The Regency Detective (26 page)

From the address given to him by George and Bridges the previous day, along with details of the map he had memorised since staying on in Bath, it did not take Swann much time to locate the specific building he was looking for. Now all he could hope was that the artist still resided there. The city was known for having a transient populace, which moved on to wherever the work – or at least better prospects – took them. Fitzpatrick had mentioned the city’s building trade, where men would be laid off during the winter when construction ceased. But then Bath had been a seasonal place for a long time, where the city’s workforce and criminals adapted accordingly. The artist, if he maintained a studio here, might be less transient though. Swann knew of several painters whose studios were their sanctuaries and once they had found a place they felt they could work in, there was little that would cause them to give it up. This was what Swann was hoping for, that even in such a transient location as Bath and in such a dilapidated and slum area as Broad Quay, the artist had found stability.

Swann stepped inside the building and walked across the sodden floor, strewn with discarded rubbish, to the stairwell. Visibility was limited and the smell of decayed wood and rotten food permeated throughout the entire hallway.

As he reached the bottom of the stairs, a voice shouted from behind.

‘I told you what would happen if you came back here!’

Swann turned just in time to prevent a thick wooden stick striking him on the head. He grappled with the middle-aged woman in whose tight grip the weapon was held, but managed to wrestle it from her. As they pulled apart, the squat, mean-looking woman fell on her backside.

‘I think you may have mistaken me for someone else, madam,’ said Swann.

‘Are you the bailiff?’

‘No, madam, and I certainly have no interest in any of your possessions. I am looking for a man who I believe resides at this address.’

‘There are several men living here, the building has six floors.’

‘This man is an artist by trade.’

‘Yeah, we have one of those. He’s at the top. I hope you’re buying something, he owes me three months’ rent.’

‘Quite possibly,’ said Swann, as he helped the woman up and returned the wooden stick to her.

She grabbed it, went back into her room and slammed the door shut.

Swann climbed the several flights to the top of the dwelling. A freezing blast of air came through a smashed window as he walked over to the solitary door on that floor. He knocked on what was left of the disintegrating brown wood.

‘Hello?’ Swann called out.

There was no answer. He tapped again and tried the handle. It was unlocked. The sparsely furnished main room had been turned into a makeshift studio. In the middle, standing behind a large canvas, was the artist. From his appearance Swann estimated his age to be slightly older than his own. The majority of his ginger hair had been lost, however, and what remained called to mind that of a monk. The dirty-white smock he wore was bespattered by paint seemingly from his entire palette and this was repeated around the floor where he stood. In front of him was his subject matter, two naked pubescent girls posed in an overtly sexual position and stretched out upon a filthy, decrepit chaise longue. From their glazed expressions, Swann concluded they were under the influence of drugs.

‘Excuse me,’ said Swann, to attract the artist’s attention. For whatever reason, the man did not respond.

Swann tried again.

‘Whoever you are, I’m busy,’ said the artist sharply.

‘I only require a small amount of your time,’ replied Swann.

The artist carried on painting. Swann moved forward and touched the man on the shoulder.

‘Excuse me, sir, but …’

The artist turned abruptly.

‘Didn’t you hear me, I’m working! Now sod off!’

Before the artist knew what was happening though, Swann took his right arm and brought it up behind his back. The man dropped his brush and cried out.

‘Aaaargh! You’re hurting me.’

‘Obviously you did not hear me properly. I said I only require your attention for a short while.’

‘Don’t break my arm, it’s the one I use to paint,’ pleaded the artist.

‘Then you will listen to what I have to say?’

The artist nodded and Swann let go. The artist staggered forward, indignant at his treatment but brought to order.

‘Is there somewhere we can talk privately?’ asked Swann.

‘This is it,’ replied the artist, rubbing his arm where it had been twisted.

Swann looked across at the two naked girls. The artist understood.

‘Lose yourselves for a while, will you,’ ordered the man.

‘Where are we meant to go?’ said one of the girls.

