False Wall

by Veronica Heley

  ‘So they did manage to educate their children privately?’

  ‘Yes, well; I do feel sorry for the boy, because he was a bit of an afterthought, and so much younger than Venetia. Did I hear there was a miscarriage between the two of them? That might explain it. It’s quite an age gap, isn’t it? Edith talks about getting the girl a Season. I doubt they can afford it, and anyway …’ The lilting voice trailed away.

  ‘Yes,’ said Bea. ‘Venetia takes after her grandmother, doesn’t she?’

  A sigh. Then silence. Tippi didn’t normally ‘do’ silence.

  Bea said, gently, ‘Would you agree that Venetia could be … impulsive?’

  ‘She’s very young!’ Sharply.

  ‘And thinks the world owes her a place in the sun?’

  Another pause. ‘I can’t talk about it.’

  So there was something to talk about?

  Tippi said, in an artificially jolly voice, ‘Lots of youngsters nowadays think they’re entitled to the best. That’s what they’ve been brought up to think, isn’t it?’ Light laughter, intended to hide unease.

  How tempting it would be to accuse the girl of stealing and using Bea’s phone and cosmetics, not to mention her watch! But, until they could tie the fingerprints to Venetia and thus checkmate what Lady Payne had on Leon, it would not be a good idea to do so.

  ‘I understand you don’t wish to talk about her, but you might perhaps point me in the direction of someone who is prepared to do so? Is she at university?’

  ‘She dropped out, but lots of people do that, don’t they? I believe she’s gainfully employed nowadays – or, rather, that she’s got an internship working for some big firm in the City. She’s certainly personable enough.’

  ‘Internships don’t pay anything, do they?’

  ‘I believe not.’ With restraint. A spurt of words. ‘Don’t say I told you, but the girl is a wild child, likes smashing things – cars, mainly. Not hers. Borrowed ones.’

  ‘“Borrowed” as in “borrowed without permission”?’

  ‘I don’t think she has a licence any more. Rumour has it that it’s cost the family a pretty penny this last year, in order to keep her out of court. And her cousin doesn’t seem to be … No, I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘Gideon? He’s through university, isn’t he?’

  ‘Sent down. That’s the way they put it when they’ve been found out doing something they can’t cover up. Edith says he’s on a gap year, whatever that may mean. He doesn’t have a paying job, so far as I know. Edith did ask me if my husband knew of anything for the lad but my dearly beloved said he wasn’t such a fool as to risk taking him on.’

  A guess. ‘He’s a gambler?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say.’

  Which meant that he probably was. So, one cousin gambled while the other smashed up other people’s cars? ‘What about Gideon’s brother? Still at university?’

  ‘Mm. When he feels like it. I’ve heard him say that, myself. “When I feel like it.” All three of them seem to think the world owes them a living.’

  ‘I met a young lad at some point. Is he another brother?’

  ‘That will be Venetia’s much younger brother, Rollo. Doesn’t take after her. Still at the awkward stage. What is he now … fifteen, sixteen? Moves in jerks, as if he were a marionette. A difficult period for a boy. He’s still at school, but it’s the summer holidays, isn’t it? Edith’s never had any time for him, and neither have Hugo and his wife, so I suppose that’s why he’s hanging out with Mona. There’s nothing for him to do at home in the country. I believe he has an ambition to play in a band with some friends.’ A snort of derision.

  ‘There’s a title somewhere in the background? Venetia made a point of informing me about it, as if a mere serf like me ought to understand how much more important her cousins are than I.’

  ‘Oh well, yes. That’s the Barwell side of the family. Edith’s elder sister, Mona, married Viscount, Lord Barwell, from a distinguished old family who had fallen on hard times. He went AWOL years ago. Some kind of scandal. Fraud? Something like that. I heard he went to live in Miami or someplace where it’s warm winter or summer.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve met Mona. Is she the one who lives in the basement?’

