The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds

  The wine had a delicious fruitiness. She let it linger in her mouth. “Oh, well,” she said. “My day.”

  Suddenly, and with so little warning that she surprised even herself, she felt tears well up in her eyes.

  Jamie put down the glass he had poured for himself. “Isabel …”

  She fought it for a moment or two, but then yielded. “It’s been …”

  He took the wine glass from her hand. “It must have been.”

  “… horrible.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  She spoke between sobs, the words jumbled. “Eddie too. Poor Eddie.”

  A cloud passed over Jamie’s face. “Bad news?”

  She shook her head. “No. Good news.”

  He stroked her cheek gently. His hand was wet with her tears. “I’m glad. I thought it could be different.”

  “He asked me. He asked me to speak to … you know, that girlfriend of his has parents who disapprove of him and he wants to live with her …”

  “You said something about that. But listen, don’t worry about all that.”

  “And those people, those people who stole the painting …”

  He said nothing.

  “It was an attitude of disregard,” Isabel went on. “We were nothing to them.”

  “There are plenty of people like that,” said Jamie. “Plenty of people disregard others. Plenty of people hold others in contempt. Turn on the television and see it.”

  She was beginning to compose herself. She reached for her wine glass; he dropped his hands from her shoulders. “Here’s to those nice New Zealanders,” she said.

  “At least there are plenty of those,” said Jamie.

  Isabel was thinking. “I’ve been trying to remember the details of what happened. I’ve been trying to piece it together.”

  “Tell me then,” said Jamie. “Describe it exactly as it happened, moment by moment. That might help you to remember.”

  They sat down at the kitchen table. “We were walking in Rutland Square, Duncan and I.”

  “Yes. Then?”

  “Then Duncan drew my attention to a van parked nearby. I saw a man in the driver’s seat. He was watching us, and he put the window down and called us over.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Something like ‘Come here.’ No, it was ‘Over here.’ Just that.”

  “And what did he look like? Picture him.”

  “His eyes were puffy and bloodshot. He had a thin face. Earrings. Two rings in one ear. One of the earrings was red. I noticed that and thought it might be a code of some sort.”

  Jamie shrugged. “Piercings mean nothing. They mean you’ve been pierced—that’s all.”

  Then Isabel remembered something. It came back to her with clarity. “He called Duncan ‘Pop.’ ”

  Jamie looked puzzled. “Is that important?”

  She did not answer immediately. She was thinking. Pop. Why would that be significant? She felt that it was, but she could not work out why this should be so. It was the sort of thing that somebody like that might call a middle-aged man if he wanted to show contempt; a casual, sarcastic equivalent of “Granddad.” And then she remembered. That was what Patrick had called his father; he had said, “Pop is very unworldly.”

  She explained this to Jamie and asked him what he thought. He looked doubtful. “Anybody might call somebody that,” he said. “I don’t think that proves anything.”

  “But it could,” Isabel insisted.

  “Yes. It could. But that’s not the same as saying that it does. Could and does are different.”

  She conceded that. But now that she thought about it, it was quite possible the painting had been stolen by Patrick. He had the knowledge and obviously he would have the opportunity. But what about motive?

  “Imagine for a moment that Patrick did it,” she said. “What would his motive have been?”

  Jamie returned the question. “Why does anybody steal anything?”

  “Money, usually. Either that, or they want the thing itself.”

  He nodded. “Does he need money?”

  “According to his sister, yes. She said something about expensive habits.”

  Jamie made a gesture that said: Well, there you have it.

  “So what do I do?”

  Jamie made another gesture. This time it said: Don’t ask me. Then he expanded on the theme. “I really can’t suggest anything, Isabel. And, frankly, I don’t see what you can possibly do. If the insurance company wants the painting back, then they’re going to have to pay. It may stick in their throats, but I can’t see what else they can do.”

  “Unless …,” interjected Isabel.

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless the person who stole it were to have it made known to him that we know who he is. We might then give him a chance to return it, failing which …”

  “Yes? Failing which?”

  “Failing which, the police are informed.”

  “On the basis of what evidence? Your hunch?”

  He was right. They knew nothing more than they had known a few days ago.

  “I think I should see him again,” said Isabel. She was speaking half to herself, half to Jamie.

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Patrick.”

  Jamie frowned. “And confront him with your suspicions?”

  “I shall be more subtle than that,” said Isabel.

  Jamie looked away. “I doubt if you’ll achieve anything,” he said.

  She suspected that he was right, but she felt that she could still try.

  “You know something?” she said. “I sometimes feel that lies are tangible. When they’re being told, they seem to hang in the air, almost so that you can touch them. It’s very strange.”

  Jamie looked bemused. “I think it depends on the liar,” he said. “A good liar doesn’t create that impression; a bad one does.”

