Despite her surroundings, Caitlin was disappointed. She had prayed that Ludo would sit next to her during supper, but he was at the far end of the table next to Katrina, the neighbour’s stylish daughter, with whom he was chatting and laughing with far more ease that Caitlin would have wished. She had Izzy on one side and Summer on the other; and since Izzy – who was quaffing Prosecco like it was going out of fashion – had eyes and ears for no one but Jamie, and Summer was jabbering away in fluent Italian to Dino, the neighbour’s rather sulky looking son, she spent most of the meal inside her imagination.
She was just dreaming about unmasking the truth behind the death of Summer’s mother and having Ludo hurl himself into her welcoming arms and expressing his lifelong devotion and gratitude, when the sound of gunfire caused her to leap right out of her seat.
‘That’ll be Freddie, no doubt,’ Sir Magnus announced. ‘He never could do anything quietly.’
‘Or get anywhere on time,’ Gabriella muttered under her breath.
The sound of a roaring engine followed by the screeching of tyres on gravel made Caitlin realise that it wasn’t gunfire but a motorbike. Already Summer, her dad and Ludo were on their feet, while Gabriella was dabbing her mouth delicately with a napkin and refilling her glass.
‘Isn’t he just a total dish?’ Izzy whispered, pushing back her chair and turning to Caitlin for the first time in an hour. ‘Eat your heart out, Johnny Depp!’
Caitlin stared at the guy who was crossing the terrace and waving at everyone. He couldn’t have been more different from Ludo; he was tall and muscular, with dark hair brushing his shoulders and a gold earring in his left ear. Caitlin could see what Izzy meant; it was as if one of the Pirates of the Caribbean had landed at Casa Vernazza.
‘Hi Ludo, mate, you got here then! How’s things?’
He kissed everyone on both cheeks, grabbed a glass and poured a generous slug of Pimms.
‘And Summer,’ he cried. ‘You’re looking great – how come my little sister got so grown up in just one term?’
Summer pulled a face at him, and allowed herself to be enveloped in a hug.
‘Hi Freddie, remember me?’ Izzy had sidled over to him under the pretext of refilling her own glass as everyone settled down again.
Freddie clearly didn’t. He opened his mouth, shut it again, looked at her and then glanced at Summer, clearly hoping for help.
‘Get real, Izzy,’ Summer said. ‘He’s hardly likely––’
‘Izzy! Of course,’ Freddie cried, throwing his sister a grateful glance. ‘Great to see you again – and you are . . .?’
He turned to Caitlin and Summer introduced her and Jamie.
He was certainly fit, but there was something about him that made Caitlin distinctly uneasy. His eyes were never still – they darted from one person to another, as if sizing up who was the most desirable for him to pay attention to.
‘Ludo, let Freddie sit by me,’ Sir Magnus ordered. ‘There are things we need to talk about. Everyone, eat up – Gaby’s special dessert is on its way!’
Caitlin knew she had to act quickly. She nudged Summer on the arm.
‘Move – give your seat to Ludo. Please.’
Summer turned, frowning. ‘Why?’
‘Just do it – you want me to help you, right? So this is pay-back time.’
Summer giggled. ‘Oh, I get it! You have got it badly, haven’t you? Hey, Ludo! Sit here – I was just going to––’
‘Help me with dessert?’ Gaby was at her elbow, en route for the house. ‘Angel – you can carry the pannacotta while I get the peaches.’
Summer followed Gaby, somewhat reluctantly, towards the house and Ludo perched on the chair next to Caitlin.
‘This is such a beautiful place,’ she began. ‘And to think one day it will all be yours . . .’
She stopped, suddenly realising that she sounded like some money-grabbing fortune hunter.
‘Not sure I want it,’ Ludo murmured. ‘Well, not all the hard work with the vineyard and everything. Anyway, that’s way ahead. I’ve got uni first. Now, about tomorrow – I thought we could take Gina down the coast, moor off one of the beaches and do a bit of snorkelling?’
