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  “Still taking little snaps?” Candida cooed in return before turning back to Ollie. “I found a key in James’ things Oliver, I was early so thought I’d better let myself in. I hope you don’t mind,” she smiled sweetly, immediately putting Ollie on edge. “I’ll get right to it. James was given a miniature by great Aunt Wilhemina before she died. It’s a portrait of a young woman in a silvery fur wrap – you haven’t seen it by chance?”

  “No Candida,” Ollie lied.

  “James didn’t leave it here or – ”

  “No.”

  “It’s just the portrait is of one of my ancestors. It’s worthless and is only of value to us, the family. We’re anxious to keep it as a historical reminder and – ”

  Ollie cut her short, “If I see it I’ll let you know.”

  “The funny thing is I’m sure James said he gave – lent it to you?” Candida looked Ollie straight in the eye.

  Ollie tried not to blink but couldn’t. To ease his nerves he again whistled a few bars of Bewitched.

  “Oliver,” Candida’s voice returned to its normal coldness, “I know you have it.”

  “Listen Miss La-di-da Nose-In-The-Air,” Nicky moved between them. “Ollie said he doesn’t have it, and besides, if your brother gave this painting to him, he obviously wanted Ollie to have it didn’t he?”

  Excited by Nicky’s raised voice Hum emerged, tail wagging, from under the table.

  Ollie gestured for Nicky to calm down, “It’s ok Nicks.”

  “No it’s not ok! She lets herself in, snoops around, practically accuses you of theft. It’s not ok.”

  “There’s an easy way of doing this, Oliver, and a hard way.”

  “Candida, if I see this miniature – ”

  “If?” Candida repeated scornfully. “I can see you’re going to choose the hard way.” She grabbed her Bill Amberg bag of soft tan leather and made to leave. “I never did understand your relationship with my brother. You loved him and he didn’t love you – wasn’t that it? That’s not a relationship Oliver, that’s pathetic.”

  Ollie felt his eyes welling up.

  Candida turned at the top of the stairs and gestured to Hum who began to bark and snarl. “You know if it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t have the damn dog. I could have had him put in a home, I could have had him put down.”

  Hum took this opportunity to deliver a light nip to Candida’s ankles.

  “And if that’s drawn blood, he will be.”

  Nicky had to restrain the snarling, snapping Hum.

  “Candida?” Nicky pronounced it ‘Candeeder’ knowing it would annoy the hell out of her. “Haven’t you forgotten something?” Nicky held out her hand palm up and gestured to James’ sister.

  Candida grimaced. She unballed her fist, threw the front door key at Nicky’s feet and stomped down the stairs.

  As the door slammed Nicky put an arm around her friend, “It’s no wonder they named an ailment after her.”

  Ollie pulled Nicky to him and began to cry.

  “You got the key back I hope?”

  Ollie nodded to Auntie Em’s question. He sipped the Bloody Mary that he was so fond of and she was so good at making.

  “Well, Nicky did actually. She was great. You would have been proud Auntie Em,” Ollie raised his glass in salute to the photographer. “Candida had obviously planned this. I told her I’d be out until twelve.”

  “Maybe she was just early – “

  “Half an hour early?”

  “Well, it is Sunday afterall, perhaps the traffic might have been easier than she thought?”

  “She lives in Holland Park Auntie Em.”

  “So it wouldn’t take her more than – ”

  “Even with the road works on Ladbroke Grove it wouldn’t take more than five minutes.”

  “And you got back at?”

  “About 11:40 wasn’t it Nicks?”

  The photographer nodded, “She must have been there for a while already. She’d even been through the bedroom.”

  “And the studio,” Ollie added.

  “The little sneak. If I catch her snooping around again she’ll regret it.” Auntie Em went to her bedroom. When she returned she had in her hands the miniature of the girl in the silvery fur wrap.

  Auntie Em turned the painting over.

  “‘Merlijnche de Poortje’,” she read from the underside. “Unless the family are Flemish – ?” she looked to Ollie for confirmation.

  “German through and through. They were Hapsburgs.”

  Nicky was impressed. “You mean like the kings, queens and emperors kind of Hapsburgs?”