  She knew what he meant. Her metaphor was probably based on no more than a reading of body language—those small clues that people give to what is in their mind. And guilt was a powerful creator of such tell-tale signs: the flushed expression, the avoidance of eye contact, the shifting of limbs; all these revealed inner discomfort springing from simple guilt. A liar could show these signs just as surely as he could show any of those physical signs that triggered a response on a polygraph: the heart rate, respiration, the reactions of the skin. But what if the liar is psychopathic and feels none of that? What if he feels not in the slightest bit guilty? What if he is proud of his lie? Patrick might feel that if he had acted out of a sense of entitlement, or because he believed that he was redistributing what he saw as his father’s ill-gotten wealth. The children of the rich can feel strongly about that, Isabel knew; there is no fervour like the fervour of those who have been raised in the bosom of those they despise.

  “I’d like to try,” she said. “I’ll see him and say things that might provoke a reaction—one way or the other.”

  Jamie was curious. “What things?”

  She could not answer because she did not know what she was going to say. Sensing her uncertainty, Jamie laughed. “You’re the most unlikely Sherlock Holmes,” he said. “But very kissable.”

  “Don’t condescend,” she said. “Don’t speak down to me.”

  “But I don’t,” he protested. “Everything I say to you is said from down here to up there. You’re up there. I promise. I promise.”

  “Let’s have another glass of wine,” she said.

  He reached for the bottle. “A bad day can always end well.”

  “Yes.”

  He passed her glass. She took it and smiled at him. She had everything. A few years ago, a day that had brought two men to tears and then had ended with her crying too would have been irredeemable. Now it could be salvaged. Completely.

  They went through to the music room and he played the piano while she sat on the stool beside him. She put her hand on his knee. He played at random, as he could do for hours, moving from one mel
ody to another. She thought she recognised something from Verdi. “La traviata?” He nodded. And then a complete change; a shift of mood and style as he suddenly started to sing “Shoals of Herring,” all about a young man on a fishing boat pursuing the herring. Isabel closed her eyes. She imagined Jamie as that young man. Or Charlie, when he was older. Her little boy—a fisherman, battling the North Sea. She thought: I love all these men. I love the men who went to sea and led that hard life. I love them. But how strange to think and say that.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  YOU WANT my brother’s number?” said Alex Munrowe.

  At the other end of the telephone, Isabel detected a note of satisfaction in Alex’s voice.

  “If you don’t mind. I didn’t want to disturb your father.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” said Alex quickly. “May I ask … no, perhaps I shouldn’t.”

  There was an expectant silence. Isabel felt she had to explain. “I feel I should discuss the matter with him. That’s why.”

  Now satisfaction was replaced with concern. “You won’t mention the conversation we had the other day, will you?”

  Isabel thought: Perhaps you shouldn’t accuse your brother of theft quite so readily if you don’t want it to get back to him. But she did not say that; instead she reassured Alex that she would not dream of mentioning it. “I regard what you said to me as confidential. I promise you that.”

  “Good. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so explicit; it’s just that the thought crossed my mind that if there was anybody who could think of doing something like this, it’s him.”

  “You don’t have a very high opinion of your brother, if you don’t mind my saying.”

  Alex laughed. “He has his good points. And he is my brother, after all. I’ve never forgotten that. And I’m not sure that he would actually stoop to theft. Yet …”

  It seemed to Isabel that Alex was blowing hot and cold. If she suspected him of the theft, then she should state her grounds for doing so.

  Isabel changed tack. “May I ask you something? If your father discovered that Patrick was behind this, what would the effect be?”

  “What do you think?” expostulated Alex. “He’d be devastated. He worships my brother.”

  Isabel kept her voice level. “Really?”

  “Yes. Pop thinks he’s marvellous—he always has.”

  Isabel noticed the use of “Pop.” It was natural that siblings would each use the same name for their father, but it meant that if anything were going to be read into its use by the thieves, then this would throw suspicion on both Alex and Patrick—not just on Patrick. But what puzzled Isabel now was the suggestion that relations between Patrick and his father were good; that was the direct opposite of what Duncan had said to her. This raised the possibility that Alex simply did not know what her father’s real feelings were, which could be the case, she decided; children thought they knew what their parents felt, but they could be wrong about that—sometimes dramatically so.

  She brought the conversation to an end even though she felt that Alex would have liked to prolong it. There was something irritating about her manner, thought Isabel; it was as if she enjoyed being mischievous. She may have disliked her brother but to suggest, as she had, that he was behind the theft carried with it a feeling of sourness. Disloyalty was like that, Isabel thought: It left a sour taste in the mouth.

  By the time she rang off, Isabel had reached a decision. The allegations against Patrick were meretricious and highly unlikely. She would see him, though, because she felt that she had to do something to justify her involvement in this matter. She would talk to him simply to confirm her view that Alex was an idle troublemaker pursuing some sort of petty squabble with her brother—a squabble that probably had its roots in the jealousies of childhood. Somebody had enjoyed more parental attention than somebody else; somebody had been able to run faster or been better at playing the piano; somebody had won more prizes at school … there were so many reasons why one sibling might resent another and carry the resentment well into adult life.

  She lost no time in dialling the number that Alex had given her. It was a mobile number, and when it was answered Isabel could hear the sound of voices in the background. Patrick was in the office, possibly in a meeting.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice lowered. “I’m with people. Who is it?”