Caitlin hesitated. She’d never snorkelled in her life and her swimming was rather like that of a small kitten thrown into a water butt. But to say no would be to kill the romance stone-dead before it started.
‘Sounds great!’ she enthused as Summer dumped a dish of peaches on the table. ‘Ouch!’ She winced as the heel of Summer’s sandal caught her in the shin.
‘Caitlin and I have got plans for tomorrow,’ she told her brother firmly. ‘We’ve got this art project to do––’
‘We don’t have to do it tomorrow,’ Caitlin interrupted hastily. ‘I mean, we’ve got ages.’
‘Too right,’ Ludo said. ‘It’s the first day of the holidays, for heaven’s sake.’
Summer looked decidedly miffed but said nothing.
‘Hey, Ludo, did I hear something about a boat trip?’ Freddie shouted from across the table. ‘That’s a cool idea – count me in. Hands up who’s for a day on the ocean waves!’
‘Me!’ Izzy cried, and yanked Jamie’s hand into the air. ‘And Jamie.’
‘Can’t you take Dad’s boat?’ Ludo suggested hastily. ‘Mine only really seats six . . .’
‘Oh chill, Ludo,’ Freddie replied equably, pouring some more wine. ‘We’ll squash up. It’ll be a right laugh.’
‘You look exhausted,’ Summer said in an unnecessarily loud voice as Caitlin stifled a yawn for the third time in as many minutes. ‘Me too. Let’s go.’
She hauled Caitlin to her feet.
‘We’re going to crash,’ she announced to the rest of the table. ‘See you tomorrow.’
‘Thanks for supper,’ Caitlin called before Summer dragged her away.
‘What did you have to go and do that for?’ Caitlin demanded. ‘It’s only nine-thirty.’
She was shattered, but being dragged away from Ludo was far worse than missing a couple of hours’ sleep. Besides, she must have looked so juvenile.
‘It’s your own fault. I was going to leave this till tomorrow, but there’s something I have to show you. And with that lot squiffy and unlikely to move, this is a good time.’
‘What is it?’
‘Come to my room and you’ll see.’
‘Lock the door,’ Summer ordered, crossing the room and opening a large cupboard.
‘That’s one of Mum’s pictures.’ She jerked her head to the picture above the bed as she dragged a sleeping bag off the top shelf, staggering slightly as though it was really heavy.
‘And so are these!’ From the sleeping bag she pulled two canvases and laid them side by side. ‘What do you think?’
Caitlin gasped. The picture on the wall was of the same scene as the other two – a towering cliff, a pink painted cottage – half derelict and overgrown with weeds – and a huge tree, under which sat the figure of a woman, her face lifted to the sky.
But there the similarity ended. The first picture was perfectly in proportion, and seemed to have been painted on a misty morning; all the colours were soft and muted – the woman’s hair was lifting gently as if blown by a breeze and the tree was covered in budding leaves. It was pretty, certainly, but secretly, Caitlin didn’t think it was that amazing.
It was the other two pictures that blew her mind.
‘Oh, wow!’ she breathed, squatting down and looking at them more closely. The colours were vibrant oranges, flame reds, charcoal grey and swathes of purple and indigo. In one, the tree had been made to look grotesque and menacing, its roots exposed as it clung to the cliff edge; the woman’s anger was tangible as she clawed at the dark earth with her elongated hands which echoed the shape of the tree roots; the windows of the cottage were shuttered and dark. In the other, the woman dominated the canvas, arms outstretched to the heavens as the wind blew drifts of wet leaves into a river of mud and rainwater; shafts of lightning illuminated he
r face, on which there was an expression of sheer joy and bliss. And in the corner, the cottage had been reduced to the size and shape of a Monopoly house, its roof sliced as if someone had cut into it like a wedge of cheese, the tiles discarded carelessly around it.
‘These are stunning!’ Caitlin exclaimed. ‘And your mum did all three?’
Summer nodded.
‘These are the only ones I managed to rescue,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Mum used to go away a lot on painting trips and most of her best work was done when she was on her own.’
‘What do you mean, rescue?’ Caitlin asked.
