Giotto's Hand

5

Constable Frank Hanson was a methodical, cautious man well suited to the routine of being a policeman in the English countryside. He had rounds that he made pretty much every day in his car, driving regularly through village after village, stopping periodically to talk to people to show that he was interested in community policing, occasionally turning a blind eye to the little infringements of law that went on all around him, and generally being a good, conscientious sort of person who was appreciated by those who actually noticed his existence.

Personally, he thought he was rather overworked; his beat had been devised in the far-off halcyon days when country life was safe, with virtually nothing but the occasional pub brawl or bit of domestic to occupy his time. Now he reckoned there was not much difference between the small patch of Norfolk that was in his care and the worst parts of London, or even Norwich, in which towns he was convinced sudden death was a way of life and sin the dominant occupation of the inhabitants.

Urban evil had now come to afflict him here. In the past few years, burglaries, rapes, arson, car theft and all manner of city blights had swept across the local villages, rendering his life miserable as he drove perpetually from one hamlet to another, jotting down details and reassuring people, quite untruthfully, that there was some chance that those responsible would be punished.

He was on his way to such a monstrosity now. Jack Thompson, a large and successful farmer, had just rung up, spluttering with indignation, to report that his dairy herd was three cows smaller than it had been the previous evening. It seemed that the Norfolk constabulary was now going to have to add cattle rustling to the various unnatural crimes it had to cope with.

Cattle rustling, he thought gloomily as he drove at several miles an hour above the speed limit through the village of Weller. What next? Piracy? He snorted with disgust. Gangs of yobs from Norwich boarding canal boats in the smoke and sinking them with cannon fire? Wouldn’t surprise him at all, he muttered to himself as he sped along.

No discipline any more, he continued, reverting to one of his favourite themes. Not just thieves, either. The whole country was crumbling. Just selfishness; that’s all that was left. He blamed the government for setting a bad example. And not paying public servants like himself enough.

I mean, he thought, look at that idiot there. Country road with lots of traffic and with a perfectly decent side path for pedestrians to walk on. And what does he do? Does he think of the danger he’s putting himself and others into? No. Instead, he goes prancing around in the middle of the road as though he owned it. Eleven o’clock in the morning and probably drunk already.

It was too much. The man was leaping up and down like someone who’d been returned to the community — another one of PC Hanson’s grumbles—completely regardless of all danger. Hanson slammed his foot on the brakes, and slowed down to give the man a good talking to.

“You saw me,” the man said as the car stopped. He spoke clearly, although with an agitated tone, and was tolerably well dressed with fair hair and slender hands that he was wringing together nervously.

“Could hardly avoid that, could I, sir?” said Hanson drily, in the best traditions of constabulary repartee. “Don’t you think you might be safer on the pavement?”

“But I wanted to attract your attention. It’s urgent.”

“Oh, yes, sir? And why’s that?”

The man gestured vaguely in the direction of a pathway a hundred yards or so further on. “There’s a man in there,” he babbled.

Constable Hanson, offered such an opportunity for wit, could hardly decline it. “Well, that’s not so surprising, is it, sir? It’s a house. People live in houses, sir. Now, had it been a chicken coop…”

“Yes, I know that,” the man said impatiently. “I mean that he’s dead. That’s why I was trying to wave you down.”

“Is he now? Well, we’d better have a look at that, then.”

And so, reporting his position on the radio, and deciding that Farmer Thompson’s cattle had probably already been turned into hamburgers and could wait, he drove into the driveway of the Old Mill House, with the man who’d stopped him jogging along behind.

“Now, sir,” he said as he got out of the car, “would you mind telling me your name?”

“Argyll. Jonathan Argyll. I came up to see someone called Forster, and when I got here there was no reply. The door was ajar, so I walked in and there he was. Still is, I imagine.”

“Aha! Shall we go and see then?”

PC Hanson walked over to the door, pushed it open lightly, and stepped into the hallway.

