The Art of Murder (Harriet Quigley Mystery) Read online

  As the evening progressed Seren’s thoughts had flown to the photographs lined up on her mantelpiece at home: aunts, daughter, cousins, mother, grandmother – all of them so familiar and one of them suddenly so shockingly recognisable. It could have been Linzi in the photograph, there had to be a link; it couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. Could it?

  Seren had found it more and more difficult to picture herself inveigling Linzi into a corner to ask questions about herself, her life, her background, her family, her upbringing. Everyone else had been so nice, so welcoming. Harriet, who bore a likeness to her own former headmistress, appealed to her at once, as did Sam. Tim, who was clearly very shy, had opened up under her gentle flow of chatter and very soon they were laughing and talking so happily that she had dared to invite him for coffee one day next week. In turn he had suggested, tentatively, that he could introduce her to the surrounding countryside.

  Yes, it was all looking good but Linzi, who had been so sweetly welcoming, was now an unknown quantity since that barbed jibe at Sam’s good news. Bonnie’s distress hadn’t escaped Seren either and she’d been dismayed to see Harriet’s face suddenly convulse as she made a swift exit to the Ladies’. Before dinner, Nina’s glee had been vicious and daunting to watch. What was going on between those two women, she wondered. Something unpleasant, she supposed, remembering the other thing that had struck her: most people’s sympathy had been forced. People were unsettled by that strange note but even Fiona – kind, friendly Fiona – had managed only a luke-warm murmur as she followed reluctantly to check on Linzi.

  It was no good, she must know. At her temporary home there was the small filing cabinet that contained all the family documents. So much had happened in the last few months that she had still not brought herself to go through the it apart from first taking out her mother’s will and then Paul’s. Now was the time to open it she thought with a shiver. She braced her shoulders almost unconsciously. Now was the time to examine the photograph more closely.

  To think was to act. It was intolerable to sit here fretting. She dressed quickly in jeans and trainers, picked up her mobile and her keys, and carried a hooded, fleecy jacket against the early morning chill. Eve Paget had shown her guests the bolt on the front door.’We draw it across at night,’ she had explained, ‘so you can rest secure in your beds! The back door is locked as well.’

  The bolt was well-oiled, judging by the lack of squeak when they obediently watched Eve demonstrate it, so Seren thought it worth a try. She tiptoed out of her room and along the landing, grey in the light of early dawn that filtered through the window. Her feet made no sound on the wide, polished boards but the sound of a lavatory flushing, followed by a tap running, made her pause for a moment, breathing heavily. She heard nothing more until she reached the head of the stairs.

  ‘Damn,’ she cursed under her breath at a movement somewhere, downstairs possibly, but the house was a large one with two wings and though she twisted her head to listen she couldn’t make it out. She crouched with her jacket folded over her arm and sucking in her stomach to make herself smaller. Just when there was no further sound in the still house and Seren thought she could relax, her mobile, to her horror, slid out of her jacket pocket and clattered to the floor.

  As she bent to retrieve it she was vaguely conscious of movement or a fleeting shadow. Before she had time to wonder she felt a forceful thump between her shoulders.

  *

  Harriet was trembling as she felt for a pulse. There it was, thank God, strong and regular.

  ‘Pushed me,’ Seren opened her eyes. ‘I felt … don’t know what I felt … I’m sure I—’

  ‘What?’ That was Sam, crouching down beside them at the foot of the stairs. ‘Who pushed you?’

  ‘What is it? What’s happened? Oh my God …’ Fiona was on the scene. ‘I’ll call an ambulance …’

  ‘No, I’m all right.’ Seren had caught her breath and sat huddled against the banisters, pushing her hair out of her eyes. She shook her head gingerly. ‘I don’t need an ambulance. I just slipped.’

  ‘But you were knocked unconscious,’ Harriet began, only to be interrupted.

  ‘No, I was winded, that’s all. Please, I don’t want any fuss.’

  *

  Saturday morning

  Sam stalked crossly into the garden room and sticking close to Harriet as he whispered: ‘I’m not sure whether there’s any funny business going on, Hat, but we’ll take no chances. Stay by me.’

