The Modigliani Scandal

  A man lay beside her, his pelvis locked with hers in a slow shudder. The man's thick limbs were dense with black hair. The muscles of his white buttocks bunched and relaxed rhythmically. Sarah had one foot on the knee of the opposite leg, making a triangle; and the man squeezed the flesh of the inside of her raised thigh as he murmured obscenities in a deep, clear voice.

  On the bed behind Sarah lay a second man. He had blond hair, and his white face was slightly spotty. His hips and Sarah's bottom fitted together like spoons in a drawer. One hand curled around Sarah's body and squeezed her breasts, one after the other.

  It dawned on Julian that the two men were making love to her at the same time. That accounted for the curiously slow jerking of the three bodies. He watched, appalled.

  The blond man saw him and gave a giggle. ''We've got an audience,'' he said in a high voice.

  The other man turned his head quickly, and they both stopped moving.

  Sarah said: ''It's only my husband. Don't stop, you bastards, please.''

  The dark man seized her hips and began to jerk more powerfully than before. The three of them lost interest in Julian. Sarah said, ''Oh yes,'' again and again.

  Julian turned away. He felt weak and sickened; and something more. It was a long time since he had seen that rutting look on Sarah's face. He could not help but be aroused by it. But the trace of sexual excitement was faint and uneasy.

  He collapsed in the armchair again. They were making louder noises now, as if to mock him. His self-respect was demolished.

  So that was what she needed to turn her on, he thought spitefully. It wasn't my fault at all. Bitch, bitch. Julian's humiliation turned to vindictiveness.

  He wanted to humiliate her, as she had him. He would tell the world about the cow and her sexual tastes, he would--

  Christ.

  Suddenly he was thinking very clearly. His head felt as if he had just taken a long draft of cold champagne. He sat still for a few seconds, thinking fast. There was so little time.

  He opened the darkened glass door of a cupboard against the wall and took out his Polaroid camera. It was loaded. He fitted the flash attachment quickly, and checked that there were bulbs. He set the focusing mechanism and the aperture.

  The voices from the bedroom turned into shouts as he jumped up the stairs. He waited outside the bedroom, out of sight, for a moment. Sarah made a noise deep in her throat which gradually rose in pitch and loudness, a long, almost childlike cry. Julian knew that noise from the days when he had been able to make her do it.

  As Sarah's cry turned into a scream Julian stepped into the room and raised the camera to his eye. Through the viewfinder he could see the three bodies moving in unison, their faces screwed up with exertion or ecstasy, their hands wildly grabbing fistfuls of flesh. Julian pressed the shutter, and there was a momentary, bright flash. The lovers did not seem to be aware of it.

  He moved two steps closer, winding the film on as he went. He lifted the camera again and took a second shot. Then he moved sideways and took a third.

  He went quickly out of the bedroom into the living room. He scrabbled in a drawer and found an envelope. There was a book of stamps beside it. He tore out twenty or thirty pence worth of stamps and stuck them on the envelope. He took a pen from his jacket pocket.

  Where could he send it to? A piece of paper fluttered down to the ground, having been dragged out of his pocket with the pen. He recognized it as the scrap on which he had written Samantha's address. He picked it up.

  He wrote his own name on the envelope, then addressed it care of Samantha at the address on the scrap. He ripped the exposed film in its paper wrapping out of the camera. He had bought the camera to photograph paintings. The film produced negatives as well as instant prints, but the negatives had to be immersed in water within eight minutes of the exposure. Julian took the film to the kitchen and filled a plastic bowl with water. He drummed his fingers on the draining-board in an agony of impatience while the image took form on the celluloid.

  Finally he returned to the living room, the wet film in his hand. The dark man appeared at the bedroom door.

  There was no time to put the pictures in the envelope. Julian dashed for the front door, and opened it just as the dark man caught up with him. He smashed the camera viciously into the man's face and leaped out of the door.

  He raced up the street. The dark man was naked and could not follow. Julian stuffed the negatives in the envelope, sealed it, and posted it in the mailbox on the sidewalk.

