Читать книгу The Black Sun - James Twining - Страница 23

Bloomsbury, London

5th January – 9.29 p.m.

‘Coffee?’

‘I need a drink.’ Tom went to the decanter on the side table and poured himself a large glass of cognac. He took a mouthful, swilling it around before swallowing it, and then sat down heavily in one of the armchairs and glanced around him.

This was only the second time he’d been to Archie’s place. It was a realisation that brought home to Tom how little he knew about his partner – who he was; what his passions were; where his secrets lay – although he now saw that, based on the evening’s revelations, he could say the same of Dominique. Perhaps that said more about him than either of them.

Despite this, he was able to detect in the room itself some hints of Archie’s character. Immediately apparent, for example, was his love of Art Deco, as evidenced by the Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann furniture and the selection of Marinot glassware that adorned the mantelpiece. And a collection of Edwardian gaming chips displayed in two framed cases on either side of the door betrayed his fascination with gambling.

More intriguing was the teak coffee table, which Tom immediately identified as a late nineteenth-century Chinese opium bed. The brass fittings around its edge would once have housed bamboo poles to support a silk canopy, shielding the occupant’s anonymity.

‘Sorry about your game,’ Tom said, his gaze returning to Archie as he settled into the chair opposite him.

‘Don’t worry,’ Archie dismissed the apology with a wave of his hand. ‘I was losing anyway. Is she all right?’ He tilted his head in the direction of the closed bathroom door in the hallway.

‘She’ll be fine,’ Tom said. If what he had learnt about Dominique’s past had confirmed anything, it was her ability to tough it out.

‘What the hell happened?’

Tom simply handed him the rolled-up canvas by way of reply.

‘What’s this?’

‘Take a look.’

Archie unscrolled the painting on the coffee table. He looked up in surprise.

‘It’s the Bellak from Prague.’ Tom nodded. ‘Where did you find it?’ Archie ran his hands gently over the painting’s cracked surface, his fingers brushing against the ridges in the oil paint, pausing over a series of small holes that punctured its surface.

‘It was a gift. Somebody kindly left it in my freezer.’

‘In your what?’ Archie wrinkled his forehead as if he hadn’t heard properly.

‘In my freezer. And it wasn’t the only thing they left.’

Archie shook his head.

‘I’m not sure I even want to know.’

‘There was a human arm in there, too. In fact, come to think of it, it’s still in there.’

For once, Archie was speechless, his eyes bulging in disbelief. When he did manage to get a word out, it was in a strangled, almost angry voice.

‘Turnbull.’

‘What?’

‘It’s that two-faced bastard Turnbull.’

Tom laughed.

‘Come on, Archie. You said he checked out.’

‘He did. At least according to my contact. MI6, originally on the Russian desk at GCHQ. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. Think about it. He shows up wanting our help. We refuse, and a few hours later the missing forearm miraculously shows up amongst your frozen peas. It’s a bloody set-up. I expect he’s round there now, waiting for you to get home so he can nick you.’

‘You’re assuming the arm belongs to Turnbull’s Auschwitz survivor.’

‘Too right. How many severed arms do you think there are floating around London?’

‘Not many,’ Tom conceded.

‘Well, there you are then.’

Tom stood up and moved over to the window. Below, a couple of taxis rattled past, their gleaming black roofs flickering with pale orange flames each time they passed under a streetlight. On the other side of the street, sheltering behind thick iron railings, the sombre façade of the British Museum peered through the night with patrician indifference, the granite lions flanking the main entrance standing permanent guard.

‘I’m just saying that you shouldn’t jump to conclusions,’ Tom continued. ‘Besides, there is another option…’

‘Here we go,’ Archie muttered.

‘…whoever is behind the murder of that old man is also behind the theft of the painting.’

‘You think it’s Renwick, don’t you?’

‘Why not? We know he’s working with Kristall Blade, and we know they killed that man. Given that, thanks to me, he only has one hand, he of all people probably appreciated the irony of dropping off someone else’s limb as his calling card.’

‘And the Bellak paintings?’

‘Stolen by them at his request,’ Tom said with a shrug.

‘Bellak?’ Unnoticed by either of them, Dominique had emerged from the bathroom and slipped into the room. Her earlier shock had been replaced by a calm resolve and there was something almost ethereal about her as she stood there, a slim silhouette framed by the open doorway. ‘The painter?’

Tom and Archie exchanged uncertain glances.

‘You’ve heard of him?’ Even Tom was impressed by this latest example of Dominique’s ever-expanding mental database of the art market.

‘Only by name.’

‘How come?’

‘Because your father spent the last three years of his life looking for Bellak paintings.’

‘Really?’ Tom said disbelievingly.

‘It became quite a big thing for him. He had me scanning databases and newspaper files and auction listings to see if I could find anything. I never did. By the end, I think he had almost given up.’

‘That’s where I’d heard the name before,’ Tom said, clicking his fingers in frustration at not having remembered this before. ‘Now you mention it, I think he even asked me to see if I could come up with anything.’

‘But why on earth would he want to collect them?’ Archie asked, disdainfully holding up the painting of the synagogue to prove his point.

‘He wasn’t collecting them,’ Dominique corrected him, sitting down crossed-legged on the hearth rug. ‘He was looking for one in particular – a portrait of a girl. He said it was probably in a private collection somewhere. He said that it was the key.’

‘The key to what?’ Archie asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Dominique sighed. ‘Remember what he was like with his secrets.’

‘Well, Renwick clearly does,’ Tom said bitterly. ‘That’s why he’s put this here – to show me how close he is to finding it.’

‘Which is precisely why you shouldn’t let him get to you,’ Archie said firmly. ‘He wants to get a reaction. We’ll just dump the arm and pretend none of this ever happened.’

‘Never happened?’ Dominique countered, her eyes shining defiantly. ‘You can’t just ignore something like this, Archie. They killed someone – I heard you say so. They killed someone and we might be able to do something about it.’

‘That’s not what I mean,’ Archie protested. ‘Look, I know Cassius. This is just another one of his sick games. It’s too late to help the old man that arm belonged to, but we can still help ourselves. Tom? What are you doing?’

‘Calling Turnbull,’ answered Tom, picking up the phone and extracting the slip of paper with Turnbull’s number from his wallet.

‘Didn’t you hear what I just said?’ pleaded Archie.

‘I heard what you both said, and Dominique’s right – we can’t ignore this.’

‘He’s playing with you. Let it go.’

‘I can’t let it go, Archie,’ Tom snapped, before taking a deep breath and continuing in a gentler tone. ‘If you want to stay out of this, fine. But I can’t. This involves my father. And if Renwick’s after something my father spent years looking for, then I’m not just going to stand by and watch him get it first. I’m not having him make a fool of me. Not again.’