The Nature of Rare Things

by Derek Wilson

Genres: Horror; Mystery

Synopsis

When paranormal investigator and Cambridge lecturer Dr. Nathaniel Gye is commissioned at a séance to find a dead man's killer, he dismisses the incident as a clumsy fraud by a fake medium. But when Nathaniel's own wife disappears in Italy, an eventuality foretold by the same unquiet spirit, he is forced to look for connections between her predicament and the violent death of a man she never knew. In this dark and fast-paced mystery, the urgent search for answers takes Nathaniel far from his quiet university existence and into a labyrinth of hazardous twists and turns involving a stolen Renaissance painting and the love life of poets Robert and Elizabeth Browning.

Release date: November 30, 2012

Publisher: Sphere

Print pages: 216

Sample

… you talk …

Of signs and wonders, the invisible world;

How wisdom scouts our vulgar unbelief

More than our vulgarest credulity …*

Harriet Jermyn QC took her time. Deliberately. She allowed several seconds to elapse before she rose to her feet. Then she occupied more moments in sorting her papers on the desk before her. The eyes of everyone in the assize court were upon the diminutive figure who seemed totally absorbed in her notes. Not a large crowd, though some national press reporters were present. The case had aroused interest among the broadsheets. Odd, Ms Jermyn thought, that the vulgar sensation-mongering tabloids had not seen the potential of Regina v. Gomer. Stolen works of art might not be headline grabbers but when there was a whiff of the supernatural … She heard the judge tap a pencil on the light oak of his writing slope and glanced quickly up at him from beneath long lashes. She cleared her throat and took a sip of water. She would not look at the accused. Not yet. She sensed his anxiety, his panic, and she would prolong it as long as possible. Only at the last moment before His Honour, Judge Deeping opened his mouth to enquire whether the prosecution was ready to begin cross-examination did she turn her attention to the witness stand.

‘Mr Gomer.’ She spoke slowly with a suggestion of boredom. ‘I understand that you are a spiritualist. Is that so?’

Robert Gomer, a stocky figure in a well-pressed, grey-blue suit, radiantly white shirt and striped tie, shuffled from one foot to the other as he looked across the well of the court occupied by clerks and a recorder. He struggled to keep any wavering nervousness out of his voice. The nails of his clenched hands dug deep into flesh. ‘Yes … er … but …’

‘That means, I assume, that you believe strongly in the beyond.’ Ms Jermyn raised her voice and rolled her eyes to make the word sound as absurd as possible and was rewarded by a light sniggering from the public gallery. ‘A world invisible to mere mortals …’ she elaborated, ‘mere mortals like the members of the jury, but accessible to people with your special gifts.’

The accused shook his head. ‘No … that’s not … I mean, I’ve never claimed … Look, what’s all this got to do –’

‘I’ll decide that, Mr Gomer.’

The judge laid aside his spectacles. ‘The same question had occurred to me. Perhaps we could proceed to something more pertinent, Miss Jermyn?’

The barrister thought, It’s Ms Jermyn, you shrivelled-up old coot. She said, ‘Certainly, my lord.’ Now she did stare long and hard at her quarry, taking in the upright, shoulders-back stance, the pale moon face atop the thick neck, the grey-black hair, cut ‘short back and sides’. Everything about him shouted ‘old school, military dinosaur’. She would have been hard put to it to say just why she found him so objectionable but now she relished the sight of the sweat beginning to form above his thick eyebrows. ‘You see, Mr Gomer, it’s just that I – and I’m sure the jury – are having great difficulty in understanding the sequence of the events in any way that squares with the laws of the physical universe with which we’re familiar. If you have inside knowledge of the workings of some parallel world perhaps you could enlighten us.’ She smiled at him across the court.

Bob Gomer stared back, mute and miserable.

‘No? Well, let’s just go over the events of that fateful evening last October, shall we? Perhaps we’ve missed some elemental point that will make everything crystal clear.’ She referred to her notes. ‘Now, according to what you told my learned friend who appears for the defence, your colleagues, Mr Hardwick and Mr Randall, collected you from your house in the security van because they’d been out on an earlier job and the three of you then drove, without stopping, to Heathrow, where you arrived at Terminal 1 around 4.30. You were directed to a security suite where you met Signor Brandini of Sicuro Pacioli and another member of his own staff who had arrived from Turin with the portrait expertly wrapped and crated in the box which has been identified to the court.’ The barrister indicated a narrow wooden container some eighty centimetres square which lay on the table in front of the judge’s bench. ‘Also present were Dr Theophrast, of the Bath Millennium Gallery, and his assistant, Ms Miles. Have we got it right so far, Mr Gomer?’

