Chapter 19
The room took you back in time to the seventeenth century. It was dark with oak panelling on the lower part of the walls and rich, red velvet covering the upper part. There was a gilded leather wall hanging with images of fruit and birds, plants and dragonflies. I stepped closer for a better look, but found myself sidetracked by the sight of a large tapestry. The leather work on the wall hanging was made to look ancient, but actually seemed to have been done recently. The tapestry, however, appeared very much like a seventeenth-century original. It was a scene depicting Greek figures and I felt sure I’d seen it or certainly something like it before. I began to wonder how deep Leonard was into the criminal underworld of art theft. This piece looked as if it should be in a private collection of someone far more deserving than him. I pulled out my phone and took a photograph then noticed the humidity detector on the wall beside it. At least he was looking after it.
Juliet was going through drawers and cupboards, but came back to stand beside me, empty-handed.
‘It’s not here,’ she said.
We both looked around the room in silence until I began to walk towards the windows. I pulled back the curtain to peer behind it, then stepped back and began to feel along the wooden panelling, away from the window and towards the corner of the room.
‘Can you see?’ I said. ‘Can you see that the windows aren’t even?’
Juliet looked to where I was pointing, to where there was a good foot or two more wall to the left of the second window.
‘So? What does that mean? The room is wonky, so what?’
‘You’re the one who mentioned secret panels. Help me look.’
Juliet joined me in the corner of the room and began feeling around the panelling for anything unexpected.
‘And why is the oak covering the whole wall here, when it’s only on the lower part around the rest?’
‘Gina!’ Juliet said. ‘Feel here.’
Juliet took my hand and made me run my fingers over a hole in the wood. I pushed in my forefinger, pulled and the wall of oak began moving towards us. We both stepped back to see what we’d uncovered.
‘Wow! I think we’ve found his stash,’ Juliet said.
We were looking into a secret room behind the oak panel and it was full of what I had expected to see in the loft. Vases, sculptures, both modern and antique, silverware and furniture. Nothing was displayed as such; it was purely a storage area. Some things were bubble-wrapped; others had sheets draped over them. What I could see, though, was quality. Like the tapestry in the sitting room these were all items of worth. I went to pick up a ceramic jug and stopped myself.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ I said to Juliet. ‘We don’t need our fingerprints contaminating what could well be a crime scene.’
I took out my phone and snapped a couple of pictures, then I scrolled through my photo library until I found the one of the hidden objects painting, or rather the Vanitas. There in the corner of the secret room was something I’d recognised from the painting: a sliver jug. In the painting itself it had a snake coiled around it, but I was pleased to see that the actual jug here did not. I zoomed in on the photo and saw a ceremonial sword, which was also in this secret room. Did Leonard have his prize possessions painted on canvas and displayed in plain sight when the actual items were hidden? I took careful photos of everything without touching anything. As I did, I noticed that there were paintings stacked against an antique mahogany ottoman and both Juliet and I made a beeline for them.
I used my sleeve pulled down over my hand as a glove, which I wasn’t sure was all that effective, before I riffled through them. It wasn’t there. Plenty of wonderful pieces were in front of us but not the damn watercolour.
‘It’s not here,’ I said, frustrated.
‘What’s not here?’ said a voice behind us, and both Juliet and I spun around to see Harry standing in the doorway. ‘Don’t worry, he’s still downstairs and won’t be coming up until I go down to get him. What are you both doing?’
‘Perhaps it’s time we had a chat, Harry,’ I said, and was surprised to hear how confident I sounded, because my legs had turned to mush.
‘Possibly so, but not here and not now. You need to close that up and get out of here. I need to get Leonard to bed and if he finds you up here it won’t be pretty.’
‘What do you think he’d do?’ I asked. ‘Hurt us?’
‘No,’ he said, quickly. ‘He wouldn’t do that, and besides, I wouldn’t let him. He’d get you out of his house and move all of this before you could get the police here, so don’t even bother. You need to be smarter than that.’
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out to read the message.
‘That’s him now. I need to go down and you’ll both be gone by the time I get back up here with him. Is that clear?’
‘But I need to talk to you,’ I said again.
‘Okay, but later. I’ve still got a whole lot of food to prepare for the hordes coming tomorrow. Give me half an hour and come and see me in the kitchen.’
He didn’t wait for a response, but just left us standing in the middle of Leonard’s secret room.
‘Is there any point in me telling you to go to bed?’ I said to Juliet.
‘I mean, you can try, but I’ll ignore you.’
I took some last few photos and we pulled the door closed carefully behind us.
