by Bill James
‘Is it Mrs Cray?’ Lepage answered.
‘Why are you pursuing me?’ she said.
‘But you are Mrs Cray, aren’t you – Flounce, the Wall, the whippet, the air-sock?’ Lepage asked. ‘Surely, there can’t be two such foreheads.’ She was about sixty, medium height, elegantly thin, though her face seemed a little doughy, almost frighteningly impassive, even though she obviously had her rats up. Of course, this deadpan-ism might have been inculcated on some training course. She tried to go around Lepage to the door, but he prevented this by moving in front of her. Enraged, she took a step towards Keith Jervis.
‘Are you Security?’ she asked.
‘Part-time only,’ Jervis said.
‘This man is being exceptionally offensive. He is either mad or vile,’ she said. ‘You must deal with him. Even call the police.’
The Minister arrived and, a little later, Angus Beresford. ‘I can’t find him now,’ Beresford said.
‘Who?’ Lepage said.
‘Falldew, of course. You said in Zoology (Mammals),’ Beresford replied.
‘Is that skinny dick-swinger part of all this?’ Vaux asked. ‘How the hell is he involved as well as “Mrs Cray” and so on? Does the Hulliborn really need such recurrent situations, Lepage?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t put it as recurrent,’ Lepage said.
A class of school children with their teachers came in through the revolving door and formed up in the foyer, chattering and starting on their sandwiches and Kit-Kats. The woman would have used the confusion as a chance for slipping away – another skill she might have learned in undercover training – but Jervis prevented that. ‘Although I am only part-time Security, this is obviously part of that part-time, or I wouldn’t be here, would I, madam? An allegation has been made by you. This cannot by any stretch be casually ignored.’
Beresford heard most of this. ‘What allegation?’ he demanded. ‘Stretching what? Is this lady another who’s been insulted by him?’
‘There are children present, Entomology,’ Keith Jervis warned.
‘I’m willing to forget it,’ the woman said. ‘Simply, I would like to go.’
‘No, no, madam,’ Beresford replied. ‘That must not be. This is how these things too often end. Creatures like Falldew trade on it. They get their filthy kicks and know they will not be brought to book because sensitive people such as your good self do not complain officially. Surely, a lady visitor to the Hulliborn should be able to enjoy the exhibits – the museum exhibits – unharassed.’
‘You’re certain it was Dr Falldew?’ Jervis said.
‘Who the hell else?’ Beresford answered.
‘I don’t know names, but it was this man,’ she said, nodding towards Lepage.
‘This man? The Director?’ Beresford howled. ‘Where?’
‘The Raybould Gallery. Art,’ she said.
Lepage said: ‘Angus, there’s been a mix-up, I think. The lady doesn’t mean—’
‘Art? My God, George, a personal furniture show amid all those noble pieces and expensive frames? That’s worse than Falldew. Consider how hurt D.Q. Youde would be. Don’t you believe there can be full satisfaction in looking at great pictures? Something extra is required? Is this, then, to be the language of the modern day museum? I think back to Sir Mortimer Wheeler, that great archaeological scholar, and wonder what he would make of the changes. Call me stuffy if you like.’
Lepage noted that all-purpose term again, apparently natural to the Hulliborn – stuff, stuffed, stuffy. ‘Stuffy Beresford?’ It did have something.
Lady Butler-Minton and Trudy came down the main stairs. Each carried luggage in one hand and, with the other, supported Lionel Clode, the Minister’s attendant, between them, their arms crossed across his back, the way trainers helped rugby players from the field when a hamstring went.
‘Yes? Is it she?’ Trudy called. Her grand voice seemed to contain a meld of pleasure and dread. ‘I saw there was a whippet on a lead in the Venetian picture that fascinated her so. A give-away?’
‘Mrs Cray, we bear you no ill-will, not in the least,’ Vaux declared. ‘We perfectly understand that you had your job to do, and a difficult and dangerous one.’
‘Mrs Cray!’ Beresford cried. ‘So, I did hear that! Christ, George, you’ve been waving it at her?’
The woman de-deadpanned for a moment and allowed herself to look puzzled: ‘Cray? Mrs Cray? Who is she? Why do you call me that?’
The Minister said: ‘But we all had the impression you—’
‘Who the devil is this Mrs Cray?’ she replied.
Lepage felt that the phrasing indicated a foreignness, even though he couldn’t detect an overseas accent. Did anyone outside prize-winning radio plays say, ‘Who the devil?’ these days?