The accused nodded. ‘Yes … right,’ he muttered.

‘Good.’ Ms Jermyn continued briskly. ‘There then followed what must have been quite a solemn ceremony. Signor Brandini broke the seal that had been placed on the crate before it left Italy. The container was carefully opened and the painted panel still in its wrappings was removed. The protective inner case was opened and everyone’s eyes were fixed on the fifteenth-century masterpiece that was revealed. Did you get a good look at it, Mr Gomer?’

‘Good enough.’

‘Good enough!’ The prosecutor smiled round the courtroom. ‘By that I assume you mean to suggest good enough for someone not remotely interested in rare Italian Renaissance works of genius.’

Gomer shrugged. ‘I saw the picture. I’m not denying it.’

‘And you want us to believe that you weren’t curious about it, even though you knew it was worth a great deal of money – running into millions, as this court has been informed.’

‘As far as I was concerned it was just another job.’

‘Surely, you must have been anxious about having the responsibility for guarding this extremely valuable article.’

‘The security arrangements were excellent, so I –’

‘Excellent? Well, we wouldn’t all be here if that was the case, would we? I’m sure Signor Brandini thought his employer’s property was in good hands when he entrusted it to Dr Theophrast’s gallery.’ She glared across the courtroom. ‘But then he couldn’t know, could he, that you were anything other than an honest security guard –’

‘So I was … am!’ Gomer blurted.

Ms Jermyn ignored the outburst. ‘Well, to continue. When Dr Theophrast had satisfied himself with the identity and condition of the painting it was parcelled up again and Dr Theophrast sealed it with his gallery’s seal. He gave Signor Brandini a receipt, then he handed the crate to you.’

‘No.’

The barrister looked up sharply. ‘No! But that’s what you –’

‘I wasn’t given the crate straight away. Someone had brought champagne. The Ities and the gallery people stood about drinking for about twenty minutes before we left.’

She frowned. This was not in her script. ‘Are you suggesting that someone could have tampered with the painting during those twenty minutes before it was given into your custody?’

‘No, miss. The box stayed on the table all the time, in full view.’

‘Those twenty minutes aren’t really relevant then, are they?’

Gomer shrugged. ‘Sorry, I thought you were trying to get at the truth. My mistake.’

A member of the jury giggled. Ms Jermyn hastened to retrieve the situation. ‘Oh, we shall get at the truth, Mr Gomer. You need have no fear about that. So, after the others had enjoyed their celebratory drink, then the painting was handed to you and you took it out of the building to your van. Was that difficult?’

Gomer dabbed a folded handkerchief to his brow. ‘I don’t take your meaning.’

‘What I mean is that you had to carry a bulky and valuable package carefully in both hands. There were doors and corridors to be negotiated. There were other people moving about in the building. It must have been a bit … awkward.’

‘Not really.’

‘But perhaps that was what you were counting on. You had to find somewhere to make the switch. I suggest that you and your accomplice had planned the exact point at which you could do it. Going round a corner, passing a doorway, out of sight of your companions for a few seconds. That’s all it would take.’

‘Rubbish! Me and Charlie were together all the time. I couldn’t have done anything with that box without him seeing.’

‘Well, we’ll leave that for the moment. You went into the back of your van with the painting. You fastened the box to the inside wall with special straps to prevent it moving about on the journey, then you sat down on a chair still in the back of the van, and the rear doors were securely locked.’ She paused and glanced thoughtfully round the courtroom. ‘Rather elaborate precautions, weren’t they?’

After several seconds of silence Ms Jermyn switched her gaze sharply to the witness stand. ‘Well, Mr Gomer, did you not hear the question? In your experience, have you ever had to sit inside a locked van with the object you were transporting?’

‘Only once.’

‘It does seem rather odd, doesn’t it? After all, no one could get into the vehicle during the journey, could they?’

‘No, but sometimes we had a client who was very particular.’

‘Right. So we have you locked in the van with the picture. That means, does it not, that the only person who could possibly have tampered with the crate during the two hours it took to convey it from the airport to the gallery was you.’

Gomer grabbed the front of the stand and leaned forward. ‘I never touched …’ He stared appealingly at the judge. ‘My lord, I swear …!’

Judge Deeping scowled. ‘You must confine yourself to answering counsel’s questions.’

The prosecutor resumed. ‘Now, we’ve already heard Dr Theophrast and Ms Miles state that they followed close behind the van all the way to Bath and that it was never out of their sight. At no point on the journey did the van stop, and the two vehicles arrived at the rear entrance of the Millennium Gallery at approximately 6.50. Tell us, in your own words, what happened next.’

