‘So, that’s how it began,’ said Edward.
*
‘You’ve achieved something that no one else in Ackington has managed,’ said Uncle Eric. ‘You must have a magic touch. I’ve got something somewhere …’ It took him a while to find the recording. ‘Ackington’s Second’, he proclaimed, waving the shellac records in the air. ‘She was a great composer. Twenty, oh, thirty years ago she was considered one of the best of her generation. Two symphonies, three string quartets, a tone poem, chamber music, some piano music considered very beautiful in its day. And then she stopped composing.’
Through the fierce crackle of the records, Francis detected something of the spirit he had encountered that day in the garden, listening to the piano being played at The Vale.
‘Alicia Ackington is as mysterious as the Sphinx,’ said his uncle. ‘We’ve had newspaper people and people from the radio and television making pilgrimages up here just to get a glimpse of her, let alone meet her, but they never succeed. Some people think it’s selfish of her. In her parents’ day, The Vale was the centre of this place, the moon around which planets revolved. Writers, painters, film stars, composers, there was always someone staying up there. There’s a painting in Blackton Museum of the family on the terrace at The Vale, with Sir Edward Elgar and Alicia Ackington as a child sitting on his knee. All that’s gone now, of course. There’s just her and that miserable housekeeper.’
Francis wasn’t sure that miserable was the right word for Rose, but wanted to learn more from Uncle Eric about the mistress of The Vale. Alicia Ackington had been born in India of wealthy parents. Her father, Sir George Clausby Ackington, had broken away from the family business in the North. There had been a time when no home was complete without a bottle of Ackington’s Remedy to safeguard against all known ills, but George hadn’t the ambition to carry on the quack chemistry his forefathers had created, and advancing science undermined the business. George wanted the artistic life. He became a famous painter, immortalizing the most successful people in society, and had set up his family in South Kensington and a villa in the South of France. His daughter Alicia was educated at home, and after studying at a famous London musical academy had revealed her talent to a grateful world.
*
‘She is easily tired,’ Rose said as she took Francis through the hall to the drawing-room on his second visit. As her hand touched the handle of the door, she turned and said ‘She liked the look of you. She watched you from the window.’ For a moment, Francis could have sworn the housekeeper was suppressing a smile, but she almost fiercely turned away from him, stepped into the room and announced ‘Francis Jones’, as if he were arriving at a ball.
Alicia Ackington was standing by the open French windows in what Francis instinctively recognized as a pose she had taken up for effect. The late afternoon light was strong enough to turn her figure into a silhouette. The face seemed very old, with a powdered, mask-like quality.’
‘So you are the boy I saw in the garden,’ she said, making no attempt to come closer.
‘Yes. I’m Francis.’
‘I,’ she said, ‘am the last of the Ackingtons.’
She moved carefully to a wing-backed chair, sat, and indicated a large portrait that was hanging above the fireplace.
‘My father,’ she said, waving a hand in its direction, but not looking at it. ‘Sir George Ackington. He would have liked to marry me off to some poor young man, but I could not let that happen. My mother taught me by example. When she could no longer put up with Sir George, she took to her bed and died of something that was never adequately explained, death being the less scandalous alternative to divorce. And when she died, Sir George went into a decline. Childhood beckoned him back. He had never been an easy man, or a good father, and was slow to make friends. A friend or two in life is never a bad idea. You would do well to remember that. Forgive me; I’ve forgotten your name.’
‘Francis.’
‘Francis.’ She pondered this for a moment. ‘Poor Sir George became unfashionable. I think he’d lost count of the number of royals and aristocrats who sat for him in his studio. The younger generation called him “The Cadet” – in the line of Constable and Sargent, and his paintings began to seem behind the times. He despised what they call modern art. He was quite wrong, of course. You should keep your mind open, Francis. After all, what is a work of art? I suspect that each of us is one. It was arrogant of him to paint only what he saw and what he thought others wanted to see. I’m afraid his work is largely discredited today. He would have been furious. Even the local gallery that he founded has taken him down. The sad thing is, he thought he was painting the truth.’
