Altered Images (11 page)

But during her research, she'd discovered that there was another Forbes-Wright picture, right here in Oxford, in a college not far from her own. That would give her a better idea of how the man himself preferred to apply his
paints.

Smiling and humming to herself, Frederica left her room and walked out into the bright May sunshine.

She'd have to ask the Bursar if she could ‘stay up' for another month. Like all Oxford Colleges, St Bede's did a lot of conference trade in the summer, and she didn't want to get thrown out until her canvas was finished. Working at home would be impossible—her mother was so nosy.

She walked to St Giles and hailed a taxi.

*          *          *

Lorcan cruised down the Woodstock Road, keeping his eyes firmly averted from the entrance to St Bede's. He'd been out that morning to a country house sale and had bought a simple little painting, unsigned, of an apple orchard. He had a few good ideas about its provenance, and its style was of the Newlyn School. So when he pulled to a stop at the junction of St Giles his mind was, for once, a long way from Frederica Delacroix. When he saw her getting into a taxi, his hands tightened ominously on the steering wheel. The sensation of soft lips clinging to his rose into his mind, making his heart thump, and his loins tingle. And before he knew it, he found himself following the taxi out of the centre of the city.

As
it led him to the old suburb of Holywell, he felt grimly ridiculous—like a weary gumshoe tracking a femme fatale to a hideout. But when she got out in front of a rickety, dirty windowed shop named ‘The Painters' Emporium', he nevertheless parked out of sight and made his way back to the shop. There, a dirty coat of arms informed him that the shop had been established in 1799. And it looked it.

Through the grimy windows, he could see that the interior was stacked high with plain easels and donkeys: those easels with a built-in seat and painter's box, jam jars full of brushes, and a large array of artists' palettes.

What was she doing here, in an out-of-the-way, old fashioned, speciality shop? But in his heart, he knew there could only be one answer. He paced restlessly, getting angrier and angrier
.
With her. With himself. And, alarmingly, with Detective Inspector Richard Braine of the Art Fraud Squad.

He told himself that he'd forgotten that Friday-night kiss.

He told himself that this feeling he got whenever he was near her, meant nothing more than the arousal any man would feel when close to a beautiful young woman. He told himself he should go back to London and forget that he'd ever seen her face. But still he waited. Like a kestrel, hovering, awaiting a glimpse of a field-mouse, chained to a
predatory
nature and unable to prevent himself from closing in for the kill.

*          *          *

Inside the shop, Frederica waited for the ancient proprietor to come back from the depths of the cellar, where he'd gone in search of one of her rarer requests, and idly inspected some brushes. There was everything an artist could want, from the expensive Kolinsky, a Siberian mink brush which tapered to such a beautiful dark point, to red sable, weasel, polecat, goat, camel, ox and hog's hair. Frederica could have spent over a thousand pounds here on brushes alone. When she sold her first painting to Lorcan, she promised herself, she was going to spend every last penny on setting up a really good, well-equipped studio.

The proprietor, eighty if he was a day, and as bright as a button, returned. Frederica had all but fallen in love with him the moment she'd stepped inside.

‘Here we are, miss. Mind you the solution is so very old . . .' he trailed off anxiously, staring doubtfully at the ancient, brown-stained bottle in his hand. Could he really sell it to her, in all good conscience? He only had it at all because he was too old and too lazy to clear out the cellars. But the beautiful young lady only smiled at him. ‘No, no, that's fine. That's just
what
I want in fact.'

Finally satisfied that she had all she needed, Frederica paid the man, wincing at the sum and determined to ask her father for a bigger allowance next year. After this, he owed her big time! When she left the shop, her bag of precious goodies hugged close to her chest, she now had the ingredients to copy Forbes-Wright's paints right down to the finest detail.

She was so excited by this prospect, that as she hailed and climbed into another taxi, she didn't even see the golden-haired figure that watched her go, then enter the art shop she'd just left. The old man inside looked up, surprised by the tinkling of the door bell.

The man who walked in instantly had the old owner smiling in pleased recognition. A gentleman! He served so few of those nowadays. ‘Good afternoon sir. Unseasonably warm for the time of the year,' he murmured.

Lorcan smiled and nodded. ‘It certainly is.'

