Snatched (24 page)

Penny Butler-Minton picked up her luggage from close to Clode. He stirred now, then reached forward with one hand, vainly trying to stop her taking the holdall. He shouted from the floor in a remarkably strong voice for someone felled: ‘Nothing, I say
nothing
,
can stop the Tokyo Flounce bust!'

‘Rest,' the Minister told him. ‘Lie there, Li. Your duty is not well done, but it's fucking done. Your mother would be proud.' Vaux turned to Penelope and explained: ‘She is extremely unassuming, though tall. It was such a thrill for her when Li somehow passed high into the civil service Admin class. She would think it wonderful that his work brought him close to prized art.'

Lepage was hardly listening. For several minutes he'd been watching Trudy Dingham, who seemed suddenly overcome by a strange, fiercely powerful, perhaps painful, excitement. ‘What?' he asked. ‘Trudy, what is it?'

‘Wait!' she cried. ‘Oh, please, wait.' She had a large, encompassing, privately educated voice which quivered impressively now with undefined passion.

‘Wait?' he asked. ‘Who, Trudy?' At first he'd thought she feared Penny might leave without her, as if the destruction of Clode had brought some kind of seminal crisis, cancelling all previous understandings and arrangements, like the 1914 assassination of Crown Prince Ferdinand at Sarajevo, igniting the Great War. How intense Trudy's feelings towards her must be, he reflected, and how odd and consoling that two women who'd been having it off with Flounce turn-and-turnabout not long ago should subsequently establish this powerful, cockless, substitute bonding, and decide they must together dossier him intimately for the attention of the world. Was this another case of the survivors controlling what history could say? Lepage would treat himself to a slice of cynicism occasionally.

But now he realized Trudy was in fact looking past Penelope, and realized, too, that the volume of her voice was meant to reach the far end of the Raybould. He turned. The woman who had been so obsessively studying one of the paintings there had now taken a few steps towards the gallery exit, but for the moment gazed fixedly towards the Vaux group with, as far as Lepage could make out from that distance, a small, hostile smile on her face: something she might have borrowed from Laughton as Captain Bligh in a movie channel showing of
Mutiny On The Bounty
.

‘Trudy, who is it?' he asked.

Vaux had noticed, too. ‘Yes, who?' he said.

Trudy moved towards the woman, but then halted, as though scared.

Vaux did not approach the woman either, but called out, ‘Madam, have we met? Arts Council? I see you're a Carpaccio Vittore fan. Into the saintly, are you? He certainly had a way with that kind of stuff. I don't mind it too much.'

From the floor, Lionel Clode called out gamely: ‘Minister, I've often heard you remark of Vittore Carpaccio that, although he might not be all plus, he certainly was not all minus. “Paints saints” you epigrammed, I recall.' He tried an appreciative laugh, but it was swallowed up by the formidable Hulliborn wainscoting.

‘Leave it, Trudy,' Lady Butler-Minton whispered. Lepage had never seen her other than full of confidence and strength, but even she sounded apprehensive now.

Then, the woman abruptly turned away, and, without looking again at the Carpaccio, strode swiftly from the Raybould, her red and cream skirt and vermilion shoes flashing splendidly as she passed through a patch of sunlight from the window.

‘No, no, please don't go!' Trudy cried. The woman took no notice, did not glance back. After that first small movement towards her, Trudy seemed transfixed, but then suddenly called, ‘Mrs Cray!' in that meaty, well-bred tone. ‘It
is
Mrs Cray, isn't it? I
must
talk to you.'

For several moments all the Vaux party were clearly dazed by her words. Then, astonished and even shaking a little, Lepage moved urgently to stand near Trudy. ‘Mrs
Cray
? How can you know this? You've met her previously? Who has ever seen her? Hell, does she even exist?'

‘I feel it. I know it,' Trudy replied. ‘Somehow. Eric gave fragments of description – the clothes style, the untroubled brow.'

‘You can see the untroubled nature of her brow from here – from this distance?' Lepage asked. ‘Aren't we talking about a chimera? This is absurd.'

The Minister had joined the two of them and heard this moment of talk. ‘Mere guess? Intuition?' he asked. ‘It's not a subject to trifle with, you know. How foolish!'

‘Totally inane,' Li bellowed from the floor.

