Rogue in Porcelain

by Anthea Fraser

  Finn said thoughtfully, ‘There seems to be a connection with Rona Parish, but neither she nor I knows what it is.’

  ‘Explain!’ James barked, and Finlay related the story of Julia’s handbag.

  ‘But that doesn’t make sense,’ Sybil protested. ‘Why would she want to meet Rona Parish?’

  ‘I’ve been wondering about this ever since she told me on Thursday,’ Finn replied. ‘I doubt if Julia herself was interested in us, but she was still in touch with Nigel de Salis, remember.’ He flung an apologetic glance at Nick, who was staring into his coffee.

  ‘I fail to see the significance,’ Charles said.

  Finlay raised his shoulders. ‘So do I, but I’ve a feeling there is one. Rona says she went into their shop after lunch with Jackie, and both de Salis and his wife reacted to hearing she was writing about us.’

  ‘Embarrassment, probably.’

  ‘She thought it was more than that.’

  Sybil said, ‘She’s coming to interview us on Tuesday. We could sound her out then.’

  ‘There’s something else,’ Charles told them. ‘I was going to bring it up later, but since Miss Parish has been mentioned, this might be the appropriate place. One way or another, she’s become much more involved in our affairs than we’d anticipated when we agreed to her articles. For instance, she found that letter in Father’s desk, she’s about to go through the family papers – a task long overdue – and she knew Julia personally, not to mention being present when her body was discovered.’

  James looked at his brother from beneath beetle brows. ‘So? What are you leading up to?’

  ‘I think we should tell her about Genesis.’ He looked round at their startled faces. ‘I did mention the possibility earlier, but I promised to discuss it with you all, since any decision must be a joint one.’ He paused. ‘I’ve a feeling Genesis lies behind a lot of the trouble we’ve been having. Certainly such sabotage as we’ve had has been aimed at it, and if Julia were interested in us for some reason, all that’s changed since she left is the announcement of this new line we’re about to produce.’

  ‘And what good would it do her to know about it?’ asked Hester.

  ‘She could pre-empt us by selling the story to the tabloids,’ Sam suggested.

  ‘No!’ Nick looked up at last. ‘She’d never do that. Julia had a lot of faults, but she was never vindictive.’

  ‘To reply to your question, Hester,’ Charles resumed, ‘I’ve no idea what advantage it would be. But this Parish girl has a good brain by all accounts, and if we present her with all the facts, she might make some connection that’s escaped us. Her parents are friends of longstanding, which predisposes me to trust her, and it goes without saying there’d be an embargo on publishing anything before the anniversary.

  ‘So, I’m asking you to support me in this decision. Is anyone definitely opposed to it?’

  There was some murmuring, but no direct answer. ‘Then I’ll go down the table and ask each of you in turn. I must stress you’re perfectly free to object, and if we all agree the objection’s valid, we won’t go ahead. So – Oliver?’

  ‘As long as she keeps quiet about it, I’ve no objection.’

  ‘James?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ grumbled James.

  ‘Finlay?’

  ‘OK by me.’

  ‘Sam?’

  ‘No objection.’

  ‘Edward?’

  ‘If you think it’s best.’

  ‘Nick?’

  ‘I’ll go with the flow.’

  Finn imagined Rona’s reaction to none of the women being consulted. But then none of them was privy to the secret of Genesis; it had been very tightly guarded. Until now. It was, he thought, to the women’s credit than none of them had voiced a complaint that an outsider should be informed of it ahead of themselves.

  Charles drew in his breath. ‘Very well. I take it, then, that I have the agreement of you all that, with the strict proviso that it mustn’t be disclosed prior to the anniversary, Rona Parish should be told about Genesis. As Sybil said, she’s coming to interview us on Tuesday; I shan’t make a final decision until I’ve met her, but I don’t expect to have any reservations. If she meets my criteria, I’ll tell her then.’

  Rona was about to leave the house on Tuesday morning when Tess phoned.

  ‘Not claiming your free meal already?’ Rona teased her.

  ‘No; in fact, I might have forfeited it.’

  ‘Why? You played fair; I’ve no complaints.’