  Ollie nodded. “You can almost tell from her jaw can’t you? There’s something positively Teutonic about the way it juts out.”

  “God you can be a bit of an anorak Ol,” Nicky tutted sadly, “like I know the facial characteristics of European royalty.”

  “James always said they were a very minor strain. It’s an enormous family apparently. Anyway they were Hapsburgs until the First World War when they changed their name to–”

  “Hapshill,” Auntie Em finished for him.

  “Don’t believe a word of what Candida said. It’s not a family heirloom. I was with James when he bought it at a rather cheap and nasty auction in Brighton,” Ollie looked at the painting, “It was unwanted and going for a song. James fell in love with it.”

  “Is it by any one famous?”

  “Some Dutch school apparently – but that could mean anything.”

  Nicky looked at the miniature, “She looks so calm and poised doesn’t she?”

  They all admired the painting with its striking use of shadows and light.

  “What do you think Candida’s up to Ol?” Nicky asked

  Ollie shrugged, “Until we find out Merlijnche de Poortje might be safer here. Auntie Em – would you?”

  Auntie Em topped up their glasses, “It would be a pleasure.”

  Auntie Gem’s favourite Sunday mass was the one with the Sisters at their chapel in St Charles Square. She hadn’t missed their mid-morning prayers for – for? Auntie Gem wracked her brain but she couldn’t remember, all she knew was that it had been many, many years.

  This morning Sister Margaret had asked for special prayers for those lost and alone. Auntie Gem immediately thought of the ghost of the poor young girl she had seen in the cemetery and offered up a prayer for her deliverance. What with seeing the ghost, and with her concern about Ollie, this could turn into a six-mass-day she thought.

  After the service and a cup of tea with the Sisters, Auntie Gem crossed Ladbroke Grove into the two storey Victorian shopping terrace of Golborne Road. Even on a Sunday the little street was busy, its Portuguese cafés, delis and North African street vendors doing a steady trade from regulars and incomers alike.

  Gem bought some black olives marinated in lemon juice, Emma’s favourite kind, from the friendly Moroccan. She could never call Emma ‘Em’ like others did. She quite liked ‘Auntie Em’ – but she couldn’t call her charge ‘Auntie’ could she?

  Auntie Gem chuckled at the thought.

  Emma would always be her charge, would always be the mischievous creature she had cared for since a baby, had cared for, in fact, for all of Emma’s fifty three years – the first nineteen of which had been spent in Jamaica. After ‘the accident’ as Auntie Gem referred to it – she had never believed Emma’s father had committed suicide – they had been forced to come to England where they had been for the last thirtyfour years.

  Thirtyfour years.

  Even though England was certainly her home and she was settled here now, Auntie Gem harboured thoughts of returning to Redlight, the tiny village of her birth, in the Blue Mountains above Kingston.

  Perhaps next year after she retired, she thought.

  Perhaps.

  Auntie Gem picked her way through the crowds outside the cafés amazed at how, with the first hint of sunshine, the people outside Café Feliz wore shorts and t-shirts. She shivered, adjusted the brim of he
r brown felt hat, tightened her chunky knit scarf and pulled her quilted coat around her. It would take a lot more than autumn sunshine to get Gemma Nelson into something lighter.

  Entering the small cobbled mews she could hear voices coming from the large corner house she shared with Emma.

  “And how was your run angel?” Auntie Em refilled Ollie’s glass.

  “Well, it wasn’t so much a run Auntie Em as a jog,” Ollie’s brow furrowed slightly. “Actually even jogging is overstating things. It was more like a cross between walking and falling. I staggered and stumbled along the canal, literally bouncing off the walls. ”

  “Something you’ll be doing regularly then?”

  “Perhaps. If you see a sign on my door saying ‘gone lurching’ you’ll know where I am,” Ollie paused to take a sip from his Bloody Mary. “This might sound ridiculous – ”

  Nicky and Auntie Em looked over. They both liked things that sounded ridiculous.

  “ – but I think Auntie Gem’s ghost might exist.”

  Auntie Em stopped refilling Nicky’s glass to give him an amused look, “Really?”

