In the Frame

13

I spent a good deal of the night studying the list of Overseas Customers, mostly because I still found it difficult to lie comfortably to sleep, and partly because I had nothing else to read.

It became more and more obvious that I hadn’t really pinched enough. The list I’d taken was fine in its way, but would have been doubly useful with a stock list to match the letters and numbers in the right hand column.

On the other hand, all stock numbers were a form of code, and if I looked at them long enough, maybe some sort of recognisable pattern might emerge.

By far the majority began with the letter M, particularly in the first and much larger section. In the smaller section, which I had found at the back of the file, the M prefixes were few, and S, A, W and B were much commoner.

Donald’s number began with M. Maisie’s began with S.

Suppose, I thought, that the M simply stood for Melbourne, and the S for Sydney, the cities where each had bought their pictures.

Then A, W and B were where? Adelaide, Wagga Wagga and Brisbane?

Alice?

In the first section the letters and numbers following the initial M seemed to have no clear pattern. In the second section, though, the third letter was always C, the last letter always R, and the numbers, divided though they were between several different countries, progressed more or less consecutively. The highest number of all was 54, which had been sold to a Mr. Norman Updike, living in Auckland, New Zealand. The stock number against his name was WHC54R. The date in the left hand column was only a week old, and Mr. Updike had not been crossed out.

All the pictures in the shorter section had been sold within the past three years. The first dates in the long first section were five and a half years old.

I wondered which had come first, five and a half years ago: the gallery or the idea. Had Wexford originally been a full-time crook deliberately setting up an imposing front, or a formerly honest art dealer struck by criminal possibilities? Judging from the respectable air of the gallery and what little I’d seen of Wexford himself, I would have guessed the latter. But the violence lying just below the surface didn’t match.

I sighed, put down the lists, and switched off the light. Lay in the dark, thinking of the telephone call I’d made after Jik had gone back to Sarah.

It had been harder to arrange from the motel than it would have been from the Hilton, but the line had been loud and clear.

‘You got my cable?’ I said.

‘I’ve been waiting for your call for half an hour.’

‘Sorry.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I’ve sent you a letter,’ I said. ‘I want to tell you what’s in it.’

‘But...’

‘Just listen,’ I said. ‘And talk after.’ I spoke for quite a long time to a response of grunts from the far end.

‘Are you sure of all this?’

‘Positive about most,’ I said. ‘Some of it’s a guess.’

‘Repeat it.’

‘Very well.’ I did so, at much the same length.

‘I have recorded all that.’

‘Good.’

‘Hm... What do you intend doing now?’

‘I’m going home soon. Before that, I think I’ll keep looking into things that aren’t my business.’

‘I don’t approve of that.’

I grinned at the telephone. ‘I don’t suppose you do, but if I’d stayed in England we wouldn’t have got this far. There’s one other thing... Can I reach you by telex if I want to get a message to you in a hurry?’

‘Telex? Wait a minute.’

I waited.

‘Yes, here you are.’ A number followed. I wrote it down. ‘Address any message to me personally and head it urgent.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘And could you get answers to three questions for me?’ He listened, and said he could. ‘Thank you very much,’ I said. ‘And goodnight.’

Sarah and Jik both looked heavy-eyed and languorous in the morning. A successful night, I judged.

We checked out of the motel, packed my suitcase into the boot of the car, and sat in the passenger seats to plan the day.

‘Can’t we please get our clothes from the Hilton?’ Sarah said, sounding depressed.

Jik and I said ‘No’ together.

‘I’ll ring them now,’ Jik said. ‘I’ll get them to pack all our things and keep them safe for us, and I’ll tell them I’ll send a cheque for the bill.’ He levered himself out of the car again and went off on the errand.

‘Buy what you need out of my winnings,’ I said to Sarah.

She shook her head. ‘I’ve got some money. It’s not that. It’s just... I wish all this was over.’

‘It will be, soon,’ I said neutrally. She sighed heavily. ‘What’s your idea of a perfect life?’ I asked.

‘Oh...’ she seemed surprised. ‘I suppose right now I just want to be with Jik on the boat and have fun, like before you came.’

‘And for ever?’

She looked at me broodingly. ‘You may think, Todd, that I don’t know Jik is a complicated character, but you’ve only got to look at his paintings... They make me shudder. They’re a side of Jik I don’t know because he hasn’t painted anything since we met. You may think that this world will be worse off if Jik is happy for a bit, but I’m no fool, I know that in the end whatever it is that drives him to paint like that will come back again... I think these first few months together are frantically precious... and it isn’t just the physical dangers you’ve dragged us into that I hate, but the feeling that I’ve lost the rest of that golden time... that you remind him of his painting, and that after you’ve gone he’ll go straight back to it... weeks and weeks before he might have done.’

