THIRTY-SIX

There were six black-and-white photographs of a man I assumed was Desmond Quilligan, fair-haired, square-jawed and stocky, aged about forty, dressed in a paint-spattered boiler suit, looking more like a house painter than an artist, cigarette wedged jauntily in the corner of his mouth. He was sitting on a chair next to two easels, on one of which stood a Picasso I recognized from the exhibition at the Royal Academy – a Cubist portrait of a horse and rider – and on the other a half-finished copy of it. Quilligan had arranged the chair and easels on the patio outside the French windows of the drawing-room at Cherrygarth. And to clinch the when as well as the where, he was holding a folded newspaper at arm’s length in front of him, with the title and date clearly visible. It was the Daily Mail of Wednesday, 23 October 1940.

‘Is that what the Meridors need to win their case?’ asked Verhoest.

I’d have needed to be a lawyer to answer his question with any confidence, but photographs of Desmond Quilligan apparently in the act of copying one of the Brownlow Picassos at Geoffrey Cardale’s house in the autumn of 1940 would surely drive a coach and horses through the estate’s defence. ‘I think so, yes,’ I murmured. Then I noticed something else. In two of the photographs, a figure could be seen inside the drawing-room looking out through the French windows: a boy of three or four, dressed in dungarees and a check shirt. Simon Cardale had obviously forgotten glimpsing this meticulous recording of a forgery, though no doubt if he saw the pictures, which I was obliged to ensure he never did, he’d have his memory jogged of that strange afternoon in his childhood when two men he was later to be told were his father and uncle had busied themselves with one of those many adult activities he was too young to comprehend. ‘I think this would clinch it.’

‘Except that you’d need the negatives to prove the photographs weren’t faked.’

Verhoest was right, of course. The negatives were crucial. And they weren’t in the wallet. I turned round and looked at him. ‘Where are they?’

‘In a safe place. I went to my bank this morning and deposited a small package. You can’t be too careful, can you?’

‘No. Very wise. So, could we … retrieve it?’

‘Ja. Of course. I could. But we need to agree something first.’

‘What?’

Verhoest sighed. ‘How much they’re worth.’

‘I thought, since you owe Eldritch your life …’

‘Ah, I do, young Swan. Ja. That is why I’m not selling the negatives to the Brownlow estate. But I need money, just like Eldritch. The need … sharpens … as you grow older. He will understand.’

‘How much do you want?’

‘A million francs.’ He smiled. ‘That’s actually only about fifteen thousand pounds.’

‘All right.’ I’d get the money from somewhere. I had to.

‘No argument?’

‘Like you say. We have to have the negatives.’

‘Ja. OK.’ Verhoest grasped his stick and struggled to his feet. ‘We agree?’ He offered his hand.

‘We agree.’ I walked over and we sealed the agreement with a handshake.

He let me take the photographs with me. He could obtain extra prints any time he liked. That was why the negatives were really all that mattered. If I could deliver them to Tate, Rachel and I would be in the clear. Otherwise …

I boarded a tram heading for Groenplaats and tried to decide what exactly was the best move to make. I needed a million francs to pay Verhoest and secure storage for the negatives before I contacted Tate. Without my passport, I wasn’t going to be able to persuade a bank to do anything for me. Clearly, I had to rely on Oudermans, even though he’d left me in no doubt of his disapproval of striking terms with the people responsible for Ardal Quilligan’s death. He wouldn’t stand in my way, though. I was confident of that.

The tram left Hoboken and trundled north. I took the photographs out of the wallet and leafed through them again. It was strange to see, in black and white, the physical reality of what I’d only till now been told about Desmond Quilligan, twenty years dead, but alive and happy and vigorous in these pictures I felt certain his brother had taken, posing proudly with the fruits of his very particular artistic gift one autumn afternoon – somehow I’d convinced myself it was the afternoon – thirty-six years in the past.

I knew I’d regret handing the negatives over to Tate for him to destroy them, but I had no alternative. Rachel was going to be charged with murdering Ardal unless I met Tate’s demands. I might well be charged as her accomplice into the bargain. She wouldn’t want me to surrender the proof she’d spent so long searching for. But what else could I do? The choice was between defeat and imprisonment, which, as Eldritch might have told me, was an easy choice to make.

But it didn’t feel easy. Not anything like. The tram lumbered on through the grey streets of Antwerp, filling up steadily as it went. It crossed the autoroute van Briel had driven me in on two nights before and steadily closed on the centre. Oudermans’ office was a short walk from Groenplaats. The debate with myself would soon be over.

Then I heard a voice in my ear. ‘I’m getting off at the next stop, boy. What about you?’

I whirled round and there, leaning forward in the seat behind me, was Eldritch, the collar of my father’s old raincoat drawn up almost high enough to touch the pulled-down brim of his fedora.

He gave me half a smile. ‘Those pictures came out well, didn’t they?’

I was too shocked even to speak until we’d got off the tram. Eldritch calmly lit a cigarette as the other disembarking passengers wandered away from the stop. We were in a quiet street, a busier one crossing it ahead of us. He looked around curiously, reacquainting himself with the city he’d once known.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ I demanded at last.

‘Eighty-six, Avenue Cogels-Osy. Or Cogels-Osylei, as they call it now. Antwerp’s changed a lot since I was last here. They’ve built a motorway where there used to be a moat round the old city and—’

‘Never mind all that. What do you mean – eighty-six Cogels-Osylei? That’s next door to Zonnestralen.’

‘Actually, it’s the other half of Zonnestralen. The half I used to live in. And still have the key to. The Wyckxes are away. They go away a lot, apparently.’