  “I didn’t have a chance to tell you before but when I was jogging – ”

  No one had heard Auntie Gem come in. She had hung up her coat by the front door and was about to make her presence known when she overheard Ollie’s remark about the ghost.

  Feeling guilty for listening Auntie Gem remained motionless in the stairwell. She heard Ollie recount how he heard a young girl’s laughter coming from the cemetery opposite the knoll overlooking Little Wormwood Scrubs.

  “But the funny thing was the laughter seemed to have an otherworldly quality,” he continued. “It just seemed to hang in the air.”

  “Couldn’t someone have been on the other side?”

  “No, you would see them. It’s where the iron cemetery fence turns into a brick wall. The canal bank just there is hardly big enough for a goose let alone a person.”

  Auntie Gem could bear it no longer.

  “Hello?” she called up.

  “Not a word about the ghost,” Auntie Em hissed to Ollie who nodded. Hum awoke from his slumber and trotted over to greet the elderly, but ageless, black lady as she came up the stairs into the sitting room.

  “Doesn’t he bark?”

  “Only at people he doesn’t like Auntie Gem,” Ollie took an envelope from his jacket and gave it her. “A little present for you. Open it later.”

  It was closer to seven when Ollie and Nicky finally left. Trellick Tower loomed large above them, its crown of aerials half-shrouded in mist.

  “Are you sure you won’t come? The new Almodovar is showing at The Gate.”

  “There’s something I have to do Nicks.”

  “We’ll be at The Cow later.”

  “Maybe I’ll join you.”

  Nicky kissed him on the cheek, “Liar.”

  Ollie watched Nicky walk out of the mews. Without looking back she put one arm in the air and waved – just like Sally Bowles in Cabaret Ollie thought, smiling as he let himself into his house.

  Closing the door he realised he could put it off no longer.

  “Hum,” Ollie called.

  The dog sat down obediently at the bottom of the stairs and looked at his master.

  “It’s time isn’t it?”

  Ollie took a deep breath and opened the door to his workroom.

  It’s surprising how neglected something can look in just a few weeks, he thought. Dust covered the surfaces, his tools huddled in disarray, sketches lay scattered over the desk and floor.

  Spiders’ webs stretched over and between the work in progress – an Empire table for Mrs Harrison, a cabinet for the Delameres, some elaborate arrow curtain rods and door handles for Lady Fairland, a coffee table – heavily inspired by Allen Jones – for Johnson Ogle and eight dining room chairs to match the table he delivered in July for Donal O’ Keane.

  The answerphone flashed urgently with weeks of messages. Faxes, curling over and over, buried the dusty machine. Ollie booted up his neglected laptop, watching in dismay as three hundred and forty three emails flooded his inbox.

  He looked around, took another deep breath and set to work.

  In the corner house Auntie Gem took Ollie’s envelope and sat before her shrine. She knew what was in it before she opened it.

  Ollie never disappointed.

  Inside was a picture cut from a magazine, a picture she hadn’t seen before. It showed a tall, fair-haired woman with extraordinary eyes. She wore an evening gown, simple diamond drop earrings and a radiant, radiant smile.

  Auntie Gem found a place for it with the many others that made up her shrine. All the pictures were of the same elegant woman taken at various points in her life.

  Auntie Gem wouldn’t be going to any more masses today, she decided. She would stay in front of her shrine, the warmth of the woman would calm and ease her soul.

  Auntie Gem lit a candle and asked forgiveness for eavesdropping on the others this afternoon, she asked for the young girl’s wandering soul to find its home and she asked that Ollie be comforted in his sorrow.

  Auntie Gem looked into the eyes of the woman smiling down at her.

  Diana ‘the Queen of Hearts, the People’s Princess’ would help – Auntie Gem knew she would.

  5

  VILLAINS, ROGUES AND ROYALTY

  Rion couldn’t have imagined she would ever feel this good.

  She could hear Jake clattering plates, cutlery and pans as he washed up by the canal. The taste of the fish and vegetables he had cooked remained with her. The blackened billy atop the small fire promised tea within minutes and the stars pinpricked the darkness above. Rion pinched herself hard to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

  Was it really less than fortyeight hours since she had left home?

