by P A Latter
From that moment, everything happened with the unnatural speed of an old undercranked film sequence: there was a siren outside; the sprinkler system came on; and almost immediately, the lights failed - presumably shorted out by water getting into the fuse box.
‘She must have called the fire service before we arrived. Thank god for that.’ Julia groped for Tristan’s hand, for comfort as much as to avoid them blundering into each other. ‘Why doesn’t she answer? She must be able to hear, even through these doors. She can’t have been overcome by smoke that quickly.’
Tristan took Julia’s face between his hands, wiping away droplets of water from the sprinklers, and kissed her swiftly. ‘Get back downstairs.’ He gave her a little shove, then crouched and sniffed at the base of the door. ‘I think there’s smoke coming under this door now. I can’t remember the layout. Which room is this?’
‘It’s the conservation workshop. There are inflammable solvents in there.’ Julia returned to the door and yelled into the keyhole. Cassie - are you in there? Are you OK?’
‘Could she be in one of the other rooms?’
‘If she was escaping the fire, she would have come downstairs, surely.’
Tristan pulled her back again. ‘Do as I say and go. Now! I’m going to start the extinguisher and open the door an inch.’
‘No! No heroics.’ Julia heard a snide voice in her head whisper: Not for Cassie. It was Julia’s turn now to pull Tristan back. ’The fire fighters will be here in a moment.’
They were dazzled by a heavy-duty torch being shone up at them.
‘Is anyone in the building?’
Tristan leaned over the bannister and shouted down. ‘At least three of us. There’s a woman shut in one of the rooms up here. The one where the fire is, most probably.’
There was a heavy pounding of feet on the stairs and men with breathing apparatus appeared. Julia found herself bundled down the two flights and out into the street.
Someone was directing operations with a radio and quizzed her about the layout of the rooms and whether there could be other people unaccounted for.
Tristan received the same treatment, but could add nothing further. The fire chief left them on the pavement and spoke on the radio to his colleagues.
A firefighter emerged from the house carrying Cassie and laid her on a sort of stretcher, quickly produced from the fire engine.
‘Thank god, they’ve got her.’ Julia moved to go to Cassie’s side and was prevented by the gentle but secure grasp of the fire chief.
‘I’m sorry Madam. Could you just wait until our paramedic sees her.’
Julia could see Cassie’s face was covered by an oxygen mask, until the man blocked her view, continuing to hold her arm. He started asking questions, but Julia was sure it was to keep her occupied rather than because he needed information.
At length, the paramedic walked over to Julia. ‘The lady we carried out…’
‘Yes. Cassandra Neville. She’s the curator of the museum.’
‘I’m very sorry. I am afraid she’s dead.’
Chapter 39
There was remarkably little damage. The fire was contained within the workshop. The sprinkler system only operated on the first and second floors and Cassie had been strictly enforcing a policy of covering the furniture every night with fire-retardant sheeting which was fortunately also water-resistant.
The boardroom was soaked as was the store room where Julia had set up her desk, and the top layer of the crates, which protected stored paintings.
Julia had called Hugh as soon as she overcame her shock on Cassie’s death. She couldn’t believe how quickly it had happened. She knew smoke inhalation could be deadly, but why hadn’t Cassie backed out of the workshop as soon as she could see the fire had taken hold?
When they had spoken the next day, Hugh asked her to step in once more as Acting Curator. Reluctantly, but seeing little other option for helping the museum, she agreed. The practical tasks required helped her deal with the situation.
She contacted Penny and Sam and the volunteer team. She liaised with the insurers. She handled press queries. But she asked Hugh if he would talk to Cassie’s family. The fire investigation team had also required direct contact with the Chairman of the trustees.
It was more than a week before they were allowed back into the building. Julia was anxious to see for herself that the collection and fabric of the house were largely undamaged. But it was the scene of another death and she was reluctant to face it alone.
Hugh was busy with his own business meetings, so Julia - feeling she was taking shameless advantage of their new relationship - asked Tristan if he could spare a morning.
The fire service had left everything quite tidy. The floor of the hallway could do with a deep clean and there were scuff marks on walls, but the galleries were untouched.
The insurers had already organised driers to deal with the soaking on the first floor, but it looked like the carpets would recover reasonably well.
Julia led the way up to the second floor. ‘I’ve no idea what’s left of the workshop - or of the pieces Sam was working on.’
‘What did she have up here?’
‘Besides the Assassin, waiting to be reframed, the Emma Seckfield - as bad luck would have it. Cassie thought the frame needed some attention. And she’d asked Sam to clean the Aemilia Seckfield, even though it was going back into storage.’
They opened the door to a scene of localised wreckage. A smoky smell still persisted. On the workbench there was a mess of wood and canvas damaged beyond recognition and surrounded by charred rags.
Sam’s anglepoise spotlight seemed focused on the devastation, but the bulb had exploded. The mouth of the extractor fan was aimed over the desk. The Assassin still stood in the far corner, where Julia had seen it the last time she had been in the workshop. It looked undamaged.
‘Oh poor Cassie. She must have come up here for a smoke. Sam said she put the extractor on to hide the smell.’
