The Carlswick Affair

by SL Beaumont

  Chapter 14

  Stephanie paused, and hearing no footsteps in the hallway, she quickly stepped back up on the chair and carefully rehung the painting. She replaced the chair and rushed toward the door.

  She looked back at the painting and as an afterthought pulled her mobile phone from her pocket and photographed it. Then she slipped out of the library and ran lightly down the staircase to the front door, her mind racing. According to the Monuments Men article she had just read, every piece of art requisitioned by the Nazis was stamped on the back with a black swastika. Holding her breath, she let herself quietly out of the house.

  I did it; she congratulated herself, hardly believing her own audacity.

  Stephanie ran to her car and quickly drove away, casting furtive glances in her rear vision mirror. She turned left at the end of the long drive, back onto the main road towards the village and breathed a sigh of relief. She came towards a sharp bend in the road and her mind drifted to Sophie. She pulled over to the side, leaving the car idling and took a couple of deep steadying breaths.

  This must have been where she crashed – it’s the only big corner between here and the village. She looked down the straight road ahead of her with the village nestled at the end and felt a wave of inexplicable sadness. A large oak tree hung part way across the road. I wonder if that’s the one she hit? Stephanie pulled out again. There wouldn’t be any evidence here after seventy years.

  She suddenly glimpsed a flash of red speeding towards her. James. That was close, she thought, her heart thudding loudly. He slowed as he recognised her car. She kept her eyes straight ahead and accelerated away, but could feel his angry glare as their cars passed each other on the bend.

  Stephanie checked her watch as she pulled in at the café; three-thirty pm, it was safe now that she knew James had gone home. The café was quiet, just a few customers.

  She ordered a takeout coffee from Andy.

  “Sure – whatcha been up to?” Andy said.

  “This and that,” she said, feeling the adrenaline rush start to ease. Although her hands were shaking, she tried to ensure her features looked relaxed. She didn’t want Andy picking up on anything. He was surprisingly perceptive for a guy, so she changed the subject. “Hey tell me, your family have lived around here for years, haven’t they?” When Andy nodded, she continued. “Well, I was wondering what you know about the feud between the Wakefields and the Knoxes?”

  “What? The ancient grudge or the new mutiny?” Andy smirked.

  Stephanie rested her chin in her hands, elbows on the counter. “Both?” she asked hopefully, her eyebrows raised.

  “Ha,” Andy gave a short laugh. “I’m not getting involved in the current one, but from the little I know of the old one it goes back to before the war. The story in the village has always been about accusations of collaboration and then someone was killed. But I don’t know on which side,” he said.

  “Mmm, it was my great-aunt who died, but the Knoxes did have a large number of German visitors before and during the war, from what I’ve read. You can understand people at the time feeling uncomfortable and jumping to conclusions,” said Stephanie.

  “Oh, Steph,” Andy shook his head. “If you made comments to James along those lines, then I can understand why he’s so mad. Despite what he says about his brother and mother, he’s fiercely loyal to his family.”

  Stephanie let out a sigh. “Great,” she said despondently. “Actually, between me and my grandmother, we made worse allegations than that.” Stephanie grimaced at the memory of James’s reaction at her house that day.

  “Yeah?” Andy said.

  “Oh yeah, we threw in murder and theft for good measure,” she said. “Now saying it out loud again, it does sound ludicrous.” She put her head in her hands. “Andy, what have I done?”

  Andy reached across the counter and patted her on the shoulder and said, “James never stays mad for long. He’ll come around. Hey, who was that guy on Friday night – your boyfriend?”

  “Ex-boyfriend,” she mumbled from behind her hands.

  “What, ex as in after Friday’s little altercation?” he asked.

  Stephanie looked up. “Oh no – ex as in months ago,” she said.

  “Looked like he was keen to become the current boyfriend again,” Andy observed, placing a coffee in front of her.