  Home was such an ugly word, it sounded as though it was always a place meant to be left. Rion shivered, lightly feeling the cigarette burns on her wrist – a souvenir of ‘home’.

  But here she was. And no one from ‘home’ knew she was here.

  Jake had helped her clean out the chamber. The mattress had been scrubbed and aired, the table, chest and shelf wiped down, the floor swept and when the candles were lit – well, you could be anywhere.

  Rion smiled with a sense of pride as she looked down the steps into the candle-lit space. It was really rather cosy she thought. The picture of Blondin was pinned under the one of Jesus with the open red heart. Her thin trousers of black and white checks, her socks and assorted tops were neatly laid out on top of the chest of drawers. Her washpack and prized mini-ipod were on the shelf by the bed. The collection of magazines from Tanya’s salon (dog-eared copies of year-old Vogue, Glamourista and Hello) and her favourite self-help book were on the rickety table. The only thing Rion had put away was her underwear, which she had placed in the top drawer of the small chest.

  Jake had given her a faded pink blanket which was now tied back over the open doorway. As long as it didn’t rain, or at least didn’t rain too hard, she would be ok.

  The clattering stopped. Within seconds Jake pushed into the small, fenced clearing.

  “If Blondin inspired you there are several others here you should know about.”

  Rion held out her hands over the flames, enjoying the warmth of the fire, “Like who?”

  “Like Dr James Barry for a start.”

  Rion shrugged her shoulders, “Who’s he?”

  “Who’s he?” Jake laughed. “Don’t you mean who’s she?”

  “She?” Rion shook her head in disbelief. “James isn’t a woman’s name!”

  “Marion isn’t a man’s name but it was John Wayne’s.”

  “John Wayne – the actor?”

  “The icon,” Jake carefully put two measures of tea in the bubbling billycan and left it to stew. “Dr James Barry – ” Jake let out a loud sigh of appreciation, “ – was way cool. She disguised herself as a man and had a hugely successful army career, eventually becoming Inspec
tor General of the Army Medical department.”

  “Didn’t anyone know?”

  “Not even her landlady or her servant. The truth only popped out, so to speak, when she died.”

  Rion giggled. “But someone must have guessed, must have suspected, I mean they must have.”

  “She even fought and won a duel with a fellow officer at the Cape of Good Hope.”

  Rion paused for a while to take in the extraordinary information. “I guess if there were doubts,” she conceded, “fighting a duel is a pretty good way to remove them.”

  “It’s a typically dumb male thing, fighting a duel I mean, not a very feminine response is it?”

  “And her name was Dr James Barry?”

  Jake nodded.

  “There are other characters here like – Wilkie Collins?” Jake looked over at Rion.

  Rion shook her head. She hadn’t heard of him either.

  “He wrote The Woman in White– acclaimed as the first detective story. He was a friend of Dickens and Thackeray and is buried here with his mistress.” Jake glanced at Rion who wasn’t shocked. “He was extremely tall and due to a difficult birth had a huge head and tiny feet – feet so small that he could wear women’s shoes.”

  “Did he? Wear women’s shoes I mean?”

  Jake didn’t think so but to make the story more interesting said, “Embroidered with red roses I hear!”

  Rion clapped her hands in delight.

  “Throughout his life he suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and so was prescribed laudanum – an alcohol/opium mix and very popular in Victorian times – which he took to like a natural. His fondness for laudanum increased his tolerance and he was forced to take it in ever larger measures, so much so that when, at the end of his life, his housekeeper mistakenly swallowed half of his draught she keeled over and died!”

  “I bet she didn’t mistakenly swallow it.”

  Jake smiled, “Probably not but I bet she regretted it!” He poured the tea into two mugs, “Milk and sugar?”

  Rion nodded, “One please.”

  Rion felt herself relax. Sipping the hot, strong tea she listened as Jake told of villains, rogues and royalty. There was something rather calming about someone else doing all the talking. Rion’s heart went out to the sadder stories, amongst them Princess Sophia, unhappy daughter of George 111, who was seduced and made pregnant by a scheming courtier more than twice her age. Almost exiled to Europe she led a lonely life and was, towards the end, totally blind.