A Thing of Blood (21 page)

‘Don’t marry Paul Clutterbuck,’ I said suddenly.

‘What an extraordinary thing to say. Why on earth not?’

‘You don’t really know what he’s like.’

‘And you do, having known him for what? A week?’

I was reduced to stammering an incoherent apology for the impertinence of my remark. Nigella took pity on me, smiled, and said that as her brother and her father had given her similar advice she could hardly pretend that the general antipathy to Clutterbuck was unknown to her.

‘I don’t need protecting, Will.’

I wanted to ask her if she’d been warned about Clutterbuck’s political activities, but an instinct told me that my relationship with her brother needed to be kept hidden. If he’d warned her about Clutterbuck, she was choosing to ignore his advice. If he hadn’t, it wasn’t my place to jeopardise his operation against the Order of the Shining Knights by providing Nigella with information that she might take straight to Clutterbuck.

With the tea made, we settled in the austere living room.

‘So why do you think Paul is an unsuitable match? Apart from his taste in furniture, of course.’

I’d given her the right to ask such a direct question by so overtly challenging Paul’s character. But I stalled.

‘Well, good furnishings are important,’ I said lamely.

‘You mean we’ll need somewhere comfortable to sit while we’re arguing. So what do you think we’ll be arguing about?’

I stalled again.

‘The state of your underwear drawer probably.’

‘You were so adamant a moment ago. No one gets adamant about underwear. What do you think is so bad about Paul Clutterbuck that it would cause you to issue an all points warnings on our second meeting?’

‘Third,’ I said.

‘We weren’t formally introduced the first time and you were rather informally dressed.’

Her voice was light, but her tone was steely. She was determined to get an explanation for my outburst.

‘My motive was selfish,’ I said, and I didn’t have to perform embarrassment. I blushed profusely and was overcome by schoolboy awkwardness. This was the unpleasant consequence of telling the truth, or a large part of the truth. ‘I find you very attractive, and however dishonourable it sounds, soon after meeting you, Paul went from being my landlord to being my rival. I know that doesn’t say much about my character, but people sometimes do behave badly when they’re … when they’re …’

‘In love?’

‘I obviously can’t seriously declare that. It would be too silly.’

‘But terribly flattering for me, Will. No one has ever fallen in love with me at first sight.’

‘Does Paul love you?’

She took a moment to reply.

‘Now that really is an impertinent question.’

‘Is there a pertinent answer?’

‘I’m not a romantic person, Will. Does Paul love me? He’s never said so, and he can’t therefore be accused of lying to me, or misleading me. No, I don’t think he loves me. He likes me well enough. The thing is, Will, I love him, and love makes me selfish enough to claim him, whatever his motives in settling for me. I suppose that sounds dreadful, like I have a low opinion of myself. On the contrary, I have a high opinion of myself — high enough to believe that when we’re married his philandering will stop — oh yes, I know about all that — and I don’t mean that the love of a good woman will turn dross into gold. It won’t be love that makes Paul faithful; it’ll be money. I have it; he needs it.’

‘You’re willing to buy his love?’ I couldn’t keep the shock out of my voice.

‘No, Will, I’m not buying his love. I’m buying the means to express and enjoy mine.’

Her words made me feel a sickening surge of despair, and I thought that if I didn’t leave immediately I would retch, or burst into unstoppable, humiliating tears. I made a hurried apology, and bundled into it an expression of the hope that she wouldn’t repeat anything I’d said to Clutterbuck, and left the house.

My feelings about the encounter with Nigella were mixed. My desire for her was undiminished, although she was tougher and more calculating than I’d supposed. On the surface it seemed that Clutterbuck could need protection from Nigella, rather than the reverse. I was glad that I’d declared myself, and as I walked down Royal Parade, with no destination in mind, I thought that I’d acquitted myself rather well. I hadn’t revealed any of the information given to me by James Fowler, and I felt confident that I needn’t be shy about reaffirming my feelings at subsequent meetings with Nigella. She might rebuff me, but she would be neither shocked nor offended. Indeed, given her own approach to these matters, she would understand, perhaps even admire my determination to succeed with her. I couldn’t buy her love; but I could perhaps overwhelm her with mine. The idea of giving free rein to my feelings actually made me whistle, even if it was, inexplicably, bars from
There’ll Always Be An England
.

