The Cézanne Chase

by Thomas Swan

  Chapter 8

  Deder Aukrust banked his fee of nearly $21,000, holding on to $2,000 for new clothes and travel expenses. He rented a car in the name of Charles Metzger, and by noon on the day after he had been on board the Sepera he drove directly south from London to a bleak little inn named the Morningstar near the tiny village of Thursley. That night he drank heavily, ruminating about the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg and the burning briefcase that camouflaged his artful performance in the National Gallery. He grimaced at his failure to bring himself to full climax with Astrid on the night following their visit to the Pinkster Gallery, consoling himself by blaming her, repeating over and over that she was a “cold bitch not worth a good fuck.” His emotions, magnified by alcohol’s mischievous way of expanding reality, replayed in his mind. He again watched as he put the box of poison beneath Boggs’s car seat, then his imagination played out Clarence Boggs’s final, tortuous moments. It was the middle of the night when he finally fell onto his bed, mumbling incoherently about memories of his mother.

  It was noon the following day before Aukrust came out of a troubled sleep. The day was cool and cloudy, and for most of the afternoon he walked the paths that curled through fields outside the little town and past a golf course. That evening he ordered a bowl of beef soup and a roll that he didn’t finish, then went to his room and planned the next day.

  From Thursley he drove east to Reigate and squeezed his rented car into a spot on the High Street near the heart of the shopping district and close to a cluster of stores consisting of a florist, a dressmaker specializing in wedding gowns, and a photographer’s studio with the name Shelbourne on the window. It was mid-afternoon. He walked past the florist, then the dressmaker, and paused at the photographer’s shop, where he found a handwritten sign on the door explaining that Shelbourne had been unexpectedly called away and would reopen on Monday at noon. “Pinkster’s done his job and got the photographer out of town,” he mused to himself. There was a slot in the door for customers to drop their exposed film when the store was closed. Same-Day Film Developing, a sign read. A display window was filled with samples of Shelbourne’s photographs. A few were portraits, but most were commercial assignments. Aukrust peered beyond the photographs into the shop where a film-processing machine took up a third of the space, the balance given over to cameras, lenses, film, and the usual assortment of photographic accessories. Curtains pulled to the side revealed a portrait studio.

  He continued past three clothing stores to a narrow lane, which led to an alley that ran behind all the shops. A delivery van went past him, kicking up a spray of fine dust before parking behind the florist shop. Two men were unloading panels of plasterboard from a truck behind an empty shop in the process of renovation. Each shop in the alley had a rear entrance, two or three rubbish bins; behind one was a small flower garden. Aukrust continued on to the back of Shelbourne’s shop and up four steps to a loading platform and a steel door. Ten feet to the right of the door was a window that had been painted black, in which was an exhaust fan, and behind which, Aukrust computed, was Shelbourne’s darkroom. He tried the door. The handle turned easily, but the door was secured by a single-dead-bolt lock about twelve inches above the latch. There was no evidence of an alarm, only an innocuous sign: NO ENTRY—PLEASE USE FRONT ENTRANCE.

  He returned to his car and searched the trunk for the tire changing kit. Mixed in with the jack were two fifteen-inch lengths of steel, which when fitted together served to pry off the hubcap and leverage the jack that raised up the car. He put the tools next to his medicine kit, locked the car, and went for a walk through the town. He made two stops. The first was the Royal Oak pub, where he spent forty-five minutes and had a sandwich and a pint of ale. At his second stop he bought a newspaper, which informed him that the sun would set in the London area at 6:18. He returned to the car at 5:30, and for the next hour he watched as one by one the shops emptied of customers, lights went off, doors were locked.

