by Lulu Taylor
Tommy straightened her shoulders. ‘Perhaps that’s so. But I’m pretty sure that whatever happened to me, I would try to do my best to live honourably, even if it wasn’t always possible. You, Barbara . . . you don’t even try.’
Barbara patted her hair, smoothing escaping hairs back down. ‘I expect you’re glad you got that off your chest.’ She got up off the bed and slipped on her shoes. ‘I’m prepared to go away as I assume that’s what you want. I’ll leave a very sweet letter for Roger explaining why I’m releasing him from our engagement. I can be packed and Molly and I can go today.’
‘Very well,’ Tommy said. Inside, she felt disgust for this woman, who clearly didn’t give a fig what might have happened to Roger and appeared to have no remorse for her part in it all. Still, she was surprised that Barbara was prepared to give in so easily. ‘I think it’s best if you go as soon as possible in the morning.’
‘I agree.’
‘Where will you go?’
Barbara shrugged. ‘I don’t know. London. Eastbourne. Somewhere.’
Tommy felt a pang of pity for poor Molly, dragged away to . . . where? What kind of a future? And I promised I’d look after her.
Barbara turned to Tommy. ‘I’ll go, don’t you worry. But . . .’ The defiance was clear on her face despite the darkness in the room. ‘I have my price.’
‘Your price?’ I might have guessed she wouldn’t go without some kind of pay-off. ‘And what is it?’
‘The Gainsborough.’ Barbara lifted one slender eyebrow and her mouth twitched with tension. ‘I want the Gainsborough.’
Tommy laughed in disbelief. ‘What? You seem to have forgotten that you’re guilty of attempted bigamy. I don’t know why you think we should pay you a penny.’
‘You have no proof of my engagement. No notice in the paper, no party, no ring.’ Barbara shrugged. ‘But I can make things very sticky for you if you don’t give me what I want. I can spread rumours. And I have proof of lawbreaking here – electricity turned on, black market goods bought, stolen army medicines used. If you give me the Gainsborough, I’ll give back your mother’s brooch.’
‘That brooch is worth a lot of money,’ Tommy said. ‘Why give it back when you could take it and go?’
‘Because the Gainsborough is special. It’s all that raises this place from being a glorified farmhouse. I want it.’
Tommy stared at her for a long minute, realising that Barbara, for all her pragmatism, could not resist this attempt to hurt Tommy where she thought it would cause most pain. The brooch would be forgotten, but the loss of the Gainsborough would be an open wound forever. But what does it really matter? They’re just things. Roger’s gone and I’m sure he’s not coming back. That’s our real loss.
Venetia’s beautiful portrait was expensive, a treasure, a masterpiece; but it had been too much for her grieving husband to look at, no matter what it was worth.
We have to choose what is most valuable to us.
When Tommy spoke, her voice was low and serious. ‘All right. Here’s my suggestion. It’s a gamble if you like. Tomorrow morning, before you go, you can look at the two paintings. You will have two minutes. You can choose one. Whichever one you choose will be taken out of its frame and rolled up for you to take away with you. You’ll have either the genuine or the fake, but you won’t know which until an expert looks at it for you.’
Barbara looked surprised as if she’d expected Tommy not to give in so easily but to offer more money, more jewellery. She eyed her suspiciously. ‘You’d do that? You’d risk losing the Gainsborough? Surely you must know I’ll identify the real thing and take it with me.’
‘Perhaps,’ Tommy said. ‘Perhaps not. But whichever you choose, you leave Mother’s jewellery behind.’
There was a pause while Barbara considered. Then she said coolly, ‘I’ll take the earrings but you can have the rest back.’
‘Very well, you can have the earrings. On one condition. You leave Molly here too.’
Barbara looked astonished. ‘You want Molly to stay here?’ She half laughed. ‘Why on earth . . . ? Let me be clear. So I can take the earrings and Molly, or I can take the painting and the earrings, and leave Molly here? Indefinitely?’
‘Until you can prove that you can provide a decent, stable home for her.’
Barbara’s eyebrows lifted slightly. ‘I see.’
