EG02 - The Lost Gardens

by Anthony Eglin

  Driving into town, Kingston mulled over the other options. The simplest would be to get a locksmith to open the door. But the last thing he wanted was to have to take a stranger down into the catacombs. Nobody would be able to keep a secret like that very long. The other choice, of course, was to call Chadwick, get the police involved and have them open it. But whatever was behind that door, Jamie should see it first. It seemed the right thing to do. Once they knew just what it was—if indeed there was anything—then they could decide what best to do next. He walked hurriedly into the town centre from the car park, fingers crossed that he could open the mysterious door.

  With several different size and type high-speed drill bits in a small brown bag on the passenger seat, Kingston headed back to Wickersham. When he alerted Jamie on his mobile that he was on his way back, she reminded him of his two o’clock staff meeting. These were frequent get-togethers at which he, Robin Gilchrist—the man Kingston had hired as the temporary head gardener—and Eric Newsome would give progress reports. The meeting also gave the team an opportunity to ask questions and air problems. Kingston asked her to postpone it.

  Mid-afternoon, armed with a cordless Bosch drill driver, the bits, his tool bag and protective eyewear, Kingston went to the house to meet Jamie. While waiting for her to get ready, he called Ferguson to tell him about their find but couldn’t reach him. He left a message saying he had some very important news about the chapel and would call back later. He signed off saying, ‘You won’t believe it, Roger. It’s awesome.’

  Shortly after four, they took off for the catacombs.

  Kingston lined up the drill bit as he’d been instructed all those years ago. On his first attempt, the bit skidded off the hard surface, chattering against the steel door. Next time he applied more pressure and the bit started to eat its way through the escutcheon, sprinkling fine shavings to the floor. Jamie stood by watching, saying nothing.

  Kingston took a brief rest to cool the drill and bit and started drilling again. In less than a minute he felt the drill bit clear the lock and spin freely. He took a hesitant glance at Jamie then pushed open the door. With Jamie holding the lamp, they entered. The room was much larger than Kingston had anticipated, twice the size of either of the other two rooms. Built-in furniture covered the surrounding walls. Facing them was a desk with drawers and lower cupboards on either side. Deep worktables ran the length of the walls on the left and right. Below the tables were horizontal rows of shallow map drawers. Above the work surface, the walls were covered with a grid of vertical wooden racks like those used in framing and art shops. All of them were empty. It was obvious what the shelves were designed to contain—almost certainly, paintings.

  Jamie had started to open cupboards and pull out drawers. From where he was standing, Kingston could see that they, too, were empty. Ryder or somebody had obviously done a good job cleaning the place out. There was hardly a speck of dirt to be seen anywhere. As he stood there, looking around the empty room, the hollow feeling that had seized him earlier came back. This time it didn’t go away. He knew this last room was where their search must end. It was as if Ryder was taunting him from the grave. He had to face it, either the paintings were here or there were none. It was as easy as that.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Jamie, softly.

  Kingston snapped out of his thoughts. ‘I know,’he said. ‘I was so certain that this was it.’

  ‘I know you don’t want to give up, Lawrence, but it looks like we have no other choice. Do we?’

  He summoned a disheartened smile. ‘You’re right. I don’t think we do.’

  Jamie had put the lamp on the floor while she took off her wool cap and tousled her hair. ‘To be honest, Lawrence, I’ll be glad to get out of here. I’m beginning to feel a little claustrophobic. God knows how those monks could stay down here for long.’

  Around them, a wide circle of light illuminated the flagstone floor. As Kingston bent down to pick up the lamp, he couldn’t miss seeing the horizontal crevice between the stones at his feet. He moved the lamp to his left and followed the crevice where it took a right angle away from him, continued for another five feet or so then took another right angle turn. Holding the lamp slightly higher, he could now see that the crevice formed a uniform rectangle.

  Jamie had seen it, too, and bent down next to him. ‘What do you think?’ she said.

  Kingston was already prising between the stones with one of the tools of the Swiss army knife from his tool bag.

