The Hogarth Conspiracy (12 page)

But she'd done it. Mrs. Fleet—once Charlene O'Dywer—had shed her accent, her name, and her morals to get to Park Street. To become rich and safe. And now a fucking painting was endangering everything. She had enjoyed her extended interlude of luxury and safety, but … She smiled to herself wryly, almost resigned. Perhaps she had always known it was too good to last. Perhaps she had even expected that one day trouble would come to her expensive door.

But she was buggered if she was going to give in without a fight.

Sixteen

W
ALKING UP THE NARROW STAIRWELL OF THE TOWNHOUSE,
V
ICTOR
rang the bell marked “
Thomas Harcourt”
and waited to hear the lock being slid to open the door. He knew from past experience that Thomas—Tully to his friends—already would have checked on his caller through the peephole, but he had the grace to smile effusively as though surprised when he opened the door.

“Victor, come in, come in,” he said, stepping back and allowing his visitor to enter the spacious, high-ceilinged drawing room that overlooked the Thames Embankment. The windows were almost the height of the room, and French doors led onto a balcony that spied on the river and let in the sound of traffic and pigeons.

“Coffee?” Tully asked. His lofty figure moved over to the stove in the open-plan kitchen, where a pan of milk simmered on the stove. “I remember how you like it, milky and sweet.”

There was no mention of Victor having been in prison, no surprise at the sudden reemergence of an old friend, just a genuinely affectionate welcome tempered with an old uncomfortable memory that neither of them would ever forget.

Years earlier, Thomas Harcourt had been in the running with Ian McKellen, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Jeremy Irons to become one of the greatest English actors of his generation, formidable in the theater and mesmerizing on the screen. His tall, rangy frame, loose-limbed and supple, had allowed him to take on many of the great Shakespearean roles, and his voice, never strident, could become intimate for the screen. His indeterminate looks and mobility of expression allowed him to convince an audience that he was whatever the character called for: handsome, virtuous, heroic, predatory….

Tully's decline came not through any failure of his own but from the sudden and traumatic death of his wife. Returning to work a month after her suicide, he developed stage fright or—keen to make light of an affliction that was crippling him—
life fright,
as he explained it to interviewers. People believed it was due to grief, but it was not that Tully missed his wife; it was more that she obsessed him, her suicide a constant reproach, a subtle undermining of his confidence that rendered this most articulate of actors a mumbling tyro.

Victor had never known his friend's wife but had heard that she was jealous of his success. She had wanted a career as successful as her husband's, but the public didn't take to her, and her bitterness turned to resentment. Her suicide, although professed in her note to be an act of release for her husband, was in fact the opposite. From the moment she killed herself she never left him. On stage, on a film set, she was there, making gibberish of his lines or wiping his memory until there were no lines and no more work.

“Two sugars, isn't it?”

Victor nodded and sat down. The apartment was in perfect order, the valuable Georgian commode in precisely the same place it had always been, as was a faded Hogarth print of
His Servants
and the luscious Gainsborough portrait hanging beside a vertiginous spiral staircase.

But the sofa was showing signs of wear and tear, Tully's trousers weren't as expensive as they had been, and his slip-on shoes were scuffed at the toe.

“Here you go.” He handed Victor his coffee and sat down next to him. “You look well. Older but good.”

“You look the same.”

“I
am
the same,” Tully replied, “and my work's picking up. I do voiceovers now. Can't forget your lines if they're printed in big, bold letters in front of you, and the pay's pretty good, especially if you do voice for feminine products. Tampax has been very good to me.” He laughed, the sound resonant. “I expected to see you when you got back to town.”

Victor nodded. “I've got a job.”

“Which side of the law?”

“Which side d'you think?”

“You had it coming, you know,” Tully went on, sipping his coffee. He set down his cup on the table next to him. “Too much, too young,” he said. “You'd have gotten away with it if you'd been your brother, but people resent charisma, Victor. They can't forgive a person for having it.” He paused, “Charisma—everyone wants it, and everyone resents it if they haven't got it. Poor soul, you couldn't go on being lucky, rich, and well known—
someone
had to stop you.”

The assumption that he was innocent pleased Victor.

“You still know everything that's going on in London, Tully?”

“Everything. It passes for real life. I'm a willing recipient of news—from all kinds. But you know that, don't you, Victor?”

It was no secret that after his wife's death and the demise of his career Tully Harcourt had dabbled in gambling. Mostly the horses, sometimes the dogs. Dabbled in drugs too, but not for long. As with sex, Tully heart wasn't in it. But he craved the thrill of the bet, and the capital's casinos welcomed him until his losses included a family Herring portrait and a Dutch still life.

But Tully, nobody's fool, came to his senses and sought alternative—and safer—ways to amuse himself. Having moved among the bookies at the tracks, he had made unlikely friends and been drawn to the peripheries of the London underworld. Mentally and morally adept, he had, however, picked his role and stuck to it. He was an observer no more. A sympathetic listener. The pastor of the dispossessed.

“So,” Tully asked, “who are you working for?”

“Charlene Fleet.”

Tully's shape-shifting face altered, his curiosity making him alert.

“Mrs. Fleet of Park Street?”

“The same.”

“She runs whores.”

“I know that.”

“For the art world mostly. She's cornered the market there, I believe.”

Victor nodded. “Three days ago, one of her girls died. All this is in confidence, Tully.”

“You didn't have to say that.”

“Marian Miller was murdered.”

Tully drew a protracted breath. “Not the girl with the thirty pieces of Russian silver?”

Victor raised his eyebrows. “I'm surprised that part's come out.”

“Not publicly, but I heard it on the grapevine. People always gossip about that kind of thing. They don't much care about a call girl getting killed, but they like the salacious details. What were the coins supposed to mean?”