‘What was it like being the daughter of a great painter?’ asked Francis. ‘Did he ever paint you?’
‘I forget. The years play such tricks. Sir George lived long enough to see the town that his forefathers had created from nothing grow shabby and lifeless. It must have been hard for him.’
‘And for you too, perhaps,’ suggested Francis.
She stared hard at him for a moment. ‘Well, perhaps. No matter what happened, I knew that I would stay here, although this is far too big a house to be rattling about in. ‘
‘You had your music to sustain you,’ said Francis, eager to find out everything about it, but, as he was to discover over his later visits to The Vale, any reference to her career met with a blank response. Perhaps it seemed to her to belong to a different time: it had ended, after all, decades before, since when all had more or less been silence.
‘When Sir George died, we still had staff to run the house, but his will proved unhelpful, and there was a queue of creditors, and it was impossible to keep them on. I always think of what Saki wrote: “She was a good cook as good cooks come, and as good cooks come she went.”’
‘At least you have Rose,’ said Francis.
‘Ah,’ said Alicia Ackington. ‘Rose … So well-meaning.’
When it was time to go, Miss Ackington said ‘Make sure to see Rose before you go. She’ll be annoyed if you leave without her parting gifts,’ and sure enough as he was crossing the hall to the front door Rose came bustling up with a paper bag filled with good loose tea. Even during these acts of kindness, Rose had a habit of arching her eyebrows as if she had been startled. Her mouth would move about, but never settle into a smile. She never waved him off, but scuttled into the back of the house as soon as she had pressed her leave-taking present into his hand.
That night, as they were getting into bed, Auntie Winn told her husband ‘I don’t know what that old woman sees in him.’
‘That’s not very complimentary, Winn. I can’t think why anyone wouldn’t like Francis around them. He’s a thoroughly nice young man.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Winn. ‘Of course he is. And I think Doris has done a brilliant job bringing him up.’
‘Well, it’s a change to hear you say something good about that sister of yours.’
‘Well, she has.’
‘It’s not as if he’s anything like either Doris or his father, is it?’ said Eric. ‘Francis seems to get on superbly with them, and they think the world of him. He’s as intelligent as they come, too. He must be a breath of fresh air up at The Vale with those two crabby old women.’
‘But is it good for him?’ asked Winn.
They need not have worried. When Francis left for home at the end of the two week’s summer holiday, he took away with him a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare and a manicure set, both presents given to him by Miss Ackington, but almost at once his Norfolk life took over. At first, there was no time to think of The Vale or Alicia Ackington, and certainly not Rose. There was so much to catch up on with Gordon, and the few remaining days before the new school term were filled with a blitz of brass-rubbing. Like an enchanted castle that vanishes into the mist from which it just as mysteriously emerged, The Vale faded from his mind.
That was how it seemed, but it was not so. As the summer itself segued into autum
n, Francis began to be aware of changes in his life, almost imperceptible at first, as if something was gently tugging at him. It was unsettling. He thought it might be hormones. Sometimes, when he heard music, it was as if his nerve ends came alive and took control of him, but control was what he felt he was in danger of losing, so powerfully could a piece of music threaten to overcome him. Bit by bit, he remembered the day when Ivy had left him in the garden, the afternoon he’d been left to wander aimlessly about, and suddenly he was taken back to how he had felt when, hidden from view, he had heard the piano being played in the house. Then, of course, he hadn’t even known that Alicia Ackington was a composer. Now, he thought ‘Why on earth didn’t I ask her what she was playing?’
Perhaps he didn’t want her to think he was snooping. Perhaps she was a witch, a white one, of course, for her playing had awakened something in him that he knew now would never leave him. He knew instinctively that whatever music he had heard must have been one of her own compositions. From nowhere, the melody came back to him. He knew he wouldn’t forget it.
