Killing the Emperors (9 page)

***

Mrs. Gavin Truss was pretty, but dishevelled, weary, and depressed. Her toddlers were getting her down. In her chaotic house in Acton, with two small boys running wildly from room to room in screaming pursuit of each other, she explained that she hadn’t got alarmed until Friday morning, since Gavin often stayed out without telling her. ‘Why would anyone kidnap him? He’s probably gone off with someone for the weekend.’

Then, in response to Pooley’s sympathetic but probing questioning, she burst into tears and said Truss was ’a serial shagger,’ she was his third wife, he was thirty-four years older than her, she’d been his awestruck student, and she’d been a moron to fall for him.

She’d never heard of Sarkovsky, she’d known Fortune and Pringle vaguely from the days when Truss used to take her out, and she’d had a few dreary incomprehensible lectures from Hortense Wilde. ‘Stuck-up bitch,’ she said. ‘Always trashing everything I liked.’

There were thudding sounds and roars from the next room. She ran out, separated the combatants, calmed them down, and switched on the cartoon channel for them. ‘Would you like coffee?’ she asked when she came back.

‘No thanks. I’m fine.’

He could see her relief.

‘What did you think of your husband’s college, Mrs. Truss?’

‘I was a nineteen-year-old from Hartlepool and easily impressed in the beginning. Gavin spotted me and took me to exciting events and I was ever so flattered. But it was all pretty crappy, really, when I think back. They didn’t teach you anything except how to sneer at old art and drool over the new stuff. I was secretly relieved to drop out at the end of the first year when I fell pregnant with the twins. I thought it would be romantic to be with Gavin and our babies but it hasn’t turned out like that. We bore him, and I’m lonely.’

She waved at the scribbles that defaced the lower section of the walls. ‘My boys are conceptual artists,’ she said. ‘I’ve named these
Dying Very Very Slowly from a Loveless Marriage
.’

***

‘I haven’t fully got to grips with Gavin Truss and Hortense Wilde, Jim, but I’ve see Mrs. Truss and talked to Gervase Wilde over the phone and neither has heard of Sarkovsky. Neither had Truss’ deputy. Truss and Wilde are old pals, though, and Wilde’s been a professor at Truss’ college for years. I read the lists of the missing out to them and it’s clear they knew several of them. I’ve ticked them off: here’s a copy.’

‘Thanks, Ellis,’ said Milton. ‘I didn’t do much better with finding out about the Lamont woman. Her daughter was cagey, and said she knew she was friends with Herblock but had no information at all about her London contacts. But then she added that considering Mom spent half her life gadding about Europe at art fairs and auctions, she probably knew anyone worth knowing. “It’s like the fashion world,” she said. “The same people turn up everywhere deciding what everyone else should think.” I don’t think she’s that fond of her mother.’

He looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to have another press conference now. You’d better get home. You’ve had hardly any sleep for days.’

‘Neither have you.’

‘True. But I can’t get away until I’ve seen the AC and you’ve got a wife who needs to see you.’

‘Mary Lou’s working tonight. I’ve an invitation to eat with Robert and Rachel. Will you call when you’ve seen the AC?’

‘Will do. Tell Robert I’m sure Jack’s all right.’ He picked up his jacket. ‘Why did I say that? I’m not, so don’t.’

***

An hour later, as Milton was pleading with the AC to be allowed to put a surveillance team on to Sarkovsky, the baroness heard his voice: ‘You go out room now.’

‘Oh, good. I’m going home, am I?’

‘You think that you stupid. You meet others.’

The baroness quashed a momentary dread that Sarkovsky might have kidnapped the staff of St. Martha’s or her close friends, and said nothing. She put on the jacket of her suit of heathery tweed over her grubby purple shirt and followed instructions, first, to wait in the bathroom, and second to leave it, put on the blindfold now waiting for her on her bed, then turn and face the inner wall. She tried to work out why—since she knew Sarkovsky was the kidnapper—it mattered to him that she didn’t see where she was going, but there seemed no logical explanation except that he wanted her further disorientated. The door opened, Sarkovsky barked an order, and a rather sweaty hand grasped her arm and the voice of her regular captor said, ‘Come with me.’

