A Study in Gold

by Annie Dalton

  ‘But David Fischer said that the paintings his family had given into Kirchmann’s safe-keeping, including what he claims to be a Vermeer, had been seen – had actually been photographed – in the homes of prominent Nazis, at a time when they were supposedly safe in Michael Kirchmann’s secret vault. Fischer’s father believed the Vermeer had somehow made its way to Soviet Russia, where it was eventually used as a bribe to ensure a safe passage to the west, for some defecting Russian official … But an art-savvy porter told Fischer he thought he’d seen one of the Fischer’s family’s paintings in my grandfather’s office at Hempels. Only, it turns out, he may have been suffering from dementia … And breathe, Anna,’ she added with an apologetic laugh. ‘Sorry, that was a bit of a long speech!’

  Her phone buzzed. Isadora again. Anna switched it off. ‘Somebody’s lying or, at least, not telling me the whole truth,’ she said, frustrated. ‘I just don’t know who.’

  ‘But, most of all, you want to know if your father had let himself be a party to a particularly despicable art theft?’

  She nodded unhappily, thankful that she hadn’t been the one to put this distressing possibility into words.

  Chris scratched gently at his chin. ‘Actually, listening to you just now has jogged my memory. I do remember Julian mentioning some problematic painting. It could have been a Vermeer. Did it have the word “yellow” in the title?’

  ‘Gold,’ Anna said before she could stop herself.

  ‘Yes! A Study in Gold? Does that sound right? I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more than that. Your father started to explain, but then he immediately backtracked. He said that Julia was always telling him he got things out of proportion when he was over-tired and everything would probably seem more manageable after a good night’s sleep.’

  Anna felt tears prickle her eyelids. She could just imagine Julian saying that.

  ‘You know,’ Anna said, ‘before Lili Rossetti was murdered, she emailed David Fischer to say she’d actually seen the painting.’

  ‘Did she now?’ Chris said.

  ‘If her stalker-ex hadn’t caught up with her, it’s possible she could have produced some damning evidence against Hempels.’

  ‘It’s equally possible that she might not have,’ Chris suggested very gently.

  ‘That’s true,’ she admitted.

  They talked of other things for a while, then Chris had to go back to UCL to give a tutorial. She could feel his reluctance to leave her.

  ‘You know you even have my smile,’ he said almost shyly.

  She swallowed. ‘I know.’

  Chris briefly covered her hand with his own. ‘You mustn’t worry. I mean about blowing the whistle if you uncover anything at Hempels. You mustn’t feel you’re being disloyal to your dad. He’d be cheering you on, Anna, seriously, if he was here.’ He shifted in his chair. ‘However, I do remember Julian saying that the Scott-Nevilles were every bit as ruthless as the robber-barons they presumably descended from, so if I’m allowed to give you advice …’

  ‘I already know to steer clear of that family’, she told him.

  If you think I’m a monster, Dominic is the devil … Alec Faber’s words kept coming back to haunt her.

  Anna returned Isadora’s call as she hurried to the Tube.

  ‘Darling, where on earth have you been! I’ve left you dozens of messages. I just called Liam.’

  Why would Isadora need to call Liam? Anna wondered.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Anna hastily veered off the pavement to avoid a group of Japanese tourists.

  ‘No, but I had this thought. You’ll probably think it’s mad. The disgraced official that David Fischer said had to pay British agents to help them defect. I was thinking if anyone would know what was going on back then, it would be Tallis.’

  After a stunned pause, Anna said, ‘You’re right. I do think that’s mad. You can’t seriously be thinking, what I think you’re thinking, not after everything that man put you and your friends through.’

  ‘But Anna, surely—’

  ‘Isadora, he murdered your best friend! Not to mention you were still practically a schoolgirl when he recruited you – under false pretences – to be part of his perverse little game of spies.’

  ‘But if we can help David right this terrible wrong?’ Isadora’s rich, actressy voice vibrated with emotion. ‘You know they’re not going to try Tallis now?’ she rushed on. ‘I asked Liam and he said no further action is going to be taken against him. There’s no material evidence that he ever committed any crimes.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ Anna said, appalled. ‘They’ve let him out of prison?’

  ‘They’ve taken him back to the hospice. He’s a sick old man, Anna. He’s only got a few weeks left to live.’