  ‘That’s her. Not at all like Edith. Shy and retiring as a field mouse; doesn’t use the title. I suppose I’ve met her half a dozen times over the years but, as Edith says, Mona’s not one for socializing. It was a second marriage for both of them and she never had any children, but she brought up Malcolm, who was Lord Barwell’s son by his first wife, and did a good job by all accounts. Malcolm isn’t around anymore. He dropped the title, married an Australian and went off to live in Auckland. No, that can’t be right, because Auckland’s in New Zealand, isn’t it? Another city in Australia beginning with ‘A’? Antwerp’s in Holland, isn’t it? Anyway, Malcolm had two boys, both Honourables who like to flash their titles around as if it makes them special. Malcolm sends them back here for their education, and Mona looks after them in the holidays.’

  ‘Two Honourables, then? Gideon and …?’

  ‘How time flies. I remember them when they were so high and playing cricket in that garden of theirs at the back and then there was a party one summer when the elder boy was twenty-one but that was held somewhere in Soho, I think, and it was just for the youngsters and we didn’t go. Edith doesn’t hold many parties nowadays. In fact, I was slightly surprised when she rang to invite me the other day, such short notice, but one doesn’t want to disoblige old friends. I remember their cricket party because that was when I caught my number two playing around with a part-time model, and it was Edith who pointed me in the direction of the excellent solicitors who have looked after me ever since. I saw the young ones the other night, enjoying themselves at Edith’s. They weren’t there very long, were they? Did you meet them then? I suppose they got bored and went off clubbing somewhere. I wonder if they have more chance of getting summer jobs here than back in Australia?’

  ‘The elder boy is sleeping with Venetia.’ That was a guess.

  ‘I really can’t comment.’ Silence. ‘What makes you think that?’ Cautiously.

  ‘Their body language. And she’s the boss.’

  A sigh. ‘Yes, I had heard something, but … I don’t take any notice of rumours.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Venetia has been the subject of rumours? It would be good to know what the gossips were saying about her.

  ‘Must go,’ said Tippi. ‘Lovely to talk to you. Don’t forget my little party. Bring Sir Leon, won’t you? I can promise you there’ll be some reasonable booze, better than at Edith’s, anyway.’

  Click. Off went Tippi.

  Bea had been conscious for some time of Hari answering the front door and letting someone into the house.

  And there was Sophy, the waitress from the party, with sullen-faced Miguel at her back. They weren’t wearing their black outfits today. Sophy was in jeans and a sweatshirt, and so was Miguel.

  Sophy was looking around her with horror. ‘Oh, Mrs Abbot! This is awful. Did the fire do so much damage? Someone said you’d been put out of business, like, but I phoned the hospital and they said you’d been discharged, so I thought it can’t have been too bad, like, and I would have come round here to give you back your ring this morning, but we had a job for a lunch out Marlow way, like, and I didn’t wear your ring, not once, but put it on a string round my neck so that I could get it back to you soonest.’

  ‘Oh, Sophy!’ Tears. Bea despised herself for crying. She hugged Sophy, hard. Miguel shifted from one foot to the other, embarrassed.

  ‘I was so worried about you,’ said Sophy. ‘Wasn’t I, Miguel? You don’t look so good even now, Mrs Abbot, but the other night you looked so awful I was really worried, and Mr Leon, too. I thought Mr Leon was going to die, like, but Miguel said he was tougher than that, and he is going to be all right, isn’t he? Have you got him out of hospital, yet? I said to Miguel that you were sure
to bounce back, like, because you always do, don’t you? I remember when your husband died, God be good to him, and you looked like a ghost and wore his ring all the time, but then you pulled your socks up, like, and took over the agency. I know how much his ring meant to you, and I don’t want a reward, honest!’

  Here Miguel nudged her, clearly not entirely in agreement with her disclaimer. She pushed his shoulder back. ‘Oh, you. No, I don’t, Miguel, and you shut your mouth because this is my decision, like, not yours.’ And to Bea, ‘Miguel wanted to know what I thought was going on last night at the Paynes’, like, and I told him you helped the police sometimes with stuff, and I said it was probably something like that, and we didn’t need to know, like, what it was exactly. I said the Paynes were a nasty lot and you were probably investigating them and got found out and they were taking it out of you, like. Am I right?’

  ‘Something like that,’ said Bea, drying her eyes for the umpteenth time that day. ‘Sir Leon is all right and has taken himself off abroad for a while. I am so, so grateful to you. I dread to think what would have happened if you hadn’t got us out of there.’

  ‘See!’ Sophy was triumphant. She untied a string from around her neck and fished Bea’s ring out from between her breasts. ‘And there you are, safe and sound, like!’

