Twelve Red Herrings Read online

  It was open.

  Her clothes were now drenched in sweat. She slowed down, wrenched the gearbox into second, and threw the car between the gap and into the bumpy driveway, hitting the gatepost on her right-hand side as she careened on up toward the house. The van didn’t hesitate to follow her and was still only inches behind as she straightened up. Diana kept her hand pressed down on the horn as the car bounced and lurched over the mounds and potholes.

  Flocks of startled crows flapped out of overhanging branches, screeching as they shot into the air. Diana began screaming, “Daniel! Daniel!” Two hundred yards ahead of her, the porch light went on.

  Her headlights were now shining onto the front of the house and her hand was still pressed on the horn. With a hundred yards to go, she spotted Daniel coming out of the front door, but she didn’t slow down, and neither did the van behind her. With fifty yards to go she began flashing her lights at Daniel. She could now make out the puzzled, anxious expression on his face.

  With thirty yards to go she threw on her brakes. The heavy sedan skidded across the gravel in front of the house, coming to a halt in the flower bed just below the kitchen window. She heard the screech of brakes behind her. The leather-jacketed man, unfamiliar with the terrain, had been unable to react quickly enough, and as soon as his wheels touched the graveled area he began to skid out of control. A second later the van came crashing into the back of her car, slamming it against the wall of the house and shattering the glass in the kitchen window.

  Diana leapt out of the car, screaming, “Daniel! Get a gun, get a gun!” She pointed back at the van. “That bastard’s been chasing me for the last twenty miles!”

  The man jumped out of the van and began limping toward them.

  Diana ran into the house. Daniel followed and grabbed a shotgun, normally reserved for rabbits, that was leaning against the wall. He ran back outside to face the unwelcome visitor, who had come to a halt by the back of Diana’s Audi.

  Daniel raised the shotgun to his shoulder and stared straight at him. “Don’t move or I’ll shoot,” he said calmly. And then he remembered the gun wasn’t loaded. Diana ducked back out of the house, but remained several yards behind him.

  “Not me! Not me!” shouted the leather-jacketed youth, as Rachael appeared in the doorway.

  “What’s going on?” she asked nervously.

  “Ring for the police,” was all Daniel said, and his wife quickly disappeared back into the house.

  Daniel advanced toward the terrified-looking young man, the gun aimed squarely at his chest.

  “Not me! Not me!” he shouted again, pointing at the Audi. “He’s in the car!” He quickly turned to face Diana. “I saw him get in when you were parked on the hard shoulder. What else could I have done? You just wouldn’t pull over.”

  Daniel advanced cautiously toward the rear door of the car and ordered the young man to open it slowly, while he kept the gun aimed at his chest.

  The youth opened the door, and quickly took a pace backward. The three of them stared down at a man crouched on the floor of the car. In his right hand he held a long-bladed knife with a serrated edge. Daniel swung the barrel of the gun down to point at him, but said nothing.

  The sound of a police siren could just be heard in the distance.

  NOT FOR SALE

  Sally Summers won her school’s senior art prize at the age of fourteen. In her last four years at St. Bride’s, the only serious competition was for second place. When, in her final year, she was awarded the top scholarship to the Slade School of Fine Art, none of her contemporaries was at all surprised. The headmistress told the assembled parents on Speech Day that she was confident Sally had a distinguished career ahead of her and that her work would soon be exhibited in one of London’s major galleries. Sally was flattered by all this unqualified praise, but still wasn’t sure if she had any real talent.

  By the end of her first year at the Slade, the staff and senior students were already becoming aware of Sally’s work. Her drawing technique was regarded as quite exceptional, and her brushwork became bolder with each term. But, above all, it was the originality of her ideas that caused other students to stop and stare at her canvases.

  In her final year, Sally won both the Mary Rischgitz Prize for oil painting and the Henry Tonks Prize for drawing: a rare double. They were presented to her by Sir Roger de Grey, the president of the Royal Academy, and Sally was among that tiny group who were spoken of as “having a future.” But surely, she told her parents, that could be said of the top student in any year—and most of them ended up working in the creative departments of advertising agencies or teaching art to bored schoolchildren in far-flung parts of the kingdom.

  Once she had graduated, Sally had to decide whether she too would apply for a job with an advertising agency, take up a teaching appointment, or risk everything and try to put together enough original work for a London gallery to consider her for a one-woman show.

  Her parents were convinced that their daughter had real talent, but what do parents know when you’re their only child? thought Sally. Especially when one of them was a music teacher and the other an accountant who were the first to admit that they didn’t know much about art, but they knew what they liked. Still, they seemed quite willing to support her for another year if she wanted (to use an expression of the young) to go for it.

  Sally was painfully aware that, although her parents were fairly comfortably off, another year in which she produced no income could only be a burden for them. After much soul-searching, she told them, “One year, and one year only. After that, if the paintings aren’t good enough, or if no one shows any interest in exhibiting them, I’ll be realistic and look for a proper job.”

  For the next six months Sally worked hours that she hadn’t realized existed when she’d been a student. During that time she produced a dozen canvases. She allowed no one to see them for fear that her parents and friends would not be frank with her. She was determined to finish her portfolio and then listen only to the toughest opinions possible, those of the professional gallery owners, and, tougher still, those of the buying public.

  Sally had always been a voracious reader, and she continued to devour books and monographs on artists from Bellini to Hockney. The more she read, the more she became aware that however talented an artist might be, it was industry and dedication that ultimately marked out the few who succeeded from the many who failed. This inspired her to work still harder, and she began to turn down invitations to parties, dances, even weekends with old friends, making use of every spare moment to visit art galleries or to attend lectures on the great masters.

  By the eleventh month, Sally had completed twenty-seven works, but she still wasn’t sure whether they displayed any real talent. Nevertheless, she felt the time had finally come to allow others to pass judgment on them.

  She looked long and hard at each of the twenty-seven paintings, and the following morning she packed six of them in a large canvas folder her parents had given her the previous Christmas and joined the early-morning commuters on their journey from Sevenoaks into London.

  Sally began her quest in Cork Street, where she came across galleries exhibiting works by Bacon, Freud, Hockney, Dunston and Chadwick. She felt overawed at the prospect of even entering their portals, let alone submitting her own humble work to the appraisal of their proprietors. She humped her canvas folder a couple of blocks north to Conduit Street, and in the windows she recognized the works of Jones, Campbell, Wczenski, Frink and Paolozzi. She became even more discouraged and unwilling to push open any of the galleries’ front doors.

  Sally returned home that night exhausted, her canvas folder unopened. She understood for the first time how an author must feel after receiving a string of rejection slips. She was unable to sleep that night. But as she lay awake, she came to the conclusion that she must know the truth about her work, even if it meant being humiliated.

  She joined the commuters again the following morning, and this