  ‘And so was Adolf Eichmann a sick old man,’ Anna said, furious, ‘and all those other disgusting war criminals. Do you really want to go to see this man who is a liar and a murderer and Christ knows what else?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Isadora said crisply. ‘Don’t try to talk me out of it because I’ve made up my mind. It’s time to exorcise him from my life after all these years.’

  On the Tube, rattling through the dark below the streets of London, Anna tried to imagine how Isadora would feel when she came face to face with the dying Tallis. To be honest, she couldn’t imagine Tallis ever dying. He’d talk his way out of it somehow, the way he’d talked his way out of everything else.

  As it turned out, Anna wasn’t the only person to be concerned. Over Sunday brunch, at The Rusty Bicycle, Isadora defensively repeated her decision to visit Tallis. Tansy traded horrified glances with Anna.

  After a long pause, Liam said, ‘Well, I can’t stop you going, Isadora, but I’d feel much happier if you’d let me come along.’

  ‘I’ll come too,’ Anna said quickly, ‘If that’s OK?’

  ‘Would tomorrow morning suit you both?’ Liam asked. ‘After you’ve walked the dogs?’

  He arrived at Anna’s on the dot of ten. She watched him surreptitiously as he drove them over to Isadora’s, his elbow resting on the half-open window.

  She wondered what was going on in his life. Liam had seemed relaxed and cheerful during their brunch, until Isadora had asked him when he was taking his inspector’s exams, then he’d completely shut down. His withdrawal was so noticeable that Isadora and Tansy instantly began overcompensating in that way that women do, chattering and laughing, as if, they could somehow cancel out the crashing silence from Liam. But this morning Liam seemed like his normal straight-forward self. So perhaps he and Tansy had sorted it out, whatever it was?

  They stopped off in Summertown to collect Isadora, who was looking unusually pale under her makeup. On the short drive to the hospice, they discussed David Fischer and his search for his grandfather’s painting.

  ‘It’s one hell of a story,’ Liam said, shaking his head. ‘Tansy’s been keeping me updated. Don’t know if she said, but I’ve put some cautious feelers out. Not promising anything, but something might come back, you never know.’ He flashed a boyish grin at Isadora. ‘Got to help the dog-walking Charlie’s Angels. It’s how me and Tans first got together after all.’

  Despite his careless tone, Anna detected real tenderness underneath. He loves her, she thought, whatever’s wrong, it isn’t that.

  ‘So if there’s anything you think I can do, just shout,’ he said as they pulled off the Woodstock Road turning up the wooded lane that led to the Little Sisters of Mercy hospice.

  When they went to announce themselves to the nun at the reception desk, Anna was startled to see Liam flash his badge. Not a major deal in the wider scheme of things, yet dismayingly out of character for the normally upright, do-everything-by-the book, Sergeant Goodhart.

  A young, sweet-faced nun came to take them to Tallis’s room. Like the nun at the desk, she was dressed in a sweater and skirt; the gold cross on a chain around her neck was the only outward sign of her calling. She led them along hushed corridors to the room whe
re Isadora’s former handler would spend his remaining days. The nun knocked gently at the door before she opened it.

  ‘Some people to see Matthew,’ she called softly. She hurried away, leaving the door slightly ajar, enough to give a harrowing glimpse of what was inside. Anna felt her nostrils flare at the escaping miasma of smells that no disinfectant could entirely mask. Raised up on pillows amidst a forest of wires and tubes, Matthew Tallis lay with closed eyes. His skin was blotched and yellow. A nurse leaned over him, moistening his cracked lips with a sponge.

  Isadora backed away. ‘I can’t,’ she said in a panic. ‘I can’t be in the same room. I thought I could but I can’t.’

  ‘Why don’t you wait for us in reception?’ Liam suggested calmly, ‘I doubt we’ll be long.’ He’d known it would be like this, Anna realized. That’s why he’d insisted on coming. He knew how tough it would be for Isadora to confront the man who had inflicted so much damage on her and her friends. Anna was tempted to flee with her but she squared her shoulders and followed Liam inside.

