The Evil that Men Do (7 page)

We were politely but very efficiently shepherded out and the door pulled shut behind us. We found ourselves in a narrow passageway with a couple of rubbish bins and a distinct reek of tomcat.

‘Not the best way to bring in a big painting,' I observed after a moment.

Alan looked at the small door through which we had just passed, and the foot or so of clearance between the wall of the building and the rubbish bins. ‘No,' he said in a voice devoid of expression. His nose wrinkled. ‘Nor the most salubrious. Shall we?' He gave me his arm and we edged our way out to a larger alleyway, and thence to the street.

It was too early for lunch, but we'd lost our taste for art. It was a perfect day, sunny but not too warm, so we strolled to the green and sat on one of the benches to rest and watch the world go by.

At least that was the excuse I made to myself.

‘And what,' I finally demanded, ‘was that all about?'

Alan shook his head. ‘It was not about our wandering into a closed gallery by mistake.'

‘No. It wasn't about us, or not entirely. But they were definitely disturbed that we were there.'

‘Disturbed that anyone was there?' Alan suggested.

I frowned. ‘Well, that, too, but I got the feeling that there was something about us, specifically, that made the situation worse. I can't imagine what.'

‘Nor can I. We barely know Ms Carter, and the other one  . . . Robinson, is it?  . . . we don't know at all. Do you suppose she owns the gallery?'

‘Robinson, do you mean? I don't think so. Along with everything else, she was nervous about letting someone come in when the alarms were off. Nervous the way an employee is nervous, afraid she'll get chewed out.'

‘I do sometimes wonder, my dear, if you'll ever learn to speak the Queen's English.' He shook his head in mock dismay.

‘Garn!' I said in my best Eliza Doolittle imitation. ‘But seriously, something's badly wrong in there. Alan!' I was struck with such a dreadful thought I stood up in my agitation. ‘You don't suppose we interrupted a robbery in progress? Some of those Sargents must be worth an awful lot of money. Should we go back and—'

‘No.' Alan was quite definite. ‘You're letting your imagination run away with you. That is a circumstance I would recognize. You keep forgetting, my dear, how long I was a policeman. I have been involved in bank robberies, hostage situations, abductions, the whole gamut, and I would lay any odds you care to propose that no one but the four of us was in that gallery.'

‘Then where was the owner? Because I'm sure that Robinson woman is an employee.'

‘Who knows? Perhaps off fetching that large painting, or escorting it. Escorting it, most likely. And I sincerely hope that their insurers never find out about that open door or the disabled alarm, because the painting would be whisked back to its home before you could say Sarah Robinson.'

‘You don't think  . . .'

‘Why not? There was a prominent blank wall, right in the middle of the room. Just about the proper size, if I'm any judge, and certainly the proper position for the star of the show. Even a copy can be quite valuable, you know.'

I stuck my tongue out at him. ‘Nonsense. Nobody would be that careless with a painting of value. Anyway, whatever was going on in that gallery, it didn't have very much to do with the art; I'm reasonably sure of that. It was  . . . I don't know what it was, but I can't get that woman's face out of my mind. Ms Robinson, I mean. I thought she was going to faint.'

‘When we came in?' Alan sounded dubious.

‘No, in that odd little moment when everything froze. You were a few steps behind me, so maybe you couldn't see her face, but it was white. Not pale, not what everyone means when they say that about a face, but white, like  . . . like paper, or a blank canvas. Alan, that's the second time in twenty-four hours that I've seen naked fear on someone's face.'

‘And Ms Carter was there with her.' Alan's voice was very thoughtful.

‘And she was very careful to let Ms Robinson know you were a policeman,' I added. ‘Why?'

Alan ran his hand down the back of his neck. ‘Lots of questions. I could do with a few answers.'

‘Ms Carter has most of the answers. I'm sure of that.'

He shifted on his bench. ‘What did they see, the two women, when they reacted so strongly?'