‘Figure it out between you,’ he replied indifferently.

The girls grabbed the dark green throw which covered the chaise longue and huddled together as they wrapped themselves in the material before going out, unhappy at their treatment.

‘So what do you want that is so important to nearly break my arm?’ the artist said, after the girls had gone.

‘I have recently seen two examples of your work,’ said Swann.

‘Ah, you’re one of those. Like ‘em young, do you?’

‘No, you misunderstand me. I meant, your other work, the portraits where you age the sitter.’

‘Oh yeah, they’re mine.’

‘Well, I wish to commission you to complete one for me.’

‘I don’t do that kind of painting any more.’

‘You will be well paid for it.’

‘The work I do now pays well enough,’ said the artist and gestured to where the girls had been posing.

‘You will also be performing a great service in bringing a criminal to justice,’ Swann added.

‘Look mister, for a start I’m not a performing monkey and unless you didn’t hear me properly, I don’t paint
those
kind of portraits any more.’

Swann abruptly grabbed the artist by the throat.

‘Unless you didn’t hear
me
properly, let me explain more fully. This isn’t one of your morbid curiosities or practical jokes,’ said Swann angrily. ‘I want this portrait completed for a specific and personal reason and you
will
do this for me. Otherwise I’ll make sure you’re not able to paint anything for a living again.’

The two men’s gazes met as the artist looked straight into Swann’s eyes.

‘Alright, I’ll do it,’ gasped the flush-cheeked artist, his windpipe squeezed by Swann’s right hand. At this Swann released his grip and the artist staggered back a step or two, dropped to his knees and then coughed violently several times.

‘Don’t blame me if you aren’t happy at what you become though,’ spluttered the artist from his subservient position, after he had recovered slightly.

It took a moment for Swann to realise what the artist had meant but then he said, ‘It is not a portrait of myself I seek, but of a man I knew twenty years ago. I wish to know what his appearance would be like today.’

‘And you have an image of him from that time?’

‘No, but I can give you a description of him.’

‘Then I’m sorry, I can’t do it.’

Swann went to grab the artist again but the man raised his hands submissively.

‘No really, I can only paint from what I see,’ he clarified, ‘not what I hear. It is the truth.’

Swann stepped back and listened as the artist continued to speak.

‘I need something visual to work from. Do you not have anything with his image on it as he was then, a portrait, a drawing?’

Swann shook his head but thought for a moment.

‘If I could supply you with a sketch of this man as he looked twenty years ago, but drawn from memory, would that be enough for you?’

The other man nodded.

‘I don’t care how it is done,’ the artist said, ‘I just need something tangible to focus my attention. The more accurate your sketch is though the more accurate my portrait will be.’

‘Then you agree to it?’ clarified Swann.

‘Yes, but I’ll name my price, as the process takes a lot out of me.’

‘Then we have a contract, sir,’ said Swann. ‘I will aim to bring you the sketch later today. Will you be here?’

‘I am always here. I never go anywhere,’ replied the artist.

Swann left and went back downstairs. The girls were huddled on the staircase, their bodies still covered by the threadbare dark green material, but what Swann had momentarily witnessed in the studio caused him to stop beside them. Their pubertal breasts were not yet fully developed but other than that, nothing else betrayed their tender years. Their scrawny bodies were pock-riddled and undernourished, while their eyes held the wretchedness of having to live out their godforsaken existences here. He placed a handful of coins beside them.

‘Use these to buy something to eat,’ he said, softly. Whether they would, he could only hope, but he had made the gesture. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he heard the artist shouting to the girls to go back up to his studio.

Swann left the building with a melancholic air and headed back towards Great Pulteney Street. There was not a moment to lose.

By the time Swann had returned to the house following his visit to the artist, he was in a slightly better frame of mind than when he had left the studio, as during the walk back he had convinced himself that Mary would be willing to undertake the task he was to ask of her. He certainly possessed the utmost confidence in being able to recall every detail of the Scarred Man from all those years before, he thought, as he entered the house, but whether his sister could transpose those would be another matter. He did not know whether she had drawn Lockhart’s portrait from memory, but it was definitely accurate, that much was true. So hopefully she would also be able to sketch the portrait he required.

