The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
The Goldenacre
Episode 46
Mungo left the room and shouted through from his small office. “So, Ms Peters called, and also a man from the police.” “Can you please bring them in here?” Tallis yelled back. Mungo came in with two yellow Post-it notes.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Mungo, has Carver mentioned Bobby and I visiting the Farquharsons?”
Mungo became suddenly pale. “No, he has not. But I haven’t seen Sir Dennis,” he said, whispering.
“Because I will have to go back there. They didn’t have The Goldenacre on the site yesterday. So if you are nervous about that, I won’t tell you when I go again.”
Mungo shook his head. He bit a nail. “It’s fine. It’s fine. I was a little overwrought,” he said. “You didn’t see the painting?”
Tallis shook his head. “No. Bobby and I were left disappointed. She was quite annoyed. For good reason.”
Mungo shook his head and disappeared back into his office. Tallis called the police number. It was Reculver’s number.
A rough voice answered. “Reculver,” said.
Tallis explained who he was, and why he was calling.
“Ah, Mr Tallis,” Detective Reculver said. “Thanks for calling. I need to ask you a question, but I propose that the substance of this remains something just between me and you right now. No need to come to Comely Bank.”
“Comely Bank?”
“The wee house where the polis Reculver said.
“OK,” Tallis said uncertainly.
“Did you know the Scottish painter Robert Love? Was he an acquaintance of yours in the art world?”
“The artist who just died?”
Tallis felt his stomach roll. “Indeed, Mr Love. “Bob”, to his friends.” “No, not at all.”
“Never met him? Or dealt with him, or his work?”
Tallis shook his head. “No, never. Of course, I was aware of his name, but in London I did not deal with his work or... He was a good painter. I was shocked to see the news.”
“Never seen his work in the flesh?” “No. Why do you ask?” it live,”
“Well, you arrive in town, man from the government, and suddenly a painter is deid,” Reculver said baldly.
Tallis’s heart leapt. “But...”
“Calm. Don’t get in a fankle,” Reculver said, and it sounded like he was smiling. “If you get any other strange post, let us know straight away, won’t you?”
“Of course, but why would I? Should expect more?”
“Goodbye, Mr touch.”
The line went dead.
The room was silent.
He stood and walked to the table and drank a glass of water quickly. He had sweat in the small of his back. He looked at a book that he had left on the table – a history of late Mackintosh works.
Tallis opened it at a page with a plate of a painting. He sat and studied it intently.
It was a grey and silver image of deep and gorgeous mystery.
Two women floated in a dimension of magic. One seemed to be wearing a wedding veil, or perhaps the garments of mourning.
Behind this beautiful woman was another: perhaps older, certainly darker. Around and about the women – who floated, who were without gravity, as if in a dream – were orbs of silver and white, globes that seemed to grow from the background.
They could have been a strange fruit, or the stars of a galaxy. Or a pile of skulls in a catacomb.
He looked at the title: the painting wasn’t by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. It was by his wife, Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh.
It was called The Silver Apples of the Moon. It was created in 1912, years before The Goldenacre, but it had the same uncanny sense, a glimpse of the world beyond the veil. A vision from another place. Like The Goldenacre, it had also been created in pencil and watercolour, and highlighted with gold paint and gum arabic.
It was painted on gesso-prepared paper and laid on cardboard. It was unclear whether it had ever been framed, or seen in public.
The painting was included in the book, but the author seemed not to have mentioned why.
Tallis. We shall be
Iin
Tallis pages.
Then he found the image again. It shimmered before him, glistening with uncanny loveliness.
“What a beautiful thing,” Tallis said out loud.
“Well, thank you,” Mungo said. Tallis started. His assistant had appeared with another cup of tea.
“The picture, here,” Tallis said, pointing. “Oh, that is lovely,” Mungo said, craning his neck to see. “How pretty. Spooky too. Haunting. Is that in our store?”
“No. It really is beautiful – I really don’t know much about Margaret Macdonald, which is my loss: I need to find out more. She was obviously spectacularly talented.
Looking at this, it’s clear she influenced Mackintosh. I wonder if that is a man or a woman behind this woman in the foreground. I think it might be a man now. Look.”
“It’s ambidextrous,” Mungo said. “Ambiguous,” Tallis said. “It says here, this painting is untraced.
“This painting is missing.”
“More mysteries,” Mungo said.
The desk phone rang with a shrill bleat. “I guess that is for you,” Mungo said.
“I suspect so,” Tallis said, “given this my office.”
He placed the book down and went to get the phone, and Mungo disappeared again.
“Thomas Tallis,” the voice at the other end of the line said.
“Yes?”
“Catherine Peters.” She spoke as if she was saying her name for the first time. A hard “C” and a propelled “P”.
“Ah. Thanks for calling back.”
“I am calling you again.” “Rightly so. Sorry. Yes, I... yesterday...” flipped, annoyed, through
More tomorrow. its is
Philip Miller lives in Edinburgh. An awardwinning journalist for 20 years, he is now a civil servant. The Goldenacre, published by Birlinn, follows his previous novels, The Blue Horse and All The Galaxies. His latest novel, The Hollow Tree, is to be a sequel to The Goldenacre.