Altered Images

by Maxine Barry

  He got up and felt the pulse. ‘Dead,’ he said dramatically. ‘Poisoned.’

  The conference delegates buzzed with conversation. The scouts smiled and prepared to serve the pudding.

  * * *

  Downstairs, in the Bursar’s office, Lorcan beckoned Frederica to the door. ‘If you don’t mind, Lord Roland,’ he murmured politely. ‘Richard will be here in about an hour. In the meantime, I’d like to have a word with Miss Delacroix?’

  Sin-Jun waved a hand. ‘Of course.’ He walked to the forgery and stood examining it, shaking his head in disbelief.

  Outside, Lorcan took her hand and pulled her away from the office. ‘Come on, let’s go to your room. I want to talk to you,’ he commanded. They said nothing until they were in the sanctuary and privacy of her room. Then he turned, looking at her, his hands stuffed deeply into his pockets.

  The evening was heavy with the promise of a thunderstorm, and Frederica felt the silence like a physical thing. She took a step or two closer to him, wanting to hold him, but not sure, yet, that she could.

  ‘Do you know this Ray Verney character those actors talked about?’ he asked finally. But there was no accusation in his voice. No doubt. He was just asking, to get it over with.

  Frederica shook her head. ‘Never heard of him,’ she said honestly.

  ‘You know I’ve burned your own forgery, don’t you?’ he said, his eyes scanning her eyes for any sign of pain or reaction.

  Frederica nodded. ‘I guessed as much.’

  Lorcan’s tense shoulders slowly relaxed. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. ‘I don’t get it,’ he said softly. ‘If this Hogarth scam was what Richard was after all the time . . . What the hell were you doing painting a copy of the Forbes-Wright?’

  Frederica smiled. ‘I told you. I was doing a favour. For my father,’ she added, as he began to frown.

  Lorcan blinked at her, then swallowed hard. ‘Your father? What’s he got to do with this?’

  Frederica smiled. He looked so . . . confused. She was sure it was a new experience for him, and although she felt a twinge of sympathy, she also felt a twinge of satisfaction. It did men good, once in a while, not to have things all their own way. ‘As you’ll no doubt soon find out,’ she said softly, taking another few steps towards him, ‘we owned the original Forbes-Wright. It was in our collection all the time. Then Daddy had to sell it to pay for a big roof repair. But he didn’t tell my mother. So he asked me to make a copy. That was all. It sounds weird, but if you knew mum and dad . . .’ she shrugged. ‘Anyway, he wanted the copy to hang on our wall in place of the original. We weren’t even going to present it to our visitors as the real thing.’ She smiled and held out her hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘ There was nothing more sinister to it than that. There never was.’

  Lorcan stared at her. A darkness began to gather on his face, like a thundercloud, building first in his eyes.

  ‘But when I learned who you were,’ she added hastily, ‘and that you were . . . well . . . after me,’ Frederica hurried on, not at all sure she liked the gleaming, glittering look that was coming to life in his eyes, ‘I was so mad and . . . and hurt.’

  Lorcan took a step towards her. ‘Are you telling me,’ he said softly, his voice ominously low, ‘that you put us through all this,’ he hissed, ‘because . . .’

  ‘Because I thought you’d seduced me, and made love to me, and told me you loved me, just so that you could help the police arrest me,’ Frederica put in harshly. ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’

  Lorcan, whose hands had been clenching and unclenching, suddenly froze. His face had gone dreadfully pale. He shook his head. ‘Oh, hell, Frederica,’ he said quietly, appalled. ‘You thought that?’

  Frederica smiled weakly. ‘What else could I think?’

  He shook his head, then slowly sank down on to her bed. He dropped his hands between his knees and leaned down, staring at the carpet. Again he shook his head. He closed his eyes, a picture of misery that pierced her to the heart. With a small cry, Frederica ran to him, dropping to her knees in front of him. She reached up, pushing back the corn-coloured locks of hair that fell across his temples, looking up into his greeny-hazel eyes that had his heart in them.

  ‘But I don’t think so now, Lorcan,’ she said softly. ‘I know you love me,’ she whispered. ‘And I love you.’ She reached up and kissed him, her arms coming around him, holding him close as he slowly, slowly, pulled her down on to the bed beside him.

