Moon over Tangier (The Francis Bacon Mysteries Book 3) Page 9

  “I didn’t think one resigned.”

  “Oh, no, no. Not from Mother Russia. But money can buy a new identity. He wants stock to sell to unwary collectors in France, England, the US, Brazil. Where can one not go with valuable artwork?”

  Where indeed. “But to kill Angleford. Surely the Soviets will be furious.”

  “Well, exactly,” said Richard. “So both Goldfarber and his controllers will be pleased to know that he did not kill Jonathan Angleford.”

  “Certainly, they’ll be relieved,” I admitted. “But there isn’t much doubt, is there?”

  “That’s where you come in,” Richard said. “There’ll be just enough doubt. Don’t worry about a thing. It’s all arranged. The police should be here in”—he paused and consulted his watch—“twenty minutes, more or less. Just enough time for you to pack your painting kit. We took the liberty of packing your clothes; no point in cutting it too fine, old boy.”

  I felt as if I’d stepped into some Dadaist farce. “You want me to run away from a murder I didn’t commit?”

  “Correction, one you most likely did commit. Your presence in the gallery and in the studio can be documented. I wouldn’t be surprised if a search of your person revealed a key to the Goldfarber studio. The commissioner is a clever man. He knows how to take a hint—and build a case.”

  “It would never stand up,” I said, although I didn’t feel totally confident. I suspected that, like everything else in the Zone, criminal cases were susceptible to pressures of one sort or another.

  “We should hope not!” Richard said, with a touch of his old friendliness. “But disagreeable at the time, don’t you know. Very disagreeable and apt to have lasting consequences. I wouldn’t risk it personally, but the decision is up to you.”

  I was tempted to call their bluff, and I sat for several minutes without saying anything. Then the blond fellow took out a nasty-looking pistol. Richard started to protest, but his colleague shook his head. “He needs to be out of here, whether he cooperates or not. He’s a suspect in a capital crime. It’s only natural he runs. Pack up the paints,” he said to me. “We have to be gone before the police arrive.”

  Chapter Eight

  My situation was nasty. Richard was bad; the blond man, whose name was Harry, was worse—his ready familiarity with his weapon­, beyond the pale. At the same time, I didn’t totally believe them. The commissioner had been interested in Goldfarber from the start, and clearly Richard and Harry were convinced that the gallery dealer was a Soviet spy. I was tempted to delay, hope the police arrived­, and confront them all.

  Harry wasn’t having that. He made a big package of stretched canvases, located a roll of nice Belgian linen, and tied up a bundle of stretchers. Richard put my paint tubes in a canvas bag. At the rate they were going, my studio would soon be emptied, and how would I work then? Admitting defeat, I folded my easel, wrapped my brushes, and boxed the bottles of turpentine and linseed oil. Every few minutes, my two visitors looked out the windows or checked the stairwell, and by the time we were ready, I’d been infected by their nerves. When Harry gestured with his revolver toward the door, I grabbed my leather coat and the canvases. Preceded by Richard with my suitcase and followed by Harry with gun and paints, I hustled downstairs.

  The white Mercedes was parked around the corner. As we loaded my equipment, I wondered how far I’d get if I made a break for it. Not far enough, probably, for although the street was narrow, it was not busy. Harry looked athletic, and after the incident in the medina, he wouldn’t be easy to fool a second time. The only possibility for improving my prospects was the street drain near the car. I felt in my pocket for Goldfarber’s studio key. When Harry grabbed my other arm to shove me into the Mercedes, I dropped the key. It rang on the metal grate before disappearing into the unmentionable slime of the city.

  “What was that?”

  “Damned if I know,” I said.

  Harry looked around. I think he might have begun a little investigation, if Richard hadn’t said, “That’s surely a siren.”

  With that hint of the police, we were off. I expected a quick run up the Mountain and hospitality at Richard’s; you can see that I still did not really understand the situation. Instead, we drove out beyond the old city walls until we reached a dismal waste of dry ground. In the distance, thin columns of smoke rose from a wooded valley with a cluster of dark tents. I could see women moving around the fires, and donkeys, horses, and camels tethered nearby: country living, Moroccan-style. I didn’t like it any better than Berkshire.

