Pandora (79 page)

‘How could I have let you all down? I’m so sorry.’

‘No good being sorry,’ snapped Anthea. ‘You’ve brought shame on all of us telling porkies at your age. I’ve just had poor little Dicky on the phone in floods.’

Guilt that he’d sloped off to the auction made Jupiter crueller than usual.

‘Why the fuck didn’t you tell the truth in the first place, Dad? We might have stood a chance.’

And where the hell was Jonathan? All Jupiter’s jealousy spilt over. The only thing Jonathan was any good at was cheering up Raymond, and he wasn’t even here to do that.

Thank God for Hanna and Baby Viridian, thought Jupiter. Thank God he had at least bullied Raymond into making Foxes Court over to him seven years ago, so the bank couldn’t take that.

Remembering the sleeper in the back of the car, which might after all be a Constable, Jupiter decided to escape from the wailing and teeth-gnashing and drive up to London, so the restorer could get to work.

No-one slept at Foxes Court that night.

Sienna tried to comfort a sobbing Dora.

‘Daddy’ll never survive prison, particularly if he can’t take Grenville with him.’

Naomi Cohen, dining at the judges’ lodgings with Willoughby Evans and Sampson Brunning, was having a wonderful time. Rather like nurses able to switch off at a party after tending dying cancer patients all day, they managed not to discuss the case.

There was only the final speeches by the two counsels to come in the morning, after which Willoughby Evans would probably postpone his judgement till Monday. Sampson was an old enough hand to congratulate Naomi warmly on the way home.

‘We’ll make our speeches. Willoughby Evans will give the picture back to Zac. End of story.’

‘I wish Zac was more kind of grateful,’ sighed Naomi, ‘he’s still furious we had to rely on Trebich’s evidence.’

Over at the Old Rectory, Rosemary couldn’t stop crying. Thank God, David was out at some dinner giving prizes to achieving policemen. Si had utterly betrayed her. But she in turn had betrayed the Belvedons. Without her account of holidaying in Bonfleuve at Le Coq d’Or the first time she and Si had slept together, Si would never have been able to track down Major von Trebich.

She jumped as the telephone rang. It was Si going against every rule and calling her on the house telephone.

‘You bastard,’ yelled Rosemary, ‘you’ve made me break the ninth commandment and bear false witness against my neighbour. I never want to see you again.’

Haunted by Sienna’s anguished face, Zac paced up and down his room at the Black Swan. Naomi was fast asleep. She had come home drunk, euphoric at having smashed the Belvedons and watched herself walking prettily from court on
Sky News
. What a pity one wasn’t allowed to talk about ongoing cases to the press.

She did however talk to Zac. Like a champion baseball player after a game, she took him through every triumphant sentence, every move. Now she was deservedly luxuriating in the sleep of achievement.

Zac was in despair. He hadn’t really minded upsetting Anthea, nor Emerald. From what Si had said (who had got it from Rosemary who was helping Emerald with her maquette) Emerald was over him and now crazy about Jonathan. But he felt dreadful about Sienna. As she had led a tottering Raymond towards the car park, yelling expletives at the press, he’d been reminded of Cordelia and Lear: ‘So young, my lord, and true.’

He could still feel her fingers on his cheek and he had to his surprise detested seeing Raymond so humiliated. The old guy had been really sweet to him, ordering in bourbon when he came to stay.

He felt even worse on Friday morning when the papers crucified Raymond.

‘Mr Greedy,’ shouted the
Sun
.

Mac of the
Mail
had drawn the Raphael on the wall of Raymond’s study, with all the seven Belvedon children asking: ‘What did you do in the war, Daddy?’

The telephone rang at Foxes Court as the family were failing to force down any breakfast. It was Dicky’s headmaster.

‘Poor Dicky’s so terrified of being recognized by the press,’ Anthea reported back to Raymond indignantly, ‘that he’s shaved off all his lovely hair.’

‘Rubbish,’ stormed Dora, ‘Dicky just wanted any excuse to look like David Beckham. Why are they being so horrible to Daddy? He’d have been a hero in
London’s Burning
.’

As he shuffled down the steps to the Bentley on Robens’s arm, Raymond crumpled and collapsed. Dr Reynolds, despite not being asked to Anthea and Raymond’s silver wedding, arrived in ten minutes. At the least, Raymond was suffering from shock and exhaustion, he said. There was no way he could go to court.

‘I must,’ whispered Raymond, ‘people’ll think I’m such a sissy.’

‘No, they won’t,’ said Sienna. ‘If Willoughby Evans gives his judgement this afternoon, I’ll come and get you.’

‘I’ll stay home and look after you,’ announced Dora, who was avid to miss maths and scripture, having been far too upset last night to do any homework, ‘then I can walk Grenville.’

‘Viridian, Dora and I will look after you,’ said Hanna, who’d come over to the house to wish everyone good luck. ‘You must all go,’ she added, kissing Jupiter, who had just arrived back from London and the restorer.

A worried Sienna knew she should stay behind but couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing Zac one more time.

In a day promising rain and sunshine, the pale acid-green spring leaves lay trustingly against a brooding purple-lake sky. The Belvedons found the court in an uproar. Peregrine, Sampson’s junior, had abandoned his Solitaire and was grinning from ear to ear:

‘Jonathan’ll be here in half an hour, with a sensational new witness.’

‘Who is it?’ demanded Sienna. Then, when Peregrine whispered in her ear: ‘Oh my God.’

‘As we speak,’ went on Peregrine, ‘Sampson is arguing in court that Jonathan didn’t get the breakthrough till late last night. Willoughby Evans can’t refuse, having given the fair Naomi free range yesterday. Thank goodness Sampson hadn’t begun his speech.’