On being asked, Mary had initially been reluctant to carry out her brother’s request, but after seeing how much it meant to him, she had relented and agreed to at least try and sketch a portrait of the man, whose features had been locked in his memory for all this time. Swann had closed his eyes as he began to recall the man’s face, but in doing so, his mind had been transported back once more to the events of that fatal night.

The boy stared at the third upturned cup and the empty space beneath it. He could not believe it, he
would
not believe it. The pea had not been under the first cup, his pick of the three, even though he had observed the small, shrivelled-up object being put under the inverted wooden cup and, with all the concentration he could muster, had then watched as his father shuffled it around the other two cups on the table. It had not been under the second cup either, which he had lifted once his father had left the kitchen to greet the master. This had left the final cup, the remaining one under which the pea must be located. And yet, as he could now see, even if he did not believe it, there was also nothing beneath that one.

In that moment, however, he suddenly realised what had happened. The pea had never been under
any
of the cups! His father had somehow managed to retain it before commencing the game. It was an illusion. There was no way one could guess correctly. As for the boy’s part in his own deception, he had been too busy focusing on the cup his father had made a show of putting the pea under that he obviously did not see him slip it into his pocket.

The sound of the smashing vase in the hallway crashed into his thoughts and the next moment he found himself watching as his father struggled with the man he now knew as the Scarred Man. He caught a brief glimpse of his features sideways on, but it was only when the two men were on the floor in the front room that he had got a sustained look at his face, the details of which remained in his memory to this day.

‘Was it like this, Jack?’ asked Mary. ‘Jack? Jack!’

‘Sorry Mary, my mind was elsewhere,’ replied Swann as he opened his eyes. Back in the present he now viewed the sketch on the small easel in front of him.

‘Is it a good likeness?’ asked Mary.

Swann did not answer as he was utterly entranced by the image in front of him. Mary turned to her brother.

‘Jack?’

‘That is him,’ he said. ‘That is the man I saw that murderous night.’

Mary gazed at her brother empathetically and stroked his arm. ‘Oh, Jack,’ she said quietly. ‘Perhaps I should not have done this for you after all.’

‘No Mary, thank you. You can not begin to imagine what you have given me.’ Swann stared at the sketch again. His sister’s ability to produce what had been inside Swann all these years was a true gift. If the artist was able to visualise the future, then Mary had been able to reconstruct the past and in doing so bring it alive for him. It was as if the man was in the room now and had been sitting for the portrait which his sister had sketched. Every time he looked at the likeness a shiver went down his spine. Mary had more than done her job, now it was up to the artist to do his.

‘Jack, I have to express what is on my mind,’ Mary said, gently but firmly. ‘What if the artist is a charlatan, if he has no gift and is only deceiving you?’

‘You did not see the other two portraits,’ replied Swann.

‘Yes, but they are of men as the artist believes they will become in the future and so they cannot be authenticated for years to come.’

Swann looked at his sister intently. ‘I am sure of this,’ he said. Somewhere deep inside of him he knew he had to seize this opportunity and had nothing to fear except disappointment. ‘I have no choice, Mary,’ he added. ‘Besides, as the portrait will be of a man as he is today, the artist’s authenticity can therefore be substantiated swiftly.’

Swann stood up.

‘I had better deliver this sketch to the artist,’ he said. ‘The quicker he receives it, the earlier he can begin his process. Thank you once again, my dear sister.’

Swann took the drawing and prepared to leave. As he opened the main door of the house, however, he recognised one of Fitzpatrick’s men standing on the front step, in the act of raising his hand to knock on the door.

‘Oh, Mr Swann, there you are. I hope it does not trouble you to be disturbed at home, sir, but I have already visited the White Hart Inn, as well as your rooms in Gay Street, in order to find you.’