  ‘There’s something underneath here—a trapdoor most likely,’ he grunted, trying loosen the stone. ‘These stones are meant to be raised,’he said.

  Once the first flagstone was removed, the others came out easily. When the last stone came out, they were looking at a rectangular wooden trapdoor. It was locked in place on two sides by swivel iron brackets. Recessed in its centre was a circular black iron handle. Kingston rotated the brackets, put three fingers in the handle and, straining audibly, lifted the heavy trapdoor. Jamie helped him move it aside on to the floor.

  Kingston held the lamp over the opening revealing a wooden ladder that disappeared into the hole. ‘Hand me the flashlight, Jamie,’ he said, leaning over the opening. He took it from her and shone it down in a circular motion. ‘Looks like a storage area. Not very big.’ He handed her back the flashlight. ‘I’ll go down and take a look. Hand me the lamp when I get on the ladder.’

  Gripping the lamp carefully, he reached the bottom rung and looked around. The room was no more than twelve feet in either direction, the ceiling barely an inch above Kingston’s head. The walls were stone and he saw at a glance that the only way out was through the trapdoor.

  A filthy oriental rug covered most of the hard dirt floor. He found that curious, since anything and everything of value had been removed from all the rooms they’d seen. It looked like an old Kazak from what little he could see of the pattern. As consolation, at least they’d found something of value, he thought. The only other items in the room were a large flat wooden crate and a small metal steamer trunk with leather handles. It was padlocked. He tried lifting the crate to see if there were any markings on it. It was not as heavy as he had imagined.

  ‘Find anything?’ asked Jamie, leaning over the edge of the trapdoor opening.

  ‘Could be. I’m not sure. Come down and take a look? Oh, and bring down the toolkit, would you.’ He put the lamp on the floor closer to the ladder so that she could see her way down.

  Jamie sat on the trunk while Kingston went to work opening the crate, using a large screwdriver and a hammer. The crate was about five by four feet and eighteen inches deep. About the right size for paintings, Kingston knew, but this time he wasn’t getting his hopes up. The rasping of nails being prised from wood filled the small room and soon he had the lid free. Jamie, at his side, held up both hands, fingers crossed. He lifted the lid and put it on the floor. Inside, all that could be seen was a snug-fitting blanket tied with string, a cushion to protect whatever was inside. He tried to lift it out it by squeezing his fingers down the sides but couldn’t. Moving to one end of the crate, Kingston raised it to the vertical position then tilted it, hoping that the contents would slide out. They didn’t.

  As Kingston shook the heavy crate trying to dislodge its contents, Jamie was on the other side, her hands out, ready to prevent whatever was inside from falling to the ground. One mighty shake and the blanket-wrapped object was finally free, falling into Jamie’s hands. He lowered the crate and she slid the bundle across to him. Quickly he cut the string and removed the blanket, throwing it aside. On the floor in front of them was a metal case similar to that used by professional photographers to transport cameras and lenses, only much larger. The case was bound with heavy wire to prevent it from opening. Now his pulse was racing. These were the paintings. They had to be.

  Jamie broke the silence. ‘This is getting like one of those Chinese box puzzles.’

  ‘It is, but we’re almost there, Jamie. This case has to hold the paintin
gs,’he said, snipping the wires, unlatching the two chrome clasps on the lid. He lifted the lid, the underside lined with a foam material, exposing yet another package, this time, a tightly sealed plastic sheath. He lifted it out, carefully cutting the plastic with his knife. As the plastic casing was pulled away, it revealed three stretched canvases, each separated by a sheet of plywood. Kingston stole a quick look at Jamie. He removed the top piece of plywood, picked up the top painting and held it up facing them.

  He couldn’t believe what he saw.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Kingston took his eyes off the painting just long enough to catch Jamie frowning. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Rubbish, that’s what it is. I hope this isn’t Ryder’s idea of a joke. This is bloody awful.’