  Our destination was a little roadside settlement, a cluster of earthen structures, shielded by fruit trees and palms that rustled in the dry breeze. We parked beside a building a little apart from the rest. The white stucco coat was peeling and chipped, but there were stout bars on the front windows and a good lock on the garage door. Harry got out and opened it. Inside was a green van.

  “Can you drive?” he asked.

  Instant memories of treacherous French roads and the mysteries of the gear shift. “I have driven,” I said. “It was not a success.”

  Harry seemed exasperated, as if someone shanghaied on a murder charge could be expected to turn his hand to anything.

  “No matter,” said Richard impatiently. “He can hire a driver if need be. See to that before you leave.”

  Harry gave a put-upon grunt and opened the back of the van to load my painting equipment.

  “We’ll need your passport,” Richard said. “Some needful alterations, you understand.”

  I wasn’t keen on this at all, but Harry stuck his hand into my jacket and came out with my documents. Richard immediately set to work with a small scalpel and a tube of glue. He laid my passport on the hood of the van and carefully removed the photo. Then he took another British passport and inserted my picture. Amid a flurry of control stamps and visas, I’d become Jerome Hume, artist and decorative painter.

  I’ve acquired a number of different names in my time, but Jerome was a new low. A father of the church who spent his time in desert austerities was hardly my cup of tea, certainly not accompanied as he’d been by all those pious ladies without a bum boy in sight. I decided that I must take what comfort I could in Hume, the rationalist Scot who thought causality a mere habit of mind. I wondered if he’d worked for a secret service. Certainly he and Jerome made a very odd couple.

  “It’s good workmanship,” Richard said, as if I might have doubts. I certainly did, but not about his phony passport. “Harry will see you over the border. Tetouan is quite nice. Near the sea, don’t you know. You’re an artist working away undisturbed in a charming rural setting.”

  “Right,” I said. “The last place on earth I’d go.”

  “Everything’s laid on,” Richard said imperturbably. “And you’ll notice that we’ve packed several books on Picasso. Pages marked with works supposed missing in the war. That’s what you’ll be working on.”

  “This is a crazy scheme. For one thing, Goldfarber will know exactly who I am.”

  “Of course he will. You’re only Jerome Hume until you cross the border. Goldfarber needn’t know how you got across. You were accused, you fled. Simple enough. Don’t make unnecessary complications. And remember, old boy, inner conviction is worth more than even the best cover story.”

  Easy for him to say. He didn’t have to convince a homicidal forger. “And why exactly am I painting fake Picassos?”

  “You were inspired by the success of the one you stole. Sold it in a minute, which is perfectly true, as you’d do well to remember—on several accounts.” Richard had a disconcerting way of switching between the pleasantly frivolous and the deadly serious. “Now you have legal troubles, and you need money fast.”

  “Why didn’t I take the ferry to Gibraltar or Spain? I could have been on my way to London before anyone was the wiser.”

  “Don’t think of it,” s
aid Richard in a cold voice. “Any attempt to leave Spanish territory would be very dangerous for you. If we cannot get Goldfarber, you would do for Angleford’s killing, and leaving personal feelings aside, it would be no great matter if you were killed escaping. Keep that in mind.”

  Right. I’d certainly focus on that, but I rather missed the nice old Queen of Tangierino society. I hadn’t appreciated him half enough until I met his alter ego, who worked with thugs and devised half-assed schemes. “You think this will bring Herr Goldfarber out of the woodwork and eager to buy forged Picassos?”

  “We’re counting on it,” Richard said. “Tetouan is a small place and not like the Zone. You’ll need to mind yourself, Francis: not too much tripping the light fantastic, if I can put it that way.”

  I don’t think my activities have ever been described in that way, but I knew what he meant and quite rejected the idea. Getting out and about and drinking and carrying on is the breath of life to me, along with painting. I said nothing.

