“All right,” she agreed.
As he selected one of the brushes, Larkin said: “Did you consider making Briar?”
Persephone stammered: “Briefly, very briefly. But if anyone found it, I’d be incriminating him.”
“Yes,” Larkin agreed. “You would. And he deserves it.”
“You’re not going to make a doll of him, are you?”
“No. That’s not my story to tell.” Larkin picked up a small tube of paint. He mixed a drop of orange into the beige swirl on his palette. “Only you can tell that story.”
She did not want to talk about her father. Instead she watched Larkin outline a doll’s eyes in black: the tear ducts, the apple, the lid. He made a point above each corner of the eye, and joined them with two arcs for eyebrows. Deftly, he shaded in the nostrils.
“This doll will have red hair, I think,” he told Persephone. “So let’s give her pale, almost translucent skin, and maybe some freckles.”
He swapped brushes, checking the softness of the new one with his thumb, and touched the tip to the pool of taupe on his palette. The paint was very slightly darker than the wooden doll head. Persephone tried to memorise the strokes of the brush – the contours around the eyes, and the chin, then the corners of the mouth. Larkin used the orange-beige mixture to create shadows from the temple to the jaw. With the same colour he lightly dabbed the tip of the nose. He paused to tilt the head this way and that, checking it met his satisfaction.
“Lavender for the eyes?” he said.
Persephone nodded. First he filled the small circles with a pastel blue. He added the lavender in minuscule rings – they reminded Persephone of the rings in tree boughs, except this bough would be no thicker than a pencil. At the centre he painted a black pupil. Black, too, was applied to the edge of the irises, making them rounder in appearance. Larkin switched to brown for outlining the lids and dusting the nose with freckles. He softened the crease of the eye with a toothpick. The doll was completed with the mouth: a sugar pink along the lips, and fawn shadow curving beneath.
With trepidation, Persephone considered the blank doll head in her own hand. She frowned as she picked up a brush, and dipped it into the black, as Larkin had first done. The tip hovered above the wooden eye.
Larkin cupped her hand with his, to adjust the position of the brush.
“Hold it at this angle,” he said.
She did, and she marked her own line.
27
Larkin woke, in the early hours of the morning, to the sound of breaking glass in another room. Seconds later he heard a tap-tap on his door.
“It’s not locked,” he called from his bed.
Persephone opened the door and peered through the gap. Her hair was tousled. She wore a loose checked nightshirt, its cuffs brushing her knuckles. She had the feral look of one stumbling from slumber. It wasn’t without appeal.
“Get up,” she whispered, one eye scrunched. “Something’s the matter with Mrs Mayhew. I can hear her smashing things in her bedroom and I think she’s crying.”
Larkin raised his head, then let it drop on the pillow. “We could toss a coin, to decide which of us should go.”
“It needs to be you, Larkin. She doesn’t like me.”
He groaned. “Damn your logic.”
Persephone retreated to her own room. Yawning, Larkin got out of bed, and followed the call of Mrs Mayhew’s sobs. The door to her boudoir was open. Shattered perfume bottles lay upon the floor.
“Margot? What’s all this about, hey?”
The poor woman was in a sorry state, slumped atop of her dressing table. She wore her negligee, a satiny gossamer thing, but Larkin wasn’t sure she’d been to bed at all; it could barely be an hour since the last of the collectors departed. Her make-up ran from her eyes like tyre tracks in snow.
She sniffed. “Everything’s awful.”
“I’m sure that can’t be true. Let me get you a cup of tea.”
He left her briefly, and returned with the promised drink. She took the mug and he pulled up a peach slipper chair that leaked where the cat had scratched it.
“You’re a good boy, Larkin,” said Mrs Mayhew. “I bet your mother’s proud of you.”
Not very, he could have said, but he wasn’t going to get into that. In any case, it wasn’t a genuine enquiry into his background, so much as a segue into talking of Hedwig’s callousness as a daughter.
