Seventy-Seven Clocks

∨ Seventy-Seven Clocks ∧

3

Vandalism

London hides its secrets well.

Beneath the damp grey veil of a winter’s afternoon, the city’s interior life unwound as brightly as ever, and the rituals interred within the heavy stone buildings remained as immutable as the bricks themselves. London still bore the stamps of an empire fallen from grace – its trampled grandeur, its obduracy – and, sometimes, its violence.

Having survived another day of rummaging through handbags without discovering a single gun, knife, or IRA bomb, the security guards at the entrance to the National Gallery were about to console themselves with a strong cup of tea.

George Stokes checked his silver pocket watch, a memento of thirty years’ loyal service, then turned to his colleague. “Twenty to six,” he said. “In another ten minutes you can nip up and ring the bell. There won’t be anyone else coming in now.”

“Are you sure, George?” asked the other guard. “I make it nearly a quarter to.”

Outside, bitter December rain had begun to bluster around an almost deserted Trafalgar Square. Flumes from the great fountains spattered over the base of the towering Norwegian Christmas pine that had been erected in the piazza’s centre. The tree stood unlit, its uppermost branches twisting in the wind.

The roiling, bruised sky distended over the gallery, absorbing all reflected light. The gallery was emptying out, its patrons glancing up through the doors with their umbrellas unfurled, preparing to brave the night.

As the two guards compared timepieces, the entrance door was pushed inwards and a figure appeared, carrying in a billow of rain.

“Pelting down out there,” said Mr Stokes, addressing the dripping figure. “I’m afraid we’re closing in a few minutes, Sir.”

“Time enough for what I have in mind.”

The guard shrugged. Office workers sometimes stopped by on their way home to seek solace in a single favourite painting. He took a good look at the man standing before him, and his brow furrowed in suspicion. “Do you mind if I check inside your bag?” he asked.

♦

There is a mosaic set in the floor of the National Gallery which highlights many emotional concepts: COMPASSION, WONDER, CURIOSITY, COMPROMISE, DEFIANCE, HUMOUR, LUCIDITY and FOLLY are engraved among them. Bill Wentworth was beginning to wonder if these qualities only existed in the flooring. He tugged down the peak of his cap, stepping back to allow a party of Japanese schoolchildren to pass. The excitement of the job lay in the paintings themselves, not in the inquiries of the general public. His fingertips brushed the maroon linen wall of the gallery as he walked. He had entered Room 3 (Germany and the Netherlands). Dark rains drifted against the angled skylights in the corridor beyond.

It was Wentworth’s first day as a gallery warden, and he had been looking forward to answering visitors’ questions. He’d seen the job as a chance to finally use his art-history training.

“You can forget that,” his superior, Mr Stokes, had warned during their morning tea break together. “Times have changed. Few people ask about the Raphael or the Titian or the Rembrandt any more. They just want pointing to the toilet or the French Impressionists. They’re not interested in the older stuff because it takes more understanding.”

Stokes was a fan of the old Italian schools. He preferred a Tintoretto to a Turner any day of the week, and was happy to tell you so.

Bill Wentworth walked slowly about the room, waiting for the last few members of the public to depart. The only sound was the squeak of his shoes on polished wood and the drumming of the torrent on the glass above. The new warden paused before an arrangement of Vermeers, marveling at the way in which the painter had captured these small, still moments in the lives of ordinary people, peaceful figures in light and shadow, opening letters, sweeping their houses, cool and calm and timeless.

“The public are no problem,” Stokes had informed him. “Soon you won’t even notice them. But the paintings take on a life of their own.” He had gestured at the walls surrounding them. “You start noticing things you never saw before. Little details in the pictures, always something new to catch the eye. They’ll bother and intrigue you, and the subjects will make you care for them. Just as well, because there’s bugger-all else to do around here.”

“Surely it can’t be that dull,” Wentworth had said, growing despondent.

Stokes had thoughtfully sucked his moustache. “I know how to say ‘Don’t touch that, Sonny’ in seventeen languages. Do you find that exciting?”

Wentworth was still considering their conversation when Stokes himself came puffing in from the main entrance to the gallery, flushed and flustered.

“Mr Wentworth, have you seen him?”

“Who’s that, Mr Stokes?”

