A Tangled Thread

by Anthea Fraser

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked above her quickened heartbeat.

  ‘I hope so. I’m interested in local artists and wonder what you have in that category.’

  Same old question. ‘Any artist in particular?’ she asked, leading him down the room.

  ‘Alison Lockhart? Ronald Frobisher? Martin James?’

  Well, at least he seemed to know what he was talking about – unlike his girlfriend. ‘We have one or two Lockharts but none of the others at the moment, I’m afraid.’

  They had come to a halt in front of a large abstract painting in strong colours. He shook his head. ‘I don’t want to appear a philistine, but I fear that’s too big for the available space.’

  ‘The seascape is smaller,’ Victoria said, moving to the next painting.

  He frowned at it for several minutes. ‘That would be more suitable, certainly.’ He paused. ‘May I ask how long you’ve had it in stock?’

  Victoria gave a little laugh. ‘An unusual question!’

  He smiled briefly. ‘My wife was in here a few weeks ago and mentioned a painting she particularly liked, and stupidly I’ve forgotten which it was.’

  ‘Couldn’t you ask her?’

  ‘I could, but that would spoil the surprise – it’s for her birthday. So, would it have been here then?’

  ‘We’ve had that particular painting for some time, yes.’

  ‘And that?’ He indicated the next one by the same artist.

  ‘Much the same.’

  He paused, looking from one picture to the other. ‘Have you sold any paintings by local artists in the last few weeks?’

  Again, the same question ‘Tina’ had posed. ‘One or two,’ she said guardedly.

  ‘About that size?’

  ‘Pretty much, from what I remember.’

  ‘I wonder, could you possibly put me in touch with the buyer or buyers? Perhaps if I offered an increased figure they might be willing to sell them to me.’

  Victoria shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, we don’t pass on customer details.’

  He sighed. ‘It really is important. Is there any way I can persuade you to bend the rules a little?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ she said coolly.

  ‘Then could you take it down so I can check the back?’

  Victoria raised her eyebrows. ‘If it’s the title you’re wondering about, it’s called Market Scene, and as you can see, the artist’s signature is in the bottom corner.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you sometimes learn more from labels on the back. Let me help you to lift it down.’ He moved forward but Victoria swiftly intercepted him.

  ‘I’m sorry; pictures are only taken down once they’ve been bought.’

  He turned suddenly to face her, an almost desperate expression in his eyes, and she thought for a moment that he was going to seize hold of her. God, Nigel, where are you? Then he turned away, apparently defeated.

  Hastily she went back into sales mode. ‘There’s nothing else I can interest you in? I’m sure your wife would be equally pleased—’

  But he shook his head and turned to the door. Victoria watched him go. Curiouser and curiouser, she thought.

  ‘It struck me afterwards that he wasn’t consistent,’ she reported to Nigel on his return. ‘First he wanted a picture of a certain size, then the questions started: how long had it been in stock? Could his wife have seen it “a few weeks ago”? Who had recently bought a painting by a local artist? Could he have their addresses? And finally he was all for taking it off the wall – possibly in the hope of making off with it.’

  ‘Tina also asked about local artists,’ Nigel said thoughtfully.

  ‘Exactly. We know they’re working together but what on earth can they be after? And do you think they were behind the attempted break-in?’

  ‘Almost definitely, I’d say. Not them in person, but I’m willing to bet they arranged it.’

  ‘Well, they’re not giving up. I wonder what they’ll come up with next.’

  ‘No doubt we’ll soon find out,’ Nigel replied.

  The news that evening, however, drove their nebulous suspicions about Bernard out of their minds. Donald Lancing had died in hospital without regaining consciousness. What the press had dubbed The Stately Homes Robberies had metamorphosed into a murder enquiry.

  Stonebridge

  Once again, David and Will Gregory drove to their grandparents’ home, but this time it was their own startling news they’d come to discuss.

