In the Frame

17

Maisie saw me before I saw her, and came sweeping down like a great scarlet bird, wings outstretched.

Monday lunchtime at Wolverhampton races, misty and cold.

‘Hello, dear, I’m so glad you’ve come. Did you have a good trip back, because of course it’s such a long way, isn’t it, with all that wretched jet lag?’ She patted my arm and peered acutely at my face. ‘You don’t really look awfully well, dear, if you don’t mind me saying so, and you don’t seem to have collected any sun-tan, though I suppose as you haven’t been away two weeks it isn’t surprising, but those are nasty gashes on your hand, dear, aren’t they, and you were walking very carefully just now.’

She stopped to watch a row of jockeys canter past on their way to the start. Bright shirts against the thin grey mist. A subject for Munnings.

‘Have you backed anything, dear? And are you sure you’re warm enough in that anorak? I never think jeans are good for people in the winter, they’re only cotton, dear, don’t forget, and how did you get on in Australia? I mean, dear, did you find out anything useful?’

‘It’s an awfully long story...’

‘Best told in the bar, then, don’t you think, dear?’

She bought us immense brandies with ginger ale and settled herself at a small table, her kind eyes alert and waiting.

I told her about Hudson’s organisation, about the Melbourne gallery, and about the list of robbable customers.

‘Was I on it?’

I nodded. ‘Yes, you were.’

‘And you gave it to the police?’ she said anxiously.

I grinned. ‘Don’t look so worried, Maisie. Your name was crossed out already. I just crossed it out more thoroughly. By the time I’d finished, no one could ever disentangle it, particularly on a photo-copy.’

She smiled broadly. ‘No one could call you a fool, dear.’

I wasn’t so sure about that. ‘I’m afraid, though,’ I said, ‘that you’ve lost your nine thousand quid.’

‘Oh yes, dear,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Serves me right, doesn’t it, for trying to cheat the Customs, though frankly, dear, in the same circumstances I’d probably do it again, because that tax makes me so mad, dear. But I’m ever so glad, dear, that they won’t come knocking on my door this time, or rather my sister Betty’s, because of course I’m staying with her again up here at the moment, as of course the Beach told you, until my house is ready.’

I blinked. ‘What house?’

‘Well, dear, I decided not to rebuild the house at Worthing because it wouldn’t be the same without the things Archie and I bought together, so I’m selling that plot of sea-side land for a fortune, dear, and I’ve chosen a nice place just down the road from Sandown Park racecourse.’

‘You’re not going to live in Australia?’

‘Oh no, dear, that would be too far away. From Archie, you see, dear.’

I saw. I liked Maisie very much.

‘I’m afraid I spent all your money,’ I said.

She smiled at me with her well-kept head on one side and absentmindedly stroked her crocodile handbag.

‘Never mind, dear. You can paint me two pictures. One of me, and one of my new house.’

I left after the third race, took the train along the main line to Shrewsbury, and from there travelled by bus to Inspector Frost’s official doorstep.

He was in an office, chin deep in papers. Also present, the unblinking Superintendent Wall, who had so unnerved Donald, and whom I’d not previously met. Both men shook hands in a cool and businesslike manner, Wall’s eyes traversing the anorak, jeans and desert boots, and remaining unimpressed. They offered me a chair, moulded plastic and armless.

Frost said, faintly smiling, ‘You sure kicked open an ant-hill.’

Wall frowned, disliking such frivolity. ‘It appears you stumbled on an organisation of some size.’

The gaze of both men swept the mountain of paper.

‘What about Donald?’ I asked.

Frost kept his eyes down. His mouth twitched.

Wall said, ‘We have informed Mr Stuart that we are satisfied the break-in at his house and the death of Mrs Stuart were the work of outside agencies, beyond his knowledge or control.’

Cold comfort words. ‘Did he understand what he was hearing?’

The Wall eyebrows rose. ‘I went to see him myself, this morning. He appeared to understand perfectly.’

‘And what about Regina?’

‘The body of Mrs Stuart,’ Wall said correctively.

‘Donald wants her buried,’ I said.

Frost looked up with an almost human look of compassion. ‘The difficulty is,’ he said, ‘that in a murder case, one has to preserve the victim’s body in case the defence wishes to call for its own post mortem. In this case, we have not been able to accuse anyone of her murder, let alone get as far as them arranging a defence.’ He cleared his throat. ‘We’ll release Mrs Stuart’s body for burial as soon as official requirements have been met.’

I looked at my fingers, interlacing them.

Frost said, ‘Your cousin already owes you a lot. You can’t be expected to do more.’

I smiled twistedly and stood up. ‘I’ll go and see him,’ I said.

Wall shook hands again, and Frost came with me through the hall and out into the street. The lights shone bright in the early winter evening.

‘Unofficially,’ he said, walking slowly with me along the pavement, ‘I’ll tell you that the Melbourne police found a list of names in the gallery which it turns out are of known housebreakers. Divided into countries, like the Overseas Customers. There were four names for England. I suppose I shouldn’t guess and I certainly ought not to be saying this to you, but there’s a good chance Mrs Stuart’s killer may be one of them.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. But don’t quote me.’ He looked worried.

‘I won’t,’ I said. ‘So the robberies were local labour?’

‘It seems to have been their normal method.’

Greene, I thought. With an ‘e’. Greene could have recruited them. And checked afterwards, in burnt houses, on work done.

