Unfinished Portrait (26 page)

‘Will she have written to Richard, do you think?'

‘Probably, to avert family suspicion, though I bet she was on the phone as soon as she heard about Mary.'

‘Then he'll have seen the postmark, which will no doubt have confused him.'

‘Join the club.'

Max deftly arranged meat and vegetables on the plates, added red wine sauce, and brought them to the table.

‘You'll just have to exercise your detective faculties!' he said.

Lindsey's flat had indeed undergone a sea change, its whole character enriched and updated.

‘Come early,' she'd said, ‘so I can give you a conducted tour. I don't want to make too much of it in front of Dominic.'

So they'd arrived at seven with a bottle of champagne, which she put in the fridge while she showed them round. Hall, stairs and landing they'd seen on arrival, transformed from uninspired magnolia to a rich terracotta contrasting strikingly with the stark white woodwork and knobbed oatmeal of the original carpet.

Their first port of call was her bedroom, another metamorphosis. The furniture was in limed oak, a shelved arch over the bed, with wardrobes on either side, taking up considerably less space than the previous, free-standing units and making the room seem larger. The walls were a soft primrose, with a stencilled pattern in royal blue and gold running round the top, colours picked up by the curtains and duvet.

‘It's fantastic, Linz!' Rona exclaimed. ‘Makes me think it's more than time we did something with
our
bedroom.'

‘I was afraid of that!' murmured Max.

The guest room had been given similar treatment, also with fitted furniture, but with a reversal of colours, blue walls and yellow curtains. However, it was the sitting room of which Lindsey was most proud, and again the effect was striking.

Chairs and sofas were upholstered in café au lait tweed, embellished with duck-egg blue scatter cushions, the walls painted the same duck-egg, and the curtains, hanging richly from floor to ceiling, were in swirls of both colours against a cream background. Lindsey's familiar bureau stood in place, but the dining table in the window was new, again in light-coloured wood.

‘Linz, it's perfect!' Rona enthused.

‘It's not quite finished, of course, but I want to live in it a while before I buy pictures and ornaments, and in any case I'm going to keep things minimal. It was too cluttered before.'

They were interrupted by a ring at the doorbell, and Lindsey left them to admit Dominic. As he came into the room, Rona was relieved to find her initial liking for him reinforced. With his height, the breadth of his shoulders and his easy manner, he had an air of authority that she suspected was unconscious, certainly in these social conditions. Both sisters held their breath as he shook hands with Max, but to their relief, there was immediate affinity between the two men.

‘What a charming room, Lindsey!' Dominic said, looking about him.

‘I can't claim much credit, but I am delighted with it. Max, please will you come and open the champagne?'

Left to themselves, Rona and Dominic exchanged a smile. ‘Lindsey tells me you've returned to biography. I'm glad; you have a talent for it.'

‘Thank you. I'm finding it quite hard, after being able to dash off articles in a matter of days for the last couple of years.'

‘Yes, it must require a different mindset.'

Lindsey and Max returned with the opened bottle, and at her request, Max poured it into the flutes.

‘To the rebirth of 6a Fairhaven!' he toasted. ‘Good luck to all who live in her!'

‘I trust you're not going to break the bottle over the bureau?' Rona commented, as they raised their glasses.

‘I think we can dispense with that. Congratulations, though, Lindsey; it was a brave decision to scrap everything and start again, and it's worked brilliantly.'

‘And thank you both, for housing me while it was going on.'

‘At least it made us sort out the studio!'

The evening had started well, and it continued so. Lindsey, with her usual flair, produced a delicious meal, and it was a pleasure to eat off the new Curzon porcelain. Rona had spent a traumatic few weeks earlier in the year, researching the firm's hundred and fifty-year history; weeks that had encompassed a murder and considerable emotional turmoil. Resolutely, she put it out of her mind.

‘I spoke to Mum this morning,' Lindsey remarked, while the men were talking. ‘She's coming for coffee tomorrow.'