“You wouldn’t let your mother struggle, with money, would you? It’d be financial abuse, not to give her a loan if you had the money and more, but she couldn’t make ends meet.”
Her head fell onto his shoulder, which rather startled him, and the sobs resumed. He could feel her tears seeping through the cotton of his t-shirt.
“I owe so many people money,” she said. “The electric and gas people will send round the debt collectors. What am I going to do, Larkin?”
“You’re going to get some proper rest before dawn, and then you’re going to sit down with me in the morning while we ring your creditors and work out a plan you can manage. How does that sound?”
“It’s no use.” She bit her lip in a performance of bravery. “Even if they give me more time, where’s the money going to come from? I asked Hedwig and she refused to lend me a penny to tide me over.”
Larkin knew the pub had a small customer base, but he’d assumed Conrad subsidised it as a common good. It sounded like Mrs Mayhew wasn’t really making a living.
“I’ll have to put the rent up,” she said.
“If you must, you must,” Larkin said coolly. The direction of travel didn’t surprise him. “But I do think you’re doing Hedwig a disservice. She must have misunderstood the severity of your circumstances. I’m sure that – if you approached her in just the right way, and laid it out as to your mutual benefit – she would give you the assistance you want.”
“How do I do that?”
“Come now. There’s usually a bargain to be made.” Particularly because Hedwig would soon be coming into a significant amount of money – if the fraud she had proposed came off. With newly awakened interest, he insisted: “I bet we could persuade Hedwig to see things from a different perspective.”
“You really think so?”
“I do. But first you must get some rest. I promise we will sort everything out.”
The assurance stemmed Mrs Mayhew’s tears. She patted Larkin’s cheek, and he expected this to draw the encounter to a close. Instead she kissed him with surprising gentleness. When he didn’t respond she pulled herself away.
“Oh dear.” She was matter of fact; the tears still appeared to be at bay.
“Sorry,” Larkin said, feeling a vague need to apologise.
“You think I’m old.”
She needn’t have worried on that score. An age difference was novel to Larkin, and he liked novelty. No. It was her clinginess that repelled him. She was needy, and nothing alarmed him more. Still he could say, with sincerity: “Margot, you’re very attractive.”
“What then? You belong to someone else?”
Her phrasing touched him with its quaintness.
“Because I don’t mind about that,” she added.
He laughed. “Margot.”
“Is there someone?”
“I’m – halfway in a situation. I don’t know yet how things will work out.”
“Hm. Yes, I thought as much when you paid for her room.”
She stood up, smoothing the creases in her night dress. Larkin watched her lie on the bed, over her quilt. She closed her eyes and ran her hand between the mattress and the bed base, searching for something. But she fell still and silent almost immediately, in what he assumed was a deep sleep.
He needed rest himself. Before leaving he reached for the dressing table lamp, to turn it off; and noticed a tray of seven dolls directly beneath the shade. Dolls that the collectors had toyed with during their society evening, and that would be returned to the workshop tomorrow. The biggest was three inches high. They were
all cutesy, white, braid-sporting girls – he remembered Persephone’s scorn for the current stock. A label beneath each niche in the tray displayed the enchantment. The first was Homesickness, which compelled a closer look, because Larkin didn’t believe he had a home to feel nostalgic for. He placed his palm upon the small tin figure. A lump formed in his throat as he remembered sun-lit bluebells in St Ignatius’s churchyard, and kicking a red ball into long grass under the yews. That’s not home, he insisted to himself, but he realised he was longing for his younger self, not the place, and never having felt homesickness before, wondered if that was true for everyone who spoke of it.
Only a couple of hours remained before he had to get up for work. He departed, taking care to avoid the floorboards that creaked in the corridor. He didn’t want to rouse Persephone again. He’d prefer she didn’t see the tyre tracks of mascara on his shoulder.