  They were looking at an oil or acrylic painting about sixteen inches by twenty-four. The scene was a Parisian street in the rain, with vivid multicolour vertical brushstrokes where street and window lights reflected off the rain-slick pavement and road. It was the kind of garish art that is churned out for the tourist trade, peddled at street fairs and in lesser quality galleries all over Europe.

  Kingston removed the next plywood panel and picked up the second painting. It was no better. Slightly smaller in size, it was a landscape in the style of Seurat. He grimaced—amateurish would have been a kindly description. The composition was dreadful, the colours lifeless. He put it aside and picked up the third painting. A quick glance was enough. It was equally hackneyed and lacking in any painterly talent.

  ‘These certainly aren’t what Fox had in mind,’he sighed.

  ‘If they’re worthless—and even I can see that, now—why would Ryder or anyone go to all the trouble to conceal and protect them so well? It makes no sense.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kingston muttered. He was holding up the tacky Parisian painting again. This time he examined the edges of the canvas where it was affixed to the wooden stretcher. He knew that a relatively simple method used to disguise paintings was to paint over them. It was a technique used effectively over the centuries, one all too familiar to art-theft and insurance investigators. Only recently, he’d read an account of the inspired and courageous actions of an art-loving Afghani doctor who, singlehandedly, had saved over hundred paintings in the National Gallery in Kabul, disguising the works by painting new scenes over them. His artistic camouflage was sufficient to hoodwink the Taliban religious police who would otherwise have destroyed the artworks, as they had thousands of others during their five-year rule. Had he been caught, the penalty might well have been execution.

  Kingston knew, however, that this was not the case with the painting in his hand, nor the other two. They were too detailed and the paint too heavily applied. The wooden stretcher was also relatively new. Attempting to remove the paint would destroy, or damage beyond repair, any painting that might be underneath. He turned the canvas on its side. Not unexpectedly, the staples looked fairly new, in keeping with the canvas that showed little signs of age. He put the painting down and picked up the landscape, staring at it, perplexed. As Jamie had said, it didn’t make sense.

  ‘Why don’t we see what’s in the trunk?’

  ‘Right, but let me try something first.’ Kingston had pulled out his Swiss army knife and opened the large blade. He started prising out one of the staples. One by one he worked his way round the stretcher until they were all removed and the canvas was free. Jamie watched, saying nothing, while he scrutinized the canvas. He turned it over and was focusing on one corner. ‘Bring the lamp over here would you, Jamie?’

  He held the edge of the canvas up close to the light and poked at it gently with the knife. ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he muttered. ‘I think we’ve got two canvases here.’ Kingston had switched to a smaller blade and was working it down the edge of the fabric. As he did so, the canvas started to separate. Gripping each edge, he carefully peeled the two pieces apart. Setting aside the phony Seurat, he held up the other canvas to the light where Jamie could also see it.

  ‘Can you see the signature, Jamie?’

  ‘Turn it a little bit … there. No, I can’t quite make it out.’

  ‘It’s C. Pissarro—Camille Pissarro. And if it’s the real thing—which I’m ninety-nine per cent sure it is—it’s worth a mint.’

  In turn, Kingston removed the top canvas from the other two paintings. Underneath one was a Matisse portrait of a peasant woman and under the other, a winter landscape that he guessed to be by Sisley: the signature was not immediately apparent.

  ‘What do you think they’re worth?’ Jamie asked.

  ‘I’ve really no idea but if I were to hazard a guess, the three of them together, in the many millions—twenty, thirty—could be much more.’

  ‘My God. Why didn’t Ryder sell them?’

  ‘Maybe he couldn’t. There was a time when the market in fine art sales took a dive. There’s also the possibility that these three paintings were on circulated lists of stolen works. That would make them doubly difficult to unload.’ Kingston had replaced the wooden lid on the crate and laid out the three canvases on top of it with the Pissarro uppermost. ‘Perhaps, for whatever reason, Ryder decided to keep these three,’ he said, finding it hard to take his eyes off the Impressionist masterpiece.

  ‘If he did, why would he keep them sealed in a crate in a locked room? One would think that he would want to have them exhibited so that he could enjoy them.’