  ‘This is an extraordinary turn of events,’ Henry said gravely, sitting down opposite them. ‘We’d been keeping a secret all these years, but it appears we knew only half the story.’

  ‘Have you come across anything significant?’ Will asked hopefully.

  ‘I’m afraid not. As I said, we only met … your father once, and we’ve been searching our joint memory but we’re pretty sure his surname was never mentioned. He was introduced to us simply as “Larry”, and of course when Sally took the name Gregory we assumed it was his and that she wanted his sons to have it. It now looks as though she just plucked it out of the air.’

  ‘There’s another complication,’ David said. ‘As I mentioned on the phone, apparently someone else has come forward – possibly the legitimate family surfacing at last. We know he was married – you said he told Mum when he left her – but it hadn’t occurred to me that he’d have other children – half-brothers or sisters we know nothing about. DS Grant wouldn’t give me a name but he said there’ll be an appeal in the press shortly, asking for info on all the identities they’ve come up with, so no doubt we’ll learn it then.’

  ‘God, what an infernal mess,’ Henry murmured. ‘Did you find anything of significance yourselves?’

  ‘No, just the old photos and our birth certificates, where our father’s name is plainly stated as Laurence Gregory.’

  ‘Then hard though it is,’ Nina said gently, ‘all we can do is leave it for the police to unravel.’

  Will hadn’t spoken for a while, but now he said suddenly, ‘Obviously Dad’s been on my mind these last weeks and I’ve been getting more and more keen to find out all I can about him – research him, like that programme Who Do You Think You Are?, where you can trace your family back and get to know them.’ He looked down at his hands, avoiding eye contact. ‘If his other family does come forward, I’d like to meet them.’

  David stared at him. ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘I am, but the trouble is I very much doubt they’d want to meet us.’

  ‘God, Will—’

  ‘Just think for a moment: they could tell us all the things we’ve always wondered about – his favourite food, how he liked to spend his holidays, what books he read. We could form a picture of him as a living man, not restricted to an image in a photograph.’

  There was a brief silence, then Henry said, ‘Well, time enough to think about that if and when they come forward. I just wish to God Sally had been more open with us.’

  ‘Was she ever going to tell us the truth?’ David asked.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Nina said sadly. ‘She thought it would be kinder not to.’

  ‘Or she was ashamed,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘That too. Unmarried mothers were far less common in those days and still frowned upon.’

  ‘But when we’d grown up and times had changed, she could have—’

  ‘The truth is I doubt if she ever thought of him any longer.’

  There seemed nothing else to say, and shortly afterwards the brothers left to go home.

  ‘You will tell us the minute you hear anything?’ Nina said anxiously.

  ‘Of course we will, Gran. Surely this can’t go on much longer.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ said Henry Hurst.

  Foxclere

  The appeal was in the press and on television news the next day, requesting information on anyone using the names Laurence Gregory, Gregory Lawrence, Johnnie Stewart or J or Jake Farthing, with the assurance that all information would
be held in the strictest confidence.

  Georgia, reading the paper over her mother’s shoulder, said suddenly, ‘What was Dad’s full name, Mum?’

  Jill looked up, understanding dawning in her eyes. ‘Gregory John Stewart Lawrence,’ she said slowly. ‘My God, why did I never think of that?’

  ‘Well, he made full use of them in various permutations, but heaven alone knows where Jake Farthing comes from. I suppose in the interests of anonymity he didn’t want anyone tracing it back to him.’

  Blaircomrie

  ‘An immediate result of the appeal, boss, though it doesn’t get us far.’ There was an undercurrent of excitement in Grant’s voice. ‘The London paper’s been in touch, in a flat spin over their revered columnist ending up dead in a Scottish alley; but it seems he was an enigma to them too. They’d no idea of his real name; their cheques were made out to J Farthing, as we’d supposed, and the last one was cashed on the fourth of June, the day before he died. So he’d had that account long before he did his disappearing act – which was lucky for him in the circumstances, because the one in his real name would have been wound up at his supposed death.’