In the octogenarian he instinctively recognised a dying breed—a true shopkeeper. Moreover, one who knew his art from his elbow. He would have to be careful, if he was to get the information he needed. ‘Good afternoon. I'm a Visiting Tutor at the Ruskin,' he established his credentials right away, pleased to see the old man stiffen and look even more alertly impressed than before. ‘You've been here for some time, I see, by the crest outside?'

The
old man's face radiated with pride. ‘Indeed we have, sir. My family first opened the doors back in 1799. In our time we've sold paints to all the greats.'

Lorcan nodded. ‘I can well believe it.' The shop was impressive. ‘I suppose you get quite a few of my students in,' Lorcan murmured mendaciously.

The old man sighed. ‘Not as many as once before, sir, I'm sorry to say. Still . . .' He brightened. ‘These things are like fashion trends. We'll be popular once again some day, no doubt.'

Lorcan nodded. ‘I'll be sure to mention your shop in my lecture on Friday,' he promised, and meant it.

The old man's face flickered at such good news, and he took a quick, happy breath. ‘Will you sir? Well, now, thank you very much.'

Lorcan smiled. ‘One other thing I've noticed about Oxford,' he smiled, leaning a little closer to the twinkling-eyed proprietor, ‘is how many pretty girls there are here.'

The old man beamed. ‘Ah yes indeed. I met my Muriel here—having tea in the Raleigh Hotel.' He sighed heavily.

Lorcan, feeling like all kinds of a heel, nodded, but carried on relentlessly. ‘That very beautiful red-headed lady who was going out just as I was coming in, for instance. If I wasn't a Tutor I'd have been inclined to ask her to tea at the Raleigh.'

Knowing
instinctively that the old man wouldn't approve of an Oxford Don acting like an Oxford student, he kept his voice purposely respectful—but with just a tinge of we're all-men-together in his voice.

‘Ah yes. A very beautiful young lady, and a real artist.'

‘Really? How can you tell?' he asked, looking intrigued.

The old man's chest swelled with pride. ‘Well, sir, from the things she asked for,' he replied innocently. ‘Real paints, not these modern mixes.' And, before he knew what was what, found himself listing all the young lady's incredible purchases.

Lorcan listened and smiled, and nodded, and felt a cold hard fist forming in his stomach. Frederica Delacroix had just bought everything she might need if she was going to try to forge a painting of the 1860 period.

‘You're right,' he said at last, his voice curiously lifeless now. ‘That's the shopping list of an old-fashioned painter. But I would have thought such items like that were obsolete now.'

‘Ah yes sir, but this is a speciality shop, sir. I have things in the cellar that were around in Stubbs's day,' the old man said, and Lorcan didn't have any difficulty in believing him.

When he walked miserably back to his car, he carried a big bag of expensive paint-cleaning materials in one hand. The Gallery's
restorer
could always do with them, and after the bonus the old man had given him, he hadn't wanted to leave without spending a fair chunk of money by way of recompense.

He got into the Aston Martin and drove slowly through the town. As he approached Carfax, at the bottom of the High, he saw her. Just for a moment, bobbing along with the crowds of shoppers and tourists. Her auburn hair was loose, and swung around the dusky orange of her blouse. She was smiling, but as he was obliged to turn up the High—Oxford's one-way system was a killer—he didn't get to look at her for more than a second.

He drove home, feeling oddly deprived. And still furiously angry. Had she listened to nothing that he'd said on Friday night about keeping her reputation spotless? Damn the woman, couldn't she take a hint? He slammed into the house on Five Mile Drive, went straight to the kitchen and poured himself a large glass of rich, red Burgundy. He took it into the living room, where he sat down on the sofa, trying to force himself to relax. He spread one arm across the back of the sofa and drank the wine grimly, hardly tasting it.

‘Damn it Frederica,' he said softly, staring at the ceiling. ‘I'd have made you famous. I'd have exhibited every canvas you ever painted.' He'd have done more, so much more than that . . . He shook his head. No. That was dangerous. So incredibly dangerous. Besides,
all
of that was over now. The dream, barely begun, was shattered for ever. He reached for the phone and angrily dialled a familiar number.