  Bea pushed the ring on to her finger. ‘Bless you a thousand times. I’ll write you out a cheque straight away, and add something for your mobile phone and the money you gave me. As for your jacket, I’ll have that cleaned and return it to you.’

  Sophy gave a little bounce. ‘Oh, you don’t really have to … but if you want to, like, I suppose Miguel will tell me I ought to accept something from you.’

  ‘Now, where’s my chequebook? Not the office one but my personal one. In my handbag. Now, where has that got to? Come upstairs with me, Sophy, will you, and help me find it? Everything’s been moved around. I think I know where it might be …’

  Hari was signalling to her. ‘Yes, Hari?’

  ‘Have you got a tame electrician on tap, Mrs Abbot? I thought I had one nailed down, but he’s slid out from under. I’ve tried two more, but there’s nothing doing tonight. The thing is, there’s different circuits for lighting and for power on each floor. If we can isolate the ones for the basement, we might be able to get power and light back on upstairs.’

  Miguel’s face lit up. This was man’s work! ‘Let’s have a look. I’ve stuck around lots of times while my uncle fiddles with that stuff.’

  Bea and Sophy exchanged glances and left the men to it. As they climbed the stairs, Bea explained to Sophy how they’d rearranged the house so that the agency could still open in the morning. ‘Look out for a brown leather handbag. It’s a Mulberry. I may have left it, well, anywhere, before I went off to the party. The men have moved all my sitting-room furniture up one floor into what was my bedroom, but my clothes are here, there and everywhere … ah!’ She spotted the handbag under a chair and retrieved her chequebook. ‘Would six hundred be about right, Sophy?’

  Hari hadn’t yet got round to blacking out the window, and Sophy was able to look out over the ruined garden. ‘What a view! And you can see right into the Paynes’ house, like. You know they short-changed us on Friday? Said we had agreed to four waiters, and we did, but they said Miguel didn’t count, and then they added up the empty bottles and the leftovers and said we’d kept one for ourselves, which we hadn’t. And no tip, not a penny.’

  Bea took the chequebook to the table in the window and looked out over Sophy’s shoulder. ‘You hadn’t worked for them before, had you?’

  ‘And won’t again. They got us through Mrs van Dekker, who’d told the Paynes she always used us through you, but Lady Muck said she couldn’t afford to go through an agency, like, and got straight through to Miguel, saying it was an emergency, and he didn’t realize what a skinflint she was, seeing that the recommendation had come through the Dekkers. Never again.’

  ‘Are you doing the van Dekker party? I was talking to her earlier. She’s invited me and Sir Leon.’

  Sophy pulled a face. ‘I keep forgetting he’s a “sir” nowadays. He doesn’t mind, does he? We’ve done his parties before, out at the college for Mrs Anna, and all. Proper food and drink and no messing, with good tips.’

  Bea signed the cheque and tore it out of the book. ‘Have you ever worked for the people in the house next door, the one that’s just been painted? Sir Leon has bought it but hasn’t moved in yet.’ She handed the cheque to Sophy. ‘This all right?’

  A brief glance, and a nod. Sophy put it in her bra. No pockets, of course. Sophy looked across at Leon’s house. ‘Sure. I used to do her bridge parties. The Duchess, they used to call her, though she wasn’t. She went around looking like Queen Mary, like, that’s the one before the one that’s Queen now. Or before her, maybe. We learned her at school, din’t we? Long blue coat and a blue hat perched on her curls. With a diamond brooch and strings of pearls tight round her neck.’

  ‘I’ve heard the woman who used to live there was a bit doolally.’

  A shrug. ‘I’ll give you she was a bit odd, like, dressing as she did, and running some kind of charity that I don’t think made any money, but the diamonds were real. You can tell, can’t you? And rings, like! She had two rings on each of her fingers, and long chains, and she smelt of old talcum powder and maybe something else. I don’t reckon her plumbing had been investigated for years, if you see what I mean.’

  Bea saw, but didn’t pursue the matter. ‘I was told she’d gone a bit strange and had been forced to sell so that she could go and live in a home.’

  Another shrug. ‘She was all right up to Christmas, when I last saw her. There was a group of them playing bridge at one another’s houses, like, though not at the Duchess’s, come to think of it. She seemed bright enough, then. Alzheimer’s, you think? What a shame.’

