Chapter 34 The Hand of Fate
The Hand of Fate
I tapped on Evie’s door when I got back but she wouldn’t open it more than a crack and merely told me to come back before tea to help her carry down Arwen’s paintings, because she was working and not ready to discuss things with me just yet.
This was frustrating. However, as we went downstairs later, I told her that Rhys now knew all about my having been on the scene of Annie’s accident.
‘Good, that’s one less secret to come out.’
‘We’re not going to tell Cariad yet, but when she’s a bit older she needs to know that her mother was thinking of her at the end.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ Evie agreed.
We spread out the morning’s treasure trove from the attic on some of the small tables in the refectory, Evie propping the paintings up with boxes of jigsaws and board games from the shelves.
The little seascapes were wonderfully atmospheric. They reminded me in a way of Turner. Of course, they were not at all in his style, it was just the magical way the elements were portrayed.
There were also the drawings and watercolours in the big sketchbook. I remembered that there had been pocket-sized sketchbooks in one of the trunks belonging to Arwen, so she must have managed to carry those away with her.
The others began to drift in for tea and, as they did, they came over to have a look at the impromptu art show.
‘They’re all amazingly mature for her age,’ said Evie. ‘This oil painting that I bought on eBay is obviously one of a series of sunrises. Arwen’s habit of noting the time, date, place and even weather conditions on the back of her work is really helpful.’
Nerys and Rhys were the last to come in, with Cariad, who had been excavating her own treasure trove in the family sitting room since Rhys had brought her back from the castle. She wasn’t interested in the paintings, instead taking my hand and insisting I go and see what she’d got.
‘They’re things that were my mummy’s. Auntie Nerys put them away for me and Daddy found them in the attic earlier,’ she said, and I duly admired the Wemyss pottery piggy bank, which was white with pink roses painted on his back; a music box, which, when you opened the lid, had a mirror on which revolved a tiny ballerina in time to the tinkling music.
There was a small carved wooden bear, too, which Kate said, rather enviously, was a Black Forest one and was quite collectable.
‘Auntie Nerys is keeping most of the jewellery till I’m grown up, but I’m having this now because I like it,’ Cariad said, pulling a gold filigree pendant on a chain out of a small box. ‘Auntie Nerys says it’s a Hand of Fatima and good luck.’
‘It’s very pretty,’ I said.
‘It’s real gold, so I’ll have to look after it,’ she said importantly. ‘I’ll just wear it for special occasions.’
Verity had arrived last and I didn’t even know she was there until she gave a small exclamation and said, ‘Oh, that pendant does bring back memories of your mummy, Cariad! She used to wear it all the time, because she said it was lucky … though in the end, it didn’t bring her much luck, did it? I suppose she was wearing it when—’
Catching Rhys’s eye she abruptly broke off in seeming confusion, but luckily Cariad hadn’t heard, because she’d already darted off into the kitchen to show it to Bronwen and Tudor.
‘I think it would be better if you didn’t make that kind of remark in front of Cariad, Verity,’ said Rhys in a voice so cold it made trickles of ice go up and down my back. ‘If you destroy her happiness in her mother’s keepsakes, I’m really not going to be very pleased with you.’
‘Oh, I really didn’t mean to— I wouldn’t for the world—’ began Verity.
‘It just slipped out … and really, she’d hardly seen her mother for years, had she?
So, they can’t mean that much to her,’ she added earnestly.
‘I mean, although Annie was my best friend, I know she didn’t have any maternal feelings. They just weren’t part of her make-up.’
‘She may not have had strong maternal feelings, but I’m sure she loved Cariad, because her name was one of the last words Annie spoke after the accident!’ I said hotly.
I hadn’t meant to say that and in the ensuing silence everyone stared at me. Evie, catching my eye, raised a quizzical eyebrow.
Rhys came to stand next to me and said, ‘We don’t want to tell Cariad right now – she needs to be a little older – but by an amazing coincidence, Ginny came on the scene of Annie’s accident moments after it had happened and was with her at the end.’