*
‘So you went back to The Vale?’ asked Edward.
‘Yes. The very next year. When I got to Auntie Winn’s there was a letter waiting for me, so my visits began again. In a funny way, it felt as though they had never stopped.’
‘I think over all the time I knew my aunt I can’t have been to the house more than two or three times. And you were going, what, every day?’
‘During those holidays, yes.’
‘My aunt never mentioned you,’ said Edward, but he didn’t sound accusing.
‘I never mentioned her,’ Francis replied, as if that were explanation enough. ‘Our friendship - for that was what is was – was something that concerned no one else. A boy of, what was I? Sixteen? And an elderly woman. Me wanting to find out everything about the world, and she trying to keep it at bay. And that’s how it went on that second summer, just the two of us, and Rose of course. And, once, your aunt’s lawyer.’
‘Oh!’ said Edward, and he laughed quickly. ‘You met Jonathan?’
‘I’d forgotten his name.’
‘Jonathan Bothwell.’
‘I was staying for tea that afternoon, and arrived early. Rose was staring at from the window as I came up the drive. She told me to wander about the garden because “she” had an important visitor with her.’
‘Back to wandering about the garden? Must have been quite like old times!’
‘Yes, back where I had started. It was a lovely day, and I thought I might as well make the best of it. I decided to try to retrace the route I’d taken the first time, so I made for the stream. The rats hadn’t moved house. I counted a few, and then made for the greenhouses, and wasted some time in the walled garden. I got fed up eventually, and remembered that the next thing I should do was wind back to the house and stand at the side of the terrace and do some eavesdropping. It was a spiteful and silly thing to think, and of course I had no idea that there would be anything to overhear, but just as I got halfway along the steps up to the drawing-room I heard a man from within the house.
“‘A mere formality,’” he said. The voice was velvet smooth, quite soft but immaculately enunciating. Only those three words, but I instinctively thought it was a voice that somehow didn’t belong to the house, that the house wouldn’t have been happy with it. And the voice continued, “It will be quite safe with me, I assure you” and then a sound as if a chair was being pulled up to a table. There was another pause, and then the voice: “Here” (then, after another pause) “and here … most satisfactory. And now, Miss Ackington, I think we need speak of the matter no longer.’”
Turning towards the windows, the man caught sight of Francis. ‘There’s a boy in your garden,’ he said.
‘Ah yes,’ said Alicia Ackington. ‘That will be Francis. Come in, Francis. This is Mr Bothwell.’
‘Jonathan Bothwell,’ said the man, offering a hand. ‘Bothwell, Bothwell and Staine.’ His mouth widened, revealing a good many teeth.
‘Pleased to meet you, sir,’ said Francis.
‘Of course, I remember now. Miss Ackington has been singing your praises. She sees few people at The Vale. You seem to have made rather an impression.’
‘It’s very kind of her to invite me.’
‘Presumably you will soon be returning to school?’
‘At the end of the week.’
Bothwell’s smile grew even wider.
‘Just as well, perhaps. We mustn’t tire Miss Ackington.’
‘I hope I haven’t been a nuisance.’
‘Not a bit of it, I’m sure,’ said Bothwell. He smiled and gave a deep sigh at the same time, which seemed to indicate that so far as he was concerned the matter was now closed, and that Francis would never again darken The Vale’s doorstep. The sharp crack of the clasp on his attaché case provided a full stop, and Bothwell put out his hand again. ‘A pleasure to have met you, young man. A safe journey home.’
Jonathan Bothwell’s car was as sleek as the skin he lived in. Francis knew that when it started up the engine would never rise above a purr. Francis remembered the soft handshake and the eyes with no warmth in them. None of that upset him. He was more put out when, just as Bothwell got to his car door, Rose ran down the terrace steps and pressed a paper bag into his hands. So, she wasn’t making a special fuss of Francis with her parting gifts; Jonathan Bothwell was also sent home with the scones or a wedge of Victoria Sponge or a packet of loose tea. The only consolation was that Rose wasn’t smiling at him either.