  ‘Her charity: was it something to do with her husband being lost at sea?’

  ‘His name was spelled funny, like. I know because she used to take a little collecting box around with her, and we all had to put something in it, even if it was only fifty pence at a time. I thought it was rather sweet of her, really. It was the Renard Trust for those Lost at Sea. She said it was something to do with foxes. Is that the fox, Renard? I never met him, her husband. He had a title, too, but I can’t remember exactly what. He was lost in some accident at sea. Always went sailing at weekends – sometimes with the Admiral, sometimes by himself, like – and then one time there was a storm and he didn’t come back.’

  ‘I understand she’s moved into a home somewhere?’

  A shrug. ‘Dunno. We thought, Miguel and I, that you were working on something for the police last night, only something went wrong, like. Can you say what really happened, or is it all hush-hush?’

  Bea tried to work out what to say. ‘Yes, it certainly did go wrong. I am so grateful that you spotted the flames and rang the fire brigade. Did you see how the fire started?’

  FOURTEEN

  Sophy shook her head. ‘We was that busy, like. The youngsters knocked into me on their way out the marquee and didn’t bother to say “sorry”, but that lot don’t never apologize, do they? They was high as kites, prob’bly on something, like, laughing fit to bust; never mind they’d jogged the tray out of my hands and two glasses fell and got broke. We kept the boxes for glasses out the back of the marquee, so I got the dustpan and brush and was taking the bits outside when, blow me! They nearly tumbled me over again as they come back in. I went on out with the broken glasses and that’s when I saw the flames and called Miguel to come see, and then I called the fire brigade.’

  Bea kept a tight hold on herself. ‘Two young men? Would you know them again?’

  A nod. ‘The two young lads that belonged to the house. Hair all over their eyes, good clothes, no manners. Students? More money than sense, like. Think they’ve the right to grab your boobs and fumble up your skirt. That sort.’

  ‘There wasn’t a girl with them?’
<
br />   ‘I didn’t see no girl.’

  Venetia must have remained indoors to try out Bea’s cosmetics and use her phone. Or was it the boys who’d used the phone, to ring home to Australia? Now, there’s a thought. If their parents were in Australia, the boys might have grabbed the chance for a free call after the party was over and before they went out clubbing.

  Bea pulled her thoughts back to the arson attack. ‘You think it was the boys who set the fire, but you didn’t actually see them do it?’

  ‘I didn’t see no one else come in from outside. When they come back, one of them was carrying something bulky, like, a white container of some sort? Dunno what they did with it.’

  That made sense. So the two boys had set the fire using a container of paraffin – where had they got that from? Then they’d put the can out at the front of the house to be taken away with the rubbish. And Hari had found it.

  ‘After that,’ said Sophy, ‘it was better nor Saturday night on the telly! Guests popping out to see the fire, and rolling up the canvas sides so that they could see better, and the Admiral bleating that there wasn’t nothing to see but nobody took no notice, like, did they? The fire died down and they all started to drift off, and you come along, and in such a state!’

  Bea reckoned she’d had a lucky escape. When the fuse had blown, Lady Payne had ordered the boys to search for a replacement, but they were in possession of Bea’s keys and must have thought it would be a lot more fun to set her house alight than to bother with a small domestic problem like replacing a fuse. It had probably only taken them five minutes – perhaps less – to find the paraffin, set the fire and return. After that Lady Payne had kept them busy searching the house for the two escapees … who’d been under their noses all the time.

  Sophy eyed Bea speculatively. ‘So what were you up to, then?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in a minute. Did the police not turn up at the Admiral’s house eventually?’

  ‘It was all over by then. Everyone but us had left when they come knocking, and asking if we’d seen anything. Lady Payne told the coppers everyone had seen the blaze but no one had seen who’d set it. She said, and I heard her with my own ears,’ here Sophy imitated a high, upper-class voice, ‘“It must be some vandals from one of the other gardens who took advantage of our walls having fallen down!” and, “Wasn’t it all too, too dreadful?” Horrible old cow. They took her word for it, like, which they hadn’t oughter, had they? The police took our names and said they might get back to us and we didn’t say nothing, not with her looking at us, like. She’s scary!’