A Coffin For Two ob-2

by Quintin Jardine

  The line went dead. I sat at the table, gasping, realising that for the last thirty seconds I had been holding my breath.

  I had looked at the book before, of course; at all of the colour plates and some of the text. However, I had found the translation patchy and confusing, altogether too heavy going for my taste, and I had chucked it before the end.

  I fetched it from the coffee table and attacked it again, opening it more or less where I had given up before, around page 150. I scanned the pages for two hours, stopping occasionally to ponder a particularly obscure reference, then going on when I had satisfied myself that it signified bad translation rather than hidden meaning.

  I finished the text proper, then the fine-printed notes. Finally, I turned to the section headed ‘Appendices’. And there, from page 320, the answer jumped out at me, as clear as the bright day which lit the autumn snow on the tips of the high Pyrenees.

  53

  I left the apartment before Prim returned from Girona. I didn’t want to have to spin her a story about why I was going out, and I didn’t want any problems over her insisting on coming with me.

  So I headed out of St Marti in mid-afternoon and drove up to Figueras. Parking near the Dali museum is never a problem because of the concrete multi-storey hidden behind it. I stuck a long-term ticket on my windscreen and went for a wander round the lanes which surround it.

  After almost an hour poring over the books, prints,T shirts and other memorabilia, I paid my admission fee and went into the museum itself. I had been there before, of course, and essentially the Dali is a pretty static exhibition. There’s the car in the courtyard, which fills up with water whenever someone’s daft enough to put 100 pesetas in the slot, there’s the Mae West room, there’s the ceiling with the sole of god’s foot descending from it, and there’s the stereoscopic painting which somehow turns, when seen through a viewer, into the head of Abraham Lincoln. All these plus dubious sketches from the early days, mad sculptures and other oddities, but very few of the recognisable great works. They are scattered in public galleries around the world, and in private collections … just like the Toreador of the Apocalypse.

  I began to wonder if their absence was an accident of fate, or something else. Finally, just as the place was about to close for the day, I made my way down to the cellar. It’s much bigger than the one at Pubol, and Dali’s tomb is much grander than Gala’s, with a greater show of memorials.

  I stood before it and I tried to recapture the feeling of loneliness that had come over both Prim and me as we stood before the grave in Pubol. Somehow, it wouldn’t come. I had read all about the crazy artist and his equally crazy wife, and I had heard the tales of them in St Marti and L’Escala. It seemed natural that they should be buried side by side, yet here was Dali in his emperor’s tomb, and somehow that seemed right also.

  There was another puzzle there, but I didn’t have time right then to work it out, for a bell was ringing to chase the last of the visitors from the building.

  I hung around in Figueras for most of the evening, reading the Dali book and dining in a bar off one of the narrow streets. At last, with ten o’clock approaching, I went back to the multi-storey park, picked up the Frontera and headed south for Pubol.

  The road from Figueras was almost straight. I drove slowly, taking my time, preparing myself for my meeting. More than once, the thought came into my mind that I had set myself up to be killed, but every time I put it aside. There was no possible reason to kill me. Well, maybe there was one, but I couldn’t take that seriously; not even then.

  I reached Pubol twenty minutes early, and parked in the big, flat, red-ash area which was as far as cars could venture, tucking the Frontera out of sight as best I could. The night was moonless and the stars stood out more vividly than they normally did in the southern sky, as I walked quietly into the hamlet.

  The bar and restaurant were closed and shuttered. Nothing stirred as I slipped across the narrow street, and up the steps which led to Gala’s castle. The gate was locked, but I climbed it, quickly and noiselessly. As I had been told, I hurried round the corner, my left hand on the wall in the darkness, and cursing myself for my stupidity in not bringing a torch.

  I had never noticed the side door in all my earlier visits, but it wasn’t difficult to find. Three metres along from the locked garage doors, behind a bush which deepened the darkness, my searching hand found a sudden break in the wall, and felt the touch of wood. There was a handle on the right. I turned it, opened the door and stepped inside. At first the blackness was complete. I stretched my hands out on both sides and realised that I was in a short corridor. Slowly, I inched along it, until my foot encountered something solid: another door. It opened easily too. Suddenly, the night was less dark, as the starlight shone down into the castle’s open courtyard. I stood there, like a nervous burglar, listening for a footfall upstairs, until my eyes could make out the cellar door, and the light which shone under it.

