Mirror Mirror: A shatteringly powerful page-turner

by Nick Louth

  * * *

  Virgil sat at the desk with Kelly and looked at the letter. This time it hadn’t been franked by West London Mental Health Trust, nor did it contain the official warning, comment form or pre-paid return envelope. It hadn’t been diverted to the warehouse because it wasn’t addressed to Mira, only to Stardust Brands. Yet inside the first envelope was a second, A4 size in thick card, addressed to Mira and marked personal.

  ‘If it hadn’t been for the posh handwriting I might just have sent it on to Mira unopened,’ Kelly said.

  The card within was extraordinary. It was a fine ink portrait of Mira in repose, almost photographic in its detail, which showed her sitting on a chair drinking from a cup, and reading The Times at a table. The way she gripped the cup in both hands showed she was a little cold, while the detail on the newspaper was astonishing. Kelly was adamant it hadn’t been copied from any published photograph of Mira. ‘It’s not the usual fashion or glamour pic,’ she said. ‘It could be from a sneaky photo someone took when she was in a hotel or something. It’s hard to believe anyone could do this from their imagination.’

  ‘Well, at least it’s quite demure,’ Virgil said. ‘Some of the other Mira fantasy stuff I’ve seen in the warehouse is anything but.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Kelly muttered.

  The message inside, again in Latin, translated as:

  Dear Lydia, I’d like to grant your deepest wish. Only thirty-four days to go!

  Kelly read it out, and then turned to Virgil. ‘I think it bears out my original opinion. It’s really not dangerous or offensive, is it?’

  ‘On the face of it you’re right,’ Virgil said, scrutinising the outer envelope. ‘But he’s found some way of circumventing Broadmoor’s restrictions on writing to her. The postmark is Peterborough.’

  ‘You don’t think this guy has been released, do you?’ Kelly asked.

  ‘I doubt it. I could report it to the Trust as a breach of rules. But on the other hand, I think I’d like to keep monitoring this correspondence, to collect more evidence of this guy’s intentions, and what it is that is just over a month away.’

  ‘Do you think we should show it to Mira?’ Kelly asked. ‘She was happy to take the wedding dress, so maybe she’d like this too.’

  ‘Not yet.’ Actually, there was nothing Virgil wanted more than to watch Mira open this. Just to read the expression on her face. He was convinced that she knew way more than she was letting on. But why was she keeping it a secret?

  * * *

  TWENTY-NINE DAYS

  Suzannah Earl stood before the full-length mirror and admired her naked form. Full breasts with barely a sag, a curved womanly belly and hips with neither a broken vein nor a hint of cellulite. Not bad for a peer of the realm, or indeed for a mother. She stroked her full dark bush, searching for strays, Ladyshave in hand, and already sensed the moistened beginnings of excitement beneath. No time to do anything about it now. Rummaging through drawers she laid out an array of lacy underwear, underwired bras, a couple of suspender belts and a rather memorable basque, an anniversary gift from poor old Neville a decade ago, but worn mostly during her on-off affair with his business partner Justin. No, the basque wouldn’t do today. No reminders of failed marriages or past affairs. She was, after all, supposed to be accompanying one of Britain’s most dangerous psychopaths to see his artwork displayed, and there would be at least a couple of security people escorting him as well as the gallery people. She settled for the push-up bra and french knickers, which would at least facilitate the speed they might have to employ. The stockings were the very best, run-resistant, but she would take a spare pair in case. The blouse, white silk, was simple and pulled over the head. The buttons were false, no bodice ripping required, thank God. She had to look decent afterwards. There was a Lords reading of the Punishment of Offenders Bill later this afternoon, and she’d have no time to come home and change. The shoes were the toughest call. She tried on the highest heels, which made her calves bulge and her thighs appear to lengthen. She had to admit she looked utterly sexy. But that would be no good for traipsing round the gallery, or the Lords with its endless staircases. She may look younger than forty-seven but her feet would remind her of the painful truth. Kitten heels, half the height and twice the comfort, were the answer. The one thing she could agree with the Home Secretary about.