I made a frustrated gesture with my hands. ‘That's just it! I have no idea. When I looked where they were looking, all I saw was a group of people passing by, laughing and talking. They looked like perfectly normal tourists, some of them Japanese, maybe. Anyway there were a bunch of cameras in evidence. Nobody was doing anything in the least threatening, nobody was lurking, nobody was doing anything at all out of the ordinary. And they were gone in seconds.'

We sat in silence for a while. Two children were playing ball with a black and white dog of uncertain ancestry, probably mostly terrier. A fat man sat solemnly chewing on a sandwich. A coach stopped in front of the Lygon Arms and discharged its load of tourists, Americans by their accents and rather vivid shirts.

I sighed and stood up. ‘I have no useful ideas at all, and I'm hungry. The Swan?'

We went off in search of sustenance.

After lunch, of course, we took a nap. One of the lovely things about ageing is that one need not apologize for afternoon naps. I lay down sure that I wouldn't sleep a wink for worrying about our problem, and woke two hours later chuckling.

‘What's funny?' asked Alan, sitting up with a yawn.

‘Oh, just a silly dream. I dreamt I was a little girl, and staying with Aunt Maude. She was really a great-great aunt or something of the sort. I was too young to get the relationships quite straight. I thought she was ancient, and I didn't like her very much. She lived in a big, dark, gloomy house in Chicago that smelled of dust and old lady, and once for some reason I had to spend a day or two with her, without my parents. She served me some sort of tasteless lunch, and made me eat every bite of it, too, and then sent me to bed for a nap. I thought I was too old for naps, and I hated that big, dark bedroom. I don't know why it was so dark in the middle of the afternoon, but I tried desperately not to go to sleep, afraid of what might be lurking in the shadows.

‘So anyway, I dreamt about that, and relived how much I hated having to take that nap, and the nightmares I had afterwards about being abandoned at her house for ever.'

‘And that made you laugh.' Alan spoke in the careful voice of a man who hopes he will at some point understand what his wife is talking about.

‘Only when I woke up. I told you it was silly. I just started thinking about how much I hated that nap all those years ago, and how much I love them now, that's all.' I stretched luxuriously. ‘Alan, let's get out of town this afternoon. Go for a walk. I'd like to forget about everything for a little while and just enjoy ourselves.'

‘Fine with me. Where shall we go?'

‘You choose. So long as it's not too far away, and the way there is reasonably horizontal, I don't care.'

He got out the OS map, which by now was beginning to show definite signs of wear, and pondered. ‘Well, we could go north-east to a village called Willersley. It's not far, and there don't seem to be any hills to speak of, but there's no footpath. We'd have to go by the road. Or we could go about the same distance south-west to a hamlet, scarcely a village, called Buckland. There's a footpath, one of the national ones, so it should be well-marked. Some hills are involved, but there's a nursery and something called the Buckland Manor Hotel. We could probably get tea.'

‘You said the magic word. And I think I've seen a brochure about that hotel. It's supposed to be the last word in luxury. Buckland it is.'

It was a beautiful walk on a perfect afternoon. Amazingly, we didn't get lost once, and the views were spectacular. We had a wonderful tea at the storied hotel, though I nearly choked on my scone when I happened to see the bill.

‘We only live once, love,' said Alan in an undertone.

‘And at those prices it's a good thing!' But I lingered over my tea, to enjoy every gold-plated bite.

After tea we poked around the church. I found it much more to my taste than the nineteenth-century concoctions in Cheltenham. Then, pleasantly tired, we wandered back to Broadway, watching the cows going home to be milked. Somewhere a church bell sounded.

‘“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,”' began Alan, and of course I chimed in. We recited as much as we could remember, which was shamefully little, and I suddenly felt my eyes stinging.

Alan took my hand and questioned me with a tilted head.

‘Nothing,' I said, brushing away the single tear that had rolled down my cheek. ‘It's just that the “Elegy” was one of my father's favourites. The first time I ever visited England was with my parents, and we saw that country churchyard. My father could recite almost the whole poem.'

‘Happy tears, then.'

‘Happy memories. Another of the blessings of old age.'

We walked along hand in hand, each with our own thoughts.

‘Are you hungry?' said Alan as we walked up Broadway High Street.