With several hours in hand before I was to meet James Fowler, I decided to attempt to track down George Beech. The light of day made this seem a little less frightening. I remembered that Mr Wilks, the drawing master, had offered me work at the National Gallery Art School, and with no better plan to hand, I headed towards the National Gallery in Swanston Street. If Mr Wilks was there he might be able to shed some light on the Beech marriage, even though he’d claimed to know nothing of substance about either Gretel or George. Careful questioning might reveal something that he didn’t know he knew — a piece of conversation, an off-hand remark — something. Experience had taught me that the truth can sometimes lurk behind the most inconsequential comment or gesture.

The entrance to the drawing school was in LaTrobe Street in an annexe to the gallery that clung to its northern side like a ghastly afterthought. After I passed through its doors I found myself in a strange otherworld peopled by plaster casts — some life size, some larger than life and some on a more modest scale. Scattered among these copies of the world’s masterpieces were fragments of arms, feet and hands and one or two weird and frightening sculptures of flayed bodies, their muscles and veins exposed. This long shed allowed no natural light, but was lit by overhead bulbs that made the space seem bleak and cold.

There were three people scratching at boards but the place was so quiet the sound of charcoal on paper was absurdly amplified. I approached a young woman who was producing a serviceable charcoal copy of the Venus de Milo and asked her if Mr Wilks was anywhere to be found. She pointed towards a door at the end of the room and said that he was in there, conducting a life-drawing class.

‘And why are you out here?’ I asked.

‘This is my first year. You don’t get to do life drawing until your second year. I don’t mind. I like statues. They don’t talk back.’

‘Neither do life models, I assure you.’

She looked me up and down and asked in an offensively dubious tone, ‘Have you worked as a life model?’

‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘but mostly I’m an actor.’

‘I guess they need all types,’ she said dismissively and returned to her drawing.

‘When will Mr Wilks be free?’

She shrugged.

‘About ten minutes I should think.’

She drew back from her drawing, lined up her charcoal stick with the plaster cast, and pretentiously made a small correction before she put her charcoal down and wiped her hands on her filthy smock. She was young and rather lovely but I could see in her demeanour that art was making her hard and superior. I wouldn’t like to be dissected and delineated by her sharp, stabbing little pencil.

The other students were a young man, labouring over an elaborately realised acanthus leaf, and a woman who must have been in her fifties, erasing highlights into a dull representation of a sandaled foot. I walked among the chaotically displayed casts and marvelled at their power to intimidate and excite, despite lacking the sheen and white blood of marble. This was as close as I was going to get to the Belvedere Apollo and it seemed like an adequate substitute for the real thing.

The sudden intrusion of voices into the relative silence of the cast room indicated that the life class had finished, and half-a-dozen young men emerged followed by a thin, red-faced and red-bearded man who looked half asleep and whose features exhibited the ravages of alcohol — clearly they were getting their models from among Melbourne’s most desperate classes.

I went into the room and found Mr Wilks carefully examining a partially completed drawing. He looked up and said, ‘Oh, you’ve come for some work. Excellent. That last chap stank.’

I hastily corrected him on this point — not the smelliness of the sitter, but my looking for work. I told him that I was actually a private inquiry agent and that my client was interested in the whereabouts of George and Gretel Beech. I hoped this half-truth might jolt his memory. He hadn’t known, he said, that Gretel was married to George.

‘So you managed to find this George chap at some stage, did you?’

‘Oh, yes, and it was the right George. He was able to confirm this by producing his penis.’