‘Get him to go sailing,’ I said. ‘He’s always happy at sea.’

‘You don’t care, do you?’

I looked straight into her clouded brown eyes. ‘I care for you both, very much.’

‘Then God help the people you hate.’

And God help me, I thought, if I became any fonder of my oldest friend’s wife. I looked away from her, out of the window. Affection wouldn’t matter. Anything else would be a mess.

Jik came back with a satisfied air. ‘That’s all fixed. They said there’s a letter for you, Todd, delivered by hand a few minutes ago. They asked me for a forwarding address.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said you’d call them yourself.’

‘Right... Well, let’s get going.’

‘Where to?’

‘New Zealand, don’t you think?’

‘That should be far enough,’ Jik said dryly.

He drove us to the airport, which was packed with people going home from the Cup.

‘If Wexford and Greene are looking for us,’ Sarah said, ‘They will surely be watching at the airport.’

If they weren’t, I thought, we’d have to lay a trail: but Jik, who knew that, didn’t tell her.

‘They can’t do much in public,’ he said comfortingly.

We bought tickets and found we could either fly to Auckland direct at lunchtime, or via Sydney leaving within half an hour.

‘Sydney,’ said Sarah positively, clearly drawing strength from the chance of putting her feet down on her own safe doorstep.

I shook my head. ‘Auckland direct. Let’s see if the restaurant’s still open for breakfast.’

We squeezed in under the waitresses’ pointed consultation of clocks and watches and ordered bacon and eggs lavishly.

‘Why are we going to New Zealand?’ Sarah said.

‘To see a man about a painting and advise him to take out extra insurance.’

‘Are you actually making sense?’

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘yes.’

‘I don’t see why we have to go so far, when Jik said you found enough in the gallery to blow the whole thing wide open.’

‘Um...’ I said. ‘Because we don’t want to blow it wide open. Because we want to hand it to the police in full working order.’

She studied my face. ‘You are very devious.’

‘Not on canvas,’ Jik said.

After we’d eaten we wandered around the airport shops, buying yet more toothbrushes and so on for Jik and Sarah, and another airline bag. There was no sign of Wexford or Greene or the boy or Beetle-brows or Renbo, or the tough who’d been on watch at Alice Springs. If they’d seen us without us seeing them, we couldn’t tell.

‘I think I’ll ring the Hilton,’ I said.

Jik nodded. I put the call through with him and Sarah sitting near, within sound and sight.

‘I called about a forwarding address...’ I told the reception desk. ‘I can’t really give you one. I’ll be in New Zealand. I’m flying to Auckland in an hour or two.’

They asked for instructions about the hand-delivered letter.

‘Er... Would you mind opening it, and reading it to me?’

Certainly, they said. Their pleasure. The letter was from Hudson Taylor saying he was sorry to have missed me at the races, and that if while I was in Australia I would like to see round a vineyard, he would be pleased to show me his.

Thanks, I said. Our pleasure, sir, they said. If anyone asked for me, I said, would they please mention where I’d gone. They would. Certainly. Their pleasure.

During the next hour Jik called the car-hire firm about settling their account and leaving the car in the airport carpark, and I checked my suitcase through with Air New Zealand. Passports were no problem: I had mine with me in any case, but for Jik and Sarah they were unnecessary, as passage between New Zealand and Australia was as unrestricted as between England and Ireland.

Still no sign of Wexford or Greene. We sat in the departure bay thinking private thoughts.

It was again only when our flight was called that I spotted a spotter. The prickles rose again on my skin. I’d been blind, I thought. Dumb and blind.

Not Wexford, nor Greene, nor the boy, nor Renbo, nor any rough set of muscles. A neat day dress, neat hair, unremarkable handbag and shoes. A calm concentrated face. I saw her because she was staring at Sarah. She was standing outside the departure bay, looking in. The woman who had welcomed me into the Yarra River Fine Arts, and given me a catalogue, and let me out again afterwards.

As if she felt my eyes upon her she switched her gaze abruptly to my face. I looked away instantly, blankly, hoping she wouldn’t know I’d seen her, or wouldn’t know at least that I’d recognised her.

Jik, Sarah and I stood up and drifted with everyone else towards the departure doors. In their glass I could see the woman’s reflection: standing still, watching us go. I walked out towards the aircraft and didn’t look back.