  He looked at the prints. They were very clear. All three faces could be seen, and there was no doubt about what they were doing.

  Slowly, thoughtfully, Julian walked back to the house and let himself in. The voices from the bedroom were now raised in quarrelsome tones. Julian slammed the front door to make sure they knew he was there. He walked into the living room and sat down, looking at the photographs.

  The dark man came out of the bedroom again, still naked. Sarah followed in a robe, and the spotty one came last, dressed only in a pair of obscenely small briefs.

  The dark man wiped blood from his nose with the back of his hand. He looked at the red smear on his knuckles, and said: ''I could kill you.''

  Julian proffered the photographs. ''You're very photogenic,'' he mocked. Hatred blazed in the man's dark brown eyes. He looked at the pictures.

  ''You filthy little pervert,'' he said.

  Julian burst out laughing.

  The man said: ''What do you want?''

  Julian stopped laughing, and set his face in a hard sneer. He shouted: ''Get some fucking clothes on in my house!''

  The man hesitated, his fists bunching and relaxing spasmodically. Then he turned on his heel and went back to the bedroom.

  The other man sat on a chair and curled his legs up underneath him. Sarah took a long cigarette from a box and lit it with a heavy table-lighter. She picked up the photographs where the dark man had dropped them. She looked at them briefly, then tore them into small pieces and dropped them in a waste-paper basket.

  Julian said: ''The negatives are in a safe place.''

  There was a silence. The blond man seemed to be enjoying the excitement. Finally the dark man came back, dressed in a fawn safari jacket and a white polo-necked sweater.

  Julian addressed the two men. ''I've nothing against you,'' he said. ''I don't know who you are, and I don't want to. You've nothing to fear from these pictures. Never come into this house again, that's all. Now get out.''

  The dark man went immediately. Julian waited while the other went into the bedroom, and came out a minute later, dressed in elegant Oxford bags and a short blouson jacket.

  When he had gone Sarah lit another cigarette. Eventually she said: ''I suppose you want money.''

  Julian shook his head in negation. ''I've taken it,'' he said. Sarah looked at him in surprise.

  ''Before all ... this?'' she said.

  ''I sold your car,'' he told her.

  She showed no anger. There was a faintly strange light in her eyes which Julian could not interpret, and the trace of a smile at the comers of her mouth.

  ''You stole my car,'' she said flatly.

  ''I suppose so. Technically, I'm not sure a man can steal from his wife.''

  ''And if I do something about it?''

  ''Such as?''

  ''I could ask my father.''

  ''And I could show him our happy family snapshots.''

  She nodded, slowly, her face still unreadable. ''I thought it would come down to that.'' She got up. ''I shall get dressed.''

  At the staircase she turned around and looked at him. ''Your note ... You said you would be out all day. Did you plan all this? Did you know what you would find when you came back early?''

  ''No,'' he replied casually. ''It was what you might call a lucky break.''

  She nodded again, and went into the bedroom. After a moment Julian followed her.

  ''I'm going to Italy for a few days,'' he told her.

  ''Wh
at for?'' She slipped out of her robe, and sat in front of her mirror. She picked up a brush and began to run it through her hair.

  ''Business.'' Julian looked at the large, proud globes of her breasts. The image of her lying on the bed with the two men came unbidden into his mind: her neck arched, her eyes shut, her grunts of passion. His eyes wandered to her broad shoulders, her back narrowing sharply to her waist, the cleft at the base of her spine, the flesh of her buttocks flattened on the stool. He felt his body stir in response to her nakedness.

  He walked over and stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders, looking in the mirror at her breasts. The areolae of her nipples were dark and distended still, as they had been on the bed. He let his hands slide down from her shoulders until they touched her breasts.

  He pressed his body into her back, letting her feel the hardness of his penis, a vulgar signal that he wanted her. She stood up and turned around.

  He took her arm roughly and led her over to sit on the bed. He pushed her shoulders.

  Wordlessly, submissively, she lay back on the sheet and closed her eyes.