‘Whichever painting you choose, you leave Molly behind. That’s the only deal I’ll make with you. Take it or leave it.’
Barbara hesitated, then smiled. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll take it. The Gainsborough and the earrings.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.’ Tommy turned to make her way out, then looked back to Barbara. ‘Oh, and I’m sure you’ll understand if we lock your door tonight – from the outside.’
‘There’s no need. I’m a woman of my word.’
‘That’s not what I’ve heard. Very well. Goodnight.’ Tommy went out, taking the key with her as she went. As she turned it in the lock behind her, Fred came up.
‘Is it all fine? What happened?’
‘Oh Fred.’ Tommy threw her arms around him. ‘I hope you painted that picture well. I hope you’ve never done anything better.’
The next morning, she and Fred went upstairs and let Barbara out of her room. She was dressed for a journey, well wrapped up in her coat and hat, her handbag over her arm. She looked at them with hard set eyes.
‘You haven’t decided to go back on our agreement, have you?’
Tommy shook her head. ‘No. But there’s another condition. The pictures will hang side by side, and you must choose from six feet away.’
Barbara laughed. ‘I don’t think that will be a problem. I’m not an expert but I think I can just about manage to tell the difference between a Gainsborough and a copy by Mr Burton Brown.’
They went down to the hall. The paintings were already there, set up by Fred. The second frame, very like the one that belonged to the original, had been taken from a painting in the attic and used for the copy.
‘But don’t let the frames fool you,’ Fred said pleasantly. ‘I may well have moved them around.’
‘You can do what you like, Fred,’ Barbara said acidly. ‘But you can’t make yourself into Gainsborough.’
‘Here’s the mark on the floor,’ said Tommy, pointing to a chalk line on the flags. ‘It’s six feet away. You have two minutes.’
‘Thank you.’ Barbara took her place and regarded both paintings coolly. ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘I admit you’ve done a good job. And the gloom makes it much harder to tell the difference. Hmm.’
Tommy watched her anxiously as she assessed the paintings. Inside her pockets, her fists were tightly clenched, her nails digging into her palms. At last she could bear it no longer.
‘Time’s up,’ Fred said, looking at his watch.
‘Well?’ Tommy demanded. ‘Which one do you want?’
Barbara pointed at the picture on the left. ‘That one. That’s my choice. I’m taking that one with me.’
Tommy turned agonised eyes on Fred, who looked back, disappointment all over his face. Unseen by Barbara, he gave the smallest shake of his head and mouthed a word.
Sorry.
Tommy smiled back at him. ‘No,’ she said in a low voice. ‘You don’t understand. We’ve won.’
Chapter Forty-Five
After watching Patrick’s message, Caitlyn slept deeply and well, and woke feeling happy for the first time in months. She lay there staring up at the ceiling with a feeling of intense closeness to him, revelling in the sensation that he was alive to her. It would be the last time, she knew that. When she got up and started the day, he would be gone again, vanished back into the mysterious place where death had taken him. But she had been given him back, just for a short while, and she knew now he’d loved her and not betrayed her. Patrick’s solution to the Sara problem had been typical of him: a convoluted game, full of control and manipulation, for his own amusem
ent.
He said he was protecting me from Sara, but perhaps he was also protecting me from him. He could channel his darkest needs to control onto her. She could absorb them – she was certainly tough and ruthless enough. Perhaps, in a strange way, that saved our marriage. Caitlyn laughed wryly to herself. Maybe Sara was right – she did do me a favour. Just not in the way she thought.
She saw that the three of them had been in a triangular relationship right from the start; she and Patrick had been brought together by Sara and even held together by her, each one yearning after something the others had.
But with Patrick gone, it’s all wrong. It’s destabilised. It can only go to bad without him. That’s why he told me to get Sara out of my life.
That thought made her feel stronger, more able to face Sara down than she ever had before.
In the morning, after breakfast, she telephoned Nicholas and told him some of what she had discovered.
‘A message from beyond the grave,’ Nicholas said soberly. ‘My God. What a thing to plan. As if he knew he was going to die.’