‘Well, she was really generous – she used to give friends pictures as presents – you know, birthdays, Christmas, stuff like that. And she sold quite a few too. When she died, Dad went all peculiar and started buying back the ones she’d sold and even persuaded people to give back their presents.’
‘What – you mean he so desperately wanted them all so he could hang them up and remember her?’
‘I wish!’ Summer almost spat out the words. ‘He got them, crated them up and sent them off to be stored somewhere. He gave me this one’ – she pointed to the chocolate-box picture – ‘as a keepsake. I only got the other two because the owner delivered them to the house while Dad was away on a business trip.’
Suddenly, without warning, she broke into great heaving sobs.
‘I miss her so much and I want her back.’
Caitlin put an arm round her shoulders.
‘I never even got to say goodbye,’ she wept. ‘Not properly. It was right at the end of term and I was in America on a school exchange. It was four days before I heard she was dead.’
She wiped her eyes.
‘They flew her body back to the UK and so by the time I got home to Brighton, she was all nailed up in the coffin. The boys saw her and put flowers beside her and everything, but I . . .’
She choked on a sob and blew her nose.
‘This is the last picture I’ve got of her.’
She picked up a photograph in a silver frame from her bedside table. It showed a stunningly beautiful woman with dark eyes, golden-blond hair and a generous mouth smiling widely into the camera.
‘She’s lovely,’ Caitlin said.
‘Three weeks after I took that, she was dead. She went out for a walk late one night in a thunderstorm and never came home.’
‘How come it took your dad so long to reach you?’ Caitlin asked.
‘He said he didn’t want me to miss the chance of playing in the concert at the end of that week,’ she replied. ‘It was the first time I’d been given a solo spot and he said that he had to think of the living and not the dead.’
Caitlin said nothing as Summer wiped the tears from her cheeks. She had a feeling there was more to come.
‘I should never, ever have gone to the States,’ she burst out. ‘Mum had always said that when I was around, she felt happy and safe and stuff – she said I was her gift from God, sent to make her happy. She fought Dad tooth and nail to stop me going to boarding school like the boys.’
She blew her nose and looked at Caitlin intently.
‘I’ll never forgive myself.’
‘That’s silly,’ Caitlin said. ‘She must have been so proud––’
‘Anyway, the pictures – they are good, aren’t they?’ Summer broke in swiftly. ‘I mean, it’s not just my imagination?’
‘They’re incredible – well, at least these two. I’m not so keen on the pretty one.’
‘Too ordinary, right?’ Summer observed. ‘But still good. Look, I’m sorry – I didn’t mean to blub. You look pooped.’
She stacked the pictures back in the cupboard as Caitlin, relieved, turned to go.
‘Just one more thing,’ Summer went on. ‘Alex told me today, that he was in Vernazza with his grandparents the other day and there’s a new gallery there. He’s pretty certain that one of the pictures in the window is Mum’s.’
Her face brightened and she grabbed Caitlin’s hand.
‘Tomorrow we are going there, just you and me.’
‘But the boat trip . . .’ Caitlin’s heart sank but she checked herself, realising that her disappointment was pretty selfish considering what she’d just heard.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ Summer said, smiling. ‘We’re still going on the trip with the others. But this is the plan . . .’
CHAPTER 6
‘How many were the examples to justify even the blackest suspicion?’
(Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey)
CAITLIN RUBBED SUNSCREEN ON TO HER ARMS AND stretched out on Gina’s deck.
As they motored along past villages that clung to the hillsides like lopsided cardboard houses in a children’s art display, Summer sat beside her, lost in thought, her knees tucked under her chin. Ludo had handed the controls over to Jamie, who had been very enthusiastic at the start, but was now, Caitlin noticed, anxiously looking over his shoulder every few minutes to the back of the boat where Izzy and Freddie were laughing and joking as if they’d known one another for years.
‘Who’s for a dip?’ Gabriella called, pulling off her sarong to reveal a gold and silver tankini. ‘Last one in the water’s a sissy!’
Jamie killed the engine and she executed a perfect dive, swam under the boat and emerged the other side, laughing and beckoning to them to join her.
