THE GAUDY SHADOWS Read online

  Dust dulled the bodywork now, filmed the windshield so thickly he could have written his name across it, and not just the one tyre he had seen in passing earlier but all of them were putty-soft. The doors weren’t locked. He opened the driver’s door and glanced around the interior, impressed. No wonder Sammy had been proud of it. This vehicle was sheerly magnificent.

  Something ought to be done about it, and soon. The ignition key was in the dash. When he turned it, the red light barely glimmered and the needle of the fuel gauge moved less than a millimetre. In this weather the gas would have evaporated, leaving a gummy deposit of additives. The fuel system would need flushing, the battery would need re-charging, and there would be other minor jobs to attend to. But it wouldn’t take long to have this beauty back on the road.

  Hearing Polly on the stairs, he closed the door and accompanied her out into the street.

  As they drew level with Carriage Trade Limited’s premises at the end of the mews, a mechanic emerged, locking the doors behind him—off for lunch, presumably. Laird excused himself to Polly and addressed him.

  “Say, didn’t you look after Sammy Logan’s cars for him?”

  With eyes as bright as a bird’s on either side of a beak-sharp nose, the mechanic looked all the way up to the top of Laird’s six foot three. “That’s right, sir. You a friend of Mr Logan’s? I think I’ve seen you before.”

  “Could be. I was in London about two years ago.”

  The man nodded with immense satisfaction. “Shocking thing about Mr Logan, wasn’t it? You have heard, I suppose?”

  “Just this morning.” And, prompted by a lugubrious downturn of the mechanic’s mouth, Laird added, “What do you make of it?”

  “Well, they said it was heart-failure.” The mouth went from lugubrious to scornful. “But if you ask me I think there was some goings-on they didn’t bring out at the inquest. I mean, even the doctor who did the post-mortem couldn’t put his finger on anything really.”

  A sort of premonition touched Laird’s bare brain. He said, “Well, what I was going to ask you. That Jensen of his is just sitting there with the tyres soft and the tank dry. Could you check it over before any harm comes to it?”

  The man rubbed his chin. “Be glad to, sir, though I can’t promise when. We’re having to put off people who want their cars serviced to the end of next week, we’re that busy. But I’ll walk along when I get the chance.”

  “Thanks very much,” Laird said, and turned to rejoin Polly.

  He located the pub Sammy had taken him to without difficulty. In a dark, oak-panelled lounge behind the main bar a plump waitress brought them big plates of cold beef with salad and pickles, a pint of bitter for Laird and a glass of ginger-beer for Polly.

  Having sipped it, she confided abruptly, “I’ve never been in a pub before.”

  Laird cocked an eyebrow, attacking his food.

  “You see…” Polly had picked up her own knife and fork, but was only using them to make little nervous gestures. “Well, I can tell you’ve been wondering about me— I mean, I must seem so completely different from Sammy!”

  Vive la différence. But Laird kept that to himself.

  “You see, ours was originally a fishing family, from Peterhead. But my grandfather moved to Greenock to work in the docks. And the story goes that he—he died of the drink, because his marriage was a trial to him. After that his sister came to live with us, from Peterhead where she’d stayed, and she brought the Teaching with her.” The capital letter was perfectly audible.

  “There’s this very strict sect, you see—”

  A relay of memory closed and Laird snapped his fingers. “The Exclusive Brethren?”

  “No. No, though they are very strong around Peterhead. We—they—I don’t know which to say, because although I don’t really believe in their rules any longer it’s been part of my whole life… They’re called the Number of the Elect, anyway, and when grandfather died great-aunt Dorcas brought us the Teaching, as I said. But it’s all a matter of forbidding things, that’s what I can’t stand—don’t, don’t! Don’t drink liquor, don’t go to dances, don’t wear makeup or ‘fine raiment’! And never a word about the things you should do, about the good and right things which count just as much!”

  Her voice had risen enough to attract the attention of the other people in the pub, and she broke off, colouring.