‘I hear names that mean nothing to me,’ she went on. ‘Falldew? Which dangerous job? I work in millinery. Hat pins?’
‘Identification is obviously going to be of some importance here, in the circs,’ Jervis said in a Security voice.
‘I’ve a banker’s card that gives my name,’ the woman said, opening her bag.
‘Please, why deny who you are, Mrs Cray?’ Trudy said. ‘Of course you have papers with another name on them, a cover name, plus others suggesting your occupation. Millinery, did you say?’ Trudy laughed a while. ‘We are not children.’
Jervis took the card. ‘Veronica Anselm,’ he read. ‘Mrs or Miss? It could be to the point. Again, in the circs, such circs being an illicit display of maleness.’
‘Mrs Cray, I’m sure it will interest you to learn that we are seeking to arrange a suitable memorial for Sir Eric Butler-Minton,’ Vaux said. ‘Perhaps you have returned in this regard – to assess progress with it, possibly. Take my word, it goes ahead very well, very well. If I may say, we do not want these arrangements compromised by any … well, any disturbance, any outside intervention, however well-meant. The past should be regarded as the past, especially when those aspects concerning yourself and your contact with Sir Eric are so shadowy and remote.’
‘Can former times not be left to slumber unprovoked?’ Clode said.
‘Come, Trudy, we really must get to the airport,’ Penny said. They had released Clode, who now seemed quite able to stand. On one side of his head his fair hair was matted with blood.
‘Have you really nothing to say to us, Mrs Cray?’ Trudy asked plaintively.
The party of school children began to move off towards Urban Development. Lepage saw Falldew feverishly pushing his way through the line, calling and waving both arms. Even by his own standards he looked unkempt. ‘Penelope!’ he cried. ‘Wait, please.’
‘The cheek of the bastard!’ Beresford said. ‘Are you sure this isn’t the man, madam?’
‘Which man?’ she replied. ‘I’ve never seen him before.’
Falldew, bright with sweat and weeping badly, muttered: ‘Penelope, they told me – your neighbours – that you were leaving for Ethiopia and had come here before flying out.’
‘Why do you pester this place, Falldew, indeed pollute it?’ Beresford said. ‘We don’t want your sort.’
‘You will still be able to have your sessions with the memory of Sir Eric, Neville,’ Penny said. ‘I’ve put a key in the post to you today. The electricity is on for the sauna. Just lock up and switch off when you leave.’
‘Is this really true?’ Falldew said. He began to beam and tugged with nervous joy at that sad beard. ‘The Egyptian paddle?’
‘It’s there. You can sing your boatmen’s song while plying it, as ever. In return, all I ask is that you occasionally put out some food and milk for the cat. He’s near feral, but will sometimes come when called: “Enteritis”, or just “Tis”. Try not to get too close to him, especially at night.’
Falldew quietened. He glanced about at the others, as if ashamed of the panic he’d shown. ‘A little ritual, to help the days go by, that’s all,’ he said.
‘It’s your other little rituals we don’t like,’ Beresford said.
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The revolving door spun. Dr Itagaki and Dr Kanda appeared, Itagaki ahead and looking very eager.
But Kanda spoke first: ‘Why, Lady Butler-Minton, isn’t it? This is a privilege little expected.’
Lepage went forward to make introductions.
‘Ah, my Japanese contacts, I think. I’m glad we’ve met you here at the entrance,’ Vaux said. ‘You might need reassurance that the elks in the mammal display present no hazard!’
Kanda was very swift to laugh: ‘If there is one thing I bloody love, it’s a joke,’ he said
‘But this must be Mrs Cray,’ Itagaki said. ‘The clothes and brow.’
‘A day of remarkable significance,’ Kanda remarked.
Vaux said: ‘We thought somewhere central for the bust, possibly this foyer.’
‘Admirable,’ Itagaki replied.
‘It would strike an instant note,’ the Minister said. ‘A party of children were here just now. If the Butler-Minton bust were central they would make a beeline for it and ask their teacher who it was and why he had been carved in Japanese stone. This would truly be an education from the moment of entering the Hulliborn.’
