The Elephant Girl (Choc Lit)

by Gyland, Henriette

  Yet now she saw everything in a different light. Mimi was meeting someone, Helen didn’t know who. There had been a bag on the back, a beaded and sequinned bag, with papers in it.

  She remembered what her mother had said to her when they got in the car. ‘You mustn’t touch it, darling. It’s got important stuff in it that someone wants.’

  ‘But I like the bag. Can we keep the bag, please, Mummy?’ she’d pleaded, but Mimi had shushed her.

  And she had touched it. She’d been a naughty girl and ignored what her mother said because she’d been looking for her medicine, and then her mother had died. Guilty tears, irrational tears, pressed in the corners of her eyes.

  The bag had disappeared, and it didn’t take a genius to work out that someone had taken it and maybe her mother had died because of what was in it.

  Aggie had said Helen was safer away from the family. If the papers had something to do with the company this could have led to one of the others taking matters in their own hands, but then why would Aggie want the real killer exposed instead of leaving the blame with Fay as it had been for twenty years, especially if it turned out to have something to do with either of her daughters? It went against the grain, and she didn’t believe that this was Aggie’s perverse way of making amends for her neglect. Her grandmother was too direct for that. In fact, hadn’t Aggie pointed out it was Helen’s uncle that she didn’t trust?

  She looked at her grandmother’s sleeping form, at a face she’d both hated and loved. The hatred had gone now. Aggie couldn’t be involved, she just couldn’t. The thought was too unbearable.

  On Monday morning Letitia called Helen into her office. To her surprise Ruth was there too, standing by the window, arms crossed. She sent Helen a sour look.

  Uh-oh, Helen thought, when Letitia didn’t invite her to sit down. Despite Charlie’s reassurances, had Letitia discovered they’d been on her computer?

  But her aunt threw her with her question. ‘Are you the careful sort?’

  ‘Er, yes, I think so.’

  ‘Good, because I want you to pick up a parcel for me. From Stephanov’s house. Your loving uncle,’ she added as an afterthought, any spite too well-disguised to be noticed.

  From her position by the window Ruth uttered a contemptuous snort.

  Helen ignored her. ‘A parcel? Don’t the drivers normally do that?’

  ‘They’re all out on other jobs, and I need it before eleven.’ She handed Helen a business card. ‘Here’s the address.’

  ‘I know where it is.’

  ‘Oh, you do, do you?’ Letitia’s pencilled eyebrow rose a notch.

  ‘I was there at his dinner party.’

  ‘Of course, you were. I’d completely forgotten. Quite the little family reunion, I should imagine.’

  This time there was definitely a hint of spite. ‘Not really. I don’t have a lot to say to him.’

  ‘Mm, a shame, since he’s the only family you have.’

  Helen looked from one aunt to the other. Letitia was drawing the lines very clearly, but Ruth looked like she wanted to add something, then thought better of it. It shouldn’t hurt because neither of them meant anything to her, but the barb found its mark. Letitia had changed from the woman who’d welcomed her back only recently and had fed the hope of some sort of normality in Helen’s life. Why had she turned cold again if she didn’t know about that business with the computer?

  Because of Arseni? Hell, she was welcome to him.

  And Ruth? She seemed the same, neither cold nor welcoming, just … watchful, maybe.

  Helen’s anger rose, but she kept a lid on it. She was a co-owner of this company and had just as much right to be here as either of them. ‘What’s in the parcel?’

  ‘Never you mind.’

  ‘I think I’m entitled to know what goes on around here. After all, I own a percentage of the shares. Voting shares, as far as I know.’

  Ruth laughed suddenly. ‘Looks like she’s got you by the proverbials, Lettie.’

  Lettie? Helen turned to Ruth. There was genuine mirth in her eyes, and she gave an imperceptible nod of what looked like approval. Warmth spread in her chest, and she bit her lip to stop herself from smiling.

  Letitia’s nostrils flared. ‘I hope you don’t mean that the way I think you do,’ she said, ignoring her sister.

  ‘I dunno, you tell me.’

  ‘When you’ve worked yourself up to my position, ask me that question again, and I might give you a different answer. Until then, no, you’re not entitled to know everything that goes on around here.’

