Dark Mirror bak-10

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Yes, I know. What about Marion’s paper?’

  ‘Well, she gave me a fairly sensational title: Murder, literal and phenomenal, in the work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. But she was a bit slow giving me a synopsis. She did say that it would cause a stir.’

  ‘I see. But I suppose Dr da Silva would know all about it.’

  ‘I assume so. I met Marion with him when I was in London last year, and I was very impressed by her. I’m sure it would have been a very good paper. It’s really devastating that this has happened. Maybe if Tony has a copy we might get him to present it as a tribute to Marion. So how can I help you, Inspector?’

  ‘I’m talking to anyone who may have had contact with Marion around the time she died. Did she say anything to you when you spoke that struck you as odd in any way?’

  ‘No, not at all. She’d got a grant from her university to help her to attend our conference, and she was very excited about coming. I got the impression that everything was going really well.’

  As Kathy rang off, Bren came over to her desk. He’d been in touch with Keith Rafferty’s boss at Brentford Pyrotechnics, Mr Pigeon, who’d promised Kathy he’d check their arsenic supplies.

  ‘He can’t find any discrepancies, Kathy, but I got the impression he’s not completely confident. Your last visit seems to have rattled him. He’s given Rafferty the boot.’

  ‘Sacked him?’

  ‘Yeah, he reckoned Rafferty lied on his original job application.’

  ‘What did Rafferty have to say?’

  ‘Told him he could keep his job. Didn’t seem much bothered.’

  Kathy thought. ‘You said he was spending money on the horses.’

  ‘Yes, a fair bit, from what I could gather. Just gossip, mind you, down the pub.’

  ‘Maybe it would be worth checking at the local betting shops.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Kathy worked on the phone for a while, coordinating teams at the library and university student flats. Later, when Brock returned from his briefing, he called Kathy up to his office.

  ‘They’ve decided not to close the libraries,’ he said. ‘Public warnings instead. Won’t do much for the cafe business. What have you got?’

  ‘Several witnesses who saw her in the library today, but no one at The Last Word except for the waitress. Forensics haven’t been able to find any traces of arsenic in the cafe. It’s likely her coffee cup was put through the washing machine before we got there. They’re working through the contents of all the rubbish bins. So far nothing from Tina’s student room-mates.’

  Then she told him about her call to America.

  ‘You’re wondering if Marion was going to embarrass Dr da Silva at the conference?’

  ‘Something like that. Sophie Warrender suggested that she may have discovered some problem with his scholarship-plagiarism, maybe. And according to Donald Fotheringham, Tina had da Silva in her sights. And

  … I think someone’s been in Marion’s house since we locked it up.’ Kathy hadn’t put this into any of her reports, still uncertain if she was right.

  ‘You haven’t spoken to da Silva?’

  ‘Not since Monday, to ask him about Marion’s computer. I told him then about the house in Hampstead. What do you think? We have nothing concrete. Should we wait until we do?’

  Brock thought, then shook his head. ‘I’d like to meet him.’ He checked his watch. ‘Six. Let’s see if we can catch him on home ground. Do we know anything about his family?’

  ‘Wife’s a rich lawyer, apparently.’

  ‘See what you can find out while I order a car.’

  By the time it arrived, Kathy had put together an outline of the da Silva household. ‘Wife is Jenny da Silva, a commercial lawyer with Braye Sneddon Wilkes. Her father is Sir George Thorpe.’

  ‘The furniture chain?’

  ‘Yes. That’s where the money comes from, presumably. First marriage for both of them. She’s forty-two, he forty-six.’

  ‘The difficult age,’ Brock murmured.

  ‘Is there an easy one? They have two children: Mortimer, nine, and Leslie, seven.’

  ‘A perfect family.’

  ‘Yes. I had Googled him previously, and there’s no doubt about his reputation. Terrific reviews for his Rossetti book from the TLS and New York Review of Books, and a profile in the Observer magazine.’

  ‘Lot to lose, then.’

  They came to the broad, tree-lined streets of Hampstead Garden Suburb, the model development laid out a hundred years before, and found the da Silvas’ house, a substantial rendered semi-detached villa. The red BMW Z4 M Roadster was sitting in the driveway.

  ‘He’s at home,’ Kathy said.

  They walked up to the door in the fading light and Kathy rang the bell. After a while the door was opened by Jenny da Silva.

