark eyes would open, and Jerome would find it prudent to move on to another motif. Altogether, it seemed best to focus on the yachts. I selected a handsome blue sailboat with white trim and a neat little rowboat as a tender. The shape of the smaller boat against the dark hull of the larger ship was interesting—or at least as interesting as inanimate subjects get for me—and I was working on the rippling reflections when a voice behind me said, “Jolly nice schooner, right?”
I turned to see a florid man in a navy blazer and white slacks. Despite his smart dress, I pegged him for a genuine seafaring man, for he was burned from wind and sun, and the thinning hair above a pair of large red ears had been bleached white. He wore a large and complicated watch, no doubt for some nautical purpose, and his feet were bare, all the better, I guessed, for making his way up the mainsail or across slippery decks.
“Very handsome,” I said. “But I know nothing about ships. Jerome Hume. Landscape painter.” I shook his hand.
“Tony Coates. You’ve come to the right place, old chap. The African coast is spectacular in every way.” He waved his hand toward the white buildings rising from the sea toward the mountains as if he’d invented the view personally and was eager to profit from his creation.
“Indeed, I hope to see more of it.”
“Rent a boat,” he said. “A cruise along the Med’s the thing. Or out through the straits and down along the Atlantic coast. You can’t go wrong with Moroccan scenery.”
“My idea exactly.”
“I’d offer to put The Aurora at your disposal, but I’ve a serious undertaking at the moment. A mission of mercy, so to speak.”
“This is your ship, then?”
“It is, indeed. Sleeps six with three in crew. I cruise for pleasure, mostly, but now and again needs must, you know. A boat produces a lot of calls on the old purse. Like to look her over?”
“I’m afraid I’m not in position at the moment,” I began, but Tony waved off my hesitation.
“You never know when you’ll come into funds, do you?”
That was certainly true.
“And a man of your profession—well, travel is an investment, is it not?” He walked around the end of the dock and stepped onto the deck. I followed, thinking not so much of the six bunks and the mod cons but o
f nautical hospitality in the form of a nice rum and tonic or a concoction with gin. In pursuit of a drink, I was willing to admire the fine paneling, the compact galley, the ingenious storage, the gleaming brightwork.
We were about to adjourn “topside,” as Tony put it, for a “snifter,” when one of the bedroom doors swung open. A pink nightgown, a sun hat, a pair of high black heels: there was a woman in residence. Fine, I have no prejudices about women at sea. What was not fine was the drift of newspapers on the bed, all from Tangier and all seemingly open to stories about Jonathan Angleford’s death. Was yours truly part of the case, or as I sometimes suspected, had Richard and Harry sold me a bill of goods? I itched to flip through the papers, and I was about to remark that I’d missed getting the English-language news from the Zone, when Tony pulled the door shut with a snap.
Up on deck, we sat with drinks in our hands and the sun at our backs. The brandy was excellent, the sky clear, the sea blue, but I suddenly found Jerome Hume a very thin disguise. If Tony’s mystery woman should prove to be Edith Angleford, I’d be in an awkward spot. Although such bad luck was unlikely, I thought that Tony also seemed a trifle uneasy, as if he’d been putting together one thing or another. Perhaps it was just the sight of my sketchpad in conjunction with the stories about the Goldfarber gallery, but he had turned taciturn after being unnecessarily informative about The Aurora. The silence became so long that in desperation I asked about his crew.
“Pick ’em up for the return trip,” he said. “There’s almost always chaps looking for a berth. Strictly short-term, you know. I can’t afford to carry a permanent crew, more’s the pity. But, like now, we may be here a couple days, maybe a couple weeks. Fool’s errand, if you ask me. But when the old exchequer is empty …”
His voice trailed off, and he looked so depressed that I asked what his “mission of mercy” involved.
“A woman,” he said with a sigh. “A woman bent on vengeance like—what’s her name? Medea, was it? You wouldn’t believe it now, old chap, but I was a Greek scholar at Eton.”
He was right; I didn’t believe it. Maybe he’d just spent too many years before the mast, but on closer acquaintance I thought there was something rum about him. His accent wasn’t quite right and his “yachting outfit” suggested a touch of fancy dress. I wondered if the handsome schooner was really his or if he was just a crewman with pretensions. Not my concern either way. What I wanted to know, and half-feared to learn, was the identity of his current employer. “There were a lot of vengeful Greeks,” I said. “There’d be no classical literature without them.”
“You are so right.”
“And you’ve got yourself a Greek?”
“English as you and me,” he said dolefully. “But bound and determined, just the same.”
“She’ll put you in a dicey spot if she succeeds—accessory before the fact, possibly; accessory after the fact, certainly. You could face a myriad of unpleasant legal possibilities.”
“The curse of the law. Being short of funds is a terrible thing, putting a man into difficulties not of his own choosing.”
I could certainly agree. “Do you know who her target is?” I tried to speak casually and to avoid looking nervously down the dock.
“Target uncertain. She wanted one and then she wanted another, and now I think she’s after them both.”
“And this is because of—”
“Didn’t I say, old chap? Her husband, of course. A writer fellow up in Tangier who was murdered by some pansy gallery owner and one of his painters. A bad lot all the way around.”
“A disgrace to the profession,” I said with a fair show of indignation. “But they’ve left the International Zone, have they?”
“Well, that’s the interesting thing,” he said. “Edith—no last names now, you understand.”
