False Picture (5 page)

How do you attract the notice of a busy man like Max, who felt the burden of the Party resting on his shoulders, even though he was a mere foot soldier and might never be anything more?
That tax demand …

Answer; you ring his wife. Bea didn't actively dislike the over-thin Nicole, but she didn't cherish warm feelings towards her, either. But needs must. Nicole wasn't at the house her parents had bought for them. She would be out to lunch with her friends, or perhaps at Max's side at a constituency event, smiling and not meaning it. Bea dug out Nicole's mobile number, and rang. Her phone was switched off. Bea left a message, trying to keep calm, trying not to shout. There was no doubt about it, she was thoroughly on edge.

Her own landline rang. Bea answered the phone in a clipped voice.

‘Abbot Agency, how may I help you?'

A laughing voice, a well-known voice, the voice of her ex-husband, Piers, the well-known portrait painter and tomcat. ‘I'm coming round in—'

‘No, you're not. Piers, I've got—'

‘—ten minutes.' The phone went dead.

Maggie whirled into the room, snatching up papers, banging filing cabinet drawers around. Max had experimented with having a paper-free office, but hadn't backed up as much as he might have done. Also, computers were fallible and Bea had decided that although they would take every precaution to keep their business running via computers, they would keep some paper files.

‘Must get it all straight before I go,' Maggie sang to herself.

Bea bit back a sharp retort. Maggie was still going to be here from nine to five, wasn't she? Well, ten to five, more probably. But her hours of work would not be affected. The girl burst into song, ‘I'm getting married in the morning …'

Bea tried not to wince. ‘Maggie, where's the quotes you've been getting for me?'

‘Top right-hand drawer of your desk,' sang Maggie.

Bea reached for the drawer as the front doorbell pealed above. That would be Piers, drat it. What a time-waster that man was. Yet he could be helpful on occasion; Hamilton had liked him, and kept in touch with him through the years.

‘Shall I go?' asked Maggie, looking for an excuse to leave her filing.

Bea shook her head, and went up the stairs to let Piers in. He thrust past her, carrying a large package wrapped in reused cardboard and tied up with string, which he took straight through into the living room. Of course, he'd borrowed the last photograph that Hamilton had had taken, and been doing a portrait of him.

Piers didn't bother with a formal greeting. ‘Where will you hang it?'

He put the picture on the settee and looked around the room with a critical eye. ‘It's come out quite well, even if I say so myself. I even found myself talking to him the other day. “Hamilton,” I said, “is this portrait of you going to be a comfort to our beloved wife, or drive her insane?”' Sinewy hands made light work of the packaging, which flew off in all directions.

‘What did Hamilton reply?' asked Bea, diverted in spite of herself.

Piers wagged a bony finger at her. ‘He said I had to keep an eye on you, and so I will. Within reason.' He stripped off the last of the covers to reveal a portrait of Bea's much-loved husband, dark-haired, round-faced, not quite smiling. Kindly, intelligent eyes seemed to meet hers. Piers had caught Hamilton's air of serenity remarkably well. Bea sat down with a bump on the nearest chair.

‘It's good, huh?' said Piers. ‘I don't often get to paint a good man. Mostly they're fat cats with slimy souls.'

She nodded, unable to speak.

‘You want to borrow a handkerchief?' Piers didn't normally keep handkerchiefs about his person, so the question was rhetorical.

Bea shook her head.

Piers prowled round the room, which was furnished with antiques of various periods inherited by Hamilton. The walls were hung with watercolours in gilt frames, some of them executed by his aunts. Piers took down one picture, shook his head, replaced it, and finally removed a large watercolour which had been hanging for ever over a small desk at the side of the fireplace. He hung Hamilton's portrait in its place and stood back, fingers rasping unshaven chin, to check the effect. ‘There!'

Bea controlled her voice. ‘It's very good, Piers. Very.'

‘Hmm. Had a struggle to get the mouth right. I didn't intend him to smile, but he got the better of me. You'll be amused to hear I could have sold it to a client. A woman, naturally. I suppose I ought to have sent it for exhibition but no … I decided not. I didn't think he'd like it.'

‘Thank you, Piers.' It was amazing how the eyes still met hers, even though she was no longer directly in front of the portrait.