  Kathy liked her straight away. She had a warm, open smile and looked as if she might be just about to tell you a good joke she’d heard. There was a streak of flour on her brow where she’d pushed her hair back, and Kathy noticed a half-full glass of white wine on the hall table behind her. She seemed very practical and competent, and just looking at her Kathy felt she could tell that her wealthy father hadn’t spoiled her, but had made her serve her time in the packing department or accounts during the school holidays. She had managed the production of children into a compact timeslot before resuming her career, and was now a success in her own field and married to a star in another. An admirable life, and Kathy knew that they were about to trample all over it.

  And Jenny da Silva knew it too, Kathy saw. As she showed her ID and introduced herself and Brock, she saw the smile drain from the other woman’s face, as if she’d always known that something like this was going to happen.

  ‘We’d like to speak to your husband, please, Mrs da Silva.’

  ‘Oh dear, what’s happened? Nothing serious, I hope?’

  ‘If we could just speak to him.’

  ‘Well… you’d better come in.’ She stood back and they stepped into a generous hall, where they waited while she went into one of the rooms that led off it. The sound of a TV newscast was cut off abruptly, and they heard Tony da Silva’s voice. ‘Who? What?’ He came out, wiping a hand across his face as if he might have been caught having a nap. Recognising Kathy he said, ‘Ah, Inspector,’ and thrust a hand forward awkwardly.

  ‘This is my colleague, Detective Chief Inspector Brock, Dr da Silva. We’d like to have a word with you.’

  ‘Do you want to use the living room, darling?’ Jenny spoke from the doorway, a sleepy child in her arms. ‘I’ll take Leslie up to bed.’

  ‘Right, yes.’ He led them into the rear room and offered them seats, sitting stiffly on the edge of his. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘You have a student, Tina Flowers.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ He stared fixedly at Kathy.

  ‘You know who I mean?’

  ‘Um, I think so. Third year? Yes. Why?’

  ‘Did you see her today, by any chance?’

  His eyes moved from one to the other, and he seemed unable to speak at first. Then he said tightly, ‘Today? No, I don’t believe so.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Can’t recall seeing her, no.’

  ‘Would you mind telling us your movements today, Dr da Silva?’

  ‘Um, normal sort of day. Ten o’clock lecture, afternoon tutorials. Why?’

  ‘The lecture finished at eleven? What did you do then?’

  ‘Bit of library work, then a sandwich in my room.’

  ‘Which library did you use?’

  ‘The university…’ He hesitated, staring at Kathy’s face, then corrected himself. ‘No, I went up to the British Library today, for an hour or so.’

  ‘So what times were you there?’

  ‘I’m not sure exactly. Look, what is all this?’

  ‘Please try to estimate when you were there. It is important.’

  ‘I can’t see how. Well, I suppose I got there some time af
ter 11.30, and was there for perhaps an hour, that’s all.’

  ‘And did you see Tina Flowers while you were there?’

  ‘I told you, no. Why are you asking me this?’

  ‘Tina collapsed at the British Library early this afternoon. I’m sorry to have to tell you that she died later.’

  Tony da Silva said nothing, jaw locked, staring at Kathy.

  ‘Tony?’

  His wife’s voice from the doorway roused him, and he slowly turned to face her.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she said. ‘What is going on? What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m afraid that another of Dr da Silva’s students died in suspicious circumstances this afternoon.’

  ‘Another… like Marion Summers, do you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But that’s appalling. Where did this happen? At the university?’

  ‘At the British Library. Dr da Silva was also there at about the same time. We were hoping he might be able to help us find out what happened.’

  ‘You were there?’ Her husband didn’t respond, apparently locked in some inner struggle. ‘Tony!’

  He drew a deep breath and looked away, through the French windows to the back garden, now almost lost in the gathering dark. ‘Yes,’ he said heavily. ‘I was there.’

  In Tina’s wallet they had found a photograph of her and Marion together, both laughing at the camera. From this they had made a copy of Tina’s face alone, and Kathy now showed this to Jenny da Silva. Her expression froze.

  ‘You know her?’

  Jenny glanced over at her husband, but he didn’t respond. She looked at Kathy. ‘She was here, last night.’

  There was a moment’s silence as this sank in. Then Brock said, ‘I’d like you both to come with us to make a properly recorded statement.’