Ludo pulled off his T-shirt and dived in beside her.
‘Come on, you two,’ he called to Caitlin and Summer.
Summer shook her head and waved him away. Caitlin hesitated.
‘I can’t dive,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘And – well, I’m not that strong a swimmer out of my depth.’
She could have kicked herself for being so totally uncool.
‘You’ll be fine,’ Ludo assured her. ‘Sit on the edge and slide in. I’ll catch you.’
She eased herself gingerly into the cool water, grasping his hand as she did so. As she let go of the boat he caught her and pulled her close and for the briefest instant, their eyes met and his face approached hers, his lips parting slightly.
‘Yow-eeee!’
A huge splash engulfed them as Freddie dived into the water, closely followed by Izzy, who managed only a cracking belly flop. Caitlin could cheerfully have murdered him. By the time she’d wiped the water from her eyes, Ludo was powering towards the beach, cutting through the water with all the grace and ease of a dolphin. Izzy and Freddie were splashing one another like a pair of hyperactive five-year-olds and Jamie, still at the helm, was starting to look decidedly petulant.
‘Bring the boat in, Jamie,’ Ludo yelled. ‘We can picnic here.’ He gestured to a wooden landing stage a hundred metres or so up the beach. Caitlin knew there was no way her uncoordinated breast stroke would get her that far; she pulled herself back on to the deck and sat splashing her feet in the water as they drifted to their anchoring spot.
‘Listen,’ Summer hissed at her, pulling her to one side. ‘As soon as we’ve eaten, we say we’re going for a walk, OK? There’s a path from the landing stage that goes round the headland right into Vernazza village.’
Despite wanting to stay as close to Ludo as possible, Caitlin couldn’t help feeling a frisson of excitement at the thought of what lay ahead. Those wild paintings by Summer’s mum were clearly in a class of their own. It was a crime to have them hidden away from the public. But, she thought, smiling to herself, if her plan took off, Summer’s mum wouldn’t be a complete unknown for much longer.
And Caitlin Morland would also be celebrated – as the person who brought the work of Elena Cumani-Tilney into the public domain. The art project was just the start.
‘It’s not there.’
Summer stared disconsolately at the window of La Galleria Lorenzo. None of the four canvases on display bore even the vaguest resemblance to the ones in her bedroom.
‘Wait!’ Caitlin urged, as Summer turned away. ‘Let’s go in – they might have changed the window display since Alex saw it.’
<
br /> Without waiting for a reply, she pushed open the door, ducking under the tendrils of vine trailing over the entrance.
‘Buongiorno, señorita. Benvenuto alla mia galleria piccola.’ The guy who greeted Caitlin was about her father’s age, and twice as large. ‘Che cosa posso fare per voi?’
‘Um – mi dispiace, but I don’t speak Italian,’ Caitlin stammered. ‘Do you speak English – parla inglese?’
‘I speak a little, but no very good,’ he replied. ‘You want picture?’
‘I think you have a painting by Elena Cumani-Tilney,’ she said.
The guy frowned and eyed her suspiciously.
‘You are from the family?’ His voice suggested that if this were so, she could leave right there and then.
‘Oh, no,’ she said innocently, as the bell on the door clanged and Summer peered in and then gingerly entered the shop.
‘I’m an art student over from England – oh and this is my friend. Our tutor knows this area well and mentioned the work of this lady and said we should try to see some of it while we were here.’
She paused. ‘We thought we saw one of the paintings in the window a couple of days ago.’
The guy nodded slowly.
‘Is right,’ he said, ‘but now – is gone. Sold.’
‘Sold?’ Summer gasped. ‘I don’t believe it.’
She hooked her hands behind her neck and banged her elbows together in frustration.
The guy stared at her for a moment and then shrugged.
‘But I have more of Elena’s work,’ the man said. ‘You want I bring them?’
‘Yes, please!’ Summer and Caitlin gasped in unison.
‘You wait – they are in the storeroom. By the way, I am Lorenzo Bastellado – I own this gallery.’
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