Chapter 26 Imogen
Imogen
I search the house with a knot in my stomach, even though it’s obvious he’s not here.
And then I hear barking. I’m in Dorothea’s study which overlooks the front of the house and I can see Josh in the lane with the dogs.
He’s bending down and stroking them tenderly while talking to them and the sight of it tugs at my heart.
I knew he’d fall in love with the dogs once he’d given them a chance.
And then I see a figure joining him in the lane and my heart sinks.
No, no, no. It’s Harry. Shit. I hope Josh won’t be rude to him.
I hover at the window, willing Josh to come back into the house.
I can’t hear what they are saying but it appears as though Harry is introducing himself and they are shaking hands.
Has Harry come over to give me the proof?
I texted him yesterday to remind him to get me a copy and he said the few they’d had in the office had been sent off to reviewers so he’ll give me his when he’s finished with it.
It felt like he was making up excuses, which has, naturally, made me even more eager to read it.
I hope he doesn’t hand a copy to Josh as then I’ll have to admit that I am researching Dorothea.
I move away from the window and grab my mobile. I call Josh and pretend I don’t know where he is.
‘Josh?’ I say when he answers. ‘Where are you? I was worried.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, babe, I woke up early and thought I’d take the dogs out – yeah, cheers, mate, good to meet you too – sorry, was just talking to Harry, but he’s gone now.
’ He’s breathing heavily and I can hear the wind buffeting in the background, the punch of the keypad as he taps in the code for the side gate, the crunch of gravel underfoot.
He doesn’t sound annoyed, which I’m surprised about after how he reacted the other night.
‘We were out of milk and eggs. I thought I’d try and make those Scotch pancakes on the Aga.
I found one of Dorothea’s recipes in the drawer.
’ Then his voice changes again, becoming more formal.
‘Oh, hello,’ he says to someone else. ‘Yes, she is. I’m her boyfriend, Josh. ’
I rush back to the window. Josh is standing with a smartly dressed woman, her shiny silvery-blonde hair in an old-fashioned up-do.
She’s wearing a tweed suit and has on a pair of leather gloves.
She looks rich and important and I recognize her straight away from the photographs.
‘Yes, please come in …’ I can hear him say.
He’s putting on his telephone voice to speak to her, which makes me smile.
I wonder why she’s come over rather than just calling me back?
I quickly dress in yesterday’s jeans and jumper and run my fingers through my tangly wavy hair.
I quickly assess myself in the mirror. I’m not exactly groomed and I could use some eye make-up to make myself look more awake.
No time. I take a deep breath, trying to curb my swooping stomach, and then I head downstairs.
I can hear Josh and Annette in the kitchen.
When I walk in she stands up and her face freezes in shock.
‘Goodness,’ she says, touching the pearls at her throat.
‘You look the spitting image of your mother.’ She holds out a gloved hand.
‘Lovely to see you again. I don’t know if you remember me coming to the house when you and Ruth were staying with Dorothea? ’
‘Yes, I do. Lovely to see you again too.’
I notice something like disapproval behind her eyes and again, I feel like an intruder in Dorothea’s beautiful home. I hope she doesn’t mention to Josh the phone message I’d left for her.
I turn to Josh with a frown. He’s pouring a jug of batter straight onto the Aga’s stove top. ‘Shouldn’t you use a frying pan?’
‘Apparently I don’t have to. Annette has kindly shown me how.’
She beams at him. ‘Dorothea loved her Aga. The times we sat here in this kitchen …’ Her bright eyes gleam and I realize I had assumed disapproval when it was something else entirely.
Regret, perhaps, or a sense of discombobulation at seeing me living in her friend’s house.
She clears her throat and sits down again.
‘I’m sorry for the early morning visit. I was going to call you back … ’
I dart a look at Josh but his body language doesn’t change and I hope he hasn’t heard.