  This whole thing had been quite extraordinary. She’d sat for William three times in the last month. He’d refused to show her the sketches, but had apparently worked day and night on the paintings, even getting permission to work in his room when lights elsewhere were out. She’d worried that it might be just too explicit, and had reminded him that if it was it would never see the light of day. Broadmoor’s director would see to that. Mordant just stared at her and smiled in that arrogant and self-possessed way. Nothing happened for a while, but then she’d been surprised a fortnight ago to get the call on her mobile from Broadmoor hospital. A member of staff had said that William Mordant would like to telephone her, and she would have to be visited first by a social worker before being approved, and even then a member of staff would listen in from time to time.

  When Mordant was eventually allowed to speak to her he proved a master of art world small talk for the first half an hour. It was only then, when he said staff were unlikely still to be listening, that he said he wanted to do more than just see her. He wanted to get her to suggest an escorted trip to the National Gallery, as a reward for his cooperative behaviour. He rang several times to establish a pattern of contact normality between them, and she agreed to give him her mobile number. Soon after she received a detailed text from him, presumably from an unapproved mobile, detailing exactly what he had in mind. It required only a brief reconnaissance on her part. She was shocked and excited by this outrageous idea, but couldn’t let anyone know, not even her closest friends.

  Now, finally, the appointed day had come. In an hour and fifteen minutes she would be there, with him. She could hardly wait.

  * * *

  The National Gallery had taken Mordant’s visit seriously. There at five pm waiting in reception for the baroness was the head of press, Caroline Blakely, and Professor Roberto Zumbado, an expert in renaissance painting. Zumbado said he had seen some photos of Wōdan’s work, and had flown from Florence to see the work in the flesh and meet its creator. Behind Suzannah, a familiar voice called out. It was Bishop Harry Fielding. He was fresh off the plane from South Africa where he said he had been promoting what he termed the “Christian imperative of the ordination of women” to a largely unreceptive audience. The baroness was perturbed. She had finessed the date so he would miss it, because the bishop seemed to almost revel in Mordant’s company, and could complicate their carefully-planned tryst.

  They waited another ten minutes for the Broadmoor entourage to arrive. With William Mordant were a burly but bored-looking male nurse called Nigel Braithwaite, nursing assistant Dawn Evans and the director himself, Richard Lamb, all dressed in smart-casual civvies at Suzannah’s request. That was no problem, but she been forced to use her full peer of the realm authority to persuade Lamb not to have William in handcuffs. Instead, he was electronically tagged, a small GPS device in a steel and plastic circlet on his left ankle. Common for trusted prisoners, this was a first for a Broadmoor patient.

  Blakely made the introduction, identifying the artist only as ‘a psychiatric patient who uses the name Wōdan to protect his privacy.’ They then moved down to the sub-basement of the gallery’s Sainsbury Wing, where as Blakely explained, Wōdan’s entire body of unsold work had been assembled for the first time, in a one-day private view. Lamb would have to approve it before it could be opened to the public.

  The doors were thrown open, spotlights turned on. The crucifixion triptych was the centrepiece, flanked by several other Christian-themed redemptive works, include the hand and key drawing Proffered Freedom. The baroness turned, eager to see her portrait. She had so far only glimpsed an A3-sized sketch, and
hungered to see the finished full-sized work before it was published in tomorrow’s papers. It was there, behind her, adjacent to the doors and a full two metres high. The almost photographic precision of it at this distance stunned her. There she was, totally nude, but largely protected by the plastic back of the chair she was sitting on. Her face showed smiling relaxation, and a candid self-confidence in her body. Her hair, slightly dishevelled, fell to one side where she was leaning, one arm and a relaxed hand dangling over the chair back. Apart from the bulge of her right breast and a curve of buttock, nothing was really visible. Even the cut-out in the lower chair back, which might have revealed all, was largely lost in shadow. Yet this was the very centre of the painting, and the vanishing point of what little linear perspective it had. Indeed, close up she saw that William had worked as hard on the props as he had on her. There was an almost hypnotic quality to what was in reality a very ordinary blue plastic chair, caused by a pointillist juxtaposition of tiny dots of purple, ultramarine, orange, chrome yellow and titanium white. Even the chair manufacturer’s stamp could be read. The overall effect was staggering. Only then did she see the title: A peer at the realm. A bit too witty, she thought.

