Precious Things (28 page)

Maggie was standing on the steps of the National Portrait Gallery, watching the crowds of people milling about beside the Trafalgar Square fountain.
All this life here, in this one spot
, Maggie marvelled,
and so many stories.
She loved the huge brass lions and the way tourists posed for their pictures against them. She imagined the stacks of photographs stored in albums and boxes scattered across the furthest reaches of the globe, and smiled to herself.

Maggie snapped back to attention as she saw Francesca walking towards her up the steps. The woman was making her way forward slowly, almost tentatively. Francesca removed a pair of red-framed sunglasses and smoothed down her jet-black crop. ‘Good morning,' she said, smiling slightly at Maggie, the only sign of nerves a faint tremor in her hand. ‘Thank you so much. I really can't tell you how grateful I am for everything you've done already, Maggie . . . This man might have some answers for me, you said.'

‘Well, I hope so,' Maggie smiled.

When she'd called Francesca to tell her they had a good lead, she'd tried not to raise her hopes too much, but what she'd discovered from Lily seemed more promising than anything she'd learned about the coronet's history so far. Through the old woman, Maggie had successfully established that Christian Hunt was in possession of the coronet around the time Francesca was a girl – a fact confirmed by Archer Sitwell, one of the National Portrait Gallery's many curators.

When Archer Sitwell's name had been recommended by Maxwell Black, her colleague at Bonninghams, Maggie had been dubious that he'd be able to tell her much. An artist's career was long, after all, and their work was often sold to private collectors or destroyed somehow through the passage of time. What the galleries held on to or owned outright was a small fraction of their life's work. At that point, Maggie had been feeling like she was on a wild goose chase, but she'd been surprised because Maxwell had recognised Christian Hunt's name immediately.

‘Rather collectable for a while, but his work steadily decreased in value after a certain point in his career. It seemed he peaked and then fell out of favour,' Maxwell said, running a hand over the dark stubble on his jaw. ‘Had a few paintings by him a couple of years back but couldn't shift the things – certainly not for what the client was expecting. Shame, people thought he'd be as big as Francis Bacon, once.'

‘So he's dead then?' Maggie asked, disappointed.

‘Oh yes. About twenty years ago. Heart attack.'

Maggie was frustrated. It felt like a dead end. Who was this Hunt character, and what did he have to do with Francesca?

‘But I think I know someone who might be able to tell you more, let me just find his number. If anyone knows anything about Christian Hunt, it'll be him. Archer Sitwell. Nice chap.' Maxwell searched through the piles of paper on his desk before triumphantly unearthing a small white card. ‘Here it is, give him a try.'

When Maggie had called Archer, he'd been reserved at first, his voice cool and careful, and then when he'd heard the story, he'd become intrigued. ‘Hmmm . . . a crown of sorts? Well, he did like to use all sorts of elaborate items as props in his paintings. Let me have a look through the archives and get back to you.' He called her back within the hour, voice crackling with excitement, and Maggie's own heart leapt with joy at Archer's discovery. As he'd suspected, Christian had used the coronet – or something very like it – in an oil study once, for one of his portraits. Maggie immediately let Francesca know that she'd tracked down the coronet to an English artist who'd had it in the fifties, and arranged to meet her at the Portrait Gallery.

‘Come in, come in,' said Archer Sitwell now, ushering the two women through the second-storey doorway to the gallery's inner sanctum. He led them past small glass-panelled offices and a bank of lightboxes, until he finally came to a stop in a large light-filled room containing a huge architect's table. The wooden work surface was scattered with several piles of paper and a black portfolio, still zippered, which sat in the very middle.

‘So,' said Archer, rising up on the balls of his feet and pushing aside a stool. Tall, slim and nattily dressed, he was wearing a tan check-print suit and thin red scarf about his neck. As he leaned closer to the table, the glasses perched on the end of his nose slid down a little, making him look both intelligent and humorous.

‘This is a bit of a treasure hunt, isn't it? Such fun.' He rubbed his hands together. ‘As I told Maggie on the phone, I'm something of an expert on this artist . . . I wrote my thesis on him, actually – well, that whole group of artists really. They were called the Italian school, as many of them lived in Italy when they hit it big. They were a bit like a latter-day Bloomsbury set, but more arty . . . all feeding off each other to create a whole new generation of work which really informed the direction of modern art as we know it . . . Sorry, I'm getting carried away with myself,' he said, eyes twinkling.