Detective Inspector Richard Braine of the Art Fraud Squad answered on the sixth ring. ‘Hello Richard?' Lorcan said grimly. ‘I've got news for you. Yes. A nibble. A definite nibble. Yes, one of the students.' He paused, listened, took a deep breath and another mouthful of wine.

‘Frederica Delacroix,' he said, his voice as dead as the feeling in his heart.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Annis and the rest of the gang stepped off the train at Oxford's station and stood, pooling their luggage around them on the platform.

‘Hardly a teaming metropolis is it?' Gordon, the play's ‘policeman' said wryly.

‘You're out in the boonies now dear,' Gerry drawled cheerfully, her red hair newly-coloured and cut.

‘Well I for one am glad to be out of London for a little while,' the ever-enthusiastic Julie said. ‘Just fancy—Oxford. I wonder where the dreaming spires are?'

John laughed. ‘They're not a theme park, Jules. They'll be scattered about all over the
place,
I expect.' Everyone laughed, collected their luggage, and set off, groaning, up the stairs. No moving escalators for Oxford, it seemed.

‘I'd forgotten,' Norman puffed, ‘the delights of provincial . . . tours.' Annis offered to carry one of his bags for him, and got a very sad look in return. They decided to share the cost of two taxis to their digs, and quickly piled in, chattering like magpies.

Annis craned her neck for her first glimpse of the University city and the colleges with their crenellated, pale Cotswold stone walls. They'd arrived during the Exams season, when students on their way to Examination Schools were required to wear ‘sub fusc'—the black undergraduate gown—and caps. Tutors and Fellows, on their way to the Sheldonian Theatre for a special ceremony, could be seen walking down the streets, dressed in ceremonial robes that were everything from scarlet to royal purple, emerald to azure, yellow to pink. Some gowns even had ermine lapels and were lined with silk.

Julie, her mouth open wide in astonishment as the taxi narrowly avoided knocking one magnificently capped, white-haired Fellow off his rather ancient bicycle, gave him a wave as she caught his eye. The Tutor, a Classics Don from Pembroke, gave the pretty little blonde girl a soft smile.

‘This town is amazing,' Gordon spoke for
them
all as they passed the Randolph Hotel, the Memorial, and the façades of Balliol and St John's Colleges on their right, and the Taylor Institution, Blackfriars and St Cross on their left. Then they were approaching the Banbury Road, with the out-of-place, modern glass and concrete building that was the Engineering Department, before heading for the hilly suburb of Headington. The big white building of the John Radcliffe Hospital dominated the skyline, but then they were twisting down side streets, finally pulling up outside a house that had obviously once been two semi-detached houses, but had been converted into one.

The troupe of actors looked at the unprepossessing building with a mutual feeling of gloom. Pooling their change, they paid off the drivers and stood in silence on the pavement outside the lodging house. The garden was choked with weeds and the front door was slightly warped, its once-cheerful sky blue paint peeling badly.

‘Welcome to Bleak House,' Gerry drawled as John knocked on the door. There was a muffled noise and then suddenly Mrs Clemence stood there in all her glory.

She was a scrawny sparrow of a woman, with a thin neck and unsympathetic, brown eyes. She wore a dirty flowered apron and was smoking with gusto. ‘You're the actors then?' she hazarded, around the vile-smelling puffs.

Annis's
stomach heaved uneasily as she imagined this woman standing over the stove, cooking their food.

Norman Rix smiled. ‘Indeed we are, madam,' he said.

Mrs Clemence shot him a suspicious look. ‘Righto. I've got your rooms all ready for you. Doubles, all of 'em.'

The house was full, which meant, Annis thought, that the amount of accommodation available in this city must be appallingly small.

Annis's mood nose-dived as she entered the room that she and Julie were to share. The two young women gazed around in acute dismay. ‘Oh no,' Julie wailed. ‘She's got to be kidding!' But, Annis grimly suspected, Mrs Clemence wasn't.

The roof sloped in two places, which meant they'd have to spend their time permanently stooped if they didn't want to keep banging their heads. The beds were of the steel-framed, folding variety, the kind you took on camping holidays. The reason for this, it was plain to see, was that proper single beds simply wouldn't have fitted in. There was one wardrobe, which had about enough room to hang a hat and dress if they were size eight, and a set of drawers that had been placed precariously on the deep windowsill, blocking out the light, that being the only place it would fit in. The walls were damp.