  “News of a stranger and a painter will soon reach his ears,” Richard continued.

  “If he’s there,” I said.

  “We’re sure he is. Smugglers have ways of leaving Tangier without clearing customs, and the Spanish Zone was his base of operations. Besides, he had to leave most of his stock behind at the gallery, sealed and guarded as a crime scene. He won’t be able to resist.”

  “Very nice,” I said. “I’m the goat to tempt the leopard.”

  “No leopards here,” Richard said in a fussy way, “and the poor Barbary lions are more or less extinct.”

  As if I cared about North African wildlife. “What happens to me if he comes, is what I’m asking. Or is that an irrelevant detail?”

  “A detail of the first importance,” Richard said, feigning shock. I could see that he wanted to have it both ways, to be a pillar of good society and a hard man of the secret services. “We have a man in Tetouan—very reliable, very competent. He’ll be in touch. You can count on being under surveillance the whole time.”

  I was pretty sure that I couldn’t count on anything except being, as my wicked uncle Lastings used to say, “down the rabbit hole.” I had an impulse to expand on that, but Harry produced his revolver again. The firearm was rather a crutch for him, which I took as a Freudian sign of some embarrassing personal weakness. Just the same, I got into the van.

  “Good luck, old boy,” said Richard, all his bonhomie restored. He got into his white Mercedes, now speckled gray and brown with dust, and drove away.

  Harry closed and locked the garage and got into the van. It was not a prepossessing vehicle, and I was surprised by the smooth purr of the motor and by the powerful acceleration it revealed once we left the settlement.

  Harry gave me a sly look. “American V-8 engine,” he said. “Runs like a son of a bitch, but eats the petrol. Always carry a few extra cans in the back.”

  Apparently, either Richard or Harry knew something about motors. I wouldn’t have put money on much expertise, otherwise. “Right,” I said. I tried for conviction but clearly failed.

  “You really can’t drive?”

  “I’m a London man. Londoners don’t need to drive.”

  “I could teach you, easy,” he said and patted my knee.

  Oh, ho, Francis! Oh, ho! But no, definitely no. I like rough trade, and I like reckless, but there are limits. He and Richard had set me up for a murder charge, and what might that bring here? Firing squad, guillotine, hanging? Even beheading might not be off the docket. I had no idea and no Nan to enlighten me. “Hire me a driver,” I said. “I fancy risking my life in style.”

  He laughed then. “Too bad we’re on duty. My line of work, you meet a lot of interesting people.”

  I could agree with that. “I’m interested in Angleford, since I’m supposed to have murdered him. Did I have a reason?”

  Harry made a face. “Artistic differences?” he suggested.

  I noted a lack of conviction.

  “No one will ask you,” he said quickly. “I’d avoid the whole topic.”

  “Easy for you to say, but you must know something about him. He was a Soviet agent?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Not maybe working both sides?”

  I got another sharp look. “What makes you think that?”

  I shrugged. What I really thought was that he and Richard seemed out for revenge and much more distressed about the death of an enemy agent than I thought reasonable. What I said was, “Remember Goldfarber murdered him, not me. I thought agents who got out of line were quietly called back to Mother Russia. Isn’t that the drill? Now Goldfarber is on the run and whatever he was up to is on hold or ruined. Killing Angleford was a stupid move, unless he was really dangerous.”

  Harry’s face took on an expression of distaste. “Angleford was an idealist. A Morocco for the Moroccans type. The empire meant nothing to him. Scrap it tomorrow, was his attitude. He had useful contacts with the rebels, and we think he funneled Soviet money to Istaqlal and some other political groups.”

  “And Goldfarber was one link in the chain?”

  “Right.”

  “An unhappy link.”

  “Probably. People got sucked into the Soviet networks during the war or were recruited afterward out of the refugee camps. The Reds were in a hurry, and not all their recruits proved to be committed Marxists.”