Verity gave me a sharp look. ‘You did?’
‘Yes. My cottage was nearby, and I was on the way home.’
‘I’d forgotten you said you lived in Bedfordshire. But what a huge coincidence that you were on the scene just at that moment! Rhys, you never mentioned it?’
‘That’s because I had no idea until recently, when I met Ginny again. Ginny recognized Annie, but she didn’t know Annie and I had been divorced for years by the time of the accident.’
Cariad came back in just then, helping Tudor carry plates of scones and sandwiches, and Rhys said firmly that we’d let the whole subject drop with such a forbidding expression that even Verity shut up and assumed the expression of a deeply hurt and misunderstood Madonna.
*
‘Could I have a word with you – privately?’ I asked Rhys, after tea.
He looked slightly surprised, but said at once, ‘Of course! In fact, I wanted to talk to you, too, because there’s something that’s been puzzling me. Something you told me earlier didn’t seem to make sense.’
I followed him into the family sitting room. ‘Is it about Annie’s accident, by any chance?’
‘It is – but you go first. What’s on your mind?’
I sank into one of the comfortable old armchairs. ‘Well, you said this Finn Flint’s cottage retreat was near Old Warden, didn’t you?’
He nodded. ‘It’s on the outskirts, apparently, up a farm track.’
‘Then Annie can’t have been on her way there, because she was driving in the totally opposite direction.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course! I’m familiar with all the little lanes around there.’
‘Then that is odd,’ he said slowly. ‘Because according to Verity, Flint said she’d never arrived at the cottage.’ He frowned heavily, dark brows knitted over his amber eyes.
‘So, what puzzled you?’ I asked.
Instead of replying directly, he said, unexpectedly, ‘Tell me Annie’s last words again, as closely as you can to the way she said them.’
I shut my eyes, conjuring up the scene, and then said: ‘“Tell Rhys … all … very … sorry … Cariad.”’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought you said. But what you don’t know is that Annie always called Verity “Verry”. That could put a whole new interpretation on it, couldn’t it?’
‘It was all … Verry?’ I repeated, slowly.
‘Exactly. And if she meant Verity and she was heading away from the cottage, well, maybe there’s a lot more to the story we don’t know about.’
‘I see what you mean, but it could just as well have been the original meaning I put into the words: that she was very sorry? But then, in that case,’ I added, thinking it over, ‘why was Annie heading away from the cottage?’
‘Why indeed? I think the police should have thought of that one and dug into things a little more.’
‘Since it was obviously an accident, with no one else involved, I shouldn’t think they would go into it very deeply. And if there is any more to find out, I’ve no idea how we could go about it.’
‘There might be, because if Flint hasn’t changed his phone number, I can text him and ask exactly what went on that evening. I’ve only taken Verity’s word for it till now and I don’t think that’s worth much.’
I tried to work out what might have happened. ‘Do you think Annie could have meant that it was Verity who had made her suspect Flint was being unfaithful to her and caused her to follow him down to the cottage?’
‘It’s possible. Although it’s a long time since I realized she liked to twist things maliciously and plant poisoned darts into people’s minds, I never thought she’d do that to Annie, her best friend.’
‘Perhaps she couldn’t resist it,’ I suggested.
‘Yes, maybe the compulsion was too strong for her. If she had done that, inadvertently causing Annie to follow Flint to the cottage, where they had another row, he might well have lied to the police about her ever having been there, because he felt guilty.’
I contemplated the alternative scenario. ‘Yes, that would explain why she was driving away from the cottage, and also why she wasn’t concentrating on her driving.’
‘We can but try asking,’ he said, pulling out his phone and scrolling down for a number. ‘It’s all speculation unless we get an answer from Flint.’
And he began to tap in his message.
*
That evening after dinner Opal suddenly announced that she felt there was no point in her and Pearl staying on till Friday morning, now that her sister had decided to take an entirely different direction to that of performance art, and she needed to get back to her own studio to explore her new ideas as a solo artist.
‘Luckily our train tickets are valid any day, so we can leave early on Wednesday morning, if someone could drive us to the station.’