Piers rubbed his hands down over his face. ‘Well, that's that. We ought to break open some champagne to celebrate, but I know you're not much into the drinks line. Is there any coffee?' He yelled out of the door. ‘Maggie, is there any coffee?'

Bea picked up the packaging he'd strewn around the place, and wondered what to do with the discarded watercolour. Hamilton had liked that picture, but she hadn't really looked at it for years, and wasn't sure now that she cared for it.

‘I'll get rid of that for you, if you like,' said Piers. ‘Genuine Victoriana, but not particularly good. Should fetch a good few hundred, maybe five on a good day.'

Here was someone who knew about pictures. ‘How about a Millais, a portrait in oils?'

‘What?' He swung himself into a chair and put his feet up on the coffee table. Patched jeans, ripped T-shirt, untidy black hair streaked with grey, a nose pushed to one side. Total charm. Total tomcat. It had been a disastrously unhappy marriage, but they'd made their peace after she'd married Hamilton and he'd adopted Max. Piers was someone she could rely on … unless she came between him and his painting.

‘Who's putting a Millais on the market? They don't come up often. Is it a good one? He did a lot, and some are better than others. It depends on the sitter, partly. Male or female, famous or obscure. And there are some fakes around, naturally.'

‘I haven't seen it, but I imagine it's a good one.'

Dark eyes sharpened. ‘Bea, what are you up to now?'

‘I'm not sure.' She folded up the packaging as best she could and stuffed it behind the wastepaper basket. Dustbin day today. Been and gone. And her correspondence with it. She looked up at Hamilton's portrait and he looked down at her, serene, not quite smiling. She seemed to hear him say, ‘It'll all be one in a thousand years.' Yes, of course it would.

Maggie came in with the coffee, almost curtseying to Piers as she laid the tray down before him. Piers thanked her, gave her a professional once-over and dismissed her with a smile and a wave of his hand.

Bea said, ‘I've been trying to get in contact with Max, but he's so busy, and of course I understand that, but …'

Piers grunted, slurped coffee, looked at the heavy watch on his wrist. ‘The boy's a fool. Don't know where he gets it from. Not from me or you and certainly not from Hamilton, who was worth more than all of us put together. Right. Must be off. Can't remember where for the moment, but it will come to me. Get me on the mobile if you need me. I'll be in London for another week, then off somewhere, can't remember where that's supposed to be either, but … oh, I know.' He grimaced. ‘Painting another of the newly ennobled for an enormous fee. Flatter his ego, hide my true feelings, and never even think that he might have paid his way into the House of Lords. Well, I leave Hamilton in safe hands.' He stood in front of the painting, finishing his cup of coffee. ‘Bye, old man. I'm going to miss you.'

He banged the front door to behind him, leaving Bea feeling limp. She had an impulse, which she knew to be mawkish, to kiss her husband's painted lips, but didn't, because she got overtaken by giggles. Hamilton seemed to be laughing, too.

‘You old rogue,' she said, and then laughed out loud. Fancy talking to a picture! It was all very well for an artist like Piers, but for Bea …? Ridiculous!

She sat down at the card table in the window, from where she could look at the picture. Hamilton had been accustomed to play patience here, saying it helped him think. Ridiculous! But Bea pulled out a double pack of cards and laid them out. She was trying a new patience, eight across, decreasing by one card in each layer. Red ten on black jack. A lot of hearts.

She sighed, losing interest in the game. She really must get Maggie into some decent clothes and go to the library to research Millais – and oh, what about the taxman? She couldn't believe that she'd dumped important letters into the bin. She was supposed to be an adult, for heaven's sake, not a toddler throwing her toys out of her buggy. She had an agency to run, staff wages to pay. How could she have been so childish?

She went downstairs to look into the complaints file, which was not on her desk. Maggie wasn't in the agency, either. Even from the basement, Bea could hear Maggie, up in her room at the top of the house, doing a karaoke act along with the radio or her MP-thingy. ‘
I will survive …
'

I'm sure you will, thought Bea. I'm not sure I will, though. Now what do I do first? Answer: divert my thoughts by getting some books on Millais from the library.

Maggie decided to move into the flat that night. She had too much clobber to walk there, so ordered a taxi for herself and the three – no, four! – bags of belongings she wanted to take with her. Once she'd banged out of the house, Oliver and Bea turned in to the kitchen to tackle the chicken, chips and salad she'd left out for them.