  They stared at each other across the desk, tension crackling. Despite Letitia’s arrogance Helen had a grudging respect for her. It was also possible she was in trouble, and Helen had lost so many people already, it was beginning to look like carelessness. She couldn’t back down over this.

  Sighing, Letitia was the first to break eye contact. ‘It’s a valuable Russian icon which belongs to your uncle, and now he wants to sell it. On the quiet. It’s not going in the catalogue. Satisfied?’

  ‘Just about.’

  ‘Now would you please get yourself into a taxi and go over there? I’ve arranged for a private buyer to be here for lunch. I need it before then.’

  Helen hadn’t seen Arseni since Aggie had voiced her distrust of him, and a low anger had simmered inside her afterwards knowing it was partly because of him that Aggie had sent her away. And if Aggie was right? Had he played an even bigger role in Helen’s fate? Perhaps this would be an opportunity to ask some of her many questions.

  However, getting to her uncle’s house and back in time for the deadline turned out to be problematic. Stuck in the back of a taxi, Helen could only watch as the traffic moved along at a snail’s pace. A coach, having attempted an illegal U-turn along Piccadilly, was blocking the road. She rapped on the glass screen separating her from the cab driver. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Looks like he’s broken down,’ came the reply. ‘You in a hurry?’

  ‘I am, actually.’

  The cab driver shook his head. ‘Well, your best bet is to get out and walk it, then. We could be stuck here for a long time, I reckon.’

  ‘All right. Thanks.’ Helen paid the driver and began walking in the direction of Knightsbridge. After her battle of wills with Letitia, she wanted to show that she was able to carry out instructions to the letter. A small part of her told her that her mother would have approved.

  A screech of brakes made her turn around.

  ‘Fancy a lift?’ Charlie was astride Jim’s scooter with the engine sputtering and the visor of her helmet pushed up.

  ‘On that thing?’

  ‘Got a better idea?’

  Helen looked at the traffic around her. The coach was still blocking the road accompanied by a cacophony of impatient car horns, and the coach driver, a scowling dark-haired man with a five o’clock shadow, was leaning out of the nearside window, shouting and gesticulating in a foreign language which needed no translation.

  ‘Good point.’ She climbed on the scooter behind Charlie.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  Helen rattled off Arseni’s address. Charlie turned the throttle, and with a blast accelerated down the road like an angry wasp, narrowly missing the back of the coach.

  ‘Wait!’ Helen screeched. ‘I haven’t got a helmet!’

  ‘Oh, come on. Live a little.’

  She closed her eyes as Charlie weaved in and out through the slow-moving traffic, mounting the pavement when gaps between cars were too narrow for the scooter, but after a while she began to enjoy the crazy ride. The wind played with her hair, and her insides did a flip every time Charlie drove off the edge of a pavement and they found themselves airborne for a second or two.

  When they pulled up outside her uncle’s house, her heart was hammering wildly, her cheeks flushed, and she was relieved to be alive.

  Charlie took off her helmet and gawped at the house. ‘Wow, fancy place. Why are we here?’

&nb
sp; ‘A pick-up for Letitia. I’d better go in alone.’

  ‘No way.’ Charlie locked the scooter to a sign post with a chunky chain. ‘Why should you have all the fun?’

  Helen sighed. So much for the opportunity to ask questions.

  The maid showed them into Arseni’s office.

  ‘Helen. My dear niece.’ Arseni cocked his head to one side as if she was a stray puppy who had finally found its way home. ‘How lucky I am they sent you.’

  Helen felt Charlie’s eyes on her and cursed herself for not insisting she waited outside. She could have spun some yarn about client confidentiality or something like that. Jason knew about the connection but had not, as far as she was aware, told anyone about it. Charlie was going to give her hell.

  Her uncle spotted Charlie. ‘And who is this charming young’—he looked her up and down and raised a quizzical eyebrow—‘person?’

  ‘Charlie,’ said Charlie. ‘Charlotte,’ she added with a mutinous expression and dug her hands deep in the trouser pockets.

  ‘Ah, a beautiful name for an English rose.’

