Quintin Jardine - A Coffin For Two

When I found the light switch, I saw that Shirley’s bedroom was on the same grand scale as the rest of the house. It had its own terrace, with patio doors, and a huge bed, covered in pink satin. The dressing table was against the far wall. Her cosmetics were arrayed neatly to one side on a silver tray. On the other side was a photograph, in an ebony frame, of Shirley, a few years younger and a few years lighter and a tall, dark-haired, distinguished-looking man.

The purse lay in the centre of the table. I crossed the room, picked it up and turned back towards the door. It was only then that I saw the picture.

It was hung above the bed. Even in the artificial light, its colours exploded out at me. Along the Firth of Forth on the east coast of Scotland, it’s pretty well compulsory for aspiring artists to paint the Bass Rock. In Catalunya, it’s the same with Cadaques, the fishing village with which Picasso, Miro and Dali all had links.

There must be a million pictures of the place, with its bay, its square-towered white church and its encircling mountains behind. But none like this. It was big, a metre deep at least, and maybe one and a half wide. In the foreground the sea shone cobalt blue. The white church tower gleamed almost silver. On the slopes behind the town, the sun glinted on the green foliage.

I gazed at it, and as I did, the intensity of its colours reminded me of another picture; one which I had seen in Milton Bridge, in Scotland.

I leaned across Shirley’s bed, looking for a signature. It took me a while to find it, for it was modest, and self-effacing. But eventually I spotted it, near the bottom left corner. It was small, but it was clear. I read the name aloud. ‘Ronald Starr.’

I was shaking with excitement as I switched off the light and closed the door behind me. I was still trembling slightly when I found Shirley, back in the sitting room, refilling Cava glasses.

I handed her the purse. ‘That’s some picture you’ve got up there,’ I said, quietly. ‘Had it long?’

She beamed. ‘Isn’t it just! My lovely son gave it to me. He fancies himself as a bit of a collector. He came in with it one day when he was out here at Easter, and gave it to me, as an early birthday present.’

‘Do you know where he found it?’ I asked, all innocence. ‘That’s a gallery I wouldn’t mind visiting.’

She shook her head. ‘It wasn’t from a gallery. John said that he bought it off Trevor Eames. He never told me how much he paid for it. Bet it was a right few hundred, though.’

I smiled, involuntarily, and nodded. ‘I’ll bet. Had you ever heard of the artist before?’

Shirley laughed, heartily. ‘I couldn’t tell you even now who painted it, and it’s been hanging above my bed for six months. A picture’s a picture as far as I’m concerned, love. You can ask John when he gets here on Monday. Or you can ask Trevor … if you can ever find the bugger!’

‘Her son bought it for her?’ Primavera gasped.

‘That’s what she told me. And he said that he bought it from Trevor Eames.’

We were outside in Shirley’s garden, the two of us, with Davidoff. When I appeared, he had seemed put out, for an instant, but it passed and he welcomed me as if I was a brother in arms.

‘He said that, but is it true?’

‘It has to be,’ said Davidoff, growling with what I took to be his distaste for Shirley’s son. ‘You have found two links with Ronald Starr; the auction, which you have just told me was a fake, and now the picture above Senora Shirley’s bed. In each, the name of Trevor Eames comes up. Yes, I have to believe that he sold John the picture of Cadaques.’

Prim took his arm. I saw the muscles of his wrist and hand tense under her touch. ‘Is it possible that John was the man at the auction?’ she asked. ‘Could he, or he and Eames together, have killed the real Ronnie Starr and stolen his pictures?’

Davidoff’s eye narrowed, for several seconds as if he was considering her question. Then he shook his head, vigorously. ‘I don’t think so. John is not the man to be involved in something like this. Not that he is a paragon, you understand; he just lacks imagination and guts.

‘Oz,’ he said suddenly, ‘this impostor at the auction, how was he described to you?’

‘About forty, clean-shaven, dark hair beginning to go grey, ordinary looking, average height.’

‘It was not John, then, for sure. John is fair, like his mother, and almost two metres tall. Trevor’s partner was someone else.’

Something in his voice made me ask him, ‘Do you know Eames?’

Davidoff shrugged. ‘I see him around, I know who he is, I know where he lives, but I would not say I know him. I would not want to know him; he’s an asshole.’ He paused. ‘I tell you this, though. He approached John to sell him the picture, not the other way around. John, he is a fucking philistine. He talks big but he wouldn’t know a Picasso from a bull-fight poster, and he wouldn’t know where to go to buy a picture like that. Yes,’ he nodded, ‘if you find Eames and you make him talk, you know all the answers.’

Our friend paused, and he looked at me, hard. ‘But there is one thing, Oz. You never tell me why you believe Ronnie Starr is dead.’

So I told him the whole story, from the beginning to my meeting with Miguel’s wife’s nephew. Davidoff’s face grew darker by the minute.

‘These people,’ he snarled. ‘So fucking selfish. Nothing matters to them but the tourists. To treat a poor boy’s body like that. I am ashamed that they are Catalan. And you, Oz, that you were involved in it. I am ashamed of you, too.’

Right then, the last of the sybarite Oz Blackstone vanished, and Mac the Dentist’s son was finally back, imperfect as before, but with his old standards of decency. For right then, for the first time, I was ashamed of myself too.

Davidoff stood up, bent over Prim and kissed her, on both cheeks, and lightly on the lips. ‘Good night, my dear one,’ he said. ‘I think I better go now. I hope I have not soured your enjoyment of the night with my lecture.’

He looked at me, over his shoulder. ‘Don’t take it to heart, my boy. I suppose you felt that you owed this Miguel a favour. If you feel that you are in someone’s debt it’s difficult to say no, sometimes. Come to think of it, to recognise a debt which you owe is a virtue. Take that from me.’

We sat in silence for a while, after he had gone back to the summerhouse. Then we left too.

‘He’s right, Oz,’ said Prim as she drove us home. ‘It would have been difficult to say no.’

I shook my head. ‘It would have been easy. No. There you are, that’s how easy it is.’

‘Well, it’s done now. There’s no point in belated guilt. Look back on how the rest of the evening went. We’ve got proof of a connection between Trevor Eames and the real Ronald Starr. That can’t be bad, can it?’

‘No, that was a surprise. It should help us persuade Eames to talk, when we find him. Hell, we may even force him to go to the police. It’d be as well if Starr’s body turns up before then, though.’

I glanced across at her. ‘How about your evening? Has he proposed yet?’

‘Don’t be childish,’ she said, grinning. ‘We had another long talk, about life and the meaning of the universe. In some ways I’m getting to know a lot about Davidoff, in others I still know nothing.’

‘What do you mean?’

Primavera paused, reflecting. ‘Well, for example, I know that he has two homes. I asked him where he lives when he’s not at Shirley’s. He said that he has somewhere on the coast, and somewhere else, a very little place, in the country. But he didn’t tell me where either one was.