  ‘I can’t leave the children,’ Jenny said, a note of panic in her voice. ‘And I won’t say another word, not until I’ve discussed this with my husband.’

  ‘It’s all right, Jenny.’ Tony da Silva roused himself. ‘You don’t need my wife. Tina did come here yesterday evening. I’m happy to make a statement.’

  ‘Tony?’

  ‘It’s fine, darling. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about.’ He turned to Brock, a glimmer of his old confidence returning to his voice. ‘I’m sorry, you caught me unprepared. I was dozing when you arrived, and when you told me about Tina, I just went into shock. I really can’t believe this.’

  He fetched his jacket, kissed his wife on the cheek and left with the two police. When they got into the car he began to say something, but Brock stopped him and cautioned him. He cautioned him again when they were seated in an interview room at the local police station, not far away on Finchley Road.

  ‘Let’s begin with Tina Flowers’ visit to your house last night, Dr da Silva. Tell us about that.’

  ‘Ah…’ Da Silva cleared his throat and took a sip of water from the plastic cup they’d provided. ‘I should explain that I didn’t know Tina well. She’s in a course I teach, and she’s attended my tutorials, along with many others, but I had no real personal contact with her. I didn’t realise, for example, that she was a friend of Marion Summers, until she told me last night. That was the purpose of her visit. Apparently she had got it into her head that the reason Marion had died was because of something she’d discovered in the course of her research work. Tina was very agitated when she came to see me. When I told her that her notion seemed totally implausible to me, she exploded, and said that she’d discovered some notes of Marion’s, written in a library book, which proved I’d plagiarised her work. This was utter nonsense. I’ve never done any such thing and I told her so. She blustered and said she had the evidence, and I told her in that case to go to the university authorities or the police, and I kicked her out. I must admit I was shaken by the whole episode, just coming out of the blue like that. She was close to violence, trembling and spitting with rage, and I got pretty angry too. You see? I’m telling you all this although I know it doesn’t show me in a good light, given what’s happened. But I haven’t seen her since, I swear. You asked if I’d seen her at the British Library today, and I said no. That’s true. If we were there at the same time I certainly didn’t see her.’

  ‘An extraordinary coincidence, though,’ Brock said.

  ‘Yes-well, no, not really. I went there because of her visit, to see if I could find this book she’d been talking about. She wouldn’t have been able to borrow it-the BL isn’t a lending library-so it would have to be there still. I checked a couple of Rossetti titles, then I ran out of time and had to go. I was intending to have another look tomorrow.’

  ‘So you were concerned about Tina’s accusation,’ Kathy said.

  ‘Not about the ridiculous accusation of plagiarism, but I was concerned that Marion might have written something disparaging or contentious about me in a book that was circulating out there in the public domain.’

  ‘Would she have done that?’

  Da Silva shook his head wearily. ‘I don’t know. We had been at cross-purposes in the last month or two. I told you how headstrong she was, didn’t I?’

  ‘Do you have a copy of her paper for the Cornell conference?’

  He looked at Kathy in surprise. ‘You know about that? No, no I don’t. She was rather secretive about it, actually. I’ve no idea why.’

  ‘It was about your subject, Rossetti, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Her title was rather general as far as I recall, and she refused to discuss it with me.’

  ‘That’s a little odd, isn’t it? A student refusing to discuss the paper she was going to give at a conference with her supervisor, who’s the world expert on the subject?’

  ‘Look, I don’t see the relevance of this.’

  ‘Well, let’s speculate,’ Kathy persisted, leaning forward. ‘Suppose Marion had discovered something that would reflect badly on your reputation, and had decided to reveal it at the Cornell conference. You’d give a great deal to stop her, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘No, there was nothing like that.’ He reached for the cup of water, then changed his mind when it became apparent that his hand was shaking.

  ‘Did you ever give or lend Marion money, Dr da Silva?’ Brock came in.

  ‘Certainly not!’

  ‘We can check, you know. Do you have an account with a bank in Switzerland?’

  His eyes widened. ‘No.’

  ‘The Banque Foche in Geneva. Have you or your wife had any dealings with them? A bank loan, perhaps? A money transfer?’

  ‘I swear, I’ve never heard of them.’

  ‘Did you ever have sex with Marion Summers?’

  ‘No, no!’

  ‘Tina thought you did.’

  ‘Did she?’ He was gasping now, red-faced. ‘She had no cause.’

  ‘Did you know that Marion lost a baby two weeks before she died?’

