False Picture Read online

  ‘How come she was Philip’s godmother?’

  ‘Sandy’s first wife went to art school, the Slade. Lucinda had given up being a model by then and was very wealthy, so she was one of the patrons. Sometimes she took an interest in the next generation, letting them fetch and carry for her, that sort of thing. Though why she would be interested in Sandy’s first wife is a mystery, since she’s a selfish bitch – pardon my language but she is, always taking advantage of his good nature. She thinks of nothing but how she can “fulfil” herself, that sort of thing. Almost the only thing she did for her little boy before she drifted out of the marriage was to get Lucinda to act as his godmother, thinking, I suppose, that she’d leave him some money when she died.’

  ‘So how come Sandy visits Lucinda?’

  ‘When she – Sandy’s first wife – left for distant parts, she asked him to keep an eye on Lucinda, who was getting rather peculiar even then. She wanted Sandy to keep reminding Lucinda of Philip’s existence because after all, who else would she leave all her money to? My dear Sandy is so good. He was looking after an old aunt anyway, so of course he said yes and so of course he did and does. Visit. Every other week, usually. I went with him a couple of times but you could see she really didn’t want to see anyone younger or more glam than herself.’

  Bea sipped her coffee. The newspaper report had suggested that Lady Farne had disturbed a burglar, been knocked down and died.

  ‘It couldn’t have been Philip, could it?’ said Velma, ready to cry.

  ‘How did you find out he’d got the picture?’

  ‘A couple of nights ago we went round to collect Philip to take him out to supper, which is where we ate the calamari that made us so ill. Anyway, before we went out, Sandy had to use the loo, one of the problems of age, and Philip’s bedroom door was open and there was the picture, leaning against the wall. Sandy asked Philip where he’d got it, and Philip said his godmother had given it to him months ago for his birthday in February and of course dear Sandy knew that wasn’t right but he didn’t know what to think. He doesn’t think quickly dear, not like you or me. So we all went out to supper and still he said nothing till we got home that night and then he told me, and we were both sick as dogs and … well, the next day he went off to confront Philip and there was a terrible row, but Philip stuck to his story and now Sandy doesn’t know what to believe. Do I fancy some black coffee? No, I don’t think I do.’

  ‘The picture was in Lady Farne’s flat a fortnight ago? But Philip insists he’s had it for four months?’

  Velma nodded, containing tears with an effort.

  ‘Could she have given him a copy?’

  ‘Lady Farne did not give house room to copies. Why should she? She’s a billionairess who could furnish a wing in a museum with what she’s got stuffed into that flat. She’s become increasingly eccentric of late years, and miserly. She complained about the gas bill, so there’s no heating in the flat. She had the phone cut off because she said the only people who used it were cold callers, and Sandy had to argue with British Telecom and pay something himself to get the service restored. She refused to wear one of those emergency thingies from the Social round her neck in case she fell, refused to have her light bulbs changed to energy saving because she’d have to spend some money out to get the benefit, you know. And as for insurance!’ Velma lifted her hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  ‘Sandy went on and on at her about keeping up the premiums, but goodness knows whether she actually did. Spending money on that sort of thing was unnecessary, she said. She was living on twopence a week and eating off gold plate. Metaphorically, of course. I don’t know that she’s actually got any gold plate, but you get the idea? Tried to get Sandy to pay for a cleaner for her place, and then said she wouldn’t dream of letting anyone into her flat who might steal from her and … oh, I don’t know! So, you’ll help, won’t you? I’ll pay anything, within reason.’

  ‘Me? What? How?’ Bea thought of the tax demand on her desk; no, in her wastepaper basket. ‘No, of course not, Velma.’

  Velma leaned forward, dropping her voice. ‘You think we should let it pass, let everyone believe that it was a burglary that went wrong?’

  Bea stared at her fingernails. Did she really like this new shade of polish? That tax bill …

  Velma said, ‘You think it would be best to let sleeping dogs lie? Don’t ask any more questions, don’t do anything to draw suspicion on to Philip? Let Sandy get a stomach ulcer, because his indigestion is something chronic ever since it happened? Let Lady Farne’s body be cremated and her estate wound up, and hope she hasn’t left Philip anything in her will? Let Philip profit from murdering an old woman?’