“The old bloke!”

“Nobody’s been through here, as you can see.” Wentworth gestured about him. There was only one exit to the exhibition room, and that led back to the main stairwell.

“But he must have passed this way!”

“What did he look like?”

Stokes paused to regain his breath. “Tall, overweight, with mutton-chop whiskers. Heavy tweed cape and a funny hat – sort of stovepipe, like an Edwardian gentleman. Carrying a carpetbag.”

For a moment Wentworth wondered if his boss was suffering a side effect of spending so much time surrounded by the past. “What’s he supposed to have done?” he asked.

“I tried to search his bag and he shoved past me,” explained Stokes. “He ran up the steps and disappeared before I could make after him. My war wound.”

“I’ll help you look.”

The guards marched from the room and headed for the circular stone stairs that led to the lower-floor galleries. They had just reached Room 14 (French Painting Before 1800) when a breathless young attendant slid to a stop beside them.

“We’ve just seen him on the far side of the Sunley Room,” he shouted.

“Going in which direction?”

“Away from us.”

“Then he’s heading for the British Rooms,” replied Stokes. “We can cut him off by going through forty-four and forty-five.”

Aware of the fragile safety of their treasure house, the three wardens galloped through the empty halls in pursuit. As they raced across a side corridor they mistook a member of the public for their quarry and grabbed his arms from either side, causing him to slide over on the floor. The scruffy, balding man rose indignantly and hauled his trailing sepia scarf about him as his attackers apologized, set him on a bench, and thundered on. At the corner of the next room the guards were met by a startled fourth.

“He’s heading for – ”

“The new exhibition,” called Stokes. “We know.”

The British Artists’ section was housed in a series of chambers leading from a central octagon. Here the walls were filled with imposing portraits of forgotten English landowners. Tilted to the public eye and ornately framed in gold, they were overlooked by a splendid glass dome through which rain glittered in a shower of dark diamonds. Wentworth had no time to appreciate this pleasing theatrical effect, however. He had just spotted their suspect standing in the room ahead.

The four guards ground to a halt at the entrance to Room 37.

The Edwardian gentleman was standing by the far wall with the carpetbag at his feet, and a cane tucked beneath his arm, looking for all the world as if he had just stepped down from one of the paintings at his back. He ignored them, bobbing his head from side to side as his eyes searched the room. When he found what he was looking for, he reached down into his bag.

“Stop right there!” called Wentworth, throwing out an arm. The other attendants crowded in behind him. They had never thought they might actually have to guard a painting.

For a moment, nobody moved.

The Edwardian gentleman slowly raised his head and turned his attention to his pursuers, as if noticing them for the first time. His eyes glared beneath the brim of his tall hat.

“Leave me be and none of you shall suffer,” he said, low menace sharpening his voice. “I must warn you that I am armed.”

“Did you press the alarm?” whispered Stokes to one of the others.

“Yes, Sir,” the boy whispered back. “Soon as he started running.”

“Then we must keep him from harming anything until the police get here.”

Wentworth could hardly see how. The most lethal item he had on him was a plastic comb. He knew none of the others was likely to be packing a pistol. For want of a better course of action, all four stood watching as the old man stooped and reached inside his carpet bag.

As soon as Wentworth realized what he was about to do, he started out across the floor toward the far side of the chamber, but he had not given himself enough time to prevent disaster.

For now the gentleman’s arms were free of the bag and rising fast with a jar held firmly in his right hand, the broad rubber stopper being deftly removed by the fingers of the left, and the contents of the glass were flying through the air, the liquid splashing across one of the canvases, searing varnish and paint and filling the air with the stinging smell of acid. As Wentworth dived to the floor and slid hard into a wall, the vandal hurled the emptied jar at him. The glass shattered noisily at his side.

Now the other wardens were running past his head, and further footfalls came from one of the distant halls. Wentworth heard a shout and then a shot, both small and sharp. Stokes fell heavily beside him, blood gushing from his nose. Acid was pooling along the base of the skirting board, crackling with acridity, the fumes burning Wentworth’s eyes. He realized that it was no longer safe to lie still, and scrambled to his feet.

The attendants were in disarray. Stokes was unconscious. Another appeared to have been shot. One of the paintings was dripping and smouldering. The police had arrived and were shouting into their handsets. Of the Edwardian gentleman there was no sign at all.