‘Please, Director, stop her leaving,' Trudy said. ‘Don't let her disappear. For once, she's alone. Somehow, officials and protectors will close around her again and she'll be gone.'

Lepage said: ‘But—'

‘Please,' she cut in, ‘somehow I know this is our chance.'

‘You could go yourself, come to that, damn it,' Vaux told her.

‘What's wrong with your own legs, Trudy?' Clode said. ‘They look grand to me from here.'

‘Somehow I can't,' she said.

‘Too many sodding somehows,' the Minister replied.

‘Somehows are somehow running riot,' Clode remarked.

‘Very well, Trudy, I will,' Lepage said. This was a girl who had lovely breasts which, although unfeelingly divided for the moment, by the harness of her shoulder bag, would obviously soon re-form as a very sound unit; and who possessed, in addition, a wonderful, chubby, compact arse surmounting slender thighs and bonny long legs, as admired also by Clode from a different angle. Plainly, there was a case for taking her seriously, even if she did seem to have gone gay.

‘Mrs Cray could give the answers to so much,' Trudy said. ‘Take us beyond the speculative in some of our research.'

‘Cray sounds a British name,' Lepage said. ‘Does she speak English?' He did not wait for an answer, but ran down the Raybould and out on to the landing. From there he could see ‘Mrs Cray' quickly descending the main staircase towards the revolving door exit, her skirt and shoes still giving occasional multi-coloured gleams. ‘Mrs Cray!' he yelled. He waved. Some museum visitors turned at the noise, but she didn't. He made for the spiral staircase. With any luck he'd come out ahead of her.

He got none of that luck, though. As he descended, he met Angus Beresford coming up. There was no room to pass. ‘Go back, please, Angus. It's an emergency,' he said.

‘What emergency?' Beresford asked. ‘Did I hear someone calling Mrs Cray? Wasn't she to do with the Wall and Flounce?'

‘Go back and let me through,' Lepage replied.

‘Is it concerning that flasher, Falldew, again? I thought I glimpsed him near Zoology (Mammals).'

Lepage tried to push by, but Angus was too burly.

‘It
is
to do with him again, isn't it, George? Where? Let me deal with this.' Now, Beresford did turn and started to descend. ‘It happened where I said I saw him, did it?'

‘Yes.' Send Beresford somewhere else –
anywhere
else.

At ground level, Beresford ran off to the left, making for Ronnie Acton-Sher's department. Lepage went directly ahead, towards the revolving door and, as he arrived, saw the woman approaching across the foyer. ‘Thank God,' he said.

‘What, sir?' Keith Jervis said, on duty at this main entrance. ‘Is it the matter of an incident?'

‘No, no, I must speak to this lady, that's all,' Lepage replied. He spun around to face her.

‘Who
are
you?' she said. English, but possibly not her first language.

‘Is it Mrs Cray?' Lepage answered.

‘Why are you pursuing me?' she said.

‘But you
are
Mrs Cray, aren't you – Flounce, the Wall, the whippet, the air-sock?' Lepage asked. ‘Surely, there can't be two such foreheads.' She was about sixty, medium height, elegantly thin, though her face seemed a little doughy, almost frighteningly impassive, even though she obviously had her rats up. Of course, this deadpan-ism might have been inculcated on some training course. She tried to go around Lepage to the door, but he prevented this by moving in front of her. Enraged, she took a step towards Keith Jervis.

‘Are you Security?' she asked.

‘Part-time only,' Jervis said.

‘This man is being exceptionally offensive. He is either mad or vile,' she said. ‘You must deal with him. Even call the police.'

The Minister arrived and, a little later, Angus Beresford. ‘I can't find him now,' Beresford said.

‘Who?' Lepage said.

‘Falldew, of course. You said in Zoology (Mammals),' Beresford replied.

‘Is that skinny dick-swinger part of all this?' Vaux asked. ‘How the hell is
he
involved as well as “Mrs Cray” and so on? Does the Hulliborn really need such recurrent situations, Lepage?'

‘Oh, I wouldn't put it as recurrent,' Lepage said.

A class of school children with their teachers came in through the revolving door and formed up in the foyer, chattering and starting on their sandwiches and Kit-Kats. The woman would have used the confusion as a chance for slipping away – another skill she might have learned in undercover training – but Jervis prevented that. ‘Although I am only part-time Security, this is obviously part of that part-time, or I wouldn't be here, would I, madam? An allegation has been made by you. This cannot by any stretch be casually ignored.'

