The Hogarth Conspiracy (31 page)

“Can you see how extraordinary he is?” Ronan asked, sighing. “There's always one person like that in your life, isn't there?”

Like Ingola, Victor thought uncomfortably. On his return to London, Tully had told him that she had called twice, asking where he was. Tully hadn't seemed surprised. But then, why should he be? They had known each other for years.

Hurriedly he pushed the thought aside.

“Did Kit mention any new purchase he had made? A special painting?”

“No, nothing. He said Hong Kong had been a waste of time.” Ronan paused, remembering. “But he did seem a bit hyped up. I didn't press him about work. I was just glad he was home.”

“And he said nothing about the flight?”

“No, although I don't believe that Bernie Freeland's death was an accident.”

“You know about that?”

“Oh, yeah. But it's all too much of a coincidence, isn't it? What with Kit being drugged … Look, I want to help you; I want to help
him
. But I don't know anything. I don't know what happened. I just know
something
did. Kit wasn't the same since he came back to London. He mentioned Guy Manners, said they were going to talk about doing business.”

Victor had known Guy Manners and his florid reputation in the past. No one was surprised when his adoptive family had disowned their ungrateful cuckoo; his enthusiastic criminality had been almost expected. Yet for all that, Victor had always thought of Manners as a lost soul, believed that under the bravado was a drifter, a misfit in the art world.

Victor frowned. “What kind of business?”

“Kit didn't say, but he took his so-called
overdose
only hours after he got home. I thought he was sleeping, and when I went in to unpack his bag, I found him.” He scrutinized Victor, then asked, “Were you on that plane?”

“No,” he replied, and changed the subject. “D'you know someone called Mrs. Fleet? Charlene Fleet?”

“I only know
of
her. Don't tell me Kit's used her services.”

“I'm not suggesting that, but three of her call girls were on the flight with him, and two are now dead.”

Ronan tipped his head to one side, looking quizzically at Victor. “Who are you working for?”

“Myself. I
was
hired by someone, but I'm on my own now.”

He thought of the two latest messages left by Mrs. Fleet, which, like all the others, he had ignored, and wondered how long it would be before she heard he was back in London. Would she come after him or send someone? Victor didn't know, but he wasn't going to report back personally. Let her discover that her plan hadn't worked. If she was after the Hogarth and determined to get rid of anyone who knew about it, he was going to stay as far out of her reach as possible.

“Someone did this to Kit,” Ronan said suddenly. “Someone injected him.”

“He was
injected
?”

Ronan nodded. “He'd never inject himself; he's too squeamish. That's another reason this doesn't feel right.”

“Have
you
injected him?”

He shook his head violently. “No! I'm not the one who hurt him. You think I could?”

“No, I don't.”

Thoughtful, Victor turned back to Kit Wilkes. Someone who was adept at using needles had gotten to the dealer. Someone had made sure Kit Wilkes wasn't going to talk.

“Did you meet him at the airport?”

Ronan nodded. “Yeah; then I drove us back to the flat.”

“He didn't stop off anywhere? At the gallery, perhaps?”

“No.”

“So you both got back to the flat, and then what?”

“He went for a quick shower, and then he said he was tired and went into the bedroom to lie down. He was asleep when I looked in about ten minutes later. Then I tidied up the flat, watched part of a DVD—”

“No one came to the door?”

“No.”

“No one telephoned?”

“No!” Ronan replied emphatically. “It was just me and him. I didn't hurt him.”

“Someone did. Someone got access to him. Did you fall asleep?”

“I was tired. I'd been up early, so yeah, I fell asleep for a bit,” Ronan admitted timorously. “But I'd have heard someone come in.”

“Is there a back entrance to the flat?”

He stared at Victor, openly hostile now. “Yeah, but they'd have to have a key. And besides, I'd have heard.”

“How bad was your hangover, Ronan?”

Ronan flinched. “Oh, you
are
good, aren't you?” he said, his tone sarcastic.

“I'm learning.”

“How did you know I was hung over?”

“I guessed.”

Ronan was pale now and slightly sweaty. “No one could have gotten into the flat without me knowing.”

“But you didn't expect anything to happen. You couldn't have known that anything would.”

“I
should
have known!” he said, anguished, and gripped Kit's hand.

“Who were you with the night before?”

“Friends. Guys I've known for years. It was just a night out at a bar. Nothing happened, nothing was said; it was just normal.” Ronan was still holding Kit's hand, his voice tremulous. “You'll find out who did this to him, won't you?”

“Yes.”

“Why won't he wake up? If he'd just wake up and tell us what happened. That flight was deadly, and I want to know why.”

 

I had known him for years. Thomas Coram, retired sea captain, philanthropist, and humanitarian, although I doubt he would have owned the words. When I walked into the Foundling Hospital in Bloomsbury that day in 1745, he caught me up in a spontaneous embrace. He was shimmering with achievement, his heavy face damson around the jowls. Finally, after a number of frustrating years, laden with official delays—during which he had endured much carping as he chivvied, bullied, and badgered the authorities—he had established his Foundling Hospital for the wretched, abused, and abandoned children of London.

We had spoken of it many times over the years; indeed I had become a founding governor, raising capital by installing a permanent art collection at Bloomsbury Square. Flattered and cajoled by Thomas, I was persuaded to design the children's uniform and the coat of arms. We two men—ironically, both childless—stood up against the callous indifference that prevailed. The capital had little regard for its weakest offspring. I, who could not bear to see an animal flogged, wondered at the depravity of cruelty meted out to infants who had been inconveniently born.

