After trying to think of a way to turn him down, she realized that there was no reason at all why she should. She knew she should try to set aside the memory of Nicholas pawing at her.
‘So, what’s your name? If you don’t tell me, I’ll have to try and guess, and that’ll embarrass both of us.’ He studied her face with such an earnest expression that she gave in gracefully.
‘Jerry,’ she said, holding out her hand.
‘Jerry, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Is that short for Geraldine?’
‘Damn,’ she said. ‘Just when we were getting off on the right foot.’
‘How about I never call you that again?’
‘How about that.’
So they went to the theatre.
7 / Detonation
‘My foot’s gone to sleep,’ complained Bryant, stamping experimentally on the pavement. For the past hour they had been standing in the mistshrouded garden beside their suspect’s house. ‘Nearly eleven p.m. I wish he’d hurry up. I have to say you’re not much company.’
‘I needn’t have come at all,’ May pointed out. ‘This isn’t my case.’
‘Yes, I suppose stakeouts are a bit beneath you these days. I like to keep my hand in. Look at this fog. The damp gets right into your bones. It’s doing my chest no good at all. I’ll need a vapour bath.’ Bryant pulled down his scarf and peered over the sodden hedge. Dew had formed on his bald head and ears. He resembled a minor Tolkien character.
‘You’re getting old before your time,’ warned May. ‘I can’t imagine what you’ll be like in your eighties.’
‘I’m ageing gracefully, which means not trying to look like a member of Concrete Blimp.’
‘I assume you mean Led Zeppelin. Can you hear someone coming?’
A figure solidified from the surrounding haze. Bryant felt a chill as he recognized the whiskers, cape, and cane. Brass-heeled shoes clipped loudly on the street’s sloping pavement. May tapped his partner on the arm and the two detectives stepped in front of the garden gate. Their quarry drew up before them, his eyes staring angrily beneath bushy brows. There was an overwhelming sense of the past about him, from the heavy cut of his clothes to the sharp smell of rolling tobacco that hung over him. It was as if the man had stepped through the fabric of time.
‘Mr William Whitstable?’
‘Would that it were not.’
May unfolded his wallet and held it aloft. ‘We’d like to ask you a few questions about an incident which occurred at the National Gallery . . .’
‘That was indeed my doing, but it remains no damned business of yours, Sir.’ Whitstable’s hand tightened around the head of his cane.
‘The destruction of a painting on loan to the nation is reason enough to make it our business,’ said Bryant angrily, ‘and to apply the full penalty of the law.’
The figure seemed to fall back a little. When he spoke again his voice was tempered with reason. ‘My sympathy lies with Mr Waterhouse and with no other. Nature has burst the bonds of art. If I cannot remove the symptom of this sickness I must at least remind them of its root.’
Whitstable was starting to back away, one boot sliding behind the other. May moved forward, wary of the cane. ‘Why did you do it?’ he asked. ‘Why this painting?’
‘How would any other do?’ cried Whitstable. ‘I made it known that our ranks are broken. They think they can get away with behaving as they please, but as God is my witness I’ll owe no further allegiance, and be gulled no more.’
Suddenly he raised the cane and struck out, catching Bryant hard on the arm. Then he turned and fled into the fog.
‘I’m all right,’ gasped Bryant, falling back against the garden wall. ‘Go after him, quickly.’
May soon gained on his quarry, but the night and the fog had settled in a concealing shroud across the brow of the hill. For a moment he glimpsed a figure darting beneath sodium lamplight, then it was gone, the click of boot heels lingering in the murky air.
‘Are you all right?’ asked May, returning to his partner and examining his arm.
‘Of course not,’ complained Bryant, hauling back his coat sleeve and checking for bruises. ‘I’ve had a nasty shock. I need a cherry brandy.’
‘We have to put out a call and bring Whitstable in. He can’t get far dressed like that.’
‘Or perhaps a large Courvoisier,’ continued Bryant. ‘He said he had to make it known that their ranks were broken. And what was all that about nature bursting the bonds of art?’
‘I don’t know. It sounded like a quote. That’s your department.’