She followed obediently, irritated that she had failed in her attempt to rig the blindfold so she could see something. She was in the open air, it was cold, and she was on rough ground. A door was opened, she was pushed through it, and the voice said, ‘Take it off in two minutes and walk down the stairs. There’s no way out here.’

The lights were so bright when she took the blindfold off that she was initially completely disorientated. She blinked steadily until she was able to take in properly the bizarre grandeur that surrounded her. The curved staircase was carpeted in red, the walls were mirrored, and four enormous chandeliers dangled from the gilded ceiling. ‘Crikey,’ said the baroness, as she put her hand on the gilt balustrade and began the descent. At the bottom of the stairs there was a large, red door, which required so much strength to open that she had to hurl herself at it.

The enormous room that was revealed was lined with large glass tanks and steel, glass-fronted cabinets. There was a noxious smell of rotten meat. To her right, beside the door, was a
glass tank about fourteen feet long and six feet high. In one half was a rotting cow’s head and an electric insect killer; along with maggots, flies were feeding on the one and dying on the other. The other half contained a large white box from which flies emerged and found their way through holes in the partition.

She walked down the centre of the room and saw that the cabinets lining the walls to the left contained an eclectic and gruesome array of objects that included pliers, an axe, saw, noose, club and spear, crucifixes, bandages, and rosaries—some of them spattered with what looked like blood. The same substance was spattered over the outside of the cabinet, and emanated a cloying smell which was only slightly less disgusting that that by the door. To the right were several identical large black canvases. She went over and inspected one of them and saw that the canvas had been blackened by tens of thousands of dead flies: the title was
Cancer Chronicle (Smallpox).

At the end of the room was the
pièce de resistance
,
a huge perspex box containing five white plastic chairs surrounding a matching table with the remains of a meal on it. In the corner was a barbecue laden with meat. Everything was covered in live flies that entered via a small hole from the other part of the exhibit, where maggots were hatched, and perished on another fly killer.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ said the baroness. ‘I’m in hell with Damien Hirst.’

She explored further. There were three locked doors—red, black, and violet—and a doorless kitchen scribbled over with graffiti and images mainly of rats. A white door led to a bathroom, on the far wall of which was a
sketch of a complex piece of machinery, and a shelf on
which were a small irregularly-shaped, gold-covered object and a tin. Closer scrutiny revealed that the sketch was called
Cloaca
and the curved object had a tag saying ‘Koh?’ The label on the tin was in four languages. The baroness passed on the French, German, and Italian and read the English text:

‘Artist’s Shit
Contents 30 gr net
Freshly preserved
Produced and tinned
in May 1961’

She groaned and left the bathroom.

Having searched high and low, the baroness had to admit to herself that there was no food, but there was champagne in the refrigerator and she found glasses in a cupboard. She opened a bottle, poured herself a generous amount, and returned to the main room and sat on one of the four large pink sofas shaped like a woman’s lips. It was very uncomfortable.

After a few minutes, there was a crashing sound at the door. When it opened, it revealed a plump, dishevelled middle-aged, bald man in a dinner jacket. The baroness stood up and crossed to him, holding her hand out. ‘Jack Troutbeck.’

‘What’s going on?’ He gave her a perfunctory handshake. ‘Why am I here?’

‘Search me. I don’t know why I’m here either. Who are you?’

‘I am Sir Henry Fortune, the international curator.’

‘Oh, God.’ She sat down again. ‘So you are!’

He looked around him and blenched. ‘Is this a museum?’

‘I have no idea. I’ve been here only a few minutes.’

‘Disgusting smell.’ His tone implied it was her fault. ‘Is there anything to eat? I’m starving.’

‘’Fraid not. But there’s champagne.’

‘What good is that? I tell you I’m starving.’

