‘Why don’t you come and get them now? Otherwise you might forget,’ said Venetia, cheering up instantly. ‘And you can all stay for a drink. It is our last evening,’ she added before Robert could say anything. ‘It’d be nice to be able to say a proper goodbye.’
He shrugged. ‘If you can see to say goodbye.’
‘Yes, there is that,’ she admitted. ‘We don’t have any electricity. Daddy thinks a branch must have come down on the line to the house and we’re short of candles after the dinner on the terrace last week.’ She smiled guiltily. ‘Janey asked me to get some more but I forgot. Anyway, you’re all coming, aren’t you?’
Ignoring a frown from Robert she looked at George hopefully, but he shook his head and said he really ought to be getting back to Château Vielleroche.
‘What a shame, but give my love to Napier, won’t you?’ she said. ‘Tell him I’ll be in touch in the morning to see if there is anything I can do.’ Considering she and Robert were supposed to be leaving at midday, this was cutting things a bit fine; maybe she was planning to get up very early.
Tom was already asleep when we got to Château du Pré but Janey was still up and was decent enough to look delighted that her house had just been invaded by a large party when she was on the point of going to bed herself. Actually she was in such an incandescently good mood that I don’t think she’d have been too bothered if Venetia had brought the local Hell’s Angels with her for a Chapter meeting around the pool. Telling Venetia to get the glasses, she shooed everyone into the drawing room and hijacked me to hold the candle while we went down to the cellar to fetch a couple of bottles.
‘Who would have guessed it. Solange and Gaetan!’ she said over her shoulder as we went carefully down the cellar steps, avoiding a spider dangling from the ceiling. ‘I promise you, Nella, he’s got bow legs and looks just like a monkey. Solange isn’t his only conquest either. He’s got a pretty fearsome reputation as a ladykiller, and you’ve really got to work at it to get one of those around here, and that’s despite his looks and the amount of aftershave he wears, so he must have something that isn’t immediately obvious.’
‘Hidden assets, perhaps?’ I suggested.
‘Very large hidden assets,’ Janey said with a remarkably dirty chuckle, then immediately looked conscience-stricken. ‘Oh dear, I shouldn’t laugh, not when you think of what poor old Napier must be feeling. It’s all very well saying he should have had the nous to guess why Solange suddenly took an interest in polishing the wine tanks, but he isn’t the first spouse to look the other way.’ She selected two bottles, put them under her arm, hesitated, then took two more. ‘This morning I’d have given anything to be able to go on believing that all Tom ever did with Solange was flirt with her in a highly public and obvious way.’
‘Surely you do now, don’t you?’ I asked, startled.
She laughed. ‘I don’t think even Solange could cope with Gaetan and my husband at the same time. Though I’d still like to know what’s on Tom’s mind,’ she said in a more sober voice. ‘Never mind - as long as it isn’t Madame Bradley-Cook. She’s gone, you know. Napier gave her an either or, and she chose the or. I wonder if she’s moved in with Gaetan? I can’t think he’ll be very pleased if she has. It’ll put a considerable restriction on his activities.’
‘Poor Napier, he must be terribly upset,’ I said as we started back up the steps again.
Janey thought for a moment. ‘Well, from what Tom says, of course Napier isn’t happy about what’s happened, he was very proud of having such a glamorous wife, but he appears to be more concerned about not having a winemaker, especially this close to the harvest, than he is about his wife doing a bunk. That’s what he rang Tom about - the winemaker, not Solange,’ she added hastily. ‘Tom suggested he have a word with Carlton. He’s worked in a couple of pretty high-class châteaux so he must be quite good, and he’s just gone freelance.’
Robert was waiting at the top of the steps to take the bottles from Janey. He smiled wickedly. ‘Do you think it’s occurred to Tom yet that he’s just given his top scoring batsman to the other side?’
Janey looked horrified. ‘I wonder if I ought to take the twins and go and stay with my mother until the realisation has had time to sink in.’