  ‘The trouble is, someone else at the paper picked up on it. He went through back numbers and has done a thorough reconstruction job on your crime-solving career to date.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Rona groaned.

  ‘I tried to remonstrate, but didn’t get anywhere. It’s been given the go-ahead and will appear on Friday. Rona, I’m so sorry. If I hadn’t mentioned you in the first place—’

  ‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Rona said wearily. ‘You wouldn’t have been doing your job if you hadn’t.’

  ‘I really do feel awful about it. At least let me buy you the meal.’

  ‘We’ll go Dutch,’ Rona said. ‘Thanks for the warning, anyway. I’ll keep my head down for the next week or so.’

  Rona arrived at the pottery just on nine thirty, and was shown up to Finlay’s office. He stood up, holding out his hand, and as she took it, she had an unwelcome flash of that moment in Oliver’s hallway. The attraction was still there, however well they held it in check.

  ‘Reporting for duty,’ she said brightly. ‘Or at least, reporting to be given my assignment.’

  ‘There are more papers than I realized,’ Finn apologized, ‘and frankly, the best place for a lot of them is the bin. If you come across any you feel aren’t worth keeping, I’d be grateful if you could put them on one side, so we can flick through them before consigning them to the shredder.’

  ‘Perhaps you should hire a bona fide archivist,’ Rona suggested, remembering Max’s comment.

  Finn grimaced. ‘You’re right; we’ve a damn cheek, expecting you to go through them for nothing.’

  She flushed. ‘Not at all; I’m used to doing research for my articles. I only meant—’

  ‘But you’re not used to being asked to judge the merit of what you find, irrespective of its interest to you, and I’d no right to suggest it. A fee would definitely be in order.’

  ‘I really wasn’t—’ Rona began again, but again was interrupted, this time by the telephone. She distinctly heard Meg Fairclough’s voice say, ‘A call for you, Finlay. She wouldn’t give her name.’

  Finn frowned. ‘Put her through, then.’

  There was a pause, a click, a voice, and Rona saw him suddenly straighten. ‘Ginnie!’

  She turned and walked quickly over to the window, heart pounding. Though she’d put as much distance between them as possible, she couldn’t blot out his voice.

  ‘It’s good of you to phone . . . Yes, it has, rather . . . No, they’re no nearer finding the culprit . . . Nick? He’s all right, though of course it’s been a terrific strain, on all of us.’

  There was a longer pause, and when he spoke again, his voice had subtly altered. ‘You’re sure? Yes, of course I would. Very much . . . I’ll wait to hear from you, then. Goodbye.’

  Rona remained at the window, staring unseeingly into the courtyard below. For several seconds silence stretched between them, then Finn said with an effort, ‘Sorry about that. What were we saying?’

  She turned and came back to the desk. His face was flushed and his hand shook as he shuffled some papers.

  ‘You were about to show me where I’ll be working,’ she said.

  He glanced up, meeting her eyes. ‘As you’ll no doubt have gathered, that was my ex-wife. She’s been abroad for two weeks and has only just heard about Julia.’

  Rona nodded, unsure what to say.

  ‘She’s – coming up to see us.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ Rona said carefully.

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nbsp; ‘Yes. Right; the room you’ll be using is two doors down.’ He held the door open for her and she walked past him, turning left down the corridor. The room he showed her into was much the same size as his, but with the radiators off, the air felt chill. It was equipped with two desks, phone, fax and computer, and on one of the desks was piled a motley collection of binders, files and old, torn envelopes with their contents spilling out. Several cardboard boxes, also in danger of overflowing, stood on the floor beside it, together with some concertina files.

  ‘You see what I mean,’ Finlay said.

  She did. ‘I won’t know where to start,’ she said with a little laugh.

  ‘If you’d rather not tackle it—’

  ‘No, I said I’d do it, and I will.’ Aware of the constraint still between them, she added with a forced laugh, ‘Who knows what secrets I might unearth?’

  ‘If you’re sure, then. How soon can you start?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Excellent. I’ll make sure the heating’s turned on.’

  She had the impression he wanted to be rid of her, to be free to consider the implications behind his wife’s call. Well, she’d no intention of detaining him.