  ‘Matthew,’ the nurse said into the sick man’s ear, then in a slightly louder voice, ‘you have some visitors, Matthew. I’m not sure how responsive he’ll be,’ she said apologetically. ‘Lately he tends to drift in and out. I’ll just be in the next room if you need me.’ She left with a rustle of crisp cotton and without closing the door, to Anna’s relief.

  Matthew’s eyelids had lost all their lashes. They flickered twice then opened to reveal faded eyes with discoloured whites. For a moment, he couldn’t seem to focus, and then, like a raptor, his cold blue gaze fastened on Anna. He remembers me. The thought creeped her out. Like the black box in a fatal plane crash, some part of Tallis was still mechanically recording, calibrating and calculating.

  ‘You’ve come back to see me, my dear,’ he said hoarsely. ‘How frightfully sweet of you.’ He had deteriorated shockingly since she’d seen him last. His thin, papery skin was stretched so tightly over his bones that he resembled a talking skull.

  ‘Good morning, Sir,’ Liam said. ‘My name is Sergeant Liam Goodhart. I believe you’ve already met Ms Hopkins. She has something specific to ask you.’

  Tallis’s thin lips twisted into the insinuating smile that Anna remembered from her last visit.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ he said. ‘That sounds most intriguing.’ She heard his breath whistle in his lungs, as he struggled to talk and breathe.

  ‘Yes,’ she said coolly. ‘I want to know if it was common practice to demand bribes from people trying to defect to the West?’

  Tallis made a wheezy sound, somewhere between a laugh and a cough.

  ‘Oh, dear me. I thought you were here for my charm and good looks, but you just want to pump me for information.’ He sniggered, delighted with his double entendre.

  Anna felt Liam unobtrusively squeeze her arm, reminding her that he had her back.

  Tallis gave them his sly grin. ‘And who is this chivalrous Sir Goodhart you’ve brought along for protection? He’s not the same chap who came last time.’

  Liam said, stony-faced, ‘Can you please answer the young lady’s question?’ He leaned down to show Tallis his badge, sending the dying man into an alarming paroxysm of laughing and coughing.

  ‘Oh, how priceless!’ he wheezed. ‘How absolutely bloody priceless!’

  ‘Let’s go,’ Anna said to Liam. ‘He’s just wasting our time.’

  To her secret revulsion, Tallis beckoned her closer. ‘Defectors, you say?’ he said in a hoarse whisper and she smelled his fetid breath. ‘I think I did once know someone who might have been mixed up with something like that.’

  This was also typical Tallis. Having toyed with them, to show who held all the power, he couldn’t pass up an opportunity to show off how much he knew.

  ‘And who might that alleged someone have been, Sir,’ Liam said in a deliberately unimpressed voice.

  Anna saw cold anger flare in Tallis’s eyes. ‘A very close colleague, my fine Sir Goodhart,’ he rasped. ‘His wife worked at one of the Oxford women’s colleges. He helped some poncey, little official escape the Gulag. I believe my colleague may have been rewarded with some artwork or other, but that could just be folk lore.’ He had to stop to cough.

  How Tallis must have adored being in intelligence, Anna thought; manipulating and misdirecting from behind the scenes, availing himself of other people’s secrets while he remained hidden and invulnerable at the heart of his sticky web of intrigue. Even now, with weeks or days left to live, he was addicted to that world of smoke and mirrors.

  ‘Do you remember the name of your colleague?’ she asked. ‘Or maybe his wife?’

  The sick man turned on her with a venomous expression. ‘Do you know who you’re talking to, young woman?’ he hissed. ‘I know people who could take you out in a million different ways and it wouldn’t leave a mark. A jab with a poisoned umbrella. Quick shove from behind on the underground. I’ve got people secretly working for me in London Transport, at the BBC, in the Vatican.’ His eyes held a feral glitter. Spittle dripped from his lips as his ranting descended into incoherent mumbles.

  The nurse came hurrying in. ‘It’s the morphine,’ she said in a low voice. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s saying.’

  Shaken, Anna couldn’t agree. She felt as if she’d had a chilling glimpse into a toxic old man’s innermost soul.

  They found Isadora pacing nervously by the car. ‘I’m sorry I was such a wimp.’

  ‘No, Jesus!’ Anna said. ‘You made the right decision.’

