Reede seemed to appear within minutes. He’d hared down over Waterloo Bridge in his car, and burst through the front door, What the hell’s happened, where the hell is she, what the . . . and the words died on his mouth as he watched the paramedics carrying Quick out. She looked so tiny and frail, and I saw the shock on Reede’s face, a pain that for once he had no means to control.
It was actually thanks to Reede that the police didn’t arrest me there and then. They were intimidated by him. He gathered himself quickly, exuding power and authority, and their uniforms meant as little to him as they meant everything to me. He became angry when he got the whiff of their questions and attitude, and he told them that if they wanted to accuse me of anything, they could bloody well go through him. ‘She was with me in the office until an hour ago,’ I remembering him saying.
I have to admit, I was surprised. I never thought the day would come I would feel in debt to Edmund Reede, and I didn’t really like it, because I didn’t know what I would be able to give in return. We left the house together; him giving me a lift back to my flat in Clapham.
‘How did she sound when you called her?’ he asked, as we zoomed along Clapham Common.
‘Weak.’ I went to say something more, but I stopped.
He looked at me. ‘What is it?’
‘She was ill, Mr Reede.’
‘Ill?’
‘Very ill. I don’t think she – had long left.’
He looked back to the road. ‘Jesus Christ. She always was too good at keeping secrets. And so are you, apparently. No wonder she liked you.’
We sat in silence. I felt completely drained. I couldn’t believe she’d gone, with so many of my questions left to answer.
‘Mr Reede – did you know her long?’ I asked eventually.
‘Since she was practically a girl.’
‘I’m sorry.’
I wondered what he was thinking – was he hurt that Quick hadn’t told him how ill she was, or was he simply in shock and sadness that she was dead?
‘I’d like you and Miss Rudge to organize the funeral,’ he said.
‘Of course. Does she have any family I should tell?’ I asked.
‘None that I know of. But you’ll have a bit of time. The police won’t release her body yet.’
‘Why won’t they? What do they think I’ve done?’
‘Don’t worry, Miss Bastien. It will all be fine.’
But I didn’t see how it would be. ‘Will the exhibition still go ahead?’ I asked.
‘Don’t see we have much choice. And it’s what she would have wanted.’
But half the problem, I thought, kicking off my shoes and sinking on to my bed still in my clothes, as Reede’s car revved off up the road, was that none of us had ever really known what Marjorie Quick had wanted.
XIX
The next evening, the exhibition opened, with Quick’s body still lying cold in the police morgue. I couldn’t marry these two facts easily; she, dead and alone, and here, so much noise and colour, milling bodies, excitement brewing at the discovery of the new Isaac Robles.
Julie Christie walked past me, her face too good to be true. The gallery was full. I recognized her, but who were these other -people? Actors, critics, lords and bankers, gold buttons forged not from battles, but casts of power. Wine being drunk like it came from their own cellars. Jagger wasn’t there, much to Pamela’s chagrin. Rotund cabinet ministers talked to haggard--looking old men of art as some optimist put on a blues record, the trumpet’s scattered notes whirling towards the ceiling. At the unleashed sound, two men in blazers swapped glances of disdain. Where were their deft van Dycks, their easy Gainsboroughs, their plump majestic Stubbesian horses? All they had here were modernist streaks of colour, women, holding heads, women, curled amidst their shattered pots, a poised lion, third wheel in a tragic game of Renaissance saints.
A snare drum snuck into the blues, a syncopation that only just nipped my bud of bitterness. I felt utterly disorientated without Quick. She should have been there; she was going to tell me the truth. At the end of the room, the photograph of Isaac Robles and Olive Schloss loomed, black and white and granular, the girl’s face locked in what I now felt was a misplaced expression of hope. It was almost an insult that the photograph was up there. I wanted the blues to be louder, for a pair of these wine--flushed stuffed shirts to break into a jive, whirling one old tanty round till she false teeth fly.
With an inward sigh, I moved on, my wine glass a burden, a weapon. Shuffling past the growing crowd, I neared Rufina and the Lion, protected now by a scarlet rope, two guards flanking its sides. Reede clearly knew the special touches to make things seem official.
I noticed a thin, grey--haired man in a suit, leaning over the rope to peer at one of the painting’s corners. He was very close, his nose inches from the minuscule crests of paint on the girl’s severed head. He was incredibly curious; he couldn’t stop looking. The left guard’s feet shifted, sensible shoes of menace. I felt a surging anxiety that something bad was going to happen; but then again, the worst already had.
‘It’s ghoulish, Frederick,’ said a woman, coming to join the man. ‘It’s painful.’
Behind me, the noise in the gallery lifted. As the temperature rose and the crowd grew, guests began looking through each other like open doors. A woman laughed above the swell, and it sounded like a cry for help. Why were these -people here? They didn’t care about Isaac Robles. They didn’t care about Quick.
I felt a tug at my elbow; Pamela. ‘You all right?’ she said. ‘Look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘I think I have.’
Pamela frowned. I hadn’t told her about Quick; Reede had said he wanted a lid on it until the exhibition was on its feet.
‘You read too much, Dell,’ Pamela said. ‘Ain’t no such thing as ghosts. Listen.’ She looked pained. ‘I broke up with Billy.’
‘Oh, Pamela. I’m sorry.’
A cloud passed across her face. ‘Turned out he didn’t want to marry me. I gave notice on my room and everything, and then the bugger broke it off. And another girl’s moving in.’