A Three Dog Problem

‘What on earth brings you here, Captain Oshodi? I do visit, you know. No need to beard me in my den.’

Rozie looked around. It wasn’t bad, as dens went. A pair of windows overlooked the wide street that led up to Piccadilly, a stone’s throw from Fortnum’s and the Ritz. One panelled wall was lined from floor to ceiling with small but priceless works of art; the others were lined with books. The Surveyor’s walnut desk – so huge it looked like two abnormally large ones pushed together, was a riot of papers, paperweights, bronze statuettes and photographs in silver frames. There was no sign of a computer. Rozie assumed Neil Hudson hid it in a drawer when he had visitors. Surely he didn’t work with a quill? His yellow waistcoat and chin-length wavy hair gave the impression of a man who would love you to believe that he did.

‘I’m here to trace a painting,’ she explained. ‘One of Her Majesty’s. We know where it is, but not how it got there. It went missing a while ago.’

‘Stop!’ Hudson raised his hand. ‘Stop right there. I can assure you it didn’t. We don’t lose things in the Royal Collection.’

‘I think you do,’ Rozie said firmly, meeting his eye. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Very occasionally. Hardly ever. I resent the implication that we did.’

‘Well, that’s great. You’ll know what happened then.’

She explained as much as she knew, and the Surveyor nodded non-committally.

‘The nineties? Should be fine. The records are pretty good. But if it was . . . mislaid, shall we say, much earlier, we were still working in a fairly ad hoc way, especially for Her Majesty’s private paintings. I can’t really imagine her lending it, though. We lend Crown stuff all the time, if it’s in a fit state to travel. But something small and private like that . . .’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Apart from anything else, who would’ve seen it to ask? However, you’re welcome to check.’

He called for an assistant, who dutifully led Rozie down several drab corridors, up half-sets of stairs and down others, past a couple of well-lit studios, through whose open doors she saw various conservators quietly at work. Eventually they arrived at a stuffy back room a couple of buildings away, with a window that wouldn’t open and a ceiling light that constantly flickered. Three walls were lined with glass-fronted cabinets housing a motley collection of boxed paper records going back to 1952. A computer on a desk under the grimy window gave access to a database of everything that had been digitised.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ the assistant said, after she’d explained what was where. ‘You don’t need gloves or anything. We’re not that precious about the twentieth century. Just put everything back where you found it and turn out the light. Good luck.’

Rozie thanked her, but luck was elusive. After an hour of painstaking searching among the boxes of files, all she found was a line in a yellowing ledger acknowledging receipt of ‘Oil painting: HMY at the 125th anniversary of the Hobart Regatta, 1963, gilt frame, 15” by 21”, by Vernon Hooker, received 1964’. There was no mention of it ever leaving the Palace, though she trawled through every available box and digital database up to the year 2000.

Before leaving, she decided to pull the original box file down again and take one last look at the ledger from 1964. Had she missed something? She lined up the page to take a picture of it on her phone. At this point, she noticed the positioning of a word scrawled in pencil in the margin. She had assumed it applied to the sculpture listed below, but it might just as well have been meant for the painting. It was scribbled at an angle, and hard to make out. She peered at it.

RUBBISH.

Did it say ‘Rubbish’? Really? It couldn’t, surely? Although, thinking back to the photos of it that she’d seen, perhaps it did. Did record keepers write their true thoughts about acquisitions in the margins? Had they meant to rub it out?

Rozie peered again. There was a slight gap between the first few letters and the last two. Wait – they weren’t letters, those last two, they were numbers. Eight something. Could it be ‘82’? Or ‘86’? And there was an ‘f’ or ‘g’ in the first word, so it couldn’t be ‘Rubbish’. ‘Ref’-something, perhaps? She couldn’t make it out.

She made sure the picture she took of it was as well-lit as possible, so she could examine it properly back at her desk.