28
While she waited for the forgery, Hedwig concentrated on the remaining elements of the plan. The day after her confrontation with Mama, she sat in Briar’s living room, having brought a fountain pen and paper, so that they might compose a ransom demand for Conrad.
“The Thief would write his note by hand,” Hedwig said, “but Conrad knows my writing.”
“No point me writing it. He knows my scrawl too, remember. Maybe you’re getting cold feet? We can still stop this now, you know. Never ignore your instincts because of sunk costs.”
“You always offer heaps of excellent life advice, Briar.” The very idea she had cold feet was absurd. To demonstrate how absurd, she began to write. Only the words Dear Conrad, but the gesture helped strengthen her resolve. She had made her plan, and had to execute it. She had simply to do her best, and rely on the fact Conrad had never received a letter from the fae folk before, so would hardly have a basis for comparison. All would be well.
She continued.
The Paid Mourner is in my possession and diligently cared for. I imagine this is a great relief for you to hear. Your hopes of a safe return must have grown faint by now.
The satisfaction of such hopes depends on your next actions.
I demand her worth in gold.
The following instructions must be followed to the letter. On 10th December at 9 a.m., bury the gold in the burnt-out site of the masquerade bonfire, to a depth of six feet. Provided this action is carried out to the letter the doll will be delivered to you by the next dawn.
Do not, at any point in the future, disturb the burial ground. I will know if you do and will reclaim the doll.
Read and consider.
The Thief on the Winged Horse.
“We need to include what feeling she evokes,” Hedwig said. “The Paid Mourner, I mean. That way, Conrad will know the letter-writer really has the doll.”
Briar gave her the name of the doll’s enchantment, and Hedwig diligently noted the words in a postscript.
“I’ll look into old-fashioned writing styles and copy out a fresh draft in a different hand. He’d probably have something eighteenth-century, wouldn’t he? Or at least, that would jar Conrad less.”
As she walked home, the ransom letter rustled in her pocket. She thought again of Briar’s suggestion that she was nervous about proceeding. He was full of rot. A nervous person wouldn’t oversee all these details. She wasn’t nervous at all. The feeling, she was sure, was excitement. And if her stomach should twist at the sight of Stanley approaching, from the orchard, then that wasn’t nerves either – merely annoyance that he should be back to bother her. Not that she should give him cause to suspect her displeasure.
“Back so early?” she called. “You’re such a hard worker, Stanley.”
He didn’t return her smile as he drew level with her. “I was on my way to your place. It’s good I caught you.”
“Walk with me?”
They continued down the path.
“I wanted to tell you in person,” he said. “I won’t be working on this particular case any longer.”
“Why not?” Hedwig’s dismay was genuine. She didn’t want to lose the information he could provide.
“The Inspector thinks, given our – prior connection – it may be for the best.”
“But you’ve never hidden that from her, have you? Why is it a problem now?”
“Because of this vandalism at the workshop. The Inspector’s not happy about your lack of alibi. Things are getting a mite complicated.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of the collectors said that when he left the pub for the night, he saw you, heading in the direction of the workshop.”
“That’s ridiculous. I told you I was at home all night.” She could bluff this out; it had been dark, the collector would be tired, and surely that would introduce sufficient margin for error. “Which collector is it?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Was it that man with the wet lips? The one who grabbed me at the Tavern? He’s probably feeling vindictive because I rebuffed him. And he probably thought he’d stir up trouble with you. He saw how I looked at you, Stanley – he would have known there was something between us.”
“You’re quite sure you were at home all night? You don’t want to change your answer to that?”
“Stanley!”
“The Inspector wants to keep a closer eye on you. You need to be honest.”
“I am being honest.” She dropped her voice, and stopped walking to take his hand. “How can I prove I was home alone all night? It would be different – if someone respectable, and credible, like you – had been with me, wouldn’t it?”
He extracted himself from her touch, placing his hands behind his back. “I can’t do what you’re asking me,” he said, with disapproval. “I could lose my job. I could face a charge.”