  Charlie snorted

  ‘The traffic was bad,’ said Helen, ‘so Charlie gave me a lift on her scooter. Letitia told me to be as quick as possible, and that the parcel is small enough.’ She hoped her uncle would hand it over straight away. The sooner she and Charlie were out of here the better.

  ‘On a scooter? Is it safe?’

  ‘As safe as any kind of courier.’ Arseni’s attempt at playing the concerned relative all of a sudden irked her, but she decided not to mention Charlie’s inventiveness when it came to negotiating London traffic.

  Mollified, he unlocked a desk drawer and took out a flat packet wrapped in brown paper. It was small, smaller than a sheet of printer paper and roughly three inches thick. He passed it to Helen as well a large envelope, which she tucked under her arm.

  ‘This is important paperwork. Your aunt will know what to do with it.’

  Helen felt Charlie stiffen behind her at the word ‘aunt’ and hoped she didn’t make the connection. ‘We need to get back,’ she said.

  Arseni cocked his head to one side. ‘So soon? You are not staying for lunch? You can bring your friend too. We can be one big happy family.’ He held out his arms. ‘Have you a kiss for your old uncle?’

  ‘One big happy family?’ Charlie mimicked when they were back on the pavement. ‘This greasy snake is your uncle? I’d rather cut my leg off than be related to him.’

  Irritation prickled between Helen’s shoulder blades. It’s all right for you, she wanted to say, then realised that Charlie didn’t have much family either. ‘I didn’t choose him.’

  ‘And who’s this aunt of yours?’ said Charlie. ‘What’s she got to do with Ransome’s?’

  Helen hesitated. Keeping secrets was a knee-jerk reaction from having always relied on herself, but keeping them from friends meant you risked losing them. She’d nearly lost Jason’s respect when he’d found the clippings folder. She could, of course, pretend her uncle had been referring to a wife and put the ambiguity down to the well-studied accent, but what about next time? Secrets always came out, one way or another.

  ‘Letitia.’

  ‘Letitia?’

  ‘Letitia’s my aunt. Or my step-aunt if you like. My grandfather on my mother’s side was married to her mother. It’s a family company.’ Helen opened the scooter’s top box and placed the parcel and envelope inside.

  ‘You’re having me on. Really?’ Charlie flicked back a greasy dreadlock. ‘But she’s loaded! And what about your parents? Where are they? Aren’t they part of it?’

  ‘My parents are dead.’

  ‘Oh.’ Charlie looked agog for a moment, but her surprise didn’t last long. ‘You, then,’ she insisted. ‘You must have a share in it. So what the hell are you doing, fetching and carrying and getting your hands dirty? You should be off on some Caribbean island eating lobster and sipping cocktails and doing whatever rich people do.’

  ‘I don’t have a lot of experience of rich people.’

  ‘I don’t get it. You must have. You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, for Christ’s sake!’

  Suddenly all the rage Helen had kept under control for so long spewed out of her, and she swung to face Charlie, an innocent but convenient target.

  ‘What if I don’t want any of it?’ she spat. ‘What if they all let me down when I needed them? What if they’re all trying to buy me back into their lives with their bloody money? Can you understand that? How it makes me feel?’

  A wounded look crept into Charlie’s eyes, but again she recovered quickly. ‘Yeah, I can understand that. They pissed on you, and now you’re too proud to forgive them. I wasn’t blind in there, you know.’

  Regretting her outburst, Helen bit her lip.

  ‘You don’t have to want it for yourself,’ said Charlie. ‘You could exploit those capitalist pricks the way they’ve probably exploited a whole bunch of people to get so filthy rich in the first place. Do some good with the money. You know, rob from the rich and give to the poor.’

  ‘If only things were that simple,’ Helen replied as hysterical laughter threatened to well up inside her. ‘I’d be stealing from myself.’

  ‘Details.’ Charlie shrugged. ‘Come on, let’s have a look at what’s in that packet.’

  Never you mind.

  Recalling Letitia’s warning, Helen glanced up at her uncle’s town house and the dark windows. He was probably watching her right now, from behind his curtains.

  ‘Okay. But not here.’

