Chapter 12
THE PRESENT
‘What have you got for me?’ Owen strode into the library at Winterhill Hall and bent to kiss his sister’s cheek. Rachel looked up from the pile of papers in front of her and took off her reading glasses, putting them away with something of a snap.
‘It’s nice to see you too, Owen,’ she said mildly.
‘Sorry.’ Owen realised that after a long and arduous call with his office in Tokyo he was still in business mode.
The morning had been a stark contrast to the day before, when Jenna had played truant from the bookshop and they’d gone to Oxford for the day.
She’d shown him the Story Museum, and they’d hired a punt on the river and eaten dinner in a fabulous Italian restaurant tucked away in a little square in Summertown.
The more time he spent with her, the more he wanted to be with her.
The instant sense of connection between them had already deepened to something more intimate.
He was starting to get to know the real Jenna now.
She wasn’t an extrovert – he suspected that having a famous sister like Bree had accustomed her to being eclipsed – but she was funny and understated and she fascinated him.
‘I have rules about first dates and second and third ones, for that matter,’ she had told him whilst they’d eaten fish and chips on the promenade at Weston-super-Mare. She’d looked so prim in that moment that he’d felt an almost overwhelming urge to kiss her there and then.
‘So do I,’ Owen said. ‘My second date rule is after you’ve eaten fish and chips by the sea you have to run into the ocean fully clothed, even in March.’
Jenna had burst out laughing. ‘You do know that Weston has one of the largest tidal ranges in the world, don’t you? The water is about a mile out at the moment. You run out there and I’ll get you a towel and an ice cream ready for when you get back in a few hours.’
Smiling at the memory, Owen came across to sit by his sister’s desk.
He noticed that Rachel had their grandparents’ portrait of Marris North propped up on the mantelpiece of her office.
The sun was slanting in at the mullioned window, illuminating it like an icon.
As always, Owen found himself staring at it.
The resemblance to Jenna was strong; it was there in Marris’s smile and the turn of her head, in those lavender-coloured eyes and the red-gold hair that so fascinated him.
Realising that Rachel was watching him, Owen cleared his throat self-consciously.
‘They do look very alike, don’t they,’ Rachel said. Her smile faded. ‘Owen, this relationship with Jenna – are you sure it’s not because she looks like Marris?’ She reddened. ‘I mean, you always were a bit obsessed with that painting.’
Owen realised that he felt amused and irritated at the same time. ‘It’s okay, Rach,’ he drawled, ‘I think I’m rational enough not to confuse the real-life Jenna with the historical Marris and fall in love on the basis of a picture.’
‘Well, you say that—’ Rachel avoided his eyes and shuffled some papers ‘—but I was madly in love with the portrait of Prince Rupert of the Rhine that hangs in Ashdown House. Do you remember I went there five times one season just to stand and gaze at it? The tour guides had to keep moving me on.’
‘You were about fourteen at the time,’ Owen pointed out. ‘Hopefully we’re both more emotionally evolved than we were in our teens.’
‘Fair enough,’ Rachel said. She caught his eye and sighed. ‘Sorry. I know it’s not my business.’
‘No,’ Owen agreed, ‘it isn’t.’
Rachel sighed again. ‘Have a sandwich,’ she said. ‘It might improve your mood.’ She pushed the plate towards him.
‘Thanks.’ Owen helped himself. The sandwiches were clearly homemade and delicious, and the coffee was properly brewed, not the stuff from the machine.
‘Hugh makes me a packed lunch when I’m in the office,’ Rachel said, sounding smug, and Owen felt a stab of wistfulness – it was not envy, he thought, but a longing for something he did not have yet, but hoped to find very soon.
‘So why is the portrait in here?’ he asked with his mouth full. ‘I thought it was to hang in their flat?’
‘They decided to exhibit it here instead,’ Rachel said. ‘Now that we know Marris North was a Sharington and lived here at the hall, it seems appropriate. Except…’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t want to put it on display whilst we’ve got suspicions about items disappearing from the house.’
Owen looked up sharply. ‘Is that definite?’