The baroness shrugged. ‘There are calories in wine. Do you want some or not?’

‘I suppose so.’

The baroness fetched two bottles from the kitchen along with a few glasses and put them on one of the two low tables that sat between the sofas. Both tables consisted of glass tops supported by the form of a woman. Each wore a basque and long black gloves: one was on her hands and knees; the other was on her back but had cunningly bent her body into a shape than supported the table on her bottom. The baroness had already named them Joleen and Trixie.

Fortune poured himself a glass and sat down opposite her. ‘So who are you?’

‘I’m a member of the House of Lords and Mistress of St. Martha’s.’

‘Oh, my God. I know who you are. You’re that dreadful philistine.’

‘Do you think we know each other well enough to exchange insults yet, Sir Henry?’ she enquired icily. ‘I think I’d rather be in solitary, but I don’t suppose I have an option. Maybe we should make an effort to be civil.’ She got up, refilled her glass, and sat down again. ‘Have you been here long?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe a few days. I’ve been imprisoned in a nasty cell and I’ve had nothing to eat.’

‘How did you get here?’

‘I don’t know. Last thing I remember is getting into a taxi with a friend.’

‘So presumably he’s here too.’

‘I don’t know. This is a nightmare.’

‘Unfortunately not,’ said the baroness.

Fortune said nothing.

‘What do you think of the décor?’ she asked.

‘I haven’t really looked at it.’

‘You’re in for a treat if your idea of an interior decorator is Damien Hirst. It’s a bit on the gloomy side.’

‘Damien Hirst is an artist, Madam. It is not his job to cheer anyone up. I have to think about what is here. I don’t want to make any rash judgements.’ He stalked over to the tank beside the door. ‘Is this truly Damien’s
A Thousand Years
? I doubt it. He would never sell this audacious yet profound Darwinian masterpiece.’

‘Look down the room and you’ll see something else by him.’

He strode down the room. ‘
Let’s Eat Outside Today
. It cannot be. It cannot be.’

‘Do you recognise what’s on the left?’

Fortune’s lips went in and out as he ruminated. ‘Of course. I’ve only seen them once. In the White Cube about a decade ago.’ He clicked his fingers in frustration. ‘What was it called? What
was
it called. Hah! Yes.
Romance in the Age of Uncertainty.
’

‘They represent romance?’

‘No, no, no. They represent the martyred apostles.’

‘Ah, got you. He’s showing us the means by which they were martyred. Neat.’

‘Yes.’

‘And the black canvases?’

‘His thirteen
Cancer Chronicles—
smallpox, AIDS, malaria, and so on
.
But I am sceptical as to their authenticity. Very sceptical.’

‘Have you any thoughts on the Mae West sofas?’

‘Crude adaptions of Dali’s surreal masterpieces.’

‘And Trixie and Joleen?’

‘What are you talking about?’

The baroness waved at the tables.

‘Oh, you mean the Allen Jones sculptures? Which, of course, may or may not be Allen Jones.’

‘They’re art, are they? I thought they were cast-offs from Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion.’

Fortune looked down his nose at her like an Edwardian dowager duchess surveying the shop girl her son wants to marry. He produced a heavy sigh. ‘They raise many questions that have been addressed by serious and knowledgeable people: is such forniphilia Freudian, or an ironic comment on sexual objectification and the struggle between the exploited and the exploiting.’

The baroness opened her mouth and closed it again. ‘Have a look at the kitchen.’

He came out after a minute. ‘The same applies. Of course they look like Banksy, but are they Banksy? That is the question.’

‘And our bathroom?’

Fortune disappeared for a couple of minutes. ‘How exciting,’ he said when he reappeared and threw himself down on the sofa opposite her. ‘The same seminal question applies but the Manzoni, at least, would be harder to copy. If all is as it seems, what we have in there are…’

There was a series of thuds at the door. ‘If I’m not mistaken, Watson,’ said the baroness, ‘here is our client now.’