“How should I know? He could be an epileptic. Did you get through?”
“The house doctor’s line is busy.”
Jacob’s eyes had rolled up in their sockets so that only the whites showed. A glittering knot of blood hung from his chin. Jerry wasn’t sure of the procedure in such a situation. With her knees planted on his twisting shoulders, she grabbed his tie and wadded it into his mouth to prevent him from biting his tongue. She felt inside his jacket and pulled out a wallet, flicking it open.
“What are you doing?” yelled Nicholas.
“I’m looking for a card that says he has a medical condition.”
Jacob’s limbs suddenly dropped and he became heavy, sliding flat on to the floor, taking Jerry down with him. There followed a moment of absolute stillness, as if the man’s spirit was wrenching free from his body. With a final bark he emptied the contents of his stomach, flooding the intricately patterned carpet.
Jerry looked from the fleshy corpse in her embrace to the benign gold cherubs in the ceiling above. She had felt the man die. As the realization hit her, a wind began to rush in her ears and the room distanced itself, telescoping away as the world fled to darkness.
? 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
