The Goldenacre Episode 29 “I

made the appointment for you to go and see the painting anyway,” Mungo said. “Maybe I should cancel. Sir Dennis is my boss.” “I have to honour it,” Tallis said. Mungo’s eyes widened. “But he doesn’t want you to go.”

“I need to see it, in the flesh,” Tallis said. “I cannot leave until I have witnessed it myself.”

“I think we have all seen enough flesh this week,” Mungo said, shuddering.

The deer and stags were moving in lines over colour-saturated glens and moors.

They loped over Mungo’s pale face. His cheeks became snowy hills, his eyes icy ponds. Antlers spread across his forehead.

“When did you arrange it for?” Tallis said softly.

“What?”

“My visit to see The Goldenacre, Mungo.” “Ten, at Denholm House. With that strange woman, Ms Peters. The twins might not be there, she said. But –”

“It’s fine, Mungo. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Tallis put a hand on Mungo’s tweedy shoulder. “I will talk to Carver . . .”

“I would really rather you didn’t.”

“. . . if he mentions it. But look at it this way: I am the government, am I not? It is my job to check and ascertain and study and investigate and, in the end, come to some kind of conclusions about this painting. Yes?”

“Yes,” Mungo said weakly.

“This painting is a major gift to the Public Gallery. Yes, it’s well documented, and it’s clearly a Charles Rennie Mackintosh masterpiece. But it’s joining the collection, it’s down the road in the Borders, and it’s worth twelve million. Twelve million pounds, Mungo. That is of tax that will not be paid, in whole or in part. So, why cannot I run my eyes over it? Make sure it is, indeed, what we think – and let’s face it – know it is? What’s the problem?”

“Sir Dennis was resolute. He was rude,” Mungo said.

“He was definitive.”

“Does he scare you?” Tallis asked. Mungo looked at him. He shook his head gently.

“Of course he does. And if he asks where you are, I shall plead absolute and total ignorance.”

Mungo turned and looked at the film. The stags were moving across a brown landscape. Rusty heather and a dark sky.

“This is a very clever film,” he said. “It makes me feel both lonely and afraid and yet hopeful. What if, Thomas, you are driving down to Denholm House, and you crash, and die, or are seriously injured?” “I’m loving this fantasia of yours, so far.” “Mangled, in some way.” “Mangled . . . OK.”

“And then Carver comes cutting into the office and interrogates me, grills me, on why you were in a car going to the Borders,” Mungo said, hissing his words in the gloomy room. “What shall I say then?”

“Just say I ignored your – his – request not to go. Which is a weird one, anyway.”

Mungo shook his head. “You don’t know how this place works,” he said.

He seemed to have composed himself a little more.

“I don’t work here. Carver is not my boss. What he says, does not necessarily go.”

Mungo shook his head and rubbed his face, his eyes closed.

He stood up.

“Mungo, which room is Theseus

Campbell in?”

“E06. He always has excellent coffee.” “Thank you, Mungo,” Tallis said, and made a play of waving his hand in the direction of the door.

“You are dismissed.”

Mungo glared at him. “Don’t say that.” He walked out.

Tallis watched the film for a while. The island landscape unfurled under stormy skies.

The copper sea buckled and bent. The stags proliferated, glitched, changed in size and shape. Colours strobed and shifted in and out of phase. Luminous colours flashed around the antlers. There were tiny lightning flares and forks.

A young bearded father with two flossyhaired boys walked into the room, one in a pushchair, head slumped asleep. The older child stood, his eyes glazed, unblinking, and pointed at the screen.

“Boring,” he said loudly. The man and children left.

Tallis walked out and along the corridor, past other new installations, to the lift. He thought he remembered the way the rooms were organised: E meant Campbell’s room was on the fourth floor. He exited the lift and walked into the dark corridor. No public came here.

There were drab, colourless walls and a rough carpet. No art on the walls.

The ceilings were lower – staff quarters, these rooms had been, when the gallery was an orphanage, many years ago. He found the room and rapped with his knuckle on the green painted door. “Yes?” a deep voice said.

Tallis walked in.

It was spacious, deep with books. Large abstract paintings on the wall. There was an orange painting leant against the wall between two square windows. Sheer colour, it frazzled his eyes.

At a large wooden desk sat Theseus Campbell and, in a soft chair pulled up to the desk, was a woman in jeans and a sweatshirt.

“Thomas, my man. Good to see you,” Theseus said, smiling.

“Wait, are you lost?”

“No, no,” Tallis said. “I just wanted a word.”

“This is Dr Roberta Donnelly, Thomas, our mysterious and wonderful head of conversations,” Theseus said, extending a hand to the woman and smiling.

“Conservation,” she said, unsmiling. “You can call me Bobby.”

Theseus chuckled.

“Welcome to the Underground,” he said, offering Tallis a chair.

“Bobby and I meet here with fellow conspirators and try to bring down the Carver regime. But you are now sworn to secrecy.”

“Oh, really?” Tallis said, who found himself eager to be in on the joke: if it was one. He was still standing in the middle of the room.

More tomorrow.

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.

It’s joining the collection, it’s down the road in the Borders, and it’s worth twelve million