‘You said you had something you wanted to show us?' Maggie prompted, raising her eyebrows hopefully.

‘Yes, yes – sorry, of course,' he said, rising up on his toes again.

With a dramatic flourish, Archer slid out a huge art tome from beneath the black portfolio. It was thick and weighty, and looked like it would be hard to carry.

‘This is a monograph containing much of Christian Hunt's work. It was published in 1992,' he said, with a touch of pride in his voice. Maggie caught a glimpse of Archer's name, clearly printed on the cover, and a black and white photograph of the artist.

Standing close to Francesca, Maggie felt the woman's small body startle violently. ‘Oh my goodness – I knew him,' Francesca said. ‘Christian Hunt. He was a friend of my parents . . . although my
mother didn't like him much so we barely saw him. I didn't know he was an artist, though. How curious – I'd almost forgotten him.' Francesca's brow furrowed deeply as she craned to see more of the book in Archer's hands.

‘Ah, yes, he did have a reputation for being quite . . . prickly. But that's promising! Let me see, I want to show you something,' Archer said excitedly, flicking through the pages and skimming past the colourful prints of the artist's finished paintings, which were reproduced in fine detail throughout the glossy book.

‘Yes! This is it,' he said, smoothing down the pages suddenly. His finger lingered on a photograph, roughly eight by ten in size, which looked to be a rendering of a heavy-stroked, larger painting. Francesca stepped forward, bending over the image, and Maggie moved closer too, leaning over the older woman's shoulder to catch a glimpse.

For a moment, Maggie struggled to understand what she was looking at. The painting – which was reproduced in full colour, but dark enough to make it almost monochromatic – was of a figure, although whether it was of a man or a woman was hard to say. The person stood in front of a dark, blank wall, naked. Light gleamed from the pale flesh in thick, sparse brushstrokes. Ah, Maggie thought, she could make it out now. It was definitely a woman, there were her breasts . . . and she appeared to be wearing something on her head. But was it the coronet? It was hard to tell.

‘Is that . . .?' Francesca asked, pointing at the suggestion of light glinting off the painted headpiece.

My God she's right
, Maggie thought, bending closer to the painting, suddenly seeing what Francesca was pointing to: an unmistakable fleur-de-lis pattern.

‘You sent me an image, Ms Walsh-Mason,' said Archer, holding up his phone next to the painting and pointing at Maggie's photograph of the coronet. ‘And of course it's a long shot, but with what you told me and, by studying this painting, I'm absolutely sure of it – I think we have a match.'

Francesca had a queer look on her face and seemed to be struggling for breath. Maggie realised with a start that she looked like she was about to faint. Quickly, she pulled out a stool and, taking Francesca's elbow, steered her onto it.

‘What is it?' Maggie asked. ‘Are you all right?'

Francesca's face was pale and fixed. ‘It's . . . I . . .' she murmured, voice low and pained. ‘I remember something . . .'

‘What?' asked Maggie, feeling consumed by the emotion in Francesca's voice.

‘Christian Hunt,' Francesca said, through stiff lips. ‘I knew him, but I think . . . Mother and Father always said I was to call him Uncle, but he wasn't really – I mean, not my uncle. We didn't see him a lot, just on and off over the years. He was always very cold. To me. He seemed to . . . to look at me oddly. I felt strange around him and Mother did too, but Daddy seemed to tolerate him. I always wondered why . . .'

Maggie looked back at Archer's book on the table, and at the picture printed on the page opposite the painting. It was a photograph of a man wearing slacks, a blazer and a dark polo neck. Something about him, the way he was standing, his confident stance maybe, suggested a certain arrogance. Or was it the half-smile on his face, almost a smirk? His eyes stared directly into the camera. Maggie leaned in closer and realised that his eyes were the same light blue as Francesca's. She was right, there was something cold about him, even a little threatening.

‘So, he had the coronet . . . That has to be more than coincidence, surely? But what does it mean, I wonder?' asked Maggie.