‘If there’s one thing children react to instantly it is Japanese larva,’ Lionel Clode said. He seemed much less groggy now, and Lepage felt glad. Lepage had moved to the edge of the group, and he leaned against a large, brown Celtic cross. After a moment, from behind, he felt a hand move swiftly up his inside leg and then expertly and lingeringly finger him. Because he had been half ready for it he was able to contain his reactions and did not turn or speak to Kate, in case of drawing attention to her. He continued to register polite interest while the Minister and others talked. The hand slipped down Lepage’s leg and withdrew.
Itagaki and Kanda came over to speak to him by the cross. ‘Are those two a loving couple all of a sudden, Lady Butler-Minton and her friend?’ Itagaki asked. ‘Isn’t that Trudy Something, the doctoral thesis and research assistant Flounce was belting every ten days or so towards the end, and all credit to him?’
Kanda said: ‘But scholarship and sexual desire are by no means antipathetic bedfellows.’
‘Is that copyright or could any sententious fucking creep use it?’ Itagaki replied.
Lady Butler-Minton and Trudy went for their taxi. Vaux, Clode and the two Japanese began to examine possible spots in the foyer for Sir Eric’s memorial. ‘I’m leaving, too, now,’ the woman told Lepage.
‘Mrs or Miss Anselm, my objection is still extant in that respect,’ Jervis told her. ‘Your charge is as yet unanswered. We part-timers have to be even more careful than staffers, since we have no job security, despite being, on a temporary, ad hocish basis, Security.’
‘Goodbye,’ she replied.
To Lepage she suddenly seemed irresistibly authoritative and even, to pick up the Minister’s word, dangerous. Jervis evidently came to feel this, too. Despite his last statement, he stood back now, making no real attempt to detain her. She did not seem to be the sort who’d have a name like Anselm.
Lepage said: ‘I’m sorry you’ve been troubled. It was one of those errors that begins as something slight – a sudden impression, no more than a whim – and then expands out of control.’
She gave a small, tolerant nod, her brow utterly unlined. ‘Like Hitler and the Jews,’ she said. ‘But it’s meant my visit here has not been a total success.’
‘Regrettable,’ Lepage said. ‘Perhaps you will return. I promise there will be no interference next time.’
‘No, I don’t think I shall come to the Hulliborn again. This, too, was – what did you call it? – a whim. I wanted to see Youde.’
‘Quentin? Some query about that Venetian work? I’m sure a meeting could be very easily arranged, Veronica – if I may. We do owe you something.’
She held up a hand, rather wearily. Lepage thought he felt some approaching change in her thinking, in her tactics. Jervis went to answer a visitor’s query at the other end of the Reception counter. ‘There are certain rumours,’ the woman told Lepage.
‘About?’
‘Paintings were stolen from the Hulliborn, weren’t they?’
‘That’s a fact, not rumour,’ he said.
‘A Monet and three “El Grecos”, as I understand it.’
‘Quentin would refer to them as El Grecos, not “El Grecos”.’
‘Yes, well … It’s unimportant.’
‘He believes otherwise.’ Lepage knew now that his guess at a shift in her had been correct. He couldn’t specify to himself yet what that alteration was, but undoubtedly something had happened. This was not the same woman who had noisily accused him of pestering her in the Raybould and after.
‘France,’ she said.
‘France what?’
‘That’s where they start, apparently.’
‘What do? Where?’
‘The rumours. Antibes. You’ve heard about all that, I expect. “Gotcha” emblazoned on the wall.’
Yes, yes, he’d heard about all that from Quentin. Lepage began to sense now why she wanted to see Youde. And he began to sense, also, that first suspicions had been right and this was not Mrs or Miss Veronica Anselm, milliner, but, maybe, Mrs Cray.
‘Simply, there were these reports, channelled via him, I gather, that Butler-Minton might still be alive.’
Lepage did his startled bit. ‘What! Flounce alive?’
‘Ridiculous, of course,’ she said at once. ‘But I and my people on the other side of where the Wall used to be were naturally given rather a fright by these stories. We are trying to settle down to a happy, ordinary, tranquil sort of life since reunification of East and West. We don’t want any trouble from a closed era. People will believe almost anything of that brilliant bastard, Flounce, including a falsified death. We think of that Graham Greene tale, The Third Man. The switched corpse.’
Yes, Lepage had recalled the tale, too, when listening to Youde – and had suggested the comparison was preposterous.
She said: ‘These things – the haversack straps, the tennis ball, the dog, even the white windsock, are far in the past, from another time. Unnerving to see a whippet in the Italian picture, yes, but that was entirely fortuitous.’