Gomer cleared his throat and rubbed his moist forehead. ‘Well, the doors were opened and Charlie helped me out with the crate. We was let in through the back door and –’

‘You were carrying the crate?’ The barrister was determined not to let the accused get into his stride. Her objective was to disorientate him with constant questions. ‘By yourself?’

The accused looked back at her in pathetic bewilderment, suspecting some verbal trap but unable to locate it. ‘Well … yes. It was quite –’

‘And where were the other dramatis personae at that time?’

‘The who?’

Ms Jermyn raised her eyes heavenward. ‘Your colleagues, Messrs Hardwick and Randall, the gallery director and his assistant – where were they?’

‘Charlie Randall was with me. Ted Hardwick took the van to a nearby petrol station to get it filled. Dr Theophrast and the young lady went on ahead to show us the way. We went up in the lift together. There was no chance for me to muck about with the picture.’

‘Well, there was certainly no chance for anybody else to have done it. So, the four of you arrived in Dr Theophrast’s office. What happened next … and, please, Mr Gomer, take us very precisely through the events of the next couple of minutes.’

The stocky ex-marine gripped the rail before him for support. He spoke slowly, dreamily, seeing yet again the scene he had played over in his mind a thousand times. ‘Dr Theophrast opened the crate –’

‘No, Mr Gomer! Before that. What did he have to do before he opened the crate?’

‘He broke the gallery’s seal.’

‘Which up until that moment was still intact?’

‘Yes.’ The word was little more than a murmur.

‘And when he opened the container what did he discover?’

Gomer’s head drooped. His reply was scarcely audible. ‘A blank wooden panel.’

‘Precisely. A priceless work of art on loan from a private Italian collection had vanished without trace and in its place there was a square of cabinet maker’s plywood. The last time the picture was seen was in the security suite at the airport. Thereafter, it was in the custody of one man and one man only. It follows that that man alone can explain to this court what really happened to Antonello da Messina’s Portrait of a Doge. So, Mr Gomer, let us have no more subterfuge. Tell us in plain words how you spirited it away.’ She fixed him with an accusing stare. ‘Where is that painting?’

The reply was half wail, half sob. ‘I don’t know! I wish to God I did. But I don’t – and that’s the honest truth.’

What’s a ‘medium’? He’s a means,

Good, bad, indifferent, still the only means

Spirits can speak by; he may misconceive,

Stutter and stammer …

Stansted Airport was thronged with getaway Easter holidaymakers when Nathaniel Gye, lecturer in paranormal psychology at the University of Cambridge, and his wife Kathryn arrived on a morning which was doing its level best to live up to April’s reputation. Kathryn shook and closed her umbrella while her husband manoeuvred her holdall through the crowds towards the check-in desk.

She frowned as they took their place in the queue. ‘You’d think the organizers would have more sense than to fix Good Friday for the start of the symposium.’

Nathaniel smiled down at her from his six-foot-two vantage point. ‘It probably never occurred to them. Today isn’t a public holiday in Italy.’ He looked over the heads of the dozen people ahead of them to where a distracted mother with three small children was engaged in an argument with the airline representative. The atmosphere was tense with the excitement and anxiety of passengers wanting to get away and bothered about tickets, passports, baggage and flight information. Perhaps, he told himself, his own misgivings were simply the result of catching the general contagion.

‘That’s odd, isn’t it?’

‘What’s odd?’ Nat asked distractedly.

‘Catholic countries not celebrating Good Friday. When you’re travelling through you see all those wayside crucifixes but the very day …’ She stopped abruptly and stared at him with frank, jade eyes. ‘Oh, for goodness sake stop fidgeting and go!’

‘I’m not fidgeting,’ Nat protested. ‘I’m standing here perfectly calmly.’

‘You’re fidgeting inside; you know you are. Something’s still bugging you about this trip.’

‘I’ll just stay and see you into the departure lounge.’

‘You’ll do no such thing!’ Kathryn’s New England drawl softened the command. ‘I’m not exactly new to foreign travel, you know.’

She certainly was not. As London editor of Panache, a top-flight international lifestyle magazine, the number of air miles she had clocked up, laid end to end, would have stretched several times round the globe. ‘I wish you’d tell me what’s bothering you. You could have signed up with me to the Browning Symposium when I asked you weeks ago. I thought you’d have been interested in Robert and Elizabeth if only for the spiritualist angle – all that business with Daniel Home and Sophie Eckley. But you said it wasn’t your cup of tea. Then, when it was too late, you suddenly decided that you’d like nothing better than five days of lectures and visits about the Brownings in Italy. Ever since then you’ve been twitchy on the subject.’