Pearl, who was as usual snuggled up on the sofa with Toby, stared at her in astonishment.
‘I’m absolutely not leaving until Friday!
I’m getting so much from working in the pottery, and anyway,’ she added, taking a firm grip on Toby’s hand, ‘I was going to tell you tonight that I wasn’t coming back with you on the train.
Toby’s taking me to his house in Formby first, so we can decide if we want to live there or buy somewhere new together. ’
‘Using what for money?’ demanded Opal.
‘Aunt Winnie left the house in Putney between us, so you can either sell it and buy something smaller or buy me out.’
‘Sell the house? But I couldn’t get anything remotely big enough alone unless I moved right out of London,’ stormed Opal. ‘This is so selfish of you!’
‘Poor Opal, this must be such a shock to you after all these years of living and working so closely with your sister,’ commiserated Verity. ‘And now you’ll have to lose your home, too!’
‘Well, it all seems perfectly reasonable to me,’ said Evie. ‘You’re both going your separate ways and making fresh starts, which will be good for the creativity, so I’d embrace the change if I were you, Opal.’
Opal ignored her and began to rant at her sister, but the days when she could browbeat Pearl into falling in with her wishes were long gone. Pearl looked upset but resolute as she said that it seemed very fair to her, and Toby backed her up.
Kate, emerging from a long texting session with, I suspected, Teddy Bear Man, said that a house in Putney would fetch a good sum, and Opal could think about moving out of the city altogether, if she needed somewhere bigger.
‘I’d be completely out of things, in the sticks,’ Opal replied dismissively but, finding no other supporter than Verity, took herself off to bed in high dudgeon.
I’d always wondered what high dudgeon looked like, and now I knew.
‘She’ll come round,’ Nerys said consolingly to Pearl, who still looked upset. ‘I’m sure it will do her good to move on, in all ways. I do feel your work was getting a bit repetitive.’
‘Yes, that’s what I felt too, and we thought coming here might give us a new direction, but Opal really just kept coming up with more of the same old ideas … and she never would listen to me.’
‘Never mind, you’re about to strike out in a direction of your own and it will be so exciting,’ said Timon. ‘Ceramics are your thing – you just took a wrong direction – and Liverpool is an excellent place to study the subject.’
‘I am feeling excited about it,’ she agreed. ‘It’s just that all my life I’ve been in Opal’s shadow. She was always the older, dominant one.’
She looked at Toby, who smiled tenderly at her.
‘Not any longer!’
‘No, because now, suddenly, I feel I’m becoming my own person.’
‘It will all be a big change,’ said Toby. ‘Let’s see what you think of the Formby area. But if you prefer, later we could move into Liverpool itself and you could get studio space there, when you’ve finished your course. It’s a very cosmopolitan and vibrant city.’
‘It does sound wonderful. I’m looking forward to seeing it.’
‘I like happy endings, both in my books and in real life,’ said Noel, twinkling, as he got up to leave.
‘The night is young,’ Evie said, getting up too. ‘I’ll walk back with you, Noel.’
Then she added that no one need wait up for her because she’d take one of the keys from the drawer in the garden hall.
I looked after her anxiously. Really, having a mother like Evie must be worse than having a teenager!
I decided to go to bed, too, not long afterwards. My head seemed to be buzzing with even more ideas, speculations and worries now!
Rhys followed me out, saying he’d better check on Cariad, who was quite likely to keep reading until midnight, if left to her own devices, now she was well into the Harry Potter books.
As soon as the door had closed behind us I asked him if he’d heard anything back yet from Finn Flint.
‘No, not so far.’
‘We could be entirely wrong in our suspicions and perhaps he’s baffled by your text,’ I suggested. ‘After all, we could be putting two and two together and making five.’
‘Maybe …’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘We’ll just have to wait and hope he replies to find out.’
And then, since we were standing under the great bunch of mistletoe again, he gave me another kiss – although not, this time, a fleeting one – and I lost track of time or, indeed, anything else …