‘Fine, come on then.’
Out on the landing, I took Juliet’s hand and pulled her quickly away from Leonard’s private domain. Once we were back in a safer part of the house and then down towards the servants’ staircase, I stopped, suddenly remembering that earlier Juliet had some information she wanted to share.
‘Who did you record?’ I asked her. ‘On your phone, you said you recorded something important.’
‘Oh yeah, that. It’s just a sound recording, though, unless you want to look at leaves,’ she said with an embarrassed smile.
I suddenly wanted to give this girl a hug, because actually she was pretty bloody brilliant. I didn’t, though; I just grinned at her instead.
She took out her phone and handed me one of her earbuds and we sank back into an alcove to listen.
The sound was quite faint and Juliet had to turn up the volume and play the clip again. Once she pressed play, the sound was of Rufus’s voice talking urgently in my ear.
‘It’s exactly as I told you, I found a compromising video of the two of them together.’
There was a moment of interference, sounding very much like Juliet rustling in the bush before Rufus’s voice again.
‘But don’t you see, we have him now. No more blackmailing unless we are the ones doing it.’
‘I don’t care who Leonard is shagging, no one else will either. It doesn’t change a bloody thing.’
This sounded like Sandra.
‘You haven’t seen it.’
‘I don’t want to see it. Is someone there?’Sandra’s voice descended to a whisper that I had to strain to hear and then all that could be heard was the sound of Juliet’s rapid breathing for a moment before Rufus spoke again.
‘Mum, we can use this before it gets any worse.’
‘Worse! How the hell could it be any worse?’
I stared at Juliet long after she’d stopped the recording.
Within half an hour Juliet and I were drinking mugs of hot chocolate that Harry had made and were ready for him to enlighten us on the situation with Leonard. According to Peter, Harry was a criminal and I’d certainly been wary of him since arriving in this house, but for now I had decided to trust him. After all, things upstairs, just a short time ago, could easily have gone a very different way.
He had his back to us as he began to prep salmon en cro?te for eighty people. I found I could only watch for so long and then I rolled up my sleeves, washed my hands and began rolling out the pastry. Harry smiled at me gratefully, while Juliet raided the biscuit tin.
‘So, what were you both doing in Mr Price’s private space?’ Harry asked.
I continued to roll and thought about a measured response.
‘We were looking for a painting that he stole from Granny,’ Juliet said before I could.
‘Juliet!’ I said.
‘Well, we were in his secret stash of stolen stuff, weren’t we. No point pretending!’
‘We don’t actually know he stole any of it. He could be using that room as a security measure,’ I said, and Juliet levelled me a look that told me exactly what she thought of that as an idea.
‘It’s okay,’ Harry said. ‘I know that Leonard works away from the rules of the law when he acquires some of his art.’
‘You know he took Dorothy’s painting?’ I asked.
‘I heard about it, but it was before I came here. I don’t know the details and certainly not enough to get him convicted.’
‘And do you know where it is?’
‘No I don’t, sorry.’
‘Someone mentioned that Leonard likes to employ people that he feels he can manipulate. Is that something you’re aware of?’ I asked him, wincing a little at my words.
‘If you mean, am I under Leonard’s control because he has information about me and my past then, yeah. I did something I’m not proud of and when I found it impossible to get employment, Leonard stepped in. In a way he has helped me. He’s given me a good job doing something I love and paid me well, but it’s come at the price of me helping him while keeping my mouth shut. He’s hardly lifted me out of the world of crime. In fact, he’s kept me right in the thick of it.’
‘And now?’ I asked. ‘Why have you decided to talk about it now?’
I rolled and cut the pastry, copying what Harry had done and then passed the sheets over to him where he folded his prepared salmon inside.
‘Because I don’t want to be here any more. I don’t like Leonard and his dealings have got out of hand. He’s a kleptomaniac of the worst kind. He rarely sells pieces on any more. It’s all about the having of them. It’s not about money; it’s about ownership. The stakes are getting higher and I don’t want any more involvement. I’m handing in my notice after the wedding.’
I wondered at the idea Harry would be handing in his notice as if he was on some sort of official contract.
‘How are you involved exactly?’ I asked. ‘Do you steal the artwork?’
‘No, I’m just the delivery guy,’ he said. ‘Worse, I’m more like a getaway driver sometimes.’
‘Harry, can you tell me where the rest of these stolen things are? I assume it’s not only that crap in the attic and what we found in the secret space of the sitting room. I really need to find this painting of Dorothy’s.’