  I crossed to it in four long steps and slipped inside, opening and closing it as quickly as I could. Blinking at the sudden brightness, I tiptoed down the curving stone way, my heart thumping.

  I knew he would be waiting for me in the Delma, beneath the castle. He was, but not where I had expected.

  The second great stone slab, on the left of Gala’s tomb, had been slewed round, through an angle of around sixty degrees. The area of surrounding stone over which it had passed was white with French chalk, used, I guessed, as a lubricant to ease its movement. As I stared at it, I saw that the stone was, in fact, a gateway. The stairway which it concealed was narrow, and very steep, as steep in fact as that on Trevor Eames’ boat. But it went down much further, around eighteen feet, I guessed, as I looked into it. Light spilled up from a chamber, a catacomb, a hidden apartment below the Delma.

  I guess I should have been scared shitless as I made my way down, bracing my hands against the stone on either side of the steps. But I wasn’t. It never occurred to me that I should be scared of a friend.

  The main chamber was big; thirty feet square, I guessed, and it had been cut out of rock. The air should have been stale, but it wasn’t. A ventilator shaft had been cut in the far wall, leading, I guessed, to an outlet way beyond the garden. Beside the stair, to my left, there was a wooden door, leading perhaps to other rooms.

  The secret apartment was as brightly lit as the cellar above. At first my mind was blown. I had to force myself, but eventually I regained some kind of self-control and looked around. The stairway had opened out not quite into the centre of the room. It was furnished with a dining table without chairs, an old red leather chaise longue with mahogany legs, and an ornate, hand-carved bed, set away in the corner to my left. Around the walls, pictures were hanging. Magnificent, explosive paintings, full of life, full of colour, full of warmth; full, I could tell, of love. At another time, I would have stared at them for hours, but I couldn’t because right there and then, my attention was drawn to the other things in the room.

  There was a large television set, with a video recorder below, both plugged into a socket in the wall, and both switched on. The pause button on the video had been hit, and a face was frozen on the screen: a terrified face, that of Adrian Ford.

  Beyond the appliances there were three easels, each supporting a picture covered by a sheet. They were all around three feet by four; the one in the centre was landscape format, while those on the outside were portrait.

  Finally, on trestles, beside the far wall, there was an open coffin, a fine affair, a work of art, carved in dark wood, and highly polished. Beside it, on the floor, a dining chair lay, on its side. As I looked at it, I saw in its shadow a small brown plastic bottle, without a lid.

  My eyes were on the floor as I stepped towards the bier. I knew what it was I would find, but I didn’t want to see it. But finally I stood beside it, put my hand on its edge and lifted my gaze.

  Davidoff didn’t look old at all now. All of the lines had gone from his face, and from the hands
which lay crossed over his chest. He was wearing his black satin outfit, his hair was sleek, and his skin was oiled, still with that olive tinge, only a little waxy.

  I knew, all right, but I put my hand on his forehead just to make sure. It was the first time I had ever touched a dead person. He was still warm, but it was leaving him, as his life had ebbed away an hour or so earlier, on a tide of sleeping pills from the empty bottle on the floor, taken after he had used the chair to climb into his own coffin.

  I looked at him, lying there. He’d won all the way, and I’ll swear he was smiling.

  I knew what he wanted me to do next. I picked up the chair, set it down in front of the television, then, when I had made myself as comfortable as the hard seat would allow, reached down and pressed the play button of the VCR.

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Adrian Ford, fear making his voice harsh and shrill. As the picture began to move, I could see that he was standing with his back to the gaping mouth of the Cadillac’s open trunk. ‘I’ll do it, but come on, what for?What’s all this about?’

  ‘In good time.’ Davidoff’s voice came from off camera. ‘First oblige me, and shave off that unspeakable fucking beard.’