There was no trouble with Mr. Argyll’s powers of observation, at least. The body at the bottom of the stairs was most definitely dead, and the unnatural, skewed angle at which the head joined the neck instantly suggested a reason, as did the way in which the thinning, fair hair was matted with blood. PC Hanson had known Geoffrey Forster at a distance; he knew the man was something arty, who worked for the people at Weller House. Had done so, anyway, until Miss Beaumont died.

As there had been a spate of burglaries in the area in the past few weeks, his immediate thought was that this was another, or it was quite simply an accident. These old buildings that city dwellers so liked were, to his mind, hopelessly inconvenient, uneconomical and dangerous. Pretty enough, he supposed, with their thatch and whitewash, but nothing would ever persuade him to live in one. The staircase, now, was twisted, highly polished and slippery. He walked up it, and noticed that the top stair was loose and wobbly. It struck him, as he walked out of the house to radio for assistance, that it was well within the bounds of possibility that the man had simply slipped downstairs, bashing his head and breaking his neck as he went. He would have to wait before he could tell if anything had been stolen.

“Oy!” he called after he’d sent the radio message and emerged from the police car once more. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Argyll, who’d been walking in the direction of the front gate, looked back nervously. “Just looking around, you know,” he called back. “To see if I could find anything useful.”

Oh God, Hanson thought. One of those. He reckoned this stranger had a bit of explaining to do in any case.

“Well, don’t. Come back here where I can see you. Who are you, anyway?”

Argyll crunched his way back up the gravel path until he was next to Hanson, then explained himself. “I’m an art dealer. I came here to talk to Mr. Forster about a picture.”

“And what picture was that?”

“It’s a picture he may have owned. Had. Stolen, in fact,” he said apologetically. Hanson’s eyebrow lifted in response.

“Oh, yes?” he said flatly.

“Yes,” Argyll went on nervously. “So I was going to ask him about it. That’s why I’m here.”

“And what concern might this be of yours? Do you own this picture?”

“Oh, no.”

“Did he steal it from you?”

“Heavens, no!”

“I see. Well, sir, I suggest you just stand there. Don’t touch anything, and wait until we’re ready to take a statement.”

“Would it be useful for me to look around the house, to see if I can spot anything?”

“No, sir,” Hanson said with exaggerated patience. “Just don’t move. All right.”

And so Argyll, hands in pockets, spent the next half hour shivering in the wind, wishing he’d remembered what a cold thing an English summer was, and standing mournfully next to the police car, waiting for reinforcements to come and take his statement.

He did, however, provide one or two useful services for the police, the main one being fending off the spectators who walked past on the way out of the village, noticed the police car, stopped and came in to ask what was going on.

“Accident. Best leave it to the experts.” he told an old scruffy man with a mangy dog and a plastic bag full of frozen food who appeared at the gate first of all. This one raised an eyebrow with a knowing look, then ambled off.

“Accident.” he said again to a thuggish, thickset young man who came along a few moments later and stared at the scene with an air of almost malicious fascination. “Maybe a burglars.”

He noticed that this made the man scowl and hurry away in a furtive sort of way.

“Accident. Move along, please,” he said again to a greying woman in her mid-fifties with bright, curious eyes who also walked in to see the events. He’d always wanted to tell someone to move along, please.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” this one replied briskly, brushing aside his spurious authority with the contempt it deserved. “I’ll do no such thing. Hanson!” she called out in an unexpectedly loud voice to the policeman who’d disappeared back into the house. “Come out of there.”

And Hanson did, with surprising speed. Argyll was impressed. The man didn’t quite touch his forelock, but he was plainly very much more friendly than he had been when dealing with him.

“What in God’s name is going on here?” she asked briskly.

“It’s Mr. Forster, Mrs. Verney. He’s dead. Broken neck, by the look of it.”

Mrs. Verney seemed taken aback by this, but lost none of her poise and certainly wasted no time with conventional expressions of regret, shock or horror.

“When?”

