by James Runcie
‘Were you alone?’
‘I do not understand why you want to know this. You saw that I was.’
‘And what was the song you were singing?’
‘“The Rose and the Lilac.” It is about being left by a man.’
‘But you have Mr Reveille.’
‘I still know what it is like to be alone.’
Sidney began to sweat a little. He was getting nowhere. ‘Why did you do it?’ he asked.
‘I wanted to be free. I want the public to think about what they see. Perhaps I shall go to every museum in the country. Every art gallery has its nudes. You start in the Renaissance and keep walking.’
‘You may be stopped.’
Celine smiled. ‘No one ever stops me.’
Sidney kept up his inquisition. ‘And how did you travel? Did you come up from London?’
‘I was on the train.’
‘But where were your possessions, your money, your handbag?’
‘When you are free you do not need possessions.’
‘But you must have had something?’
Celine exhaled cigarette smoke. ‘No, I am content with nothing.’
‘And you went back with nothing?’
‘I had my fur coat. I left my shoes by the door of the museum. That was all I needed. As you saw for yourself, I had nothing to hide.’
Sidney was at a loss. Why is this woman lying to me? he thought. And how can I get her to tell me the truth?
His frustration with his encounter at The Festival of Misfits only increased after he had made a full confession to Inspector Keating in the Eagle.
‘You should have left it to us,’ his friend reprimanded. The game of backgammon lay unfinished between them. ‘Now they’ve got wind we’re on to them, they may disappear.’
‘They don’t strike me as the retiring type.’
‘I don’t know why you didn’t tell me straight away.’
‘I am telling you straight away. We only got back this morning.’
‘You could have made a telephone call. Now I’ll have to get on to Inspector Williams at Scotland Yard. I might even have to ring him at home; and he never likes that. Presumably you think they’re in it together?’
‘I do. Although Reveille claims he has never left the ICA.’
‘And there’s no sign of the Sickert?’
‘I don’t think they would put it on display . . .’
‘An art gallery is as good a place to hide a painting as any other . . .’
‘That’s true. But Reveille did mention his workshop. I think it would be worth a search; although it won’t be popular.’
‘They’ve probably moved it on by now.’
‘Amanda says that would be quite hard to do, unless it was at a knockdown price. She thinks it’s more likely to have been stolen for sentimental reasons. The girl’s from Dieppe, you know.’
‘But she can’t have taken it. She was starkers and Reveille has an alibi.’
‘Unless he went to the Fitzwilliam in disguise?’
‘That’s possible. But witnesses say that the girl was alone on the train.’
‘He could have driven.’
‘Or the painting could still be in Cambridge.’
‘You suspect the Director too?’
‘I don’t like him, Sidney, but you can’t suspect a man on those grounds. What about that Basil bloke, Helena’s friend? I don’t suppose he could be mixed up in it all?’
‘I don’t think so, Geordie. Although he can be tactless, Basil Bonney is, in fact, the same in name and nature. He’s quite the dandy.’
‘A pansy, then.’
‘He is probably, as you put it, “a pansy” but that is none of our business. It’s not our policy in the Church of England to intrude in such matters. Everyone is entitled to a private life; homosexuals are no exception.’
‘You wouldn’t catch me having a friend called Basil.’
‘He has been very good to us.’
‘So what’s his game? What’s in it for him?’
‘He wants to be helpful and loved. It’s a common enough failing.’
‘And Helena likes him?’
‘She does.’
‘I presume you’ve told her she’s got no chance.’
‘No, Geordie, you don’t need to worry. You are still the only man for her.’
‘Don’t start.’
‘I haven’t. You did.’
Keating drained his pint. ‘I’d better get on to Williams. We don’t want those two doing a flit. I presume you’ll come down to London with me?’
‘You don’t need me, do you?’
‘I’d be glad of the company. Besides, it might give you a chance to see your new friend Basil again. And Zoot Sims is coming back to play Ronnie Scott’s. You could listen to some jazz instead of watching people destroy their guitars.’
‘I’ll have to talk to Hildegard.’
‘As long as it’s just the two of us, she’ll think we’re safe.’
‘I’m afraid, Geordie, that’s where you are wrong. As far as Hildegard is concerned, nothing is ever “safe”. And if I tell her about the jazz she’ll want to come too.’
‘Best leave her out of it, though; it could get messy.’
‘I don’t like leaving her out of anything.’
‘You haven’t been married long enough, Sidney, that’s your trouble.’
Before he was shown the warrant Quentin Reveille complained that the search was an attack on his civil liberties, artistic expression and personal freedom. He was then informed that his girlfriend’s public nudity had been an attack on common decency and that they were lucky she was not on trial for a public-order offence.
The police looked through the ICA, Reveille’s studio, the flat above it, and the lock-up workshop. This was packed with tools, woodwork and rolls of canvas that were all examined in turn. Nothing suspicious was found.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve painted over it?’ Inspector Williams asked.
‘Why would I do that?’
‘As another one of your protests.’
‘I would have to have the painting in the first place.’