“Excuse me, please.”

The scruffy man they had accidentally assaulted in the side corridor was tapping a policeman on the shoulder.

“I said excuse me.”

The constable turned around and began to push the scruffy man back toward the chamber’s entrance. “No members of the public allowed in here,” he said, holding his arms wide.

“I am most certainly not a member of the public,” said the man, hiking his endless scarf about his neck like the coils of a particularly drab snake. “I’m Detective Inspector Arthur Bryant, and you’ve just allowed your criminal to escape.”

♦

George Stokes stared unhappily from the tall windows like a man preparing to face the scaffold. He was obviously concerned for the future security of his position.

Arthur Bryant crossed the floor of the gloomy staffroom and stood beside him. “How’s the nose?” he asked.

“A bit bruised,” said Stokes, gingerly touching his tissue-filled nostril. “The poor lad, though. Fancy being shot at.”

“He’ll be fine. The bullet just nicked the top of his arm. Went on to make a nasty little hole in a still life by Peter de Wint.”

“You don’t understand, Mr Bryant,” said Stokes, watching the rain sweep across the deserted square below. “We’re the custodians of the treasures of the empire. The paintings housed here form part of the very fabric of our heritage. They are entrusted to us, and we have failed to maintain that trust.”

“Human beings are fallible creatures, Mr Stokes. We never attain the perfection of those exquisite likenesses in the gallery. This sort of vandalism has occurred before, hasn’t it?” Bryant shucked off his sepia scarf and draped it over a chair. He turned back to the steaming mugs on the table and withdrew a silver hip flask from his overcoat, pouring a little cherry brandy into each.

The police were clearing away the mess downstairs, and several agitated members of the board were already waiting to speak to their head guard. Bryant wanted to interview Stokes while the guard’s memory was fresh, before the recollection of the event had hardened into a much-repeated statement.

“Yes, it has happened before. The da Vinci Madonna was damaged. There have been other small acts of violence toward the paintings.” Stokes shook his head in bewilderment. “The people who do these things must be deranged.”

“And do you think this gentleman was deranged?”

Stokes thought for a moment, turning from the window. “No, actually I don’t.”

“Why not? You say he had an odd manner of speaking.”

“His speech was archaic. He looked and sounded like a proper old gentleman. Turn of the century. Funny sort of an affectation to have in this day and age.”

Bryant pulled out a chair and they sat at the table. The detective made unobtrusive notes while the guard sipped his laced tea. “Was there something else apart from his speech that made you think of him as Edwardian?”

“You must have glimpsed him yourself, Sir. His clothes were about seventy years out of date. When he first came in, he reminded me of someone.”

“Who?”

“Oh, nobody still alive. He looked like the painter John Ruskin. Because of the whiskers, you see.”

“And he seemed to know his way around the building?”

“He must have been familiar with the floor layout, because there’s only one exit from that side of the gallery and he ran towards it immediately after the attack. You just have to go through two rooms, thirty-four and forty-one, before reaching the stairs that lead down to one of the exits.”

“You don’t think his act was one of arbitrary vandalism? He couldn’t have been equally happy, say, knocking the head from a statue?”

“Oh, no, certainly not. I had the feeling he knew exactly where he was heading.”

“Which was where?”

“Toward the new Pre-Raphaelite exhibition in the British Rooms. He was looking for a specific painting in the exhibition. The acid went all over one picture.”

“Which one?”

“The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius by John William Waterhouse. It’s quite a large canvas, but he covered the whole thing.”

“I don’t know much about restoring,” said Bryant. “Do you think they’ll be able to save it?”

“It depends on the strength and type of acid used, I imagine. From an international point of view, this is very embarrassing for us, Mr Bryant,” said the warden. “Many of the paintings in the show are on loan from the Commonwealth.”

“Including the one that was attacked?”

Stokes nodded miserably.

“Where had it come from?”

“A gallery in Southern Australia. Adelaide, I believe.”

“The painting is insured, though.”

“That’s not the point.” Stokes drained his mug and set it down. “It’s not a particularly important picture, but even so it’s quite irreplaceable. If it can’t be saved, Mr Bryant, a piece of history has been eradicated for ever.”