Hanson shook his head. “Some time, I think. The body’s cold. He appears to have fallen down the stairs. This gentleman here” — he indicated Argyll with a nod of his head — “found him.”

“About ten minutes ago,” Argyll offered. “Eleven o’clock, or thereabouts. I had an appointment.”

“I’d be grateful if you’d keep me informed,” the woman said, ignoring Argyll completely after giving him a rapid look over. “It used to be our house, after all. I knew we should have had that staircase fixed. Is it the top stair? It’s always been a bit wobbly. I did tell him once…”

Constable Hanson said that sort of thing would have to wait until the experts arrived. So she stood there, hands in pockets, thinking for a moment.

“Well,” she said after a while. “If I’m going to be sued for selling someone an unsafe staircase, I’d like to know about it as soon as possible. Come along, Frederick,” she went on, whistling at the labrador that had been snuffling around the rose bushes. It occurred to Argyll that, had there been any useful hints like footprints in the soil, they probably weren’t there any more.

And then she marched off down the pathway and disappeared up the road.

“Who was that?” Argyll asked the policeman, thinking that the common assault might make a useful bridge to establish more cordial relations.

“Mrs. Mary Verney,” the policeman said. “The local landowner, not that she’s really local, or owns much land any more, I gather. Quite a nice woman, but not really from these parts. She only took over when her cousin died recently.”

“Ah.”

But any further opportunity for conversational bonding was lost, because at that moment the full range of policemen arrived to do their several duties.

And so the slow, ponderous wheels of justice began to inch forward. Photos were taken, distances were measured, brows were furrowed, windows were peered at, chins were scratched. Bodies were removed and statements were taken. It lasted for hours, and as far as Argyll could see, didn’t accomplish a great deal.

The local police, however, were very pleased with themselves. Fingerprint men danced around, puffing away like a bunch of manic hairdressers. Other miscellaneous experts also gave it as their preliminary view that, at a rough guess, Geoffrey Forster had met his end by falling down the stairs. They were not so bold as to say how this unfortunate event had come about.

Deprived of anything really meaty by way of discoveries, rather like Flavia with Sandano, they turned their full attention to Argyll in revenge, and he spent the next several hours stating his business, explaining his presence and accounting for his movements. He recommended that, if they wanted testimonials to his good character and general usefulness to the police, they should contact the Art Theft Department in Italy. A Signorina di Stefano, he added, spoke good enough English to praise him to the skies in language they would understand.

With some reluctance, the collective mind of the police edged slowly towards the conclusion that, if Forster had been given assistance in his final descent, then it was unlikely that Argyll had provided it, especially as the doctors later offered a preliminary opinion that he had been dead for twelve hours at least and Argyll could prove relatively easily that he had been in London at the time. While not ruling out some devious piece of skulduggery entirely, it didn’t really fit. Moreover, Bottando, in Flavia’s absence, did his duty by saying that in his opinion Argyll was a generally law-abiding type.

“And this picture,” Inspector Wilson said, “did you believe that Mr. Forster had it in his possession?”

“No. I’d be very surprised if he did. Anyone who kept a stolen painting for more than two decades would be a bit silly. Why bother to steal it in that case?”

“But it was your impression that he knew what you were referring to. When you mentioned it on the phone?”

“Oh yes. It seemed so. He said he’d talk to me about that. The ‘that’ was emphasized, you see.”

“You know what this picture is?”

“I have an approximate description. I was told about it a few days ago. Before that I’d never heard of it. It was a Madonna and child.”

“You don’t have a photograph, I suppose?”

Argyll shook his head and said that nobody had one.

“Very useful, sir. Thank you. Now, you got here…” And on they went, stating, typing, witnessing, confirming, signing. Eventually it was all over.

“Oh, and one other thing, sir. Your passport.”

“What about it?”

“Could I have it, sir?”

“What? Why?”

Wilson smiled apologetically. “You’ll get it back in a few days, I’m sure.”

“You mean I’m going to be stuck here?”