*
The day before the funeral, Francis had telephoned the Ackington Gallery from the County Hotel. He was passed to a young man who introduced himself as the curator, listened to what Francis had to say, pointed out that it was short notice but that he would do what he could, and would be pleased to see Francis at three o’clock that afternoon.
Forlorn as the Ackington Gallery looked, across the road from the Job Centre, its sandstone façade was enlivened by a neon sign that read Nights and Lights: City Perspectives. The rooms were grand, tall and wide, the walls painted white, with patches of black text here and there overhung by fluorescent tubes, with traffic noises fed through a multitude of loudspeakers. Anxious not to offend a woman that Francis suspected might be the artist, he feigned interest in the exhibits. It must have been his grammar school training! A young bearded man in cords and a white shirt walked up to him, his head enquiringly on one side.
‘Mr Jones? Hello. I’m Sam Draper. Good to see you. I think I’ve read your books.’
‘Oh, really?’ Such rare comments always caught Francis unawares. ‘You’re one of the few. I’m sorry to have rung you out of the blue.
‘Pleasure. You were asking about our holdings?’
‘Yes. I wondered if you still have the Ackington paintings here?’
‘Ah.’ Draper made a sort of grimace. ‘The Ackington paintings. Are you looking for anything in particular?’
‘Well,’ said Francis, looking along the walls of the nights and lights, ‘I suppose I was hoping you might have some of them on display.’
‘It’s a problem. Changing times. Do you know the history of the gallery? It was the gift of Sir George Ackington. I’m sure you know that the Ackington family invented this town. Until a few years ago, when the family quack medicine business collapsed, the town was actually known by the locals as Ackington. It’s only more recently that they’ve got used to calling it its proper name, Blackton.
‘And you probably know more about Sir George Ackington than I do. He donated his substantial private collection of works to the gallery, including a great number of his own paintings. Under the terms of his endowment they were to be displayed in turn at frequent intervals.’
‘A shrine to Sir George?’ suggested Francis.
‘Effectively, yes. Up until a couple of years ago anyone coming through our doors would have known exactly what they were going to see. People like the familiar. But changing tastes, you know
. They were taken down and put in store. It gets a little more embarrassing. Some of them have even been sold off on the quiet; you won’t sneak on me, will you? That almost certainly went against the terms of the bequest, but we couldn’t get any clear answer from Alicia Ackington. She’s the last of the family. She suggested that she didn’t much care what we did with them. So, some have been dispersed, and most of the others have been sent off to other galleries.’
‘A wasted journey, then.’
‘Not necessarily. We can explore, if you have the time.’
Francis expected a basement vault, but the picture store was at the top of the building, reached by an ornate spiral staircase, concealed behind a door that wouldn’t have defeated a part-time burglar.
‘We should have a dozen or so left,’ said Draper. ‘This is the rack. These are the ones we couldn’t even get other galleries interested in taking.’
Francis had seen many Ackingtons over the years, and these were not the best. Not for the first time, he wondered what Sir George had thought of his work. There was no doubting the professionalism, the old man’s craftsmanship with paint and brush, but for Francis the stuff had a deadness about it that repulsed him. He admired the man for having broken away from the Ackington’s Remedies family business to strike out as an artist. In his way, Sir George had been a genuine Bohemian, but Francis couldn’t identify with what he saw on canvas. He remembered what Alicia had said to him all those years before: ‘He thought he was painting the truth.’
‘These are all there are,’ said Draper. ‘Nothing much to interest you, I suspect.’ This one shouldn’t even be here. It’s obviously not an Ackington. Too interesting!’ He turned the frame towards Francis.
‘It’s titled on the stretcher,’ said Draper.
Francis’s heart leapt.
‘And it’s signed,’ he said excitedly. ‘Look. Bottom right. You can just make it out, beneath the girl’s shoulder.’
THE BOY DETECTIVES Page 11