The Hogarth Conspiracy (21 page)

Unrolling the canvas, Victor stared at the painting Hogarth had created over two hundred years before. The picture the artist himself had hidden. It shook in his hands as Polly Gunnell smiled up at him, as he easily recognized the Prince of Wales. Carefully he rolled up the precious canvas and slid it back into the handle of the bat, securing the tape over the end, and placed it back among Annette Dvorski's clothes. He then closed the case, locked it, and rested his hands on the lid.

He had no idea what would happen next. All that mattered in the sticky, overdeodorized interior of the cab was that Victor Ballam, late of Long Lartin Prison, was back in the running. He had in his possession what every other dealer around the globe would want. He had the artistic Semtex that could blow the market apart and reestablish him. Nothing would give Victor back his lost status, but the picture could propel him to heights beyond social and moral judgment.

Weary but ecstatic, he held his arms around the suitcase. In among a whore's clothes, makeup, and shoes lay a baseball bat: the unedifying but temporary tomb of Hogarth's masterpiece.

Twenty-Six

W
ITH THE BILL AT THE
F
RIARS
H
OSPITAL IN
L
ONDON RUNNING AT
eighteen hundred pounds a week, Elizabeth Wilkes was thinking that if her son had
had
to take an overdose, he certainly had chosen to recover in comfort. After all, even if he was unconscious, his surroundings would matter to him. She smiled loosely at the two people on the opposite side of her son's bed: a young man of around twenty-five and a girl who looked no more than eighteen. Pale and part Indian, the girl was plainly dressed in black, but when she rested her hands on the bed's iron railing, her rings clinked against the metal.
Hardly
that
much of a child
, Elizabeth thought, mentally assessing the price of the largest opal.

The man, Ronan Levy, was already known to her as one of a succession of young men Kit had promenaded around London like a prize Pomeranian at a dog show. He looked distraught and had obviously been crying. Even in winter Ronan Levy was tanned, but the tan didn't disguise the pallor beneath and seemed only to accentuate the makeup on his face. Eyebrows, arched and tattooed into shape, stood out over his watery eyes like two black tadpoles fighting to return to the water.

“I tell you, it wasn't an accident,” he said, his tone edgy as he looked at Kit's mother.

He had said it before, but again his words brought no response. Wondering if Elizabeth Wilkes had heard, Ronan then realized that she was simply ignoring him and slumped farther down in his chair. His eyes scanned her: the Prada suit, the sable coat hanging over the edge of the chair and brushing the side of her Blahnik suede boot. Faultlessly groomed, Elizabeth Wilkes had all the appearance of wealth without the confidence of someone born to it. Clothes that should have acted as a background to her good looks seemed to overwhelm her; even her hairstyle was too fashionable to be comfortable. Fit and well honed, she attracted admiration in most circles, but on closer inspection it was obvious how urgently her looks were fighting the aging process. So far it was a draw.

Ronan tried again. “The overdose wasn't an accident.”

She hissed him quiet. “You don't know what you're talking about!”

“Kit said—”

“Kit says a lot of things,” Elizabeth cut in. “Most are lies. He's my son; I should know.”

“Something happened to him.”

She snorted softly.

“
It did!
” Ronan turned to the girl next to him. “I told you, didn't I? We talked when he got back to London, and then this happened.” He held Elizabeth's brittle look. “He never overdosed; he never used enough to overdose. He was in control of it.”

“That's what every addict says.”

“Kit isn't an addict.”

“No, but you are,” she said smartly, seeing him for what he was and challenging him. “How do I know it wasn't you who introduced him to drugs?”

“Kit was on drugs long before I met him,” Ronan replied defensively. “He talked about it, let on like he used at lot more drugs than he did. But he was actually careful.”

“Kit's never careful about anything,” Elizabeth said, secretly proud of her son's infamous reputation. “He can't control himself.” She picked up a card nestling among some flowers and read out the inscription: “‘From all your friends at the
Daily Star.
' How tasteful. I suppose he'll sell his near-death experience when he comes around.”

“He's your son!”

“And
your
lover!” she countered. “But I daresay I get top billing.”

Falling silent, Ronan began chewing the inside of his lip; the girl drummed her fingers on the bed rail. Silenced by a look from Elizabeth, she left the room, and Ronan took his chance. Leaning over the bed, his tone urgent, he said, “Mrs. Wilkes, listen to me. Please. I really think something's going on. I don't think this was an accident.”

Wearily, Elizabeth stared into the tanned face. “It's a publicity stunt.”

“Kit's dying.”

In an instant her expression shifted from cold hauteur to crumbling unease. “
Dying?
”

Ronan nodded. “I overheard one of the doctors talking.”

“Dying? My son?” She sounded dazed as she leaned forward, the sable falling unnoticed onto the floor.

Frantically she took hold of Kit's hand, staring into the sphinx face, the child's mouth. Confusion and panic were scrambling her thoughts. How could she live without her beloved son? He was everything to her. They had always been so close; he had told her everything. And they had planned every step as soon as he was old enough to understand. Elizabeth remembered how she had coached him about his father, fueling Kit's resentment, encouraging his feeling of betrayal.