  IV

  DUNSFORD LIPSEY WAS ALREADY awake when the stout black telephone beside his bed rang. He picked it up, listened to the night porter's hasty good morning, and put it down again. Then he got up and opened the window.

  It looked out onto a yard, a few lockup garages, and a brick wall. Lipsey turned away and looked around his hotel room. The carpet was slightly worn, the furniture a little shabby; but the place was clean. The hotel was inexpensive. Charles Lampeth, who was paying for the investigation, would not have quibbled if Lipsey had stayed at the best hotel in Paris: but that was not Lipsey's style.

  He took off his pajama jacket, folded it on the pillow, and went to the bathroom. He thought about Charles Lampeth as he washed and shaved. Like all the clients, he was under the impression that a small army of detectives worked for the agency. In fact there were only half-a-dozen; and none of them could have done this job. That was part of the reason Lipsey was doing it himself.

  But only part. The rest of the reason had something to do with Lipsey's own interest in art, and something to do with the smell of the case. It was going to turn out to be interesting, he knew. There was an excitable girl, a lost masterpiece, and a secretive art dealer--and there would be more, much more. Lipsey would enjoy untangling the whole thing. The people in the case: their ambitions, their greed, their little personal betrayals--Lipsey would know of them all before too long. He would do nothing with the knowledge, except find the picture; but he had long ago abandoned the straightforwardly utilitarian approach to investigation. His way made it fun.

  He wiped his face, rinsed his razor, and packed it away in his shaving kit. He rubbed a spot of Brylcreem into his short black hair, and combed it back, with a neat parting.

  He put on a plain white shirt, a navy blue tie, and a very old, beautifully made Savile Row suit--double-breasfied, with wide lapels and a narrow waist. He had had two pairs of trousers made with the jacket, so that the suit would last a lifetime; and it showed every sign of meeting his expectations. He knew very well that it was hopelessly out of fashion, and he was utterly indifferent to the fact.

  At 7:45 he went downstairs to the dining room for breakfast. The solitary waiter brought him a wide cup of thick black coffee. He decided his diet would stand bread for breakfast, but he drew the line at jam.

  ''Vous avez du fromage s'il vous plait?'' he said.

  ''Oui monsieur.'' The waiter went away to get the cheese. Lipsey's French was slow, and badly accented ; but it was clearly comprehensible.

  He broke a roll and buttered it sparingly. As he ate, he allowed himself to plan the day. He had only three things: a postcard, an address, and a photograph of Dee Sleign. He took the photograph out of his wallet and laid it on the white tablecloth beside his plate.

  It was an amateur picture, taken apparently at some kind of family gathering--buffet tables on a lawn in the background suggested a summer wedding. The style of the girl's dress indicated that it had been taken four or five years ago. She was laughing, and seemed to be tossing her hair back over her right shoulder. Her teeth were not well-shaped, and her open mouth was unbecoming; but a personality of gaiety and--perhaps--intelligence came through. The eyes had a turned-down look in the outer corners--the reverse of Oriental slantedness.

  Lipsey took out the postcard and laid it on top of the photograph. It showed a narrow street of high, shuttered buildings. The ground floors of about half the houses had been turned into shops. It was an undistinguished street--presumably, postcard pictures of it could only be sold in the street itself. He turned it over. The girl's handwriting told him much the same story as her photograph had. In the top left-hand corner of the reverse side of the postcard was the name of the street.

  Finally, Lipsey took out his small orange-covered notebook. The sheets were blank except for the first, which had written on it, in his own small handwriting, the address the girl was staying at in Paris.

  He would not confront her immediately, he decided. He finished his coffee and lit a small cigar. He would pursue the other line of inquiry first.

  He permitted himself an inaudible sigh. This was the tiresome part of his work. He would have to knock on every door in the street of the postcard, and hope to come across whatever had put Dee on the trail of the painting. He would have to try the side streets, too. His assessment of the girl led him to believe she probably could not wait more than about five minutes before telling someone of her discovery.