  Harry went on in this vein for some time. I learned quite a bit about the Soviet network, and the British secret service’s concern about the Communist menace in North Africa. What I didn’t learn was the exact status of the late Jonathan Angleford. Could he have been one of ours as well as one of theirs? And was that the real reason Harry and Richard were making such efforts to locate Goldfarber? I didn’t know, and clearly Harry, despite little flirtatious gestures, was not going to tell me.

  The sun was a huge red ball, sinking rapidly by the time we reached the border. Getting our visas and passports checked proved to be a dusty, dismal, nervous business. I was torn between the desire to be stamped legit and on my way, and an almost equally strong desire to be stopped and thereby extracted from Harry’s clutches.

  After a dignified interval, the persnickety Spanish border agents roused themselves to inspect our papers. They examined the van, too, clearly interested in the unfamiliar painting equipment.

  “Mr. Hume is traveling for his health,” Harry said, which in one way was indubitably true. “Looking for inspiration, right?” A glance at me.

  My turn. I enlarged on the beauty of the Rif, the splendid seashore, the charm of the quaint towns with their traditional Moroccan buildings—basically all things I’d never paint and would barely notice. Meanwhile, I couldn’t help eyeing a very fetching young Spaniard dressed in the whites of a Moroccan army officer. I don’t normally have a yen for military finery, but he was so decorative that I began to think the Spanish Zone would have its compensations. I certainly meant to find out.

  At last, satisfied that I was Jerome Hume off to paint the local scenery and that Harry was my hired driver, the customs agent stamped our documents. “You are free to travel in the Spanish Zone,” he said grandly. “Welcome to Spanish Morocco.”

  “What did I tell you?” Harry asked as we pulled away. “A piece of cake. Best documents Her Majesty can buy.”

  I agreed the workmanship was superb, but I suspected that I might have waltzed across with my own papers and been welcomed just as readily. My doubts about the situation were very unpleasant. If this were all an elaborate charade, I’d have one set of feelings. If I was really wanted for murder, I’d have another. As it was, a sinister absurdity hung over both options, and I found myself waffling between amusement and fear.

  We drove south and east toward Tetouan and the coast. The quick Mediterranean night had come down, and the mountains of the Rif rose against the night sky, their peaks silvered
in the moonlight. The dark foothills, furred with thorny scrub, plunged down to the flat silver sea and grayish strand, but such spectacular landscapes are not for me. The right motif calls to you—or does not. If it does, the simplest image has a wonder of ideas and implications; if it does not, no skill can redeem your work.

  Tetouan was a white cubist jumble like Tangier, scarcely lit but for the string of cafes around the market area, and providing a pungent perfume for the night wind. We drove through the center and down toward the port, some kilometers away. I was to be lodged on a hilly street near the water with a “most desirable ocean view,” according to Harry; perhaps he fancied another life as a rental agent. Moonlight revealed a blocky, flat-roofed house surrounded by palms and fig trees and various unfamiliar and vaguely threatening shrubs. The sleepless insects were noisy in the trees, and some late blossoms promised trouble for my asthma. I was longing for Soho before I stepped from the van.

  Inside, I found a good-sized room for a studio, with a tiny kitchen and bedroom below. Apparently, the place came with an elderly Moroccan woman who would clean and see to my meals.

  “No need for you to shop or go out,” said Harry, who was obviously imagining my stay as a sort of artistic purdah. “She’s quite deaf, too, and she knows no English. You’ll be perfectly safe, and we can speak freely.”

  I said that was reassuring, but I thought that isolation and Harry made a most undesirable combination.

  “And the gardener—one of ours,” he continued as he started unloading the van. “He takes care of several gardens nearby, so he is always around.”

  “How can I possibly worry? Unless someone chooses to visit outside of the gardener’s hours.”

  “He lives in a little shed at the bottom of this garden. No, I don’t think you need to be nervous.” Harry’s expression was blandly unconcerned.

  I shrugged and picked up the satchel with my oil paints. If Harry didn’t see the disadvantages of the place, he was unimaginative, incompetent—or hostile. While we transferred my equipment to the makeshift studio, he explained the arrangements. He would take the van now and set up a driver, a man that the gardener could fetch when required. Everything was laid on and I need not worry about money.