  * * *

  Upstairs, Gordon pointed his quivering finger at Annis. ‘So you see, Miss Thorndyke, it could only have been you! As I said earlier, no glass-cutting equipment was found in any of the rooms, and only you wore a diamond big enough to cut the glass case around the painting. And only you could have put the poison into Mr Reeve Scott’s wineglass.’

  Annis tossed back her mane of dark hair, and let a sneer cross her face. Around them, the delegates burst into spontaneous applause as Gordon marched her out of Hall.

  ‘Pity we couldn’t have stayed for the pudding,’ Gordon said prosaically as they were going down the stairs. ‘I wonder if Reeve will have the gall to revive himself and tuck into the sherry trifle?’

  ‘Probably, if I know him,’ Annis laughed. ‘Look, Gordon, I’ve just got to go and see someone.’

  Gordon nodded. ‘I think I’ll go back up. Tell them you’re on your way to clink. I don’t see why I have to forgo the trifle as well.’ And with a cheery wink, he left her.

  Annis smiled, but the moment he’d turned his back, she rushed across Wallace Quad and towards the Bursar’s office. There she found the police had just arrived. For the next half-an-hour she answered question after question about Ray Verney, telling them what she knew. Which, all in all, wasn’t much.

  * * *

  As Annis was being interviewed by the police, Carl Struthers slipped out of the dining hall and drove to Squitchey Lane. The sound of breaking glass made a dog bark, but nobody came out to see what had excited him. Once inside the house, all Carl had to do was to pick his spot and wait. He took off his dark red silk tie, and twisted it around both hands, drawing it tight. It made a very chic garrotte.

  * * *

  Lorcan and Frederica stepped into the Bursar’s office, which was now crammed with people. Richard Braine looked at Lorcan, and then at the dewy-eyed, swollen-lipped beauty beside him and smiled. Nobody could be happier than Richard that things were working out so well for them.

  ‘Right then,’ Richard said softly. ‘I think it’s time we arrested our man of the moment, Mr Verney. Johnson, nip over to the Raleigh and see if the original painting isn’t stowed away under a mattress or in the wardrobe. Miss Whittington, we won’t need you any more at this stage,’ he turned towards Annis, ‘but tomorrow, we’ll ask you to make and sign a formal statement. Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?’

  Annis nodded. ‘Yes, a place in the north of the city.’ She suspected Reeve had stayed upstairs to keep an eye on Ray, and hoped he wouldn’t be long coming home. She couldn’t wait to compare notes.

  A policeman very kindly offered to give her a ride to the house.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Annis got out of the police car, thanked the driver and walked up the path towards the house. Inside, Carl Struthers moved to the window, the tie in his hand tightening convulsively. He had no idea of the events unfurling back at St Bede’s. Of Ray Verney’s arrest, or the collapse of the scam. And if he’d known that, even at that very moment, the original Hogarth was being retrieved from Ray Verney’s room at the Raleigh, he’d have been furious.

  But as he listened to Annis using her key to unlock the front door he felt remarkably calm and cool. This time, there would be no mistake. This time, he wouldn’t fail.

  * * *

  Back at St Bede’s, Lorcan and Frederica quickly answered Richard’s few remaining questions, and when Lorcan finally explained about the mix-up over the Forbes-Wright, Richard burst into laughter. He couldn’t help it. It
was just so funny. After a moment or two, first Frederica and then Lorcan had to join in.

  * * *

  Reeve looked up at the moon as he stepped through St Bede’s big wooden doors and on to the pavement. Although he’d always remember Oxford, and the College, as the place where he’d fallen in love, he wouldn’t be sorry to leave.

  He turned, watching as a police car pulled out of the side and headed towards Kidlington, and the Thames Valley Police Headquarters. In the back, Ray Verney, sitting next to Richard Braine, caught his eye only briefly. Then he was gone.

  Reeve watched the car disappear out of sight and then raised his hand quickly as a taxi cruised past. As he leaned back in his seat, Reeve dragged in a sigh of relief. At last, it was all over. He’d thought tonight was never going to end. Now all he wanted to do was get back to Annis.

