Bryant & May 03; Seventy-Seven Clocks

It had disturbed him to find his friend in such a frail state. He wondered if Bryant’s cold had appeared as a psychosomatic result of being shut in the cellar. Friday had been a wasted day of paperwork and procedures, without any discernible progress. He needed his partner back in full health.

The rescued Waterhouse painting had been placed against the far wall. His bedroom was a reflection of Bryant’s mind, its untidy shelves filled with games and puzzles stacked in ancient boxes, statues and mementoes competing for space with books on every subject imaginable, from Sensation and Perception in the History of Experimental Psychology to Illustrated British Ballads and A History of Indian Philosophy.

“What are you reading at the moment?” asked May.

“Batman,” said Bryant. “The drawings are terribly good.”

“Your landlady said you weren’t to be disturbed, you know.”

“Alma’s always looking for an excuse to get me alone. She brings me bowls of foul-smelling broth on the hour and perches on the bed like some overweight Florence Nightingale, prodding at my orifices with a thermometer. No wonder her husband died. You realize how close we came to never finding the painting at all?” Bryant sank into the blankets. “It’s the key to this whole business, I’m sure of it. I wanted you here because Summerfield’s on his way over to check its authenticity. My trousers got torn. My suit is ruined.”

“I realize the thought of buying new clothes fills you with horror, Arthur, but you should be glad you’re still in one piece.” May drained his teacup and set it down. “Are you thinking of getting up at all? It is only a cold, after all. You’ll be pleased to hear that Janice and I have put calls out to every surviving member of the Whitstable family in the country. We’re bringing them all together for a meeting tomorrow afternoon.”

“On a Sunday? We won’t have enough staff to take care of them.”

“I’ve agreed to let the girl from the Savoy give us a hand. The Sunday idea is to stop them from using the excuse that they have to be in their offices. I need you there, if you’re feeling up to it.”

“I’m not malingering, you know,” said Bryant indignantly. “Not like you, and that so-called heart attack of yours that turned out to be angina.”

May knew that his partner was thankful for being rescued, but didn’t suppose he would ever say so. Finding Bryant’s walkie-talkie down the back of his passenger seat, he had radioed a request for one of the patrol officers to keep a discreet check on the house. If the boy hadn’t looked in when he did, May wondered if Arthur would have been found at all.

Peregrine Summerfield entered, his bulk filling the narrow door-frame. He waved a bottle of cognac in a meaty fist. Red and yellow gouache still speckled his beard, as if he’d been using his chin to paint with. Perhaps he kept the pigments there as a way of presenting his credentials.

“Where is the old malingerer?” he asked, studying May. “You must be John. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Oh, good things I hope.”

“Not really, no. There he is!” Summerfield walked into the bedroom and was about to shake his friend’s hand when the sight of the painting stopped him in his tracks.

“I thought you’d be interested,” said Bryant, propping himself up. “Is it the real thing?”

“Oh, yes.” Summerfield crouched down and examined the canvas carefully. “That’s the beauty of Waterhouse,” he said softly. “He went straight from the idea to the paint pot. No endless squared-up sketches or chalk studies for him. He just rolled up his sleeves. It’s the real thing, all right. This is the intermediate study for the painting. I knew it was in a private collection but had no idea where. Waterhouse did a small oil sketch to start with, then this.”

“Would you like to tell my colleague here a little about it?” asked Bryant.

“With pleasure,” said Summerfield, unable to remove his eyes from the canvas. “It’s a very dramatic subject. Flavius Honorius was the sole ruler of the Western world at the tender age of ten. With his empire overrun by invading tribes, and Rome captured by the attacking Visigoths, he sat on the throne sodding about with his pet birds. His army took all the shit while he married a couple of bimbos and did bugger-all for the collapsing empire. On the few occasions he did get involved, he cocked it all up. Weakest of all the Roman emperors, and a total wanker. Seen here ignoring the desperate pleas of his statesmen to grant them an audience.”

“Is there much of a difference between this and the finished painting?”

“Indeed. The central character was removed completely for the final version. The attendant in the middle of the canvas was felt to be too dominant, so he came out. Where did you find this?”

“It would seem to have belonged to one of our victims.”

“So Bella Whitstable lied to us,” said May.

“Not necessarily,” Bryant countered, levering himself from the bed and pulling a dressing gown over his pyjamas. “We have no reason to assume that she knew which Waterhouse painting her brother had vandalized. These are the sort of people who ferret away valuable items and forget all about them.”

“On a world scale, this isn’t particularly valuable,” said Summerfield. “It’s an unfinished study of a neglected picture, primarily of academic interest, although it is rather beautiful. Waterhouse’s fame rests on later paintings, particularly The Lady of Shalott, painted five years after this. The first one, where she’s in the boat looking dead miserable, not the second one where she’s got a fat arse and looks like she’s breaking wind. It’s in the Tate, I think.”

“Thank you very much, Peregrine,” said Bryant. “You have a way of bringing art history colourfully to life.” He turned to his partner. “Unless I’m mistaken, that will be Alma Sorrowbridge’s heavy foot on the stair. Unless you want to be force-fed Bovril for the next half hour, I suggest we head for the West End with all possible dispatch.”

¦

“The other day you mentioned that there was a resonance,” said Bryant to Summerfield. “The act of vandalism reminded you of something. Did you remember what it was?” They were squeezed into Bryant’s rusty sixties Mini Minor. May was driving, although he had barely been able to fold his legs beneath the steering column.

“Yes, sorry, I should have called you. It was Whistler.”

“What, the one with the sour-faced mother?”

“James Abbott McNeill, the very same.” Summerfield was pressed against the roof of the car, trapped like a sardine in a tin. When he turned his head, his beard cleared the condensation from the window. “You know, the famous lawsuit against Ruskin.”

“I don’t remember the details, Peregrine. Explain, please.”

“Whistler sued John Ruskin for saying that his painting The Falling Rocket was ‘flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.’ It made me wonder if your man was doing the same thing in reverse. You know, a member of the public hurling back an indignant reply, sort of thing. Whistler wrote about London: When the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry, the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky, and the tall buildings become campanili, and the warehouses are palaces in the night.”

“Very poetic,” said Bryant, “and completely unenlightening. What on earth are you talking about?”

“With the study of the painting held by his own family, it’s possible your bloke wanted to increase its worth by destroying the finished article.” Summerfield stared absently through the window. “Perhaps he was performing some kind of symbolic act.”

“Symbolic? Of what, for God’s sake?”

“Well, that’s what you have to find out, isn’t it?” replied the artist with a smile.

? Seventy-Seven Clocks ?

18

Family

The second-floor conference room of the Mornington Crescent Peculiar Crimes Unit had been planned as a site for future press briefings, but on Sunday afternoon it had been filled with folding chairs and reserved for a very different purpose.

Jerry Gates stood in the doorway, pulled her sweater sleeves over her hands, and surveyed the group before her.