Wilson smiled again.

“But what about my job? I live in Italy, you know.”

“I know. That’s why we want your passport.”

“But I’m not under arrest? You don’t suspect me of anything?”

“Oh, no. But we might want to talk to you again, and it would be much easier for us if you were close to hand.”

He was very polite about it, but quite firm. Argyll, scowling and a little alarmed, handed the document over. He’d never realized it could be confiscated like that. Now it was gone, he rather missed it.

After he’d been told that a further statement would be required in due course, he was left at his leisure, although how he was to fill it in a village like Weller he was not entirely sure. As he walked past the bus stop in the only real street the place possessed, he realized that he was in a bit of a pickle: the last bus to Norwich had gone and there was not much chance of getting a train back to London. He would have to throw himself on the mercy of the constabulary and beg for a lift somewhere. Unless, that is, he could find a place to stay.

He was also out of cigarettes, so went to stock up and make enquiries.

“Five packets of Rothmans,” he said to the surly, pasty-faced woman on the other side of the counter in the tiny village shop-cum-post office, and grabbed one of the packets that were put down in front of him. He glanced around for emergency rations so that he could maintain a small supply of provisions. Alas, everything was in tins, had been deep-frozen for aeons, or was covered in a thin layer of dust. He decided to leave them be, and settled for some biscuits. One thing about Italy, it doesn’t know much about good biscuits. Not with chocolate on top.

“Tell me,” he went on to the woman, who struck him as a fine example of the dangers of in-breeding and bad diet, “is there a hotel around here somewhere? Where I can get a room for the night?”

“You in the police?”

“No.”

“Twelve pound fifty.”

“What?”

“For the cigarettes. Twelve pound fifty.”

“Good God,” he said, reluctantly handing over much of his cash. “What about a hotel?”

“No hotel.”

There is a pub though,” said a cheerful and familiar-sounding voice from behind. He turned round and saw Frederick the labrador standing in the open doorway of the shop. “But the rooms are a bit dicey.”

“Rats,” he said in disappointment.

“That’s right,” agreed Mary Verney evenly, following the dog in. “But you might survive a night or two. You have to stay around because of Geoffrey, do you?”

Not the discreet type. Argyll could see, out of the corner of his eye, the large pale cigarette server moving slightly downwind so she could hear better. He in turn edged towards the door, and Mrs. Verney accompanied him.

“What’s your name?” she asked as they emerged into the fresh air again.

She talked in a pleasing, well-modulated voice that was, nonetheless, strangely lacking in accent. Argyll decided this was merely because she talked normally: none of the thick rusticity of the locals, nor the tonsil-strangling accents normally associated with the English aristocracy.

Argyll introduced himself, then turned his attention more directly to his fellow customer. A pleasant, very English-looking lady, lots of tweed and Labrador hair. Good bones, as they say, and the sort of skin that retains its freshness through decades of being lashed by fresh, cold rain while out in pursuit of furry animals.

“D’you want some tea, by the way? I’m just about to make some. It’s just so I can pump you dry about Geoffrey and what’s been going on there. Be warned. The police are being damnably uncommunicative, and I’m dying to know.”

Argyll considered, then accepted. It would make a pleasant change. Besides, while he was providing her with information, she might do the same for him.

So he walked by her side back through the main street of the village, then down a broad avenue that branched off to the left, with his new companion chattering away about the family of jays nesting in the oak tree, the depredations of Dutch Elm disease which had quite transformed the area. Her remarks were punctuated by whistles and shouts at Frederick the dog who lolloped alongside, snuffling his nose joyously into every patch of summer mud that presented itself for inspection.

On the whole, it was not a bad village, he decided, located as it was in one of those small sections of East Anglia which are not flat as a pancake and windswept by icy gales coming straight from the North Pole. Clearly, though, it had come down in the world in the past few centuries. It probably had less than a thousand inhabitants, most of whom lived in minuscule cottages along the diminutive main street and in outlying farmhouses and labourers’ cottages. The church, on the other hand, would have done a fair-sized city proud. It was vast, with enough space to sit every villager and still have room to spare. The square, grim tower dominated the entire landscape and the lack of any other building of comparable grandeur nearby only emphasized that the village had not yet fully recovered from the Black Death.