  Mackay nodded. ‘It would be interesting to know,’ he remarked, ‘whether his killer thought he was despatching Johnnie Stewart, Laurence Gregory, Gregory Lawrence or J Farthing. There could be different motives for all of them!’

  Grant groaned. ‘Just when I thought things were looking a bit clearer!’ he said.

  TWELVE

  Blaircomrie

  The two detectives were well into their train journey south by the time Beth and Moira met for lunch the following day. Though they’d spoken on the phone, they’d not seen each other since Jill Lawrence’s surprise visit, and Moira was agog for details.

  ‘It gave me quite a jolt, reading all those names in the paper,’ Beth admitted after she’d reported their conversation. ‘Who’d have thought that Johnnie, who seemed so laid-back and open, should have had so many secrets?’ She gave a little shiver. ‘I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, that’s for sure. Believe me, Moira, except for Mr Barnes I’ll stick to women in future. Talking of which, I’m having Johnnie’s room done over – repainted, new curtains and bed linen – and it should all be ready next week. Then I’ll advertise for a new lodger.’

  Moira said hesitantly, ‘Don’t you think it might be wise to wait for the dust to settle a bit?’

  ‘What dust? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Well, the house was shown on Crimewatch only ten days ago – the outside, anyway. People might feel a bit hesitant about living in a room whose previous occupant was murdered.’

  ‘But he wasn’t murdered in the house! If anyone’s stupid enough to think that, I wouldn’t want them as my lodger anyway!’

  Moira bit her lip, and after a moment said peaceably, ‘To get back to this Mrs Lawrence, what was she like?’

  ‘Small, fair, nicely spoken. I liked her. You should have seen her face when I identified Johnnie as her husband, though. I thought for a moment she was going to pass out.’

  ‘But she must have known!’ Moira objected. ‘She’d seen the sketch in the paper – that’s why she’d come.’

  ‘Yes, but to prove to herself that it wasn’t him. Remember she’d been mourning him for over a year. It was too much for her even to contemplate, and then it bounced back and hit her in the face.’

  She crumbled the bread roll on her plate, not looking at her friend. ‘I can’t believe I was such a fool, letting him seduce me so easily. He must have thought I was a pushover.’

  ‘I’m sure he was fond of you in his way,’ Moira said gently. She paused. ‘Have you remembered anything else about that paper he got you to sign?’

  ‘No – another example of being a fool, but we’d been laughing and joking and were just about to go out when he pulled it from his pocket and said casually, “Oh, by the way – be a love and sign this for me, would you?” And he put it on the breakfast table in front of me. There was some typing at the top of the page but I didn’t get a chance to read it. I asked him what it was and he said, “Oh, just something I need for work, showing I have a permanent address.” And the thought that he regarded my home as his “permanent address” sounded so wonderful I just … signed.’

  ‘Oh, Beth!’

  ‘No fool like an old fool,’ she said bitterly.

  Foxclere

  Edward had spent every evening that week in the golf club bar in the hope of seeing Owen Jackson, but in vain. By Thursday he was beginning to think he’d have to phone to arrange a meeting, whereas he’d been hoping for a more casual approach.

  Ever since Sunday, when Jill had poured out the incredible story of her husband’s resurrection, Gregory Lawrence had been on his mind, the more so since the previous day’s press appeal listing a string of what could only be other aliases – Jake Farthing, for one, which was almost beyond belief. What the hell had the man been playing at? His only means of learning more was through Owen.

  That evening, however, his patience was rewarded; as he was ordering his second drink Owen joined him at the bar and was about to perch on one of the stools when Edward suggested they take their glasses to a vacant table. Slightly surprised, Owen followed him over.

  ‘Last time we met,’ Edward began as soon as they’d seated themselves, ‘you were telling me about Gregory Lawrence; since then, various facts have emerged about him, one of them being that he wasn’t killed by that bomb in Egypt after all.’

