Chapter 26
The clock on the church tower struck twelve as Lara reached the edge of the square.
She was back in her black dress with a wool coat pulled tight around her against the cold.
Her left arm was throbbing with a constant but subdued pain.
She was just hurrying towards her side gate when she noticed a motionless figure by the railings of the park.
They appeared to be staring across at Gillmore House.
The hairs on the back of her neck rose and she looked about her, calculating how quickly she could get to her cottage.
Then the figure stepped into the light of the square and looked towards her.
‘Dr Patil!’ Lara said, her overwhelming feeling being one of relief. She knew she should be wary of this man but she thought he cut a forlorn rather than a threatening figure. ‘I thought you were having supper with friends?’
Dr Patil walked across to Lara. ‘I found I wasn’t in the mood, and left early.’ He stood looking down at her. He seemed to be studying her face carefully in the streetlight. ‘Are you all right, Lara?’ he asked, looking concerned.
It struck her that she could ask the same of him. ‘Yes,’ Lara replied, as confidently as she could.
He continued to study her.
‘No,’ she said truthfully, overwhelmed by tiredness and fighting back the tears that threatened. She felt utterly exhausted and not a little lost.
He nodded at her several times. Then appeared to reach a decision. ‘I’m going to make you a Pink Gin, and you’re going to tell me all about it.’
Lara had no idea if going with the doctor alone at this time of night was an act of madness, but suddenly she did not want to be on her own and she also knew she still had a lot she wanted to ask him.
Dr Patil lived in a small townhouse a few minutes’ walk from the park.
It was built of the same warm yellow stone as the houses in the square and it had a black shiny front door with a gleaming brass knocker.
It appeared from the outside to be a ‘two up two down’ cottage, but inside the walls had been knocked through to create a wonderful open space.
All the walls were lined with bookshelves and a small spiral staircase rose from the very centre of the room.
Around a fireplace on one side of the room were chairs, a sofa and a series of low chests made of mahogany and inlaid with mother of pearl.
Filigree lanterns stood on these and also around the base of the circular staircase.
These reminded Lara of the lanterns she had seen in Lady Porter’s secret room, and she wondered again if that room had anything to do with this man.
Dr Patil put a match to the fire and took Lara’s coat. He settled her into a soft leather armchair and started to mix their drinks.
Lara sat studying the bookshelf nearest to her.
Most of the tomes were historical books, some dedicated to the history of the Punjab, some to local history.
There were also a number of books about painting and this reminded Lara of Dr Patil’s legacy.
In the spaces between the books were photographs of Dr Patil as a young man and as a child, with what looked like his family in India.
As the doctor handed Lara her drink he raised his own glass in salute, ‘To absent friends.’
As Lara sipped her drink it struck her that Lady Porter had no photographs in Gillmore House of her childhood.
There were photos of her and Reggie when they were a young couple, but certainly none of her time in India.
What was it that Mrs M had said about Lady Porter’s parents? That there was ‘no love lost there’?
Eventually, Lara turned to Dr Patil, but before she could ask one of the many questions that were buzzing around her head, Dr Patil leant forward in his chair, ‘Now, Lara, would you like to tell me what happened this evening?’
Lara faced a dilemma. She wanted to tell this sympathetic man about everything that had happened. The trouble was, how could she be sure that he wasn’t the person who had tipped her out of the box? In the end, Lara decided to give in to some of the temptation and at least tell him about part of it.
‘I’m not sure if I fell or if I was pushed.’ She studied him carefully. He looked concerned but he didn’t look surprised.
‘Did you see who did it?’ He was watching her through narrowed eyes and Lara became instantly wary, remembering Abby’s comment about the doctor possibly pushing her and then ‘having second thoughts’.
‘No. And I’m beginning to think I was imagining it.
’ Lara tried to sound dismissive and changed tack.
‘When I was in Gillmore House the other day, I saw the most beautiful room at the top of the house. The fabrics and hangings made me think of India …’ As Lara spoke, she wondered what the doctor would think of her sudden change of direction.
But she was exhausted and hadn’t been able to think of any other way of bringing it up, apart from diving in.
She watched the doctor carefully but could not read his expression.
If she had to make a guess she would have said he had no idea what she was talking about.
Eventually, Dr Patil observed, ‘This past life in India will not go away, will it?’
‘You really didn’t know anything about it, Dr Patil?’
‘Please call me Mo. But no, I didn’t. As I mentioned, I knew a bit of her life in Nottingham.’
This reminded Lara of something else she wanted to know. ‘Do you know about her family, I mean other than Richard?’
Dr Patil stared into the fire. ‘Not very much, I don’t think she had a happy childhood. I really think she viewed her husband Reggie as her true family.’
‘She didn’t have any other children?’
Dr Patil shook his head, but his comment had given Lara an idea. Maybe her true family was Reggie’s family?
‘Did her husband have a big family?’
‘No. I believe he was brought up alone by his widowed father.’
So much for a nephew that Lady Porter might have felt connected to. Lara tried a different approach, ‘You mentioned once that Lady Porter was very determined and that it ran in the family. What did you mean?’