  ‘Till tomorrow, then,’ she said, gave him a tight little smile, and walked out of the room, along the passage and down the stairs.

  So the unknown Ginnie had graciously offered to come and see ‘them’ (for which, read Finn), no doubt adding a cautionary, If you’d like me to? To which he’d replied, Yes, of course I would. Very much. Heaven knows, that was clear enough. What wasn’t clear was why they’d ever parted in the first place, since he was obviously still in love with her. Hadn’t his mother told her she resembled Ginnie? Obviously, that had been the source of her attraction for him.

  So what was the problem? She hadn’t wanted that awareness between them; it was unsettling and wrong, and they’d both known it would go no further. Why, then, was she left feeling as though all her rabbits had died?

  With an exclamation of annoyance, she started the car.

  A brisk walk with Gus helped clear her head, and by the time she reached Nettleton, Rona had put the episode behind her. Coppins, to which Charles and Sybil had recently moved, was a handsome old house at the end of a short drive. She’d been told the Curzons’ apartment was at the far end on the right, and she drove into one of the spaces marked Visitors’ Parking, and went to ring the bell.

  Sybil opened the door to her. She was plump and silver-haired, wearing a heather tweed skirt and lilac cashmere jumper. Very different, Rona thought, from Elizabeth’s severity.

  ‘Come in, my dear,’ she invited, leading Rona into the small hallway and through to an attractive room running along the back of the house. Charles, tall, straight and white-haired, with a small moustache, came forward to meet her.

  ‘Miss Parish. Your father has told us a lot about you.’

  Rona smiled at him. ‘It’s always a little unnerving to hear that.’

  ‘It shouldn’t be. Sit down, sit down. Sybil has the coffee on. You must forgive the odd boxes dotted around; we’re still trying to find places for things. We’ve disposed of an inordinate amount, to our sons and the factory museum—’ He broke off. ‘But you know that, of course. You’ve seen the old desk, not to mention what it contained.’

  ‘Yes, I’m – sorry about that; I wasn’t trying to pry, just to get the drawer to close.’

  ‘Finlay told you we found another letter? Extraordinary, that after all these years they should turn up within a week of each other.’

  ‘I understand the contents weren’t a total surprise?’

  Sybil returned with the coffee tray, and Charles stood to help her. ‘We’re talking about Spencer’s letters, my dear.’ Then, to Rona, ‘Yes and no. The story of the paternity claim became part of family lore, but it consisted largely of guesswork and overheard scraps of gossip, since neither my father nor Spencer ever spoke of it. Out of loyalty to George, I presume, and possibly – less admirably – watching their own backs.’

  ‘And the missing parish records?’ Rona queried delicately, accepting the cup of coffee.

  ‘I’d say she stole them herself, to give credence to her story.’

  ‘You don’t think there’s a remote chance your grandfather might have married her?’

  ‘Not the slightest,’ Charles declared robustly. ‘She was a scheming little minx, by all accounts – one of the factory workers – and blatantly out for what she could get. Admittedly Grandfather had earned himself a reputation—’

  ‘The Rogue in Porcelain,’ Rona supplied.

  ‘You’ve heard that, have you? Yes, well I dare say it was warranted in his youth. But at the time we’re speaking of, he had two adolescent sons and a thriving business. There’s no way he’d have allied himself to a woman like that.’

  ‘She was only good enough to sleep with? Droit du seigneur, and all that?’

  Charles shot her a swift look. ‘I’m not condoning his behaviour, but men can be fools, Miss Parish; you’ll be aware of that. A pretty face, open flattery, and they fall like flies. In mitigation, my grandmother had been unwell for the last ten years of her life, bedridden for five. That would have played into the girl’s hands, and even though George would have been more than twenty years her senior, he was still a handsome man.’

  ‘What happened to her and the child?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, but I’m confident they were taken care of.’

  ‘Would you have any objection to my including this in the article? As part of the family history?’

  Charles stroked his moustache thoughtfully. ‘Will Julia’s murder be featured?’

  ‘Since it’s common knowledge, yes. I’m sorry.’

