The Careful Use of Compliments (16 page)

“So he knows what he's doing. Where does that get us?”

Isabel was thinking aloud. “Well,” she said, “imagine if you had been in the Netherlands at the time and you had wanted to find an artist called van Meegeren. Would it have been all that difficult? Even if he wasn't very well known? You would have asked around and people would have known. Somebody would remember him from art college.”

Jamie saw where Isabel's comments were going. “So this man, Frank Anderson, is likely to have been trained?”

“Highly likely. Which means that somebody will remember him from their four years at art college. Somebody will know him—as long as he's in Scotland. If he's in England, then we're on more difficult ground.”

Jamie agreed that it might be possible to find Frank Anderson, but he was more worried about what would happen after that. Finding somebody was one thing; unmasking him as a forger was an altogether different matter.

“All right,” he said. “Find him. But don't do anything stupid. Frank Anderson will be facing criminal charges if he's found. He's not exactly going to cooperate with you.”

Isabel guided her car into a passing place, one of the small bulges in the road that allowed vehicles to pass one another on the narrow strip of tar. A postal van was approaching from the south, and when it passed her, the driver waved in thanks and smiled. That was how it is here, she thought, where there are no strangers.

 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I
T SEEMED TO ISABEL
that they had been away for weeks. The world of Jura, that self-contained island world, seemed so far from Edinburgh, and yet it was only a drive of half a day or so, and it was the same country. As she stood in her garden on the day after their return, she closed her eyes for a moment and saw the hills, and the burns tumbling down, and the veils of fine rain. And she thought, One can love a country until it hurts.

But one could not stand in one's garden thinking about Scotland. The whole point about being in Scotland was that one was in Scotland, and being in Scotland, for Isabel, meant that she had to get on with those things that required attention, and these were many. Charlie, who might normally have headed the list of those in need of attention, did not do so that morning; Grace had taken him for a walk to Blackford Pond, a pond on the south side of the town popular with dogs, ducks, and children. The resident ducks were overfed by everybody and sailed low in the water as a result, or so Isabel thought. “It's dangerous to feed birds
overenthusiastically,
” she had once said to Jamie, when they had taken Charlie on one of his first visits to the pond. “And it's also dangerous to overinvest birds with symbolism. These national eagles that people make such a fuss about must find it difficult to take off under the weight of all that symbolism.”

Jamie had looked at her and said, “That's a very strange remark, Isabel. You talk complete nonsense sometimes. Flights of fancy.”

She had not minded. “I like to think about things,” she said airily. “I like to let my mind wander. Our minds can come up with the most entertaining possibilities, if we let them. But most of the time, we keep them under far too close a check.”

Jamie thought about this for a moment. He was trying to recall something rather funny that Isabel had started to say a few days earlier but had been cut off midstream by some protest from Charlie.

“What were you saying about cars the other day? Something about older drivers? Then Charlie started creating a fuss.”

Isabel frowned. “Drivers? Oh yes, somebody had mentioned a driver of ninety-three, which I thought was a little bit late to be in control of a car. I'm sure that one must be very wise at the age of ninety-three, but I'm not so sure about one's reactions at that stage. I think I suggested that one's car should become more and more grey as one gets older, which would warn people that one's reactions might be a little slow. They would be like learner plates when one's learning to drive—those are a warning too. So cars would be seen to turn grey, perhaps a little bit slowly, just as people's hair greys.”

“And young men would be required to drive red cars?”

Isabel nodded her agreement. “Yes. Red cars would be a warning of the presence of testosterone. We need warning, you see.”

“And at intersections the red cars would yield to the grey ones?”

“Of course,” said Isabel. “Or that would be the rule in a well-ordered society. Do you know that in Japan, young drivers have to give way to older ones? It can get quite complicated if one can't see the other driver too well and one can't work out whether he's older than you. I believe a certain number of accidents result from this confusion.”

Jamie laughed. “Absurd. And completely untrue.”