‘Patrick was good at planning. He didn’t leave much to chance. He made sure we renewed our wills every year, just in case. I should have remembered that. Perhaps he even recorded new messages to me all the time.’
‘Are you going to look for all the things he’s hidden on his tablet? The films of Sara? The pictures?’
Caitlyn paused. ‘No. I don’t think so. I don’t want to see that stuff.’
‘So you won’t play his last game?’
‘I suppose not. My final defiance. But I know it’s there, and I suspect that’s what he really wanted. He wanted me to know that he had, in his own way, taken Sara on and beaten her and that he did it for me. I really believe he was protecting me, in all sorts of ways.’
‘A curious kind of gift.’
‘Yes.’ She laughed. ‘Not standard husbandly behaviour, by any means. But that’s Patrick. And who knows what would have happened or how long it would have lasted if he hadn’t been killed? If he’d died a year or two down the line, I might have got quite a different message.’
‘Will you tell Sara what you know?’
‘I don’t think so. I hope she’s vanished. Maybe now she’s got Patrick’s phone, she’ll be happy.’
‘What? How did she get his phone?’
Caitlyn told him about the mess in the Oxford house. ‘She’d broken in somehow and gone through everything, found the phone and taken it.’
‘That’s a step too far. I don’t like it at all,’ Nicholas said sombrely. ‘Listen, I was planning to bring Coco to visit Geraldine today anyway, but we’ll stay over for a couple of days while you and I work out what to do.’
‘I won’t be around till after Max’s prize-giving.’
‘That’s okay, we’ll come in the afternoon. Then we can decide what to do about it.’
‘Don’t bother getting here till after two. Geraldine told me this morning that she’s had a request to see the Gainsborough so there’ll be a party going through the house around then. Come after and you’ll miss them.’
‘Good point. I won’t hurry.’
‘I had a nice chat with your aunt about the painting. She seems pretty convinced it isn’t the real deal. But you think it’s genuine, don’t you?’
‘That’s right,’ Nicholas replied. ‘My mother told me that her mother – my grandmother – had been quite clear. There was a copy floating around but the real Gainsborough is in Kings Harcourt. So Aunt Geraldine must be mistaken. She’s probably getting confused in her old age. I guess it had to happen. I’ll see you later, okay?’
‘Yes. I’m looking forward to it.’
At lunchtime, Caitlyn put on a floaty summer dress in honour of the Spring Hall prize-giving and drove to the school. A large white marquee had been set up in the grounds and she took her place on a sticky plastic chair at the end of a row. The boys had been seated on benches at the side of the tent and she made out Max sitting with his friends and gave him a wave.
It was benign tedium but not without its moments of sweetness and laughter. A speech was given by a local athletics hero. The chairman of the governors droned on at great length, then there were some choral performances. Then, at last, the headmaster’s address and the prizes. To Caitlyn’s delight, Max won the prize for most improved cricket player in his year and she applauded enthusiastically when he went up to get his certificate and book.
Afterwards the boys were taken back to their form rooms to prepare for leaving, and the parents and guardians were offered sandwiches and coffee at the back of the marquee. She wandered about, chatting to the parents of Max’s friends and to his sports teacher, then spotted Mr Reynolds, so she headed over to talk to him.
‘Hello!’ she greeted him as she neared him. ‘I was so pleased to see Max win the prize for cricket! Who would have thought it?’
‘Yes, we’re all very proud of him.’ Mr Reynolds gave her a puzzled look. ‘What are you doing here, Mrs Balfour?’
‘I’ve been watching the prize-giving, of course. Why?’
‘Well . . . because your friend said you weren’t able to make it. That’s why she was here. And she’s just taken Max off.’
Caitlyn went cold all over, her smile dropping away. ‘What?’
‘Your friend . . .’ Mr Reynolds went white. ‘I wouldn’t usually release a boy without permission but she was here when you came to tell Max about his dad so—’
‘Oh my God.’ Her heart started pounding hard in her chest and a rushing noise filled her head. ‘She’s taken Max? When?’