Even in the midst of good work, wickedness thrived. When it became known that the Foundling Hospital had announced that it would receive ALL who were needy, a veritable torrent of children came to London from the country workhouses—and with them came the sinister “Coram men.”

Using the name of the benefactor whose good work they betrayed, these rogues were paid to collect, and then deliver, unwanted children to the Foundling Hospital. But on the way from the countryside to the capital, many of the infants were abused and many died. Only a percentage of the country children ever made their way through the gates of the hospital in Bloomsbury. Seeing so many such wretches, I and my wife took over the care of several children. Jane had always wanted a family, as I had. But in this God was not listening—or perhaps I had offended him too, as I had so many others.

Naturally, Thomas knew of Hal, the infant I had hidden thirteen years earlier. But not his heritage. He didn't know that the child's life—which had so far been mercifully without incident—was about to change.

“I wanted to talk about Hal,” I said, sitting down opposite Thomas as he lowered his great bulk into an oversized chair, the springs of which sighed like a diving whale. “He's old enough to start work. He needs to be apprenticed and learn a trade, and”—how I baulked at the sentimentality—“I would like to see more of him. Not directly, of course, but indirectly.”

I faltered at the words but was only voicing my long-held thoughts. Thomas raised the great arcs of his eyebrows in surprise.

“We could give him a job here, William. God knows he wouldn't stand out among so many others. Just one more lad. Besides, he could learn a trade at the hospital.”

Damn me, but I was never clever at gratitude and blundered on.

“Well, if you could … we could … yes, yes, that would serve.”

I should mention here that I had followed my ward's history closely. From the moment Hal was taken to Chiswick into the Binny household, I had paid for his upkeep—more perhaps than was necessary—to smooth his existence and that of his surrogate family. Nell kept her word, and no one knew of his beginnings. Neither was I personally known to Hal, but I had been made aware of every step of his progress from infancy to boyhood. He was, it must be said, an engaging child. Strong but not stocky. Tall but not so tall as to draw attention. And his colouring was middling, made remarkable only by the fierce interest in his eyes.

How do I know all this? From watching him at a distance and being quick with my pen to record his looks at many stages. By the time Hal was ten, I had several sketchbooks filled with images of the boy. Images that reminded me of Polly Gunnell.

Of course I felt guilt for the loss of his mother. Time and time again I remonstrated with myself, telling myself that I should have halted the affair, that I should have followed up on my suspicions—but it had been Polly's life, and she was not the first whore to bed a son of the nobility. I had presumed she was clever enough. I had not realised that in some instances no one is clever enough.

When I watched Hal, it was easy to read Polly's expression in her son's visage. But there was also a spectre of his father in him. Thankfully too slight to invite comment or notice. After all, we had spent thirteen years avoiding such attention.

But now the newborn I had rescued was taller than I. Much taller. But then, most are. Although the romantic notion had occurred to me over the years, I would never have risked bringing Hal into my home and endangering Jane and the others I hold dear. For the innocent, thirteen years is a long respite. For the guilty, thirteen years is too short for determined people to forget. To those who had wanted his death, Polly Gunnell's bastard son had been long in the grave. Some clumsy emotional gesture on my part would not be allowed to resurrect him.

As though privy to my thoughts, Thomas said suddenly, “Sir Nathaniel Overton progresses rapidly up the ranks at court. I hear he has the King's ear, although the Queen is still suspicious of him.”

Sir Nathaniel Overton, one of the most mendacious men in England. A man who supported the King but was also rumoured to be on convivial terms with the Young Pretender. A man so unreadable, so cunning, he had to be welcomed into the royal circle, his machinations kept close by and observed minutely. A man no one really knew, whose motives were unfathomable, whose true intentions were opaque. Sir Nathaniel Overton, the courtier I had long suspected to have had some hand in Polly Gunnell's death.

And over the thirteen years since her murder how his comet rose. How he was feted and praised, flattered into a silky keeper of secrets. For what reason? For his skill? Or the Court's gratitude? How better could a subject prove his loyalty than by killing any threat to the crown? And how cleverly Nathaniel Overton wore his disguise of the benign.

I feared him as I feared no other man. I knew him through my own connections at Court, although my royal patronage had been halted prematurely by my rival, the villain Kent. But on the few occasions I had talked to Nathaniel Overton there had always been—under the courtly manners—the scintilla of a threat. He looked at me as though he was reminding me of what he knew. He looked at me as though he was reminding me that I had once been his shit-clearer, his minion. That I had buried his victims to secure my own safety.

I daresay he would have killed me if he realised what I had really done.

“Hal could be trained as a farrier,” Thomas suggested, returning to our original topic. “God knows, there's enough horses need shoeing and work here to keep him busy for life. A boy brought up in the country should be good with animals.”

And I nodded, pleased by the thought. And I wondered if tonight was the time to tell Jane about the child. But why now, after so long? And anyway—as I had always believed—surely safety lay in ignorance.

But ignorance—like a candle flame—lasts only so long.

Thirty-Nine

C
ROSSING
L
INCOLN'S
I
NN
F
IELDS,
I
NGOLA DIALED A NUMBER ON HER
cell phone and waited impatiently for it to be answered. When it was, she began talking without a greeting, saying, “Victor won't return my calls! I know he's back from New York; he called his brother last night.”