  Sybil said sharply, ‘I wish they’d stop hounding poor Nicholas. The police are treating him as their prime suspect, and the press follow him everywhere.’

  Charles said, ‘You knew Julia, I believe?’

  ‘For just over a week, yes.’

  ‘Finlay thinks she planned the meeting with you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sybil said gently, ‘You liked her, didn’t you, dear?’

  Rona nodded, not wanting to discuss Julia with those so obviously hostile to her. As though reading her mind, Sybil went on, ‘However we might feel about her, what happened was a tragedy she didn’t deserve. Her death has shocked and saddened us, naturally, but we can’t regard it as a family bereavement. Not after what she did to Nicholas.’

  Charles cleared his throat. ‘Well, if all this is to be recounted in gruesome detail, no one’s likely to bat an eyelid over George’s past shenanigans. If you weren’t a young lady, I’d say publish and be damned.’ He paused. ‘And there’s another matter you must have been wondering about.’

  Rona raised her eyebrows enquiringly, glad they’d moved away from the subject of Julia.

  ‘This new line we’re bringing out; Genesis, as we refer to it.’ He moved to the mantelpiece and took down a small figurine Rona had noticed earlier. It was an exquisite model of a young girl leaning dreamily against a tree. She was holding a spray of blossom, each petal painstakingly detailed, and above her, individual leaves hung realistically from the fragile branches.

  ‘This is Genesis,’ Charles said. ‘Here, take it.’

  ‘I’m not insured!’ Rona protested laughingly. ‘It must be worth a bomb.’

  ‘At the moment, it’s priceless. That’s the only piece outside the factory.’ He handed it to her, and she turned it carefully over in her hands. It was a work of art, and she would have loved to possess it, but she was unsure in what way it differed from other pieces of Curzon.

  Charles, seeming to sense her puzzlement, smiled. ‘Come with me,’ he said, and, to her surprise, led her into the kitchen.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘drop it.’

  Rona stared at him uncomprehendingly. ‘What?’

  ‘I think you heard. Drop it. Or, if you prefer, fling it against a wall.’ He waited a moment longe
r, and when she made no move to obey him, took it out of her hand and himself hurled it on to the tiled floor.

  Instinctively, Rona closed her eyes, bracing herself for the sound of smashing china. There was none. When she dared open them, the ornament was lying, totally undamaged, on the floor. She turned to see Charles’s smiling face.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘What we’ve invented, my dear, is nothing more nor less than unbreakable china. Drop it on the floor, and it bounces. You could drive a steamroller over it, and it would do no damage. Try it for yourself.’

  He bent to retrieve it, and again handed it to her. Still reluctant, she examined it carefully, but could see no evidence of its rough treatment. Each blossom and leaf remained intact. Holding her breath, Rona dropped the figure on to the tiles and, incredulously, watched it bounce.

  ‘It’s – unbelievable,’ she said.

  ‘It’s taken years of research to develop,’ Charles told her, ‘and although the public in general will be overjoyed, not to mention collectors of fine bone china, fellow manufacturers mightn’t be so happy. In the short term, their trade will slump as everyone rushes to buy Genesis. And, of course, if china is unbreakable, it will not need replacing; one dinner service given as a wedding present will last for life. No chips, no breakages. Oven, freezer and dishwasher proof.’

  ‘Why are you showing it to me?’ Rona asked.

  ‘So that it, too, can be mentioned in your article. To balance, perhaps, what’s gone before. However, I must impress on you the total secrecy surrounding Genesis. No one – positively no one – is to hear about it prior to its announcement. Your magazine, due out, I’ve established, a day or two later, will be highly topical but will not pre-empt it. And the same strictures apply to you, my dear,’ he added to Sybil, who had followed them through, and whose exclamation of shock Rona had dimly been aware of when the priceless piece was dropped.

  ‘None of the other wives know, nor does the general workforce. Only the directors, senior managers, and those involved in production, and they’re all sworn to secrecy.’

  He fixed Rona with a severe look. ‘I’m putting you on your honour to adhere to this.’

  ‘Of course I will,’ she answered quietly.