Rachel nodded unhappily. ‘After we spoke, I went through the house checking all the inventory. There are a number of items missing or “undergoing conservation” that I can’t trace.
And that’s in addition to the losses in the accounts that you’ve already spotted, Owen.
Someone has been stealing from us.’ She rubbed her forehead.
‘I blame myself. I never check the exhibits. They’re just “there”, if you know what I mean.
Obviously, I’d miss it if one of the grandfather clocks disappeared, but small items like the pearl necklace that was in the Long Gallery… ’ She shook her head.
‘It’s not your job to check,’ Owen pointed out. ‘Peter is the head curator. Have you spoken to him?’
‘Not yet.’ Rachel frowned. ‘I didn’t want to alert him – or anyone – to the fact that we know there’s a problem.
I have called in the police, though, and asked them to start making discreet enquiries.
They think it’s an inside job, or at least that there’s an inside connection.
There usually is in these cases, apparently. ’
Owen’s lips twitched. ‘You sound like an actor in a very bad crime drama.’
‘I’m trying to be discreet,’ his sister said crossly. ‘I’ll text you all the details later.’
‘Thanks,’ Owen said. He bent to stroke Titus’s silky head.
‘Joking apart, it offends me that people would steal from the Foundation. It feels personal as well as illegal. I guess we’re pretty small fry here in terms of the value of our collection, but it would be a shame to lose what we do have.
Anyway, let me know if there’s anything more I can do.
’ He bent down to scratch the head of Titus, who was in a basket by the desk, curled up in a ball and making happy snoring sounds.
He raised his head to give Owen a quick look then settled down again.
‘He keeps trying to get on the furniture,’ Rachel said, looking at the spaniel disapprovingly. ‘Did you let him sleep on your bed when we were away?’
‘Certainly not.’ Owen managed to look faintly outraged. ‘I know how strict your house rules are.’
Rachel gave a snort, but chose to let it go.
‘Well, let’s move on to more positive things,’ she said.
‘I thought you might like to see what we’re planning for the graveyard excavation.
’ She took a deep breath. ‘Sorry, actually this is a bit emotional. You’ll see why in a minute.
’ She drew a paper towards her and Owen saw that it was a diagram of what looked like a series of boxes with a key beneath.
‘It’s a survey of all the burials we know of that have taken place at Winterhill Priory,’ Rachel explained.
‘It’s over thirty years old but it was very thorough.
Dad did it, you see.’ For a moment Owen saw a sheen of tears in her eyes.
‘I hadn’t realised that either of our parents did any formal archaeological work here.
Anyway—’ she cleared throat ‘—we’ve been using it to decide on which areas to target for geophysics and for test pits.
As you might imagine, the record is very far from complete as a lot of the gravestones have been lost over the centuries and even more have become illegible through age. ’
‘Yes…’ Owen drew the paper towards him, studying his father’s writing, which was at the same time both familiar and strangely distant.
He ran his fingers over it as though he could in some way draw his father closer, but the sense of connection was elusive.
He looked up to see that Rachel was smiling, as though she understood.
‘It’s quite something, isn’t it,’ she said, ‘to be able to use his work here.’
‘It’s amazing,’ Owen said. ‘Are there any areas of the plan that you particularly want to excavate?’
‘Definitely the lady chapel,’ Rachel said.
‘There’s a very significant grave there.
The inscription on it is completely eroded although we believe it had to be someone important in the life of the priory.
Not the founder, since Ealhswith was buried at Winchester with her husband King Alfred, but perhaps one of the prioresses.
Lady chapels are often associated with royal burials, especially Tudor ones, but again we didn’t have any of those here – Winterhill was too small to be significant.
Plus, it was a late medieval burial, judging by the stone, rather than an earlier one.
It’s all a bit of a mystery, but if you look here—’ She gestured to some squiggled notes that their father had written at the bottom of the page.
‘Dad had the idea that it was someone called Father Nicholas Lowndes.’
‘That sounds like a priest,’ Owen said. ‘I thought that priories were female establishments?’