‘You think the fire was accidental?’ Tristan asked, his voice neutral.
‘Yes, of course. I imagine she dropped her cigarette and something caught alight. When she heard us arrive, she must have panicked and then passed out from the smoke.’
‘The direction of the fan… It would have dragged air straight across the bench, making the fire burn really fiercely, but localised. And look at the position of the rags. I’m not so sure this was accidental.’
‘But why would Cassie set fire to paintings - to our most valuable painting?’
‘I have no idea, but your forebodings about that night were well-justified.’
‘I’d rather not have been proved right. If she started it deliberately, did she mean to take her own life?’
‘It would be a weird way to do it. But it happened so quickly.’ Tristan looked around again - most of the room hadn’t even been marked by soot.
‘The fire investigation people wouldn’t say anything to me - they’ve been dealing with Hugh.’
‘Julia - where’s the frame from the Assassin?’
She looked around the room. ‘It was on the shelf above the workbench when I was up here before. Sam was investigating coatings or varnishes that might be used to seal the wood, on the presumption it could still have active poisons.’
Tristan moved closer to the workbench. He reached out to take a paintbrush from a jar unaffected by the blaze. He used the wooden end to poke gently at the mess on the bench. A charred fragment separated and resolved into one of the bear’s heads of the frame that had surrounded the Assassin.
‘It must have fallen off the shelf into the fire,’ Julia said.
‘If there were toxins still impregnated into the wood - volatile compounds - the heat could have released them. It could be why she lost consciousness so quickly.’
‘Oh no. Not the Assassin’s Curse again.’
They returned downstairs to lock up, depressed and confused by what they had seen. Julia’s phone rang - it was Hu
gh asking if she was free to meet up.
When she said she was at the museum with Tristan, he said he was ten minutes away and if they could stay put, he would join them there.
She unlocked again and they went through to the kitchen at the back of the building to wait for him. She had already told him about Tristan’s help to identify the Assassin.
When he arrived and she performed the introductions, she could see each man evaluating the other.
‘Hugh, you’ve spoken to Cassie’s family. Is there any chance that this wasn’t an accident? That she meant to do it?’ Julia said.
‘That it was suicide? No, very unlikely. But it looks like she did set the fire deliberately.’
‘Why did she want to burn the portraits of Emma and her daughter?’
‘She didn’t. The police are holding the paintings.’
‘The police? What on earth are they doing with them?’
‘They recovered them from Cassie’s car.’
‘Oh god. She’d taken them? Stolen them? But what was burnt in the workshop?’
‘Blank or worthless canvases, no doubt.’ Tristan said, quick on the uptake. He knew about art fraud. ‘She meant it to look like an accident and claim on the insurance.’ He looked from Hugh to Julia, as if he realised he shouldn’t intrude in museum business.
‘But why those two pictures? The Emma Seckfield, yes, but the portrait of Aemilia only has value as Seckfield family history.’
‘If they were both high value, the insurance claim would look more suspicious. Emma is highly saleable and Aemilia makes a nice companion piece,’ Hugh said.
‘Do you think the “rich donor” she promised was going to be the money from selling them?’
‘She may have intended some of the money to come back to the museum - to help secure her position, but the police think she was a mess - financially and in other ways.’
‘A drug habit.’
Hugh nodded. ‘I never suspected a thing.’
‘Sam and Penny both thought she might have a problem.’
‘Why didn’t anyone tell me?’
‘If it’s just a suspicion without proof, it’s awfully hard to tell tales on your boss.’
‘I thought you might have talked to me, Julia.’
‘It wouldn’t have helped her. I hoped she was managing it - if there was something to manage. And you haven’t been the easiest to talk to recently.’
Julia noticed his speculative glance at Tristan. It looked involuntary.
‘I suppose we all react to pressure in different ways. I’ve had a few things on my mind recently. Close to a company crisis,’ Hugh said.
Julia suddenly realised that was the nearest he would come to admitting to stress and that his business had been in serious trouble.
He gestured as if to brush that all aside. ‘But I was never intending to take a commission on selling works from the collection, whatever Cassie may have said to you.’
‘I never believed that.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it. However, Fathon House is going to have to face its financial problem. If the rest of the board keep squabbling, I still think selling a few minor works of little significance is the least worst way to get us out of the hole.’
‘What constitutes little significance?’ Tristan interrupted.
‘Some of these paintings have been in storage for years - some by unknown artists, a lot of random subjects.’
‘Until Julia’s research, the portrait of Henry Morton fell - more or less - into all those categories.’
‘True, I suppose. But the short-term flurry of public interest it may bring now won’t keep us open for long.’
Chapter 40
The conversation with Hugh had given Julia a lot to think about. The investigation into Cassie’s death was still ongoing, and Fathon House would be closed to visitors for a further fortnight while the fire and water damage was made good.
However, there were routine tasks to catch up with and maintenance that needed supervision.
Julia called Penny to ask her to return to work. ‘You won’t be in the building on your own. And I’d be happier if you’re there to keep an eye on the workmen. Come in on Friday and I’ll give you an update.’