  A sprinkling of clouds low in the western sky helped turn the air to a pale purple, with sprays of orange sunlight striking the windows to make it appear that little fires were burning inside. Then came the dark gray of evening, and in another thirty minutes it was nighttime in Reigate. Aukrust seemed to become part of the local scenery as he drove his car close to the other cars clustered near a restaurant a quarter of a mile away. He parked his car, then walked back along the street across from the photographer’s studio. He stood in the entryway to a real estate agent’s office and surveyed the row of stores across from him. His timing was good. Every shop but one at the far end of the block was closed, the traffic had thinned, and what remained was moving away from the center of town. He went quickly across the High Street and through the lane to the alley where he stopped. A bare amount of light came from the back of a gift shop and from a light still burning on a loading platform behind another shop in the opposite direction. He went on, ready with the tire iron. He reached the door, and forced the flattened end between the door and the jamb. He pulled with all his strength. The slim bolt snapped easily. Aukrust stepped in and worked his way to the room behind the black painted window. As he had been told, Shelbourne didn’t believe in alarms.

  Aukrust found the darkroom and a panel of switches on the wall inside the door and flipped them on. Two red lamps burned dimly, one between a photo enlarger and a cabinet containing trays of photographic paper, the other suspended over a table on which were the developing and fixing trays. An amber-colored bulb burned from a gooseneck lamp on a desk, its light spilling onto a file cabinet just inside the door.

  The top drawer contained job folders for each of Shelbourne’s customers; three of the fattest folders were marked Pinkster Gallery. As Aukrust looked through the folders, a figure moved away from a rubbish bin behind the adjacent shop. A small, wiry man scampered over and onto the platform, then after a brief pause went through the door.

  Inside the folders were manila envelopes, each one identifying a project. Also inside were negatives inserted into clear plastic sleeves, notes, a record of expenses, and contact sheets on which were printed as many as thirty-six tiny photographs from a roll of 35mm film. He inspected each envelope until he found the ones containing photographs of Astrid and him at Pinkster’s gallery.

  Built into the table top was a sheet of frosted glass illuminated from below. He spread the negatives on the glass, then leaned down to inspect the small images. He chose those in which he and Astrid appeared and set them aside.

  “Evenin’, mister,” the scruffy little man standing at the door said. The sudden intrusion stunned Aukrust.

  “I saw you come in and thought I’d ask if you got any job I could do.”

  Aukrust smelled the gamey odor of ale and urine.

  “Maybe you could help me with fifty pence?” He shook his head. “No food for two days.”

  “No money,” Aukrust said, recovering, “and no jobs.” “Come back in the morning. Maybe we have something for you then.”

  The man’s head tilted, and he looked up to Aukrust. “You talk like my friend Swede. We was on freighters a while back.”

  Aukrust took another step, waving the man toward the rear door. He picked up the tire iron. “In the morning, I said. Now get going.”

  “Before—when you came in here, I heard you.” He went on, a curious innocence to the way he spoke, “Not quiet, like you had a key.”

  Aukrust grabbed a bony shoulder and turned the little man around. He looked down at the bearded face, at the fleshy nose with a fresh cut on its side, into watery, lifeless eyes. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m sayin’ who is this big man without a key? A friend of Mr. Shelbourne?”

  “A business friend.”

  A wide grin erupted on the grubby face. “Shelby’s my friend, too,” he said. “He takes pictures of me. And he pays me. Two quid he pays.”

  The man turned his head up, the tiniest glint of pride showing in an otherwise dull face. The tire iron swooshed thro
ugh the air. Instantly, his mouth and eyes popped open, and he fell onto the floor. The little man rolled away and got to his feet. Aukrust grabbed his sleeve, but the man pulled free and ran across the platform and jumped down onto the gravel, landing awkwardly. Before he could regain his balance, Aukrust was on him.

  “No ... no!” the voice pleaded.

  A single, violent blow to the head above the right ear killed the man, but Aukrust swung again. The second strike crashed on an angle across the pitiful man’s face, splitting open his nose. Aukrust lifted him as if he were an oversized, dirty doll, staring at his bloodied face in the semidarkness.

  A car’s headlamps poked into the black air from a few hundred yards away. Aukrust ran, carrying the body to a rubbish bin, then crouched in the black shadows. The car continued slowly toward him. He heard the radio. Police on routine patrol. It paused when it was directly behind Shelbourne’s shop. Aukrust tensed. He began counting to himself, as if knowing how long the police car did not move would make a difference. Slowly, it moved on.