‘… but I was in the area and I thought it would be nice to have a chat face to face and, I suppose, to come here again.’ She sighs wistfully, looking around. ‘It’s so full of Dot. It’s almost like she’s still here.’
I pull out the chair next to Annette. ‘Yes. I’m interested to know more about her. As you know, she’s left me the house, which came as a surprise …’
‘Yes. It’s a surprise to me as well, but she was extremely fond of you and your mother.
Ruth was so effervescent, even when she was going through such a hard time.
’ She peels off her gloves. ‘I remember when Dorothea first talked to me about her. They’d become so close.
Despite everything, Ruth was still in love with your father.
That was what was so frustrating, I suppose.
Dorothea offered her a sanctuary – you too, of course – but then Ruth threw it in Dorothea’s face when she went back to Alec. ’
‘Oh …’ My heart twists. ‘Is that how Dorothea saw it?’
She waves a hand. ‘Oh, I doubt it. They remained friends even after that. I just think Dot … well, all of us … felt we’d failed her.’
‘I wish she hadn’t gone back to him,’ I say sadly. ‘Then she’d probably still be alive.’
Annette reaches over and pats my hand. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Josh flipping over the Scotch pancakes and I wonder how much he can hear.
‘I’m so sad that I never got the chance to see Dorothea again,’ I say truthfully.
‘She tried, but … your sister …’
‘Ah yes. I’ve only recently found out about that. Do you know why anyone would want to hurt Dorothea?’ I ask gently. ‘Did she have any enemies?’
Annette sits upright and her composure crumbles a little. ‘No. She was a wonderful person.’ She pulls a worried face. ‘Although … there were a few things – just little things – that made her a bit paranoid in the year or so before she died,’ she says carefully.
‘What kind of things?’ My mind casts back to the sculpture.
‘Well, she found a postcard in the woods advertising an unauthorized biography by this man called Sidney Crane.’ She puts a hand to her pearls again.
‘There was a message on the back. I can’t remember exactly what it said now …
something about how they couldn’t wait for Dorothea’s past secrets to be revealed. And she found this old lighter.’
‘The one with the initials RF?’
She emits a small sound of surprise. ‘Yes, that’s right. How do you know?’
‘I found it,’ I say. ‘Do you know who it belongs to? Could it be Rosemary’s?’
Her blue eyes sharpen. ‘It’s definitely not Rosemary’s. She’s never smoked.’
Her throat flushes red and I get the impression she’s lying.
Josh comes over with the plate of pancakes and places them in the middle of the table with a proud look on his face. They look delicious, fat and fluffy.
I take one gratefully but Annette refuses, patting her flat stomach. ‘I’ve already had my breakfast, but thank you.’
‘Can I get you a tea or coffee?’ I ask and she says she’d love a black coffee. Before I can move, Josh offers to make it.
‘What a lovely young man you’ve got there,’ Annette murmurs.
I feel proud of Josh in that moment, although I do wish he’d leave us alone so I can ask Annette more probing questions about Dorothea. He’s going to guess what I’m up to at this rate.
We fall silent. Josh hands Annette her coffee before taking a seat at the head of the table.
She sips it, leaving a pink lipstick mark on the rim.
Then she turns the cup around in her hands.
‘This is Dorothea’s?’ That look again. The one that makes me feel as though we are intruders.
She glances around the kitchen as though noticing it all for the first time. ‘All her things,’ she says quietly.
‘We … we didn’t know what to do with them,’ I begin. ‘If there is anything you’d like …’
Her eyes water. ‘Thank you, that’s very kind. It’s so very sad that all her artwork perished in the fire.’
‘I know, it really is.’ I glance at Josh but he’s stuffing a pancake into his mouth while scrolling through his phone. I lean closer to Annette and lower my voice. ‘Did … um … Dorothea ever talk to you about her new collection?’
Annette doesn’t say anything for a few moments; her attention seems to be taken up by the dresser.