“Perhaps,” said Isabel. “Absurd. But fun nonetheless.”

“Tell me another absurd story.”

“About what?”

They were standing at the edge of the pond, looking at the ducks. Charlie, tucked up in his baby buggy, had dropped off to sleep. Jamie glanced about him. A man farther along the pond side had been helping his young son toss crumbs to the ducks; now he moved away. Jamie had seen that his forearms were covered with tattoos. “Tell me about a tattooed man,” he said to Isabel.

“Some other time,” said Isabel, looking at her watch.

Now, standing in her garden, her thoughts returned to the day ahead. The discovery that she had made on Jura would need to be dealt with, but there would be time enough for that. Some of Jamie's caution had begun to have an effect on her, and she wondered whether she should hold back before taking any action. All she really needed to do was tell somebody—Guy Peploe perhaps—of her suspicions and then leave it to him, or somebody else, to make further enquiries. For a moment she considered the attractions of disengagement, of a policy of not worrying about the world. Many people lived like that and were perfectly happy. They did not worry about the destruction of our world, about the drift into medieval religious war, about all the cruelties and hypocrisies; they did not think of these things. But what did they think about, these disengaged people? If one looked hard enough, perhaps one would see that the big issues that they ignored had merely been replaced by small concerns that could be every bit as pressing. The successes of a football team—or, more pertinently, its failures—could be the cause of a great deal of anguish; arguments with neighbours, worries over money—all of these could weigh as heavily as the greater matters. So being disengaged was more of an apparent solution than a real one, Isabel decided, although she was still going to put this matter off for a day or two.

There were twelve telephone messages awaiting Isabel on her return the previous evening, and she had delayed dealing with them until the morning. Three were from the same person, a distant acquaintance with whom she had promised to have lunch and who was now wanting to make an arrangement. Isabel slightly regretted the original promise; she had not really intended it but it had been taken seriously by the other person. This was a cultural misunderstanding. The acquaintance was a New Zealander living in Scotland, and New Zealanders meant what they said, much to their credit, and thought that everybody else did too. As a general rule, Isabel certainly meant what she said, but she was as guilty as everybody else of using language which was really intended to be no more than an expression of general goodwill. Suggesting a meeting for lunch might be a real invitation or it might not, depending on the tone of voice used, and the context. She remembered the late Professor Glanville Williams, whom she had met at Cambridge, once saying to an Italian visitor that they should meet for lunch. Whereupon the Italian had fished in his pocket for his diary, opened it, and said, “When?” Glanville Williams had been quite shocked, in the same way in which those who automatically wished one to have a nice day would be shocked if they were asked in what way they thought this might be achieved.

Isabel returned the telephone call, arranged the lunch, and then went through the remaining messages, skipping over several until she found the one she was waiting for, the voice of her lawyer, Simon Mackintosh. “You asked me to act quickly, Isabel, and I have. And a good result too, I'm happy to say. Could you please get in touch when you get back?”

She played the message and then replayed it. The news made her feel elated but concerned at the same time. She had acted impulsively before she had left for Jura, and she had not really expected a result so quickly. But now, when she reflected on the instructions she had given Simon, she experienced that curious feeling, that mixture of elation and dread, that comes from having done something very significant.

She replaced the telephone handset and said to herself,
I own it; it's mine.
And that thought occurred to her again when she found herself in the waiting room at Turcan Connell, in their offices at Tollcross, waiting for Simon to appear and lead her into the small conference room which the firm used for clients and lawyers to talk. Tea was served, and shortbread biscuits, and Isabel had already poured herself a cup by the time that Simon arrived.

They exchanged small items of news. Simon's wife, Catriona, an artist, had just finished a successful show, and there was news of that, and Isabel reported on Charlie's sleeping habits. Then Simon opened a blue cardboard folder and took out a page of notes he had made on a sheet of paper.