  Bea sighed, shook her head. ‘What does Sandy say?’

  ‘He dithers, poor darling. One minute he says we should tell the police about the picture being in Philip’s flat, and the next he’s defending Philip, saying it can’t have been him because he doesn’t carry a knife and wouldn’t know how to use it.’

  ‘But Sandy doesn’t want his son’s name being given to the police?’

  ‘Would you, my dear? Would you?’

  Bea grimaced. Her only son Max had recently been elected to the House of Commons, and was married to an ambitious young woman. Bea thought Max was squeaky clean, but suppose … some temptation? Some mischance? What would Bea do if Max happened to kill someone in a car accident, say? It was a dilemma. She hoped she’d do the right thing, but maybe she wouldn’t.

  Velma leaned forward so that no one else could hear. ‘What we thought was that you could get someone into the flat to befriend Philip, worm their way into his confidence, get the truth out of him. Find an explanation for his having that picture. He’s a loner, it should be easy. So, can you think of someone you can put in there?’

  Bea had a sneaky, awe-inspiringly awful thought. Living with noisy Maggie was driving Bea insane. Could she possibly suggest that Maggie move into Philip’s flat and befriend him? It would be the most enormous relief to have a quiet house again. Common sense told her Maggie would be useless as agent provocateur. ‘No, I can’t think of anyone. What do you mean, anyway … “put someone in there”?’

  Velma got out a tiny notebook. ‘The flat belongs to me, one of my first husband’s better investments. Buying to rent in Kensington is as good as printing your own money, you know, all done through Marsh and Parsons, the estate agents just down the road. The flat’s always been let to young professionals who can afford something a bit up-market. Four bedrooms – one is enormous and has twin beds in it – two bathrooms, large living room and kitchen. All mod cons.

  ‘When I married Sandy and he moved in with me Philip came too, but I couldn’t put up with him coming home all hours, mostly drunk and disorderly, breaking things, smoking a bit of this and that, the usual thing, dear, nothing really criminal, but disruptive.

  ‘So I suggested he move into a vacant room in my flat which is co-ed now, men and women, thinking they’d be some kind of sobering influence on him. I’m not sure that that worked out, but one of the girls has left, so I thought you could put someone in there to find out what’s really going on, someone who can befriend Philip, who’s not the most … well, I’m not sure how to describe him exactly, but he doesn’t seem to mix with the others in the flat. Surely you know someone who could do it? Preferably female, but it could be a male if the remaining girl moved into a single room and two of the boys bunked in together. I’ll pay you well.’

  Bea opened her mouth to suggest that Oliver might do it, and closed it again. Oliver was only eighteen, looked even younger and hadn’t even learned the alphabet of socializing yet. No, Oliver was out of the question.

  ‘Maggie might do it,’ said Bea, feeling guilty but unable to stifle her longing for a bit of peace and quiet at home. ‘One of my live-in assistants. She’s early twenties, been divorced already. Not much in the way of computer skills but a brilliant cook and housekeeper.’

  Velma wrinkled her nose. ‘They’re al
l professionals and we’d want a newcomer to fit in.’

  ‘She could call herself a project manager; she’s currently organizing new wiring, plumbing and decorating for the agency rooms in the basement at home, and she’s not bad at that. Anything practical.’

  Tears stood out in Velma’s eyes, and she dabbed them away with a tissue. ‘Oh, my dear, the relief! Bea, you are wonderful, I can’t begin to thank you. I knew you’d come up with something. Just wait till I tell Sandy.’

  ‘Don’t tell him, not yet,’ said Bea, wishing she’d never suggested Maggie could help. ‘Look, if Maggie’s going to go undercover the fewer people who know about it the better. You can tell Marsh and Parsons you’ve found a fifth person. I suppose they’ll have to take up references—’

  ‘This is an emergency, Bea. I’ll tell the estate agents I’ve checked her out and she’s OK, so they’ll let her in. They’ll need a deposit of a month’s rent, and I’ll see to that, too. How soon could you get her in?’