  * * *

  Annis switched on the hall light and stepped inside, shutting the door behind her. She hummed a tune under her breath as she put the keys in an ashtray on the hall table and walked through to the kitchen. There she put on the kettle, reached up for some cups, sugar, and instant coffee, then moved towards the fridge.

  But as she turned, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. A dark shape, seen out of the corner of her eye, had her swinging around. A man, a perfect stranger, stood in the kitchen doorway staring at her. No, not a stranger, she thought, in the next instant. I’ve seen him before. At St Bede’s. A conference delegate.

  ‘What . . . ?’ Annis said weakly.

  * * *

  In the back of the police car, Ray Verney stared out of the window at the passing scenery. It would be his last glimpse of freedom for quite some time, that much he already knew.

  ‘Carl Struthers,’ he said suddenly, making Richard jump. For he’d just remembered something else. Struthers hadn’t been in Hall when he’d been arrested. He’d left some time earlier. Not long after Annis Whittington had made her grand exit in fact . . . Something cold and ugly snaked down his spine. ‘Oh hell,’ he said, going white. ‘That girl, Annis Whittington. I think . . . I think she’s in danger.’

  * * *

  As Ray was telling Richard Braine all about his client, and giving the policeman an alibi for the time of the attempted hit and run, Reeve’s taxi was headed at a stately 30 miles per hour up the Woodstock Road, well within the city’s speed limit. Reeve, leaning back and letting the tension drain out of him, wondered if Annis would be agreeable to him giving her a massage. He’d bought some scented oil just yesterday. He smiled dreamily.

  * * *

  Annis backed away from the doorway, putting the kitchen table between them as Carl Struthers ominously closed the door behind him. It was then that Annis noticed the tie, taut and deadly, stretched between his two hands. She didn’t know who he was, but she knew, in an instant of sickening clarity, that Ray Verney was not in this thing alone.

  And as the businessman-cum-fanatical-art-collector walked slowly towards her, backing her further and further away from the door and any possible escape route, she also knew that it hadn’t been Ray behind the wheel of that Mercedes this afternoon. And she opened her mouth to scream.

  * * *

  Richard ordered a squad car to Squitchey Lane immediately. Then he looked across at Ray Verney. His eyes glittered in the passing street lamps and his voice was cold, hard and flat, when he spoke. ‘I hope for your sake, that they’re on time,’ he said simply.

  Ray Verney swallowed hard. He hoped so too.

  * * *

  Reeve got out of the taxi and turned, digging into his pockets for change. The next instant a woman’s scream rent the calm, placid, Oxford night air. It was the scream of a trained actress—a woman accustomed to using her voice as a tool, who understood projection of sound, breathing techniques, and lung power. The scream filled the air with its terrified pitch, penetrating through the walls of the house, making even the taxi-driver jump.

  ‘Bloody hell, what’s that?’ he muttered.

  But Reeve already knew what it was. It was Annis. And she was in trouble! He sprinted up the drive as the taxi-driver scrabbled for his own cab radio to ask his office to call the cops. He gave the address and then slowly, reluctantly, got out of his cab. Reeve had already disappeared inside.

  In the kitchen, the sound of her scream made Carl Struthers flinch. ‘Shut up you interfering . . .’ he growled, moving quickly around the table.

  Annis, thinking furiously, made a mock-feint to her left, saw him move to intercept, then ran swiftly to her right, heading for the kitchen drawer where she knew an array of sharp knives waited. She sobbed as she scrabbled at the drawer handle, got it open and reached inside for a knife.

  And suddenly she saw a red flash of colour in front of her eyes, felt herself being pressed hard and painfully against the kitchen unit as Carl Struthers slammed into her from behind. Then she felt a cool silky strip of material tighten around her neck. Her body went cold. She gasped, then choked, as the air was suddenly, horrifyingly, cruelly, cut off.

  She felt her head begin to pound. And then, over the roaring of the blood in her ears, she heard an outraged, screaming yell. Carl Struthers jerked around, his grip on his victim loosening in surprise. Annis managed to drag in a small but life-saving gulp of air as Reeve launched himself across the room, just as flashing blue lights began to fill the room with strident, intermittent colour.

  Outside, the taxi-driver frantically waved the uniformed police to the right house.