‘Where is it then?’
‘You can look as much as you like. It’s not here. Never has been and never will be.’
‘And where is Miss Bellecourt?’
‘I think she’s gone to the National Gallery. She felt like a walk.’
‘With or without her clothes?’
‘It’s a free country, Inspector. As we have always told you, we have nothing to hide.’
As soon as Reveille mentioned the National Gallery, Sidney was alarmed. Perhaps he should warn Amanda that another theft was about to take place? He made his excuses to Inspector Keating and hastened to Trafalgar Square where he found his friend in one of the workshops. She was overseeing an inspection of Cranach’s Cupid Complaining to Venus because the gallery was hoping to acquire it.
After he had checked that nothing was amiss, that no naked woman had appeared in the gallery and no painting had been stolen, he asked Amanda if she would like to go out for a cup of tea. There were things he needed to discuss with her, he said, not least because he felt that he had neglected her of late and wanted to catch up on her news.
Amanda did not believe him. She knew that Sidney was after information and said that he would have to wait a few minutes. She couldn’t just drop everything as he did so often himself. She had an important job and she wasn’t going to endanger it by leaving her post to consort with clergymen who appeared whenever they felt like it. If women were to be taken seriously in the workplace, she continued, then they had to work harder than men simply to keep their jobs, and she wasn’t about to sacrifice her badly paid but hard-won career for the sake of a cup of tea and a flapjack with a vicar dabbling in detection.
Sidney was forced to wait and watched as Amanda examined the painting with a magnifying glass and then took the back off the frame to look at the condition of the canvas. As she did s
o, he had an idea. There were so many questions he needed to ask his friend, and they weren’t about her love life. He hoped she would, at least, be relieved about that.
When he returned to Grantchester Sidney was dismayed to find that the Archdeacon had popped in unexpectedly earlier in the day. Caught on the hop, Hildegard had explained that her husband was in London, and Chantry Vine had immediately jumped to the conclusion that the visit was not ecclesiastical business.
Sidney was summoned to Ely to explain himself. He was going to have to reassure his boss yet again that his detective work was not in conflict with his parish duties. In his heart, he did not believe that was the case, but his loose interpretation of pastoral care could well be open to question. He worried that his recent resolution to be more discreet while avoiding any evasion or downright lying was going to be tested.
It was a dark day in mid November when he took the train up to the heart of the diocese and entered the cathedral precincts. It was rather like going back to his old school, he thought. He always feared that someone was going to tell him off.
The Archdeacon, however, was surprisingly cheerful, offering tea and Victoria sponge (his wife was a fête-winning baker), sharing news of the Chapter while eating with his mouth open. It was not an attractive sight, this small man who was perhaps trying to combat his deficit in height by hoping that his overeating would help him expand upwards rather than outwards.
‘I hear you have been keeping yourself busy,’ he began. ‘How was London?’
‘It was my day off, Archdeacon.’
‘There is no need to be defensive.’
‘I want to be clear that my parish duties always come first.’
‘And may I ask if the Fitzwilliam Museum is part of your parish?’
‘Not exactly. But it is a University building and, as you know, I have responsibilities there.’
‘It is the subject of “responsibility” that I want to discuss with you,’ the Archdeacon continued. ‘Isn’t it time you were moving on from Grantchester?’
‘I suppose it is.’
‘I imagine your wife might like a change?’
‘Yes, I think she probably would.’
The Archdeacon pressed on. ‘The Church needs bright men like you in its more prominent positions. I was thinking of a proper canonry, for example, or a big inner-city parish. The Bishop of Birmingham has been asking after you. Trevor Sheffield is on the look-out too.’
‘I was hoping for something in London.’
‘Ah yes, well, I’m afraid that you would not be alone in wanting such a thing. I have spoken to Bishop Geoffrey, and he has asked that there be some kind of condition attached to any preferment. He does not want to recommend someone whose commitment to the Church has been questioned.’
‘My dedication is wholehearted.’
‘Personally I do not doubt this, but you must acknowledge, Sidney, that there have been distractions, and I am not just talking about the blonde girl in the art gallery.’
‘The Harland murders were something of an exception.’
‘And everyone is grateful to you. But perhaps we should let the police get on with their business, while we continue with ours. I have been to see Inspector Keating.’
‘Really? What did he say?’
‘He was surprisingly grumpy,’ the Archdeacon confessed.
‘There’s nothing surprising about that.’
‘He said that you were in the middle of a very difficult case which he could not solve without you and I should mind my own business. I pointed out that it was rather my business, and that I did not take kindly to distracted clergymen. I informed him, as I am telling you now, that I think it would be in your own best interests to abandon your gallivanting in search of stolen paintings and naked women.’
‘That is something of an exaggeration.’
‘You need to give it up, Sidney.’
‘I’m not sure I can promise to do so.’
‘May I then simply suggest that you reread the Parable of the Talents? It would be a pity if you didn’t make full use of your spiritual potential . . .’
