hills, a place of mystery, disease and danger. Then the city of water, crossed by a great meandering river and a hundred tributaries, a landscape of waterwheels and mills, of rain and floods. And finally, the city of rich clay earth, wherein one could find the bones of plague victims, the soul and soil in which its residents take root like the Hydra’s teeth.’
‘The four elements, in fact.’
‘Exactly so. Such thinking was unfashionable at a time when postwar modernism was gaining so much ground. He failed to find a patron, and was eventually kicked to death in the gutter by children, somewhere around your neck of the woods.’
Bryant examined the paintings, the half-finished outpourings of an extraordinary mind, ragged deities commanding the earth and sky while cowering acolytes toiled in tiny brick houses. The colours and detailing were extraordinary. Bryant was reminded of Victorian faerie paintings, reproduced on an epic canvas.
‘And this is all he painted?’
‘Ah, there’s the paradox. Those whose abilities set them ahead of their time are often rewarded posthumously, but failure hides them from sight. The more they forge ahead beyond the spirit of the age, the more the world is intent on burying them. It was said that Kingdom created other pieces, but all of them were destroyed. Nobody knows for sure.’
‘Who would do such a terrible thing as destroying a work of art?’
‘Dear naive fellow, every decade has its self-appointed censors. The only mercy is that time forgets them and remembers the artist. In the history of the world, no censor has ever been looked back on with respect. There were those who objected to Kingdom’s choice of subject matter. For some, his style was too close to that associated with fascist art. Nazism was on the rise, the times were uncertain, and no one wanted to see depictions of a future free from Christianity. At the Slade, it was said that Kingdom was the one artist capable of depicting the missing episodes of England’s pagan past.’
‘Do you think he could have destroyed his own work?’
‘Difficult question. One doesn’t want to believe such things, of course, but what other explanation could there be? He died a pauper, homeless and friendless, unloved and unremembered. Not for him the eager wake of adoring students. There’s so little to go on, you see. He didn’t die at a youthful age like Firbank or Beardsley. They both produced fair bodies of work in their short young lives.’
‘How old was Kingdom when these boys attacked him?’
‘I believe he was in his forties, not quite so young in those days as it is now. He drank, he starved, and looked much older. Here.’ Summerfield turned the page and pointed out a monochrome photograph depicting a gaunt, sickly man in a ragged tweed jacket. The figure standing beside him was clean-shaven and crop-headed, but as Bryant had suspected, was clearly Tate as a young man. ‘And that’s his son,’ confirmed Summerfield.
‘What do you know of this boy?’ asked Bryant.
‘His name was Emmanuel Kingdom. He was said to be devastated by the old man’s death, swore to take revenge on those who killed his father—but that was probably just a romantic notion circulated by art teachers. Of course, such a boy had no way of doing so, and I imagine the obsession eventually sent him along the same path as his father.’
‘Do you have any idea what happened to him?’
‘I believe he worked for a time as a guard at the Tate Gallery, in order to be near one of his father’s paintings. Must have devastated him when they flogged it to the Yanks. Never heard anything about him after that.’
‘I think I know where he is.’
‘You do?’ Summerfield fairly inflated with excitement. ‘If we could locate him, he may be able to throw light on his father’s life. Do you know how important this could be? Information is money, Arthur.’
‘I have to find him more quickly than you can imagine,’ Bryant agreed. ‘But for an entirely different reason. I fear he’s connected with terrible events.’
‘At any rate, it’s good to see you again,’ smiled Summerfield. ‘Did you ever catch the vandal who ruined the picture in the National Gallery?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ Bryant replied distractedly, pulling on his coat.
‘I hope they managed to repair the painting. The Waterhouse.’
Bryant was caught with his arm in one sleeve. ‘Remind me?’
‘The painting was by Waterhouse, wasn’t it? The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius, if memory serves. One forgets he’d churned out all of those ghastly