Forget to Remember (20 page)

That had been before World War II. There was
nothing sordid about the modern Chelsea, which was bordered by the
River Thames on the south and featured a number of streets with
high-class retail establishments. Carol was happy to spot a
McDonald’s, not because she craved fast food or was homesick for
the U.S., but because she knew its prices would be within her
budget in case she was in this area when she became hungry.

She kept her map folded into a small square
because she didn’t want to look too touristy, but she didn’t want
to get lost either. The address she was looking for was off Kings
Road. She kept pace with the fast walkers that crowded the
commercial area, feeling good about being able to stretch her
limbs. She was certain it would take her several days to recover
from being cooped up on the plane.

The building that matched the address was in
surprisingly good shape, not exactly a hangout for a starving
artist. There was an intercom system at the entrance. Carol pushed
the button that matched the flat number Paul had given her. She
waited, wondering whether anybody was there.

“Yeah.”

The voice was that of a man, probably not
old.

Carol got up her courage to respond. “I’d
like to talk to you.”

“About what, mate?”

“About a missing girl who might have lived
here for a while.”

Pause. Had she scared him? He finally spoke.
“Come on up. Top floor.”

He buzzed her in, and she quickly opened the
front door before he changed his mind. Once inside, she realized
this wasn’t quite as luxurious as it looked from the outside. For
one thing, there was no elevator—or lift as they called it here.
She had to walk up three flights of stairs. The flat in question
was on the fourth floor. Actually the third floor in local
terminology, since the first floor was the ground floor.
Confusing.

Noises assailed Carol’s ears from behind
closed doors as she passed the first two landings, including a
crying baby. She wasn’t puffing too badly when she reached the
floor in question, whatever one called it, but she still paused
several seconds before knocking on the door in front of her. The
pause before she heard a noise inside was much longer. Had the guy
decided he didn’t want to see her, after all? Finally she heard
footsteps and latches being unlatched, and the door swung inward.
The odor of fresh paint wafted through the doorway.

The young man holding the door handle wasn’t
scary looking at all. He was a tall beanpole with long, red hair
that hadn’t seen a comb today, wearing a torn T-shirt and torn
jeans, both spotted with paint. His emaciated look made Carol
wonder whether he
was
starving. He spoke first.

“Well, don’t just stand there like a
bloomin’ idiot. Come on in.”

“Thank you.” Carol repressed a stronger
response and walked past him into what must be called a loft—a
large open space with a wooden floor and slanted roof beams
overhead. A skylight let in the sun’s rays and several windows also
helped brighten the room, which was filled with artist’s
paraphernalia: easels, canvasses, brushes, tubes of paint, cloths,
and a cloth-covered table with a bowl of fruit sitting on it. A
glance at the canvas on the easel in front of the table told her he
was working on a painting of the fruit.

He followed her look. “I’m doing that for a
rich old lady. Gotta eat, you know. She’s wants a portrait of
apples, that’s what she gets. Care for a spot of tea?”

“Thank you.”

He grabbed a kettle from a small stove
against the wall, filled it with water from a nearby faucet
attached to a sink, and lit a gas burner under it. Carol realized
she had to say something besides thank you.

“I’m Carol…Golden.”

“Sean MacTavish. I’d shake your hand, but
I’m a bit messy.”

He showed her large palms that had paint on
them, in spite of the fact that he carried a towel he kept wiping
them with. He pointed toward a small wooden table with several
rickety chairs around it.

“Have a seat.”

“I didn’t mean to take you away from your
work.”

“S’okay. I need a break. I can only paint so
many apples at a time. Besides, it’s not often a pretty bird comes
to call.”

Carol perched on one of the chairs. Sean
continued standing where he could keep an eye on the tea kettle.
His accent was apparently Scottish, but she didn’t have any trouble
understanding him.

“I don’t want to take up much of your time.
Two years ago a young woman named Cynthia Sakai came to London. Her
folks got a letter from her with this return address, but then
nothing more. She vanished into thin air.”