‘You’ve been hiding there?’

‘There was nowhere else I could think of to go.’

‘For God’s sake, Eldritch, I’ve been going crazy.’

‘I wouldn’t have helped you by getting myself arrested. They might have sent me back to Ireland. I’ve just spent thirty-six years in prison, Stephen. What did you expect me to do but run?’

‘All right, all right.’ I glared at him in anger and astonishment. I couldn’t argue with the truth of what he’d said. However much Rachel and I stood to lose, he stood to lose more. ‘How did you find me?’

‘Marie-Louise told me where you and van Briel had gone.’

‘She knows you’re using number eighty-six?’

‘I followed her when she went shopping yesterday. It was quite a surprise for her when I tapped her on the shoulder.’ He smiled. ‘She dropped a whole bag of potatoes. We spent the first few minutes of our reunion picking them up. For a while she couldn’t decide whether to kiss me or box me round the ears. Now I come to think about it, it’s not the first time she’s had that dilemma.’

‘Still, you managed to persuade her to keep your secret.’

‘I assured her it wouldn’t be for long. And I can be very persuasive.’

‘Did Joey rumble you? Is that why he cleared out?’

‘No. The reasons were all his own.’

‘And do you know who I’ve just been with?’

‘Oh yes. I saw Verhoest arrive shortly after you broke in. I was surprised, yet somehow not surprised. You could say the same about the photographs. I followed you on to the tram and managed to bag the seat behind you. You weren’t paying much attention to the people around you – any attention, really. That was careless. It meant someone other than me could have seen what you had.’

‘Verhoest is hanging on to the negatives.’

Eldritch nodded. ‘Naturally. How much does he want?’

‘Fifteen thousand pounds.’

‘Well, we can spare him that with fifty thousand coming our way.’ His gaze narrowed. He’d caught something in my expression. ‘Unless you’re going to tell me it’s not coming our way.’

I shrugged. ‘I’ve had to do a deal.’

‘Really? And what kind of a deal is that – exactly?’

We headed for the riverside as I related all that had happened since Sunday night. Eldritch asked only strictly practical questions, offering neither approval nor disapproval of the moves I’d made and the decisions I’d taken. He knew delivering the negatives to Tate amounted to surrender, albeit conditional. But he also knew, as a moment’s reflection on his own life confirmed, that surrender was sometimes necessary.

The wharves of the Scheldt were lined with old open-sided storage sheds, with a railinged terrace above that led north round the river’s gentle eastward curve. We walked slowly towards the city centre, the ancient buildings around the cathedral massed ahead, modern office and apartment blocks clumped on the opposite shore.

‘I have no choice, Eldritch,’ I said, beginning, at this stage, to repeat myself. ‘Thanks to Ardal’s foresight, we have this one chance to retrieve the situation. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before Rachel’s charged with murder. Me too, quite possibly. I have to give Tate what he wants.’

‘And in the process let Linley get away with it. As usual.’

‘You said yourself he has powerful friends. And you were right. Too powerful for us.’

‘Us meaning you and Rachel?’

‘She’ll lose more by this than you will. She’s been trying for years to prove Cardale cheated her family. Now I have that proof. But I have to give it up to save her.’

‘Let’s stop for a moment.’ He was breathing heavily from the walk, though that didn’t stop him lighting another cigarette as we sat down on one of the benches facing the river. A spasm of coughing shook him violently. I waited while it slowly subsided.

‘You should give up smoking,’ I said gently.

‘Like I should give up resisting this cosy deal you’ve struck with Tate?’

‘There’s nothing cosy about it. And you know there’s no alternative.’

‘Do I?’

‘I’m sorry. OK?’

‘So you should be.’

‘And so you should be too. This is as much your fault as mine. More, in fact. A lot more.’

He said nothing for the next minute or so, merely puffing at his cigarette and gazing out across the river. Then he said, ‘It’s just as well, I suppose, that old age and long-term imprisonment resign you to disappointment. This isn’t the biggest one to have come my way. It’s a lot of money to miss out on, of course.’ He sighed. ‘But I won’t deny I’d have done the same as you. In the circumstances.’

‘I know. But thanks for saying it. And I am sorry.’

‘Of course. We both are. But I think I have cause to be sorrier. It was just along from here that I boarded the Uitlander thirty-six years ago. I was supposed to be quitting Europe, probably for good. In my own mind, the United States was where I was destined to be. The New World. The future.’ He tossed the butt of his cigarette to the ground and crushed it. ‘So much for that.’

‘Why did you pay to have Verhoest’s life spared?’

‘Because I didn’t think he deserved to die. And I didn’t want his blood on my hands.’

‘I’m having trouble adjusting to this idea of you as a man of principle.’

‘No need. Principles have nothing to do with it. It comes down to personality. The kind of man you are. Meridor would have dismissed me on the spot if he’d found out about Verhoest, which I calculated he would eventually, of course. My plan was to have moved on by then to bigger and better things. Meridor had taste and cunning and judgement and a certain sort of wisdom. But he had no scruples. He’d have said I was a weak-willed fool and in many ways I think he’d have been right. I suppose he was rather like Linley. The strength of such men is their certainty. They never falter. They never hesitate. Those who do … become their victims.’

‘What happened between you and Linley in Dublin?’

‘Ah. The great secret you’re helping Tate bury. Is that it, Stephen? You want to know what it’s really all about?’

‘I think I should know now, don’t you?’

Eldritch lit another cigarette and took a long, deliberative draw on it, then slowly nodded. ‘Yes. You probably should.’