  Bea wanted to say ‘tomorrow’ but had some degree of caution left. ‘In a couple of days, I suppose. Are you sure this is what you want?’

  ‘I’m not a fool, dear. I know that covering up a murder is just not on, but if we can only find some extenuating circumstances, perhaps we can get the case reduced to manslaughter. Perhaps it was an accident. That’s what I’m hoping. But somehow or other we’ve got to get Philip to open up about it and that’s where this Maggie person comes in. She’s personable enough, isn’t she? I think I met her briefly at that charity do the other month. Tall girl, looks like a model.’

  Bea nodded. She’d been responsible for Maggie’s make-over from Barbie doll to crop-haired model. The girl was quite presentable nowadays, and though still gauche, she was gaining enough self-confidence to socialize on a limited scale.

  ‘Here!’ Velma took a packet from her large handbag and shoved it at Bea. ‘All you need, a cheque, a photo and as much information as I could get from Sandy about him. Ring me on my mobile, will you, when you’ve got going.’ She fished out a mirror and lipstick, gave a little shriek at what she saw, and applied make-up. ‘I’ll go straight down to the estate agents, fix that end up. Oh, I hope, I do so hope you can prove it wasn’t murder.’

  ‘And if it was?’

  Velma snapped her mirror shut. ‘It has to be an accident. Right? I’m counting on you to prove it.’

  Rafael was surprised her body had been found so quickly. The newspapers didn’t say who had found her, but it hadn’t been Philip or he’d have told them all about it. What with the drink and the pills, Philip was incapable of keeping his mouth shut, which was a teensy bit of a worry.

  Philip was boasting that she’d given him a valuable picture on his last visit, When questioned, Liam had said that yes, Philip had got an old-fashioned picture in his room, but that it didn’t look like anything much to him. Liam didn’t have the background to know if it were valuable or not. If, as Philip claimed, it were a genuine Millais, then it would indeed be a passport to happiness. Though not for Philip, of course. Philip didn’t deserve to profit from his theft … and it must have been theft, mustn’t it? The old woman would hardly have given a loser like Philip anything worthwhile.

  Tonight he’d get Philip to show him the painting and if it were anything half decent, he’d make him an offer for it. A couple of hundred, say.

  The man in Amsterdam was avidly awaiting the gold boxes which Rafael had lifted the week before, plus the miniatures from an earlier incident. Rafael hadn’t worked with him before, but he’d come highly recommended. Rafael was sure the Dutchman would be delighted to have a halfway decent Millais as well.

  The only problem was how to get them there, for Rafael never carried the goods himself. He had been using a reliable man as carrier, but a car crash had put him in hospital.

  Should he break his rule and take them himself? On balance, no. The risk was too great. Besides, he had an open night to organize for the gallery where he worked. What he needed was a willing, innocent girl to act as a mule. Now, who did he know who’d fit the bill?

  Two

  Friday afternoon

  Bea walked back up Church Street, wondering whether she’d suffered a senior moment by agreeing to help Velma, or had acted with prudence and foresight. She was inclined, as she turned in to her own road, to think she ought to ring Velma and tell her the deal was off.

  The Abbot Agency did not, emphatically not, do murder cases. They were a domestic agency, pure and simple. Well, all right, sometimes they had to disentangle misunderstandings between client and employee; but they did not handle divorce work and they were not a detective agency.

  Granted, with the help of her two young assistants Bea had recently exposed and dealt with a nasty charity scam, but that was only because the agency had been partly responsible for involving one of their clients in the first place. Check, check and check again had been Hamilton’s mantra, which Max had failed to do.

  Various other things had gone wrong during Max’s time at the agency. He wasn’t perhaps best suited to the job, but when Hamilton had become so ill, Max had taken over and had done his best. Sort of. His heart really had been in politics and when he finally got into parliament, he’d let the agency business run down, assuming that Bea would not wish to keep it on after Hamilton’s death.