  ‘Well, your confidence was justified,’ the bishop said, standing at her shoulder. ‘Quite extraordinary, and decorous. At least this one. However this…’ Guided by his arm, she turned around to see a smaller painting, entitled A long stretch. Though her face could not be seen, it was her, graphically exposed, when she had made the yoga pose for him. It was perfect, every skin tone, the shape of her thighs, her knees, her vulva. She blushed at the full implications of what she had allowed Mordant to do.

  ‘Very Lucian Freud, don’t you think? I’d like to buy it, though I’m sure given how hot an artist he has become I wouldn’t be able to afford it,’ he said.

  Suzannah looked around and saw Lamb and the art professor deep in conversation. William caught her eye, with a slight raising of one eyebrow. She looked at her watch. Yes, it was almost time. She brought out her phone and looked at the screen. ‘Excuse me, Harry, I’ve got an urgent call to take.’ She walked out into the corridor, and held the phone to her ear until she was out of view. At this moment William was going to ask for a toilet break, and would go past her to the nearest gents and into a cubicle. He appeared right on cue. As expected, nurse Nigel went with him. The rule as William had explained it was that a male nurse was supposed to wait in the bathroom, but Nigel would see there was no window or escape. Sure enough, the nurse came out, looked at his watch and spotted the fire escape door. His hand slid guiltily into his jacket pocket, and he pulled out a packet of Lambert & Butler. He caught her watching him, and looked even guiltier.

  ‘Go on,’ Suzannah said, lowering the phone from its imaginary call. ‘They’ll be ages in there looking at the paintings. Take a fag break. I’ll give you a shout when he comes out.’

  He thanked her, and stepped outside into the cold. She then wandered past his line of sight, knocked the agreed signal on the door to the gents, and disappeared into the disabled bathroom next door to await him. Now her heart was hammering. It was really going to happen.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Baroness Earl of West Bromwich steadied herself inside the disabled toilet at the National Gallery. William had left one minute earlier. Her bottom was still cold from the cistern and her calves still bore the red imprints of his outstretched hands. She could still feel the furnace heat of him inside her. She had no idea where her underwear had gone. It had been the most delicious five-minute madness, but every nerve ending in her body sang with the pleasure and illicit spiciness of it. Living may not require risks, but feeling alive does. For a peer, being taken in the National Gallery by a convicted murderer is as risky as it gets. Here was a man who never asked, but took. It wasn’t that William cared so much for her that made him so desirable. It was because he cared so little. She realised that it was precisely because he was a psychopath, whose desire was not lubricated by love or caring, by sweet words or endearments, that she wanted him so much.

  A glance in the mirror showed her the full aftermath. Not only was she still flushed, but still spattered. She carefully wiped her mouth, chin and neck, the top of her chest and eyebrows with wet wipes from the family pack she had brought. To cover their tracks properly she had even had to wipe the floor. God knows how long he’d been saving that lot up for. No erotic outlet in Broadmoor, of course. More than anything, though, she was shocked at the craving he had brought out in her. That it was she, not he, who had asked him to do it. Indeed, she had demanded it, just as she had demanded, in the crudest of unparliamentary language, that other penetration which she had never before permitted anyone.

  Waiting for her flush to soften, she reapplied her make-up, knowing that by now the male nurse would have finished his smoking break. Finally done and re-dressed, she unlocked the door, to see a twisted young man waiting patiently in a wheelchair.

  ‘You’re not disabled,’ he accused.