I dragged my mind back from my childhood. ‘Not particularly. That was an incredible tea.'

‘Why don't we see if we can find some snacks, then, and stay in tonight?'

Some of the shops were still open, so we bought some cheese and biscuits and a bottle of wine and took them back to the Holly Tree.

We found a mindless comedy on the small television in our room, and stretched out on the bed, heads propped up with pillows, drinking wine out of coffee cups and spilling crumbs on the bedspread and giggling at the silly jokes.

‘I feel like a kid,' I said when we finally turned off the TV and called it a night. ‘I haven't done anything like that in years.'

‘Nor have I. Ridiculous programme, wasn't it?'

‘Idiotic. My face hurts from laughing.'

‘Must be the wine. Goodnight, darling.'

‘Goodnight. I love you.'

EIGHT

W
e both slept late next morning, so late we missed breakfast. ‘I think I'm finally in holiday mode,' I said as I ran my fingers through my hair, yawning. ‘I can't seem to get moving.'

‘Doesn't matter. There's nothing we need do today.'

‘I suppose not. But  . . . you're not going to believe this, I'm starving.' I leaned over, looking for my slippers.

‘You're spoiled, that's what you are.' He gave me a swat on the backside I was so obligingly presenting. ‘Get moving, woman, and we'll go out in search of some coffee and pastries.'

I took my time over my shower, but it still wasn't too long before we were out in the High Street. I didn't bother with a hat. My hair was still damp, and it was going to be too warm for one, anyway.

‘Lots of activity this morning,' Alan commented.

‘Mmm. Where do you suppose we can get that coffee?' I am not at my best and brightest until I've ingested some caffeine.

‘Take my arm, and I'll be your leader dog.'

‘It's not fair. You've had coffee.'

I felt a good deal better once we were seated in a little bakery, with the scents of coffee and yeast and cinnamon all around us, and better still when the scents materialized in front of us and I had that first lovely hot, fragrant swallow.

‘I don't know,' I said when I had downed the first cup and was putting sugar into the second, ‘who it was who first figured out that those red berries from the coffee plant could be processed six ways from Sunday and end up as this magical fluid, but here's to whoever it was.'

Alan raised his cup to mine and smiled. ‘Good morning, my dear. You seem to be with us again.'

I just grinned and looked around. ‘Goodness, it's crowded.'

‘Yes, dear. I believe I said something like that a while ago, when you were still semi-conscious. It must be the arts festival, don't you think?'

‘Of course! How stupid of me. Senility setting in, I expect. What are we going to do about it? The festival, I mean.'

Alan sipped his coffee. ‘My vote is, we wait until tomorrow to do anything much. If we spend today getting the feel of the festival, what's worth seeing and what isn't, then tomorrow we can make better choices.'

‘Tomorrow's Saturday. Won't the crowds be even worse?'

‘Possibly. But opening day often draws the real aficionados, the ones who will linger. Tomorrow's crowd might be the thirty-seconds-per-picture sort. In any case, if tomorrow won't do, we can wait for another day. The festival runs through next week.'

He was leaving something unsaid. I waited.

‘Oh, very well, I don't want you going back to that gallery until whatever it is has died down. Don't glare at me! You know quite well you have a talent amounting to genius for getting into trouble  . . .' He held his hand up. ‘Through no fault of your own, granted. Usually.'

‘And you feel obliged to defend your honour as an English gentleman and protect me.' I sighed. It was an old issue between us. I often fought for my independence, but today I was feeling relaxed and peaceable. ‘Very well. I will bow to your wishes with my usual sweet docility and wait until tomorrow to pose as an art lover. Today  . . . I know! Today I'll go shopping!'

It was said with malice aforethought, I admit. Alan hates to shop. It's not usually my favourite occupation, either, but on a beautiful day in an enchanting village, it seemed like a good idea. And it was a mild assertion of my right to choose my own activities.

My husband sighed elaborately, then grinned. ‘A draw, I believe. Very well. You do your shopping, my dear. Do try to remember that Bill Gates has not yet given us that grant.'

‘I'll do my best. And what are you going to do, meanwhile?'