The house seemed to settle down around their shoulders.

‘Nice and quiet,' said Bea. Then, thinking that sounded like a criticism of Maggie, she added, ‘I shall miss her.'

Oliver nodded, folding himself on to a stool and waiting for Bea to serve his food. He'd been the odd one out in his family, rescued by Maggie after a row in which he'd been thrown out on to the street. He was a nice lad, but used to being waited on by womenfolk. Not for the first time, Bea thought it would be a good thing if Maggie were not quite so protective of him. She did everything for him bar powdering his bottom after he'd had his bath.

Bea scolded herself. What was the matter with her? First she schemed to get rid of Maggie because she made so much noise, and now she was thinking about how she could get rid of Oliver, which made her the most ungrateful person she knew. Why, Maggie had been carrying the burden of looking after the house from the moment she arrived, and without Oliver the agency would have been finished months ago.

She dished up. ‘Max didn't ring while I was out?'

Oliver shook his head. ‘I got a lot of stuff about the Farnes off the internet, printed it off and left it on your desk. Lady Farne must have been quite a character. There's some stuff on Millais, too. He was another odd one. Did you know he didn't get his knighthood for years because he was playing around with another man's wife, though he did eventually marry her?'

She hadn't known that. Perhaps it was going to be more fun to research Millais than she'd thought it would be.

She'd returned from the library with an armful of books on art, which she didn't think was precisely her kind of bedtime reading. Not like the latest Maeve Binchy, for instance.

Oliver changed and went out after supper, saying he was going to see about signing on at the gym.

Bea wandered around the quiet, too quiet house. The rain had stopped, hurray. The scent of nicotiana and honeysuckle hung in the air. Bea deadheaded some roses, and swept up a few leaves which had fluttered down from the big tree at the bottom of the garden. She got the cushions out of the shed and sat down on the lounger under the tree with some of her art books. She turned pages. She yawned. All those pretty pickies of children and young girls and statesmen and … they were really just potboilers, weren't they? Only one or two of them stood out and one of them … she had to smile … was a portrait of his wife's first husband. Well, well. Who's the tomcat now?

Piers, currently painting a clientele whom he called the Great But Not So Good, was probably today's equivalent of Millais. She glanced at some of the sugary portraits of children which Millais had done. They were not fashionable today, of course, but they had a certain charm.

Which led her to remembering that Velma had the same sort of blue-eyed, innocent charm. Why, at school she'd got away with murder, not literally, of course, but …

Which led Bea to acknowledge a tiny crumple of uneasiness at the back of her mind. Had Velma laid on the charm a trifle too thickly? Of course not. Velma had known she was asking Bea a big favour and had acted accordingly. It was natural for her to do the blue-eyed innocent look. Still, there were one or two gaps in her story, now that Bea came to think about it. In the morning she would phone Velma and clarify one or two points.

She relaxed. The light faded gradually, so gradually that she hardly noticed it. Summer evening sounds carried far, a party in a garden some way away … a barbecue by the sound and smell. Someone was adjusting a television set, changing channels. Lights were switched on here and there. A woman was on a mobile, laughing, chatting, the words indistinguishable.

The phone ringing.

Her phone ringing.

She ran up the iron staircase to the sitting room, only to hear someone leave a message. Max? No. It was Nicole, explaining they were out but would get in touch soon, bye, bye. Bea tried to ring back, but Nicole's mobile was switched off again. Bother.

Bea tried Velma's mobile, but that was switched off, too. Velma wasn't answering her phone at home, either, so Bea left a message to say that Maggie had moved into the flat and would be reporting next day. Oliver wasn't back yet. Bea was faintly uneasy about him. And, she had to admit, about Maggie.

She tidied the house ready for bed, and took one of the art books up with her. After a couple of pages, she laid it down. She realized she was listening out for the youngsters, which was ridiculous, of course. Ten o'clock, and she tried to read a few verses from Hamilton's bible but couldn't concentrate. She read something about asking your neighbour for a loaf of bread when he'd turned in for the night, which didn't make much sense. She read it again. Ah, it meant that if your neighbour went on asking, you did eventually get out of bed, disturbing the whole household, in order to give him what he wanted. Hamilton would have said it was all about being constant in prayer.