Free Long Time Coming by Robert Goddard Page A

returning to his natural domain after a lengthy absence. As promised, Twisk had booked us in for the week, with the rooms paid for in advance. I must have had a look of incredulity plastered on my face going up in the lift, because Eldritch said to me as we stepped out, ‘I didn’t mention this before because I didn’t want it to sway your decision.’
    The quip was a sign of the change that had crept over him since that evening at the Redcliffe. He’d recovered some confidence. He’d realized it wasn’t all over for him quite yet. The old fox was sniffing the breeze and wondering if his legs and lungs would support him for one last run in the open air with the sun on his back.
    But the change only went so far. It was left to me to tip the porter.
    I didn’t dally over unpacking, but still Eldritch was back downstairs ahead of me, sitting by the entrance to the Palm Court, happily watching the smartly dressed couples and quartets arriving for tea.
    ‘I used to dream about this hotel quite often while I was in the Portlaoise Hilton,’ he said, rising to meet me. ‘The tiny crustless sandwiches; the strawberries; the mirrors; the chandeliers; the champagne: the opulence.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve missed a lot of opulence these past thirty-six years.’
    ‘Maybe you should have kept your hands off Meridor’s Picassos, then,’ I said, keen to prevent his balloon of nostalgia inflating still further.
    He smiled. ‘That wasn’t my mistake, Stephen. But it is why we’re here. So, let’s go and see those famous Picassos, shall we?’
    The Brownlow Collection was doing healthy business at the Royal Academy. There were in fact too many visitors for proper viewing of the paintings. This didn’t bother Eldritch unduly. He had no wish to peer and pose and cock his head in front of the late multi-millionaire’s sumptuous array of art in general. He was interested in one room only, to which we threaded our way through the goggling ruck.
    There were eighteen Picassos in all: nudes twisted out of shape; portraits with dismantled features; still lifes in which nothing was still; collage-like assemblies of disparate objects; colourful explosions of form and figure. They spanned a period of about twenty-five years, from 1907 through to the early thirties. I recognized some of them from reproductions I’d seen. There could be no doubt they were a prime selection.
    Eldritch went slowly round, scrutinizing each one in turn, often having to wait while someone else moved out of his way. I stood by the door after a brief circuit, wondering what exactly he was looking for. The attendant, a silver-haired, flush-faced fellow wholooked to have put on a couple of stone since being measured for his uniform, was slumped in a chair next to me. He stifled a yawn at frequent intervals. Eventually, I took pity on him.
    ‘Picasso not your thing?’ I murmured.
    ‘You said it, sir,’ he replied in a gravelly undertone. ‘I mean, what was he getting at? Give me Constable any day.’
    ‘Time hangs heavy, I imagine, sitting here for hours on end.’
    ‘Oh, they move us around a bit. And you never know. Someone might try to grab one of the pictures and leg it. Then I’d have to earn my money.’
    ‘But it hasn’t happened yet?’
    ‘No, sir. Though we do have a young woman who comes in just about every morning as soon as we open and makes a bee-line for this room. She likes to see the pictures before there’s anyone else in, so she tells me. Pleasant girl. But cracked as my coronation mug. She reckons as she’s the rightful owner of this lot. Or her family are. I forget exactly. Anyhow, I wouldn’t be altogether surprised if she tried to steal one.’
    ‘Take it back, you mean. If she’s telling the truth.’
    ‘Exactly, sir.
If
. Either way, it’d be no hardship to have to rugby-tackle her.’ He chuckled. ‘I should be so lucky.’
    It was a snap decision of mine not to tell Eldritch about the persistent young woman. He was