Mrs. Norman Updike stood in her doorway, shook her head, and said that her husband would not be home until six.

She was thin and sharp-featured and talked with tight New Zealand vowels. If we wanted to speak to her husband, we would have to come back.

She looked us over; Jik with his rakish blond beard, Sarah in her slightly crumpled but still military cream dress, I with my arm in its sling under my shirt, and jacket loose over my shoulder. Hardly a trio one would easily forget. She watched us retreat down her front path with a sharply turned-down mouth.

‘Dear gentle soul,’ murmured Jik.

We drove away in the car we had hired at the airport.

‘Where now?’ Jik said.

‘Shops.’ Sarah was adamant. ‘I must have some clothes.’

The shops, it appeared, were in Queen Street, and still open for another half hour. Jik and I sat in the car, waiting and watching the world go by.

‘The dolly-birds fly out of their office cages about now,’ Jik said happily.

‘What of it?’

‘I sit and count the ones with no bras.’

‘And you a married man.’

‘Old habits die hard.’

We had counted eight definites and one doubtful by the time Sarah returned. She was wearing a light olive skirt with a pink shirt, and reminded me of pistachio ice cream.

‘That’s better,’ she said, tossing two well-filled carriers onto the back seat. ‘Off we go, then.’

The therapeutic value of the new clothes lasted all the time we spent in New Zealnd and totally amazed me. She seemed to feel safer if she looked fresh and clean, her spirits rising accordingly. Armourplated cotton, I thought. Drip-dry bullet-proofing. Security is a new pin.

We dawdled back to the hill overlooking the bay where Norman Updike’s house stood in a crowded suburban street. The Updike residence was large but squashed by neighbours, and it was not until one was inside that one realised that the jostling was due to the view. As many houses as could be crammed on to the land had been built to share it. The city itself seemed to sprawl endlessly round miles of indented coastline, but all the building plots looked tiny.

Norman Updike proved as expansive as his wife was closed in. He had a round shiny bald head on a round short body, and he called his spouse Chuckles without apparently intending satire.

We said, Jik and I, that we were professional artists who would be intensely interested and grateful if we could briefly admire the noted picture he had just bought.

‘Did the gallery send you?’ he asked, beaming at the implied compliments to his taste and wealth.

‘Sort of,’ we said, and Jik added: ‘My friend here is well known in England for his painting of horses, and is represented in many top galleries, and has been hung often at the Royal Academy...’

I thought he was laying it on a bit too thick, but Norman Updike was impressed and pulled wide his door.

‘Come in then. Come in. The picture’s in the lounge. This way, lass, this way.’

He showed us into a large over-stuffed room with dark ankle-deep carpet, big dark cupboards, and the glorious view of sunlit water.

Chuckles, sitting solidly in front of a television busy with a moronic British comic show, gave us a sour look and no greeting.

‘Over here,’ Norman Updike beamed, threading his portly way round a battery of fat armchairs. ‘What do you think of that, eh?’ He waved his hand with proprietorial pride at the canvas on his wall.

A smallish painting, fourteen inches by eighteen. A black horse, with an elongated neck curving against a blue and white sky; a chopped-off tail; the grass in the foreground yellow; and the whole covered with an old-looking varnish.

‘Herring,’ I murmured reverently.

Norman Updike’s beam broadened. ‘I see you know your stuff. Worth a bit, that is.’

‘A good deal,’ I agreed.

‘I reckon I got a bargain. The gallery said I’d always make a profit if I wanted to sell.’

‘May I look at the brushwork?’ I asked politely.

‘Go right ahead.’

I looked closely. It was very good. It did look like Herring, dead since 1865. It also, indefinably, looked like the meticulous Renbo. One would need a microscope and chemical analysis, to make sure.

I stepped back and glanced round the rest of the room. There was nothing of obvious value, and the few other pictures were all prints.

‘Beautiful,’ I said admiringly, turning back to the Herring. ‘Unmistakable style. A real master.’

Updike beamed.

‘You’d better beware of burglars,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘Chuckles, dear, do you hear what this young man says? He says we’d better beware of burglars!’

Chuckles’ eyes gave me two seconds’ sour attention and returned to the screen.

Updike patted Sarah on the shoulder. ‘Tell your friend not to worry about burglars.’

‘Why not?’ I said.

‘We’ve got alarms all over this house,’ he beamed. ‘Don’t you worry, a burglar wouldn’t get far.’