  ‘Dav, this is crazy. If I’d known you’d flipped at last I’d never have agreed to meet you.’

  ‘Of course you would. You couldn’t say no to your friend Davidoff, the guy who made you all that money. Now shave!’

  On screen, Ford began to do as he was told. His beard was tough and tangled, but he hacked away at it with the trimmer of the Philishave, and smoothed it with the triple foil head. It took him ten minutes, but at last his chin and jaw were clean and white, and he had become the man in Shirley’s photo.

  ‘Satisfied?’ he said eventually looking not at the camera, but behind it.

  ‘Sure.’ I heard Davidoff reply. ‘Now you look like you did when you killed my young friend Ronnie.’

  ‘What!’ It was a shriek.

  ‘You heard me. I know about it. You killed Ronnie Starr, up at St Marti, and you buried his body. Then a few months later, you sold his pictures. The picture of Cadaques, you had Trevor Eames sell to your nephew to give to your sister. The other one, the one which Ronnie did not paint, the one with the authentic signature of Dali, you sold in June, at a phoney auction for four hundred thousand US dollars; a quarter of a million sterling; fifty million pesetas. That’s a good enough reason to kill someone; a good enough reason for you anyway. You going to admit it for my camera, or will I just shoot you like a dog?’ Ford threw up his hands, as if to ward someone off. ‘Okay, okay, I sold the pictures, but I didn’t kill Starr. Trevor did that. We arranged to meet him up at St Marti, one night. After we’d eaten, and everyone was gone, we walked round to the headland. I suggested the auction idea to Ronnie. I said that Trevor and I would fix up the sale of the Dali, and that we’d split the profits. He’d get half andTrevor and I would split the rest. Ronnie said no, no way. I’d have left it at that. But Trevor picked up a rock behind his back and smashed his head in. He’s a violent man, is Trevor.’

  ‘Was,’ said Davidoff’s voice.

  Confusion mingled with the fear on Ford’s face.

  ‘Ah, you hadn’t heard about Trevor, then. It’s too bad. Somebody went on board his boat and killed him. Tragic.’ Ford’s right eye began to twitch, uncontrollably. ‘Don’t tell me such shit, Adrian,’ said the off-screen voice, sighing contemptuously. ‘Trevor Eames was no leader. He was a deckhand, not a captain. If he killed Ronnie, it was because you told him to. But I don’t think that. I think you did. You have to be real greedy to kill someone. Trevor wasn’t that greedy. You are.’

  Ford began to beg with his eyes. ‘No. Trevor killed him, honest. Afterwards, well we had to clear traces of him away. So Trev went and got his pictures from the woman in La Pera, and told her that Ronnie had done a runner. Since we were left with the pictures anyway, Trev said we should go ahead with the auction. He knew a chap up at Pals, who suggested that we set up some silly, picture-crazy chum of his. That’s how it happened. It was all Trevor.’

  I heard Davidoff snort. ‘That is unspeakable bullshit. You made the booking at Peretellada. I checked. You paid for the dinner. And you paid for the dinner later, when Trevor and Foy came along to collect their cut … at least that’s what Senor Foy thought he was there to do.You paidTrevor seventy five thousand dollars from the four hundred. John Gash even paid for the dinner at the auction, with the money he gave you for the Cadaques picture.’

  ‘How can you know that?’ Ford squealed.

  ‘Simple. I asked. The manager at Peretellada, he’s Catalan. My people will tell you anything, if you ask them in their own language. That’s the key to them. As for Trevor; well, most people will tell you the truth if you hold a gun to their head. Only the really tough ones, like you, will try to lie their way out of danger, right to the end. I learned that in the Civil War, my friend. I wish I’d been able to blowTrevor’s brains all over his boat. But I couldn’t make so much noise. So I had to use a knife. I learned that in the war also. There’s no one around here. I can make as much noise as I like.’

  On screen, I could see Adrian Ford begin to shake. ‘Wait a minute Dav,’ he screamed, as if a gun had been raised. ‘It’s your fault too. If you hadn’t introduced us to Starr in the bar across the road, none of this would have happened. He’d never have shown me the Dali. He’d be alive today but for you.’ A last flicker of defiance showed in his face. ‘You evil old bastard!’