Apart from that there was a small, self-enclosed settlement of modern houses on the outskirts built for people who wanted to live in the country but had no desire to give up either the form or appearance of suburban life, and Weller House itself.

This lay at the end of a grand, if a little neglected, avenue and had been built, so Argyll guessed, in the late seventeenth century. Subsequent modernizers had Greekified one side in the nineteenth century, and a few decades later had Gothicized the other so that the house looked strikingly like an example from a textbook of architectural styles. The result was charming, though. Just the right size, too. Not a gigantic palace, but something you could live in and still impress every neighbour for twenty miles around.

Quiet and tranquil as well, he added to himself. About three-quarters of a mile out, cut off from the rabble by still-extensive—if overgrown—grounds which turned into scruffy woodland, a tall stone wall and a large, rusty iron gate that gave on to the main road. Once upon a time the stone wall was to keep the peasants at bay; now it served to keep out all the noise of the modern age. Adaptability, that was the thing.

Alas, more than stone walls were needed. Just as Argyll was thinking how quiet it was, there came another low rumble from somewhere over the horizon. As he stood there, trying to work out what sort of storm was in the offing, the sound grew in volume and changed from something that resembled a slow-motion roll of thunder into an ever more high-pitched whine. Then, with an explosive blast that made the ground beneath his feet vibrate, two black and very threatening shapes shot through the air a few hundred feet above him, flashing through the skies at an almost unbelievable speed. Then they disappeared over the line of trees at the far end of the grounds, and the noise slowly dissipated once again.

“What in God’s name was that?” he asked his new hostess, who appeared to pay no attention to the phenomenon. She merely glanced at her watch.

“Five-thirty,” she said mysteriously. “Must have been bombing Scotland again.”

“Eh?”

They’re F1-11s,” she explained with all the indifference that long familiarity breeds. “American bombers,” she added, lest Argyll’s aircraft recognition skills be rusty. “Their base is about five miles away, and we’re underneath their flight path. When they’re feeling a bit perky, they see the avenue cut through the trees, and can’t resist belting up it for all they’re worth. Bloody noisy, aren’t they?”

“Can’t anyone stop them? The house’ll fall down if it vibrates like that.”

She pointed up at the house, and one long crack coming down the side. “I’m trying to persuade the Americans it’s all the fault of their pilots and that they should pay for it. In fact, I suspect that crack appeared before the Wright brothers were even born, but never mind. With a bit of luck they’ll cough up before they go.”

“Go where?”

She shrugged. “Wherever they come from. The base is closing, as they think there’s nothing to defend us from any more. Disaster.”

“Why? It’ll be much quieter.”

“Yes. And that’s the problem. No commuters want to live here because it’s so noisy; so when they pack up, Weller will become another bedroom community. Also, the Americans were incredibly generous. They so wanted to be liked they paid for every house for miles around to have double-glazing; repaved all the roads their lorries used, and threw annual parties and excursions for the local children. Wonderful people. Much better than the local council. And the party’s over. The general feeling round these parts is that it’s all the fault of the Russians for being so weak and feeble. Come along.”

Digesting this strange analysis of geo-politics, Argyll followed Mrs. Verney through the big wooden doors covered with peeling and blistered paint, and into the hallway. He waited patiently, examining distinct signs of woodworm in the dark brown panelling, while she worked herself up into an artificial fit of indignation and then telephoned the base commander to protest about his pilots using her arboretum for target practice. Yet again, Colonel, yet again, as she put it so primly.

“Now, then,” she said afterwards. “Tea. And gossip. But tea first.” Then she led the way down a grim staircase to a kitchen so ancient that it might well have been transported complete for exhibition on Edwardian domesticity, and began to brew up.

