NINE

Eldritch’s idea of telling me everything I needed to know hadn’t amounted to a lot by the time we reached London the following Monday. His spell as Isaac Meridor’s secretary had ended with Meridor’s flight from Antwerp in the face of the Nazi menace in May 1940. Eldritch had been diverted to London with the most precious part of Meridor’s art collection, his Picassos, to be lodged with the dealer Geoffrey Cardale for safekeeping. As a precaution against the U-boat threat to transatlantic shipping this had proved all too prescient. The liner carrying Meridor had gone down, with the loss of everyone aboard. That had left Eldritch thanking his lucky stars and working as Cardale’s assistant while he decided what to do next.

I had little doubt there was much more he could have told me about the circumstances surrounding these events, but he was a hard man to extract information from. He gave only what he wanted to give. Already, on the train ride up from Paignton, I’d begun to question the wisdom of accepting his offer. My mother, originally inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, had reacted with dismay to my announcement that I was accompanying him to London. ‘If he insists on stirring up the past, you should let him get on with it, Stephen. I don’t want you getting into any trouble on his account. There’s your career to consider. And London’s a dangerous place these days. Only last week the IRA tried to bomb another Tube train. They killed the poor driver, you know.’

I did know. The IRA had been targeting London more and more of late. But nursemaiding Eldritch in return for a cut of the reward he stood to gain if he could prove the Brownlow Picassos had been stolen from the Meridor estate had sounded to me worth the remote risk of being blown up: at worst a waste of time, at best an exciting and lucrative proposition. More attractively still, it delayed my return to that career of mine Mum was so worried about but from which I badly needed an extended break. What can I say? I was young then, too young to let wisdom in on the act. Eldritch was leading me on. I knew that. But sooner or later he’d have to tell me the truth.

The first surprise he had for me was undeniably pleasant: the destination he named when we climbed into a taxi at Paddington station. He announced it with the relish of someone who’d waited a long time to be able to roll the sound around his tongue. ‘The Ritz.’

‘Are you out of your mind?’ I demanded of him as the cab started away. ‘Twisk’s never going to pay us to stay somewhere as swanky as that.’

‘Oh, but he is. In fact, I’m assuming he already has. I made it a condition of agreeing to do what his client was asking. Insist on the best when someone else is paying. It’s always been a motto of mine.’ He smiled. ‘Besides, it’s handy for the Royal Academy.’

Eldritch entered the Ritz with the air of one returning to his natural domain after a lengthy absence. As promised, Twisk had booked us in for the week, with the rooms paid for in advance. I must have had a look of incredulity plastered on my face going up in the lift, because Eldritch said to me as we stepped out, ‘I didn’t mention this before because I didn’t want it to sway your decision.’

The quip was a sign of the change that had crept over him since that evening at the Redcliffe. He’d recovered some confidence. He’d realized it wasn’t all over for him quite yet. The old fox was sniffing the breeze and wondering if his legs and lungs would support him for one last run in the open air with the sun on his back.

But the change only went so far. It was left to me to tip the porter.

I didn’t dally over unpacking, but still Eldritch was back downstairs ahead of me, sitting by the entrance to the Palm Court, happily watching the smartly dressed couples and quartets arriving for tea.

‘I used to dream about this hotel quite often while I was in the Portlaoise Hilton,’ he said, rising to meet me. ‘The tiny crustless sandwiches; the strawberries; the mirrors; the chandeliers; the champagne: the opulence.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve missed a lot of opulence these past thirty-six years.’

‘Maybe you should have kept your hands off Meridor’s Picassos, then,’ I said, keen to prevent his balloon of nostalgia inflating still further.

He smiled. ‘That wasn’t my mistake, Stephen. But it is why we’re here. So, let’s go and see those famous Picassos, shall we?’