“Two years.” Sean ran a hand through his mop
of hair, probably leaving some paint in it. “That’s a long time.
I’ve had this place about a year.” He turned as the tea kettle
whistled and poured water into two cups. He placed one in front of
Carol and offered her a choice of herbal tea bags.

“Not quite the traditional way we’re
supposed to do this, but my girlfriend got me hooked on the herbal
stuff.”

Carol selected a peppermint tea bag and
dropped it into her cup. “I know it’s a long shot, but I told her
grandmother I’d look for her. Her parents came over after she
disappeared, but they didn’t find a trace of her.” Bringing up the
question of why she would hope to succeed where they had
failed.

“I don’t know the bloke who had the place
two years ago.”

Sean placed a tea bag in his cup and then
proceeded to pour liberal quantities of milk and sugar into it. How
could he taste the tea? Carol drank hers straight. He sat in one of
the chairs facing her and leaned back so it only had two legs on
the floor. The chair creaked, and she was afraid it was going to
collapse under his weight.

Sean sipped his tea and stared at her from
his slanted position, as if he needed to be farther away from her
to see her clearly. It unnerved her. She knew men liked to mentally
undress women, but they were usually less obvious about it. She
spoke to try to relieve her tension.

“She looked something like me—the missing
girl, I mean.” Why was she so flustered?

“Take off your mackintosh for me, would you,
sweetheart?”

Now he was trying to undress her for real.
For a moment, she didn’t know what a mackintosh was. Then it came
to her from somewhere. It was a word Brits used for a raincoat. She
told herself she had no reason to be afraid of him. She took it off
and laid it on the table. She was wearing a sweater underneath
against the chill—plus jeans, so she was still well covered.

He looked at her some more. She decided to
ignore him and sipped her tea. She apparently wasn’t going to learn
anything here. That was frustrating, because it was her only lead
for Cynthia.

Before she could think of a question to ask
him to try to gain more information, he spoke. “Have you ever done
any modeling?”

Modeling? She was about to say no when she
remembered she might have done swimsuit modeling. She temporized.
“Not recently.”

“You would be perfect for a project I
have.”

“Look, I’m here to find out what happened to
Cynthia. I don’t have time—”

“The job pays well. In cash—pound notes with
our good queen’s likeness.”

That stopped her. This might be a chance to
cover some of her expenses. “What do I have to do?”

“Pose for me each morning for three hours.
I’d say it will take six or seven days.”

“Wearing what?”

“Your birthday suit. My client likes his
women the way God created them.”

“No way.”

“I see we have an uptight Yank. Descended
from the Puritans, no doubt. I’m glad we got rid of them. Although
you do have a wee bit of an oriental cast to you. That’s what makes
you exciting—the combination of ingredients.”

Flattery would get him nowhere. Although the
accusation that she was uptight rankled her it was more than that.
It was the thought of being alone with him while naked. Didn’t
artists always sleep with their models?

“It’s cold in here.”

“I have a space heater. I’d be glad to turn
it up to roast to keep you toasty.”

“My left arm was injured. It’s getting
better, but I’m still wearing a bandage on it.”

“We’ll pose you so that arm is out of
sight.”

She had one more thought. “I’m pretty
skinny. I was…sick for a while and lost some weight.”

“Although I’m a great admirer of Renoir’s
nudes, I like my women less
zaftig
than he did. So does my
client. You’ll be fine.”

She was running out of excuses. Maybe she
should be running out of
here
. Sean walked over to a desk
piled high with papers and extracted something from the mess. He
came back and handed her a business card.

“Here’s my number. Call me when you decide
to take the job.”

The arrogance. She had a retort on the tip
of her tongue when he spoke again.

“About the girl who disappeared. Go and talk
to Lord Binghamton. He lives just ten minutes from here. He owns
the lease on this building. He’ll have a record of who lived here
when. I’ll write down his address for you.”

He took the card and wrote on the back.

“A Lord? What do I do, just knock on his
door?”

Sean smiled. “He’s very approachable. I’ll
ring him up and tell him you’re coming.”