Jik and Sarah, as I had done, looked round the room and saw nothing much worth stealing. Nothing, certainly, worth alarms all over the house. Updike watched them looking and his beam grew wider.

‘Shall I show these young people our little treasures, Chuckles?’ he said.

Chuckles didn’t even reply. The television cackled with tinned laughter.

‘We’d be most interested,’ I said.

He smiled with the fat anticipatory smirk of one about to show what will certainly be admired. Two or three steps took him to one of the big dark cupboards which seemed built into the walls, and he pulled open the double doors with a flourish.

Inside, there were about six deep shelves, each bearing several complicated pieces of carved jade. Pale pink, creamy white and pale green, smooth, polished, intricate, expensive; each piece standing upon its own heavy-looking black base-support. Jik, Sarah and I made appreciative noises and Norman Updike smiled ever wider.

‘Hong Kong, of course,’ he said. ‘I worked there for years, you know. Quite a nice little collection, eh?’ He walked along to the next dark cupboard and pulled open a duplicate set of doors. Inside, more shelves, more carvings, as before.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know much about jade,’ I said, apologetically. ‘Can’t appreciate your collection to the full.’

He told us a good deal more about the ornate goodies than we actually wanted to know. There were four cupboards full in the lounge and overflows in bedroom and hall.

‘You used to be able to pick them up very cheap in Hong Kong,’ he said. ‘I worked there more than twenty years, you know.’

Jik and I exchanged glances. I nodded slightly.

Jik immediately shook Norman Updike by the hand, put his arm round Sarah, and said we must be leaving. Updike looked enquiringly at Chuckles, who was still glued to the telly and still abdicating from the role of hostess. When she refused to look our way he shrugged good-humouredly and came with us to his front door. Jik and Sarah walked out as soon as he opened it, and left me alone with him in the hall.

‘Mr. Updike,’ I said. ‘At the gallery... which man was it who sold you the Herring?’

‘Mr. Grey,’ he said promptly.

Mr. Grey... Mr. Grey...

I frowned.

‘Such a pleasant man,’ nodded Updike, beaming. ‘I told him I knew very little about pictures, but he assured me I would get as much pleasure from my little Herring as from all my jade.’

‘You did tell him about your jade, then?’

‘Naturally I did. I mean... if you don’t know anything about one thing, well... you try and show you do know about something else. Don’t you? Only human, isn’t it?’

‘Only human,’ I agreed, smiling. ‘What was the name of Mr. Grey’s gallery?’

‘Eh?’ He looked puzzled. ‘I thought you said he sent you, to see my picture.’

‘I go to so many galleries, I’ve foolishly forgotten which one it was.’

‘Ruapehu Fine Arts,’ he said. ‘I was down there last week.’

‘Down...?’

‘In Wellington.’ His smile was slipping. ‘Look here, what is all this?’ Suspicion flitted across his rounded face. ‘Why did you come here? I don’t think Mr. Grey sent you at all.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘But Mr. Updike, we mean you no harm. We really are painters, my friend and I. But... now we’ve seen your jade collection... we do think we must warn you. We’ve heard of several people who’ve bought paintings and had their houses burgled soon after. You say you’ve got burglar alarms fitted, so if I were you I’d make sure they are working properly.’

‘But... good gracious...’

‘There’s a bunch of thieves about,’ I said. ‘Who follow up the sales of paintings and burgle the houses of those who buy. I suppose they reckon that if anyone can afford, say, a Herring, they have other things worth stealing.’

He looked at me with awakening shrewdness. ‘You mean, young man, that I told Mr. Grey about my jade...’

‘Let’s just say,’ I said, ‘That it would be sensible to take more precautions than usual.’

‘But... for how long?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know Mr. Updike. Maybe for ever.’

His round jolly face looked troubled.

‘Why did you bother to come and tell me all this?’ he said.

‘I’d do a great deal more to break up this bunch.’

He asked ‘Why?’ again, so I told him. ‘My cousin bought a painting. My cousin’s house was burgled. My cousin’s wife disturbed the burglars, and they killed her.’

Norman Updike took a long slow look at my face. I couldn’t have stopped him seeing the abiding anger, even if I’d tried. He shivered convulsively.

‘I’m glad you’re not after me,’ he said.

I managed a smile. ‘Mr. Updike... please take care. And one day, perhaps, the police may come to see your picture, and ask where you bought it... anyway, they will if I have anything to do with it.’

The round smile returned with understanding and conviction. ‘I’ll expect them,’ he said.