  Aukrust pressed his fingers tightly against the man’s neck, not expecting to find a pulse and not finding one. His only thought was that he had been inconvenienced, that he had come to dispose of several negatives but now had a body to get rid of. He went over to the shop where, earlier, he had seen workmen unloading a truck. Close to the building was a dumpster half filled with old lath and plaster. He went back for the body, carried it to the dumpster and put it inside, then covered it over with the old plaster.

  Slowly, Aukrust worked his way back to Shelbourne’s darkroom and to the negatives on the light table. Finally, he could complete what he had come to do. He took a bottle from his medicine case and poured a clear solution onto the negatives. After half a minute tiny bubbles began to appear on the emulsion, then the images dissolved into a dark gray slurry. He rinsed the negatives at the sink, blotted them with a paper towel, then slipped them back into the sleeve. He obliterated the corresponding small photographs on the contact sheets in the same way, then put the negatives and photographs back into their folders before returning them to the file cabinet.

  Next he rubbed a cloth over everything he had touched, checked for footprints, then, certain he would leave the darkroom precisely as he had found it, let himself out.

  When he reached his car Aukrust noted it was several minutes past eight o’clock. To deal with the problem of the photographs had taken less than an hour ... and that included the inconvenience caused by the little man who smelled of piss and asked for fifty pence. He drove north to the M25, then west to a motel near Heathrow Airport.

  Chapter 9

  Bletchingly Parish in the County of Surrey was chartered over a thousand years ago, and the Church of St. Mary’s in the center of the village was about half as old. Jack Oxby knew of the small church with its horizontal tower and graveyard of headstones, many of which were so weatherworn as to defy even the most skillful rubbing. Now he sat in the familiar quiet of a church sanctuary where he would not be disturbed.

  His thoughts centered on how Clarence Boggs had inhaled powerfully toxic fumes and had died quickly and painfully. Coming to light was the fact that Boggs’s gambling debts had become considerable. Dangerously so, Oxby mused. Gambling debts were often called in with threats of physical violence, and occasionally force was used to enforce the demands. In the rare instance when the ultimate punishment was meted out, it was usually quite brutal and served to send a powerful message to others who weren’t paying up. Even so, a dead man can’t pay a gambling debt.

  The pews in the nave were a mix of old and new. Oxby sat in an old one, on the aisle, his shoes off, his feet on a prayer cushion, an open notebook on his lap. On the back of the pew in front of him was carved the date December 25, 1715, and the word “Noel.” Unexpectedly, he was greeted by the pastor, the Reverend R. Peter Zimmer, who had a large, round head and fat cheeks the color of strawberries. “St. Mary’s is usually locked,” he said with a mild voice, explaining that vandals and petty thieves made that necessary but that too often the security was lax.

  It was not surprising that the local vicar knew that a valuable Cézanne owned by Alan Pinkster had been destroyed and that Clarence Boggs’s car had crashed. He also knew that Boggs was dead. They talked agreeably for a number of minutes, the Reverend Zimmer confessing that he envied the exciting life of a Scotland Yard investigator, and Jack Oxby recounting his many visits to churches, cathedrals, and temples in and near London.

  “My mother church is Westminster Abbey,” Oxby said matter-of-factly, causing the Reverend Zimmer to narrow his eyes and purse his lips quizzically.

  “Did you know Mr. Boggs?” Oxby asked.

  Zimmer shook his head. “Only vaguely, he was not a member of our congregation, but then I’m not sure that he was a member of any church. But a decent chap, as I remember. He had lost his wife, but had a charming daughter. Gillian, I believe. And there’s a granddaughter. A bright little child. I recall seeing Mr. Boggs at our church bazaar.”

  “When was that?”

  “Hasn’t been a year. We chatted briefly.”

  “I understand he bet heavily on the horses,” Oxby said. “Had you heard of his gambling habits?”

