She was, Sandman realised, Britannia. ‘You are feasting your eyes,’ the man beside the easel said, ‘on Miss Hood’s tits. And why not? As tits go, they are splendid, quintessence of bubby.’
‘Captain,’ Sally acknowledged Sandman in a small voice.
‘Your servant, Miss Hood,’ Sandman said, bowing again.
‘Good Lord Almighty!’ the painter said. ‘Have you come to see me or Sally?’ He was an enormous man, fat as a hogshead, with great jowls, a bloated nose and a belly that distended a paint-smeared shirt decorated with ruffles. His white hair was bound by a tight cap of the kind that used to be worn beneath wigs.
‘Sir George?’ Sandman asked.
‘At your service, sir.’ Sir George attempted a bow, but was so fat he could only manage a slight bend at what passed for his waist, but he made a pretty gesture with the brush in his hand, sweeping it as though it were a folded fan. ‘You are welcome,’ he said, ‘so long as you seek a commission. I charge eight hundred guineas for a full length, six hundred from the waist up, and I don’t do heads unless I’m starving and I ain’t been starving since ’ninety-nine. Viscount Sidmouth sent you?’
‘He doesn’t wish to be painted, Sir George.’
‘Then you can bugger off!’ the painter said. Sandman ignored the suggestion, instead looking about the studio which was a riot of plaster statues, curtains, discarded rags and half-finished canvases. ‘Oh, make yourself at home here, do,’ Sir George snarled, then shouted down the stairs. ‘Sammy, you black bastard, where’s the tea?’
‘Brewing!’ Sammy called back.
‘Hurry it!’ Sir George threw down his palette and brush. Two youths were flanking him, both painting waves on the canvas and Sandman guessed they were his apprentices. The canvas itself was vast, at least ten feet wide, and it showed a solitary rock in a sunlit sea on which a half-painted fleet was afloat. An admiral was seated on the rock’s summit where he was flanked by a good-looking young man dressed as a sailor and by Sally Hood undressed as Britannia. Quite why the admiral, the sailor and the goddess should have been so marooned on their isolated rock was not clear and Sandman did not like to ask, but then he noticed that the officer who was posing as the admiral could not have been a day over eighteen yet he was wearing a gold-encrusted uniform on which shone two jewelled stars. That puzzled Sandman for a heartbeat, then he saw that the boy’s empty right sleeve was pinned to his coat’s breast. ‘The real Nelson is dead,’ Sir George had been following Sandman’s eyes and thus deducing his train of thought, ‘so we make do as best we can with young Master Corbett there, and do you know what is the tragedy of young Master Corbett’s life? It is that his back is turned to Britannia, thus he must sit there for hours every day in the knowledge that one of the ripest pairs of naked tits in all London are just two feet behind his left ear and he can’t see them. Ha! And for God’s sake, Sally, stop hiding.’
‘You ain’t painting,’ Sally said, ‘so I can cover up.’ She had dropped the grey cloth that turned the tea chest into a rock and was instead wearing her street coat.
Sir George picked up his brush. ‘I’m painting now,’ he snarled.
‘I’m cold,’ Sally complained.
‘Too grand suddenly to show us your bubbies, are you?’ Sir George snarled, then looked at Sandman. ‘Has she told you about her lord? The one who’s sweet on her? We’ll soon all be bowing and scraping to her, won’t we? Yes, your ladyship, show us your tits, your ladyship.’ He laughed, and the apprentices all grinned.
‘She hasn’t lied to you,’ Sandman said. ‘His lordship exists, I know him, he is indeed enamoured of Miss Hood, and he is very rich. More than rich enough to commission a dozen portraits from you, Sir George.’
Sally gave him a look of pure gratitude while Sir George, discomfited, dabbed the brush into the paint on his palette. ‘So who the devil are you?’ he demanded of Sandman. ‘Besides being an envoy of Sidmouth’s?’
‘My name is Captain Rider Sandman.’
‘Navy, army, fencibles, yeomanry or is the captaincy a fiction? Most ranks are these days.’
‘I was in the army,’ Sandman said.
‘You can uncover,’ Sir George explained to Sally, ‘because the captain was a soldier which means he’s seen more tits than I have.’
‘He ain’t seen mine,’ Sally said, clutching the coat to her bosom.
‘How do you know her?’ Sir George asked Sandman in a suspicious tone.
‘We lodge in the same tavern, Sir George.’
Sir George snorted. ‘Then either she lives higher in the world than she deserves, or you live lower. Drop the coat, you stupid bitch.’
‘I’m embarrassed,’ Sally confessed, reddening.
‘He’s seen worse than you naked,’ Sir George commented sourly, then stepped back to survey his painting. ‘“The Apotheosis of Lord Nelson”, would you believe? And you are wondering, are you not, why I don’t have the little bugger in an eyepatch? Are you not wondering that?’
‘No,’ Sandman said.
‘Because he never wore an eyepatch, that’s why. Never! I painted him twice from life. He sometimes wore a green eyeshade, but never a patch, so he won’t have one in this masterpiece commissioned by their Lordships of the Admiralty. They couldn’t stand the little bugger when he was alive, now they want him up on their wall. But what they really want to suspend on their panelling, Captain Sandman, is Sally Hood’s tits. Sammy, you black bastard! What in God’s name are you bloody doing down there? Growing the bloody tea leaves? Bring me some brandy!’ He glared at Sandman. ‘So what do you want of me, Captain?’
‘To talk about Charles Corday.’
‘Oh, Good Christ alive,’ Sir George blasphemed, and stared belligerently at Sandman. ‘Charles Corday?’ He said the name very portentously. ‘You mean grubby little Charlie Cruttwell?’
‘Who now calls himself Corday, yes.’
‘Doesn’t bloody matter what he calls himself,’ Sir George said, ‘they’re still going to stretch his skinny neck next Monday. I thought I might go and watch. It ain’t every day a man sees one of his own apprentices hanged, more’s the pity.’ He cuffed one of the youths who was laboriously painting in the white-flecked waves, then scowled at his three models. ‘Sally, for God’s sake, your tits are my money. Now, pose as you’re paid to!’
Sandman courteously turned his back as she dropped the coat. ‘The Home Secretary,’ he said, ‘has asked me to investigate Corday’s case.’
Sir George laughed. ‘His mother’s been bleating to the Queen, is that it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Lucky little Charlie that he has such a mother. You want to know whether he did it?’
‘He tells me he didn’t.’
‘Of course he tells you that,’ Sir George said scornfully. ‘He’s hardly likely to offer you a confession, is he? But oddly enough he’s probably telling the truth. At least about