One quick drink lengthened into two, then three, as everyone got their hands firmly around their glasses and Venetia kept on blithely refilling them. At some point I decided to clear my head with some fresh air, using the excuse that I’d better put the picture cases Robert was giving me into the car lest I forgot them later. Janey, who was distinctly tight, the first time I’d seen her so, said she’d come with me and let the dogs out.
I stashed the cases in the boot of Oscar’s car, while Lily and Solomon ran out to snuffle around the grass along the drive. They were still at it when I came back. Janey didn’t want to shout at them lest she woke Tom so we hung around, wrapping our arms around ourselves as a protection against a nippy little breeze while we waited for their dogships to decide to come inside again.
We retreated out of the wind to the shelter of the hall, romantically dim and gloomy in the flickering candlelight. I picked up a guttering candle stuffed in the neck of an empty bottle of Château du Pré rosé and held it up, admiring the oil painting on the wall; the colours of the beach scene at Le Touquet by Willard Sydney were vivid even in this dim light. ‘It’s very pretty, isn’t it?’
‘Depends if you like being reminded of Venetia every time you go through the hall,’ Janey said dourly, enunciating her words with excruciating care and not always succeeding. ‘’S nothing but trouble as far as I’m consherned. Costs a fortune to insure, but every member of Tom’s family would turn over in their graves if he even thought of selling it, no matter how much we need the money. It’s an heirloom, you see,’ she pronounced solemnly, the effort to get the word out properly almost making her eyes cross. ‘An’ just about every time Venetia comes here there’s an arg... agr... row between her and Tom because she says it’s morally hers,’ she reported gloomily. ‘They had one this mornin’. Frankly, we’d be much better off if we could get rid of it. Trouble is, I don’ know how to do it without hordes of outraged Morrisons descending on our heads.’
‘Someone might always steal it,’ I said lightly. ‘Then no one could possibly blame Tom for trousering the money and singing all the way to the bank.’
‘If only!’ she said feelingly. ‘’Cept how would I arrange it? The insurance might play up if I left the front door open too many times with a large sign saying valuable painting here, free to first comer.’ She laughed and waggled a finger at me. ‘But since you like it so much, why don’ you take it?’
‘Because I’d set the alarm off the moment I touched it, and I don’t fancy trying out a French jail.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘But this is a real onesh-in-a-lifetime offer, never to be repeated. There’s supposed to be a battery back-up so the alarm works even when the electricity’s off, but there’s a fault and it kept going off, so we’ve had to switch it off.’ She upped the side of her nose. ‘Big secret, only known to you, so just for tonight you can lift the picture straight off the wall and I can promish you won’t find yourself being met by a poshee of gendarmes before you even get out of the door. So go on, why don’t you have it?’
‘There’s a place just above the fireplace where it would look perfect,’ I said thoughtfully, eyeing it. ‘Sure you don’t want it? OK, I’ll relieve you of your unwanted picture, Mrs Morrison. Name’s Nella Bowden-Raffles, you know, house-breaking a speciality, not breaking in even more of one. Glad to be of service. Do you want me to take it off your hands now?’
I looked at the picture through the flickering candlelight. ‘Except I’m not sure if I could face having to take it down and hide it behind the sofa every time Venetia popped in for a mineral water. Tell you what, I’ll make up my mind later and if you see it’s gone you’ll know who’s got it.’
A door swung to in the draught as the front door
was pushed open and Solomon lumbered in, pausing to run a cold wet nose up our legs before waddling off to see if the patron saint of dogs had put something in his bowl since he last looked.
Janey clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘Where’s that other bloody dog of mine? Prob’ly halfway to the village after a rabbit. I’ll have to go out and get her,’ she said grumpily. ‘No, don’t come, Nella. There’s no point in both of us getting cold.’ She stumped out and I returned to the drawing room where the party was still in full swing, though Robert had retired to bed and Sally was curled up in a corner of the sofa, closing her eyes, while Charlie leaned forward holding his glass out.
Oscar looked up with a smile as I sat down next to him. ‘You’ve been ages. What have you been up to?’