  She nodded, feeling much the same, both of them uneasy. After their early morning scare and subsequent anxiety it was no surprise to hear him sigh irritably at a heap of newspapers and magazines to one side, along with pots of glue, scissors and brushes.

  ‘Good grief, are we cutting and sticking then? Finger-painting?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Donald’s genial reply made Sam nod a sheepish apology. ‘I find it serves to loosen people up at the start of a course if I give them something fun to do. I know some people were able to submit a typical example of their work, so I have an idea of what people do, the level of skill they possess, that kind of thing, but getting everyone to have a bit of a play about shakes them out of their boxes. It gets rid of their preconceptions.’ He grinned at Sam with sympathy. ‘Don’t worry, Sam. I realise you’re just here to make up the numbers, but you never know. You might even enjoy yourself!’

  When they were out of earshot Sam told his cousin that breakfast had been an uncomfortable meal.

  ‘You were well out of it, Harriet,’ he frowned. ‘Was Seren all right once she was back in her room?’

  ‘A bit nervy,’ Harriet shrugged. ‘I stood over her and made her eat a slice of toast, so I think she’ll cope.’ She picked at a cuticle. ‘I’m still mystified as to why she changed her story.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we don’t actually know anything about her, do we? She seems nice enough but she could be a crazy fantasist for all we know. Seriously,’ he added at her doubtful expression.

  ‘Breakfast was a bit tricky.’ Sam reverted to the subject as he and Harriet wandered out into the sunny garden before the class was due to start. ‘It was almost as though they’d all taken a vote to make no mention of that weird note that turned up before dinner last night, or why it should have made Linzi look grey with shock.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Nobody said a word about Bonnie hurtling out to the Ladies’ and coming back after an obvious crying jag either. I assume you sorted her out when you went after her?’

  ‘She was upset,’ Harriet agreed, ‘but it’s not my place to discuss her.’ A memory struck her. ‘There’s something I half recognise about her, a slight accent, maybe; but you said she moved here from Suffolk and I’ve never been there. Oh well, it’ll come to me. You’re sure you don’t know anything more?’

  ‘I spent most of my time trying to avoid her,’ Sam shrugged. ‘Anyway, so what? Most people have some kind of accent and I’d rather not get too close, however uncharitable that is.’ Side-tracked by the exuberant displays in the garden, he bent to examine a showy orange flower. ‘That’s nice, is it some new kind of rose?’

  ‘It’s a dahlia,’ she said, rolling her eyes to heaven. ‘And before you ask, that thing over there is a fatsia or maybe a castor oil plant. Those red flowers with fleshy stems are begonias and I hate them ,and over there is a huge clump of Michaelmas daisies, the blazing reds and purples. Those I do like. Stop trying to kid yourself you’re interested in gardening, Sam, and tell me what else went on. I’m still perplexed as to why Seren pretended it didn’t happen and that I was mistaken in what I thought she said, but she strenuously asserts now that she slipped.’

  ‘That’s pretty much what most of the others seem to think.’ He released the dahlia and turned away from the border, sending a puzzled glance at the begonias she professed to dislike. ‘One or two of them were on edge, but the rest seem to have taken it at face value – that she must have tripped or something – so there was a certain amount of ‘us and them’ where them c
onsidered us to be credulous and alarmist. It all got a bit heated and what with one thing and another, the question of why Linzi reacted so badly last night was swept under the carpet.’

  His face was stern as he added: ‘The more I think about it the more shocked I am that Nina should have looked at the note, or the text, let alone read it out to the rest of us. What the hell does it all mean anyway? It’s all so damned hysterical.’

  He rubbed a hand over his face then surprised her by chuckling. ‘I have to admit, Harriet, that you might be right about Linzi not being quite as charming as I first thought, She was very dismissive of Seren’s plight and actually a bit vulgar to be honest. First she suggested the girl was a secret drinker, which was why she’d fallen. Alternatively, she came up with the idea that the poor girl could have been out on the town and staggered back both drunk and – er – loved-up.’ He made a face. ‘I don’t know what to think. Let’s change the subject.’

  ‘Fine by me,’ she said looking round. ‘That’s a handsome wrought-iron side gate, isn’t it? I wouldn’t mind one myself, but it’s a bit ornate for the cottage.’