No one could accuse Sidney of being a negligent priest, but sometimes he would be so involved in one aspect of his work that he was unable to do anything else. Before he had Dickens, for example, he would frequently mistime visits to parishioners or fail to fulfil his daily duties because he was so preoccupied by the items on his desk. He would continue to work on a sunny day, for example, determined to complete his correspondence and his paperwork and get to the end of whatever he was doing. But once he had finished, it would either be dark and too late to go out, or the weather would have changed for the worse. Telling himself not to mind, and that he would not make the same mistake the following day, he would awake to gloom and thunder. Now, however, with his beloved Labrador, he had no choice but to get out of the house and walk regularly every day, never minding the conditions, where he found that the exercise cleared his head and improved his mood.
He was on one such walk, on the following Monday, when Inspector Keating intercepted him and said that he had had enough. He insisted that his friend come with him, dog or no dog, to the Fitzwilliam Museum immediately. ‘We need to search the whole ruddy thing.’
‘But if we start rummaging through the place Anderson will guess straight away that we suspect him of lying.’
‘He knows that already. They must have a painting store; and we know the canvas has been removed from the frame. It could have been rolled up in a cardboard tube and posted to France; or hidden in the attic of the Director’s mother’s house for all we know. They could even pretend to discover it having switched it with a fake, like that mad bloke did to the Holbein in Locket Hall before he kidnapped Miss Kendall. I hardly need to remind you of that.’
‘The Lost Holbein’ had been one of Sidney’s earliest forays into detection and had necessitated Amanda’s rescue from a remote farmstead outside Ely. ‘I don’t think we are dealing with anything as dangerous as that. The Fitzwilliam Director seems normal enough.’
‘By Cambridge standards, that is true. But you must have realised by now, Sidney, that this town contains nothing but madmen.’
‘Including us?’
‘Especially us.’
Once inside the museum they ignored all protest about the lack of an appointment and the appearance of a Labrador in the galleries and proceeded straight to the Director’s office. There, Keating made his position clear. ‘We are going to go through the whole place and even close it down, if necessary, unless you start telling us the truth.’
Graham Anderson remained behind his desk. ‘I don’t think you will be able to do that. I have provided as much help as I feel I have been capable of giving.’
The Inspector was adamant. ‘That is an evasive answer and it is not enough. You need to stop the nonsense. We have discovered the girl’s name. It is Celine Bellecourt. We know that you met her the Saturday before the work was stolen. There’s no point denying it. How well do you know her and what did she want? Any more lies and I’ll have you banged up right now.’
‘Please don’t threaten me.’
‘Then answer our questions properly. You knew who that girl was, didn’t you?’
‘I met Celine Bellecourt for the first time last Saturday. She had been doing some research. She wrote to me and asked if she could come and see me. She had some questions.’
‘What kind of questions?’
‘Well, to put it simply, she thought that The Trapeze was a portrait of her mother.’
‘And is it?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘I thought people like you were supposed to know that kind of thing?’
‘Sometimes, Inspector, the answers are not so simple. You have to do a bit of detective work and trace the painting back to its origins.’
‘You don’t need to lecture me about investigation, Mr Anderson.’
‘Dr Anderson. We acquired the painting as a bequest from a Lancashire m
ill owner called Frank Hindley Smith in 1939. It was framed in Paris by Paul Foinet but we don’t know who first had it. Sometimes you have to use your experience and take these things on trust. An ideal provenance history would provide a documentary record of owners’ names, dates of ownership and means of transference after inheritance. To be absolutely sure you have to trace all the past sales through dealers and auction houses; and know all the locations where the work was kept, from the time of its creation by the artist until the present day.’
Dickens began to show signs of impatience. There was only so much sitting down in an art gallery he could take. Anderson rather touchingly tried to include him, clearly hoping that getting a Labrador onside might help matters.
‘It’s a bit like establishing the pedigree of a dog. But even this does not always identify the subject. There are similar presentation drawings that are titled Mademoiselle Alexis. So that is a clue. If the girl’s mother was called Alexis that would be one link, but this could equally well be a stage name; especially because when the painting was exhibited at Agnew’s in 1923 it was called Mademoiselle Leagh, possibly in homage to a work by Degas called Mademoiselle La La at the Cirque Fernando. So, you must understand that it’s a complicated story and very easy to jump to the wrong conclusions where titles are concerned: hence all that Jack the Ripper nonsense.’
‘This may seem a ludicrously fanciful theory,’ Sidney began. ‘But, I wonder, is it at all feasible that Celine also thought Walter Sickert might be her father?’
‘Why do you ask that?’
‘She told me that she was an orphan, that both her parents were dead.’
‘I think that’s unlikely. Sickert died in 1942. He was over eighty. Celine’s only twenty-six.’
‘It’s still technically possible,’ said Keating.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why not?’
‘I just know it isn’t.’ The Director did not return Sidney’s questioning. He breathed heavily and was just about to speak when Sidney interrupted.
‘I’m curious. You have just been very specific about Celine’s age. You said she was twenty-six. That is very exact. How do you know? Did she tell you?’
