Chapter 40
The Tap of Her Cane
IVY
I’m digging into a buttery croissant with gooseberry jam when Christopher comes through the front door like the building is on fire. It’s a shame, because I’m in such an amazing mood after last night that I just wanted to float around today without any worries.
He is pale and dishevelled. He doesn't knock and he doesn't slow down. He points at Daisy and makes vague gestures. “Coffee. Now. Please.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where's Isobel?” he demands.
Alistair is up already. “Orangery.”
We run.
Isobel is sitting at the small iron table with her cane beside her and her hands folded. She looks up when we come through the door with the expression of a woman who, if she did not know we were coming, had at least suspected that something was.
The glass walls are cold and frost thaws on the grounds outside. The pale sky looks enormous.
She looks at us and waits. Christopher is still pale.
“I got Brodie's message,” he says. “Same as you. And when I saw the name—” He stops. Runs a hand through his hair. “Right. Vellcott.”
“The man from Burgundy's,” Alistair says. “The owner.”
“Months ago, at the club. He was being generous with the good whisky, which in retrospect—” He waves it away.
“He was talking. Never anything specific. But there was this thing he said about a man he does business with. Someone important. He said every time this man comes to London, on his last day, he books out a whole gallery. Privately. The entire thing. Just for himself. To be alone with one piece.”
He looks at Alistair.
“I didn't know who Vellcott’s boss was then. It meant nothing. But if Vellcott’s boss is Hargrove—”
“Then today is his last day,” Alistair says, biting his lip.
“Today is his last day.”
Daisy comes in with the coffee. Christopher takes a cup before she has set the tray down, empties it in two long slurping swallows, and holds it out again.
“Does that even make sense though?” he says. “A gallery. Is Hargrove really that kind of person?”
“We don’t know what kind of person he is,” replies Alistair, who seems especially on edge this morning. I wonder if he regrets last night. “But this is the only lead we have.”
Isobel has not spoken since we came in. “Make sure you’re ready before you move,” she says.
Isobel gets to her feet.
She goes to Christopher first. She puts her hand on his arm—just her hand, resting there, a pressure—and she looks at him for a moment. Christopher looks back at her. Something passes between them that I can't quite read.
“You did well,” she says. “We’ll be able to shut this down now.”
Then she crosses to Alistair and puts her hand against his cheek. She holds it there for just a moment, then drops her hand.
“Make sure Brodie confirms before you move,” she says. She turns toward the door and stops in front of me, looking at me directly, steadily, the way she looked at me in her office when she asked me to keep her secret. To keep a secret from my husband.