The Brownlow Collection was doing healthy business at the Royal Academy. There were in fact too many visitors for proper viewing of the paintings. This didn’t bother Eldritch unduly. He had no wish to peer and pose and cock his head in front of the late multi-millionaire’s sumptuous array of art in general. He was interested in one room only, to which we threaded our way through the goggling ruck.

There were eighteen Picassos in all: nudes twisted out of shape; portraits with dismantled features; still lifes in which nothing was still; collage-like assemblies of disparate objects; colourful explosions of form and figure. They spanned a period of about twenty-five years, from 1907 through to the early thirties. I recognized some of them from reproductions I’d seen. There could be no doubt they were a prime selection.

Eldritch went slowly round, scrutinizing each one in turn, often having to wait while someone else moved out of his way. I stood by the door after a brief circuit, wondering what exactly he was looking for. The attendant, a silver-haired, flush-faced fellow who looked to have put on a couple of stone since being measured for his uniform, was slumped in a chair next to me. He stifled a yawn at frequent intervals. Eventually, I took pity on him.

‘Picasso not your thing?’ I murmured.

‘You said it, sir,’ he replied in a gravelly undertone. ‘I mean, what was he getting at? Give me Constable any day.’

‘Time hangs heavy, I imagine, sitting here for hours on end.’

‘Oh, they move us around a bit. And you never know. Someone might try to grab one of the pictures and leg it. Then I’d have to earn my money.’

‘But it hasn’t happened yet?’

‘No, sir. Though we do have a young woman who comes in just about every morning as soon as we open and makes a bee-line for this room. She likes to see the pictures before there’s anyone else in, so she tells me. Pleasant girl. But cracked as my coronation mug. She reckons as she’s the rightful owner of this lot. Or her family are. I forget exactly. Anyhow, I wouldn’t be altogether surprised if she tried to steal one.’

‘Take it back, you mean. If she’s telling the truth.’

‘Exactly, sir. If. Either way, it’d be no hardship to have to rugby-tackle her.’ He chuckled. ‘I should be so lucky.’

It was a snap decision of mine not to tell Eldritch about the persistent young woman. He was holding things back. Most things that mattered, I strongly suspected. Now I’d been donated my own secret, to share as and when I judged appropriate. The girl had to be related to Meridor. That was obvious. Maybe, if I could engineer a meeting with her, in Eldritch’s absence, I’d be able to find out more than he currently wanted me to know. Best of all, it paid him back for keeping me in the dark.

‘They’re Meridor’s all right,’ said Eldritch as we left the Picasso room. ‘No question about it.’

‘Are you going to tell me now how you went about stealing them?’

‘There’s more to learn first. Let’s take a look at the catalogue.’

*

We each perused a copy of the catalogue in the gift shop. The official version of the Picassos’ provenance was what he wanted to check. I watched him squinting at the page on the opposite side of the stack from me, flimsy old glasses perched on his nose. What we both read was that Jay Brownlow had acquired the paintings ‘in the years immediately after the Second World War through dealers in Paris and Geneva’. The dealers weren’t named. It was thin stuff. We went out on to the front steps, where Eldritch delivered his verdict in a conspiratorial whisper.

‘Brownlow bought the pictures from Geoffrey Cardale. I don’t doubt that for a moment. These dealers in Paris and Geneva the catalogue mentions would have been intermediaries, nothing more. It was crucial Cardale’s name shouldn’t appear on any documents.’

‘Because it was Cardale you delivered the pictures to on Meridor’s behalf.’

‘Exactly.’

‘But surely there was plenty to prove they belonged to Meridor. Before and therefore after the war.’

‘Ah, that’s where Cardale was undeniably clever.’

‘In what way?’

‘It’s a complicated story, Stephen.’ He looked at his watch. ‘And it’s going to have to wait a little longer.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’d like to call in at the Cardale Gallery before it closes. It’s time to find out who minds the shop there these days.’