They spent most of the Friday morning going over the events on the night of the fire and its aftermath. After they had exhausted their speculation into Cassie’s motivation and state of mind, Penny made more coffee and opened a new topic of conversation.
‘It seemed a bit inappropriate to ask about it earlier, but I seem to remember you were having a celebration dinner with Tristan when all this happened.’
‘Yes. We found pretty incontrovertible evidence that the Assassin is Henry Morton, 5th and last Earl of Somerset.’
‘I wasn’t actually asking that.’
‘I know.’ Julia tried to suppress her grin.
‘And?’
‘And I am not going to give you intimate details of my personal life.’
‘My dear, you just have. He looks like a keeper to me and I’m very happy for you.’
‘Despite everything, I do feel - not happy exactly - contented. At peace with the world.’ Julia continued to search for the term that best described her feelings.
‘You’ve been on edge since that damned portrait went on display. After your holiday, I thought you’d got over it, but there was still something worrying at you. And you’d never really talk about it.’
Julia had never wanted to admit to herself how much she had been affected by the painting - how much it had drawn her back to those weeks when she had been followed: feeling watched all the time.
But Penny was a good friend and deserved her honesty. ‘I am still not sure if I believe the Assassin “possessed” me or anyone else, but I have learned to accept the uncertainty. Of course, Tristan not thinking I was off my head when I described something almost invisible was reassuring.’
‘Seeing something invisible does sound worrying.’
‘I think a child on the school visit saw it too. A detail in the corner of the picture. What do a pomegranate and a snake mean to you?’
Penny stared at her before answering. ‘A pomegranate can stand for righteousness and a snake for wisdom. You can see them in the painting of the Assassin?’
Julia thought about what Tristan had said about symbols and people’s guiding principles. Righteousness and wisdom sounded about right for Penny. ‘I can’t explain it, but they are embedded in it somehow. I can’t explain how I knew something was going to happen before Cassie set the fire. Perhaps a bit of the Assassin is now embedded in me, but I’ve found I can live with that.’
~
When they were ready to reopen, the rooms had been thoroughly dried out and the hallway cleaned. Julia had composed and printed a few temporary panels giving a brief explanation for the museum’s closure, which glossed over a lot of the salient facts.
Cassie’s death was explained as a tragic accident caused by the fire, which was most probably started by a dropped cigarette. No-one who was unaware of the paintings being found in Cassie’s car thought to question whether it had been dropped deliberately.
Hugh had decided it was best if the public was told as little as possible - the Assassin’s frame was all that had been lost in the fire. No-one except the media would gain from another sensationalist story of attempted theft and unexplained death, but the Curse story was bound to resurface.
He had invited Julia to dinner to talk about the museum’s future and, at her suggestion, agreed to ask Tristan if he would join them to give his advice. Hugh was at the table - Le Beau Monde - again, when Julia and Tristan arrived.
She suspected this time it was a deliberate choice, if not quite a territorial statement. She was sure Hugh had no regrets regarding their relationship and how it had evolved over time, but she thought he might be trying to remind her that they did have some good times together.
On the other hand, Hugh was rarely that subtle and he just liked the place.<
br />
‘Firstly, on behalf of the trustees, I wanted to say we are really grateful you have been willing to step in again to help the House. I know it can’t be easy.’
‘Thanks. And the guys at MJL have been so good about it, again. But we do need to get an alternative arrangement in place as soon as possible.’ Julia glanced at Tristan and he nodded for her to continue. ‘If the board will consider it, Tristan has a proposition.’
‘As an interim measure, I could offer my assistant for six months on a free secondment. He’s inexperienced, but Julia has said she’d be willing to mentor him.’
‘Hugh, it would be the perfect solution. Dunstan is developing a project on family portraiture and wants to work on tracing more of the Seckfield history. And it would be a major cost saving.’
Hugh took very little time to consider. ‘That’s a very generous offer, Dr Kernow, I’m sure the board will be delighted.’
‘I hope it may be an opportunity for the National Portrait Gallery to establish an ongoing relationship with Fathon House,’ Tristan said.
Hugh’s eyes narrowed briefly, as if unsure what he was supposed to read into that and evidently decided it would be simplest to smile and move on. ‘There is one other matter that I wanted to talk about. And I feel this should be your decision, Julia.’
She couldn’t think what he might have in mind and waited for him to continue.
‘You’ve done an amazing job to solve the mystery of the “Venetian” nobleman, but you’ve always had some, shall we say, misgivings about the painting.’
‘I know you don’t believe in ghosts and spirits and I don’t know that I do either, but until I found out who the Assassin was, the portrait did disturb me.’
‘You mean it doesn’t anymore?’ Hugh said.
‘I don’t think we will ever know if Henry Morton was trying to poison anyone, but for me, his ghost has been laid to rest. Why are you asking?’
‘Because if you don’t want it reframed and on display, it’s going back into storage, so that it won’t trouble you - any of us - again.’
‘I’ve come to believe it was the frame that was truly dangerous. The painting itself?’ Julia shrugged. ‘Perhaps I just don’t want to feel he’s beaten me. I think we should exploit his notoriety.’