  “Isabel Dalhousie. Sorry to bother you. Could I call back?”

  There was a brief silence. The voices in the background seemed to fade. Had a door been closed?

  “No, it’s fine. You can speak now.”

  “I wondered if we could meet soon. Not for a long meeting. Half an hour maybe.”

  She heard him breathing. “Yes. If you need to. How soon do you want to meet? Today?”

  She had not expected that, and had to think quickly of her schedule for the day. Without Grace, Charlie became more of an issue. Jamie was in, though, and had not said anything about going out.

  “If you could manage today,” she said, “that would suit me perfectly well.”

  “Lunchtime?”

  That was two hours away.

  “That would be fine,” she said. “You suggest a place.”

  He explained that his office was in the financial quarter just behind Lothian Road. There was a restaurant in the Lyceum Theatre, not far away—did she know the place? She did, and they agreed to meet there at one.

  “What do you want to talk about?” asked Patrick.

  Isabel thought quickly. “Your father. How he’s coping with all this.”

  Patrick made a noncommittal sound. “He’s tougher than you think.”

  “Well,” said Isabel. “We can talk about that too. Sometimes it’s hard for men to be tough.”

  She thought this was true: yesterday she had seen two men cry, and for every two men in this world who wept, she suspected, there were twenty who wanted to but couldn’t.

  SHE ORDERED a plate of tagliatelle with chopped smoked salmon and a sauce that was creamy, but not too thick. All that one needed, she felt, was a hint of cream. A hint of cream … It could be the title of a song, something that Jamie could sing perhaps. It would be about how life should be kept simple, but the addition of small treats, small self-indulgences, could make all the difference.

  Patrick ordered a salad, and when it came she noticed that he separated out the various ingredients, pushing them to different corners of his plate. Tomatoes went in one place, lettuce leaves in another, spring onions elsewhere. She was fascinated; she had never seen anybody do that before, and she wondered what it said about him. Was he obsessive-compulsive—one of those people who make sure that everything is neatly arranged; who line the cutlery up in scrupulous parallels, who fold the towels in the bathroom into perfect squares?

  He saw her watching. “Sorry,” he said. “I’ve always done this.”

  She looked away guiltily.

  “You see,” he went on, “I worry that if I don’t, then something will go wrong.”

  “That sounds like a superstition,” she said. “I take it you won’t walk under ladders?”

  He smiled. “Who does?”

  Isabel thought: I don’t.

  “There’s nothing wrong with a bit of superstitious behaviour now and then,” she said. “In fact …”

  He looked at her expectantly, his fork poised above a slice of tomato. “Yes?”

  “In fact, I’ve read somewhere that research …”

  He laughed. “You aren’t going to tell me that superstitions actually work?”

  She remembered her conversations with Jamie about childhood superstitions, about ambulances and touching your collar and your toes. “No,” she said. “Not all of them. But some superstitious behaviour, apparently, can have positive results. If you believe that doing something will bring you good luck, then you may do better if you do the thing in question.”

  “Carry a rabbit’s foot?”

  “Yes. Or you might wear one of those odd-looking charms that th
ey wear in southern Italy—those things that look like peppers. You know the ones?”

  He did. “Swarthy types wear them round their necks on gold chains.”

  She nodded, picturing hairy chests and open-necked shirts and the charms against the evil eye. “If you have your lucky rabbit’s foot in your pocket when you write an exam, then you probably feel calmer. If you feel calmer, then you do better in the exam. Post hoc, propter hoc.”

  He speared the tomato with his fork and began to eat his salad. “Latin,” he mumbled.

  Isabel apologised. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to sound pretentious. Afterwards and therefore caused by … It doesn’t sound quite as effective in English.”

  “I had a lot of Latin at school,” Patrick said. “I never want to read or hear it again. It represents everything I hated about that school. Everything. Latin allows you to obfuscate. It allows you to dress up a system that puts people down.”

  “Does it? I thought it could have a certain beauty.”

  He shrugged. “Quot homines, tot sententiae.”

  She laughed at this. There are as many opinions as there are people. “You brought yourself to utter it.”

  He saw the humour in the situation. “My Latin teacher liked boys.”

  “Did he?”

  He held her gaze. “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.” She was not sure what to say. Was this the issue?

  “However, he behaved scrupulously correctly. He never touched us.”

  “Then he was a good man,” said Isabel. “He must have resisted a lot of temptation.”

  Patrick seemed to relax. “You know, I think you and I might be on the same wavelength. People are so quick to condemn. They don’t think much of the private battles that others have.”

  “But I do think of that sort of thing,” said Isabel quickly. “I think of it all the time.”

  He looked at her intensely. “Really?”

  “Yes.” She paused. “Since this conversation is becoming quite frank, I might as well tell you that I do have an inkling of some of your own battles.”

  There was nothing in his expression to warn her off, and so she continued. “I don’t like to intrude, but I suspect that you have considerable difficulty in being who you are—in the sense of where you come from—and who you are in the sense of what you think.”