  Da Silva stared at him, wide-eyed.

  ‘Were you the father?’

  ‘Oh dear God. No, no.’ twenty-two

  K athy didn’t enjoy this, the patient grinding away at a story until only the true bones remained. If Brock shared her impatience and weariness with the process he didn’t show it, taking da Silva back again and again over old ground, looking for discrepancies. He was implacable and endlessly attentive, as if willing to go on all night.

  During a short break Kathy found a message on her phone from Guy, asking if they could meet that evening. She rang him and said that wouldn’t be possible.

  ‘Still working?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, we’ve got a suspect strapped to the table.’

  ‘What a fun job you have. How about tomorrow, the weekend? We could go to Prague.’

  ‘I wish. Maybe. Depends. How about you? Still waiting on your marching orders?’

  ‘Won’t be till next week now.’

  ‘I’ll ring you tomorrow,’ she said.

  ‘I’m counting on it.’

  She swallowed her coffe
e and reluctantly got back to her feet to restart the interview. As they headed for the door, she said to Brock, ‘I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere.’

  ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘I’d like to search his office at the university.’

  ‘We’ll get a warrant in the morning.’

  ‘I’d rather tonight, before he has a chance to remove anything. He’s forewarned now.’

  ‘Okay. You go and see to it. I’ll keep going with him.’

  It was almost eleven that night before Kathy delivered Tony da Silva back to his front door. Before he could get his key in the lock it was opened by his wife, who said not a word as he trudged in. From the look on her face Kathy guessed that his evening of interrogation had only just begun.

  She continued on into the centre of the city, to the Strand campus of the university, where she located the night security staff and presented her warrant. After making a couple of phone calls, one of the guards escorted her to the Department of European Literature, and the office of Dr da Silva.

  ‘Don’t need me, do you?’ he said, switching on the lights. ‘I’ve got rounds to make, be back in an hour.’

  ‘Fine.’ She put on latex gloves and looked around.

  She saw it straight away. Among the rank of copies of da Silva’s biography of Rossetti, there was one more worn and battered than the rest. She laid it on the desk and opened it at the title page. There, in the rather florid script she knew from her own copy, she saw a dedication: To M.

  He sees the beauty

  Sun hath not looked upon,

  And tastes the fountain

  Unutterably deep…

  Tony da Silva

  The rest of the book was annotated with comments in another hand-Marion’s. Kathy closed the book and slid it into one of the plastic bags she’d brought.

