by Amy Myers
Diane actually smiled. ‘You were right, Georgia. You guessed how our friend Mr Watts fooled us both. He owns two houses there, adjacent ones, three and two. The Number Three you saw was in fact Number Two, and we checked an entirely different house. Simplest solutions are best. The number boards were switched as and when needed. The unwary, like us, would simply think from Number Three’s position that the houses carried odd numbers only.’
‘Are you bringing charges?’
She shook her head. ‘Difficult to prove. But now Watts is in our sights, I doubt if it will happen again.’
Georgia was not so sure, but she must have passed out again, because it was late afternoon when Luke gently woke her. ‘Jake’s here,’ he said, ‘and Jennifer too. Do you feel up to it?’
‘I think so.’ Did she? Yes, because it was something she had to do. Sitting in the living room at Medlars made it easier, because she couldn’t have faced Stourdens again so soon.
‘I’m sorry, Jake,’ she said as he kissed her.
‘Not half as sorry as I am. I realized Phil was going off his rocker, but I didn’t enquire further when he said his publishers were OK with the book. I was too relieved that I didn’t have to cancel my film, I guess. Serve me right. I knew I didn’t want to live with him any more and never asked myself why. I get a bit carried away with my job, but the result is that you’ve taken the brunt of it. I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry I was late getting to that hellhole.’
‘Glad,’ Georgia said stoutly. ‘It saved your life and mine.’
‘That’s a nice way of putting it, but I still blame myself.’
‘What’s happening about the film?’
‘We’re being British,’ Jennifer said. ‘Carrying on. More re-scripting, more reshooting, more scene changes. Barbara’s turned up trumps over the catering, and Jake only has to pay for the cost of the food. She says it’s only right after what you went through. She seems to have a soft spot for you – we all do. So it’s a case of us all mucking in.’
‘And before you ask, Georgia,’ Jake added, ‘we’ve no references to Northanger Abbey and tunnels now. We’re using the folly instead, which luckily is outside the disaster zone decreed by Health and Safety.’
‘I’m beginning to feel like a queen holding court,’ Georgia said weakly, ‘with my privy council telling me what’s going on.’
‘You are a queen,’ Jennifer said fondly. ‘No doubt about that. Even Tim was rather overawed. He said he was pretty nasty to you in that tunnel.’
‘Tell him a queenly veil has been drawn over it,’ Georgia said.
‘For me too. It’s too early to be sure, but I think we’ll still get married in due course. I do love him. And he stood by me stoically at the end. I was raving at first when I heard about you and Philip, and I said I would have nothing to do with any plans for Stourdens at all. That I was going to get that trust dissolved, get Douglas charged with fraud, and Stourdens could fall down for all I cared. Then I calmed down and we came to an agreement. There’s so much furore about Phil’s death and Jake’s film that we’re going to let the dust settle for a few months. The book’s publication is cancelled, of course, and the film won’t be shown until next year.’
Georgia could not resist the temptation. ‘Are you really going to pursue Douglas in the courts?’
Jennifer grinned. ‘I doubt it. He seems to have made himself scarce. He’s good at fading into the background. He’s resigned as the trustee of Stourdens, anyway, but we hope to keep the trust going.’ She hesitated. ‘We have a new trustee in mind.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘You, Georgia. Could you bear it? Or would it be too painful?’
‘Me?’
The idea initially appalled her, but then she thought more carefully. Painful? No, it might be the cure. Looking after the future of Stourdens, something positive to replace the awfulness of the past. ‘I think . . . I think . . . Yes, I’d like to take it on.’
Jennifer beamed and hugged her – carefully to avoid the bruises. ‘That’s wonderful. Well, your first job is to come to Edgar House with me when you feel up to it. Bring Peter and Luke too. The more the merrier.’ Another pause. ‘And let me know when because we want Tim’s parents to be there. Both of them.’
‘Nothing like throwing me in the deep end,’ Georgia joked. Could she face it, knowing that far from being solved, the truth about the death of Bob Luckhurst might never be known?
‘You flourish on deep ends,’ Luke said comfortingly.
Did she? For such a meeting the shallow end looked distinctly preferable.
‘You don’t mind, Peter?’ Georgia asked him later. ‘The trustee job might have suited you nicely. You’ve a better financial head than I have.’
