False Picture Read online

  But for now, there was a party to go to, a woman to seduce and a false trail to lay. He was the puppet master and they all danced to his tune.

  Seven

  Saturday evening

  Bea wasn’t able to see Velma when she arrived at the hospital, so she had to leave the overnight bag with one of the nurses. No visitors, no assurances that everything was going to be all right.

  Bea shut off the alarm as she entered her own house and stood still, welcoming the silence. The house seemed to be breathing a sigh of relief that there was no loud music, no television blaring away, no clashing of pans in the kitchen. Bea hoped Maggie was enjoying her party.

  Bea poured herself a glass of orange juice and went through into the living room. The game of patience that she’d abandoned the day before was still on the card table, but someone – Oliver? – had turned over a couple of cards, creating a space into which they’d put the king of clubs. She was annoyed. Then amused. What did it matter?

  She drew the curtains at the front of the house, switched on a side lamp and opened the French windows at the back to savour the night air. Two moths circled her head, attracted by the light. There was a moon tonight, rising above the tree, illuminating the spire of the church.

  On such a night as this …

  Hamilton had died, quietly, peacefully. He’d known his time had come, and asked her not to grieve for him but to rejoice that his long acquaintance with pain was finally over and he could move on, closer to God. He’d not been a handsome man, but in death he’d achieved a dignity that had awed her. She’d held his hand while he’d slipped away from her. In death, he’d smiled.

  She swiped the heel of her hand over her eyes, and descended the curling iron stairs to the peace and quiet of the garden. He’d often paced here at night, or sat under the tree with his hands, palm upwards, on his knees, praying. She couldn’t pray as he did. He was capable of praying for half an hour at a time, sometimes longer.

  For her part, she could send up arrow prayers and within a few seconds find herself thinking of something else. Should she have tried harder to get Velma to leave the hospital? Would she ever make sense of the jigsaw of facts and impressions that surrounded Sandy and Velma? And Philip – where had he gone, and was he in danger? Bea rather thought he might be.

  She paused with her foot on the lowest rung of the stairs, letting the scent of the tobacco plants waft around her, listening in vain for the chiming of the church clock. In the old days it had chimed through the night, but no longer. Noise pollution, they said. Can’t be doing with it, they said. Disturbs our sleep.

  Bea had always found it a comfort, to hear it chime through the night. If you were deeply asleep you didn’t hear it, and if you were awake and in pain or worrying about something it was a comfort, as if it were saying ‘I’m here, always. Remember me.’

  Bea looked up at the spire. Remember me. Remember Velma and Sandy. If it is your will that Sandy should live, then I’d be so grateful. If it’s your will that he should die, then please comfort Velma. I’ve been there, and I know what she’11 be suffering. I watched Hamilton accept death, but he had a strong faith to sustain him and in the end I think he welcomed it. I’m not sure what Sandy believes in, if anything.

  As for Philip – you know him better than I do. Whatever good there is in him, let it guide his actions, wherever he may be. And if you really want me to get mixed up in this mess, then help me to see what ought to be done.

  A breeze ruffled the leaves of the tree, and caressed her face. She shivered. It was getting late. She went up the stairs, closed and locked the grille and the windows, set the alarm and decided to retire for the night.

  Oliver still hadn’t come in, but he knew the code for the alarm. She could trust him to set it again once he was in. She hoped.

  Sunday morning

  Bea stretched out in bed, coming to consciousness with the church bells ringing. Oh dear, it must be quite late. Didn’t they start at 8.45 a.m.? She’d meant to be up at seven but had overslept for once. The sun had entered the room through gaps in the curtains, which she never liked to shut completely at night.

  She listened for sounds that would indicate other people moving around the house, and thought she heard the trickle of water from above, as Oliver had a shower. She sat up. Oliver might be able to solve one or two clues in the puzzle that the Westons had laid on her. She showered, dressed, put on her morning make-up and made her way downstairs to find him with his head inside the fridge, looking for … what? Eggs and bacon to appear ready-cooked? Or, possibly, the milk?

  He was dressed in a good white shirt and jeans, casual but not cheap.