  “That sounds like something Sammy might have said,” Laird murmured.

  “Yes. Yes, it was, the last time I saw him. And it wasn’t until after he died that I realised how right he’d been.”

  “I suppose your father said his death was a visitation from heaven?”

  “More or less.” Suddenly her face was clouded with anger. “And he’s wrong! I know Sammy wasn’t an evil man, Mr Walker—he was too kind to me, so he can’t have been!”

  FIVE

  It was a shame, Laird found himself thinking, that Polly hadn’t had that threatened row with her parents and walked out. With no one but her brother to turn to, she might have learned to share some of the raw joy he got out of living.

  He sighed, and took another swig of his beer.

  Making an effort to resume normal conversation, Polly said, “How did you meet my brother, Mr Walker?”

  “Hmm? Oh! A couple of years ago I spent the summer bumming around Europe, and I thought I’d make London my last stop. I’d run out of funds and it was time to head for home. And a girl I’d met took me to a party with her and introduced me to Sammy. We took a mutual liking, and from then on for the rest of my stay we kind of hung out together.”

  She had trouble formulating her next question. “But if you’d run out of funds, didn’t you find it expensive to—uh…?”

  “To keep up with him?” Laird shook his head vigorously. “Your brother was the most tactful guy I ever met. He carried me unobtrusively for a couple of days, because he was careful to avoid embarrassing people by landing them with checks they couldn’t afford, but on the other hand he didn’t let people sponge on him. So then he got me a job I could handle and I guess suggested I be given an advance against salary. Right away I was standing on my own feet. That was the way he liked to operate.”

  Polly seemed to approve of that; presumably it squared with her family’s religious precepts that Sammy had provided work and not charity for the stranger he took a fancy to. In a tone nearer to the cordial than he had yet heard from her, she said, “And what sort of work do you do, Mr Walker?”

  You’re not going to like this so much, baby!

  “I don’t have any profession. I’m a natural-born hobo—a migrant worker. Except that, thanks to Sammy, you can scrub the ‘worker’ bit.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”

  “I find it hard to believe myself, frankly,” Laird muttered. “Well, it went this way. The job Sammy found me was with a guy making pop archeological documentaries for television. He was here doing Stonehenge and the Breton menhirs and adding the commentary to a programme he’d shot in Italy about the Etruscans. So when his company shipped him to Mexico to do the same for the Aztecs I rode along. Another contact mixed me up in a documentary about oil and there I was in Caracas, Venezuela. Which was where I met a guy mounting a treasure-hunt.”

  “Treasure?” Polly echoed uncertainly.

  “That’s right. He thought he knew where a galleon called the Santiago de Compostela had sunk with a cargo of bullion. And I had time on my hands and I like skin-diving, so I signed up on a contingency basis, food and a bunk and a share if we found anything. And ours was the one expedition in a thousand which had the right data to work from. I came home with three tons of gold.”

  “Tons?” Polly whispered, awed. Laird thought of the scuffed shoes, the suitcase tied with rope…

  Don’t worry, baby, you’re going to be rich too.

  How rich? He couldn’t estimate. Twenty thousand pounds at least, though, plus what the car would fetch, the Braque, and the Brancusi… But it would be better
not to talk about that. She still seemed to feel guilty about the way she’d inherited her brother’s home.

  “This is quite a nice place, isn’t it?” she said too hastily, eyes wandering across the oak panelling, the horse-brasses and the eighteenth-century prints decorating the lounge. He couldn’t think how to answer her. Memory offered the reference to grandfather dead of “the drink”, and glossed it with a score of drunk-factories in assorted countries—joyless bars stark as public urinals, with no other function than to offer cheap respite from a hostile world.

  They finished their meal in drab silence, Laird’s mind revolving a single obsessive thought.

  I find it hard to believe what I know happened to me because I met Sammy—is that why I find it just as hard to believe what’s supposed to have happened to him?