Beresford heard most of this. ‘What allegation?' he demanded. ‘Stretching what? Is this lady another who's been insulted by him?'

‘There are children present, Entomology,' Keith Jervis warned.

‘I'm willing to forget it,' the woman said. ‘Simply, I would like to go.'

‘No, no, madam,' Beresford replied. ‘That must not be. This is how these things too often end. Creatures like Falldew trade on it. They get their filthy kicks and know they will not be brought to book because sensitive people such as your good self do not complain officially. Surely, a lady visitor to the Hulliborn should be able to enjoy the exhibits – the
museum
exhibits – unharassed.'

‘You're certain it was Dr Falldew?' Jervis said.

‘Who the hell else?' Beresford answered.

‘I don't know names, but it was
this
man,' she said, nodding towards Lepage.

‘This
man? The Director?' Beresford howled. ‘Where?'

‘The Raybould Gallery. Art,' she said.

Lepage said: ‘Angus, there's been a mix-up, I think. The lady doesn't mean—'

‘Art? My God, George, a personal furniture show amid all those noble pieces and expensive frames? That's worse than Falldew. Consider how hurt D.Q. Youde would be. Don't you believe there can be full satisfaction in looking at great pictures? Something extra is required? Is this, then, to be the language of the modern day museum? I think back to Sir Mortimer Wheeler, that great archaeological scholar, and wonder what he would make of the changes. Call me stuffy if you like.'

Lepage noted that all-purpose term again, apparently natural to the Hulliborn – stuff, stuffed, stuffy. ‘Stuffy Beresford?' It did have something.

Lady Butler-Minton and Trudy came down the main stairs. Each carried luggage in one hand and, with the other, supported Lionel Clode, the Minister's attendant, between them, their arms crossed across his back, the way trainers helped rugby players from the field when a hamstring went.

‘Yes? Is it she?' Trudy called. Her grand voice seemed to contain a meld of pleasure and dread. ‘I saw there was a whippet on a lead in the Venetian picture that fascinated her so. A give-away?'

‘Mrs Cray, we bear you no ill-will, not in the least,' Vaux declared. ‘We perfectly understand that you had your job to do, and a difficult and dangerous one.'

‘Mrs Cray!' Beresford cried. ‘So, I did hear that! Christ, George, you've been waving it at
her
?'

The woman de-deadpanned for a moment and allowed herself to look puzzled: ‘Cray? Mrs Cray? Who is she? Why do you call me that?'

The Minister said: ‘But we all had the impression you—'

‘Who the devil
is
this Mrs Cray?' she replied.

Lepage felt that the phrasing indicated a foreignness, even though he couldn't detect an overseas accent. Did anyone outside prize-winning radio plays say, ‘Who the devil?' these days?

‘I hear names that mean nothing to me,' she went on. ‘Falldew? Which dangerous job? I work in millinery. Hat pins?'

‘Identification is obviously going to be of some importance here, in the circs,' Jervis said in a Security voice.

‘I've a banker's card that gives my name,' the woman said, opening her bag.

‘Please, why deny who you are, Mrs Cray?' Trudy said. ‘Of course you have papers with another name on them, a cover name, plus others suggesting your occupation. Millinery, did you say?' Trudy laughed a while. ‘We are not children.'

Jervis took the card. ‘Veronica Anselm,' he read. ‘Mrs or Miss? It could be to the point. Again, in the circs, such circs being an illicit display of maleness.'

‘Mrs Cray, I'm sure it will interest you to learn that we are seeking to arrange a suitable memorial for Sir Eric Butler-Minton,' Vaux said. ‘Perhaps you have returned in this regard – to assess progress with it, possibly. Take my word, it goes ahead very well, very well. If I may say, we do not want these arrangements compromised by any … well, any disturbance, any outside intervention, however well-meant. The past should be regarded as the past, especially when those aspects concerning yourself and your contact with Sir Eric are so shadowy and remote.'

‘Can former times not be left to slumber unprovoked?' Clode said.

‘Come, Trudy, we really must get to the airport,' Penny said. They had released Clode, who now seemed quite able to stand. On one side of his head his fair hair was matted with blood.