‘Working out how to steal that nice picture of the beach at Le Touquet.’ I picked up my empty glass and held it out for a refill. ‘It’s not going to be difficult. All I’ll have to do is give the dogs a treat so they don’t bark and the alarm won’t be any problem because...’
Oscar whisked the glass out of my hand. ‘I think you’ve had enough of that.’
‘You sound like a founder member of the Temperance Movement,’ I said crossly, ‘and the fact that I can say temperance without slurring proves I haven't had too much to drink.’
He just grinned and put a companionable arm around me, drawing me against his shoulder and thus ensuring I was physically unable to get at my glass. Deciding that a tussle to free myself would be undignified, probably what he was counting on, I relaxed and listened to Venetia and Maggie busily climbing the ladders of social one-upmanship over which was the smartest and most exclusive of the Caribbean islands. I lost track after Maggie countered Venetia’s B-list movie star spied in the distance on the beach with a famously reclusive, but prestigious author a mere two tables away in a restaurant, and since Oscar is very comfortable, I drifted off. I don’t recall much of what happened after that, except for taking my clothes off in my room and letting them fall anyhow on the floor (nothing unusual, to be honest) before I climbed into bed and went back to sleep again.
The next morning we discovered one of the disadvantages of an idyllic little cottage in the middle of the vines. The machines for spraying the vines are very noisy, especially at eight o’clock in the morning, and whoever was operating this one seemed to take a fiendish delight in working around the cottage for just long enough to wake us so thoroughly there was no chance of going back to sleep again, and then taking his infernal machine right over to the other side of the vineyard where it was merely a muffled rumble in the distance.
The atmosphere around the breakfast table was distinctly muted, though compared to the others I seemed to have escaped pretty lightly since I was just tired. Maybe I did have something to thank Oscar and his strong-arm tactics for after all, though it gave me a certain amount of satisfaction to see that he didn’t appear to have taken his own advice and was downing tea and aspirin like there was no tomorrow. Sally hadn’t said a single word so far, Charlie looked as if he felt that birdsong should be one of the tortures banned under various human rights charters, Phil was lying in bed groaning and declaring he’d never drink a single thing, ever again; even Maggie was skulking around wearing a pair of dark glasses against the fierce glare of the light creeping in through nearly closed shutters.
I was sitting in the garden wondering if I could muster the energy for a swim when the decision was taken out of my hands by Oscar, resplendent in a blue silk dressing gown with a natty emerald green lining, wandering out and blinking blearily at me. ‘Nella, Delphine’s just dropped by on the way to taking the twins somewhere,’ he said, rubbing a slightly stubbly chin. ‘I couldn’t really understand what she was on about, but it seems that Janey needs to see you. I think that’s what it was, anyway. She was banging on about Madame, so you’d better go up and see what it is. I gathered it was pretty urgent,’ he added, as I showed no signs of moving.
What could it be now? I wondered as I got dressed. Could Janey have discovered something else about Tom, something that meant that she needed a shoulder to cry on again? I hoped not - she’d looked so happy last night.
As I was crossing the courtyard at the château the back door was flung open and Tom marched out, followed by Robert. When Tom saw me, he slammed to a halt and glared. ‘What are you doing here, Nella?’ he demanded with a curtness quite at variance with his normal friendly politeness.
‘I’ve ... er ... um ... come to see Janey,’ I stammered.
‘She’s busy at the moment, so if it’s only a social call perhaps you could come back later.’
I was about to say Janey had asked to see me when some sixth sense warned me it might not be a good idea. ‘I’ve got something for her, something she asked me to give her,’ I said, hoping he wasn’t going to ask what it was.
He sighed impatiently. ‘You’d better go and give it to her then. You’ll find her in the kitchen. Are you coming, Robert?’ he demanded, and without waiting for an answer strode off across the courtyard towards his office, nearly trampling an idle pigeon that wasn’t quick enough to fly out of his way.
‘It must be something very small,’ murmured Robert with a pointed look at my empty hands. He touched my shoulder lightly. ‘But I’m glad you’re here. Try and get Janey to calm down, will you? She seems to imagine that Tom’s going to blame her for it and it really isn’t her fault.’