“No modern equipment, and no servants to work the old equipment either,” she observed. “The worst of both worlds. I spend my life trying to fix the fuses when they blow. It’s amazing how much you learn about electrical circuitry when you join the landed gentry.”

“I thought you were born into it. Isn’t that the whole point?”

“Depends on how resilient the breed is. In the case of my family, not very. They die like flies. I’m about the last. My Uncle Godfrey, who reduced the place to the dire state which you can see, dropped off his perch about fifteen years ago. His daughter died last winter. Leaving me this bloody mausoleum, for which generosity I was not overly grateful. And her dog, of course. Worst day of my life, when I inherited this place. The dog’s OK, though.”

“You don’t have to live here, do you? Couldn’t you just close it up and move into a comfortable bungalow?”

She sighed as she poured the boiling water into a kettle the size of a bathtub. “Then who’d fix the fuses when they blow? Or the plumbing when it gets stuck? Or the roof when it leaks? Without constant attention this baroque slum would fall down in a week. You can’t just walk out and leave it. And before you suggest it, don’t think I haven’t thought about it. Fat insurance policy, nice fire, and me crying my eyes out as I cash the check.”

Argyll sat down at the kitchen table and grinned at her.

“But, of course, I’d get caught, wouldn’t I? And I’m damned if I’m going to spend the rest of my life in jail for this place.”

“You can’t give it to someone?”

She snorted. “Who? I’m the only Beaumont who’s ever earned a penny. If I can’t manage, that lot certainly couldn’t. The only thing to be said for them is that they’re too sensible to try. They know a loser when they see one.”

“What about the National Trust?”

“They’d take it. But not encumbered with debts, which is the problem at the moment. So I’m stuck with it, unless I can lay my hands on some cash. Funny world, isn’t it? I don’t suppose you have a couple of million you have no use for? We could turn the place into a conference centre, or fill it with geriatrics and squeeze every last penny out of them.”

“Not on me.”

“Pity.”

“No children, then?”

“Three. Twins and a single. They’re all scattered to the winds, thank God. I mean, I love them dearly, but now they’re off learning for themselves how beastly life is, I find my existence is very much calmer. Quite like being young again.”

“Goodness.”

“Now, tell me about yourself. Who are you? Where do you come from? Do you live alone? Are you married? What, most importantly, is going on in the village? And are you responsible for it?”

So Argyll sang for his tea, giving the details of his life as the vivaciously waspish woman opposite nodded and asked supplementary questions. Her eager cross-questioning over the death of Geoffrey Forster would have done a skilled lawyer proud. For the first time since he got off the plane, he felt relaxed, and as a result he stayed chattering much longer than he should.

“But are you a good art dealer, dear?” she asked after she’d exhausted the topic of Geoffrey Forster and moved on to excavate Argyll’s personal life.

He shrugged. “I’m not bad at the art bit. It’s the dealing side that lets me down. I’m told I lack the killer instinct.”

“Not ruthless enough, eh?”

“That’s the general opinion. In fact, the main trouble is not having enough money to buy pictures in the first place. The really major dealers start off either with oodles of their own, or a backer who will put up capital. But I haven’t noticed the queues forming.”

“I wish you luck.”

“Thank you.”

And so the conversation harmlessly meandered along and it was nearly eight before he glanced at the clock on the wall, gave a start and stood up.

“Are you in a hurry?” she asked.

“Not exactly. But I should go; I have to find somewhere to stay the night.”

“Stay here.”

“I couldn’t possibly do that.”

“Please yourself. How long are the police going to be interested in you?”

“I’ve no idea. I can’t imagine what else they might need. But they seem to expect me to hang around. And they’ve got my passport as well.”

She nodded. “A bit of a captive, then. Tell you what, if you’re still here tomorrow, come for dinner. I can guarantee that the food will be better than the pub, if nothing else.”

Argyll said he’d be delighted.