  ‘I know that,’ said the voice. ‘And for that I must die too. But evil, no. Davidoff is good, and at the end, good usually wins.’

  Pure astonishment spread across Ford’s face, as the first bullet hit him, and as the first red flower bloomed on his chest, all of it simultaneous with the sound of the pistol as the shot cracked from the speaker of the television set. I think he died then, but Davidoff shot him twice more, just in case, hurling him backwards into the trunk of the Caddy.

  His feet hung out over the body panel, until a slim figure, wearing a black T-shirt and trousers, stepped into the frame, swung them into the car, and slammed the lid shut. Then Davidoff turned, revolver held in his left hand, and reached for the camera.

  The screen went blank, but only for a few seconds. When it cleared, Davidoff was sitting calmly, facing the camera. He held up a newspaper. ‘This is to show you the date, Oz. It’s today’s, Tuesday’s. They always do this in the movies, so I thought I would too. Not that I want you ever to let anyone else see this tape.

  ‘That’s how he died,’ he said, ‘that bastard Adrian, who betrayed my friendship and trust and who killed Ronnie Starr. For either, I’d have shot him.’

  He smiled, then reached down and picked up a book. The Dali volume. ‘But enough of Adrian and Trevor,’ he drawled, in that strange Hispanic American accent. ‘Have you found the answer, on page three hundred and twenty? I know you; you’re a smart boy. I reckon you have.’ He grinned at me from the screen.

  ‘There were two of you,’ I said, as if he could hear me. ‘You’re his brother.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Davidoff said, as if in answer, as he waved the heavy volume at the camera. ‘The book says that Salvador Galo Anselmo Dali i Domenech was born at Number 2 °Carrer Monturiol, in the town of Figueras on the twelfth of October, 1901, and that he died in August, 1903. It says that Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali i Domenech was born in the same house on May 11, 1904.’

  He beamed, like a magician about to pull a rabbit from his hat. ‘I am Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali i Domenech. Yes Oz, what the book says is true. My father had two sons named Salvador. But it is not correct when it says that my elder brother died as an infant. That was a story which my father put about to cover the real truth. For my father was a very private man, with a misplaced sense of shame, and there were some things which he simply could not have borne had they become public knowledge and matters for discussion.

  ‘From his earliest days, my brother Salvador behaved oddly. As a very
small baby he did not smile, or laugh. Our mother used to say, when she could speak of it, that his eyes were always fierce.’ He frowned. ‘As he grew he seemed to have a hostile spirit within him. When he cut his teeth, he would bite the nipple at which he sucked, he would bite our father, he would bite himself. His fingernails had to be cut short, for he would scratch anything he could touch.

  ‘Salvador was a strong, healthy child, yet he would not walk. He had a loud voice, yet he would not learn to speak. Instead, as he grew bigger he spat and snarled with fury in his eyes at anyone who would come near him. Everything that came into his hands he tore or threw about. He had to be force fed. If mother and father did not watch him he would eat his own shit, and they had to be careful he did not smear it on them.

  ‘You have to understand, Oz, that my father was a very religious man. He believed in the embodiment of good and of evil. And he came to believe that his son was possessed by a devil.’ He paused, to let his words have effect. ‘I tell you something. Even today, so do I.

  ‘When my brother was only eighteen months old, a priest was brought into the house, to perform the rite of exorcism. When he said the Latin words, Salvador, for the first time in his life, shrieked with a mad laughter. Afterwards, his behaviour continued unchanged.’

  Davidoff glanced at the floor, looking away from the camera for the first time. ‘No one from outside the family had ever been allowed to see my brother,’ he said at last. ‘When he was nine months old, my father dismissed his two servants, for fear that they would spread stories.

  ‘As I said, he was ashamed, Oz, of this, this thing, that had been visited on him and on my mother. I think that if he had been a less strong-willed man, he might have killed Salvador for the child’s own sake. Instead, he chose a more difficult road.