Part 6 (1/2)

It was one of those cool, s.p.a.cious Knightsbridge flats. The wallpaper was a muted, anonymous design; the upholstery was brocaded; the occasional furniture antique. Open French windows to the balcony let in the mild night air and the distant roar of traffic. It was elegant and boring.

So was the party. Samantha was there because the hostess was an old friend. They went shopping together, and sometimes visited each other for tea. But those occasional meetings had not revealed how far apart she and Mary had grown, Samantha reflected, since they had been in repertory together.

Mary had married a businessman, and most of the people at the party seemed to be his friends. Some of the men wore dinner jackets, although the only food was canapes. They all made the most appalling kind of small talk. The little group around Samantha was in an overextended discussion about an unremarkable group of prints hanging on the wall.

Samantha smiled, to take the look of boredom off her face, and sipped champagne. It wasnt even very good wine. She nodded at the man who was speaking. Walking corpses, the lot of them. With one exception. Tom Copper stood out like a city gent in a steel band.

He was a big man, and looked about Samanthas age, except for the streaks of gray in his dark hair. He wore a checked workmans s.h.i.+rt and denim jeans with a leather belt. His hands and feet were broad.

He caught her eye across the room, and the heavy mustache stretched across his lips as he smiled. He murmured something to the couple he was with and moved away from them, toward Samantha.

She half-turned away from the group discussing the prints. Tom bent his head to her ear and said: Ive come to rescue you from the art appreciation cla.s.s.

Thanks. I needed it. They had turned a little more now, so that although they were still close to the group, they no longer seemed part of it.

Tom said: I have the feeling youre the star guest. He offered her a long cigarette.

Yeah. She bent to his lighter. So what does that make you?

Token working-cla.s.s representative.

Theres nothing working-cla.s.s about that lighter. It was slender, monogrammed, and seemed to be gold.

He broadened his London accent: Wide boy, aint I? Samantha laughed, and he switched to a plum-in-the-mouth accent to say: More champagne, madam?

They walked over to the buffet table, where he filled her gla.s.s and offered her a plate of small biscuits, each with a dab of caviar in its center. She shook her head.

Ah, well. He put two in his mouth at once.

How did you meet Mary? Samantha asked curiously.

He grinned again. What you mean is, how does she come to be a.s.sociated with a roughneck like me? We both went to Madame Clairs Charm School in Romford. It cost my mother blood, sweat and tears to send me there once a week-much good did it do me. I could never be an actor.

What do you do?

Told you, didnt I? Im a wide boy.

I dont believe you. I think youre an architect, or a solicitor, or something.

He took a flat tin from his hip pocket, opened it, and palmed two blue capsules. You dont believe these are drugs, either, do you?

No.

Ever done speed?

She shook her head again. Only hash.

You only need one, then. He pressed a capsule into her hand.

She watched as he swallowed three, was.h.i.+ng them down with champagne. She slipped the blue oval into her mouth, took a large sip from her gla.s.s, and swallowed with difficulty. When she could no longer feel the capsule in her throat she said: See? Nothing.

Give it a few minutes, youll be taking your clothes off.

She narrowed her eyes. Is that what you did it for?

He did his c.o.c.kney accent again. I wasnt even there, Inspector.

Samantha began to fidget, tapping her foot to nonexistent music. I bet youd run a mile if I did, she said, and laughed loudly.

Tom gave a knowing smile. Here it comes She felt suddenly full of energy. Her eyes widened and a slight flush came to her cheeks. Im sick of this b.l.o.o.d.y party, she said a little too loudly. I want to dance.

Tom put his arm around her waist. Lets go.

PART TWO.

The Landscape

Mickey Mouse does not look very much like a real mouse, yet people do not write indignant letters to the papers about the length of his tail.

E. H. GOMBRlCH, art historian

I.

THE TRAIN ROLLED SLOWLY through the north of Italy. The brilliant suns.h.i.+ne had given way to a heavy, chill cloud layer, and the scenery was misty and damp-smelling. Factories and vineyards alternated until they s.h.i.+mmered into a hazed blur.

Dees elation had dissipated gradually on the journey. She did not yet have a find, she realized, only the smell of one. Without the picture at the end of the trail, what she had found out was worth no more than a footnote in a learned exegesis.

Her money was now running low. She had never asked Mike for any; nor had she given him any reason to think she needed it. On the contrary, she had always given him the impression that her income was rather higher than it really was. Now she regretted the mild deception.

She had enough to stay in Livorno for a few days, and for her fare home. She turned away from the mundanity of cash and lit a cigarette. In the clouds of smoke she daydreamed what she would do if she found the lost Modigliani. It would be the explosive beginning to her doctoral thesis on the relations.h.i.+p between drugs and art.

On second thought, it might be worth rather more than that: it could make the centerpiece of an article on how wrong everyone else was about the greatest Italian painter of the twentieth century. There was bound to be enough of interest in the picture to start half-a-dozen academic disputes.

It might even become known as the Sleign Modigliani-it would make her name. Her career would be secure for the rest of her life.

It might, of course, turn out to be a moderately good line drawing like hundreds of others Modigliani had done. No, that was hardly possible: the picture had been given away as an example of work done under the influence of has.h.i.+sh.

It had to be something strange, heterodox, ahead of its time, revolutionary even. What if it were an abstract-a turn-of-the-century Jackson Pollock?

The art history world would be ringing up Miss Delia Sleign and collectively asking for directions to Livorno. She would have to publish an article saying exactly where the work was to be found. Or she could carry it in triumph to the town museum. Or to Rome. Or she could buy it and surprise the world by- Yes, she could buy it. What a thought.

Then she could take it to London, and- My G.o.d, she said aloud. I could sell it.