Sure he would. Did he think she was born
yesterday? Now
he
was trying to get rid of
her
. He
gave her explicit instructions on how to find the Lord’s house. She
half listened.

CHAPTER 26

Carol wished she had listened more
attentively to Sean’s directions. She had to use her map to
navigate. The address wasn’t far from the Sloane Square tube
station, and that helped. When she reached the correct block after
a couple of wrong turns, she saw that the homes were attached—what
she would call row houses. Even Lords lived in row houses.

She stood in front of the brick, three-story
structure, wondering whether she actually had the nerve to knock on
the door. It didn’t look as foreboding in reality as it had in her
imagination. She wondered what her previous self would have done.
This was the only lead she had. If she didn’t pursue it, she had
nothing left.

The houses were almost right on the street,
so she only had to take a few steps to reach the front door. There
was even a doorbell. She pressed it and heard a satisfying musical
chime coming from inside. Now she was committed. Except that she
had an urge to run.

Before she could put that thought into
action, the door opened and a uniformed maid regarded Carol with a
quizzical look. Not the young and luscious maid of cartoons, but a
middle-aged woman with a spreading waistline who had undoubtedly
been a fixture here for at least a generation.

“May I help you, dearie?”

“My name is Carol Golden. I would—”

“Yes, yes, of course. Come on in. We knew
you were going to call. I just wasn’t picturing a young lass like
yourself.”

Carol entered and was surprised to find
herself in a house as modern as that belonging to Sebastian Ault.
What had she been expecting, the Victorian furniture of a Sherlock
Holmes movie? The maid took her jacket and ushered her into a room
with hardwood floor, white sofas, and a white carpet that covered
part of the floor in front of a fireplace.
All
this must
be hell to keep clean.
The spaciousness of the inside told her
it was much wider than her vision of a row house.

The maid told her Lord Binghamton would be
along shortly and asked her to sit on one of the sofas, which she
did, very gingerly, afraid of getting it dirty. Then she looked at
the walls. They were covered with framed paintings, many of them
old, some of them, she suspected, quite valuable. She stood to see
them better. They reminded her of the paintings of the
impressionists—Renoir, Monet, Manet, Pizarro. Sean had mentioned
Renoir. She knew she had seen paintings by these greats before.
Among the paintings here were a number of nudes.

“How do you like my art collection?”

Carol jumped. She had been so intent on
looking at the paintings she had ignored the footsteps of the
gentleman entering the room. Judging from his upper class accent
and his impeccable dress, he must be the lord. He was slightly bent
and walked with a cane, but he still carried himself well, even
though he might be older than Ault. Were jeans and a sweater
appropriate attire in the presence of such an august personage? Too
late to worry about that now.

She turned toward him, wondering whether she
should bow. “You have a beautiful collection…sir.” She couldn’t
bring herself to say “My Lord.”

“It is the pride of my life. I’ve been a
connoisseur of art since before your parents were born. Did you see
my Monet?”

“Which one is it?”

“The painting over the fireplace.”

Carol stood beside him and admired the
exquisite painting of water lilies. Monet had used many different
colors she didn’t ordinarily associate with water lilies, but he
had made it work.

Lord Binghamton smiled. “This is one of his
lesser known paintings of water lilies although, I suspect it’s
still worth a few schillings.”

He guided Carol to a seat on a white couch
and sat down on an identical couch adjacent to it. Although he hid
it well, it took him some effort to sit. With perfect timing, the
maid wheeled a cart into the room containing a teapot and
everything that went with serving tea.

Lord B poured the tea—she didn’t know lords
did that—and Carol followed his example this time by adding milk
and sugar. She tried to remember how many times she had been served
tea, hot and cold, over the past few weeks. She was quite sure she
hadn’t been a tea drinker in her past life.

She attempted to balance the cup and saucer
on her knee without looking too awkward, and without dropping the
delicate pieces of china on the hardwood floor. She also helped
herself to a couple of cookies Lord B referred to as biscuits.