Sidney Chambers and The Problem of Evil (The Grantchester Mysteries) by James Runcie Page B

look.’
    ‘Nonsense.’
    ‘It was embarrassing, Amanda. But also strangely brave. I wonder what makes a woman want to do such a thing?’
    ‘I’m sure she’d tell you if you ever had the chance to ask her. Was she dark or blonde?’
    ‘Blonde.’
    ‘Naturally?’
    ‘Yes, Amanda, ash blonde.’
    ‘That’s probably why you didn’t notice the armpits. Aren’t you going to eat those mushrooms?’
    Sidney was trying to find something on which to concentrate other than the girl. ‘The choice of setting was clearly deliberate. An exhibition of nude paintings.’
    ‘Perhaps she was making some kind of political protest, or she was drawing attention to the conflict between art and life, the real and the imagined, the naked and the nude? Kenneth Clark was always going on about it when I was a student.’
    ‘I imagine that the male students must have enjoyed such a concentrated form of study?’
    ‘Yes, the ones that weren’t pansies, of course; sum total, three, by the way. I went to one of the lectures when Clark explained that “nakedness” is the unadorned body viewed with embarrassment, whereas “the nude” is the body re-formed as art; a refined vision, balanced, prosperous and confident. Do you think your new friend was naked or nude?’
    ‘Somewhere between the two, I should imagine. But she’s hardly my friend.’
    They finished their cutlets and were waiting for the chocolate mousse when Inspector Keating arrived. ‘At last,’ he said. ‘I’ve been all over the place looking for you. I had to telephone Hildegard.’
    Amanda was amused. ‘Normally it’s we who seek you out, Inspector.’
    ‘Well in this case you might be relieved that I am coming to you, Miss Kendall. I believe you have an appointment with the Director of the Fitzwilliam?’
    ‘At three o’clock,’ Amanda answered.
    ‘He may be delayed.’
    ‘On what grounds?’
    ‘On the grounds that a painting has been stolen from the museum.’
    ‘What?’
    The Inspector turned to his friend. ‘Sidney, I believe you were there at the time?’
    ‘I can’t think . . .’
    ‘It was when some French girl was making an exhibition of herself. She was a decoy while, two rooms away, a thief was snatching a Sickert.’
    ‘An odd choice,’ said Amanda. ‘You’d get more for a Matisse.’
    ‘That’s as maybe. But it can’t be a coincidence. The girl and the thief must have been in cahoots. And you, Sidney, were a witness.’
    ‘Not to the theft.’
    ‘I want you to tell me exactly what happened. And I’d like you, Miss Kendall, to ask the Director a few questions on the side. Is he all he’s cracked up to be? Does he know more than he is letting on? I can brief you on the way over.’
    ‘Have you spoken to the security guards?’ Amanda asked. ‘These things are often inside jobs, you know.’
    ‘Only too well. We’re talking to them now; but none of them have done a runner and the painting’s vanished. It can’t have been the girl because she had nothing on; but we’ll have to find her. Sidney, I presume you can give me a description?’
    ‘Well . . .’
    ‘In considerable detail, I would have thought,’ said Amanda.
     
    The stolen picture was called The Trapeze , a circus scene at Dieppe which the painter had visited from 1919–22. It had been bequeathed to the gallery in 1939, and was considered to be one of Sickert’s finer and freer works. The subject was a young woman, seen from far below, preparing to swing across the highest part of the tent. It was a portrait of drama, risk and bravura, filled with the painter’s love of the theatre, but it was unclear why anyone would want to steal this work rather than a nearby Monet. Amanda thought perhaps that it would be easier to fence, but Sidney had begun to consider the painting’s theme. Perhaps an exhibitionist, like the girl in the gallery, would be attracted to a painting that displayed similar daring?
    He recognised that, against his will, he was getting carried