Long Time Coming (9 page)

‘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.’

It is a Saturday afternoon in June. Richmond basks in sleepy sunshine, the air thick with warmth, pollen-moted, summer-scented. Eldritch Swan, dressed in sports jacket and light trousers, a linen tie loosened at his neck, ubiquitous fedora tilted back on his head, emerges from the railway station and turns left, towards the centre of town.

The streets are quiet, the shops, those that are open, thinly patronized. Something in the busy step and preoccupied expressions of passers-by hints that all is not as tranquil as it appears. The reason is carried in the minds of every one of them. There is a war on. England is threatened by imminent invasion. Churchill has replaced Chamberlain as Prime Minister. The British Expeditionary Force has escaped from Dunkirk by the skin of its teeth. Belgium and the Netherlands have been overrun. France has surrendered. Italy has allied itself with Germany. Everywhere the news is grim.

Eldritch Swan is not immune to the national mood. He looks carefree enough, striding along, one hand in his trouser pocket, the other raising a cigarette to his lips at intervals. He has recovered from the shock of the sinking of the
Uitlander
, a minor loss, in the general reckoning, among so many major disasters, but he is genuinely worried about Marie-Louise, and the other servants at Zonnestralen, now that Antwerp is under German occupation, and pessimistic about England’s chances of holding out alone. He
knows he is lucky to be alive and free. But he also knows such luck is provisional. He has resolved, in his own way and time, to do his bit for the war effort. But he has no intention of giving his father the satisfaction of being informed of this. He proposes to embark on the performance of his patriotic duty with as little fanfare as possible.

He crosses into George Street and heads on towards the river. His destination is Geoffrey Cardale’s house. It is the first time he has been invited there and he thinks it may be the last. Cardale, he suspects, has decided to close the gallery for the duration. Business has been so slack during the seven weeks that Swan has been working there that the decision would hardly be a surprise. It would, indeed, be more in the way of a surrender to harsh reality. As to the flat above, Swan has no wish to move out, but understands he may have to. His parting payment from Meridor is still largely untouched. Perhaps, when all is said and done, the time has come to move on. Though where to, in the present volatile state of things, he cannot hazard a guess.

Cherrygarth was a Victorian villa with an enviable location in Queen’s Road, near the top of Richmond Hill. Cream-rendered, with nut-brown tiling, mullioned windows and a double-gabled front, it was set well back behind high walls and an imposingly gated and pillared entrance. The art business had done well by Geoffrey Cardale.

A squat, set-faced woman answered the door. The cook-housekeeper, Swan assumed. She had clearly been primed to expect him. ‘Mr Cardale’s in the garden,’ she said. ‘I’ll take you round.’

Swan was sure he could have found his own way, but he fell in behind her as she waddled out through a trellised barrier of honeysuckle to the rear of the house.

A large shrub-bordered lawn merged at its farther reaches with an orchard, carpeted like snow with fallen blossom. At the edge of the orchard a wicker table and a couple of matching chairs had been set down. Cardale sat in one of them, dressed in baggy shades of white and a panama hat. At his feet a flaxen-haired boy of three
or four kitted out in dungarees and a check shirt was engaged with his teddy bear in a game that involved crawling around the legs of the table and growling. Cardale raised a hand as Swan approached.

‘Glad you could make it, old man,’ he called.

‘Shall I take Master Simon inside?’ asked the housekeeper.

‘Good idea, Mrs P. I’ll see you later, squirt.’ Cardale ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘Say hello to Mr Swan before you go.’

Master Simon scrambled up, bear held protectively behind him, and stared frowningly at Swan. ‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Good afternoon, young man,’ Swan responded.

The stare was held for a silent moment longer, then Mrs P grasped Simon by the bearless hand and led him off, back towards the house. Swan watched them cover half the lawn before turning back to Cardale.

‘Does he take after his mother, sir?’

‘Oh yes. I see Susan in him all the time.’ Cardale waved to the vacant chair. ‘Sit down.’ Swan sat. ‘Drink?’ A jug of murky liquid and four glasses stood on the table. Cardale sloshed out half a glass for Swan. ‘Barley water, I’m afraid. But we can pep it up a bit.’ From behind his chair he hoisted a bottle of Plymouth gin. Sunlight sparkled in the clear liquid as he added a generous amount to Swan’s barley water and some more to his own as well. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’ Swan took a reviving gulp and gazed about him. ‘Lovely place you have here, sir.’

‘Not bad, is it? A haven in times of trouble. Far too big for me, of course, but it holds a lot of memories, good
and
bad.’ Cardale smiled reminiscently. ‘More good than bad on balance, I’m glad to say.’

They sipped their drinks. Swan lit a cigarette. A dove cooed in the eaves of the house. A bee buzzed lazily past. The summer afternoon held its trance.

‘Curious why I asked you down here, old man?’ Cardale asked.

Swan smiled. ‘A little.’

‘Well, I thought we ought to have a quiet word … about your plans … for the future.’

‘I haven’t looked very far ahead.’

‘Taken any steps to enlist?’