Francesca and Maggie stared at each other. Archer stood beside Maggie, his bubbling excitement of just a few moments earlier fading rapidly. He crossed his arms across his chest, clearly a man out of his depth.

‘I . . . I'm . . . Oh, I don't know!' burst out Francesca suddenly, knuckling her forehead. ‘I don't know if my mind's playing tricks on me . . . There's something at the edge of my . . . Damn, why can't I
remember?' Francesca's frustration was palpable. Maggie felt herself clench her own hands in sympathy for the woman's distress.

‘Ah . . . that's not all I found,' said Archer hesitantly.

‘What?' asked Francesca. ‘What else?'

‘This,' said Archer, unzipping the black portfolio. ‘Maggie mentioned you were trying to find out something about your history and – forgive me – but I made a bit of a leap . . . Now that I've met you, I'm almost positive.'

‘What are you talking about?' Maggie asked, suddenly alarmed. Why hadn't Archer told her he knew something more?

Archer tapped at the picture in the open book. ‘The woman in this painting is definitely Isabella Campbell. She was an American, and Hunt's muse – one of his favourite models. He used her in many of his paintings. She was an inspiration for him. Many people said that when she left him his painting started going downhill . . .'

‘Isabella Campbell, why do I know that name?' asked Maggie, unsure. Surely she'd seen that name somewhere just recently?

‘The
Observer
ran a feature on her not long ago, on the anniversary of her death – it was in the weekend magazine.'

‘Yes, that's right, of course, I read it just last week!' Maggie said, her thoughts jumping to the article about the American artist who'd made such an impact on the British art scene in the sixties . . . It was in the pile of papers on the kitchen table she hadn't wanted Tim to throw out. Moving to London from Italy in the early part of the decade, Campbell had experienced a certain measure of success for her paintings but was known for trailblazing the way for other female painters, mentoring many now-famous artists in the years before her death.

‘Didn't she—?' Maggie blurted, stopping abruptly as the realisation dawned on her. Instinctively, her hand covered her mouth.

As Maggie stood, silently reeling, pieces of the story she'd read came back to her in a rush, and she drew in a sharp breath. Should she break it to Francesca, or would Archer? Rousing herself, she moved to touch the older woman.

‘Just tell me!' said Francesca suddenly, flinching away from Maggie's hand, her voice coming out ragged and harsh.

Archer froze for a moment, then started to speak. ‘It's . . .' he swallowed nervously. ‘Well, apparently Isabella's daughter was lost as a young child. Isabella always insisted that her daughter had been abducted, taken from her in a market in Rome, but no one really knows what happened. The child was very young, only about three or four, and Isabella was devastated. It was the great tragedy of her life – she never really recovered from it. She – well, she ended up being admitted into a mental institution shortly afterwards, for a few weeks, but oddly enough it was also the making of her. Her work became much stronger from the time she was released. That's when her career really took off, when she moved to London. It was as though the tragedy somehow unlocked her talent.'

Eyes opened wide, Francesca stared into space, hardly seeming to understand what Archer was saying. Her breath came fast and laboured.

Archer slid a drawing – a photocopy of a pencil sketch, skilfully done – silently across the table towards them. ‘An early drawing. Self-portrait, with child, by Isabella Campbell.'

There was a pause, as all three looked intently at the drawing lying on the table between them. Maggie looked swiftly at Francesca, her heart suddenly pounding. My God, Archer was right. The resemblance was unmistakable.

Francesca took a deep, shuddering breath, swayed and would have collapsed had Maggie not moved swiftly to hold her up.

‘My God,' said Francesca, shoulders crumpling over her lap, her hands on her lips, struggling to speak. ‘It's her. Mama. I remember. I remember . . .' She looked up at Maggie, her eyes brimming with tears.

‘Do you think she's your . . . your mother?' Maggie asked, standing beside her. Archer had slipped away and returned with a glass of water, offering it to Francesca.

Francesca nodded, not taking her eyes away from the drawing. She reached out a tremulous hand to touch the drawing with one outstretched finger. ‘I don't know why I haven't remembered this before. How could I have forgotten? But . . . there she is. There I am. With her. I remember, I remember . . .' Tears were pouring down her face, and she suddenly bent over and groaned in pain, clutching her stomach.