‘The attic, yes, some of that is stolen, small scale from people he knows in antiques. Pinched from house clearances and the like, not all crap if you have time for a closer look. Some he’s actually bought, to be fair, or taken in payment for his silence. Some is bigger stuff, the tapestry and a few ceramics around the house. That secret stash is all stolen.’
‘That tapestry,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘I really thought I’d seen it before somewhere. I may have been mistaken.’
‘You’re an expert?’
‘I used to work in the arts, a very long time ago.’
‘Ah, I didn’t think you were just a companion. You seemed to have an edge to you.’
I was about to ask him what he meant by that, but he’d continued talking.
‘He told me the tapestry was taken from a collection that was being moved from an exhibition back to its place in a stately home. It was many years ago, so many it seems that he feels he can display it freely. Stolen work, hanging in plain sight.’
‘Maybe I read about it; that’s why I remember it,’ I said. ‘You know, Dorothy said exactly that about hanging in plain sight. She thinks he’s so egotistical, he’ll have her painting somewhere clever.’
‘I doubt it will be somewhere clever, but it will be somewhere he can see it whenever he wants to. His bedroom perhaps? What is the painting of, anyway? How big is it?’
‘It’s a watercolour of a coastal scene, with a beach and headland in the background and a lighthouse. About so big,’ I said holding out my hands to give him a rough idea of its size, although I only had Dorothy’s word on how big it actually was. ‘I have looked in his bedroom, but couldn’t see it there.’
‘There are many other places on his land that he stores things. He has barns and sheds, the temple. He has that holiday home where I know for a fact he has a couple of very prominent pieces locked in the tower.’
Juliet had been very quiet up until this point and Harry suddenly turned to her.
‘What are you doing? Are you recording this conversation?’
He made a lunge towards her phone, but she pulled it back and stepped away.
‘It’s just for my own personal use,’ she shrieked.
‘Juliet, give me that phone,’ I said, holding out my hand and Juliet handed it over with a thunderous look. ‘I’ll make sure this is deleted, Harry. She’s just a bored kid at a family wedding.’
Juliet opened her mouth to say something, but I stopped her with one penetrating look. Then after a couple of swipes across the screen, I turned the phone around so Harry could see it was gone, then I handed the device back to Juliet, who looked at it in exasperation.
‘Nothing matters much now, anyway,’ he said, his voice as resigned as his position.
‘Harry, I have to ask, what was in my drink the other night?’
‘Sorry about that. Leonard slipped extra alcohol in your drinks. I think he was going to try to get you talking. He doesn’t trust you for some reason. Well, now I can see why. He shouldn’t have done it, though. I know I was as bad for handing them out.’
‘Did he get me talking? I really don’t remember.’
‘No, because I slipped extra in his and he wasn’t really fit for conversations. It was why I made sure you got to your room. I was worried after I saw how much he was pouring.’
‘And he thinks someone is trying to bump him off,’ I said. ‘With his record, it could be anyone.’
‘I think it’s Paul,’ Juliet said. ‘He looks around this house with a sort of longing. I wouldn’t like it if I’d lost out on such a big inheritance.’
Harry didn’t say anything and I wondered if he knew who it was.
‘Thank you, Harry,’ I said, ‘for your honesty. Not many people would be so decent. Apart from anything else, you’re here feeding the guests, rather than doing a disappearing act. Commendable.’
‘Thanks, Gina, but once the catering team come on Saturday I won’t be hanging around for long. But if I find the painting, I’ll let you know.’
I nodded and put the rolling pin back on the worktop. I washed my hands again and dried them on a towel.
‘I’m going to leave my phone number,’ I said. ‘In case you find anything or think of anything that might be useful to Dorothy.’
In a gesture of complete faith, he handed his phone to me, unlocked, and I put my number in under the name The Companion. He laughed when I gave it back to him.
‘That makes you sound sinister,’ he said.
We left the kitchen and walked back up the stairs, but once we were out of Harry’s earshot, Juliet rounded on me.
‘I can’t believe you deleted it. That was such a stupid thing to do. It was evidence!’
‘I had to make sure Harry knew it was off your phone. I’d like to think he could be trustworthy, which I know sounds like an odd thing to say about a criminal, but we can’t really trust him. And, anyway, I only deleted it after I’d sent it to myself,’ I said.
Juliet’s eyes widened and then a huge smile broke out on her face.
‘Nice one,’ she said.
Despite my reservations about what I was doing for Dorothy and how Juliet was mixed up in it now as well, I still managed to feel a little proud of myself for my quick thinking. I also felt like we were close now. Surely it couldn’t be long before the painting appeared.