  “Nah. He was just playing – I think he could tell that he was annoying James. Speaking of which, tell me about the history between James and Victoria,” she asked.

  Andy shook his head and held his hands up in front of him. “Oh no, you are going to have to ask him about that,” he said.

  “Maybe I will if he ever speaks to me again,” Stephanie said sadly. She picked up her cup and stood up from the bar stool. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll see you tonight.”

  Stephanie’s thoughts on the drive home were of Sophie. She had mentioned visits from a number of wealthy Europeans, any one of whom could have left the painting.

  Once back in her room, she quickly downloaded the photo from her phone onto her laptop and brought up the picture from the missing artwork website. She put the two pictures side by side to compare them.

  She studied them carefully – they were identical! Right down to the scrawled signature in the bottom left hand corner.

  What if, rather than storing valuables for European friends as Sophie’s diary entries had indicated, the Knoxes were storing items looted by the Nazis from the museums and art galleries of the occupied countries or stolen from their own people? What if everything hadn’t been returned after the war?

  Any one of those items would be worth millions now. And who better than an antique dealer to quietly move it on? No wonder Alex had been so annoyed that they were in the library. The question was, though, what did James know? Had his innocent act surrounding the painting simply been a performance? Did he kiss her to just distract her?

  Stephanie squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her temples. There were too many questions for which she had no answers.

  Stephanie was dreading that evening at the café, but James was nowhere to be seen and Andy had the sense not to mention him. Andy had organised a poetry recital, with amateur poets reading their compositions and Victoria and her friends sat in the corner laughing and commenting on each would-be poet. Nasty cow, Stephanie thought. Maybe now that she has James back, she will leave me be.

  About halfway through the evening James and Liam arrived and sat with the girls. Stephanie kept her eyes down and worked quietly.

  She went out to the back room to get some more milk to refill the small refrigerator behind the counter at one point. As she came back in she heard her name mentioned and paused to listen.

  “….not her usual bubbly self,” Andy said to someone.

  “James is an idiot,” an unknown voice, possibly Dave, said. “He’s crazy to let some old feud get in the way. I mean, look at her, she’s gorgeous.”

  Stephanie blushed, embarrassed. She wasn’t used to hearing herself talked about that way. I wonder what he would say if he saw the gawky and overweight kid I was a couple of years ago? She made a loud noise with the milk crate as she walked back into the café, which stopped the conversation. Sure enough, Dave was perched on a bar stool across the counter from Andy. He raised his eyebrows in greeting and gave her a friendly smile.

  Towards the end of the night, James came up to the counter and was talking music with Andy as Stephanie cleared dirty coffee cups and plates from the tables. She came back into the kitchen, deposited a full tray on the bench and bent to open the dishwasher.

  “Nice drive this afternoon?” James enquired.

  “Yeah,” she answered lightly, straightening up and leaning against the bench and confidently looking him in the eyes. “I was doing a bit of sightseeing – dangerous bit of road, from what I hear,” she said, deliberately baiting him.

  “Stephanie,” he growled, a warning note in his voice.

  “What?” She looked up at him, h
er blue eyes wide and innocent. She put her hands on her hips and crossed one leg over the other.

  He sighed looking away. “Remember what I told you,” he said, clearing his throat.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Stephanie replied, turning his own flippant remark from the night before back on him. Turning away, she began noisily loading the dishwasher.

  “That smart mouth will get you into trouble one day,” James sneered.

  “James,” Victoria called from across the room.

  Stephanie glanced at Andy, who was busy frothing milk and studiously ignoring them. She leaned across the counter towards James and whispered, “I think you are being summoned, jingle boy. Now run along.” She patted the back of his hand, as one would a child.

  James flushed an angry red and narrowed his eyes at her. He opened his mouth to say something further, but Andy shook his head at him.

  “Huh!” A muscle in James’s jaw clenched and his mouth contorted into a thin angry line as he thumped his fist on the counter and stomped back to Victoria’s table.