‘Which will always be at your service. Don’t worry. I shall have my hands full,’ he said. ‘And not only with Marsh and Daughter.’
‘Oh?’ She had half expected this.
‘I shall have Elena to look after soon. She’s decided on a house.’ He looked both anxious and pleased at the same time.
‘To look after?’ she queried.
‘I want it that way, sweetheart. I get sick and tired of having to be cared for. That’s what went wrong between Janie and me. Now I’ve got a chance to care for someone else, emotionally if not physically.’
‘Is the house in Canterbury?’
‘Actually it’s closer.’
‘Haden Shaw?’ she asked with foreboding. He was looking shifty.
‘Not a million miles away. Next door. Your old home.’
Edgar House was beginning to feel like home, Georgia thought. Gone was the hostility Gerald had earlier displayed, and Dora seemed complacent at having proved her independence. It was a cheerful occasion, for which Dora must have spent a long time preparing. Raspberry fritters were well to the fore. Georgia had wondered just why Jennifer was so keen on this gathering and had assumed it was to reassure the Wilsons that David-Max’s revelations were an accepted fact in her relationship with Tim.
Georgia had been wrong.
‘We have something for you,’ Jennifer said to Dora and Gerald. ‘It’s on the large side so Tim’s fetching it in.’
Georgia turned curiously as Tim came back bearing a large wrapped object whose shape made it clear what sort of gift it was.
Dora saw immediately as Tim pulled off the paper. ‘Oh! The oil painting of Captain Harker.’ Her delight was evident and her and Gerald’s thanks profuse.
‘It needs to live here,’ Jennifer said. Georgia was aware that Max’s eyes were glued to the painting. With wistfulness or avarice? she wondered. Was yet another plan running through his mind?
‘You know,’ Dora said, ‘I really love that painting most of all, although the watercolours were very pretty. I suppose they really have gone for good?’
‘A few scraps have been found,’ Jennifer said, ‘but I realized I could never look at them now without remembering everything that had happened, so I’ve destroyed them.’
There was a silence, during which Dora looked lovingly at the portrait. ‘I suppose,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘it is just possible that Captain Harker and Jane Austen met here.’
No one spoke, so Georgia decided to break the silence. ‘It is,’ she said cheerfully, ‘but I don’t think we’ll ask Douglas to prove it.’
It was a convivial gathering after that, and very enjoyable. So much so that Georgia realized that neither she nor Peter had talked to Max Tanner. ‘I’ll ring him some time soon,’ Peter said as they left. It was unnecessary because Georgia turned back to see that Max was following them out to the car.
‘Did you talk to your police chums about Tom Miller, Georgia?’ he asked.
‘No, David.’ She would continue to think of him so, rather than as Max.
‘Why not?’
Peter answered. ‘Because he was innocent. As you know.’
‘Do I?’ He didn’t look surprised, only somewhat hurt.
‘You killed Bob Luckhur
st.’
‘That’s only what the jury said. They were wrong.’
‘You’d just found out that not only were your precious Austen letters faked, but also the whole collection – and what was far worse was that Bob refused to exploit them, anyway. He wanted to treasure them alone.’
David looked at them speculatively. ‘I’ve served my time.’
‘We know that,’ Georgia said. ‘Care to tell us what really happened?’
David considered this, then grinned. ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Between us, and don’t bother your police chums over it, it was like this. I had all my plans ready for the pub; Amelia told me the Stourdens’ plans were agreed and they’d be going ahead any moment. How was I to know the stuff was fake? Bob paid me a few quid for the painting and then generously presented me with the letters he said he’d found there. He said it was a surprise to him too, and maybe it was – Watts could have poked them in there. I didn’t know about that gent at all. Amelia and Bob kept quiet on that score. But the bastard kept delaying doing anything about the Stourdens’ plans and wittering on about being the keeper of the Jane Austen heritage. At last Amelia told me the whole lot was a scam, and I went berserk. Thought I could get Bob to change his mind. I took the gun with me to frighten him a bit, but Miller and his gang came barging in. I didn’t know about that. I said I’d go and come back later, but I stayed in the other room just to see what was happening, and then came back once the mob had gone. Blow me if Bob didn’t accuse me of bringing Miller and his gang there to steal his precious collection. I reminded him it was fake, and I thought he was going to hit me, so I raised my arms, his arm shot out and the gun sort of went off.’