  It took her longer to find them, but when she did come across it, tucked into a hanger of one of his filing cabinets, she discovered he’d made things easy for her by keeping everything together in a single buff envelope. When she opened it and tipped out its contents, the first thing that slid into view was the picture of Madeleine Smith. The buzz of recognition was followed by a rising excitement as Kathy began to scan the documents that followed out of the envelope. There were photocopies of entries from a diary, written in a flowing copperplate style and dated from the late 1850s through to 1869. There was also a sheaf of colour scans of portrait paintings of Pre-Raphaelite women and various other reference notes and photocopies. Kathy spread these out and came to the last item, some pages clipped together, which seemed to be the draft of part of an essay or academic paper. The top page was numbered four, the earlier pages apparently missing, but her heart gave a leap when she read the italic header at the top of each sheet. It said, Murder, literal and phenomenal, in the work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti-Marion Summers. already well aware of Madeleine Smith, having followed her trial for murder at the time that he was working with Morris and Jones on the Oxford Union project, where he was overheard stating that she would never be hanged because she was a ‘stunner’, ^13 and they met for the first time not long after she arrived in London with her brother Jack in 1858. ^14 It is the author’s contention that he painted her portrait no less than nine times during the following two years. The models for these pictures have been variously identified as Jane Burden, ^15 Annie Miller, ^16 and ‘Unknown’, ^17 as well as, confusingly, Ellen Smith, ^18 a ‘laundress of uncertain virtue’ ^19 who sat for a number of other paintings by Rossetti. However an overwhelming case can be made for Madeleine Smith as the subject of all these nine portraits, and is set out in a separate paper by the author. ^20 Guenevere (1859), fig. 3, in particular bears a striking resemblance to a contemporary photograph of Madeleine Smith, fig. 4. It is also now clear that Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Madeleine Smith became lovers during this period. The crucial evidence for this and other events to be discussed in this paper is provided in the diary of Henry Haverlock, an artist on the periphery of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, and friend of Jack Smith. This diary was discovered recently by the author, hidden in a London archive. ^21 (note: expand on predatory nature of R’s relationships with his models-also lover of Jane Burden at this time) According to Haverlock, ^22 the affair came to an end when Elizabeth Siddal, Rossetti’s former mistress, whose whereabouts are unknown during this period, reappeared, apparently on the point of death, and ‘manipulated’ ^23 him into fulfilling his earlier promise to marry her. Soon after this was accomplished, Madeleine Smith married George Wardle, becoming Lena Wardle. The circumstances of the married life of Dante and Lizzie Rossetti are well known: the late-term miscarriage of a child in 1861, Lizzie’s depression and increasing use of laudanum, and finally her death in February 1862. There has always been speculation about the coroner’s verdict of accidental death as a result of an overdose of laudanum. ^24 The couple had gone out to dinner with the poet Swinburne, who said that she had been in good spirits. When they got home Lizzie went to bed, but Rossetti left again, ostensibly to work, though it was rumoured that he went to visit a lover. When he returned at half past eleven he claimed that she was in a deep sleep, with a suicide note pinned to her nightgown, and that he was unable to wake her. He then removed the note, alerted his landlady and a neighbour, and sent for a doctor who lived nearby. The doctor pumped out Lizzie’s stomach, but was unable to revive her. Other doctors were called, and Rossetti then walked to the home of his friend Ford Maddox Brown in Kentish Town and showed him the note, which they burnt. They both returned to Blackfriars in time to witness Lizzie’s death. At the inquest the housekeeper, who was devoted to Rossetti, made a point of saying that she had no suspicions about the circumstances. ^25 However, the Haverlock diary now contradicts this version of events. It confirms that Rossetti had resumed his affair with Lena Wardle in the latter stages of Lizzie’s earlier pregnancy in 1861, and was increasingly impatient with his wife’s erratic moods and embarrassing behaviour in public. According to Haverlock, ^26 it was Lena that Rossetti visited after his wife went to bed that fatal night, to beg her to help him to put an end to the torment of his intolerable marriage. Haverlock records that she gave him a preparation of one-fifth of an ounce of arsenic, enough to kill forty men, the same amount as she had given the unfortunate Emile L’Angelier in Glasgow. Rossetti returned to his wife, whom he woke and gave the preparation, disguised in laudanum. Her known addiction to laudanum, the presence of the empty laudanum bottle by her bedside, and the strong smell of laudanum from her stomach contents, all persuaded her doctors to look no further for the cause of her death. The suicide note was apparently a fabrication of Rossetti’s, in case doubts were raised. Haverlock tells us something else about the events of that fatal night. It seems that Rossetti waited some time for the arsenic to take effect before calling for help, and during this time Lizzie became alarmed by her condition. She already suspected that he had been to see his mistress, and it is likely that the taste and gritty texture of Lena Wardle’s preparation had registered with her. When she began to experience intense stomach pains, she was able to write a short note to the housekeeper, Sarah Birrill, which she hid under her pillow. Sarah found this the following day, but kept the contents to herself. Torn by conflicting loyalties, and unwilling either to destroy or reveal the note, she later contrived to have it buried with Lizzie in her coffin. Rossetti’s extreme distress and remorse following the death of Lizzie is well attested, affecting all of his immediate circle, including his brother William, Swinburne, and the painter and poet W.B. Scott, as they became embroiled in his attempts to contact the spirit world through seances. (note: phenomenal murder as a trope in the poetry and paintings of DGR following 1862) The story revealed by Haverlock reaches its bizarre climax in 1869. In his diary for that year he tells us that, ^27 seven years after Lizzie’s murder, Sarah Birrill finally told Rossetti about Lizzie’s note. It was apparently this that provoked his extraordinary efforts to reopen Lizzie’s grave, in order, as he claimed, to recover poems tha
t he had buried with her body. ^28 The revelations contained in Haverlock’s account overturn much of the existing scholarship on Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s life and work. In particular it raises fundamental questions about: the identification of models in a number of his paintings and as subjects of his poetry; the interpretation of his work and actions for the critical period 1858 to 1869 and beyond; the psychology of the man; the interpretation of images and metaphors of death in his work after 1862. Clearly the complete corpus on Rossetti is now superseded, and will have to be rewritten.