He led her over, excusing them quietly past the silent onlookers, and into the alcove in which the exhibit had been placed. It was still hanging there, still perfectly lit from above, but no longer in the form of the artist's vision. The gold frame… about five feet deep by four feet wide, r i, Rose estimated… was largely undamaged, although foam from a fire extinguisher still dripped from it in places, forming puddles on the floor below, but the painting itself had been virtually destroyed. It was a mass of blackened, hanging threads with a gaping hole in the centre through ill which the scorched wall behind could be seen. Three of its corners retained colour and shape, but even they were badly blistered.
"Pretty comprehensive," the detective superintendent muttered.
"Oh yes," Steele agreed. "I haven't touched it, and neither did the fire boys, but Grogan said he thought that an incendiary device had been placed behind it, in the bottom left corner. You'll see that's been completely destroyed. As I said, he thinks we'll find the remains of a timing device when the technicians look behind it."
"When did it happen?"
"I can tell you that," a dry, cultured voice interrupted. Rose turned to look up at a tall, grey-haired man in a dark business suit, with flecks of dandruff about its shoulders and lapels.
"This is Mr. David Candela, the senior partner of Candela and Finch,"
Steele explained.
"I thought this was your bicentenary," she said to the man.
He nodded, taking her meaning at once. "It is, but there's been a
Candela in the firm since its foundation. We're very proud of the family connection. It's unique in its longevity, I believe."
"Congratulations," said the detective. "Now tell me about the present."
"Certainly. I was right in the middle of my opening speech, standing just there…" he pointed to a spot in below the Botticelli which hung on the far wall '… when there was a damn great whoosh to my right, and the damn thing went up in flames.
"I got quite a shock, I can tell you. All hell broke loose, of course; the curator, who was standing beside me, went into a blue funk and ran off to call 999. A couple of the security Johnnies, they grabbed fire extinguishers and started to go at the fire. It was going like.. " he gave a short braying laugh at an impending joke '… like blazes, I suppose, but they got it out eventually. By the time they did, though, it looked like that. It's a bit of a bugger, really; we're underwriting the insurance costs of this show."
"Has your firm upset anyone lately, Mr. Candela?" Rose asked.
"My dear lady," the man replied, affably, 'my firm has been upsetting people for two hundred years now. We have developed a style over that time which tends to get right up the noses of the people on the opposite side of disputes in which we become involved. Kick 'em bloody hard in the thingamajigs; it's the only way in litigation, and we're bloody good at it, I can tell you."
Smiling in spite of her dislike of being taken for a dear lady, Rose nodded towards the wrecked painting. "Can you think of anyone you might have upset enough for them to do that to you?"
Mr. Candela drew himself up, seeming to find another couple of inches in height in the process. "Dear lady…" he began.
"Superintendent," said Maggie, affably.
"Superintendent then," he continued, unruffled, 'the people against whom we litigate tend not to be, shall I say, at that end of the market. They went to different schools. Some of them may be arse holes I'll admit, but I do not believe that any of them are arsonists.
Go down that road if you choose; I'll co-operate, if only to annoy some of the buggers even more, but you won't find your man among them."
Rose sighed. "I'm sure you're right, Mr. Candela, but I can't take that as read. It's a line of enquiry I'll have to follow." She turned to Steele. "Stevie, a word."
They walked back to the alcove from which they had come, in time to see the red-haired Inspector Arthur Dorward, the head of the scene-of-crime team, slouch glumly into the hall. "Another unhappy copper," said Rose, in greeting. "It's over there. We think you'll find the remains of a firebomb behind it. As usual, we'd like to know everything about it, and we'd like to know yesterday. If that's not possible, later on today will do.
"While you're at that, Stevie and I will start to go through the basics." She pointed up into a corner of the gallery towards a video camera. "That has to be connected to a tape. Maybe we'll get lucky and it'll give us a result."
Steele looked at her with something approaching disdain. "Sure, Maggie, sure, and maybe God really is a woman."
Eight
Sarah stood on the porch of the cabin. The sun was rising in the sky, its light glistening and dancing on the waters of the lake, and the day was becoming hot, yet she clutched herself as if she was shivering.
"It's taken a hell of an effort for you to come here, hasn't it?" Ron Neidholm murmured from behind her.
She glanced at him over her shoulder as he leaned against the frame of the open door. He was one of the biggest quarterbacks in football history, six feet five and two hundred and forty-five pounds according to the official website, and he seemed to fill it.
"Oh it has," she agreed. "At first, you know, I decided that I never wanted to see this place, the house where my parents were murdered.
Then gradually, I realised that I had to, if I was ever going to come to terms with it. It was really nice of you to offer to bring me up here; I could never have come on my own.
"Even with you alongside me, it wasn't easy; you probably didn't notice, but the closer we got along the road, the more I was trembling."
He reached out and touched her shoulder, then slipped his fingers through her auburn hair, and rubbed her neck gently, feeling her tension. "I noticed all right," he said, as he moved close behind her.
She leaned against him; her eyes closed as her head fell back against his chest. "How do you feel now?" he asked.
"I don't know," she whispered. "I feel that I should cry, but I can't.
At one point I thought I'd drench the place in gasoline and burn it to the ground, in a grand gesture, but now that I've seen it, I can't do that either. It's just so beautiful here."
"Beautiful, and isolated; and vulnerable."
"You don't need to remind me."
Feeling a small shudder run through her, he slid his arms around her and held her tight. "I'm sorry. It was stupid of me to say that.. but then I never did have a way with words."
She turned in his embrace, and looked up at him. "You didn't need it," she said, with a smile in her eyes, if not on her lips. "You had other ways."
"I still have, honey: I still have."
"I'll bet you do. And plenty of opportunity to use them too, I'll bet. In Britain or America, you foot ballers are all the same."
His face took on a mock frown. "Hey, I'm a national figure; I can't get up to stuff like that. Besides, when you get past the thirty mark, the groupies tend to pass you by."
"More fools them, I'm sure."
"Nah, they just assume there's a little wife at home, that's all. Most times they're right, too; most of my contemporaries have families."
"Have you ever been married, Ron?". "No. Not even close."
"Why not?"
"Football."
"That can't go on for ever."
"I know."
"What you said the other night, about maybe giving up… were you serious?"
"I'm always serious, Sarah, especially about you."
Sarah took a deep breath and looked up at him. "Ron, things have changed since we had our thing at college; apart from everything else,
I have three kids."
"Yeah, and great kids they are; I hope I can spend a little more time with them when I take you back." He glanced around the surrounding woods and out across the water. "Now you've finally seen this place, do you think you might keep it for them to enjoy?"