‘Did I? I don’t recall that,’ Dr Patil said evasively, busying himself with topping up their drinks.
Lara thought she was getting nowhere fast. She sipped her drink, wracking her brains for what to say next. Looking up, she smiled. ‘Did Lady Porter mix Pink Gins for you?’ she asked in what she hoped was a friendly manner, all the time mulling over what she really wanted to ask.
When the doctor nodded and smiled back, she plunged in, ‘Do you think Lady Porter drank too much?’
Dr Patil’s response surprised her. ‘Not you as well! Is it not enough that her son and daughter-in-law and people like Julian Armstrong are spreading this around? Elizabeth Porter was not a drinker and I find it very hard when I hear people describing her as if she was a drunk.’
Lara didn’t know what to say. Like Dr Patil she hated this type of gossip about her friend, and it was something she had never seen on her visits.
Plus, Kate certainly didn’t think her ‘Lady P’ drank.
On the other hand, Sarah had claimed to see her the worse for wear – as had Thomas the ghostly gardener.
Lara had no idea what to think. Before Lara could formulate this into something that she could share with Dr Patil, he continued, ‘There are other reasons that someone might be unsteady or confused.’
‘You mean she was ill?!’
Dr Patil rubbed his hands on his thighs in agitation. ‘No, that is not what I’m saying,’ he said emphatically. ‘But I am saying that Elizabeth Porter was not a drunk.’
Lara was at a loss. What was it that the doctor was trying to tell her? She sensed there was something behind his words. Before she could formulate what to say he demanded, ‘Lara, why all these questions?’
Instead of answering this, Lara decided on one last attempt, ‘Dr Patil… Mo… did you ever suspect that Lady Porter might be being blackmailed?’
Dr Patil looked stunned. Then his laugher rang out around the room. Lara looked startled. ‘I would like to see someone try!’ he said, laughing some more.
‘So you don’t think…’
Dr Patil interrupted her, ‘You knew her, Lara, she was a woman of huge spirit. Can you really imagine her giving in to a third-rate trick like blackmail? She would rather have spat in their eye!’
‘But,’ Lara continued like a dog worrying a bone, ‘if she was so fearless why did she kill herself?’
Without looking directly at Dr Patil, Lara sensed the change in the atmosphere.
She had succeeded in really annoying him.
If she was honest with herself she was not surprised, she had been more of an interrogator than a grateful guest. She studied him warily.
He was holding himself in check, but there was no mistaking the anger in his eyes.
‘You have to leave this alone, Lara,’ he retorted.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.
’ He spoke with staccato emphasis. Lara watched as he drew a deep breath and let his shoulders drop, until once again he had himself under control.
Dr Patil sighed and looked her directly in the eye.
‘Perhaps if you’re willing to drop your preposterous line of questioning, I’d be happy to show you the paintings Lady Porter left me and perhaps we can remember her together. ’
Lara, feeling appropriately chided, nodded, and followed the doctor from the sitting room and into the back room of the house.
The paintings were laid out on a desk at the rear of the room.
Some of them she recalled from Gillmore House.
They were a collection of small studies made up of interiors and still life compositions of jugs and fruit.
They were restful and Lara thought they were lovely.
She had no idea if they were valuable. She scanned the desk for one that met the description of the harpsichord player or what Abby had called The Concert.
Nothing fitted, although Lara could see the edge of a slightly larger painting that was obscured by a pile of papers.
She was unsure if Dr Patil had hidden it, or if this was just how the papers had landed.
She took a step closer to the desk and in doing so knocked the doctor’s drink to the floor from where it had been resting on the edge of the desk.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ Lara exclaimed, dropping to her knees and making a half-hearted attempt to mop up the spillage.
‘Don’t worry, Lara, you’re getting your dress wet, I’ll get a cloth.’
Lara could not have hoped for better. The doctor hurried off and in an instant she twitched the papers aside and took a swift photo of the remaining painting with her phone.
She only had a moment to glance at it before she heard the doctor returning from the kitchen and she pushed the papers back in place.
She could see immediately that she hadn’t replaced them quite as they had been and that they were in danger of slipping off the desk, so as Dr Patil set about mopping up the gin from the carpet she nudged the papers back into position with her hip.
It was then that she saw it. She was looking down on a note, clearly written by Dr Patil. She didn’t take in the words. It was the handwriting that leapt out at her. She could have sworn it was the same handwriting as the ‘Forgive me’ note that had been left on Lady Porter’s grave.
Now, all Lara wanted was to be safely back in her own cottage.
She would even have welcomed a visit from Abby.
Without trying to appear rushed, she gathered her belongings and thanking ‘Mo’ for the drinks, headed speedily for the door.
In a matter of minutes she was standing alone in the road outside Dr Patil’s house.
Lara’s journey back to her cottage was swift and uneventful.
She passed a few people in the square, but no one she knew to say hello to.
She did have a vague feeling that someone was watching her and wondered if Abby was nearby.
She might have felt less comfortable had she known that not one, but two pairs of eyes followed her home.