  He said, ‘If it’s all right with you, Mrs Abbot, I thought I might go out with my friend today on the river, have lunch at a pub in Richmond.’

  ‘Splendid,’ she said, and hoped he hadn’t picked up on the sour note in her voice. She wasn’t going to be having a day off work. She was going to have to work, wasn’t she? Anyway, she had no one to play with nowadays. She remembered Velma’s take on widowhood, and grimaced. Lonely widows were all too easy a catch, weren’t they? Although, to be fair, Sandy had been a good catch right up to the point that he’d fallen sick.

  Bea cooked sausages and bacon for herself and Oliver, made coffee and toast. She said, ‘Could you spare me an hour before you go off? There’s one or two things only you can deal with, and time seems to be running out.’

  ‘Correspondence?’ he said, and she couldn’t make out why he was smiling.

  She thought of the missing tax return, and winced. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Let me tell you what’s been happening …’

  She brought him up to date, laying Philip’s mobile phone and the charger on the table for Oliver to examine. ‘Can you retrieve his messages, and the phone numbers in the memory?’

  Oliver loved a puzzle. He pressed buttons, frowning, trying this and that. ‘The battery’s dead, and there’s no credit showing. Leave it on charge all day and I’ll let you have the information this evening.’

  She had to accept that.

  She showed him the photocopy of the page from the sale catalogue. ‘The reproduction isn’t good, but you can see it’s a young girl in a dark dress. It isn’t in any of the art books I was looking at last night.’

  Oliver put his finger on the small print where it gave the size of the picture. ‘It’s not very big. Somehow I thought a portrait by Millais would be much larger, perhaps half life-size.’

  ‘I suppose he did all sorts.’ She leaned over Oliver’s shoulder to see where he’d been pointing to some figures on the page. ‘You’re right. A tallish man could carry it around under his arm. It seems Philip was carrying it around wrapped in a bed sheet. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that he was so desperate for money that he took the picture out of the frame. Would it roll up, do you think? Or would an old oil painting crack if you did that to it?’

  ‘I don’t suppose it would be recommended, but the frame is so deep that if he did take it out, it would be even easier to tote around.’

  ‘Suppose you were Philip. You’ve lost your job and you owe money left, right and centre. You’re on pills and have been drinking. You leave the flat some time in the night, with a rucksack or a suitcase and the picture. Why?’

  ‘Is he being dunned? Threatened?’

  Bea remembered the correspondence she’d seen in Philip’s room. ‘There was a letter in his room from a club whose name I didn’t recognize, and he had a notebook with pages of numbers in it. The letter didn’t seem threatening, but it did remind him of club rules about paying his debts.’

  ‘The notebook might be his way of recording winning numbers at roulette or something. Lots of people think they can work out a system for beating the wheel. They can’t, of course. But they try. Do you think he’s the gambling type?’

  ‘A gambling club … hmm. He’d lose, of course. Suppose it was that, and the club sent some heavies after him to make him pay his debts and he hadn’t the wherewi
thal to do so—’

  ‘Then he might easily want to disappear, taking with him his one saleable asset—’

  ‘Which turns out not to be as saleable as he’d hoped. So where would he take refuge? I wondered if he’d go up to his mother’s in Scotland, but he hasn’t got a car or enough money for the train fare, and there’s no credit left on his cards. Besides, going to Scotland won’t help him cash in on the picture, which I assume is his priority. He’s tried to sell it down here and been told it’s a fake. He’s been told he could sell the frame and I’ve got feelers out for anyone trying to sell that, but where is he, and what is he doing for food?’

  Oliver sipped coffee, one eye on the clock. ‘My friend said he’d pick me up in fifteen minutes. I didn’t think you’d need me today.’

  Bea made an effort to think of this from Oliver’s point of view. ‘Of course you must have time off. It’s Sunday, after all.’

  ‘Mm. About Philip. All I can think of is that when I was at my wits’ end and thinking of doing away with myself, Maggie picked me up, dusted me down, and brought me here. She looked after me like a broody hen.’