  ‘Overwrought iron, more like it,’ he murmured as they passed Nina Allison who was furiously texting.

  Harriet gave him an old-fashioned look but just then they paused by a mimosa tree. ‘Oh look!’ she exclaimed. ‘Mother loved mimosa. I could plant one at the cottage.’ She cast a glance round the garden. ‘No wonder Hughie opens it for charity; it’s not big but it’s beautifully done, with these ‘rooms’, isn’t it, the way they open out of each other on to the lawn – herbs over there, shrubs, heathers and that lovely little pool, so serene and half-hidden by the low yew hedge.’ She picked a sprig of rosemary and rubbed the leaves between her fingers, savouring the scent, then: ‘Do you think it was an accident, Sam?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said frankly and she shivered as he spoke. ‘I know in the past I laughed at you on a couple of occasions for seeing dark and dastardly doings round every corner, but you’re not the fanciful type and you were right. Besides, you said Seren sounded pretty convincing when she claimed someone had pushed her. She was shocked and it was only later that she changed her story. I’m not persuaded by her excuse for being fully dressed either. I know she would have us believe she couldn’t sleep and thought she’d go for a run, but I’m iffy about it. Didn’t ring true, in my opinion.’

  ‘To be fair,’ Harriet said mildly, ‘we don’t know anything about her as you said, so she might be a runner, but I agree it sounded like a spur-of-the-moment excuse.’ She sighed. ‘I do like to think well of people, so I hate to think she could have made up the whole thing – falling, running, all of it.’

  She set aside her qualms as the rest of the group trickled into the garden room, ready for class, most of them wearing old shirts and jeans as suggested by Fiona. Linzi was the exception with an apron over another cream outfit.

  ‘Are you sure you’re up to this?’ Harriet murmured to Seren who had edged over to her side. ‘If you’d rather drop out I’ll keep you company. I’m not exactly a serious art student.’

  ‘Oh no, please.’ Seren managed a smile. ‘I’d rather go on with the classes. I really do want to get back to painting, so I’m not losing this opportunity. I’ll be all right, honestly, and I don’t want to make a fuss. It’s just … if you don’t mind I’ll stick by you, Harriet. It’s not that I’m really bothered but they do fuss and ask questions.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Harriet nodded and headed for a couple of tables near the back of the room. ‘Tuck in the corner, Seren. They’ll have to get past me if they want to pester you, and Sam can sit on my other side as extra muscle.’

  The ploy was successful. Harriet’s pleasant but forbidding expression, honed over the years to strike awe into wrongdoers, had the desired effect and the rest of the artists found places though Fiona cast an anxious look in Seren’s direction. Bonnie Mercer showed a tendency to hover and to discuss the younger woman’s ordeal, telling her that her aura was very dark, very tense, and in need of a cleansing herbal tisane.

  Donald brought the class to attention with a diffident cough.

  ‘This is a fun exercise,’ he told them, as he held up some cards. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell you what to do as we go along. I’ve put out a sheet of black sugar paper for everyone, along with scissors, glue and charcoal and I’ll dole out these postcards. Have a good look at your card. It’ll be your prompt because I want you to recreate that picture as a collage using the magazines and newspapers on the table here.’

  Harriet groaned softly when the card Donald handed her turned out to be a black and white photograph of Westminster Abbey. Her cousin Sam, on the other hand, let out an exclamation of delight at his picture. Startled, she leaned forward to take a look.

  ‘This is more like it,’ Sam exulted. ‘I don’t mind having a go at this. Look, Hat, it’s the City of Truro, allegedly the first steam locomotive to reach a 100mph with a passenger train in about 1906. No, hang on, I’m wrong. It was 1904, in May, I think.’

  Harriet cast a resigned look at her cousin, remembering the hours in their childhood when he had dragged her out trainspotting. She’d soon learned to tuck a book in the pocket of her windcheater. She suspected Donald had deliberately given that card to his least enthusiastic student. Still, if Sam was happy about his project there was no need to worry about him. She listened as Donald explained their first task.