‘She'll love the flat. How's Sarah, did she say? Any repercussions from the mugging?'

‘No, she went back to school on the Monday, and seems fine.'

‘And Guy?'

Lindsey smiled. ‘I saved that topic for tomorrow, when she can't claim there's someone at the door!'

‘Good thinking!'

Max glanced across at them. ‘Dominic's been telling me about all the places he visits on business,' he said, opening up the conversation. ‘I'm wondering if I'm in the wrong profession!'

Dominic shook his head. ‘All I normally see are hotels and airport lounges, though I admit I enjoy travelling. Making up for a deprived childhood, perhaps – my mother wouldn't fly, so when we were young, foreign holidays were out.' He smiled reminiscently. ‘Not that we
felt
deprived; some relatives had a holiday home at the seaside, and every year we used to trundle off there. We had a great time, rock-climbing and sailing.'

‘Not Crispin's parents, by any chance?' Lindsey asked.

‘Yes, as it happens; they had this house at a little place called Craiglea, up the coast from Helensburgh, and when they weren't there themselves, were quite happy for the rest of us to make use of it.'

‘In Scotland?' Rona asked sharply. ‘The Ryders had a house in Scotland?'

‘That's right. They were into sailing, and kept a boat up there.'

She felt a stab of excitement. ‘Have they still got it? The house, I mean?'

He seemed surprised by her interest, as did Lindsey, though Max was looking resigned.

‘As far as I know. I've not been up for years, but I believe it's proved useful to Crispin on more than one occasion.'

‘As a love nest?' Lindsey asked, round-eyed, but Dominic only laughed.

Rona met Max's eyes with an almost imperceptible shake of her head; the last thing she wanted was for him to make some reference to Elspeth Wilding. She said quickly, ‘We always went to the same place too, didn't we, Linz? I think it's good for children – gives a sense of continuity. When Pops asked if we'd like to go Spain or France, we always said, “As long as we can go to the cottage as well!”'

The talk continued on a holiday theme until, some time after eleven, Max glanced at his watch. ‘Time we were on our way,' he remarked. ‘Gus will be crossing his legs.'

They all rose and moved towards the door.

‘Don't let us break up the party,' Rona protested, but Dominic shook his head.

‘My car will be here any minute.'

‘I was wondering if he'd stay the night,' Rona commented, when, having said their goodbyes, they set off for home.

‘Perhaps the car was a discreet fabrication.'

But as they turned on to the main road, a sleek-looking Daimler was approaching, and Max, checking the rear-view mirror, confirmed it had turned into the cul-de-sac. ‘We didn't leave them long to say goodnight,' he remarked.

‘What did you think of him?'

‘Very pleasant chap. At a guess, pretty ruthless on the business front, but excellent company socially. Lindsey could do worse than end up with him.'

‘It was a good evening,' Rona agreed, ‘not least because I now have a very good idea where Elspeth is hiding.'

Crispin Ryder stood at the window of his docklands flat, whisky glass in hand, staring out at the dark water. Pointless to go to bed: sleep was impossible while his mind obsessively circled the problems that were mounting by the day, to the stage where he was no longer confident he could contain them.

How the hell did he get into this? he asked himself, on a wave of impatience. It had started as a joke, a bit of harmless fun – but that was before Grayson became involved. And to complicate things still further, Elspeth was getting restless. She'd been talking of returning home, even before the murder of her housekeeper, or whoever she was.

Crispin sighed, refilled his glass, and returned to his post at the window. She'd been hysterical on the phone, he recalled, blaming herself for the woman's death, and insisting she owed it to the family to go back at once. He'd had to drop everything and fly up to calm her.

And it had taken all his skills to persuade her to stay. Eventually, though, she'd agreed that, for the moment, letters to the family would suffice, and he'd duly posted them on his return to London the next evening. If it hadn't been for tonight's formal dinner, he'd have stayed for the weekend as he usually did – and on reflection, it might have been better if he had. For Grayson had, of course, been at the dinner, foiling Crispin's attempts to avoid him, and enquiring silkily if all was going according to plan.