“That her killer was a Russian?” Victor offered, smiling wryly. “God knows. But what
isn't
common knowledge is that before she died, Marian Miller had been on board Bernie Freeland's jet. There were also three other art dealers on that plane and two other call girls, as well as the pilot, the copilot, and two male crew members. One of the dealers was Kit Wilkes—”

“Who's in the Friars Hospital.”

“Yes, for the last three days. In a convenient coma.”

Thoughtful, Tully moved over to the windows and closed them. Sliding the brass bolts, he drew the drapes against the early winter evening and flicked on a couple of lamps. At once the Gainsborough portrait was illuminated, the walking woman suddenly an eavesdropper, her head to one side, her parasol red as a skinned fish.

“Why was the girl killed?”

“Because she overheard something she shouldn't have.” Concisely, Victor outlined what he knew of the Hogarth painting.

Tully was intrigued. “You say there were two other dealers on the plane?”

“Lim Chang and Sir Oliver Peters,” Victor replied. “I don't know if they heard about the painting; I haven't talked to them yet.”

“And the two other girls?”

“One's staying with Mrs. Fleet in Park Place. The other's still working.”

Leaning back in his chair, Tully studied his visitor. He knew why Victor had come to him—not just to find out what the gossip was but because he could talk to Thomas Harcourt about the art world. Tully's grandfather had run one of the most successful galleries in Paris, and Tully had inherited some valuable pieces. He was also knowledgeable enough to understand the implications of the rediscovered Hogarth painting.

But there was more to it than that. Tully Harcourt owed Victor Ballam. He owed him a debt that could never be paid fully. A debt of honor, professional and personal, an unspoken debt that bound the two men together more tightly than a rope. Without tugging on that leash Victor knew Tully would be there for him. Without question Tully understood that the bond was unimpeachable, unbreakable. And for life.

“Where is it?”

“The picture? Bernie Freeland has it.”

“In New York?” asked Tully.

“I imagine so. That's where he is now.”

“You know what this could mean, don't you?”

“I was an art dealer, Tully; I know
exactly
what it could mean. That Hogarth on the open market could cause a monumental scandal.” He paused, then said, “A long time ago I heard an interesting theory from Fraser Heath-Lincoln—”

“That old bastard.”

Victor smiled, amused. “He liked me, thought I had potential, so we used to talk. He was vicious and untrustworthy, but he adored the royals. He used to say that the English throne was the closest thing to God, which was why he was so interested in the Hogarth series
The Harlot's Progress
. It was Fraser who told me about Polly Gunnell and the Prince of Wales—and about the painting that gave the game away.”

Tully pulled a face. “It was just a rumor. And besides, the whole series of
The Harlot's Progress
was destroyed in a fire.”

“Maybe not. Perhaps it was convenient for everyone to believe that it no longer existed because the painting proved the rumor. If the Hogarth depicts the Prince of Wales with his whore, it would be priceless. And very dangerous. And because of that everyone would be after it.” Victor paused. “There's a theory that Hogarth took the child in and that he later placed the boy with his friend Thomas Coram, who set up the Foundling Hospital.”

“Hogarth took the boy in?” Tully was amazed. “How could he have done that?”

“Easily. He could have passed him off as the child of one of his servants. Hogarth was married, living with his wife and his in-laws in a spacious townhouse. No one was interested in what went on below stairs. The painter knew that; he could have secreted the baby there and then moved it later.”

“But why?”

“Maybe he felt he owed it to Polly Gunnell, his model. I think Hogarth knew about her involvement with the Prince of Wales; perhaps she had confided in him. For a long time there's been a rumor that she was killed
because
she was carrying the Prince of Wales's child. Well, what if it's true? I don't say the royals had anything to do with it, but Frederick, Prince of Wales, was estranged from his parents. He was feckless and spirited, but if he
had
had a son out of wedlock, that boy would have been the heir to the throne.”

“But that would mean that the line of succession—”

“Wouldn't have led to Elizabeth the Second. Yes, that's exactly what it would mean.”

“Jesus!”

“There were always pretenders to the English throne, Tully. Bonnie Prince Charlie, for example. But if the anti-German factions could have replaced George, Prince of Wales, with an English heir—albeit an illegitimate one—they would have jumped at the chance. And even if they'd failed, the attempt would have destabilized royalty and Parliament.”

Unblinking, Tully stared at Victor. “Did the child live?”

“I don't know; no one does. But if his existence is proved, it would delight the republicans and give them some mighty ammunition. There's a growing backlash against royalty in this country. The public is irritated by the extravagance of the young royals, their arrogant entitlement to status. Now, just imagine if Lim Chang got hold of this Hogarth painting—further proof of the decadent West, of the corruption within the royal family. Some might argue the Windsors shouldn't even be in power. China would love to be the whistle-blower on that scandal. They've been flexing their muscles since the Beijing Olympics, and every month their power increases along with their influence. How thrilled would
they
be to expose the scandal?”

“And Lim Chang would further his career.”

“He would be a national hero, a fully paid-up member of the laurel wreath club. And then there's Kit Wilkes. Spiteful, delighted to embarrass his social-climbing father—the Hogarth exposé would be a double whammy. He could prove his own skill as a dealer and kick the establishment in the crotch at the same time. James Holden is a Tory MP, desperate for a knighthood and a place in the House of Lords one day. He isn't going to want his bastard to ruin his life. God knows, Wilkes has sold his father out to the tabloids dozens of times; he's made a career out of malice. But Holden moves in royal circles, he's ruthless, and he's grafted to get where he is. Somehow he's managed to hold on to his status.”