‘But you still kept saying you were innocent.’
‘I said the jury was wrong, and so it was,’ David said indignantly. ‘They said I killed him because of that licence, but that wasn’t the reason so the whole trial was a mockery. That’s bloody British justice for you.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything about the collection being fake at the trial?’
‘Given me more of a motive, wouldn’t it?’ he said practically, then added: ‘Besides, I didn’t know Esther was going to sell it. I reckoned one day I might get a second chance.’ He grinned.
‘There’s one good thing emerged from this mess,’ Georgia said thoughtfully as she drove Peter home. ‘At least Suspects Anonymous has been proved fallible.’
‘Conceded,’ Peter said reluctantly. ‘Although—’
‘It was wrong,’ she repeated. ‘It pointed to Tom Miller.’
Peter gave in. ‘If you say so. Georgia, I asked Jennifer if she’d mind if we visited Abbot’s Folly on the way home. Could you bear it? There’s one loose end . . .’
Her heart sank. She knew exactly what he was going to say. ‘The fingerprints.’
‘Yes. I’d like to see if they’re still there.’
‘They can’t be. Max Tanner killed Bob Luckhurst, and whatever he says justice was done.’ Nevertheless, she knew how he felt and was also aware that she was arguing against his suggestion only because she didn’t want to go near that place so soon.
Peter glanced at her. ‘Jennifer said we could use the tractor path behind the folly and get the car nearer to it. There’s a gate through to Stourdens and the track is wide enough to get the wheelchair along once inside. Does that help?’
She looked at him gratefully. ‘Yes. Thanks. I’m not crazy about seeing the folly, but the tunnel is still the real nightmare.’
‘It won’t take long, I promise.’
It felt strange to be here on their own in the early evening, and, with the setting sun, she felt that some of the peace that the Mad Abbot must have loved seemed to have returned. Ahead she could see the woods near which the huge hole left by the falling tunnel masonry must lie, but she could turn her back on that. She would concentrate on the fingerprints.
The door into Abbot’s Folly was closed but unlocked, and the ramp was still in place. Georgia pushed open the door, prepared for she knew not what, longing for it not to be just as it was the last time she had come here. Peter followed closely behind her.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing here.’
He was right. It was an empty building. Completely empty. Empty of its vandalized contents, and empty of fingerprints.
In silence Georgia struggled to take in what this meant. She saw Peter look up at her, and she met his eye, knowing they were both thinking the same thing.
Peter cleared his throat. ‘Those fingerprints weren’t left by Max Tanner or by Bob Luckhurst, were they?’
‘No,’ she agreed.
A long silence, then she said diffidently, ‘You don’t think that they were left by someone who felt betrayed and that justice had not been done?’
‘Impossible,’ Peter said hurriedly.
‘Either because of the collection, or –’ she steeled herself – ‘because of an unhappy love affair?’
‘Sheer fantasy.’
‘It’s not.’ Georgia put it into words. ‘The fingerprints could have been Jane Austen’s.’
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Jane Austen paid many visits to Kent and in particular to Godmersham Park, between Canterbury and Ashford, which at the time of this novel’s sub-plot was owned by her brother Edward. As a boy, he had been informally adopted by the Knight family, who owned Godmersham; he had married into the Bridges family of Goodnestone Park and come to own Godmersham himself, taking the name of Knight in 1812. Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra were indeed staying at Godmersham during most of September and October in 1802. They were living in Bath at the time, and their former home at Steventon in Hampshire was currently lived in by her brother James and his family. It was there that Jane and Cassandra travelled after leaving Kent, and during their stay at Steventon they paid a visit to friends at Manydown where Jane accepted and instantly regretted a proposal of marriage from Harris Bigg-Wither. So much is fact, but Stourdens and Captain Harker, and the story and characters of this novel, are all fictional. So too is Edgar House. Although Jane and Cassandra would have hired post-chaises to reach Kent, the inn in which they awaited the Godmersham carriage for the last stage of their journey was not the Edgar Arms. For background information I am indebted in particular to David Waldron Smithers’ Jane Austen in Kent, to Letters of Jane Austen edited by Edward, Lord Brabourne, and of course to the novels of Jane Austen herself.
As always, my thanks are due to my agent, Dorothy Lumley, and to my publishing editor, Rachel Simpson Hutchens, together with Severn House’s expert and friendly staff.