I follow her line of sight. She’s staring at a photograph of Dorothea when she was much younger – maybe around my age – standing in front of one of her paintings in what looks like an art gallery.
She’s wearing a red headscarf and is half turned towards the painting, her body obscuring a large part of it so that I can only make out a red background and the outline of a prostrate figure.
‘Annette? Is everything okay?’
Josh looks up from his phone and raises an eyebrow at me. I suspect he’s been listening this whole time.
Annette turns to me. ‘Sorry, yes. That photograph. I was there when it was taken. It was at Dorothea’s first ever exhibition.
It was where she found her agent. The painting she’s standing in front of was one of Dorothea’s most personal.
’ She clears her throat and I make a mental note to look up that painting.
‘Anyway, what were we saying? Oh yes, Dorothea’s new collection.
No, she didn’t really talk about her work in progress.
I only knew what it was about when I read the Sunday Times feature.
Seven sculptures. A magpie theme.’ She gives a half-smile.
‘To be honest, a lot of her art went over my head.’
‘But aren’t you a trained art therapist?’
‘Well, yes, I have a degree in psychology and I’m proficient enough at art and making things to have passed my master’s in art therapy.
But I wouldn’t describe myself as an artist. Not like Dorothea.
’ She tuts. ‘I don’t know what the police are doing but I truly hope they do speak to that horrid man, her agent Gabriel Mitchell.
He took advantage of Dotty something terrible.
Always in debt, that man. Always looking to Dotty to bail him out.
A bad egg.’ She shakes her head. ‘A bad egg indeed.’
I’ve already done some digging on Gabe, and from Companies House I could see that he’s set up and then closed down a number of subsidiary companies over the years and is no longer the sole director of his agency.
I’ve even tried calling him a few times, but he’s never picked up. ‘And did she help him out?’ I ask.
‘Well, he asked her to become a silent partner a few years back, but she said no in the end. I don’t know how he ended up bailing himself out but his business is still going, so he must have found funding from somewhere else.’
‘What about the other women who founded the art therapy centre – Rosemary and … Maisie, was it?’
Annette nods.
‘Was Dorothea close to them?’
‘Extremely close. All four of us were,’ she says emphatically. ‘Sadly, Maisie has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s …’
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.’ Out of the corner of my eye I see Josh place his mobile on the table, face down. ‘Had you suspected that for a while?’
She stiffens. ‘Actually, I had no idea. Aiden hid it from all of us, but he’s known for a few years.
Maisie was always a little scatty, so Rosemary, Dot and I didn’t really notice and now, well …
’ She touches her clavicle. ‘Dorothea is dead and Rosemary and I don’t see each other as much as we once did. She’s busy with her lost sheep …’
‘Lost sheep?’
‘She likes to help troubled young teens. It’s admirable, but then sometimes they never leave. Like Peter.’
There is a bitterness to her tone, and I wonder if Annette and Rosemary have fallen out.
‘Peter Bryce?’
‘Yes. He’s her lodger.’
‘And was he a troubled teen?’
‘Yes, he was convicted of assault when he was in his mid teens, but he seems a nice enough lad,’ she admits grudgingly. ‘I suppose he’s company for her. I think he’s like the son she never had.’
I want to ask more about Rosemary but I can see Josh glowering at me from across the table. He’s not stupid, he must be able to tell by my line of questioning that I’m too interested in Dorothea.
‘Maisie is such a talented lady,’ Annette continues.
‘She wasn’t a founder – she was actually one of our first customers, coming to have therapy herself after an abusive first marriage.
But it was in the company’s infancy and she loved our ethos so much she came on board.
We all had different gifts, but we all complemented each other. ’
Interesting. I would love to get Annette’s input into what the hidden sculpture could mean, but instinct stops me.
Dorothea kept it under lock and key, not telling anyone about it, which could mean she didn’t trust those around her, and that included her oldest friends.