  Owen paused, his glass halfway to his lips. ‘Come again?’

  ‘In fact,’ Edward continued, ‘he’s on the point of being identified as a man who was stabbed in Scotland a few weeks ago.’

  Owen stared at him. ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘I am. Heavens, man, have you been incommunicado this week? There’ve been appeals in the press and on TV for any information on him, along with a string of other names he seems to have been using.’

  ‘He’s been alive all this time? God!’ Owen paused, trying to assimilate the news. ‘As it happens,’ he went on, ‘I haven’t seen any news this week; I was struck down with summer flu – the worst kind, believe me – and this is my first outing. I’ve spent the last few days in bed not wanting to do anything but sleep, least of all keep abreast of the news, which would only depress me more.’ He paused again, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘But if he wasn’t killed, where the hell has he been for the last year and why didn’t he re-join his family?’

  ‘I was hoping you could explain at least some of that.’

  ‘Me?’ Owen stared at him.

  ‘You said you saw him in Cairo shortly before he was “killed”. How did he seem?’

  Owen’s expression of surprise gave way to one of dawning incredulity. ‘My God!’ he said softly. ‘It just might have been true!’ He took a long draught of beer. ‘You ask how he seemed: the answer is, drunk – very drunk. I was surprised because he’d always been able to hold his liquor, but that night he cornered me as though I was the proverbial wedding guest and poured out a ludicrous story that simply beggared belief. Frankly, having tried unsuccessfully to shake him off, I stopped listening.’

  Edward had gone still. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Oh, some highly coloured story about having a fatwa on him, would you believe? He rambled on about how some Islamic sect was out to get him and was threatening his relatives. “I can’t even go home,” he said, “or I’d be leading them straight to my wife and family.”’

  He took another drink. ‘But if, incredible though it seems, it was actually true, and he really did survive the bomb, it would have suited him very nicely to be presumed dead.’

  Edward was having trouble following him. ‘But why in the name of heaven were they after him? What could he possibly have done?’

  Owen lifted his shoulders. ‘He was a jack of all trades, as I told you, and at that point was into freelance photography, selling pictures of war zones to the press and so on. Possibly he snapp
ed something he shouldn’t have, or—’

  He slammed his hand down on the table. ‘God, yes! It’s coming back to me now! A couple of weeks earlier there’d been the hell of a hoo-ha over an aborted peace plan: the head of an Arab state had been due to attend a conference in Baghdad with the aim of brokering a peace deal or something, but he pulled out at the last minute, causing quite a lot of offence – you must remember it. Anyway, it later transpired that he’d been warned an attempt was to have been made on his life. The gang behind the plot was rounded up and several members beheaded.’

  ‘I don’t see—’ Edward began.

  ‘Greg was actually claiming it was he who’d blown the whistle on them, for God’s sake! Said he’d somehow got wind of the plot through his dubious contacts and tipped the sheik off. Is it any wonder I’d stopped listening to what I assumed was his drunken rambling?’

  Edward stared at him in growing horror. ‘You think it might have been true? Then could it have been the same mob that set off the hotel bomb – and it was Lawrence they were after?’

  ‘God, no – an established group claimed responsibility for that; it was a pure fluke he was caught up in it – he wasn’t even staying there. But it gave him a way out and if what he said was true, and I’m beginning to think it might have been, I for one don’t blame him for taking it.’

  ‘And this stabbing in Scotland,’ Edward mused. ‘Is it possible that, despite his precautions, they finally caught up with him?’

  ‘That, my friend, we might never know.’

  Edward related the story when he went for his piano lesson the next day.

  ‘So it sounds as though he really wanted to come home,’ he finished, ‘but wouldn’t risk putting you and the family in danger. A self-imposed exile, in fact.’

  Jill’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I knew there must have been a good reason. Thank you so much for taking the trouble to find out, Edward; it helps a lot.’ She paused. ‘You’ll have seen the press appeal and all those names he used?’