  ‘You did,’ Liam said with feeling. ‘I see a lot of this kind of thing. Victims of crimes or their families, who turn up when the case comes to trial, hoping for closure or whatever pop psychologists call it. They usually end up sick to their stomachs, poor buggers.’ His phone started to emit a hectic ringtone. Pulling an apologetic face, Liam walked off a little way to take the call.

  ‘I still feel sick to my stomach just from being in the same building,’ Isadora confessed.

  ‘He’s an utterly repugnant man. Why wouldn’t you feel sick?’

  Isadora gave her a watery smile. ‘Was it helpful though? Did he tell you anything new?’

  Before she could answer, Liam came over looking sombre. ‘I told you I’d put some feelers out? That was a courtesy call from the Reading police. There was a bad fire last night in the Harris Arcade.’

  For a second, Anna couldn’t think where he meant. Then she flashed back to the crowded little bedsit with its faded echoes of Vienna. She saw David Fischer kneeling in front of the safe. ‘Experience has taught me that I can’t be too careful.’ And then she remembered the books piled at the sides of the stairs, like an inferno just waiting for a match.

  TEN

  ‘You think it was arson?’ Tansy kept her voice low out of consideration for any sensitive diners.

  ‘I just think there were two people who were trying to find that Vermeer, and now they’re both dead,’ Anna said, also in an undertone, as she pulled out a chair for her friend. ‘Shall we ask them to get you a towel?’ she added in her normal voice. ‘Maybe two towels? You’re drenched.’

  Tansy shook her head, scattering tiny droplets. ‘I’ll live, unlike your poor David Fischer. I’ll dry myself on a table napkin when no-one’s looking!’ She’d materialised out of a violent rain storm like some long-legged Goddess of the Monsoon. Her dark curls, the back of her T-shirt, the hems of her jeans, even her eyelashes were wet.

  Anna had managed to get them a table in Pierre Victoire, a popular French bistro in Little Clarendon Street. Too popular, she thought. She’d arrived, minutes before the heavens opened, to find a party of women exuberantly celebrating a friend’s fortieth. At the table next to Anna and Tansy’s, three elderly dons loudly rehashed a recent quarrel with their dean.

  Tansy hitched her chair closer to Anna’s so they could hear themselves speak.

  ‘Did you see in the Mail they caught up with Lili’s ex? He didn’t kill her, Anna. He’s got witnesses who can vouch th
at he was nowhere near Mortmead Hall that night. In the Mail, it said the police were looking for “other leads”. But from what Liam’s told me, there are no other leads. Now the ex is out of the frame, they’ve got no one. You said she had some information about the painting. Do you think—?’

  ‘No, you daft mare, it’s only just beginning!’ a woman called out, to enthusiastic cheers and applause. ‘Forty’s where all the good stuff starts!’

  ‘She said she’d seen it,’ Anna said, ‘She’d emailed David to tell him and now they’re both dead.’

  Death by fire. Anna couldn’t bear to imagine the horror: the tiny apartment filling with toxic smoke, the bookshop below turned into a roaring furnace, both sets of stairs ablaze. Anna hadn’t really known David or especially liked him, but she had recognised in him a lonely kindred spirit. He was what Anna had been in danger of becoming, she thought, if she hadn’t found Tansy and Isadora, friends she could call up and ask, ‘Can we talk? Can I run this by you? Tell me if you think this sounds crazy?’

  ‘Thanks for coming, Tansy,’ she said. ‘I’ve been going out of my mind the past twenty-four hours, but it’s not just me, is it? There’s something suspicious about all of this?’

  ‘I’d say so,’ Tansy said. ‘Liam thinks the same, with two unexplained deaths and the only connection between them being a painting that everyone but David and Lili swears no longer exists.’

  ‘A painting that everyone swears never existed,’ Anna said.

  Their waiter arrived with two bowls of minted pea risotto, which Anna had already ordered on Tansy’s recommendation.

  Shrieks of laughter floated in from the street. Tansy and Anna glanced out to see two half-drowned, female undergraduates wheeling their bikes through the puddles. Tansy tasted her risotto and gave an approving nod.

  ‘This is every bit as good as I remember.’ Then, in a typical Tansy segue, she said, ‘Liam said you didn’t get much out of Tallis?’

  ‘Tallis was vile,’ Anna said. ‘You know Isadora couldn’t go through with it?’