  ‘Ah.’ Bea thought back to what she’d seen in Philip’s room. ‘He had a couple of photographs of girls there. You think he might have gone to one of them? But, how can I find out who and where? Velma’s more or less incommunicado, and Sandy’s too sick for visitors.’

  ‘You can’t,’ said Oliver, chucking his dirty plates into the sink. ‘You’ll have to wait till tonight when we find out what numbers are on his mobile phone. I won’t be late, promise. And then we can suss it out together, right? I’ll put the phone on charge before I go.’ He went out with it, and Bea took the dirty dishes out of the sink and put them in the dishwasher. She really must start house-training him.

  She thought how pleasant it would be to have the house to herself, to have time off just to exist, and not to be busy about anything. Then she heard Maggie’s voice in the hall, greeting Oliver as he was leaving. Several thuds later, Maggie appeared in the kitchen.

  ‘Whatever are you doing here?’ said Bea. ‘It’s Sunday.’

  ‘You said to report every morning, and I need to borrow one of your suitcases on wheels. Is there any proper coffee? My head! I didn’t get to bed till five.’ Maggie turned on the radio as she passed it, and reached for some black coffee. ‘Wow, that was some party and Zander certainly knows how to sweet talk a girl. I told him I’d met his sort before but, well, he is gorgeous!’

  Bea turned the radio off, and told herself that patience nearly always paid off. ‘Did Philip turn up?’

  ‘Oh, him. No, he didn’t.’ Maggie frowned. ‘They’re ticked off with him actually, wondering how they can get him to pay up what he owes, and get rid of him. Charlotte said they’ve got to go carefully because their landlady put him in the flat, and they don’t want to get on the wrong side of her. Liam says that in that case, the landlady ought to pay Philip’s share of the rent. He’s got a point, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Liam. That’s the third man. What’s he like?’

  Maggie shrugged. ‘Not my type, but he must be nicer than he looks because he’s going to Bruges on business this week and he’s asked Charlotte to go with him. He’s promised her a boat ride on the canals, and a night-time tour of the town in a horse and buggy. She’s over the moon, dreaming of a white wedding, though to tell the truth, I don’t think he means to go that far. He’s a bit … dunno … one minute he’s all over her, and the next he cuts her off in mid-flow. But she thinks the sun shines, so it’s up to her, isn’t it?’

  ‘Can she take time off work, just like that?’

  ‘Says she’s got leave owing and anyway she’ll only be away two days. Says she might just claim she’s got a tummy bug, not bad enough to get a doctor’s certificate, but enough to get her time off. Anyway, that’s why I wanted to borrow one of your big suitcases on wheels. Charlotte’s only got a small one, and her big one is a soft top. She needs a solid case because Liam’s taking over a Royal Worcester coffee set as a present for this friend he’s doing business with and it won’t fit into either of his bags. I said you’d got one that might do, which would save her buying another tomorrow, but she has to see it first. That’s all right, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose it has to be,’ said Bea, half amused and half annoyed. ‘Take the one with the red stripe round it; it’s easier to spot in a crowd.’

  ‘Romantic Bruges.’ Maggie was going all day-dreamy. ‘A trip on the canal. A ride in a horse-drawn buggy. Wow. I wish Zander would take me, but he says he’s not got any reason to go over there at the moment. I said wouldn’t giving me a holiday be reason enough, but he just laughed. Well, I must be off. Zander’s taking me to feed the ducks at Kew this afternoon, maybe have a picnic. I told him he was a cheapskate, but he talked me into it.’

  ‘See if you can get him talking about Philip,’ said Bea, sounding sharp and not regretting it. ‘That’s why you’re there, after all.’

  Maggie gave Bea a darkling look, but said, ‘Right. I’ll just fetch the case and be off then. See you tomorrow.’

  She banged the case down the stairs and slammed the front door on her way out. Bea tried not to wince. That case had been round the world with her, she was attached to it and didn’t want it scuffed. Then she laughed at herself for being so pernickety. What did it matter, anyway?

  At some point she would have to get Maggie to understand that all this borrowing must stop, but not today. Today was Sunday. It was a day for relaxing, for being quiet, for not having to work.