  The pastor took his hand from his pocket and put it to his mouth. “Very little, except that there was a rumor that he was gambling and losing.” He sat in the pew with the date carved on the back and turned to face Oxby.

  “It’s quiet here,” Zimmer said, his eyes slowly scanning the old windows and ancient carvings. “Too damned quiet if you want my opinion. Perhaps you can bring us a little excitement and solve a murder mystery sitting in our pew number twelve.” He stood and held out his hand. “Stay as long as you wish, but do us a favor and lock up when you leave.”

  Oxby gripped his hand and thanked him politely, then watched the pastor disappear behind the altar and presumably from the church. Left behind was the mild odor of alcohol mixed with the scent of peppermint that had doubtless come from the bits of candy the pastor surreptitiously pulled from his pocket. Perhaps he had come to taste the new communion wine, Oxby thought benevolently.

  His attention returned to Clarence Boggs. If the curator had fallen so deeply in debt as to cause his creditors to poison him, then careful inquiry would bear that out. Oxby had arranged for Jimmy Murratore to use his extensive contacts in London’s gambling community to look into whether Boggs had been made to pay the full price. Jimmy knew the bookies, the touts, the hangers-on, and the money lenders. Some lenders were respectable, others were tied to the syndicate operated by an unscrupulous element and inevitably involved in drug trafficking.

  Oxby turned his gaze to the window and the soft light that oozed through the old stained glass. His thoughts were concentrated on the self-portrait and Boggs’s job as curator in the Pinkster gallery. Someone had been in the gallery and sprayed the painting. Approximately sixteen hours later Boggs was dead. Did all that go together with more significance than the fact that Boggs had large gambling debts? Whoever killed Boggs knew the man’s habits and either knew him personally or had observed him over a number of days. Again, Oxby was bothered by the strange use of a chemical that was not only difficult to buy but potentially lethal to whoever used it.

  Oxby began to write. He filled a half dozen sheets, then carefully read aloud what he had written. He asked himself questions, and the ones he could not answer he listed again on a clean sheet.

  It was like a school examination, and Oxby wanted to make a perfect score.

  In the afternoon, Oxby found himself in a small meeting room in the banking offices of the Nationwide Anglia Trust in the town of Dorking, a half hours’s drive from Bletchingly. Keith Eustace, the branch manager, was assembling a record of Boggs’s banking activities covering a two-year period and began painting a picture of the curator’s tragic descent into financial ruin.

  “Two and a half years ago he had twenty-four thousand pounds in savings and a checking account that carried a very n
ice balance at the end of each month.” Eustace licked the first two fingers of his right hand and flipped the pages. He had coal-black hair and white skin, which prompted Oxby to wonder if he ever dared walk in the sunshine. “In April, two years back, he took five thousand from savings. And—hmmm—let’s see.” He continued licking the two fingers and flipping the pages, “Except for December, January, and February, he went on withdrawing from savings without making a deposit until the funds were depleted.”

  “When was that?”

  “This month, a bit over two weeks ago.”

  “How were withdrawals made?”

  “Nearly all withdrawals were transferred to his checking account.”

  “Can you tell me if he issued any large checks subsequent to the transfers?”

  Eustace looked and began shaking his head. “In most instances he wrote checks to himself and took cash, from what I see here.”

  “Allow me to see one month’s activity,” Oxby requested.

  Eustace demurred briefly, then put all of the records on the table. “Blast it,” he said with a sigh. “Do your job. I’ve got some phoning to do, and you can look through these while I’m at it.”

  Oxby smiled appreciatively. He sorted through the pages of checks, discovering as he knew he would that he could gain insight into the kind of man Clarence Boggs was by the kinds of purchases he had made. Because Boggs was a widower there had been checks made out on the same date to Highlawn Cemetery and to a florist in Reigate, payments made in honor of his deceased wife. Checks payable to a cleaning service appeared monthly, then were discontinued as the balance declined. In each of three recent months, when a transfer of funds from savings had been made, and some were large amounts, a check in the same amount had been drawn to himself for cash.