“Now then, Isabel, those instructions of yours.” She wondered whether he was reproaching her, but it was not reproach—just surprise. “What you asked me to do was, how shall I put it? Fairly unusual. At least it's unusual to do something like this so quickly. In fact, the whole thing…well, I suppose it's just a case of doing something in record time.”

She shrugged. “Sometimes…”

He smiled. “Yes, sometimes there are things that one feels one has to do. And lawyers should always assume that their clients know what they want, even if sometimes, on rare occasions, it may not seem that way. But I've never thought that of you.”

Isabel laughed. “I did think about this, you know. It didn't come totally out of the blue. I thought about it for at least”—she blushed—“an hour or so.”

Simon wagged a finger playfully. “Well, I did what you asked me. And thank heavens we were dealing with a small private company. They proved very easy to negotiate with. And very quick. Of course we still have to do various things before the contract is finally signed—warranties, indemnities, that sort of thing—but we've got agreement in principle.”

“They're nice people.”

Simon agreed. His conversation with the chairman had been brisk and to the point, and there had certainly been an air of civility about it. “When I asked them what sum they had in mind, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. It was considerably less than the limit you had suggested. Sixty thousand pounds for the title and the goodwill.” He paused and consulted a printed sheet in the file. “And I suppose we have to accept that, even if last year the
Review
made a profit of a grand total of four hundred pounds…and eight pence.”

“They wanted rid of it,” said Isabel. “I thought they might hold out for more.”

“Not when they knew I was offering on your behalf,” said Simon. “They think very highly of you. And so there we are, you're the new owner of the
Review of Applied Ethics.
Congratulations!”

Isabel looked at her teacup. She had shamelessly used her superior financial position to deal with Christopher Dove and his machinations. Did she deserve congratulations for that? She thought she did not, but if she were to try to explain her feelings to Simon, she was not sure whether she would be able to convey to him the guilt that she felt. She had done nothing wrong. Things were for sale or they were not, and the
Review,
as she had suspected, was for sale if one were to pay enough. Money, she realised, was an instrument of crude power; a conclusion that she had always sought to avoid, but which was demonstrably and uncomfortably true.

Simon was studying her with a slightly bemused expression. “I know you can well afford this, Isabel,” he began. “But do you mind my asking, why do you want to own it? Wasn't it enough just to be the editor?”

For a moment, Isabel did not reply. Now she looked up and met Simon's gaze. “To set right an injustice,” she said simply.

Simon slipped the piece of paper back into the file. “Ah,” he said. He thought for a moment, fingering the edge of the blue file. “That's a very good reason for doing anything. Well done.”

She reached forward and poured him a fresh cup of tea. Nothing more needed to be said about the transaction and so they spent a few minutes discussing the weather, which was perfect, and the world, which was not quite.

Just before she rose to leave, though, it occurred to her that it might be easier for Simon to write a letter that needed to be written. “There's one thing more,” she said. “There's a letter that needs to be written to the chairman of the editorial board. Could you do that for me? As my lawyer?”

“Of course.”

She explained that the letter needed to go to Professor Lettuce. “A ridiculous name, I know, but that is his burden in life. I'll write down the address here. Please tell him that you are acting for the new owner of the
Review of Applied Ethics
and that she—and please remember the
she
—is very grateful to him for all his services to the
Review.
However, it will be necessary to appoint a new editorial board, and this will be done shortly.”

Simon made a few notes and then looked at Isabel. “Should I mention your name at this stage?”

Isabel hesitated. One part of her wanted the satisfaction of letting them work it out; she could imagine their anxious discussions. But another saw the pettiness of this, the wrongness. Plato's white horse and dark horse. She closed her eyes. Revenge was sweet, but it was wrong, and she should not repay them in the coin they had used on her. No, she should not.

“Tell them who I am right at the beginning,” she said. “That would be better.”

Simon, who sensed that he had just witnessed a great moral struggle, nodded his assent. “I'm sure that you've made the right decision,” he said.