Chapter 71
Daisy stared along the towpath. People were coming towards them, walking in the same direction. Some business commuters, some people looking like they were on an early-evening stroll with their dogs. It was certainly a busy place to be. Although she could see the September Rose just a little way off in the distance, she wasn’t even sure if she’d be able to tell whether someone had stepped out of it.
Johnny’s barking continued, but Daisy was only half listening. It was probably just her imagination, but something didn’t feel right. A nervousness buzzed within her as she quickened her pace, much to Johnny’s relief, although he still tried to break out into a full-on run. Though she was a long way from sprinting, Daisy was doing a light jog by the time she reached the September Rose.
Before she’d even stepped foot on the stern, she spotted the door ajar and the nerves that had filled her expanded into a feeling of outright nausea. Never in all her life had Daisy left the September Rose unlocked. Not even in Wildflower Lock, where the towpath gossips knew every single going-on. She would never have done something like that there and most certainly wouldn’t have done so in a mooring she didn’t know. Particularly not in London.
Daisy’s pulse hammered against her eardrums as she stepped onto the stern, though Johnny was continuing to bark and refusing to get on the boat behind her. Lacking both the patience and time to deal with whatever random bout of behaviour the dog was going through, Daisy handed the leash to Yvonne.
‘Take him,’ she said, her throat growing tighter and tighter.
Yvonne nodded meekly. Daisy stepped onto the stern of the boat, only to let out a gasp as she covered her mouth. The glass panel in the door – the original one from when she had taken over the boat – had been smashed. Any doubts of a once-in-a-lifetime bout of forgetfulness disappeared. Someone had forced their way into her home.
Daisy slowly pushed the door open, hearing the creak of the hinges as tears trickled down her cheek.
‘Perhaps we should wait,’ Yvonne said. ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t go inside until we’ve called the police.’
She was probably right, Daisy thought. Waiting for the police would definitely be the sensible thing to do. But she couldn’t. She needed to see inside.
With her hand still covering her mouth, she stepped into the September Rose.
At first, Daisy frowned at how normal everything looked. No tables were overturned, no cupboards flung open. Everything looked exactly as it should have. Almost. It took her a second to realise why her home didn’t feel the way it normally did – all the paintings were gone.
‘What…’ she said, stepping inwards. Bare hooks stuck out of the walls where her pictures had previously hung, though as she stepped further inwards, she discovered those weren’t the only things that had been taken. The folder where she kept her artwork was gone, every painting taken, including those for the visual diary of the trip that she had been working on.
Nausea rippled through her as she moved over to the table and pushed the notepad aside, finding that the portrait of Yvonne was gone. All her paintings had been taken.
Her tears were streaming now, not because of the missing paintings, not entirely. Someone had been in her home. Someone had taken her things. Personal things. With that, another thought jolted in her mind, and for the first time since entering the boat, she half-sprinted as she dashed towards the bookcase. She moved the books one by one, taking them out and tossing them to the side, knowing it was a lost cause.
‘No, no, not that,’ she said. ‘Please. Please don’t have taken those.’
But she knew it was hopeless. Her father’s paintings had gone, just like her own.