their host waltzed in holding a bottle aloft.
`Champagne for the troops! Come into the kitchen. Watch an expert at work!'
He was stripping off the foil as they followed him. Tweed took in the equipment at a glance. Modern laminated cupboards and worktops in dark blue. None of your rustic olde worlde equipment favoured by Hugh Grey who would always go for the new and the trendy. Harry Masterson wouldn't give a damn.
A collection of kitchen knives lay in the compartment of the wooden box next to the sink. So far as Tweed could see there was no sign of a chef's knife. Over the sink on the wall a brass plate (in need of cleaning) hung, rather like a medieval shield with a central boss.
`I'm going to hit that brass plate dead centre,' Masterson joked as he fiddled with the cork, aiming it at the plate. He aimed the bottle like a gun, the cork shot out and hit the boss.
`Bull's-eye!'
He held the bottle over an aluminium jug placed alongside three tulip glasses. The surplus champagne was caught inside the jug. Masterson was extraordinarily agile.
`That's some of mine,' he bubbled, filling the glasses, then handing them round.
`A toast! We must have a toast!'
`Well, what are we drinking to?' Tweed enquired. `Damnation to our enemies!'
`What a funny toast,' Diana said after drinking. 'I can think of only one enemy I've got…'
`And who is that?' asked Masterson, wrapping an arm round her waist as he escorted her back to the living- room.
`A woman called Ann Grayle. Used to be a diplomat's wife,' she said as she sat down on the settee. Masterson perched his backside on the arm, next to her. 'I first knew her in Africa, Kenya – all of twenty years ago.'
`Kenya?' Masterson sounded intrigued. 'Twenty years ago it had just gained its independence…'
`In 1963. I was there before then in what Ann calls the good old days. They were, too. Lots of parties. Went on all hours. We saw the dawn come up over the bush. You know Kenya, Mr Masterson?'
`Harry. May I call you Diana? I'm going to anyway. And I've never been near Kenya in my life. Sounds just like my sort of place. Twenty-odd years ago. Don't you agree, Tweed?'
`Oh yes, you'd have played hell with the women, Harry.'
Tweed's tone was caustic. He was studying the two of them as he settled further back in a deep arm chair. Masterson's chin had a blued look. He had obviously shaved first thing but already he was showing a five o'clock shadow. He laid a large hand on Diana's exposed and shapely knee as she sat with her legs crossed.
`Why not make it a day in the country? I can rustle up something edible. For dinner we could all go to a super place not five miles away. The trout is out of this world.'
`I think we have to get back to London,' she said and lifted his hand from her knee, placing it back on his leg. 'Isn't that right, Tweed?'
`Yes, I'm afraid it is, but thanks for the invitation.' Masterson jumped up, grabbed the bottle and refilled glasses. He looked at Tweed.
`Tell you what. I'll give you both a rare treat, show you some of my paintings. My studio's through that door. North facing light and all that. I don't show many people,' he went on as he led the way.
The studio was littered with oil paintings, some of them on the floor face up. Tweed followed Diana, holding his glass and stepping carefully over the pictures. A large old-fashioned wooden easel stood at an angle to the window, the painting Masterson was working on draped with a cloth so it was invisible.
`Sit down,' Masterson invited.
`Where?' asked Tweed.
`Sorry. Half a tick…'
He removed piles of sketch-books off two hard-backed, rush-seated chairs. As they sat down Tweed was thinking all the furniture in the cottage had probably been handed down to Masterson from relatives – or picked up for a song in Portobello Road. The usual public school background- Masterson had gone to Winchester- which made a man totally unaware of his surroundings.
Like a matador, their host took hold of the cloth, paused and then whipped aside the cloth swirling it like a cape. Tweed stiffened, staring at the exposed portrait. A head with staring eyes hung in space. No head and shoulders, just the head, strangely alive. The eyes stared at Tweed with extraordinary intensity, a chilling coldness. Behind it a giant wave hovered, just before breaking, foam curling along its crest. It was a portrait of Hugh Grey.
`A poor thing, but mine own,' Masterson joked.
`I find it remarkable,' Tweed said in a subdued tone. `Next one coming up…'
He whipped the unframed canvas off the easel, propped it up against a wall, collected another canvas, also draped with a cloth. He took trouble centring it and removed the cloth with his back to them so they couldn't see. Then he stepped aside.
This time Tweed was ready and sat with his hands relaxed in his lap. Guy Dalby. A three-quarter view, again the head only, suspended in a fog, the kind of fog Tweed associated with Norfolk. More like a ghost than a man, but still unmistakable a likeness. A devilishly clever likeness, but exaggerated, which made it even more life-like.
The hair was plastered down over the head and the expression was saturnine. Self-satisfaction oozed from every pore. Devilish. That was the word which sprang to mind. And the only visible eye, the left one, stared through Tweed.
`Is this really how you see your colleagues?' Tweed asked. Masterson shrugged. 'I'm no Gauguin, as you must realize by now. It's a bit of fun. Next one coming up.'
He performed the same conjuring trick, standing with his back to them after he had substituted a third painting for Dalby's. Then he stood aside and picked up his champagne glass and drank the rest of the contents.
Tweed heard Diana stifle a gasp. Another head suspended alone in space, if you could use the term 'head'. A grinning skull gazed at Tweed, ice-blue eyes embedded in the sockets. Against a background of a cloudless Scandinavian-type sky with extraordinary clarity of light. But it was Erich Lindemann. Stripped to the bones.
`A cold fish,' Masterson commented.
`Portrait painters,' Tweed remarked, 'always do a self- portrait. That I'd like to see.'
`It's not finished.'
Masterson, brash and abrasive, was abnormally defensive. `I'd still like to see it,' Tweed insisted. He pointed to a canvas facing the wall.
`Don't miss a trick, do you? If I must…'
`You must.'
Masterson followed his previous pantomime, but hurriedly. He concealed the new canvas until it was perched on the easel, then stepped aside.
A fourth head, three-quarter view like Dalby's portrait, all seen against the background of a huge yellow sunburst. The single eye visible was cynical, mistrustful of the world. Beneath the strong nose the mouth curved in a sensual smile.
Tweed was reminded of a satyr. What impressed him most was the sheer brutal physical energy of the painting, emphasized by the sunburst radiating tremendous heat and drive.
`Pretty bloody awful,' Masterson commented.
`No association with the sea,' Tweed remarked.
`You noticed that? The wave behind Hugh Grey's picture – the sea mist background for Guy Dalby. Boaty types. They can keep it.'
`You're not attracted by messing about in boats?' Tweed suggested.
`God, no! The sea never keeps still. Give me dry land any time. Another drink?'
`Thank you, no. We'll have to be going soon.'
He looked at Diana who was staring round the cluttered studio. She frowned and shook her head slightly, a gesture Masterson caught. He grinned.
`Bit of a pigsty?'
`You need a good woman to look after you,' she told him. `I'd sooner have a bad one.' He grinned again, wickedly. 'Do you qualify?'