  Even if he was right, it was a long shot. Her clue might have been something she saw in a newspaper; someone she met walking along the street; or something which happened to occur to her as she was passing through. The fact that her address was in a different part of Paris, and there seemed to be little in this area to attract her, was in Lipsey's favor. Still, the probability was that he would spend a full day or more and get sore feet making a fruitless search.

  He would make it all the same. He was a thorough man.

  He gave another little sigh. Well, he would finish his cigar first.

  Lipsey wrinkled his nostrils to exclude the smell as he walked into the old-fashioned fish shop. The cold black eyes of the fish gazed malevolently at him from the slab, appearing alive because, paradoxically, they seemed so dead in life.

  The fishmonger smiled at him. ''M'sieu?''

  Lipsey showed the photograph of Dee Sleign and enunciated, in his precise French: ''Have you seen this girl?''

  The man narrowed his eyes, and his smile froze to a ritual grimace. His face said that he smelled cops. He wiped his hands on his apron and took the picture, turning his back to Lipsey and holding it up to let the light hit it.

  He turned back, handed over the photograph, and shrugged. ''Sorry, I don't recognize her,'' he said.

  Lipsey thanked him and left the shop. He entered a narrow, dark doorway beside the fishmonger's and climbed the stairs. The ache in the the small of his back intensified with the effort: he had been on his feet for several hours. Soon he would stop for lunch, he thought. But he would drink no wine with his meal--it would make the afternoon's trudging insupportable.

  The man who answered his knock on the door at the head of the stairs was very old, and completely bald. He appeared with a smile on his face as if he would be glad to see the person who knocked, no matter who it was.

  Lipsey caught a glimpse, over the man's shoulder, of a group of paintings on a wall. His heart jumped: the paintings were valuable originals. This could be his man.

  He said: ''I am sorry to trouble you, m'sieu. Have you seen this girl?'' He showed the photograph.

  The old man took the photograph and went inside the flat, to look at it in the light, like the fishmonger. He said over his shoulder: ''Come in, if you will.''

  Lipsey entered, and shut the door behind him. The room was very small, untidy, and smelly.

  ''Sit down, if you want,'' the old man said. Lipsey did so, and the Fren
chman sat opposite him. He laid the photograph on the rough wooden table between them. ''I am not sure,'' he said. ''why do you want to know?''

  The wrinkled yellow face was completely expressionless, but Lipsey was now sure that this man had put Dee on the track of the picture. ''Does the reason matter?'' he asked.

  The old man laughed easily. ''You are too old to be a wronged lover, I suppose,'' he said. ''And you are very unlike her, so it is improbable that you are her father. I think you are a policeman.''

  Lipsey recognized a mind as sharply analytical as his own. ''Why, has she done something wrong?''

  ''I have no idea. If she has, I am not going to put the police on her trail. And if she has not, then there is no reason for you to pursue her.''

  ''I am a private detective,'' Lipsey replied. ''The girl's mother has died, and the girl has disappeared. I have been hired by the family to find her and break the news to her.''

  The black eyes twinkled. ''I suppose you might be telling the truth,'' he said.

  Lipsey made a mental note. The man had given away the fact that he was not in constant touch with the girl: for if he had been, he would have known that she had not disappeared.

  Unless she really had disappeared, Lipsey thought with a shock. Lord, the walking had tired him--he was not thinking clearly.

  ''When did you see her?''

  ''I have decided not to tell you.''

  ''This is very important.''

  ''I thought so.''

  Lipsey sighed. He would have to be a little rough. In the few minutes he had been in the room, he had detected the smell of cannabis. ''Very well, old man. If you will not tell me, I shall have to inform the police that this room is being used for drug-taking.''

  The man laughed with genuine amusement. ''Do you think they do not know that already?'' he said. His papery chuckle ran its course, and he coughed. The twinkle had gone from his eyes when he spoke again. ''To be trickled into giving information to a policeman, that would be foolish. But to be blackmailed into it would be dishonorable. Please get out now.''

  Lipsey saw that he had lost. He felt disappointed, and a little ashamed. He went out and closed the door on the old man's papery cough.