False Picture Read online

  ‘Number two-oh-eight,’ said Bea, remembering the message left on the answerphone at the Westons’ house.

  ‘You knew?’ Oliver was annoyed.

  ‘Not really, no. Tell me more.’

  ‘Well, I rang them and spoke to the manageress. She said one of her stylists had asked her for a job for this young lad and he was getting on quite well considering he was a cack-handed white boy. I understand that Divine’s has a predominantly black clientele. This particular stylist is called Chrissie. She couldn’t come to the phone then because she was busy, but she agreed to ring me back after hours, which she did. Chrissie lives in the same house as Rachel. Rachel had asked Chrissie to find a job for this young layabout, and she’d obliged. Chrissie’s a strong Christian. She believes in giving a helping hand to people when they need it.’

  ‘A hairdresser’s?’ Velma muttered, now smiling and now frowning. She began to laugh, but stopped herself. ‘Earning his crust for the first time in his life? In some ways, I wish we could leave him in peace, but he doesn’t know his father’s dead. He doesn’t know about Zander, or Charlotte. He has to be told. Afterwards … what am I to do with him? He’s not due anything under his father’s will, but I suppose I could give him something. His father’s car, for a start. I can’t think he’ll want to make a career in hairdressing.’

  Bea wasn’t so sure about that. ‘He’s probably better off there, than losing money at the tables.’

  Piers said, ‘If Lady Farne willed him the Millais he could sell it, clear his debts and buy himself an annuity. If he’s got any sense at all – which I rather doubt – he will beg Rachel and Chrissie to go on looking after him.’

  Velma drained her glass. ‘Give me the phone number where he’s living. I’d better talk to him before he realizes someone’s rumbled his hideout, and he runs off again. I’m not letting him back into my house though. He’s got to stand on his own two feet sometime.’ She got to her feet, holding on to the table, and then let go of it, straightening her back. ‘There’s the funeral arrangements to make, people to advise, solicitors … oh fiddle! And an empty flat down the road to re-let. Maggie, do you fancy taking on a new lease for it?’

  ‘Me? No!’ Maggie toned down her refusal. ‘I mean, crime scene and all that. Besides, Mrs Abbot really needs someone here to look after her.’

  ‘I do indeed,’ said Bea. ‘Thank you, Maggie.’

  Velma arched her back, testing out her muscles. ‘Maybe I should have the builders in, have it gutted, replumbed with a shower room to each bedroom. Then bring in the decorators, replace the furniture and put it back in the hands of the estate agents, who can let it for double the present rent. I’m not sure I can face the work involved.’

  ‘Maggie’s good at organizing make-overs,’ said Bea. ‘She’s arranging for it to be done downstairs in the agency rooms.’

  ‘I’ll pay well,’ said Velma. ‘Which reminds me that I owe you rather a lot of money, Bea Abbot. I also need someone to help me sort out Sandy’s affairs, all those papers that I threw out yesterday … the future looks bleak.’

  Bea went to her friend, and gave her a hug. ‘The future looks good. You’ll survive and thrive. We’ll help.’

  ‘And I’ll paint your portrait this autumn,’ said Piers. ‘I’m supposed to have a full calendar, but we’ll find time somehow, won’t we?’

  Velma shook her finger at him. ‘Oh, you flatterer! I know your sort. I don’t want a replacement for Sandy, you know. He was … something special.’ Her eyes starred with tears, but she held herself together.

  Twenty

  The weekend and after

  Life trickled back into some semblance of normality, though Ralph was nowhere to be found, and Bea started having nightmares. Velma continued to occupy the spare bedroom, but began the slow process of stitching her life back together again. She spent part of every day back at her own house, making funeral arrangements, advising friends and relatives what had happened.

  Philip left Rachel and the hairdressing salon to find himself a room in another Kensington flat, paying for it with promises. Velma had the locks changed on her house in The Boltons, but gave him his father’s Peugeot and as many of Sandy’s belongings as he wished to take.

  The police allowed Maggie to take the remainder of her belongings from the flat before it was put in the hands of builders and decorators. In the flat above, they discovered Ralph’s room, empty, while the adjacent bedroom contained Zander’s belongings as well as those of its previous occupant.

  On Saturday morning Ralph’s body was found on Hampstead Heath, partially hidden in some undergrowth. He’d been shot once through the back of the neck. The money in his wallet was intact, but there was no gold box to be found. The police put the killing down to a gangland execution.

  That afternoon Bea received a massive bouquet of flowers. There was no message with it, but Bea guessed it came from Mr Van. Maggie rushed to the phone and left a message at the hospital for Zander, reporting that Ralph was dead.

  On Monday morning Maggie received a phone call from Zander, asking if she’d come and collect him from the hospital as he was about to be discharged, had no clothes and nowhere to go.