Next moment, Si Greenbridge, who’d been trying to get through to Rosemary all night and didn’t dare storm the Old Rectory because of David, shoved past them, ran out to the car park and roared off alone in his Mercedes. Feeling suddenly isolated, Naomi had just managed to keep down two Alka-Seltzers when Rupert Campbell-Black’s dark blue helicopter landed on the greensward.

The pretty archivist at the Public Record Office in Paris the previous evening had felt so sorry for the handsome young Englishman. Every morning for the past month he had rolled up first thing to scour newly declassified documents on the Resistance and on the Nazis’ corrupt dealings in art, rootling frantically through yellowing documents written on ancient typewriters. Since Easter he had developed a dry cough not helped by the dust and grew hourly paler and more desperate. He was always the last to leave. It was now nearly six. Time to chuck him out. She longed to invite him for a glass of wine and a walk in the Bois where she would kiss away all his sadness.

She jumped at the sound of a low whistle. The Englishman was excitedly smoothing out scrumpled-up papers which had been stuffed to the back of a buff folder. His dark eyes darted back and forth. Dropping the folder, he rushed to the counter.

‘What’s the French for “Bingo”?’ demanded Jonathan, then, over the striking clock, he begged, ‘Will you please make six copies of this letter for me?’

‘There are forms to complete.’

‘I’ll fill them in while you copy. Please.’

As she switched on the copying machine, the pretty archivist glanced down at the letter stamped with the Nazi eagle and read: ‘Our valuable agent “Le Tigre” has been murdered in Paris. The Gestapo is blamed, but suspicion falls on the degenerate artist Le Brun.’

‘It’s my last hope. I’ll buy you a drink next time,’ promised Jonathan as he vanished into the warm spring evening.

Even though Raymond had shown Jean-Jacques Le Brun’s watercolours at the Belvedon in the Fifties and Sixties before the Frenchman became famous, Jonathan couldn’t get in to see him. The first call had been answered in a strained, cracked, shaky voice by Le Brun himself. After that the housekeeper answered both the telephone and the door, explaining in increasing disapproval that M. Le Brun was ill and couldn’t see anyone.

Le Brun’s house in Montparnasse, lofty, semi-detached and with a pale green roof had one more floor, probably a studio, than the other houses in his street. In the gap between it and the house next door, Jonathan could see a garden, and then a garden beyond that belonging to a house in the next street. He might have given up, if at that moment Sienna hadn’t texted him.

Dad’s been totally trashed. We’ve lost the Raphael. If you can’t come up with any evidence, at least come home and comfort him
.

Racing up Le Brun’s street, Jonathan turned left then left again into the next street, running down it until, over the roof of Number 20, he could see Le Brun’s pale green roof.

The door, thank God, was answered by a couple of students, who thought it a great lark. M. Le Brun did indeed live in the house behind and on warm evenings sat in the garden. They hoisted Jonathan over the wall, which was covered in spikes more treacherous than any unicorn’s horn.

‘Fucking hell,’ he muttered as he tore first his combats, and then Emerald’s blue shirt, and nearly lost his manhood before landing on some white irises.

He was just unhooking Emerald’s shirt when he felt hard cold metal rammed into his bare back.

‘
Es-tu un cambrioleur
?’ demanded the voice that had cracked and quavered on the telephone.

‘No, I’m an artist but I don’t want to show you my pictures.’

‘Thank God for that.’ The pressure of the gun eased.

Jonathan edged round and found himself looking down on the black beret and beneath that the watchful, wizened face of France’s greatest painter since Etienne de Montigny. There was no time to waste.

‘I need to ask you about “Le Tigre”, or rather Jacob Abelman.’

To Jonathan, Le Brun’s long, sad sigh was like the first murmur of cool breeze after an interminable heatwave.

‘I knew one day you would come.’

‘My father, Raymond Belvedon, has been crucified,’ pleaded Jonathan. ‘Pandora is about to be taken away.’

‘I have watched the news and followed the case in
Le Monde
. Your father doesn’t deserve this. He had faith in my work before anyone else and so did Jacob Abelman.’

Le Brun led Jonathan through a painter’s garden – intensely scented, ghostly white with lupins, lilac and tulips, to a veranda smothered in white montana, where he had been drinking very black coffee and peeling an apricot. Next moment, the housekeeper rushed out brandishing a saucepan.

‘It’s OK.’ Le Brun handed her his gun. ‘Please bring us more coffee and a bottle of cognac.’

‘You’re not allowed to drink,
monsieur
.’

‘Tonight I need the Dutch courage.’

On a record player Karita Mattila was singing Strauss’s ‘Four Last Songs’. Inside, the walls glowed with stupendous pictures, but there was no time to look. Le Brun pointed to a chair:

‘Sit down and tell me what you want.’

After ten minutes, he agreed that if Jonathan could dredge up a lawyer, he would be prepared to sign a statement.

‘It would be better if I flew you to Larkminster. I know it’s a hideous imposition, but you’ll adore the countryside, it inspired my mother.’

‘I am ninety and beyond inspiration.’

‘Now that the day has tired me’ sang Karita Mattila,

‘my spirits long for

starry night kindly to enfold them.’

Le Brun let Jonathan sweat, gazing on his ghostly garden, unwilling to invoke the spectres of the past. Then he drained his little glass and refilled it.

‘I will come.’

Out in the street, Jonathan rang Rupert Campbell- Black.

‘Can I borrow your helicopter tomorrow?’

‘No, you can’t. I’ve got six horses racing in different parts of the country.’

‘Dad’s been annihilated.’

‘I know. I’m extremely sorry. Oh, all right, have it then.’