  The process of listing the legacy went more quickly than Laird had expected. By four-thirty there was a double pile of closely-written sheets on Sammy’s favourite coffee-table, the one with the Auvergne reproductions baked into its tiled top. It stood between them as they relaxed into their respective chairs, a sort of miniature funeral pyre for the life of an extraordinary man.

  Lighting a cigarette, Laird considered a question which had been nagging him much of the afternoon.

  “You get the house and what’s in it, right? And the rest goes to this mysterious wife. Have you met her?”

  “I didn’t even know she existed until the solicitors wrote to say she’d been in touch with them and was coming back to England.”

  “Did Sammy leave anything to anybody else?”

  “There were some other bequests, but they don’t come out of my part of the estate, so I didn’t ask for all the details. But there’s one which I feel sure must be a kind of shot from the grave.”

  The metaphor was eerie enough to raise the hairs on Laird’s nape. He said, “What was it?”

  “He left five thousand pounds to the Society for Counteracting Christianity.”

  “What in the world is that?”

  “They—uh—they think Christianity is evil. They publish books to promote atheistical ideas.”

  Laird grunted. It was of a piece with Sammy’s sense of humour, which had sometimes been malicious, though never sadistic, to mock his family that way. “Anything else?” he inquired.

  “The same amount to a hospital. I forget its name.” Polly hesitated. “Mr Walker, do you mind if I ask—?”

  “Why I’m being so nosy?”

  “Not exactly, but—”

  “Well, I am. I told you: I’m completely knocked out by Sammy’s death, and I want to know a lot more about it before I shrug it off.”

  Such as what?

  Right now he had no idea. There was an uncomfortable pause.

  Eventually Polly glanced at her watch, a cheap one on a frayed elastic bracelet. “What’s the time, Mr Walker? I think I forgot to wind this up this morning.”

  “Ten of five.”

  “Then it’s too late for me to call on the solicitors today. I’ll go and see them in the morning with these lists, and—”

  “Don’t leave it all to the lawyers,” Laird warned. “And above all don’t let them hustle you. You ought to consult some experts about the picture there, and that sculpture, and you ought to see about the car, as I told you. In the long run it could make a considerable difference.”

  He felt a sudden sense of responsibility towards Polly. It was absurd; she was a total stranger even if she was Sammy’s sister. But it gave him the impression he was doing something for his dead friend.

  “Thank you, Mr Walker, I shall. I appreciate your help—you’ve gone to a lot of trouble for me.”

  “It’s the least I can do. Sammy wasn’t my only friend in London, but he was certainly my best. What are you going to do tonight—stay here?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “It won’t be very cheerful on your own in a strange place. Maybe we could have dinner together, and—”

  “No thank you.” Her tone was firm and chilly. “I can’t waste time down here in London, and there are still jobs to be done. There are all the dirty clothes to wash, to begin with.”

  Well, if that’s the way you want it…

  Laird shrugged and stubbed his cigarette. He was about to rise and take his leave when the bell on the street door rang shrilly. Polly started.

  “Shall I go and see who that is?” Laird offered.

  “Would you please?”

  He opened the first-floor door and peered down the stairs. Standing by the street door, which was still ajar as it had been since the morning, was a man in greasy overalls scrubbing his hands on a piece of rag.

  Of course. The mechanic come to see about the car.

  He thudded down the stairs two at a time, and the man called to him.

  “Sorry I couldn’t make it before, sir—been kind of busy this afternoon. Like me to look the Jensen over now?”

  “If you’ve no objection.”

  “I should say not!” Clearly familiar with the premises, the mechanic tugged aside the sliding panel dividing the tiny hallway from the garage, stepped through, and tsk-tsked as he prodded the nearest tyre with his toe.

  “Mind if I open the door, sir?” he added over his shoulder. “Can’t see much without the light.”

  “Help yourself.”