  Reeve took Carl in a flying rugby tackle, knocking the publisher away from her as they both crash-landed against a washing machine. Reeve grunted in pain as his shoulder connected painfully with a knob. Carl Struthers let out a blood-curdling yell and swung a fist.

  Annis looked up, eyes streaming with tears of fright and pain, just in time to see Reeve duck below the punch, get up on his knees, and land a punch of his own squarely on the Struthers’ jaw. And then, suddenly, the room was full of blue-uniformed men. One of them reached for Reeve, dragging him up with hard hands under his armpits.

  Annis tried to protest, but her voice was nothing more than a sore and hoarse croak. But she needn’t have worried. The other policeman had gone straight for Carl Struthers and was now holding on to him as Struthers struggled and swore furiously.

  Reeve shrugged off the hold on him, saw her kneeling on the floor, wide-eyed, shaking, battered, and his eyes too opened wide.

  She held out her arms as he raced to her, dropping on to his knees in a skidding thud on the slick kitchen tiles, and gathered her close. She sobbed into his chest as the two policeman handcuffed and took the struggling art collector away. Reeve held her for a long, long time.

  * * *

  Monday morning brought heavy thunder and rain.

  At Squitchey Lane, it wasn’t the remembrance of the night’s terrors that came back fast to Annis Whittington, but the gentle, tender, wonderful lovemaking she and Reeve had shared into the early hours of the morning. She stretched, enjoying the somnolent, boneless feeling a woman has when she’s just spent a night with the lover of her dreams.

  ‘Good morning,’ Reeve said cheerfully, pushing the door open and walking in with a tray of freshly-squeezed orange juice, bubbling hot coffee, and a bowl of porridge.

  ‘Porridge?’ Annis said, sitting up. ‘I was expecting smoked salmon and French toast at the very least.’

  Reeve grinned as he put the tray on her lap. ‘I thought porridge would be easier to get down,’ he said casually, and kissed her tender throat. Annis swallowed back the desire to cry. His thoughtfulness cut her to the quick. It was so rare in a man.

  ‘Well,’ she said, leaning back against the headboard. ‘Just what does a lady say to the man who saved her life?’ She asked raising one of her dark eyebrows in query.

  Reeve stretched out on the bed beside her, and grinned. ‘She says yes,’ he responded softly.

  Annis’s other eyebrow shot up. ‘Yes?’ she echoed softly. ‘Yes to what? You’ve already had your w
icked way with me—most of the night, as I seem to remember.’

  Reeve grinned. ‘True.’

  ‘So,’ she said persistently. ‘What must I say “yes” to?’

  ‘A question, of course,’ he said softly, bending down to kiss her knee through the quilt.

  Annis smiled. ‘Ah. Well now, it depends on what the question is,’ she said reasonably, ‘doesn’t it?’

  Reeve looked up at her. His dark curls were damp, as if he’d showered before making breakfast. His oh-so-handsome face was sober. His dark-blue eyes were like sapphires, sparkling, and precious to her.

  ‘Will you marry me?’ he asked softly.

  Annis blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘Will you marry me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘See,’ he said softly. ‘I told you you’d say “yes”.’

  * * *

  Lorcan Greene turned off the windscreen wipers as they finally drove out of the storm.

  ‘Mum and Dad are expecting us,’ Frederica said softly, as she wound down her window. ‘I called them just before we left.’

  Lorcan nodded. ‘Good. I want to have a word with your father,’ he said ominously.

  Frederica turned her head towards him. Her hair was back in its usual ponytail, and the sunlight was sparking little flames off it. Her freckles stood out like so many tiny beauty spots, begging to be kissed individually, and he had to drag his eyes from her or run them into a ditch. As they approached Cross Keys, Lorcan reached out and took her hand in his. ‘Feeling OK?’ he asked softly.

  Frederica laughed. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ Last night they’d slept together the whole night through in her narrow college bed, Frederica curled up against his chest like a little ginger cat. It had been the first time she’d ever slept with the sound of a man’s heartbeat pulsing in her ears, and knew it was how she wanted to sleep for ever after.

  They turned down the drive and pulled up outside Rainbow House. As he turned off the Aston Martin’s purring engine, he turned to look at her. ‘Well,’ he said softly.

  Frederica sighed. ‘I suppose we’d better face the music. Dad will be disappointed we don’t have the painting with us.’