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m terribly sorry. The ladies is blocked.’ As she walked back towards the group she felt that of all the day’s many deceits, this was the lowest.

  * * *

  It was less than ten minutes since she’d left the group, but it felt like an hour. The male nurse was back, now standing next to Mordant in the gallery as Baroness Earl approached. The professor was giving an animated appreciation of Mordant’s work in front of the triptych. As she stole up to the back of the group, the young nurse Dawn Evans looked around and stared at her, up and down. There was such coldness and hardness in that appraisal that Suzannah was worried. Had she listened at the bathroom door? Had she put two and two together from her absence overlapping William’s? Suzannah gave a small smile and looked away. Around the walls were paintings and drawings of William’s that she hadn’t noticed before. A portrait of Richard Lamb at his desk, a colour sketch of a group of Broadmoor’s male nurses sitting casually, drinking coffee. There was a whole wall of drawings in pencil, chalk on black paper, in ink and wash, that were all of the same person: the model and celebrity Mira Roskova, a long-time friend of her daughter Natasha. Suzannah was certain that Mira had never sat for William, at least not without her hearing about it, but the truth and beauty of the portraits made it hard to believe otherwise.

  William hadn’t looked at her since she emerged, not even a casual glance over the shoulder to see where she was. She now noticed how close by his side the young nurse was standing. As she watched from behind, Dawn’s hand briefly caressed William’s fingers. So casual and unconscious was this affectionate gesture that the baroness was surprised by the flame of fury it aroused in her. So much for there being no outlet for him within Broadmoor. A minute later, after peremptory goodbyes, she found herself outside above Trafalgar Square. Briskly descending the steps, she now needed to hide herself in the seclusion of one of London’s black cabs. Feeling decidedly soiled and shocked at her own stupidity, she would instead use the brief journey along Whitehall in the dusk to read up her briefing notes for tonight’s debate, on a bill which she was determined to oppose. Woe betide any man, Lord or commoner, who crossed swords with her tonight.

  * * *

  TWENTY-EIGHT DAYS

  When the Bishop of Uxbridge rang Richard Lamb next day he found the Broadmoor director nonplussed ‘So what did you think of the coverage,’ Harry Fielding asked.

  ‘Well, there’s no shortage of it,’ Lamb conceded. ‘There is a nude baroness in The Times, Guardian, Telegraph, Daily Mail and even the Scotsman.’

  ‘I have The Sun, where she is on page three, the Mirror which has done a pull-out centrefold and the Daily Star where she is actually on the front page with a ‘censored’ banner across her hips,’ Fielding said.

  ‘But there isn’t quite the matching depth of coverage on rehabilitation, is there, Harry? While the Mail has written about the astonishing quality of art that mental patients are capable of, mostly they are furious that they aren’t allowed to know wh
o the artist actually is, and what crimes he has committed. I’ve had no end of calls, even to my house, from reporters trying to find out who he is.’

  ‘The Künzler Trust has been inundated too,’ the bishop said. ‘I think the baroness is a little bemused that even in the broadsheets, there are more column inches speculating about her courageously enhanced political appeal and ministerial ambitions than what this may mean to the reform agenda.’

  ‘Yes, it clearly has done her no harm,’ Lamb said, gingerly opening the Daily Mirror and scrutinising the centrefold through his reading glasses. ‘Mordant has burnished her into a beauty. He’d have done well as an eighteenth century society portraitist.’

  ‘So what happens next for Mordant?’ the bishop asked.

  ‘Well, funny you should ask. Right on my desk here is his application for a tribunal to reassess his being held under the 1983 Act.’

  ‘Quite a cunning fellow, isn’t he?’

  ‘Oh yes, Harry. No doubt whatever about that.’

  ‘What are his chances of being released?’

  ‘Oh, none immediately. He’d have to go a low-security facility to be monitored for a number of months, and the Home Office has a veto. But there would be privileges and freedoms he doesn’t have here. From what I can see he has a good chance of being able to secure that.’

  ‘Do you think he’s still a danger to society?’