Chapter 41 Imogen
Imogen
Alison gasps, blinking rapidly in the dull light.
The papier-maché figure stares back at us.
I’ve burdened her with all of this: psychopaths on motorbikes, dead magpies in trees, the attack on Dennis, the man snooping around the woods, the intruder I found going through Dorothea’s study, the general, unsettling feeling of being watched.
She’d listened in silence, somehow not commenting until I’d finished.
She shudders. ‘This is really creepy,’ she announces. ‘What does it mean?’
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to find out.’
‘And Dorothea left this to you? Like a message from beyond the grave. Wow.’
‘A message I’m trying really hard to decipher.’
She moves forward and reaches out to touch the sculpture tentatively, as though it might suddenly come to life. ‘Have you asked Dorothea’s friends? There was one who Mum really liked. Jeanette something.’
‘Annette Baker-Hume. I don’t know. I worry that Dorothea didn’t trust anyone else with this.’
The bunker smells damp and metallic and the cold air wraps itself around us. I can almost picture Dorothea down here in her trusty paint-splattered overalls and Birkenstocks with her hidden secrets layered beneath all the paint and fabric, breathing life and meaning into this papier-maché figure.
‘It’s just so … weird,’ Alison says, lightly touching the crochet butterfly on one of the magpies. ‘Who is the woman supposed to be?’
‘I think it’s Dorothea with the hiking boots and blonde hair …’
‘I can’t decide if it’s hideous or a work of genius,’ she says, touching a strand of blonde wig before recoiling.
‘A bit of both,’ I laugh.
‘Seven magpies. A secret, obviously.’
‘Yes! That’s exactly it,’ I say, enjoying this moment with Alison, both of us trying to work it out together. ‘She kept it back from the rest of the collection on purpose. She wanted me to find this.’
I indicate the miniature Zippo lighter and explain about the one I found by the bunker.
‘Dorothea was married to a man called Robert Falkner and I think the lighter I found belongs to him.’ I then fill her in on what Harry told me about seeing an elderly man hanging around the villa a few days before Dorothea was murdered.
‘Maybe that’s what Dorothea has been trying to tell me through this sculpture.
That Bobby was back. And she suspected he was going to kill her. ’
Her eyes widen. ‘Was he abusive to her?’
‘I’m not sure, but the biography made it sound like a possibility.’
Alison is silent for a few moments while she takes it all in before saying, ‘It must have taken her so long. All the little details.’ She looks up at me.
‘And you think this guy on the motorbike is trying to find this? Do you think he could be this ex-husband?’ She looks doubtful.
‘Although he’d be at least in his mid-seventies, wouldn’t he?
Isn’t that a bit old to be zooming around on a motorbike? ’
‘I don’t know. And why would he attack Dennis?’
Her eyes dart towards the bunker door, which I’ve left propped open with a heavy rock, leaving Solly as guard dog.
‘Do you recognize this?’ I ask, pointing to the denim patch on the wool jacket.
Alison shakes her head. ‘I don’t think so …’
‘It was from my favourite jeans. I wore them all the time that summer we stayed here.’
She doesn’t say anything. Instead she touches all the small items attached to the magpies: the miniature Christmas card, a cat brooch, the tiny replica Zippo lighter, two small pearls, the crochet butterfly, and a toy spade.
And then I watch in horror as she unpins the brooch from one of the magpies.
‘What are you doing?! You can’t mess with the sculpture.’
She spins around to face me. ‘This was Mum’s.’
‘What? No … it can’t be. I’ve never seen it before.’
‘I’m telling you, it is. I remember playing with it when I was a kid. She never wore it but she kept it in her jewellery box. Apparently her dad gave it to her for her eighteenth.’ She hands it to me. It’s small and gold-plated with two green gems for eyes and two crystals on the collar.
I touch the gems. ‘I wonder how Dorothea got hold of it?’
‘I don’t know, but it’s weird, because Mum wore it on Halloween. I suggested she wear it. She was going to pin it to her costume,’ says Alison.
Had she been wearing a brooch? I really can’t remember.
‘If you say this was Mum’s brooch then I believe you. I just don’t remember it, that’s all. Maybe she gave it to Dorothea?’ I pin it carefully back onto the magpie.
‘She wouldn’t have done that. She knew I loved that brooch,’ insists Alison, looking troubled.We stand silently for a moment, each of us assessing the sculpture.
‘You need to write this all down,’ she says eventually. ‘You should do, like, a spider graph or something.’ She rolls her eyes when I laugh. ‘I know! It’s being married to a teacher. Gareth loves a spider graph!’
A noise from outside makes us both jump and we spin around to face the open hatch. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ says Alison hurriedly. ‘It’s creepy as fuck in here.’
I head up the steps first, expecting Alison to be behind me, but then I hear her calling my name from below. I turn to see her holding something in her hand, a piece of fabric, a strange look on her face.
‘What is it?’
She holds it up. ‘It’s a mask. It was in the sculpture’s hand.’
I’m just about to chastise her again for pulling things off the sculpture when she adds in a strangulated voice, ‘It looks exactly like the mask Dad wore the night Mum died.’