  ‘Maybe they were at one time. Hanging in one of the upstairs rooms of the house where nobody would ever see them.’ Kingston was carefully putting the three canvases back in the metal case. ‘Who knows? There could be all kinds of explanations.’

  Jamie was on her haunches studying the padlock on the steamer trunk. ‘I wonder what’s in here?’ she said. ‘It has to be something valuable or Ryder wouldn’t have it locked up here, would he?’

  Kingston turned the padlock toward the light to get a better look at it. ‘Valuable, yes—but perhaps something that Ryder didn’t want anybody to know about.’ He took out the Swiss army knife again and, with his ear close to the padlock, he began picking away at the lock with the knife’s tiny probe tool. After a silent minute, broken only by an occasional mumble or grunt, he finally gave up. ‘It’s a pin-tumbler lock but it looks like it’s got spool pins which makes it damned near impossible for someone like me to pick. We’ll have to drill it open.’

  Kingston was about to reach for the drill in the nearby tool bag when his hands froze and his pulse skipped a beat. Suddenly there was another light, brighter and moving, shining on the surface of the metal trunk. Then, before he could turn to see where it was coming from, he heard Jamie gasp just as the man spoke.

  ‘You can pass those canvases up to me, if you would, please.’

  Kingston stood, turned and looked up to the top of the ladder. With the flashlight shining directly into his eyes, he couldn’t see who was holding it. The voice was not familiar.

  ‘It’s Fox,’ Jamie whispered. ‘I swear it.’

  Kingston placed a hand on her arm. ‘You may have to come down here and get them,’ Kingston replied, shielding his eyes.

  ‘That won’t be necessary. Just hand them up, please.’

  Fox moved the flashlight off Kingston to Jamie. ‘Roll them up carefully, loosely if you would, hand them to the lady and have her bring them up the ladder.’

  Kingston could now see more clearly. He flinched and stepped back. Fox was holding a small pistol and Kingston was looking right up the barrel.

  Jamie glanced at Kingston, waiting for his lead. He said nothing, his face like granite, eyes glowering. It was as if his mind were in overdrive.

  Fox spoke again. His voice was calm, almost matter of fact. ‘Don’t force me to use this thing. I’ll ask nicely one more time.’

  Kingston let go of her arm and turned to the open metal case. He took out the canvases and took two steps to the packing crate where, with his back to Jamie, he laid the canvases down flat and slowly s
tarted to roll them up. Turning back to her he held the rolled canvases in his hand, clutched to his chest as if he was having serious thoughts about giving them up. He had no choice, though. Risking his own life was one thing but a bullet fired in these close quarters could easily endanger Jamie, too. He looked up to see Fox’s face, to look him in the eyes, but the flashlight beam was back on him. All he saw was a halo of light surrounding a shadowy figure.

  ‘Give them to the lady,’ Fox said calmly.

  Kingston handed the canvases to Jamie, letting his hands fall to his side.

  ‘Hurry up, for Christ’s sake,’ Fox snapped.

  Jamie stepped up to the fourth rung of the ladder and stopped, offering the canvases with her outstretched arm.

  ‘Bring them all the way up.’

  Jamie took a nervous backward glance at Kingston then continued up the ladder to where her head was level with the opening. She handed Fox the canvases. Stooping, he took them and stepped back. ‘You can go back down, now,’ he said.

  Kingston watched Jamie descend and looked up at Fox again. He had put down the gun but was still holding the flashlight. Kneeling, in full sight through the opening, he was shoving the hefty trapdoor cover with his free hand, sliding it over the opening.

  ‘Sorry, doctor, but we’re going to have to leave you down here to stew for a while.’

  ‘You bastard, you …’

  ‘Oh, and those tools, please. Have the lady hand the bag up, would you?’

  Kingston handed the tool bag to Jamie, watching silently as she took them up the ladder and handed them through the half-open trapdoor. As they disappeared, the heavy wooden cover slid in jerks across the opening. It finally came to a stop, leaving a two-inch gap through which Kingston could see only the dancing light from Fox’s flashlight.