  Max had left a lot of loose ends for Bea and her two new and untried assistants to tidy up on her return, and some of them – like the income tax affair – were serious. But that didn’t mean they should stop doing what they were renowned for and start up a detective agency, did it?

  Bea looked at her watch. Would Max be in the Commons now? No, wait a minute; the Commons had closed for its summer recess, and he’d be on his way north to his constituency for the holidays. She set her teeth. She simply must speak to him, straight away. That income tax problem … and one or two other loose ends.

  ‘Whoo-hoo, I’m back.’ Bea dumped her wet umbrella in the hall, bracing herself to meet an onslaught of noise. Maggie was in and seemed to have turned on every noisy machine in the house; television, radio – why did she need both television and radio on at the same time? – hoover and coffee grinder. Maggie was a natural born homemaker who aspired to be a high-flying businesswoman, or astronaut, or brain surgeon … any career, in fact, that she was least fitted for.

  The girl appeared in the kitchen doorway, talking on her mobile phone. String-bean thin and bouncy with it, Maggie flashed a splendid set of teeth and waved at Bea. The hoovering continued. Maggie mimed ‘Just a mo’ at Bea and returned to the kitchen. The sound of the hoover did not cease. It was lying on its side in the living room, sucking in air not dust. Bea turned it off. And the television. This reduced the noise level somewhat, but not completely.

  Maggie brayed a laugh, and clanged saucepans about in the kitchen. She was probably gossiping to her new friend in the nail salon nearby; recently Maggie had taken to wearing false nails when she went out in the evenings.

  Bea ground her teeth, fighting with herself. On the one hand Maggie was free, white and over twenty-one and therefore if she agreed to go undercover, it was no skin off Bea’s nose. On the other hand, the girl was only just beginning to recover from the damage inflicted on a too tall, too sensitive girl by a destructive ex-husband. Though reasonably bright, Maggie wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, and her attitude to life in general could be compared to that of an untrained but willing puppy.

  Naïve was her middle name, and if unchecked, she’d dress from head to foot in DayGlo Lycra.

  Would it be fair to ask her to go undercover? The coffee grinder stopped. For this relief much thanks. But the radio continued to churn out its tom-tom of doom and gloom.

  Maggie shouted from the kitchen. ‘Want some coffee? Oops, I’ve just remembered. Someone rang for you earlier, and I said I didn’t know when you’d be back.’

  ‘Who was it?’ Bea dumped her bag on the table in the window – Hamilton’s old card table, placed where she cou
ld sit and overlook the garden below.

  ‘Dunno. I asked Oliver where you were, but he didn’t seem to know. Oh, and the man came round to see about the rewiring and he wants to know if you need Wi-Fi or something. It costs extra, of course. Oh, bother, that’s my phone again. Hello …?’ Another burst of laughter.

  Bea took the packet Velma had given her, and trod down the stairs to the agency in the basement. Definitely she must have these dingy rooms redecorated. Rewiring, yes; though she didn’t understand about Wi-Fi. Oliver would know. She went through to the big back room which had once been Hamilton’s office. Because the house was built on a slope, this room had access to the garden through French windows. She dumped Velma’s package on the desk which was now hers, and bent to pick all that tiresome correspondence out of the wastepaper basket … which was empty.

  Feeling stupid, Bea picked up the basket and shook it. It remained empty.

  She began to panic. The letter from the tax people, the invoice from … that letter of complaint which must be answered, the communication from a solicitor about a case she’d never even heard of …

  Gone.

  Maggie came clattering down the stairs, and rushed through the hall to the agency reception office at the front of the house, still talking on her mobile.

  Bea ran after her, short of breath. ‘Maggie, did you empty the wastepaper basket?’

  ‘What? Oh. Hold on a mo … Uh-huh. Dustbin day today.’

  Bea told herself to take long, slow breaths. Recycling was the thing. All paperwork went into a green box in the well outside the basement steps leading up to the road. Of course the paperwork would be in there, safe and sound.