  The man touched a wall-switch, and with a humming noise the up-and-over door to the outside lifted and swung clear. He gave a sigh of satisfaction.

  “Looks pretty, doesn’t she, in spite of all? Worked with Mr Logan on this one, I did—and the Jensen people, of course. They don’t build a better car in Britain, to my mind. Though of course we have you people to thank for the performance—the clockwork is all Chrysler. You are an American, aren’t you, sir?”

  “That’s right. My name’s Laird Walker.”

  “Glad to know you, sir. I’m Harry Pentecost.”

  He operated the hood-catch and cast a professional eye over what he had just termed “the clockwork”. Meantime Laird ran some mental calculations and came to a tentative decision.

  “Think she’s come to any harm?”

  “One of these? No-o! I know a Jensen ten years old, ticks over quiet as a Rolls and still delivers the ton. A couple of hours’ll see her right as rain.”

  “Then—look.” Laird drew confidentially close to Pentecost. “Sammy Logan’s sister has come from Scotland to sell up the estate. She’ll probably offer the car back to your people because she doesn’t drive. Would you tell your sales manager I’ll give you a hundred pounds more than the best offer you get from anyone else, on condition you buy it back from me when I go home? I’m here for a few months at least, so I’ll need a car, and I’d like to see Miss Logan get the best she can from what Sammy left her.”

  “That’s very decent of you, sir,” Pentecost said seriously. “I’ll tell our Mr Halliard, and I’m sure he’ll be happy to oblige. Mr Logan was a good customer of ours.”

  “Good. Then—”

  Outside in the mews there was the slam of a taxi’s door, and they both turned.

  Standing with purse in hand, glancing at them as though questioning their right to be here or anywhere else, was a woman of astonishing beauty: in her middle thirties, hair black as a raven’s wing and exquisitely coiffed, wearing a frock whose casualness and brevity hinted at an unbelievable price. Even before she walked forward and spoke in an imperious voice, Laird had recognised her from the bad newspaper photos he had seen.

  She said, “My name is Medea Howard Logan. I gather my sister-in-law is here. Tell her I want to see her, will you?”

  SIX

  “So that’s her,” Harry Pentecost murmured, far too low for anyone but Laird to catch. Laird shot a sharp glance at him, but he was apparently absorbed in contemplating the car.

  He went forward slowly. As he approached, Medea Logan summed him up, head to foot, with the most calculating eyes he had ever seen. The assessment was favourable. It proceeded in two stages: the first
physical, which approved his build, the width of his shoulders, his fair hair just redder than sandy, his rather craggy face, and could have been expressed as “male”; the second taking in his Moygashel jacket, his slub-finished linen and terylene slacks and his silk neck-square, worn English-style with his open shirt.

  That, he suspected, could have been expressed as “one of ours!”

  In his stiffest manner he said, “Good afternoon. I’m Laird Walker. Polly is upstairs right now.”

  She lingered over the answer, and delivered it at last with a smile that involved half-lidding her eyes. “Would you show me the way? I’ve never been here before.”

  There was a tap of metal on metal. Pentecost had produced a wrench and was unscrewing plugs to inspect them for carbon. Laird shrugged and gestured Medea to come forwards through the garage towards the stairs.

  “So that’s Sammy’s notorious car,” she commented as she went by. “A little like him, don’t you think? With an extra expensive finish added late!”

  Laird didn’t bother to reply.

  Uncertain, like an intruder, Polly was standing in the middle of the living-room when he ushered Medea inside. For the space of a few heartbeats she endured the same two-part inspection, and this time the verdict was also favourable—from Medea’s point of view. It might have been condensed into “female provincial” and “not one of ours”.

  Laird had no grounds to dislike Medea as a person; even though Sammy must have had a reason for concealing his marriage to such a beautiful woman, the fault might have been on his side as much as hers. But he instantly took a dislike to her as a type—he had always detested snobs. So, with a spark of malice, he adopted the formal method of introducing Polly, the younger woman to the older.