‘Yes. There’s a chap I knew at Oxford who has a desk job at the War Office. I bumped into him the other day. He’s promised to try and wangle me a junior commission on the basis of a couple of terms I did with the OTC. But it could take a while. The Army’s been at sixes and sevens since Dunkirk. I might get the regular callup before he finds anything for me. I’m not the only one he’s helping out, apparently.’

‘I dare say not.’

‘So …’

‘You could still do a few things for me … in the short term?’

‘I’d be happy to. But, let’s face it, sir, the gallery’s—’

‘Dead on its feet. I know, I know. I probably ought to bow to the inevitable and shut up shop till the war’s over.’

‘Probably, yes.’

A wordless minute or so slowly passed. Then Cardale said, ‘Whatever happens, you can be sure normality will resume one day. It’s the lesson of history. Empires rise and fall. Wars come and go. But there’s always business to be done. It’s what makes the world go round.’

‘It’s a reassuring thought.’

‘It is, isn’t it?’ Cardale topped up their glasses with gin. Already the afternoon was beginning to blur at the edges. ‘Remember that ugly customer who turned up at the gallery the day we heard about poor old Meridor?’

‘Yes.’ It had actually been the day after before Swan had passed on the man’s threatening message. Cardale had received it with apparent equanimity, perhaps because the news of Meridor had put the issue – whatever the issue
was
– into its proper perspective. At all events, Swan had not seen the man again.

‘Fact is, I owed the people he works for rather a lot of money. When Susan died, I … went through a rough patch. I did a few stupid things. The stupidest of all was going into partnership with a fellow who turned out to be a crook. He stole some paintings from me, leaving me seriously in debt to various clients. The worst
thing about debts, of course, is that they mount if you don’t pay them off, and since last autumn the art trade’s been at a standstill, so my financial problems … rather multiplied.’

‘Sorry to hear that, sir.’ Swan was also puzzled as to
why
he was hearing it. Surely Cardale was not planning to ask him for a handout.

‘I’ve been able to pay off my principal creditor, a necessity if I was to avoid grievous bodily harm, by persuading my bank to extend me a substantial loan, secured against the only asset I could offer up in the circumstances.’

‘This house?’

‘No, no. Mortgaged to the hilt long since, I’m afraid.’

‘The gallery?’

‘Leased, old man. I don’t have the freehold.’

‘What, then?’

Cardale took a deep swallow of gin and barley water, then set the glass carefully down on the table. ‘Meridor’s Picassos.’

Swan stared at him in amazement. ‘The
Picassos
?’

‘Yes.’ Cardale smiled nervously. ‘Since last year’s New York retrospective, prices for his work have gone up and up. I hardly like to tell you how much Meridor’s collection is worth. But it certainly got me off the hook.’

The drowsy effects of the gin had vanished completely. Swan was transfixed. ‘But … they don’t belong to you.’

‘True. But the bank doesn’t know that. They’re deposited in my name.’

‘I have your receipt for them.’

‘Also true. But Meridor’s widow doesn’t, does she? And I suspect the original proofs of purchase went down with the
Uitlander
. Besides, I thought it probable she didn’t know he put the Picassos off with you at Dover. My plan was to come to some agreement with you over the receipt in due course. To persuade you that your obligations to your employer … ended with his death.’

‘That
was
your plan?’

‘It’s been overtaken by events, unfortunately. A letter’s reached me from Meridor’s lawyer in New York. His client apprised him of
his intentions before leaving Antwerp. He wants me to confirm I have the Picassos. He’s also asking if I know where you are. He considers it odd, apparently, that you haven’t been in touch with Mrs Meridor to offer your condolences at her sad loss.’

Silence. The two men looked at each other. The afternoon was as somnolent and sultry as before. But they now inhabited a different place.

‘Shall I tell you what I think, old man?’ Cardale resumed. ‘I think you’ve been playing your own waiting game. Waiting to see what the Meridors would do, if anything. Did they know about the Picassos? Did they know you were still alive? You’ve been asking yourself those questions and considering what your smartest move would be if the answers were no … and no.’

‘Nonsense. You’re judging me by your own standards.’

‘I am indeed. And I don’t think I’m misjudging you. Because my standards
are
your standards. Meridor wouldn’t have hired you otherwise. Let’s put our cards on the table. If Meridor was alive it would be a different matter. I for one would never try to defraud him. I’m sure you wouldn’t either. But he isn’t alive. And that presents us with an opportunity we really shouldn’t miss.’

‘What opportunity? Meridor’s lawyer knows what he intended to do with the Picassos. You’ll never get away with pretending he changed his mind. If the lawyer ever checks, which he will, he’ll find a record of my leaving the ship with them at Dover.’

‘Yes. He will. But when? When will he do that, Swan?’

‘As soon as he can. As soon as—’

‘The war ends. Exactly. That’s the span of our opportunity. The duration of hostilities. They won’t be coming to claim their property until it’s safe to do so. Besides, I’ve written back to the lawyer assuring him I have the Picassos and there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘Then what the devil are we discussing? I really don’t—’