Then he went after Tom, leaving me wondering what he was on about. The only scenario that could explain why Tom was in a flaming rage with both Janey and Robert was completely out of the question. Wasn’t it?
Janey was pacing around the kitchen, more ashy pale than any hangover could warrant, looking as if she had literally fallen out of bed and into the first garments she came across, whether they were hers or not. I found out later it was true, those were Tom’s shorts. It was also the first time I’d ever seen anybody really wringing their hands.
Oh thank God you’re here!’ she exclaimed, skittering to a halt. ‘I thought you were never coming.’
‘I only got your message ten minutes ago,’ I protested. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Hush!’ She held up her hand and cocked her head, listening. ‘Did you meet Tom in the courtyard? You didn’t say anything to him, did you?’ Not waiting for an answer she dropped her voice as if she was afraid we were going to be overheard and hissed, ‘He’ll be back in a minute so we have to be quick. Last night - did I really tell you that you’d be doing me a favour if you pinched the Willard Sydney?’
‘Yes, you did,’ I said with a grin. ‘At some length too.’
Her face fell. ‘I thought I had,’ she said in a voice of doom. She ran her fingers through already untidy hair, bit her lip, then said in a rush, ‘Did you actually do it?’
CHAPTER 17
‘Well, naturally, I did,’ I retorted. ‘I said I was going to, didn’t I? Though I had a bit of a problem explaining to Oscar why I was walking out with one of your pictures under my arm...’ My voice petered out as I realised she was in deadly earnest. ‘Oh my God!’ I exclaimed, catching on at last. ‘Has it really gone?’
White-faced, Janey nodded.
No wonder Tom had looked so displeased to see me. The last thing he needed at this moment was stray friends of his wife cluttering up the place. ‘And you thought I might have taken you seriously?’ I asked in surprise.
She swung around, eyes widening in dismay. After all, she’d just implied that I was capable of art theft on an impressive scale. ‘No, no, not steal it properly,’ she stammered, ‘but you did say if it was gone, then... Oh hell! Look, Nella, I was hoping, praying that it was going to turn out to be you who’d done it, because I knew if you had you’d give it back.’
‘Well, thanks for the vote of confidence. You think that while I’m quite capable of nicking a very valuable picture, I’m still decent enough to be prepared to part with my ill-gotten gains if I'm asked nicely enough.’
She smiled weakly. ‘
You know what I mean. We were both under the influence, well, I certainly was, and I hoped you might have done it for a joke. After all, I told you to do it, didn’t I?’ She sighed heavily. ‘I thought, if you had, perhaps we could have hatched up some scheme to get it back, like leaving Tom an anonymous message saying that if he goes to the ruined hut on the back road and looks on the central beam he’ll discover something of interest. I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be so lucky though.’ If possible, she went even paler than she was already. ‘I don’t know what Tom’ll do to me if he finds out that I’ve been telling people to steal his precious heirloom.’
‘What, have you suggested it to anyone else?’ I asked, startled.
‘Of course not! But he’s going to think it bad enough that I did it once, isn’t he? And I told you about the alarm being off, too,’ she added despondently. ‘I can’t think what came over me. I must have been stark, raving bonkers. Well, actually I was paralytic, but he’s not going to accept that as an excuse, is he? He’s going to kill me when he finds out.’
Given the mood that Tom appeared to be in, her fears didn’t seem entirely unjustified. I gave her a quick hug. ‘Don’t worry, he won’t find out from me. Promise. And I doubt Solomon and Lily are going to spill the beans either, so I think your deadly secret is safe.’
She started muttering what a good friend I was, getting all misty-eyed and swaying about as if she were about to keel over at any moment. I made her sit down, and set about making her coffee and finding her something to eat as it turned out, unsurprisingly, that in all the drama no one had thought about breakfast. The bread hadn’t been delivered yet and the remains of the loaf had been well seen to by the twins and looked distinctly unappetising so I dug out a packet of shortbread and half a box of chocolate biscuits, not what I’d normally recommend for breakfast but the circumstances were exceptional. Besides, Janey looked in need of a heavy-duty sugar fix.
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