‘She went off with him just a few minutes ago. In her car. She said she was taking him home.’
‘But she doesn’t know where we live!’ Caitlyn turned and ran for the door of the marquee, pushing past other parents without a second thought as she raced to the car. As she went, she heard her phone beep and she pulled it out of her handbag. She felt shocked for an instant when she saw it was a text that came from Patrick’s phone.
You are betraying me. But I don’t care. I love Sara not you.
Caitlyn almost laughed. She’s an immature child playing stupid games. Really, Sara, Patrick was right. You’re clumsy and unsophisticated.
Panic was making her slow and fumbling but when she reached the car, she stopped long enough to type a reply:
Where’s Max? Tell me right now.
She got in the car, panting, and started the engine. Where would Sara take him? Stay calm. Sara won’t harm him. She’s using him to get to me. I just have to think clearly, that’s all. Would she take him to the Oxford house?
That seemed most likely and she was just about to pull out of the car park when another text beeped in.
Are you enjoying your stay in Nicholas’s beautiful home?
A nasty chill fluttered up her back. So Sara knew where they were living. Of course. It was stupid to think she wouldn’t have tried to find them, and it wouldn’t have been difficult. She could have followed them, or bribed one of the movers or something. She might even have asked the school office. Another message popped up.
I think it’s very nice. I might move in here myself.
The words danced in front of her eyes. Here?
She’s gone to Kings Harcourt. She’s taken Max and gone to the house.
Caitlyn roared the car through the school gates and out onto the road, heading back to Kings Harcourt.
Sara’s car was parked in front of the house on the grassy verge and the sight of it was both terrifying and a relief.
Caitlyn parked on the verge behind Sara’s car, and ran around the back of the house to her kitchen door, inside and up the back stairs to Max’s bedroom. She flung open the door, panting his name, but the bedroom was empty. ‘Oh God, Sara, what have you done with him?’ she cried breathlessly. She had expected to find her sitting with Max, playing cards or something, waiting for her to get back, reeling her in with the bait of seeing her son safe and well, so she could get the confrontation wit
h Caitlyn she’d been denied.
Caitlyn hurried out onto the landing. Sara had to be somewhere nearby. Her car was outside. Just then Caitlyn’s phone throbbed again with another message. It was so horrible to see Patrick’s name flashing up, even though she knew it was Sara.
You’re going to be sorry.
She felt clammy with sudden panic and fear pulsed through her. A voice floated up from the hall below. It was Renee explaining the history of the Gainsborough to the visitors. ‘And so, once she died, he couldn’t bear to see it. He was broken-hearted. He put the picture away so he never had to look at it again. Of course, it’s now worth a fortune. Strange to think of it up there in the attic when it’s so valuable.’
‘That’s an amazing story,’ said a melodious voice from below. ‘Thanks so much. And can I take a closer look?’
Caitlyn gasped and her knees went weak. She grabbed at the banister to hold herself up. She knew that voice so well. She’d heard it thousands of times in many different moods. But she had a feeling she hadn’t seen this mood before. What’s she doing here? Where’s Max?
‘You’re very welcome, Allegra,’ Renee said. ‘Shall I leave you here to have a look at it? You’re welcome to come back and find me when you’re finished.’
‘Thank you. I’ll do that.’
Renee’s footsteps faded as she left the hall. Caitlyn froze. What is Sara going to do now?
She heard soft footsteps across the flagstones and then the sound of a foot on the staircase. Sara was coming upstairs.
No. She’s not going to invade my home again.
She was filled with a mixture of anger and determination to stop Sara in her tracks, and without stopping to think she stepped out to the top of the staircase and put out her hand.
‘Stop!’ she yelled.
Sara halted and looked up, taken by surprise. Then a slow smile spread over her face. ‘So there you are. I didn’t realise you’d get here so fast.’
‘Where’s Max?’ Caitlyn demanded, her eyes flashing with fury. ‘Tell me where he is right now.’
‘What are you afraid of?’
‘I’m not afraid of anything, but I demand that you tell me where Max is. And you stay right where you are, you’re not coming any further.’