  ‘Just take it as it comes,’ he told them. ‘I’ll be on hand if you get stuck or just want to chat about your ideas. You have your inspiration in front of you, just wing it and you’ll have fun, I promise.’ He was feeling confident for the first time in ages. They were a nice bunch of people give or take the odd monster – all right, one monster and a couple of bores – and the samples of work they had submitted mostly showed talent, which was a bonus.

  He was proud of the way he had managed at dinner the previous evening, drink had been flowing and he’d stuck religiously to fizzy water. He hadn’t been the only one either. Encouraged by the memory of that heart-to-heart in the small hours, he glanced up and saw Madeleine looking much brighter this morning as she beamed at him. He gave her a friendly nod and continued with his pep talk. ‘Off you go, folks, and good luck. Just remember to have fun.’

  Silence gradually enveloped the room as people leaped on the task with enthusiasm, or stared in bemusement at the allegedly inspiring pictures. Harriet picked up a couple of newspapers from the heap on the table and riffled through the Daily Telegraph to no avail. Turning to the financial section however, she was struck by the columns of share prices. Aha, she thought, I can make the front of the abbey with all those verticals, so she set to happily cutting and pasting.

  Linzi stared in distaste at the task before her and sighed ostentatiously before flicking through some magazines. Clare Yarrow seized on her postcard of a sentimental Victorian painting of puppies in a basket and busied herself with cutting out pictures from a catalogue, while her husband stared gloomily at his picture of a thatched cottage.

  Half way through the session Eve Paget brought in coffee and home-made shortbread and left them to help themselves. Harriet strolled over to Fiona. ‘It seems to be going well,’ she remarked. ‘Judging by the hush of concentration they’re really getting stuck in. I’m certainly finding it fascinating.’

  ‘I hope so.’ Fiona’s face was taut. ‘I’m still panicking about Seren’s fall. I’m so glad she’s all right; apart from anything else it would have cast such a gloom over everything if she’d broken a leg or something.’ She made a face. ‘I had to reassure Eve. She’d started to wonder if it was a con, whether Seren might sue them, you know.’ She shook her head as Harriet exclaimed: ‘Well, you can’t blame her for worrying!’

  ‘Is Linzi all right this morning? She seems very subdued.’

  ‘I asked her.’ Fiona looked exasperated. ‘She said I was sweet to ask and not to worry about her, so I’ve taken her at her word.’

  Harriet rea
lised that the business with the anonymous note was not to be discussed, and she hesitated but decided not to add to Fiona’s problems by mentioning Seren’s initial insistence that her fall was no accident. If the supposed victim was now adamant that she’d slipped it was no business of Harriet’s to interfere. Something else about that early morning drama was puzzling her, but it would have to wait until she and Sam could talk in private.

  ‘I did wonder whether we might be presented with a nude model this morning’ she changed the subject. ‘That would have livened things up.’

  Only too happy to be distracted, Fiona started to chuckle.’ ‘In more ways than one,’ she murmured. ‘We did some life classes when we still had a teacher. The female model was fine and it was fascinating doing the sketches. We were given five minutes, and then we did a three-minute sketch, and ended up dashing off a drawing in one-minute flat. No, she was all right and it was fun once you got used to the novelty of staring at a naked woman at close quarters, but the next model was an elderly man.’

  ‘And?’ Harriet was pleased to see Fiona looking more cheerful.

  ‘Well, he was skinny so the bony arms and legs and all the wrinkles made him interesting to draw. The trouble was …’ she beamed at the memory ‘… I’m not sure how I can put this delicately, Harriet, but let’s just say it was only too evident that he was enjoying posing naked in a roomful of women!’

  ‘Goodness,’ Harriet stared in dawning amusement.

  ‘That wasn’t all,’ Fiona tried and failed to keep her giggles in check. ‘One woman who’ll be joining the new group though she’s not here today, got in an awful muddle and kept rubbing out her drawing. When I asked what was the matter it turned out she was – um – keeping up with his movements, you might say. She’d just get it right then he’d clearly have a happy thought, so off she’d go again, erasing and redrawing.’

  ‘Blimey!’ Harriet’s shriek of laughter earned her curious glances from the other students and a reproving glare from her cousin who was engrossed in his unaccustomed artistic endeavours.