Bernard Cornwell - Sea Lord

“So he beat you up?”

She paused, then nodded stiffly. “And I think he rather enjoyed doing it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, but my sympathy only irritated her.

“The important thing,” she said distantly, “is that at last we’ve succeeded in making contact with you. All that we now ask is that you deal with us rather than with anyone else.”

I shook my head. “But I can’t deal with you because I didn’t steal the painting, and I don’t know where it is.”

“So you say.”

That churlish answer tempted me to anger. It would have been easy to give in to the impulse, for I was tired and irritated, but on the other hand I was beginning to see that Jennifer Pallavicini was a very beautiful girl indeed, and it’s astonishing how pretty girls can make men’s manners. So I hid the anger.

Jennifer Pallavicini was collecting together the contents of her handbag, which the thin man had spilt across the bunk. “You should know,” she said as she restowed her bag, “that the painting is legally your possession. Your mother’s will can’t change that.”

I shrugged. “I haven’t even read the will.”

“She left the painting to your twin sister, but as your mother had already transferred its ownership to the Stowey Trust before your brother’s death, then the legacy is unenforceable.” She looked up at me. “In effect, my lord, you stole your own property.”

I could feel a pulse throbbing in the pulpy place where my tooth had been prised out. Jennifer Pallavicini’s words were reminding me of the dull responsibilities I had fled after the disappearance of the painting. The Stowey Trust was, in effect, the wealth of the Rossendale family, but formed into a trust to minimise taxes and death duties. These days the Trust was bankrupt, made so by the loss of the painting. However, the chief beneficiary of the Trust had always been the Earl of Stowey, which meant that if I had stolen the Van Gogh then I had indeed robbed myself. No one seemed to think that was an odd thing for me to do, probably because they were all convinced I was stupid as well as guilty.

“Sir Leon is willing to overlook any complicity of yours in the painting’s disappearance if you’ll now assist in its recovery,” Jennifer Pallavicini told me.

“How very kind of him,” I said.

She heard the scorn in my voice, and shrugged. “We’re only trying to help you, my lord.”

“Don’t call me that!” Despite her looks, anger had snapped into my voice. I heard the sudden emotion and did not like it. “Listen,” I said patiently, “my mother never had any proof that I stole the painting, because I didn’t. If she did have such proof, then she should have gone to the police. I assume she didn’t, because no policemen have paid me a call since I returned to England, so I suspect her proof was all imaginary. So go back to Buzzacott and tell him I didn’t nick the painting, that I don’t know where the thing is, and that I can’t help him. Tell him that four years ago the police questioned me for two days, and didn’t charge me because they knew they couldn’t make a charge stick. In short I know nothing about the painting, and that’s the end of the matter.”

Jennifer Pallavicini didn’t blink an eye at my denial. “Sir Leon is offering twenty million pounds for the painting, Mr Rossendale, payable in any currency you desire and in any country you choose.” She paused for a response and, when I made none, went on. “You may take that as a negotiating position rather than as a final offer, Mr Rossendale.”

In other words I could name my price for returning the painting, and the price would be paid far away from the prying eyes of the taxmen. The only fly in that ointment was that I hadn’t stolen the Van Gogh in the first place and didn’t know where it was. I was also angry at the continued accusations. Four years had not lessened anyone’s greed for the canvas, nor their conviction that I had stolen it. Doubtless my mother had thought a deathbed appeal would make me reveal its whereabouts, while now Sir Leon Buzzacott had sent this attractive messenger to try and bribe the information from me. But I did not share their obsession with the picture, and I was offended by their accusations. I was also offended by Jennifer Pallavicini’s patronising assumption of my guilt and, to show my irritation, I picked up her mug of tea and poured it down the sink drain. “Goodbye, Miss Pallavicini.”

If she was startled by my action, she was too proud to show it. She gathered up her handbag. “You expect me to swim ashore, my lord?”

I rowed her. There was no sign of the aluminium dory nor of the two men. Jennifer Pallavicini said nothing during the journey, but it was clear she was not enjoying the ride. She had gone out to Sunflower in one of Salcombe’s water taxis, but, without a VHF radio, I could not summon one for her return journey. Instead we rowed through the drizzle in sullen silence. She didn’t speak until I had safely delivered her to the town’s pontoon where, once she had clambered safely out of the inflatable, she turned back to me. “Where shall I return your sweater?”

“Take it to an Oxfam shop. I’m going back to sea.”

For a second she was tempted to take off the Aran sweater and throw it contemptuously into the dinghy, but modesty and the rain prevailed. She turned away; then, surprisingly, turned back. “One last question, Mr Rossendale?”

“Try me.”

Her dark eyes challenged me. “Why is your boat called Sunflower? ”

“I bought her from a Frenchman. He called her Tournesol . It’s bad luck to change a boat’s name, so I simply translated it. In other words, Miss Pallavicini, the name is pure coincidence.”

She stared down at me, evidently unsure whether to believe my explanation; then, without another word, turned away towards the town while I rowed back to Sunflower .

I sat in my wrecked cabin and tried to string a few explanations together. Sir Leon Buzzacott still wanted the painting; Sir Leon was convinced I had stolen it and could, therefore, betray its present whereabouts. My family had convinced him of that error by claiming to have proof of my guilt.

Fine, except I wasn’t guilty. No accomplice of mine could have confessed, because there had been no accomplices. I suspected that my mother, convinced of my guilt, had invented the tale.

Which didn’t explain the two men, or why the well-spoken thin man had wrecked Sunflower ’s cabin. From what he had told Jennifer Pallavicini he clearly believed that I had the painting and was about to sell it. Had he believed I had the thing concealed in Sunflower ? Did he think I’d hide twenty million quid’s worth of paint and canvas in a sea-locker? And who had told him I might have it? And what had he meant by saying that the painting wasn’t mine to sell? Jennifer Pallavicini had said the painting was mine, but Mother’s will evidently tried to deny me the ownership. The disagreement had all the makings of a fine lawyer’s stew, which meant that I should get the hell out of it. I’ve learned a few good lessons in life: always shorten sail when the first impulse occurs, never sail upwind unless desperate, and never, never, never give a lawyer a fingerhold on your affairs.

And this wasn’t my affair. I didn’t have the painting, didn’t want the painting, and didn’t care about my mother’s will. The thin man, Jennifer Pallavicini, and anyone else who believed I had the Van Gogh, was mistaken. So the best thing I could do was forget I’d ever been offered twenty million pounds and sail away to the blue waters.

But first there was work to do. I did a crude clean-up in the cabin, and began an inventory of what had been broken and what had not. Most of my tools and clothes, which had been stored with the spare sails in the forecabin, had been scattered about, though, blessedly, my visitor had not used his knives to search my sailbags. Undoubtedly he would have torn the sails to shreds, given time, but my unexpected return had frustrated him. The thin man had found no evidence of the Van Gogh, because there wasn’t any to find, nor, thank God, had he found my subsistence money. The cash, in a variety of different countries’ banknotes, was stored in a grease tin which, in turn, lay with other such battered and filthy tins in the tool tray next to the engine. No one would give the tin a second glance. But then, the thin man hadn’t been after money, just a twenty million pound painting, and he hadn’t found it.