Nat forced a smile and lied. ‘Darling, that’s pure imagination.’

Kathryn wasn’t listening. ‘This is really all about Errol Kaminsky, isn’t it? The leader of this seminar is an old flame and that’s woken the little green god.’

Nat laughed and this time the reaction was genuine. ‘Kaminsky! Good Lord, I’ve scarcely given him a thought since he got smashed at our engagement party and took a swing at me. Now that he’s fourteen years older and a highly respectable professor of Eng. Lit. at one of America’s most prestigious universities, I’m sure the last thing he wants is to rake up old, embarrassing amours.’

They shuffled forward a few paces before Nat went on. ‘As to Robert Browning, I suppose I’ve never really recovered from a surfeit of him at school. All those narrative poems we had to learn by heart – “The Pied Piper”, “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix”.’

‘There’s much more to him that that.’

‘I’m sure …’

‘His two intense love affairs – with Elizabeth and with Italy. It’s all there in the poems. I left a copy on your desk. You ought to browse through it; get reacquainted.’

‘I might just do that.’ Nat picked up his wife’s holdall as the queue moved again. He glanced up at the indicator board. ‘Well, at least your flight seems to be on schedule. That’s something of an achievement these days. There’s usually an air controllers’ strike somewhere in Europe to foul up the entire system at peak holiday times.’

Kathryn’s dark brows lowered in a frown. ‘My, aren’t we a bundle of fun today? Nat, for goodness sake, go home! I don’t need my hand held and I don’t need your lugubrious observations about holes in the air traffic network. I’m going to have a great romantic wallow in Victorian poetry and belles lettres and I’ll be back Wednesday evening. So, forget whatever it is that’s bothering you and go and keep the home fires burning.’ She reached up and gave him a swift kiss. It was a dismissal.

As he drove back up the M11, having extracted from his wife a promise that she would phone the moment she reached her hotel, Nat confronted his disquiet about her trip. Every rational impulse surging along the neural pathways of his brain told him he was being foolish to imagine that Kathryn was in any more danger on her brief tour of Florence, Rome and Siena than she had been on any of her numerous foreign visits. He certainly knew better than to take seriously supposed warnings from ‘the other side’. And yet … No, the more reason and intuition sparred for mastery inside Nat’s head the more bothered he became.

The unease was still there when he turned off the motorway and headed the last six cross-country miles towards Great Maddisham. He was almost home when he had a sudden change of mind. Just as the car rounded the bend coming out of Medley Wood, where the squat tower of All Saints, Maddisham came into view as a bump on the flat landscape, Nat turned abruptly down a narrow lane which, as the signpost advised strangers to the area, led to ‘Frettlingham Village Only – No Through Road’. He would have a pub lunch at the Lamb. Little point in going back to the empty house to cut himself a sandwich. The boys – twelve-year-old Edmund and Jeremy who was nine – were already at Wanchester to spend Easter with their grandfather, Canon Gye, but Nat was not due to join them till the next day.

At the bottom of what passes in the fenland for a hill he turned the old Mercedes on to the gravelled car park beside the rambling brick inn, pleased to see that there were only two other vehicles already standing there. Frettlingham was an unobtrusively beautiful place that shared the secret of its charm with a small clientele who would not have dreamed of betraying that confidence to ‘outsiders’. The Lamb’s jumble of tiled roofs glistened in the sunshine that had followed the morning’s showers. The little Frett gurgled past its garden wall and the hedges fronting the lane were spattered with new greenery. Nat unfolded himself from the driving seat and appreciatively breathed the rain-washed air. He could already feel the tension evaporating through his pores.

Twenty minutes later, having chatted briefly with Terry Hawke, the landlord, and a couple of regulars, he was cosily ensconced at a window table with one of Wendy Hawke’s excellent steak and kidney pies and a pint of Greene King in front of him.

‘Nat my boy, I didn’t realize that you were a member of the select fellowship of the Lamb. May I join you or does your meditation demand solitude?’

Nat looked up and found himself gazing at the thin, patrician visage topped with luxuriant white hair of Barnaby Cox, sometime lecturer in law at the university, and emeritus fellow of Beaufort College.

‘Of course, Barny. Glad of the company.’

The old man fastidiously brushed the chair seat with an immaculate handkerchief before settling himself on the other side of the table. He took an appreciative draught of ale. ‘Should you not be deep in the boso. . .