  The church bells had stopped. She looked at her watch. Too late for the nine thirty service. Should she make an effort to go later on that morning? Or relax in the garden? The sun was shining, the sky was blue, she could pick something light to read out of the bookcases in the living room and treat herself to a lazy day.

  Or, she could go down to the hospital and chivvy Velma out for a walk. Velma wouldn’t want to leave her husband’s bedside, but it wasn’t good for her to be cooped up with him day after day. When had she last eaten properly, for instance?

  She ought to warn Velma about the police, too.

  Actually, there was a list of questions she could ask Velma. Her friend must know a lot more about Philip and Lady Farne’s death and Sandy’s part in it, than she had said.

  Grilling Velma would take a lot of energy and put a strain on their friendship, but was that a good enough reason for ducking out? Bea told herself that at her age she had earned a Sunday off.

  But if she did nothing and the police jumped on Velma before she’d been briefed, before Bea could extract enough information to take the case further …? Hamilton had said once ‘All that’s necessary for evil to prevail, is for good men to do nothing.’

  She could easily convince herself that she should do nothing. After all, she didn’t really know how much Sandy had been involved with Lady Farne, did she? Her mind skittered away from the effort that confrontation with Velma would involve. She thought of Maggie yearning for a boat trip on a canal in Bruges; little did the girl know how noisy such things could be, crammed in with tourists galore, battered by a loud-speaker commentary in different languages. And the horse and carriage trips finished at dusk, didn’t they?

  But there were quiet walks by the less well-known canals, serene squares with trees in them, swans on the canals and gorgeous sunsets. Hamilton had spotted some rare bird or other last time they’d been there … ah well. Perhaps some day she’d go again.

  In the meantime, she’d better make a plan to get Velma out of the hospital and into an interrogation unit.

  Extracting Velma was easier than Bea had anticipated, for her friend was so listless from lack of sleep, snatched meals and no exercise, that she accompanied Bea out of the hospital without too much in the way of argument.

  ‘Only, I can’t be away long,’ she said, shading her eyes from the bright sunlight in the street. ‘I assume you haven’t found Philip yet? Of course not, or you’d have said strai
ght away. Oh dear, I’d forgotten how noisy Fulham Palace Road is.’

  ‘It’s a Sunday, remember. It’s quiet by comparison.’

  ‘Is it?’ Velma was dazed.

  Bea steered her across the road and into a quiet back street, where she knew of a good vegetarian restaurant. Once seated, Velma pushed the menu aside. ‘You choose, something simple. And quick.’

  Bea chose and ordered for them both. She considered suggesting a glass of wine and discarded the idea. Velma probably hadn’t eaten properly for days. Luckily the starter came quickly, and though Velma took only small bites at first, she soon picked up speed and cleared her plate as quickly as Bea did. ‘I needed that. I’m glad you made me come out with you. You’re a good friend, Bea.’

  ‘Better than you think. I’ve been obstructing the police in their enquiries on your behalf.’

  Velma’s beautiful eyes went blank. ‘You’ve what?’

  The waitress brought their main course. Velma looked at it as if she’d never seen food before. ‘I’m glad you didn’t choose seafood. That calamari really put the lid on it.’ She asked the waitress for some mineral water.

  Bea lifted her fork. ‘Eat. It will give you strength. It’s time I gave you a full report, and then it’s your turn to fill me in on the bits you’ve left out. Mm, this is good.’

  Velma picked up her fork and took a tiny bite. ‘I don’t think I’m going to enjoy hearing this, am I?’ But she attacked her plateful steadily if without relish.

  ‘Maybe not. But you need to eat and you need to know. Now this is what we have discovered …’ Bea told of her undercover foray to the flat and what she’d discovered in Philip’s room.

  Velma gaped. ‘He got the sack? He’s in debt? That club you mentioned … I’ve heard of it. Gambling for high stakes never did appeal to me. If he’s in trouble with them … why didn’t he say?’

  ‘You’d said you wouldn’t give him money, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but … I didn’t realize … I had no idea!’ She took a gulp of water. ‘Sandy will be horrified.’