“Perfectly.” To be honest, I needed no more. A writer murdered by a gallery owner had to be Jonathan Angleford. And Edith had to be his dearly beloved, who was already angry with me.
“Edith got a heads-up from someone fairly high in the ranks. Seems one or both fled to the Spanish Zone.”
“A wide area.” I must hope that she was set to canvas the entire protectorate.
“The gallery owner is well known here,” Tony said. “I understand that he runs some sort of smuggling sideline. He’ll show up here sooner or later.”
“And the painter?” I asked cautiously.
“Forger, we should say. Oh, he’ll be holed up somewhere nearby. He’s dependent on the gallery owner for sales, don’t you know.”
I sure did. With this dismal fact in mind, I lingered only long enough for another brandy and the information that Tony’s “Medea”—really, he could never have been a Greek scholar anywhere—had gone to Tetouan for the day. I wanted to be gone before she returned, although every time I made a move to leave, Tony pressed me to stay. The sun, as he put it, hadn’t yet “dropped over the yardarm,” and when it did, we could leave off casual afternoon drinking and get down to some serious consumption.
Music to my ears, normally, but Jerome was of sterner stuff. He had sketches; he had inspiration; he had canvases awaiting. Once off the yacht, I walked up through the town, because I was not entirely sure Tony was as obtuse as he was pretending to be, before doubling back to the beach road and the track into the hills to my street. I listened at the front door and checked the house cautiously but it was empty, although someone—Harry, Richard, Elena, the invisible gardener—had left me two new books on Picasso that included color images of paintings inspired by Dora Maar. I had no more excuses and must get back to work.
For the rest of the week, I fell into my London habit of painting from early morning until well into the afternoon, a routine made easier by the fact that I wanted at all cost to avoid Mrs. Angleford. Even after Harry came through with a little walking-around money, I stayed away from the picturesque docks and confined my visits to a couple of cafes too seedy to attract a woman like Edith. My habit was to drink until the sun began to set, returning just before dark and well before Elena arrived to fix a late dinner around nine p.m. I devoted the rest of the evening to studying Picasso reproductions, with the thought that the sooner I got the paintings done, the sooner I’d be free of secret service types and crooked art dealers.
As a result, within a week I had four medium-sized canvases complete, two more bone-period biomorphs and a couple of weeping Dora Maar’s. If I did say so myself, they were pretty damn convincing, and although I’d hidden my initials in each of them, I was confident they’d pass muster. Certainly they’d be good enough for Goldfarber’s nouveau riche clients. Harry was impressed, and I could have packed up my brushes but for one little detail: we hadn’t seen or heard from Goldfarber.
I was alarmed by his silence. A long vacation on the Moroccan shore was not on my agenda. Harry was completely unconcerned, lecturing me on the patience required for clandestine activity. I thought our activities seemed more like garden-variety fraud and brought up my missing pounds sterling as part of the argument.
“All in due time,” he said, although he parted with a nice little roll of pesetas, which enabled me to spend a riotous afternoon with Diego, a young smuggler, who was such a charming fellow that I decided I could get fond of onboard frolics. We had a parting drink at one of the nicer cafes, and I lingered afterward, feeling for the first time since I’d been shanghaied by Her Majesty’s minions, like a free man. The sea breeze was freshening, the gulls were crying, and I was finishing a glass of Spanish white in excellent humor when I became aware of a shadow cast by someone too close to my chair.
“Jerome Hume! Fancy seeing you again.”
I recognized the almost posh accent with something a little off about the vowels: Tony Coates, Mariner to Medea. I was prepared to be cordial, to hoist a few glasses at my own expense, but he sat down abruptly and added, “Or should I say Francis Bacon?”
Well! Cards-on-the-table time. “What do you want, Tony?”
“I see you don’t deny it. Took me a while, old chap, to work it out, but the press photos don’t lie.”
“It’s a put-up deal from start to finish. I never met poor Angleford. Not alive, that is.”
“You would say that, though, wouldn’t you?” Tony turned and signaled for the waiter. He’d have a Fundador, a double, on his friend’s tab. I guess that was me. I waited. Tony waited. His drink arrived. He said it was satisfactory. I said I was pleased.
He drank a good deal of it, as if his system had needed topping up. Then he said, “I have a proposition for you.”
This was obvious.
“I’m embarrassed for funds. Hence Medea. I’ve been promised a bonus if I can put her in the way of the man who killed her husband.”
“That would be Goldfarber.”
Tony nodded. “She would like him, but the papers have been very clear that a certain painter, Francis Bacon, is involved. Killer or accomplice or accessory or some such. I’m not up on all the lawyer lingo, old chap.”
“There’s maybe something to be said for suttee,” I observed.
Tony gave a barking laugh. “Indeed. One widow less would suit me fine, but I can’t afford to lose her, even if you seem like a decent chap.”
I acknowledged that decency only gets you so far.
“My problem is money,” he said. “I don’t really care how I get it, so long as I get The Aurora free and clear. Personalities have nothing to do with it.”
“That certainly reassures me, Tony. But what do you want? Check my wallet if you like. I don’t have more than a few pesetas to my name.”
He waved his hands. “If you had money, you’d be out of here,” he said.
“Better tell Medea I’m in the area and collect your bonus.”
He nodded his head, rather sadly I thought. “I may be forced to do that, but I’d rather not. A bird in the hand, true, but I’m thinking further down the road.”