  ‘What do I do, Mrs Abbot? He’s heard that Ralph’s dead, so thinks it safe to resume his old identity. But he can’t go back to the flat because it’s going to be pulled apart by the builders. Anyway, his stuff’s no longer there. We can’t put him up here because Mrs Weston’s in the guest room. And anyway, I feel sort of odd about him. I mean, I did like him at first, but then … is he for real, I ask myself?’

  Bea sighed. Why was it everyone seemed to think she could come up with the answers to every problem? ‘If I read him aright he’ll soon make his own arrangements, but in the meantime could he move into Ralph’s room in the flat above Charlotte’s? Remembering that all his stuff is in the room next door?’

  Maggie laughed, clapped her hands, and said she’d see to it. That was one good thing about Maggie; she might not be brilliant on a computer, but give her something practical to do, and she was right on it.

  Oliver came in with a bundle of papers, wearing a Monday morning sort of face. Bea interpreted this as; he wasn’t sure she wanted to work, but felt she ought to do so, and was going to push her until she did.

  ‘I’ve been a poor sort of creature lately, haven’t I?’ Bea focused her mind on agency problems, and remembered the missing tax form and the solicitor’s letter of complaint. Ouch. She wasn’t sure she could face telling him about either, but she’d dug herself into such a deep hole that she couldn’t get out without help. Oh dear.

  ‘Before we start, Oliver, we must discuss your ambition to go to university. What can I do to help?’

  ‘I’ve decided against it. I’ve talked it over with my friend’s father, and thought about it a lot, but it isn’t what I want to do in life. Going to university would be like entering a virtual world where nothing matters except computers. Seeing people get hurt and being able to help … well, that’s different. It’s real. I felt I made a difference. I did, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yes, Oliver. You did. You helped Velma when she was half out of her mind with grief. You found Philip for her. You kept juggling the balls at the agency while I was too distracted to help. But I have to ask you if you are quite sure, because you could do anything, be anything, if you wanted it enough.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ He lowered his eyes, half-smiling, picking out a form from the bundle. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I took one or two things out of the wastepaper basket, the day all this started. Maggie would have thrown them away, if I hadn’t rescued them.’ His voice leaked virtue; here was a man sorely tried by a feckless woman, but being a nice, kind person, he was going to make allowances for her.

  ‘This tax bill, for instance. Every time I tried to ask you about it we were interrupted, so I e-mailed Mr Max about it. He e-mailed back to say he’d put more than enough aside to cover it in a separate account in the Halifax, and had left all the forms
for getting it out, already signed, in the safe. I’ve got them here, so if you’ll just countersign I can organize payment.’

  Bea was stunned. Dear Lord, you really are looking after me, aren’t you! Talk about miracles! Thank you a thousand times.

  Her next thought was, How dare Oliver be so patronizing! She wanted to hit him, he looked so smug.

  Another nasty thought; did she really want to keep him now, now she’d lost his respect? No, she didn’t. So, she must give him his notice, now! She wasn’t being unfair? No, of course not. She had every right to sack him if she wished.

  At least … what would Hamilton have done? He’d have admitted that he’d behaved badly, and thank Oliver for rescuing him. Well, she wasn’t that generous, was she? She couldn’t possibly apologize. Too humiliating! She couldn’t do it. Dear Lord, what do I do now? For a heartbeat, she wasn’t sure … and then she braced herself.

  ‘Oliver, you are brilliant, and I’m ashamed of myself. Whatever would I do without you?’ Once the words were out, she meant them.

  He gave her a forgiving, sunny smile. ‘Well, I suppose everyone’s entitled to a mad moment now and then, and there’s lots of things I can’t deal with. This solicitor’s letter, for instance. There’s nothing in the complaints file on anyone called Smythe. Is that the right spelling, do you think?’

  This started a new chain of thought for Bea but before she could say so, the phone rang. It was Max, her extremely busy and important son.

  ‘Mother, I’ve just heard from a friend of the Westons … I can’t believe it, not even of you! I’m ringing from the Maldives, so I’ll have to keep this short, but … you haven’t really got involved in a murder case, have you? I mean, I can’t afford to be dragged into—’

  ‘The agency doesn’t do murder, dear,’ she said in a creamy voice. ‘This was a simple case of looking for a picture that had got mislaid. Was there anything else, because I’m rather busy at the moment? We’ve got a letter in from a solicitor about a woman named Smythe. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about it, would you?’

  ‘No, I don’t! Really, Mother! I’ll ring you when we get back.’ Max turned into Mr Hufflepuff and put the phone down.

  ‘Where were we, Oliver?’

  Oliver was smiling. ‘We don’t do murder, Mrs Abbot. Or so you said.’

  ‘Certainly not. Now I do seem to remember something about a woman calling herself Ms Smith, some years ago. Maybe five years. Do you think it could be the same one? As I recall, this was a particularly difficult client, who …’