I stopped walking. We were standing outside the flower shop where Regina had worked. Frost looked at the big bronze chrysanthemums in the brightly lit window, and then enquiringly at my face.

I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the six revolver shell cases. Gave them to Frost.

‘These came from the gun which the man called Greene fired at me,’ I said. ‘He dropped them when he was reloading. I told you about them on the telephone.’

He nodded.

‘I don’t imagine they’re of much practical use,’ I said. ‘But they might persuade you that Greene is capable of murder.’

‘Well... what of it?’

‘It’s only a feeling...’

‘Get on with it.’

‘Greene,’ I said, ‘was in England at about the time Regina died.’

He stared.

‘Maybe Regina knew him,’ I said. ‘She had been in the gallery in Australia. Maybe she saw him helping to rob her house... supervising, perhaps... and maybe that’s why she was killed, because it wouldn’t have been enough just to tie her up and gag her... she could identify him for certain if she was alive.’

He looked as if he was trying to draw breath.

‘That’s all... guessing,’ he said.

‘I know for certain that Greene was in England two weeks after Regina’s death. I know for certain he was up to his neck in selling paintings and stealing them back. I know for certain that he would kill someone who could get him convicted. The rest... well... it’s over to you.’

‘My God,’ Frost said. ‘My God.’

I started off again, towards the bus-stop. He came with me, looking glazed.

‘What everyone wants to know,’ he said, ‘is what put you on to the organisation in the first place.’

I smiled. ‘A hot tip from an informer.’

‘What informer?’

A smuggler in a scarlet coat, glossy hair-do and crocodile handbag. ‘You can’t grass on informers,’ I said.

He sighed, shook his head, stopped walking, and pulled a piece of torn-off telex paper out of his jacket.

‘Did you meet an Australian policeman called Porter?’

‘I sure did.’

‘He sent you a message.’ He handed me the paper. I read the neatly typed words.

‘Tell that Pommie painter Thanks.’

‘Will you send a message back?’

He nodded. ‘What is it?’

‘No sweat,’ I said.

I stood in the dark outside my cousin’s house, looking in.

He sat in his lighted drawingroom, facing Regina, unframed on the mantelshelf. I sighed, and rang the bell.

Donald came slowly. Opened the door.

‘Charles!’ He was mildly surprised. ‘I thought you were in Australia.’

‘Got back yesterday.’

‘Come in.’

We went into the kitchen, where at least it was warm, and sat one each side of the table. He looked gaunt and fifty, a shell of a man, retreating from life.

‘How’s business?’ I said.

‘Business?’

‘The wine trade.’

‘I haven’t been to the office.’

‘If you didn’t have a critical cash flow problem before,’ I said. ‘You’ll have one soon.’

‘I don’t really care.’

‘You’ve got stuck,’ I said. ‘Like a needle in a record. Playing the same little bit of track over and over again.’

He looked blank.

‘The police know you didn’t fix the robbery,’ I said.

He nodded slowly. ‘That man Wall... came and told me so. This morning.’

‘Well, then.’

‘It doesn’t seem to make much difference.’

‘Because of Regina?’

He didn’t answer.

‘You’ve got to stop it, Donald,’ I said. ‘She’s dead. She’s been dead five weeks and three days. Do you want to see her?’

He looked absolutely horrified. ‘No! Of course not.’

‘Then stop thinking about her body.’

‘Charles!’ He stood up violently, knocking over his chair. He was somewhere between outrage and anger, and clearly shocked.

‘She’s in a cold drawer,’ I said, ‘And you want her in a box in the cold ground. So where’s the difference?’

‘Get out,’ he said loudly. ‘I don’t want to hear you.’

‘The bit of Regina you’re obsessed about,’ I said, not moving, ‘is just a collection of minerals. That... that shape lying in storage isn’t Regina. The real girl is in your head. In your memory. The only life you can give her is to remember her. That’s her immortality, in your head. You’re killing her all over again with your refusal to go on living.’

He turned on his heel and walked out. I heard him go across the hall, and guessed he was making for the sittingroom.

After a minute I followed him. The white-panelled door was shut.

I opened the door. Went in.

He was sitting in his chair, in the usual place.

‘Go away,’ he said.

What did it profit a man, I thought, if he got flung over balconies and shot at and mangled by rocks, and couldn’t save his cousin’s soul.

‘I’m taking that picture with me to London,’ I said.

He was alarmed. He stood up. ‘You’re not.’

‘I am.’

‘You can’t. You gave it to me.’

‘It needs a frame,’ I said. ‘Or it will warp.’

‘You can’t take it.’

‘You can come as well.’

‘I can’t leave here,’ he said.

‘Why not?’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said explosively. ‘You know why not. Because of...’ His voice died away.

I said, ‘Regina will be with you wherever you are. Whenever you think of her, she’ll be there.’

Nothing.

‘She isn’t in this room. She’s in your head. You can go out of here and take her with you.’

Nothing.

‘She was a great girl. It must be bloody without her. But she deserves the best you can do.’

Nothing.

I went over to the fireplace and picked up the picture. Regina’s face smiled out, vitally alive. I hadn’t done her left nostril too well, I thought.

Donald didn’t try to stop me.

I put my hand on his arm.

‘Let’s get your car out,’ I said, ‘And drive down to my flat. Right this minute.’

A little silence.

‘Come on,’ I said.

He began, with difficulty, to cry.

I took a long breath and waited. ‘O.K.,’ I said. ‘How are you off for petrol?’

‘We can get some more...’ he said, sniffing, ‘... on the motorway.’