Bernard Cornwell - Sea Lord

Behind me a French sloop was ghosting into the harbour. I turned to watch as it dropped its sails and a girl in a bikini went forward to pick up a mooring. Ulf was doing strenuous calisthenics on his foredeck and I saw him straighten up to eye the deficiencies of the newcomer’s boat. There wasn’t much wrong with the girl, not that I could see. I looked back to Jennifer Pallavicini and decided she too would look very good in a bikini. “Why do you need me?” I asked her. “You must have hired ransom experts? Have you told the police?”

“Of course we have. The officer who was in charge of the original theft has been assigned to us.”

“Not Harry Abbott!”

“Detective Inspector Abbott,” she corrected me. “Yes.”

“Bloody hell!” I said in disgust. Harry Abbott is someone who lives under a stone along with all the other nasty things that crawl and creep on slimy bellies in the Stygian dark. He had been the policeman who had tried to pin the theft of the Van Gogh on to me in the first place. He had failed then, but I didn’t fancy him trying again. “What does the bastard say you should do?”

“Persuade you to come home.”

“I wouldn’t go to Paradise on Harry’s recommendation.”

“Which doesn’t alter the fact that you should be doing everything in your power to assist us. You are, after all, the legal owner of the painting.”

“A minute ago,” I pointed out, “you accused me of being the blackmailer.”

“It’s Inspector Abbott’s belief” – her voice made it clear that she did not entirely share his certainty – “that the blackmailers waited till you sailed away before they made an approach to Sir Leon.”

“Why would they do that?”

She shrugged to show that she had no answer. “What I do know,” she said, “is that we need your authorisation for any attempts we may make to recover it. Otherwise Sir Leon could be accused of accepting stolen goods, so we need your permission to negotiate.”

That seemed fair enough. “Does that mean,” I asked her, “that if Sir Leon retrieves it, he’ll have to give it back to me?”

“Of course,” she said defiantly, as though, under those circumstances, she would dare me to take possession.

I smiled at her. “I wouldn’t want it. Where could I hang it? There might be room on the lavatory bulkhead, but it would probably get in the way of the wet locker.”

That small joke went down like a cement balloon. I sighed, went below to the cabin, and tore a page out of a notebook. I found a pencil and scribbled a quick message. ‘Sir Leon Buzzacott and his wage-slaves have my full authority to do whatever they think necessary for the safe recovery of one painting by Vincent Van Gogh, commonly known as the Stowey Sunflowers. This authorisation is signed by John Rossendale, Lord Stowey, Earl of Stowey, and Master under God of the good ship Sunflower .’ I dated it, then embellished it with an ornate rubber stamp that has Sunflower ’s name, a quasi-Royal crown, and some nonsense numbers. I use the stamp to impress immigration officials in self-important but trivial countries. It doesn’t reduce the bureaucracy, or the scale of the necessary bribes, but it sometimes makes them a trifle more respectful.

“There you go.” I handed the note to Jennifer Pallavicini. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? Pity you flew all the way here to fetch it. You could have asked me nicely and I’d have posted it to you. Still, it’s very good to see you. Would you like an early dinner before I sail? I do a very good Corned Boeuf à la Bourguignonne . I’ve even got some fresh vegetables.”

She ignored my babbling. Instead she tore my note into shreds which, in defiance of Greenpeace’s valiant endeavours, she scattered into the harbour water. “We need your personal help, my lord.”

I leaned back on the thwart. “I’m always suspicious when you call me ‘my lord’. What do you plan to do if I return to England? Torture a confession out of me?”

“If you agree to help us,” she said, “we shall naturally assume your innocence.”

I feigned grateful astonishment. “Oh, my God! You’re so kind!”

She had the grace to blush, but continued pressing her case. “We need your knowledge. You can remember what happened four years ago. You know more than I do about those two wretched men. Someone fears what you know, but if you’re lost in the oceans, then they won’t show themselves again. So please come back, my lord, and help us.”

She had asked very nicely, and she was so very pretty, so I very nearly agreed, but every time I went home I regretted it. I’d been back at sea just long enough to get the taste again, and I was dreaming of those palm-edged rivers and impossibly blue lagoons. “You have my verbal authority,” I said wearily, “to do whatever you want, so go and do it. But leave me alone.”

She nodded, almost as if she had expected the refusal. “I have some other news for you.”

I waved a negligent hand as if to suggest that I did not much care whether she revealed the news or not.

“Your sister, Lady Elizabeth Tredgarth, is initiating proceedings to take your younger sister back to England.”

She had spoken in a very matter-of-fact voice, a poker-player’s voice. She had also appalled me, as she had doubtless hoped to do. “She’s doing what?” I could not keep the anger from my voice.

Jennifer Pallavicini shrugged, as if to suggest that none of this was of much importance to her. “It seems there’s a nun who is particularly fond of the Lady Georgina?”

“Sister Felicity, yes.”

“The Lady Elizabeth feels that Sister Felicity is too old and too sick to look after Lady Georgina any longer. There’s also a possibility that the convent hospital might be sold, so Lady Elizabeth wants her younger sister brought home.”

“Home?”

“To where she lives, of course. In Gloucestershire, isn’t it?”

I stared in horror at Jennifer Pallavicini. “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Elizabeth can’t stand the sight of Georgina!”

Jennifer Pallavicini didn’t reply.

“How the hell do you know all this?” I demanded angrily.

“Because we take a great deal of interest in your family,” she said equably. “It’s a family that might bring our gallery a great treasure.”

“You’re making this up,” I said. “You’re telling me this nonsense in the hope that it will bring me back to England!”

“Your sister didn’t want you to know,” she said. “Indeed, she didn’t institute proceedings until she’d heard you had sailed away. Of course, you don’t have to believe me, but I thought perhaps the news might be of some slight interest to you.”

The trouble was that I did believe her. Why else had Elizabeth been at the convent? “But we paid for Georgina,” I protested, “for her lifetime!”

“A large sum of money was put into trust for your younger sister’s care,” Jennifer Pallavicini said pedantically, “but our legal informant tells us that the trustees retain the right to dictate how that money should be spent. If the Lady Elizabeth is confident that she can care for her sister, then there is no reason why the trust fund should not also be given into her care.”

And how that made sense, brilliant clear lucid sense. Elizabeth, married to her impoverished and useless husband, would get her claws into Georgina’s money, while Georgina could be stuck into a cottage on the Tredgarth farm with some harridan to guard her.

“The matter hasn’t been decided yet,” Jennifer Pallavicini went on. “The trustees need to be convinced that the Lady Elizabeth can provide a proper home for your younger sister, but there seems little doubt that she will succeed in so convincing them.”