And as if all that wasn't enough, there was that girl and her bloody biography. It had come as a severe shock when Magda Ridgeway mentioned it. Talk about bad timing! The last thing they wanted just now was someone prying into Elspeth's life and work. Surprisingly, though, Elspeth herself hadn't been too concerned. ‘She won't fare any better than the last one,' she'd said, bypassing his attempt to make it one more reason for her to stay in Scotland.

He sipped his whisky, allowing his thoughts to drift back to their first meeting, nearly two years ago, at the opening of the Newbolt Gallery in St James's. Someone had pointed her out to him, an inconspicuous little thing, he'd thought, hiding behind that curtain of hair. Their paths hadn't crossed during the evening, but outside, in the dark and the rain, they had hailed the same taxi, and, learning the direction she was going in, he'd suggested they share it. Little had he known the consequences that would have, some of them immediate.

In the taxi, they'd embarked on a discussion of the paintings on view, a discussion that was still in full flow when they drew up at her hotel, and she'd impulsively suggested he go in with her to continue it in the bar. So he'd paid off the taxi and followed her, and at some point she'd stopped talking about the general and started on the particular – her dissatisfaction both with her life and her work, her growing conviction that she needed to widen her horizons before she could become a great painter.

As one drink followed another, adding to the champagne consumed at the gallery, Elspeth's inhibitions had noticeably lessened, until he'd felt able to ask how, exactly, she wanted her horizons to expand. And she had looked him straight in the eye and replied, ‘I'd like you to make love to me. Would you mind?'

It wasn't until they were in bed that he'd realized she was a virgin – a totally new experience for him – but what she lacked in experience, she more than made up for in the passion he aroused.

After that, she started coming to London every ten days or so, staying with her brother in Regent's Park. And every evening they'd have a meal, then return to the flat and make love.

She'd made it clear from the first she wasn't interested in marriage, and the knowledge that he had other women stimulated rather than concerned her. As she told him frankly, she'd reached her mid-forties without experiencing sex, and intended to make up for lost time.

It had proved an ideal arrangement for both of them, largely because love didn't enter into it, though as time went on they became genuinely fond of each other. And the bonus, as if to prove her theory, was that Elspeth started painting again.

If only it could have continued like that, Crispin thought now, staring out at the sleeping Thames. If he hadn't seen that television programme, if he hadn't mentioned it to Grayson, if, if . . . But he had, and now things were fast becoming dicey, and he was running out of options. Grayson, he knew, wouldn't give an inch until the deal was completed, but things had changed and the danger of exposure grew ever greater.

Which, Crispin thought disgustedly, turning from the window at last, brought him full circle, and no nearer solving any of it. He might just as well go to bed.

Catherine said, ‘You haven't forgotten it's your birthday on Wednesday?'

Tom smiled. ‘No, but I rather hoped you had.'

‘Not a chance! How would you like to spend it?'

‘Quietly, with you.'

‘You old stick-in-the-mud!' she said fondly.

‘Preferable to all the hullabaloo last year – retirement parties left, right and centre, leaving Avril, finding this flat, and to crown it all, the explosive Christmas lunch at the Clarendon, with Rona at the centre of it. It's a wonder I survived it all. Come to that,
your
birthday was drama enough, with Jenny going into labour in the middle of lunch. Let's opt for a quiet day for mine.'

Catherine smiled. ‘You might have a point. You don't want me to contact the girls, then?'

He shook his head. ‘They'll pop round with presents at some stage, bless them, and we can have a glass of wine, but they both lead busy lives, and birthdays midweek are inconvenient at best.'

‘How about the weekend?'

‘No, Catherine, seriously. I don't want a fuss. A meal out, perhaps, just the two of us. Treat ourselves to Serendipity. That would be great.'

‘It's not that you don't feel up to it?' she asked anxiously. ‘You haven't had any more chest pains?'