Matthew laughed. “No, it isn’t. Money changes everything. I know what people think about me. I know they think I’m useless and I would never have got anywhere, anywhere at all, if it weren’t for the fact that my father can buy me a job. That’s what he’s done, you know. He’s bought me every job I’ve had. I’ve never got a job, not one single job, on merit. How’s that for failure?”
Pat reached out to touch him on the shoulder, but he recoiled, and looked down. She felt acutely uncomfortable. Self-pity, as her father had explained to her, is the most unattractive of states, and it was true.
“All right,” she said. “You’re a failure. If that’s the way you feel about yourself.” She paused. Her candour had made him look up in surprise. Had her words hurt him? She thought that perhaps they had, but that might do some good.
They began to walk again, turning down a narrow street that would bring them out onto Colinton Road. A cat ran ahead of them, having appeared from beneath a parked car, and then shot off into a garden.
“Tell me something,” said Matthew. “Are you in love with
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that boy you share with? That Bruce? Are you in love with him?”
Pat made an effort to conceal her surprise. “Why do you ask?”
she said, her voice neutral. It had nothing to do with him, and she did not need to answer the question.
“Because if you aren’t in love with him, then I wondered if . . .”
Matthew stopped. They had reached the edge of Colinton Road and his voice was drowned by the sound of a passing car.
Pat thought quickly. “Yes,” she said. “I’m in love with him.”
It was a truthful answer, and, in the circumstances, an expedient one too.
He was sitting in a whirlpool tub in the walled garden, wisps of steam rising from the water around him. A paperback book was perched on the edge of the tub, a red bookmark protruding from its middle.
“I find this a good place to think,” he said. “And you feel great afterwards.”
Matthew smiled nervously. “I hope you don’t mind us disturbing you like this,” he said. “We could come back later if you like.”
Ian Rankin shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. This is fine. As long as you don’t mind me staying in here.”
There was a silence for a few moments. Then Pat spoke. “You bought a painting this morning.”
A look of surprise came over Ian Rankin’s face. “So I did.”
He paused. “Now, let me guess. Let me guess. You’ve heard all about it and you want to buy it off me? You’re dealers, right?”
“Well we are,” said Matthew. “In a way. But . . .”
Ian Rankin splashed idly at the water with an outstretched hand. “It’s not for sale, I’m afraid. I rather like it. Sorry.”
Matthew exchanged a despondent glance with Pat. It was just 234
as he had imagined. Ian Rankin had recognised the painting for what it was and was holding onto his bargain. And who could blame him for that?
Pat took a step forward and leaned over the edge of the tub.
“Mr Rankin, there’s a story behind the painting. It’s my fault that it ended up in that shop. I was looking after it and my flatmate took it by mistake and gave it as a raffle prize and then . . .”
Ian Rankin stopped her. “So it’s still yours?”
“Mine,” said Matthew. “I have a gallery. She was looking after it for me.”
“What’s so special about it?” Ian Rankin asked. “Is it by somebody well known?”
Matthew looked at Pat. For a moment she thought he was going to say something, but he did not. So the decision is mine, she thought. Do I have to tell him what I think, or can I remain silent?
She closed her eyes; the sound of the whirlpool was quite loud now, and there was a seagull mewing somewhere. A child shouted out somewhere in a neighbouring garden. And for a moment, incon-sequentially, surprisingly, she thought of Bruce. He was smiling at her, enjoying her discomfort.
“I think that it may be by Samuel Peploe,” she said. “It looks very like his work. We haven’t taken a proper opinion yet, but that’s what we think.”
The corner of Matthew’s mouth turned down. She’s just destroyed our chances of getting it back, he thought. That’s it.
Ian Rankin raised an eyebrow. “Peploe?”
“Yes,” said Pat.
“In which case,” said Ian Rankin, “it’s worth a bob or two.
What would you say? It’s quite small, and so . . . forty thousand?