It looked no different from several other galleries in St James’s. A couple of Rodinesque figurines and a murky oil painting of a stag being set upon by hounds occupied the window. The external paintwork was maroon, with G. Cardale Fine Art proclaimed in gold lettering. Eldritch glanced up at the higher floors for a recollective moment, then said, ‘I suppose we should be grateful it’s still here,’ and led the way in.

The interior would have benefited from better lighting – or cleaner pictures. Heavy-framed Napoleonic sea battles and Georgian hunting scenes that might once have sparkled but did so no longer dominated the display. Pop Art had made no inroads here.

As the jangling of the bell died away, a figure emerged from a room to the rear: a thick-set man of about forty, dressed in a tweed jacket, striped shirt, cravat and corduroy trousers that appeared to have been chosen for their match with the maroon frontage. He had the flushed, fleshy, floppy-haired look of a sporty public schoolboy sliding into sedentary middle age.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked, genially enough.

‘Mr Cardale?’ Eldritch countered.

‘Yes. That’s me.’

‘But not, I’d guess, Mr G. Cardale.’

‘No, no. He was my grandfather. Long gone, I’m afraid. I’m Simon Cardale.’

‘Some nice stuff you have here,’ I said in a sudden moment of sympathy for the fellow.

‘Thanks. Looking for anything in particular?’

‘We’ve just come from the Royal Academy,’ said Eldritch, cutting off any answer I might have given. ‘The Brownlow Collection. You’ve seen it?’

‘Yes. I took a look last week. Ravishing. Quite ravishing.’

‘But we can’t all afford … Picasso.’ Eldritch looked intently at him. ‘Can we?’

‘No.’ Cardale seemed unruffled by the question. ‘Indeed not.’

‘Which prompted me to think of a painter I used to admire who’s rather fallen out of fashion.’

‘Oh yes? Who might that be?’

‘Desmond Quilligan.’

It required no wishful thinking to detect a shocked response in Cardale. He winced and let out a gasp he immediately tried to camouflage with a spluttering cough. ‘Quilligan, you say?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I don’t think I know the name.’

‘Really? You surprise me. There was an exhibition of his work here once. That’s why I called round. It seemed the obvious place to start.’

‘When was this exhibition?’

‘Oh, about … forty years ago.’

‘Forty years?’ Cardale looked relieved: the long lapse of time let him off the hook. ‘That’s way before my time, I’m afraid.’

‘But not your grandfather’s.’

‘Obviously not.’

‘And he’s sadly no longer with us.’

‘Correct.’ Cardale frowned at Eldritch. ‘He died twelve years ago.’

‘Did you take over the gallery from him?’

‘More or less. Look, what—’

‘Your father never ran it, then?’

‘No.’ The frown tightened. ‘He never did.’

‘And your grandfather never mentioned the Quilligan exhibition?’

‘No. Why should he? Amongst the scores of others he held in his time. Would something have made it particularly memorable?’

‘I liked his work.’ Eldritch smiled blandly. ‘That’s all.’

‘Then you should have bought one of his paintings.’

‘You’re right. I should have done. But maybe it’s still not too late.’

‘Maybe not. I wish you luck in tracking one down. Meanwhile, I’d rather like to close up, gentlemen.’ He forced out a smile. ‘So, unless there’s anything here I can interest you in …’

It was growing dark when we left the gallery. Eldritch stopped at the corner of the street and gazed back at it through the chill, gathering dusk.

‘What are you looking at?’ I asked.

‘My ghost, I suppose. My former self. The man who briefly lived here thirty-six years ago.’

‘Thirty-six isn’t quite forty,’ I pointed out. Nostalgic reveries were no use to me – or him, I sensed. ‘What was this exhibition you were talking about?’

‘I made that up, to see how young Cardale reacted. There was no exhibition, as far as I know.’

‘So, who is Desmond Quilligan?’

‘Yes. It’s time you were told, isn’t it?’ He pulled his shoulders back, offsetting his habitual stoop for a moment. ‘I’ll explain over a drink – or two – in the Ritz bar.’