‘I got the impression when he was modelling for me that he wasn’t a shy man. He managed to put his member front and centre, as it were, in every pose he struck. My ladies were quite distracted by it. Only Nigella Fowler drew it as she saw it. The others reduced it to more classical proportions. Would you like a cup of tea, Mr Power?’

There was a long table in the tearoom of the drawing school, with one young man seated at the far end eating a sandwich out of a brown paper bag, and smoking.

‘This used to be quite busy,’ Mr Wilks said. ‘The war has badly affected our numbers.’ The attendance problems of the art school were of no interest to me and I started to think I’d made a mistake in allowing myself to be trapped in a pointless conversation. Mr Wilks, obviously skilled in watching the subtle movement of muscle under flesh, observed, quite correctly, that I seemed agitated.

‘I was rather hoping that you could help me, that’s all.’

‘I’ll be frank with you, Mr Power. When you modelled for my class you told me a blatant lie about Gretel owing you money. It wasn’t the debt that gave you away; it was the ridiculous size of the debt. Now you tell me that you’re some sort of spy.’

‘A private inquiry agent, not a spy. I’m simply a private detective.’

To me, the sound of these words was thrilling. They didn’t have the same effect on Mr Wilks.

‘I don’t like private detectives,’ he said. ‘They poke about in other people’s business and bring misery to them. You’re just the grubby tool of jealous husbands and vindictive wives, and vice versa.’

‘You seem to speaking from personal experience.’

‘Oh, I am, Mr Power, I surely am.’

‘Let me assure you that my client is not concerned about sexual morality. He would be the first to acknowledge that his own morals are, shall we say, flexible.’

I suddenly found myself on an explanatory course that might take me into turbid waters. Having started, I couldn’t stop.

‘My client’s interest in the Beechs stems from his concern that Gretel Beech, with whom he was having an affair — that should allay your fears about his reasons for employing me — that Gretel Beech has gone missing.’

I knew this was a risky disclosure. Mr Wilks was now the only other person to know that Gretel’s whereabouts were unknown, and that this fact was sufficiently suspicious to justify the employment of a private detective.

‘By gone missing I presume you mean your client suspects foul play?’

I nodded.

‘Why hasn’t he gone to the police?’

‘There are sensitive issues here and he wants discreet inquiries made first. I’m not really privy to his motives. I imagine he’s reluctant to have the police blundering about in his private affairs until he’s certain there’s a good reason to expose himself in this way.’

I was pleased with this neat improvisation. Mr Wilks was satisfied with it as well.

‘And you think George Beech — her husband you say — might have something to do with her disappearance.’

‘It’s possible. He’s a violent man.’

‘He did that to your face, did he?’

‘He took me by surprise, and he threatened to do worse. He’s a man with something to hide.’

‘A secretiveness that doesn’t extend to his penis.’

Mr Wilks’ willingness to make a small joke indicated that the facts of this case had softened his attitude to my new profession.

‘All right, Mr Power. I’m reluctant to do this but I can find Gretel Beech’s address for you. She’s on our books as a regular model and her details are filed away.’

‘But you said you didn’t know where she lived.’

‘I wasn’t about to give her address to a stranger, and anyway, I don’t actually know it. I’ll have to look it up.’

This was a tremendous breakthrough. There was, however, a price to pay for the information.

‘I’ll get you the address, Mr Power, on the condition that you do something for me. Quid pro quo. I assume Gretel is going to miss her next session with my ladies, and finding a replacement for such an amateur group is difficult. So, next Thursday? Same time?’

I agreed, thinking that between now and Thursday any number of things could happen to prevent me keeping the appointment. The important matter was to get the address. Mr Wilks duly went off and returned with the address of a boarding house in St Kilda written neatly on a scrap of paper. It was only outside the gallery, in the shadow of Frémiet’s Joan of Arc bronze, that it occurred to me that Nigella Fowler would be in the drawing class again. I couldn’t possibly keep the appointment. After what I’d told her, the imbalance of my being naked while she looked on, clothed, was too much to contemplate.