“I know.” Tears came. She had summoned them, she assured herself; the better to gain sympathy. This was not a real response to the past weeks of stress and uncertainty. And yet in the normal way of things, didn’t she despise crying as a strategy? It was so very like what Mama would do. Hedwig sniffed and swiped at her eyes. “That’s enough of that. I insulted you and I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
The crying, or the apology, appeared to soften him. “Look, I know you’re not a thief or a vandal, Hed. You wouldn’t have it in you. There’s no need to fib to cover yourself. This collector says he saw you; you say he’s mistaken. It’s your word against his.”
“It’ll end there?”
“Probably.” He lacked conviction. “Unless there’s any other evidence that comes to light.”
“I see. Thank you.”
Stanley added, exasperated: “That Briar Kendrick’s a sneaky git. If you’d caught him on camera then I could put this whole sorry business to bed.”
He put his arms around her. She tolerated his embrace, the blue worsted of his jacket scratching her cheek, the forged letter in her pocket, and she could think only of getting home and shutting the door on the world. Stanley’s attentions had outlived their usefulness.
She pulled back from him. “I feel dreadful for affecting your work this way. You’re such a rising star, aren’t you? And I’ve made life more difficult for you. Perhaps… while your boss is still investigating here… we should put a break on things?”
The relief on his face was unmistakeable. Stanley was a pragmatist at heart, of a more earnest type than Hedwig, and she was relying on this to end their liaison smoothly. But he didn’t have to look quite so ready to agree. Some token resistance would have been appropriate.
“You’re such an understanding girl, Hedwig,” he replied, as though the break were his idea. “And maybe, if Naidu manages to wrap everything up, we can give it another go.”
“I’d like that very much.” Hedwig had no intention of contacting him ever again.
He kissed her on the forehead before leaving her.
She carried on towards Conrad’s house. Now she’d caught the Inspector’s attention, she’d have to be even more careful. The soone
r the fraud was complete, the better. She couldn’t wait for all of this to be over.
29
The next three evenings, Persephone went to Larkin’s room to work. She carved, sanded, and joined her new maquette pieces. Larkin was making a doll a day, each one a replica of the Paid Mourner, alike to her in every respect. The heads were wax and he used elmwood for the bodies.
“Isn’t it wasteful to make so many maquettes with wood when you could use wax for the body, too?” Persephone asked.
“These aren’t maquettes,” he said. “I’m making a set piece that needs twenty-one versions of the Paid Mourner.”
“Twenty-one?” Persephone found his ambition impressive, and also intimidating. It was difficult enough making one doll, let alone a set piece. She added her last peg to the doll’s ankle joint, and said: “I’ve finished.”
“Let’s take a look at it, then.”
She passed it to him. This time she had carved a woman. The face was minimally painted, in keeping with Larkin’s advice; six strokes for the eyes, two for the mouth, and the rest was shading. The doll wore a peach velveteen ball gown, and held a cat’s eye mask in her left hand. Her little finger was painted gold.
“It’s more interesting than the last one,” Larkin said. “Explain the gilt to me.”
“She’s based on a real person. My father tells a story about her – a relative called Esme Palliser, who you won’t have seen, because she died a long time ago. But this is about when she was young, in her teens, back in the thirties. The story’s about what happened to her at a masquerade. She was very excited about going, and she spent most of the night with her cousin Angela, who was also a teenager. They wore half masks with their prettiest dresses. At the riverside they sipped their lemonades through pale pink paper straws to avoid smudging their lipstick.”
“Briar gave you all these details?”
“He was a good storyteller, once. But maybe the flourishes weren’t his. Maybe he just repeated by rote what Angela had said. Anyway – Angela and Esme were laughing at their relatives’ dancing, and danced themselves to the live band. The river looked transformed under the rose-coloured lights. There were streamers hanging from the trees, drifting slightly in the breeze.
The Thief on the Winged Horse Page 16