Although she manipulated him to believe it was his idea, it was actually Elizabeth who had put the tabloids to work. It was she who had first filtered through information about James Holden. It was she who had set in motion the beginnings of the publicity hunger that had served them both so well. She was not driven by any feelings of lost love or rejection but by a determination to be rich. And to use any means at her disposal to accomplish that.

When Elizabeth became pregnant with James Holden's child, she swung into action with the speed and force of a juggernaut. No intellectual, she had the guile of a hedonist and the will not to relinquish any of her power. So she battled, playing the child card with Holden and begging for support for his son. When pleading didn't work, she resorted to threats: She would inform his wife. She would inform the papers. She would make sure that his well-placed society friends deserted him, that the esteem he had courted so assiduously would sink without trace in the mire of scandal.

Her threats took a while to register but effected the desired result. In private, Elizabeth had an income settled on her and her son, together with a small gallery in Chelsea. And as Kit grew up, he surpassed all of Elizabeth's hopes. The chip on his shoulder, the personal affront he felt for himself and his mother, steadily grew under her poisonous guidance. Acting as a wronged and helpless woman, Elizabeth succeeded in turning her teenage son into her private avenger. By the time Kit Wilkes was fifteen, he was hopelessly in thrall to his mother and as bitter as a disillusioned old man. His main aim in life was to please Elizabeth, and in doing so he indulged his own hatred of his father.

And now her snake-clever son was dying? Elizabeth stared in anguish at Kit lying there. Without him, what would she do? Without him there would be no income, no gallery. If he died, what hold would she have over his MP father? The papers wouldn't care about
her
story; she was just one more middle-aged jilted woman. Without the persona and glitter of Kit Wilkes, she was nothing. Dear God, Elizabeth thought to herself, was this her reward? After her endless devotion, was she going to be left alone?

“He
can't
die,” she said helplessly. “You heard the doctor wrongly.”

“No, I didn't,” Ronan insisted, his distress intensifying. “They said that it wasn't just the drugs Kit had used but the quantity. They said it was too much.”

“Too much for what?”

“Too much for
him
—and that's what doesn't make sense. Kit knows his limitations. Oh, he acts like a madman, but he's not stupid; he's always in control. He looks after himself.”

Elizabeth thought of her son's obsession with having every one of his lovers medically checked out by the unctuous Dr. Eli Fountain. And his own regular health checks, his attention to hygiene. She didn't want to admit it, but Ronan was right; Kit
was
too careful to risk himself. So if her son hadn't accidentally overdosed and it
wasn't
a publicity stunt, who was responsible?

“Someone did this to him?” she asked, her voice so low that Ronan strained to hear her.

“Someone must have done it.”

“Why?”

“I don't know,” Ronan admitted, suddenly wondering if he should have told her, if Elizabeth Wilkes might do something stupid and endanger all of them. “But Kit was a different person when he came back to London. To be honest, I thought it was because of Guy Manners—”

Her head shot up at the notorious name. “Guy Manners? What's he got to do with Kit?”

“Kit said he was going to do some business with him. I didn't like it. Everyone knows what a bastard Manners is, but Kit wouldn't listen to me. He said they were going to meet up after he came back from China.”

“What
business
could he have had with Guy Manners?”

“I don't know, but Kit said something that's stuck in my mind, and I keep thinking about it. He said, ‘Don't worry about me if I'm unavailable for a while.'”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Ronan shrugged. “It was just something he said when he got back to London. He'd been going to catch an earlier flight, but it was canceled, and he came back on a private plane after someone offered him a lift. Thing is, one of the passengers on the private flight was murdered the night they got back.”

“
What?
”

“A call girl.” Ronan's voice was just above a whisper as he went on. “And a strange coincidence happened only the day afterward. The owner of the plane was killed.”

Having let Kit take charge for years, Elizabeth found that her mental processes took a little longer to kick into gear.

“What are you talking about?”

“The man who owned the plane died in a road accident in New York.”

“So?”

“He was an important art dealer.”

“So?”

“He was powerful, really powerful.”

She shrugged. “Who was he?”

“Bernie Freeland.”

As Elizabeth heard the name, she paled. Her whole body tensed as she rose to her feet, her glamour gone, her age suddenly showing.

And worse, she looked afraid.

Twenty-Seven

B
REATHING IN,
O
LIVER
P
ETERS CLUTCHED HIS STOMACH AND FELT FOR
the pill bottle in his jacket pocket. Hastily he swallowed two painkillers and slumped onto one of the Tate Gallery's hard wooden benches, his thoughts turning to his brother-in-law, Ambrose Wilton. Oliver wondered fleetingly if Ambrose would help Sonia after his death but dismissed the idea immediately. Almost a recluse, Ambrose had no interest in family. Living in Ireland, he spent his days breeding wolfhounds and treated everyone like a lackey. The family money ensured that Ambrose could run his estate, but Oliver had had to bail his brother-in-law out on a number of occasions because of ill-timed or ruinous gambles. Ambrose had never offered Oliver any thanks for his pains; almost since birth he had felt entitled. Entitled to money, status, power. Unlike his gracious sister, he kept himself distant from a world he treated with complete disdain.
No,
Oliver thought,
Ambrose Wilton would not be of any use at all.