  They drove to a nearby pub tucked away from the main road and almost deserted at this hour of the day. Helen ordered two Cokes, and they chose a table in a secluded booth at the far corner of the pub away from windows and prying eyes.

  Charlie undid the string securing the parcel and pushed the paper aside to reveal something that looked like a wooden book. Wrapping her hands in the sleeves from her jumper for protection, Helen opened it, folding back one page to the left then the other to the right.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘It’s a Russian icon. A triptych because it has three panels.’

  She looked at the centre image of the Virgin Mary holding Baby Jesus depicted as a miniature adult. The left was from the annunciation with the archangel Gabriel, and the right showed Mary in the cave with the shrouded Jesus. Three scenes from the life of the Virgin on a Russian icon, just as Letitia had said. Nothing strange about that.

  Charlie reached out to touch it, but Helen stopped her. ‘You can’t touch art with greasy fingers.’

  ‘Well, la-di-dah. Is it very valuable?’

  Helen held it up to the light. The surface was slightly uneven where the original coat of varnish had cracked and then been restored. She had learned about icons at school. Apart from enjoying Art as a subject, the fact that they were Russian, and a part of her ancestry so to speak, had captured her imagination and provided her with a way of holding on to her identity at the same time. She probably knew more about them than most people, even Letitia. Pictures of saints, and often the Holy Virgin, they were painted on wooden board with gesso, a kind of chalk, as well as with egg tempera, which was made from mixing powdered pigment with egg yolk, and then coated with finishing oil. This one had also been overlaid with engraved silver leaf on the garments, the halos, and the backgrounds.

  ‘Letitia said so. It depends how old it is, but the paperwork should tell us that.’

  ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’ Charlie slipped a dirty, chipped fingernail under the flap and opened the envelope without damaging the glue, glanced at the papers, then handed them to Helen. ‘See what you can make of it. It’s all Greek to me.’

  ‘Close. It’s Russian, you dork.’

  ‘Well, what does it say? You’re the one with the Russian uncle.’

  ‘I’m a bit rusty, but’—Helen waved a sheet of paper under Charlie’s nose—‘here’s a translation. Lucky me.’

  ‘Go on, t
hen.’

  ‘It says,’ Helen read aloud, ‘that the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation certifies that this is an icon of one hundred years in age and that exporting it from Russia is within the law.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘There’s some law forbidding exports of icons older than a hundred years. This one obviously comes direct from Russia where they’re quite strict, but sometimes they’re smuggled into the Baltic countries and won’t have a certificate.’

  Charlie looked at the icon. ‘A hundred years old? I’m no expert but this one looks older.’

  ‘Maybe it is.’

  ‘But the certificate says it isn’t.’

  Helen smiled. ‘That doesn’t mean it’s true. What if you paid someone in the Ministry of Culture to say it was one hundred years old just to make it easier to get it out of the country?’

  ‘Corruption. Okay, I buy that. But why is it so urgent that it has to be back before lunch?’

  ‘Because Letitia has a meeting with a private buyer. Which is why we need to get back.’ She returned the papers to the envelope, wrapped the icon carefully and got up.

  Charlie caught her arm. ‘Sit down. I have an idea. I don’t know much about art,’ she said, ‘but I know about stealing stuff.’

  ‘We don’t know if it’s stolen.’

  ‘All right, listen, imagine running off with the Mona Lisa.’

  ‘I’ve been to the Louvre. It’s pretty impossible. They don’t even let you see it half the time.’

  ‘Just go with me here.’

  Helen sighed. ‘Okay. We steal the Mona Lisa. Then what?’

  ‘That’s it. That’s exactly it. What would you do with it?’

  ‘Hang it on the wall.’ Helen shrugged. ‘Try to sell it.’

  ‘And how’d you flog her? On E-bay?’

  ‘No, I’d go to a private collector. Someone with money who’d buy it off me.’

  ‘Where’d you find this collector?’ Charlie persisted. ‘They don’t advertise in the local paper. “Stolen fine art bought and sold. Competitive rates.”’ She snorted. ‘You need to find a middle man, someone who knows all the buyers and sellers, who’s selling what, and who wants to buy what. That might explain those numbers on Letitia’s spreadsheet.’