‘The meaning of these items – never anywhere near clear,’ Lepage said.
‘Oh, best leave them lie. And, you know, Director, I’ll do what I can to persuade others this is so – Flounce significant only as a monument? I will try, really try, to accept that, and to get others to accept it. It’s good to hear about the bust. Perhaps my visit to the Hulliborn was not entirely in vain.’
Jervis rejoined them. ‘We have no address for you, Ms, in case of subsequent repercussions arising from this incident,’ he said. ‘The hat shop would do, as a matter of fact. We could be in touch “care of”.’
‘Yes, we ought to have some means of contact,’ Lepage added. ‘Vital. Quite vital.’
‘Well, I’ll be away now,’ she replied and went swiftly through the revolving door, her shoes fiery in the sunshine.
Vaux, Clode, Itagaki and Kanda returned to Reception. ‘Good,’ Vaux said. ‘We have a kind of working shortlist.’
‘The Minister likes to consider all aspects of a proposal or commitment before making a decision,’ Clode said.
‘Time spent on reconnaissance is never wasted,’ Kanda remarked.
‘Oh, God, a maxim,’ Itagaki said.
Lepage wondered how long it would take to get free from them and find Kate about the place.
Twenty-Two
Dear Lepage,
I thought I should drop you a formal note to say how much I enjoyed my recent visit to the Hulliborn. I speak also for Lionel Clode, despite the rather unexpected set-to involving Lady Butler-Minton (a bonny fighter, as she would have needed to be cooped up with that maniac, Flounce). Lionel was as right as he ever is only a day after, even smiling at the memory of that tussle (his unrecriminating word). I am sure that my meeting with the charming Japanese pair can have done only good, as
to the bust and the medical exhibition. I am sure, too, that you and your Conclave will not wish to stand in the way of continued good relations with Tokyo.
Have you, by the way, had any dealings with an American citizen named Frank Weygand Ash? I’m handling some rather garbled correspondence concerning him, which makes unhelpful reference to the Hulliborn, though I’m not altogether clear in what regard.
Thanks again for an excellent day,
Sam Vaux
Dear Minister,
I had to think hard to place Frank Weygand Ash, but I consulted the files and see he is the husband of Sally Jill Ash, who runs a society in Kalamazoo, Mich., devoted to the work of Sir Eric Butler-Minton, and whose offer to sponsor a bust of him we declined. According to my records, Ash himself is not interested in archaeology or Butler-Minton but is concerned with hair-loss treatment.
We are all very pleased that you enjoyed your day with us at the Hulliborn, and that Lionel bears no ill will for the wound.
Yours,
G. Lepage
‘The Minister on the line, Director.’
‘Look here, Lepage, this bugger, Ash.’
‘I know nothing beyond what I told you in my letter, Minister.’
‘I’ve had Trade and Industry badgering me about him and his business. He’s apparently got some pull in the States.’
‘He’s a hair expert.’
‘Yes, I know that.’
‘Perhaps he fixed up Reagan.’
‘Their Embassy are involved.’
‘Involved, Minister?’
‘This bust of Flounce.’
‘Which one? The Japanese proposal?’
‘No, for God’s sake. America’s.’
‘Kalamazoo’s?’
‘Kalamazoo’s. We’re going to have to rethink this one.’
‘But—’
Vaux said: ‘Kalamazoo is important.’
‘There’s a famous song about the place,’ Lepage said.
‘Fuck songs.’
‘They’re certainly enthusiastic in Kalamazoo.’
‘This Ash was planning to establish a manufacturing plant here in time for the European trade free-for-all in 1992. The company to be called Hair Apparent. He’d base the firm in GB, but also trade with countries like France, Belgium, Italy and so on. I don’t know whether this is news to you, but one Western European country – I forget which – has point nought nought three per cent more baldness than the world average for men, and point nought nought five for women. If it’s Belgian-, Flemish- or French-speaking makes no odds. And Holland’s a big market, too: amazingly, baldness could be related to canals – some special atmospheric thing associated with slow-moving or still water affects the scalp. Queen Juliana always looked OK, but she might have had a wig, I suppose. Frank Ash’s factory here would be hi-tech and labour intensive. That means jobs and no noise, smoke or dirt nuisance. It’s the sort of place Trade and Industry regard as the grail – gongs in it for all associated with securing him. But now Ash is saying he doesn’t think he’ll come after all.’
